“Read the whole review”
Done.
“cannot accurately interpret and honestly represent the work and perspective of real scientists”
Do you disagree with any of this?:
James A. Shapiro, “In the Details… What?” _National Review_ (16 Sept 1996), 62-65
PDF
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Surely, then, contemporary Darwinists have answers to rebut critics like Professor Behe.
In fact, there are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.
It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation for such a vast subject– evolution– with so little rigorous examination of how well its basic theses work in illuminating specific instances of biological adaptation or diversity.
Professor Behe’s third goal is…
…
Professor Behe… guides the reader through the biochemical intricacies of several adaptive systems, ranging from the defensive artillery of the bombardier beetle to vision, blood clotting, and the immune response.
His patient explanations reveal a conscientious teacher.
….
despite its valuable critique of an all-too-often unchallenged orthodoxy, _Darwin’s Black Box_…
[Shapiro]”But his appeal to explanations beyond the realm of nature is premature.
Darwinism and creationism are not the only conceivable intellectual frameworks for thinking about the evolution of biological adaptations and diversity.”
What are some additional “conceivable intellectual frameworks”?
Do you disagree with any of this?:
Franklin M. Harold, _The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms, and the Order of Life_ (2001), on 205
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amazon .com/Way-Cell-Molecules-Organisms-Order/dp/0195163389/
We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity (16);
but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.
There is room for discovery here, and for reflection too;
nowhere is the appeal of Gould’s “pluralistic Darwinism” more keenly felt than in the study of cell evolution.
Page 266
16. Behe, 1996; see also the rebuttal by Coyne, 1996.
In your view, is there anything in here that was inaccurate as of 2006?:
Mark J. Pallen and Nicholas J. Matzke, “From The Origin of Species to the Origin of Bacterial Flagella” (Oct 2006), 784-790, on 788, center column
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…highlighted the assorted regulatory pathways governing flagellar function in the peritrichous flagella of enteric bacteria,
the polar flagellar systems of α-, γ- and ε- proteobacteria, the lateral flagellar system of Vibrio parahaemolyticus, the endoflagella of spirochaetes and the flagella of Gram-positive bacteria.
However, the flagellar research community has scarcely begun to consider how these systems have evolved.
This neglect probably stems from a reluctance to engage in the ‘armchair speculation’ inherent in building evolutionary models, and from a desire to determine how a system works before wondering how it got to be that way.
[Shapiro]”But his appeal to explanations beyond the realm of nature is premature.
Darwinism and creationism [and [Robert]’scientific investigation of these questions’]]
are not the only conceivable intellectual frameworks for thinking about the evolution of biological adaptations and diversity.”
Can you think of 1 or 2 more “conceivable intellectual frameworks”?
“Do you disagree with any of this?:”
“No, especially not if these snippets are read in the context of the whole review”
I’m happy to hear there are no complaints with this:
James A. Shapiro, “In the Details… What?” _National Review_ (16 Sept 1996), 62-65
PDF
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Surely, then, contemporary Darwinists have answers to rebut critics like Professor Behe.
In fact, there are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.
It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation for such a vast subject– evolution– with so little rigorous examination of how well its basic theses work in illuminating specific instances of biological adaptation or diversity.
Professor Behe’s third goal is…
…
Professor Behe… guides the reader through the biochemical intricacies of several adaptive systems, ranging from the defensive artillery of the bombardier beetle to vision, blood clotting, and the immune response.
His patient explanations reveal a conscientious teacher.
….
despite its valuable critique of an all-too-often unchallenged orthodoxy, _Darwin’s Black Box_…
How did totally-mindless processes result in “multiple messages” being “inscribed in a single sequence” of DNA?
(actually, a super-smart poetic mind/ intelligence did it?)
James Shapiro, “DNA as Poetry: Multiple Messages in a Single Sequence” (2012)
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Among the most mysterious features of evolving genomes are stretches of DNA that carry two or more kinds of information in a single sequence.
In the 1950s to 1970s, molecular biologists were sure that each DNA sequence could not encode more than one polypeptide chain.
The reason was that a single mutation would then possibly alter two different proteins, greatly reducing the chance of a beneficial change happening for evolution.
But in 1977 Fred Sanger and his colleagues sequenced the genome of the small bacterial virus ΦX174.
They discovered overlapping coding regions where two different reading frames were utilized simultaneously; a single DNA sequence encoded segments of two different proteins.
Initially the Sanger et al. discovery was attributed to the need to economize coding capacity in the genome of a small virus.
Nonetheless, other coincident messages began to pop up all over the place as sequence data accumulated.
For example, start sites for initiating and controlling RNA synthesis appeared repeatedly inside coding sequences for bacterial proteins.
Once again, the need to maintain a streamlined genome size was invoked as an explanation for the unexpected results.
But in the early 1980s, Antonio Cascino and his colleagues analyzed published sequences from mammalian genomes and showed that both strands of at least 50 genetic loci encoded proteins of over 100 amino acids.
…
A recent paper has taken advantage of the alignment of related segments from 29 mammalian genomes to show that coincident messaging inside coding sequences is widespread.
…Shalev Itzkowitz and Uri Alon analyzed the capacity to carry additional messages of the 13,824 possible triplet codes.
They discovered that the triplet code used in living cells is one of only a dozen or so possible triplet codes that are optimal for overwriting additional sequences into the string of nucleotides encoding a defined protein segment.
Another question is harder to answer:
How do multiple messages come to be inscribed in a single sequence in the course of evolution?
This is an evolutionary mystery, especially when the second message has a complex structure.
My own particular intellectual headache comes from structures called “shufflons” found in some bacteria that use them to diversify extracellular protein structures.
…
Such remarkable protein diversifying systems in bacterial genomes pose a mystery.
How do the recombination sites evolve within sequences encoding functional proteins?
It does not make sense to argue that each one evolved by selection operating a few nucleotides at a time; there is no benefit until at least two complete recombination signals are present.
Moreover, known mechanisms for duplicating and inserting copies of a complex DNA signal at multiple locations generally disrupt coding capacity.
Further, as in mammalian dual-coding regions, we do not understand how both strands evolve simultaneously to encode functional protein segments.
At a time when we pride ourselves for being able to read DNA sequences with increasing speed, it is salutary to keep in mind that we are still far from knowing how to interpret the complex overlapping meanings contained in the genomic texts we store in our databases.
DNA, like poetry, often has to be read in several ways.
Do you believe that during the medieval period, knowledge of Roman crucifixion was sufficient to produce the accurate portrayal of crucifixion seen in the Shroud of Turin?
Did appearance of the Shroud’s body and blood images involve a:
crucified dead body?
crucified living body?
Your Questions to John Dominic Crossan
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What do you think of the Shroud of Turin?
My best understanding is that the Shroud of Turin is a medieval relic-forgery.
I wonder whether it was done from a crucified dead body or from a crucified living body.
That is the rather horrible question once you accept it as a forgery.
There is, however, a more basic question about such an object.
Let us imagine, for the moment, that it is exactly what it claims to be.
Let us further imagine, for the moment, that everything in the last chapters of the gospels is historically accurate.
Wouldn’t the Shroud of Turin make those events understandable as exaltation, rather than resurrection?
Exaltation means that Jesus (like Enoch, Moses, Elijah, etc.) was taken up to God as a special act of divine graciousness because of who he was.
Resurrection is an apocalyptic concept which means not the destructive end of the material earth, but the transformative end of this unjust world.
Christian faith in resurrection means that such a transformation began with Jesus.
It also means we should be able to show that visibly and publicly to the world.
Otherwise, we would have exaltation at best, but no resurrection.
Gereon Goldmann, _The Shadow of His Wings: The True Story of Fr. Gereon Goldmann, OFM_ (2000), 347pp., on 70, 135
[pic]
ABOVE: Scorning the cross of Christianity, these Germans rest in death beneath the “rune of the dead”, a pagan symbol adopted by fervent Nazis.
…
[pic]
A common grave of thirty-seven SS soldiers.
Here they repose, not under the cross of Christ, but under the rune of death.
Is it OK to extrapolate from small, minor observed changes, and speculate that over a long period of time, such small minor changes will accumulate into massive changes?
Steven Jay Gould, “Tempo and mode in the macroevolutionary reconstruction of Darwinism” in
_Tempo and Mode in Evolution: Genetics and Paleontology 50 Years After Simpson_ (1995), 325pp., 125-144, on 126, 142
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Charles Lyell was Darwin’s guru and intellectual father figure.
Darwin commented, in a statement that (for once in his writing) does not reek of false modesty in proper Victorian taste,
“I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell’s brain” (in F. Darwin, 1903, p. 117).
Much of Lyell’s thinking did not contribute to Darwin’s evolutionism and may have acted as an impediment to transmutation — in particular, Lyell’s steady-state vision of change without direction.
But we can scarcely doubt that Lyell’s major working postulate and philosophical premise — his uniformitarian vision — became just as firmly embedded in Darwin’s thought and scientific action.
Lyell’s uniformitarianism held that the full panoply of past events, even those of greatest extent and apparent effect, must be explained as extrapolations from causes now operating at their current observable rates and intensities.
In other words, and invariably, the small and immediate may be extended and smoothly accumulated — drop by drop and grain by grain — through time’s immensity to produce all scales of historical events.
Time is the great enabler.
No uniquenesses should be attributed to events of large scale and long times;
no principles need be established for the great and the lengthy;
all causality resides in the smallness of the observable present, and all magnitudes may be explained by extrapolation.
Darwin accepted and promulgated Lyell’s uniformitarian vision in all its uncompromising intensity.
Extrapolationism (the methodological side of uniformity) underlies and unites the otherwise disparate pieces and opinions in the _Origin of Species_.
What other principle could coordinate, for example…
Among the several central meanings of Darwinism, his version of Lyellian uniformitarianism — the extrapolationist commitment to viewing causes of small-scale, observable change in modern populations as the complete source, by smooth extension through geological time, of all magnitudes and sequences in evolution — has…
DavidFord said
… There is, however, a more basic question about such an object.
Let us imagine, for the moment, that it is exactly what it claims to be. …
So, there is an object. The claims I have seen is that 1 CE Judean burial shrouds were normally two part shrouds. The object in question is a one part shroud. 1 CE Judeans were Judeans. The image in the object in question appears to be a European. While there are no archeological remains of nails in hands or wrists for crucified individuals, there are some archeological remains of nails in feet/ankles. Three dimensional modeling of the person portrayed by the shroud of Turin give a depiction of a nail through the top of one foot overlaid over another, as traditionally displayed in medieval depictions, and contradicting the archeological evidence.
Imagining that it is exactly what it claims to be, in the face of any evidence that it is, rather, a medieval creation which depicts Yeshu’ as medieval Christians of the region imagined him to be, does not get to the basic question about such an object at all.
The basic question is, if it really is what it claims to be, despite not looking like what it would look like if it was what it claimed to be, then that would represent a divine miracle to change the actual form of the Shroud into a form that would be accepted centuries in the future in Medieval Europe.
But what would be the point of such a miraculous transformation of the actual shroud into something that to a modern eye would look fake.
It could be to teach people in modern times that Medieval European views of Jesus were fake.
OK, then if somebody wants to advocate for some anti-Nicene version of Christianity, this is because it was known that the false doctrine of the Nicene Creed would be developed, but this was necessary to carry the true kernel of the faith forward to a time that the false doctrine could be overcome and the true kernel of the faith could be rescued. Something similar could be done by someone who wants to explain that it is a divine miracle to bring Christians back to a true understanding of Isa, the penultimate Prophet and coming Judge at the end of the age as foretold in the Koran by the seal of the prophets. And &c.
In other words, “the more basic question” is, suppose we ignore the available evidence, where would you prefer the argument to go? Free the argument from the fetters of evidence, it is by no means limited to heading in one direction. There are untold millions of directions that can be taken when the fetters of evidence are abandoned and we set out to create a fantasy in its place. The tale that is told starting from that place is simply revealing the direction that the teller elected for that telling of the tale.
There are untold millions of directions that can be taken when the fetters of evidence are abandoned and we set out to create a fantasy in its place. The tale that is told starting from that place is simply revealing the direction that the teller elected for that telling of the tale.
That was really a delight to read and so true.
What this thread helped me clarify
After someone asked what I had been thinking about lately, I talked this thread through in a conversation, and afterwards I tried to put into ordinary language what seemed to be at stake. We read especially the Stephen/Porphyry part in posts 6-8.
What follows is my reconstruction of what this thread helped me clarify. Stephen and Porphyry may well weigh their own positions differently, and I do not want to put words in their mouths. But as I read the exchange, I saw that not all arguments for God are the same kind of argument, and that Stephen’s criticism seems right against one kind but not automatically against another.
In this thread I think three different kinds of argument appear.
The first is God as the explanation for gaps.
Someone may say: “We do not yet know how life came from non-life. Therefore God.” Or: “We do not know exactly how the image on the Shroud of Turin was made. Therefore God.”
That kind of reasoning is weak. If “God” simply means “the explanation for what science has not yet explained,” then God becomes a placeholder for ignorance. And if the gap later closes, this God shrinks.
Against that kind of reasoning, Stephen seems clearly right.
One cannot simply say: Here is something science has not yet explained, therefore God did it. That is too quick.
Secondly, Porphyry seems to be doing something different in posts 6–8.
He is asking this question: “Why is reality intelligible at all?”
Science works because reality is ordered enough to be investigated. Things do not behave completely at random. There are patterns, structures, regularities. We can measure, model, predict, correct our models, and understand more.
Porphyry’s question seems to be: “Is the intelligibility of reality itself just a brute fact, or does it raise a further question about ground?”
That does not prove God. But it does seem to be a real question.
Third. Stephen’s reply is serious and his answer isn’t simply stubbornness. He can say something like this:
“Science seeks explanations within the world. But the question why there is a world at all, or why reality as a whole is intelligible, is not just the next ordinary scientific question. Perhaps that question changes categories. Perhaps it is not meaningful in the same way.“
That is a serious reply. To use Porphyry’s own example:
Why is this wall red?
Because it was painted with red paint.
Why is the paint red?
Because of the substances in the paint and how they reflect light.
Why do those substances behave that way?
Then we move deeper into physics.
But then suddenly asking: “Why is there any reality with laws of physics at all?”
may not be just another step on the same ladder. Stephen can say that Porphyry has moved from explanation within the world to a question about the world as a whole, and that this is a category shift.
That is worth taking seriously.
But Stephen pays a price
Still, Stephen is not simply “letting science speak.”
Science itself is driven by the refusal to stop too quickly. If something does not fit, scientists do not usually say, “That is just how it is.” They look for a better model, a deeper explanation, a more coherent account.
Porphyry’s challenge is therefore understandable:
If we keep asking for explanations everywhere else, why stop precisely at the largest question?
Stephen may say that this is not merely a stopping point, but a category distinction: the demand for explanation works within the world, while the world as a whole is not simply the next item in that series. Maybe he is right. But that distinction is not itself a scientific discovery. It is a philosophical boundary.
He is saying, in effect: The demand for explanation works within the world, but not for the world as a whole.
That may be defensible. But then it needs to be defended.
Porphyry also pays a price
His position is not free either.
He seems to rely on something like the ‘principle of sufficient reason’: that what exists, if it could have been otherwise, must ultimately have some sufficient ground or reason.
That sounds reasonable. But there is a danger. This is contested, of course, but the worry is roughly this:
If every single thing must have a complete reason why it is exactly this way and not otherwise, then it can begin to look as if everything had to be exactly as it is. For if something really could have been otherwise without a sufficient reason why it went this way rather than that way, then we would again have something without sufficient ground. And that is exactly what Porphyry wants to avoid.
So Porphyry risks making everything too necessary.
That clashes with our ordinary sense that the world is contingent: that it could have been otherwise, that different people could have existed, different choices could have been made, different events could have happened.
Defenders of Porphyry may reply that only the ground of reality is necessary, while the world grounded in it remains contingent, and that is a serious answer. But it shifts the question rather than dissolving it: it now has to explain how a necessary ground gives rise to a genuinely contingent world.
So both sides pay a price.
Stephen pays with a stopping point at the final why-question.
Porphyry pays with the danger that the world becomes too necessary.
What this shows and does not show
This does not prove that God exists. It certainly does not prove that the Bible is true, that Jesus rose from the dead, that God is personal, that God speaks, or that Christianity is true. Those are further questions.
What I think it does show is (more modest):
Neither side should close the question too quickly by appealing to science alone.
The skeptic should not say: Science works with natural explanations, therefore the God-question is unnecessary.
But the believer should not say either: Reality is intelligible, therefore my God is proved.
Both moves are too quick. The more modest conclusion is:
If someone closes the final why-question, he is not doing so by science alone. He is also doing philosophy.
The main clarification
So the gain of the thread isn’t: Porphyry proves God (he never claimed to). The gain is IMHO: Stephen cannot close the question without doing philosophy too.
Science may work methodologically without God. But it does not automatically follow that reality itself must finally be understood without God.
That is the difference between a method and a worldview.
Why this matters to me
This reminds me of something that often happens in discussions. A smaller, justified conclusion sometimes becomes larger than it should. For example:
Historical research cannot prove the resurrection.
That is a narrow and defensible claim. But often enough it is heard, or used, as if it meant:
Therefore, the resurrection is unbelievable or impossible.
I then always think: That is a broader claim, and it does not automatically follow.
Something similar can happen here.
Science works with natural explanations. That is true. But it does not automatically follow that: Reality is ultimately only natural and has no deeper ground.
That is an additional step. Someone may take that step, but then it should be recognized as a philosophical step.
What remains open for me
Many large questions are not settled by this thread.
The problem of evil remains. Consciousness remains. The question whether a necessary ground could be personal remains. Revelation remains. Testimony remains. Jesus and the resurrection remain.
This thread does not decide those questions. It helps with one fundamental layer of the discussion:
May the intelligibility of reality itself still raise a question, or must it simply be accepted as a brute fact?
And the honest conclusion seems to me:
That question may remain open. Whoever closes it should explain why.
In one sentence
God is not proved here. But quick closure is slowed down on both sides: the believer’s quick “therefore God,” and the skeptic’s quick “therefore no God.”
In our conversation the follow-up question that came up was this:
“But if the question remains open, why should that have anything to do with your God? With Jesus, forgiveness, prayer, and the God you actually worship?”
I had to answer that, and I think that is exactly the right question.
And the honest answer is: That does not come from this argument.
This discussion is about whether reality may have a deeper ground. It does not yet tell us who or what that ground is.
One might say: Porphyry’s argument perhaps gives us a place with a certain form: necessary, non-contingent, deeper than the world itself. But it does not give that place a face.
The face does not come from this metaphysical argument. If it is to be found, it may have to be sought elsewhere: in revelation, testimony, Jesus, Scripture, experience, prayer, community, and trust.
So this thread does not bring us to Luke 15, the place where I so love to shelter.
But it may clear something away: It shows that belief in a speaking God is not already ruled out by “science” before the conversation has even begun. That is not everything, but it is not nothing either.
Thank you, gentlemen. I hope I stated your positions correctly.
There must be Higher Forces at work. Or something in the air. I stumbled upon this video yesterday and intended to comment on it. But I see this thread has already been revived. Cue the ominous organ music! Tjalling I’m not changing the subject since the issues raised in this vid do indeed overlap with your comments.
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Back in 2015 I had two friends, one a believer and one not, both tell me that they had just finished ** you do not have permission to see this link **. High praise indeed! At that point I had pretty much OD’ed on the subject. But I was then and still am interested in certain aspects so I excitedly secured a copy. This was my own introduction to the work of David Bentley Hart. What makes Hart interesting and somewhat unusual is that he is an Eastern Orthodox scholar and theologian. You get little if any of the cliched apologetics so near and dear to evangelicals.
But imagine my disappointment when the book turned out to be a spirited defense of the hoary old Argument From Contingency! Ok, the classical scholastic arguments for the existence of God can seem stimulating to folks not hugely familiar with them but at that point I was pretty much burned out. It didn’t help that Hart’s style tended to the dense and dare I say it, turgid. And I was exasperated that he felt it necessary to spend the first hundred pages of his book attacking the New Atheists.
Far be it for me to spend time defending the New Atheists. (Useful to recall that this wasn’t the name picked by the principals themselves. Some journalist used it and it stuck. Privately when they referred to themselves as a group at all their chosen name was the Four Horsemen. Looking back, kind of funny how many Christian apologists didn’t get the joke.) To understand NAism we must place them in their immediate cultural context. In the environment after 9/11, where malignant faith had been demonstrated for all to see, and where the current US President claimed to be conducting foreign policy using Advice from Above (which included a poorly managed military invasion), four authors published books (seems quaint now doesn’t it) critiquing religious faith from four different perspectives.
These folks started a public conversation that was long overdue. And if they seem a bit strident now, well, sometimes to get service in a bar you have to use your elbows at the counter. Hart sneered (nobody sneers better than Hart) at their lack of theological sophistication, apparently oblivious to their intended audience. Most of the believers in this country do not occupy the cloistered ivory tower that Hart inhabits. Here millions of Americans still think that human beings were planted in a garden like turnips 6000 years ago. And then, as now, they have a disturbing level of influence on our public policy. And I couldn’t shake the impression that perhaps Hart doth protest too much. If Dawkins et al were such rubes then why did it take him so much space to point that out?
But to the vid. This short vid does a good job of distilling Hart’s main objections to atheism in easily digestible form. As the commentator points out, it does oversimplify a bit, but you can always read Hart’s books.
One aspect you will note that for Hart this is a purely philosophical discussion. Consequently he betrays some misunderstanding of how science approaches inquiry.
1.) Hart defines naturalism/materialism/physicalism, which he considers synonymous, as the view that nothing exists outside “nature”. “Nature” is capable of “creating and sustaining” itself. Naturalism is a “closed” self-sustaining system that cannot be verified. The lack of evidence from within for “outside” makes the conclusion arbitrary.
Ok, Hart’s viewpoint elides some necessary distinctions that will qualify the argument. We should distinguish between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism.
Philosophical naturalism is a worldview that asserts nothing exists except the natural world. It assumes that supernature does not exist. As far as I’m concerned this is a step too far. I think this is an open question. We’re not there yet. We don’t know everything. However the existence of “supernature” is conditional on presenting compelling evidence and ultimately resolving the epistemological problem of distinguishing between “supernature” and a natural process we just don’t understand yet. Neither of those requirements have as yet been satisfied. (If Hart or anyone else thinks they have I’m all ears!)
Methodological naturalism is the foundational assumption that makes science possible. We must assume that our perceptions at least in some part mirror reality. That the regularities and processes we observe in nature are real and not arbitrary. (This is why scientific inquiry excludes miracles. If at any discrete moment the patterns and regularities we observe in nature are subject to arbitrary modification then science simply becomes impossible.) Scientific inquiry therefore limits itself to the observable and testable and falsifiable. It follows that science deals with flexible models of reality, not absolute truths.
Patterns and regularities in nature are observable and testable. The grounding assumption is that our observations mirror reality. To me, this is the Great Mystery. Why is the universe amenable to our understanding in the first place? I previously used the example of the cockroach which has thrived for millions of years with zero knowledge of physics or chemistry. I suspect the next point at least provides a hint of a clue.
2.) Under naturalism, consciousness would be a product of purely natural processes. If so, noting that evolution favors behaviors that enhance survivability over all other considerations, how can we trust it?
My view would be that having our consciousness mirror observable reality itself enhanced survivability. The universe is amenable to our understanding precisely because if it were not we would not have survived. Hart gets the cart before the horse. As successful as the cockroach has been it has remained relatively unchanged. It fills an evolutionary niche that does not require further understanding. We were not so lucky!
3.) Naturalism cannot account for itself. It can’t tell us “why?”.
Perhaps the perspective that Hart craves, the “god’s eye view” of reality, simply doesn’t exist. We are building a bridge while crossing it. Perhaps reality is simply a brute fact, transcendent of explanation. As I posted before, in science the question “how?” and the question “why?” are mostly the same question. We can describe the processes that produce a rainbow or a blizzard but maybe asking “why?” is meaningless. What answer would be truly satisfying?
I should point out that Hart is in the same situation. His answer to “why?” isn’t any less arbitrary.
Finally (This stuff is wearying. I’m running out of gas) I should point out that even if we grant Hart all his points and all his conclusions we’re still a million miles away from Yahweh and Jesus!
Stephen, thank you for this. I think we’re closer here than the labels “believer” and “skeptic” suggest.
Your distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism is exactly the one I was trying to preserve. Science has to work with natural explanations. I do not see how it could do otherwise. But philosophical naturalism is a further step. So when you say it is “a step too far” and that the question remains open, I agree. I do not take that to mean theism is now established, or even made probable. Only that the closure is not forced by science alone.
Your evolutionary point about consciousness matters too. If our minds track observable reality because that helped us survive, then it explains why creatures like us became able to work with the regularities in the world.
My hesitation is here: does that remove the further question, or only move it? Evolution may explain why we became fitted to stable regularities. I am less sure it explains why there are stable, deeply describable regularities of the kind that make prediction, correction, and science possible in the first place. That is why your phrase “the Great Mystery” stayed with me. Perhaps evolution explains how we came to take part in that mystery. I am not sure it removes the mystery itself.
I also agree with your last point. Even if Hart, Porphyry, or any contingency argument were granted, we would still be a long way from Yahweh and Jesus. That is what I was trying to say earlier. Such an argument may give a place with a form, but not a face.
So I am not saying Hart has proved God, much less Christianity. And I agree that “necessary ground” is a heavier claim than “brute fact.” Less metaphysics may well be cheaper. But cheaper is not the same as scientifically compelled. “Brute fact,” like “necessary ground,” is still a philosophical stopping place, not a measurement.
That is really my modest point: God is not proved here, Christianity is not proved here, but neither is the question closed by science alone.
Robert said
Stephen said
… Philosophical naturalism is a worldview that asserts nothing exists except the natural world. It assumes that supernature does not exist. As far as I’m concerned this is a step too far. I think this is an open question. We’re not there yet. We don’t know everything. …For as many times as we discussed our respective views, I don’t recall ever seeing you make this statement. It sounds surprisingly similar to my own position of apophatic agnosticism (except I eschew the whole idea of the supernatural).
I don’t see this as radically different from opinions I’ve expressed before. Especially in light of the rest of my comments –
“However the existence of ‘supernature’ is conditional on presenting compelling evidence and ultimately resolving the epistemological problem of distinguishing between ‘supernature’ and a natural process we just don’t understand yet. Neither of those requirements have as yet been satisfied.”
Like God, the existence of “supernature” may always be impossible to settle. They could always be hiding over the next hill we haven’t explored yet. I suppose my real point was that we don’t deal in certainties. We deal with probabilities and likelihoods. I consider “supernature” to possesses a very low order of probability. Based on both a lack of evidence otherwise and that we can demonstrate dozens of examples of processes that were at one time believed to be supernatural that were later shown to have a natural explanation while we have zero examples of natural processes that were later determined to be supernatural.
My problem with the concept of agnosticism we’ve discussed before. We are epistemically uncertain about everything, not just the existence of God. No one should claim absolute certainty about anything. Huxley’s view that god is unknowable renders the discussion moot. And the colloquial expression of agnosticism as personal undecidedness speaks more to individual psychology than to claims about the world.
I define myself as an atheist because I don’t believe a god exists. In this context, “believe” means to live my life as if a proposition were true. No, I am not certain god does not exist. But then, I am not certain about anything. Agnosticism in my view is simply the cost of doing business, not a specific epistemic category capable of mitigation.
So when you say it is “a step too far” and that the question remains open, I agree. I do not take that to mean theism is now established, or even made probable. Only that the closure is not forced by science alone.
I would clarify my comments only by pointing out that when Christianity (or any other religion) makes historical claims they become subject to verification or falsification. There is absolutely no evidence of a world-wide Flood sometime in the remote past. When Paul’s argument in Romans assumes that Adam was a real human being then we can point out that it collapses because there never was a single human ancestor with no evolutionary antecedents. Etc.
My hesitation is here: does that remove the further question, or only move it? Evolution may explain why we became fitted to stable regularities. I am less sure it explains why there are stable, deeply describable regularities of the kind that make prediction, correction, and science possible in the first place. That is why your phrase “the Great Mystery” stayed with me. Perhaps evolution explains how we came to take part in that mystery. I am not sure it removes the mystery itself.
We always circle back to the question of “why?” We are forced to either live with the mysteriousness of being itself (which of course we can mediate by religious expression) or consider the possibility that “why?” is simply a meaningless question. No matter which, we are here and must deal with the consequences of that fact. What we can do is interrogate the need for there to be an answer to that question. I make an attempt to resolve it by considering our existence, not as a puzzle to be figured out, nor an equation to be balanced, nor a question to be answered, but as an experience to be had. Life is an experience. When people say they want a “meaning to life” I think what they really want is the experience of being alive. I think the experience of being alive is all that is available.
What do you think of that solution?
“The skeptic should not say: Science works with natural explanations, therefore the God-question is unnecessary”
Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons” – Jan 9, 1997
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Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural.
We take the side of science _in spite_ of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs,
_in spite_ of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life,
_in spite_ of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories,
because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our _a priori_ adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.
Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything.
To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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