On Tue, 30 May 1995 19:55:20 -0400 (EDT) you wrote:
>On Sun, 28 May 1995, Stephen Jones wrote:
SJ>I do not believe that in
>the final analysis, that there are "laws of nature". I believe that
>what man calls "laws of nature" are a description of God's regular
>workings in and through nature. We call these things "laws", but
>where are they? We can't capture a law and put it on display. They
>seem to be mysteriously external to the cosmos. They are the way
>things work, but do we really know why?
>
SJ>Jesus said that not even one sparrow could fall to the ground
>apart from the will of the Father (Mt 10:29). If not a sparrow, why
>a rock?
>
SJ>I think the whole naturalistic world-view of modern science based
>on the idea of an autonomous nature is fundamentally un-Biblical.
>Wright (himself a theistic evolutionist) correctly points out that
>the Bible did not even have a word for nature:
>
SJ>"The word "nature" does not appear in the old Testament. The
>Hebrew writers did not have a word that would translate into what we
>commonly understand as nature (the material world as an independent
>reality); it was a concept foreign to their way of thinking."
>(Wright R.T., "Biology Through the Eyes of Faith", 1991, Apollos,
>p15)
SJ>For example, the Bible never says "it rained" but always "God sent
>rain" (eg. Gn 2:5; Jer 14:22; Joel 2:23). While it might be useful
>to abstract from reality and use a mechanistic model of reality to
>exploit the regularity of God's working, that does not mean it is the
>whole truth.
>
LE>I think that there is a certain amount of philosophical confusion
>in the view you are propounding.
That is *your* opinion, Lloyd! <g>
> Does God always cause the rock to
>fall, according to the same mathematical principle(s) every time? The
answer, so far as I know, seems to be yes.
The mathematical principle is our human explanation of the regularity
of God's working.
LE>Thus there is a *law* operating in what we have come to call
>nature.
It is also what we have come to call a "law".
SJ>Whether you call it a natural law or a law of
>God's activity in the created order makes no discernible difference i.e.,
>no difference that can be determined empirically-scientifically.
Who said it did? This arises out of your definition of
"scientifically".
LE>Thus, it
>is possible to think and talk about nature and its laws as if nature and
>its laws are independent entities.
No doubt.
LR>It is true that the notion of nature as a self-functioning
>independent
>entity is unbiblical in the sense that the biblical writers (at least the
>OT ones) had not thought of that notion because that way of thinking was
>foreign to them. Does this show that the notion of nature as an
>independent entity is false? Only if you hold that only those metaphysical
>notions introduced by the Biblical writers are OK. But why should anyone
>hold that? No good reason, so far as I can tell.
If you believe that God's revelation to man was uniquely communicated
to a particular people, in a particular culture, through a particular
language, at a particular time, then to recover the content of that
revelation it is necessary to think in terms of "those metaphysical
notions introduced by the Biblical writers". The alternative is to
think in terms of our 20th century, western "metaphysical notions", as
though they are absolute.
LE>"Nature" is a Greek notion, and one that is necessary, I think, in
>order
>that there can be any natural science, with the technology connected with
>that science. As a historical fact, no natural science was developed -- I
>would say that it could not be developed -- until the Greek notion of
>nature was introduced.
Some would argue that it wasn't until the Biblical Christian idea
of God's regularity was rediscovered at the time of the Reformation
that science really got going. The Greeks never seemed to get very far
with their concept of "nature".
No doubt "Nature" is a useful concept. Whether it is ultimately true
is another matter.
LE>If you want to suggest that we should reintroduce the notion of a
>nature-God union ito our thinking, I would agree. But I think the study of
>nature and its laws should still be independent of our theology because
>otherwise we are likely to subordinate our scientific investigations to
>our theological interests, to the detriment of science, as has happened in
>the past.
That's OK by me. I don't say we should " subordinate our scientific
investigations to our theological interests, to the detriment of
science". However, in the matter of *origins* if God really did
create: 1. the universe; 2. life; 3. life's major groups, then our
scientific investigations will necessarily be incomplete.
LE>Although it may be tempting to want to subordinate science to
>theology -- especially because the opposite has been done by the
>prevailing materialistic/naturalistic ethos, to the detriment of both
>religion and ethics -- I think is's a bad idea. The old "two truths" view
>has a lot going for it, even though most people seem now to despise it.
Agree.
SJ>However, if we take that useful
>mechanistic model, make a metaphysical principle out of it, and try to
>fit our theology, the Bible and God to it, then I believe we make a
>potentially serious error.
Where was the "certain amount of philosophical confusion" in the view
that I was "propounding", Lloyd? <g> We seem to be saying much the
same thing in different ways?
God bless.
Stephen