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Post by knowingthomas on Jul 4, 2009 20:49:21 GMT
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Post by unkleE on Jul 5, 2009 0:04:41 GMT
I think this is worth discussing, if anyone else has an interest.
Many people on this forum have supported methodological naturalism as the appropriate basis for science. But two opposing quotes from this article present me with a dilemma.
First, he quotes Michael Ruse on the definition of methodological naturalism (MN):
Now this claims a little more than I had thought was required for MN. Not only does science restrict itself to natural phenomena, but Ruse is claiming that "the world runs according to unbroken law", i.e. God never acts in the natural world.
If this statement is true, then the resurrection never occurred, nor did most of Jesus's ministry. The Holy Spirit is not active today in convicting people of sin, revealing truth etc.
I presume it was these problems that led Alvin Plantinga to say:
Yet many here would feel uncomfortable with that also, because it leaves science at the mercy of any whim of a hypothetical God.
The atheist response is clear, but what is the correct christian response to this dilemma?
For me, the starting point is John Polkinghorne's statements that "... science describes only one dimension of the many layered reality within which we live, restricting itself to the impersonal and general, and bracketing out the personal and unique" ("Exploring Reality") and that "... science has falsified the idea that we know the laws of nature so well that they can dispose of an individual event like the resurrection" ("Science and Christian Belief").
I understand this to say that science describes what normally happens in the natural course of events, what is testable and repeatable. But science cannot easily address an event like the resurrection because it isn't testable and repeatable, even if it happened. Thus the laws are not necessarily immutable, as some scientists and some atheists claim, but simply almost always true. It would be interesting to see a proof that takes us from the "has always been observed to occur" to "must always occur"!
Such a view is taken by CS Lewis, I think in "Miracles", where he discusses how the laws of mechanics govern the movement of billiard balls on a table, but this would be true whether the balls are moved by a player using a cue in the normal manner, or because the billiard table is on a boat in a storm, or because God intervenes for some reason to move the balls.
But this view doesn't entail a new form of science, as Plantinga suggests, but rather an acceptance that God could intervene, but generally doesn't (if he did commonly intervene, we couldn't discover the laws in the first place).
So, coming to this somewhat less prepared than many others of you, I conclude that we should (1) resist Plantinga and stick with methodological naturalism in our science, but strongly maintain that (2) the laws are not immutable and God does sometimes intervene.
But this means that we cannot say that ID is totally wrong, rather that it seems to be (a) unnecessary, (b) unprovable (how can we prove God caused two organic molecues to join?) and (c) not science (which employs MN).
Any comments?
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Post by Al Moritz on Jul 5, 2009 2:43:29 GMT
I think this is worth discussing, if anyone else has an interest. Many people on this forum have supported methodological naturalism as the appropriate basis for science. But two opposing quotes from this article present me with a dilemma. First, he quotes Michael Ruse on the definition of methodological naturalism (MN): Now this claims a little more than I had thought was required for MN. Not only does science restrict itself to natural phenomena, but Ruse is claiming that "the world runs according to unbroken law", i.e. God never acts in the natural world. If this statement is true, then the resurrection never occurred, nor did most of Jesus's ministry. The Holy Spirit is not active today in convicting people of sin, revealing truth etc. I presume it was these problems that led Alvin Plantinga to say: Yet many here would feel uncomfortable with that also, because it leaves science at the mercy of any whim of a hypothetical God. The atheist response is clear, but what is the correct christian response to this dilemma? For me, the starting point is John Polkinghorne's statements that "... science describes only one dimension of the many layered reality within which we live, restricting itself to the impersonal and general, and bracketing out the personal and unique" ("Exploring Reality") and that "... science has falsified the idea that we know the laws of nature so well that they can dispose of an individual event like the resurrection" ("Science and Christian Belief"). I understand this to say that science describes what normally happens in the natural course of events, what is testable and repeatable. But science cannot easily address an event like the resurrection because it isn't testable and repeatable, even if it happened. Thus the laws are not necessarily immutable, as some scientists and some atheists claim, but simply almost always true. It would be interesting to see a proof that takes us from the "has always been observed to occur" to "must always occur"! Such a view is taken by CS Lewis, I think in "Miracles", where he discusses how the laws of mechanics govern the movement of billiard balls on a table, but this would be true whether the balls are moved by a player using a cue in the normal manner, or because the billiard table is on a boat in a storm, or because God intervenes for some reason to move the balls. But this view doesn't entail a new form of science, as Plantinga suggests, but rather an acceptance that God could intervene, but generally doesn't (if he did commonly intervene, we couldn't discover the laws in the first place). So, coming to this somewhat less prepared than many others of you, I conclude that we should (1) resist Plantinga and stick with methodological naturalism in our science, but strongly maintain that (2) the laws are not immutable and God does sometimes intervene. But this means that we cannot say that ID is totally wrong, rather that it seems to be (a) unnecessary, (b) unprovable (how can we prove God caused two organic molecues to join?) and (c) not science (which employs MN). Any comments? Unklee, I think you have it spot on. I am with you all the way regarding Ruse, Plantinga, Lewis and Polikinghorne. |
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Post by Al Moritz on Jul 5, 2009 2:51:02 GMT
There is one sentence in the Ruse quote that Unklee did not mention and that I find striking: "In particular, one denies God a role in creation."
Here Ruse shows that he does not understand things very well. What if all laws of nature are God's design? This is traditional theology, and makes God the center of all creation while allowing for methodological naturalism. I think that is like most religious scientists would understand it as well.
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Post by bvgdez on Jul 5, 2009 17:36:47 GMT
In the article the author states:
If one's explanation of the natural world posits a God who created the laws of physics and chemistry then one is not behaving like a scientist. Of course, there's even more of a conflict if one's God is supposed to have set up the universe in order to produce humans.
To me the first sentence implies that even deism and science are incompatible.
I suppose I'm one of the agnostics he berates for being too soft on religion, but to me if there is no God then the simple truth is that truth is of no objective importance anyway. Is that a bizarre point of view?
As for God intervening, couldn't he do so without contravening the laws of nature, by using quantum events that we cannot predict the outcome of? Doesn't St. Paul write that everything that happens in a believer's life is for his ultimate good, i.e. God is really intervening constantly. It seems that most people on this forum don't envisage God intervening like that at all.
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Post by himself on Jul 5, 2009 17:55:30 GMT
In the article the author states: If one's explanation of the natural world posits a God who created the laws of physics and chemistry then one is not behaving like a scientist. Given that the laws of physics are not themselves physical objects it's hard to see how their being can be understood physically. In that sense, anyone trying to understand the origin of the laws of physics is not behaving as a physicist, but as a metaphysicist. Physicists trespass all the time; except that they don't know it. |
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Post by natehardee on Jul 6, 2009 2:30:09 GMT
I don't see a conflict with there being a natural world that has knowable rules, but that God can bend the rules of as he needs. Or as I have been thinking about lately. Who is to say what the natural laws of death might be. I know the body turns to dust but what if something else inside us evolves again. This would make sense in scripture where Jesus appeared different, maybe he evolved. Maybe we follow different rules after death.
I sort of agree with bvgdez, what is there to say that God can't work with in natural laws to work and do miracles.
I sorta think that people don't reject TE as much as they reject religion.
I do have a question about TE, if evolution is random mutations, then how can we say we are what God intended us to be?
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Post by himself on Jul 6, 2009 4:04:16 GMT
if evolution is random mutations, then how can we say we are what God intended us to be? That is just a name we use when there are many small causes or we don't know which. The forces acting on a pair of dice are determinate: gravity, angle, velocity, spin, friction, etc. Too many causes, and we can't know them all. "Chance is the intersection of two or more causal lines." But if you're a being who does know all the causes perfectly, then there is no problem. B. Random processes produce predictable patterns. Even if I don't know how the next dice throw will come out, I do know the likelihood of each possible outcome. The overall pattern, or distribution, is predictable. That's why casino-owners wear more expensive suits than we do. Thus, I could achieve my intentions through the average and variation of the distribution itself. Variation leaves lots of wiggle room for free will and physical randomness. C. Evolution is not driven by mutation alone. Natural selection acts in a non-random way by screening out harmful mutations and encouraging beneficial ones. Mutation provides highly variable feedstock; natural selection orders it toward a harmonious end: better fitness for this niche, better fitness for that niche, better fitness for the other niche, .... Natural selection can be thought of as the knife God used to whittle critters. D. Mutations are not random. See A. Every mutation has a cause. A particle of ionizing radiation, a chemical, a transcription error, etc. When it alters a link in the DNA, that segment will code improperly, code for a different protein, or fail to code at all. An all-knowing being would know which. |
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jul 6, 2009 15:56:36 GMT
In reference to the article by Lawrence Moran (which was pretty tiresome stuff I have to say, but did have some amusing diagrams) I don't think Teilhard de Chardin's brand of theistic evolution is 'soft' at all; I have no idea what gave him that impression, unless he thinks that invoking some pole of cosmic Omega which draws the universe towards conciousness is somehow a more scientific position than Kevin Miller's.
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Post by unkleE on Jul 6, 2009 22:41:19 GMT
As for God intervening, couldn't he do so without contravening the laws of nature, by using quantum events that we cannot predict the outcome of? Doesn't St. Paul write that everything that happens in a believer's life is for his ultimate good, i.e. God is really intervening constantly. It seems that most people on this forum don't envisage God intervening like that at all. I don't know about others, but I believe God intervenes often, though I presume the number of events he affects may be small in proportion to the immense number of events overall. I agree with himself about randomness, and don't think we need to limit God's actio to quantum events. I also think that the main events God influences are probably thoughts, which, unless one is a thorough-going determinist, makes it harder to say that laws of nature are contravened. As I said before, we just don't know if God has intervened (unless we "know" he doesn't exist) in most situations, nor do we know that he hasn't. But a christian surely has to believe that Jesus was in some sense or other as divine visitation, and there are few christians who don't believe the Jesus was physically resurrected, so we are bound to believe in some interference by God, even though those events cannot be tested scientifically. But it is difficult to test even modern day events. Say someone is apparently dramatically healed (say it is that case beloved of atheists, the growing back of an amputee's leg), and that we have full before and after medical records, photos, videos, whatever, we still haven't proved it was God. We may have established that something unusual has occurred, but there is no way to scientifically test whether it was God or (say) aliens, or not. It would be a hard-hearted person who denied God in this case, but I suspect we have a few hard-hearted people around! But this also applies to ID. Like others here, I do not agree with ID. But if an ID'er proposes that God caused abiogenesis by direct intervention, I don't see how we can say he didn't, or that he did. God's actions remain outside our ability to measure scientifically, and we can only say that chemistry turned into biology by such and such a process, but whether the cause was random or not we cannot say. But since science is about prediction, it cannot really address God's actions, and methodological naturalism is appropriate. So I find myself sitting, as so often, holding to some aspects of both the fundamentalists and the intelligentsia, believing in the findings of history but also in God's supernatural intervention in Jesus, in the discoveries of science, but also God's ability to intervene at any time if he chooses. |
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syzygy
Master of the Arts
Posts: 103
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Post by syzygy on Jul 8, 2009 2:22:28 GMT
"... science has falsified the idea that we know the laws of nature so well that they can dispose of an individual event like the resurrection" ("Science and Christian Belief").
Polkinghorne's statement, quoted by Unklee, seems to imply that the resurrection could be explained by laws of nature that we don't know well enough; or that if we knew the laws perfectly we could conceivably "dispose" of the resurrection. Maybe he didn't mean that.
I agree with Moran that "theistic evolution" is a contradiction, but I wonder if he sees a conflict between being both a theist and an evolutionist, in other words, wearing two hats or taking up two different attitudes toward the same world, which may be rather too complex for just one.
Moran makes a nice distinction between methodological and metaphysical naturalism and then seems to conflate them when he says, "If one's explanation of the natural world posits a God who created the laws of physics and chemistry then one is not behaving like a scientist. Of course, there's even more of a conflict if one's God is supposed to have set up the universe in order to produce humans." And, "On the surface it seems that all forms of religion conflict with science in one way or another."
I agree this one is not behaving like a scientist, except that I would prefer to say "as" a scientist. The last statement is where the reasonable distinction between methodology and metaphysics is lost.
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Post by unkleE on Jul 8, 2009 5:32:05 GMT
"... science has falsified the idea that we know the laws of nature so well that they can dispose of an individual event like the resurrection" ("Science and Christian Belief"). Polkinghorne's statement, quoted by Unklee, seems to imply that the resurrection could be explained by laws of nature that we don't know well enough; or that if we knew the laws perfectly we could conceivably "dispose" of the resurrection. Maybe he didn't mean that. It doesn't imply that to me, and I don't think that's what he meant. I guess you would have to read Polkinghorne's quote in context to be sure (I don't have the book, I simply read a library copy) but I think what he meant was that the natural laws tell us what normally happens, or what happens in the normal and natural course of events. But if the universe is not a closed system (as atheists tend to believe, either because they don't believe there's anything outside it, or because they don't believe anything outside can impact on it), but rather an open one (as theists believe), then its laws only describe what happens when the system is not affected by something entering it from outside. So if God exists outside the system of the natural world, there is nothing in principle to stop him changing the natural course of events, such as christians believe happened with the resurrection. So before the naturalistic case for science against miracles can be demonstrated, it has to be shown that the natural world is a closed system. I'm not aware of anyone showing that. I think it is rather assumed (except when there's a multiverse being discussed!). |
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Post by turoldus on Jul 8, 2009 10:50:58 GMT
I agree with Moran that "theistic evolution" is a contradiction, but I wonder if he sees a conflict between being both a theist and an evolutionist, in other words, wearing two hats or taking up two different attitudes toward the same world, which may be rather too complex for just one. Moran is a New Atheist, most famous for his Sandwalk blog and his habit to insult those he sees as members of the "Chamberlain School" which includes of course Kenneth Miller but also non-theists like Ed Brayton. So I guess you have your answer. May you explain why "theistic evolution" is a contradiction? Do we really have to choose between theos and evolution? |
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syzygy
Master of the Arts
Posts: 103
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Post by syzygy on Jul 8, 2009 13:34:45 GMT
May you explain why "theistic evolution" is a contradiction? Do we really have to choose between theos and evolution?[/quote]
No we don't have to choose between them, but the term "theistic evolution" seems to make God a part of scientific methodology, to make God an explanation of how evolution happens. Of course, God has a role in evolution, but it's the same role that God plays in everything else--the continually creating theist's God, not the God who winds up the universe and lets it run. This is a causality with which science does not deal. The Scholastics called it "primary causality." "Secondary causality" is the action of parts of the universe on each other, which is where science reasons and explains. Of course, one can believe that secondary causes don't add up to an explanation at all in the case of evolution and that God must be acting in a more direct way than as primary cause. That would be theistic evolution, and I guess it would not be a contradiction in its own field, but that field wouldn't be science.
The trouble with the term "theistic evolution" is that it sounds like a distinct scientific theory that theists would hold and atheists wouldn't. If it doesn't sound that way to you, then our difference may be just a matter of terminology.
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Post by noons on Jul 8, 2009 15:51:17 GMT
I have to agree with syzygy on terminology. I would call myself a theistic evolutionist, in that I am a theist who also happens to accept evolution. Etymologically, I think the term "theistic evolutionist" as a description of a person came before the term "Theistic Evolution" which in comparison does sound like some sort of alternative to modern evolutionary theory.
So I would say "no comment" when it comes to miracles and the history of life. God could have intervened in the evolution of species leading up to humans, either by manipulating nature or outright divine intervention, but that does not mean He did.
I also like how they put anyone who disagrees with them into the "Neville Chaimberlain" school of evolutionists, simply for taking the stance that Evolution does not negate theism, and implying themselves as Churchills. I would rather put Moran, PZ, Dawkins et al in the Mikheil Saakashvili school of evolutionists.
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