Can a Divinely Guided World Include Blind Chance?

Compatibilism, or accommodationism, is the view that evolutionary theory and interventionist theism are compatible. According to compatibilists, God can guide the biosphere while allowing for chance events. A key challenge for compatibilists is to explain how blind and aimless chance events together can build a guided biosphere. This article aims to address this challenge. We discuss three candidate models designed to show the compatibility of chance and being guided: the Bartholomew-Bradley model, the van Inwagen model, and the Polkinghorne model. First, we argue that the Bartholomew-Bradley model fails to demonstrate the compatibility of blind chance and being guided; it only shows that chance is compatible with statistical orders. However, it is not clear that being regulated and supervised through statistical orders is the proper articulation of the world being divinely guided. Second, the van Inwagen model demonstrates that being guided is compatible with geometrically constrained chance but not mere chance. This model only shows that chance and being guided can be compatible if some form of constraint is present. And third, although the Polkinghorne model successfully shows the compatibility of chance and being guided, it faces its own challenges; it leaves some notions unexplained and controversy over naturalism untouched. A naturalist can use the core of this model without being convinced of the role of divine guidance.