Below you will find a summary of a paper about naturalism. If you
are interested, I could post the paper (10 pp. single spaced) for
the entire evolution group or mail it privately to your e-mail
address. I would of course appreciate your comments. Please let
me know.
THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN CHRISTIAN THEISM, METAPHYSICAL NATURALISM
AND RELATIVISM: HOW TO PROCEED IN SCIENCE?
by
Jitse M. van der Meer
Pascal Centre
Redeemer College
Ancaster, Ontario
Canada
(November 24, 1995)
SUMMARY
My thesis is that Christians are mistaken in their belief that
material reality can be understood without reference to non-
material created causes, such as mind, or to non-material uncreated
causes, such as God. The reasons I offer are that Christians know
of the existence of non-material beings such as spirits and God and
that ignoring this leads to a distorted view of reality or even a
neglecting of empirical evidence. Broadly conceived, I suggest
that materialism can be excused to be methodological only if it is
open to revision, but that this is seriously hampered by the
psychological and sociological power of beliefs antagonistic to
theistic beliefs.
The first set of these beliefs concerns the materiality of the
world. Those deeply committed to the belief that reality is
nothing but matter (monistic materialists) are extremely unlikely
to revise their materialism. Those who accept the existence of a
realm in addition to matter (dualists), be it a mental or a
supernatural realm, and also believe that this non-material realm
has no effects in the material world, have a weaker but still very
robust attachment to materialism. For them science is concerned
only with matter. Finally, revision is unlikely among dualists who
believe that God and mind have effects in material reality
(interventionists and interactionists, respectively), but also
believe that science ought not to be concerned with this non-
material dimension.
I then argue that those who do believe the non-material is the
business of science still have a hard time limiting materialism,
but that this is due to a second and different set of beliefs.
These beliefs do not concern the nature of reality, but the nature
and purpose of explanation. I show that the ideal of the unity of
scientific knowledge forces a preference for explanations in
material terms even when the non-material presents itself as a
possibility or when it is in conflict with empirical evidence.
I then suggest that science needs to expand its methodology
beyond the current confines. This expansion consists of accepting
non-material causes in scientific explanations, and using broader
criteria for theory choice. Instead of explanations that use
material causes only, science needs multi-dimensional explanations
that admit the causal efficacy of purpose and intent. Not only is
the pursuit of several different explanations more adequate for a
multi-dimensional reality, but it also provides a way of limiting
one-dimensional explanations including those developed in terms of
matter alone. This is an hermeneutical approach to explanation in
the natural sciences which emphasizes "understanding" and sees
explanation in material terms as one form of it. Criteria for
theory choice include not only the standard consistency with
observation, internal consistency, simplicity, scope, fruitfulness,
accuracy, coherence, etc., but also consistency with conceptual and
religious beliefs about the nature of reality and about the nature
and purpose of explanation. This creates the possibility of
accounting for the historic role of beliefs in the construction of
knowledge and opens the possibility of proposing rules for the
interaction between religion and science. To a large extent the
nature of these interactions remains to be explored.
Dr. Jitse M. van der Meer jmvdm@redeemer.on.ca
Professor of Biology (905)648-2131
Director Pascal Centre fax: (905)648-2134
Redeemer College
777 Hwy 53 East
Ancaster, ON. Canada L9K 1J4