On Thu, 29 Feb 1996 18:56:50 -0800 you wrote:
>TI>I'm more of a methodological naturalist than a philosophical one.
>Then again, I'm a bit set in my ways and would need a pretty good set
>of examples to drop naturalism as a working hypothesis of first
>choice.
JB>The interesting question for me is this: What sort of "examples"
>would a methodological naturalist accept? Or is the very foundation
>of his epistemology forever set against any such contraries?
Good question.
TI>That would be a philosophical naturalist, I think.
Agreed. But non-theistic "methodological naturalists" are by
definition "philosophical naturalists".
TI>With regard to my brand of naturalism, I see it as favoring the
>idea that there are physical regularities (seen as physical laws?)
>in the world.
So would a theist. This is not a diagnostic feature of naturalism.
TI>I don't make assumptions about the source of these
>regularities except to suspect that they are intrinsic to this
>universe.
This is philosophical naturalism (PN). It is methodological
naturalism (MN) to use these "regularities". It is philosophical
naturalism to make non-empirical naturalistic "assumptions about the
source of these regularities".
TI>That means that for any "event", I would seek to explain
>it using a minimum of undemonstrated influences.
So would a theist. But what makes it PN is the lumping the two
classes of 1. regular "operations" events together with 2. unique
"origin" events, into the one class of "events".
TI>As to what examples might cause me to say, "this clearly isn't a
>natural event", I can't honestly say until I see one.
Firstly, no one has ever seen (and probably is ever going to see) an
origin event, whether macro-evolution or creation. Secondly, by the
time a miracle is seen, it has in a sense, become a "natural event".
The wine that Jesus made out of water was just wine, obeying all the
natural laws that ordinary wine does. So too the loaves and fishes.
The real miracle (God's word of power) stands always *behind* the
miracle we perceive with our senses.
A thorough-going PN could probably always explain away anything as a
"natural event". After all, if PN can explain the origin of the
entire universe from a quantum fluctuation as a "natural event", it
would have no problem with the mere origin of life and life's major
groups! :-)
TI>A sudden stop in the earth's rotation and negation of all
>centripetal acceleration on the planet might do it.
Arguably this has already happened (Josh 10:12-13), but again it can
be rinterpreted as a "natural event", ie. an optical illusion, etc.
TI>Likewise, finding an accurate record (say, on a series of tablets
>that were clearly left for us to find) that describes all the earth's
>species, mentions when and where they were placed, and tells us how to
>decode our DNA sequence to play back an interesting message, would
>make me suspect that life on earth did not evolve here. Similarly,
>if my motorcycle started requiring that I say three "Hail Mary"s before
>it turned over or if it stopped raining everytime I pronounced "llama"
>backwards, and I could rule out any pranksters, then I would definitely
>think something else is at work.
No doubt! But why such hard tests? Is not this a case of setting
God's pass-mark in your final examination at 95%? Why not be fair
and set at 50%?
TI>I guess the counter-question to this is why would a
>"non-naturalist" be unsurprised that apples fall if released in
>midair?
This wrongly assumes that supernaturalists are "non-naturalists".
Theists and atheists alike believe in gravity. Indeed, it was the
theist Newton would discovered the laws that describe falling aples.
TI>What examples would cause a theist to stop believing in a
>deity?
A plausible 100% naturalistic explanation for the origin of the
universe, life and life's major groups, would probably cause me to
revert to atheism.
TI>And how does a theist choose between "natural" and
>"interventionist" explanations?
Well, first he has to be shown a plausible "natural" explanation the
origin of the universe, life and life's major groups! :-)
TI>Personally, I don't see theistic naturalists and methodological
>naturalists as operating all that differently. The difference
>might be to where each attributes the source of natural laws.
Agreed. But if you really believe this, then you need to go back and
revisit your distinction between MN and PN?
TI>Jim, I'd bet that you also try to understand events using
>naturalistic working hypotheses first. What justification could
>you provide for rejecting a naturalistic explanation in any particular
>case? I think it is a question of personal thresholds.
Again we have this lumping together *operation* events and *origin*
events. Most theists don't assume that miracles occur regularly and
for no good reason in the ongoing *operation* of the universe.
>[...From a book by Arlie Hoover...]
JB>Naturalistic smuggling is even more evident in axiology, the realm
>of values, not only in aesthetics, but especially in
>ethics....Naturalists claim they use only the scientific method; they
>exclude other kinds of truth. Yet when you come to ethics you can't
>establish OUGHT from IS.
TI>Theism effectively kicks the question back one level but does not
>eliminate it.
On the contrary. Theism grounds its "ought" in the revealed will of a
holy, loving God.
TI>Everything has its shortcomings and there is no perfect solution,
>IMHO.
In fact PN has *no* "solution" at all to the problem of "ought". Try
to get an "ought" from Dawkins' naturalist vision of reality:
"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces
and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other
people are going-to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason
in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely
the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no
purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. As
that unhappy poet A. E. Housman put it:
For nature, heartless, witless nature
Will neither care nor know
DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its
music."
(Dawkins R., "God's Utility Function", Scientific American, Vol. 273,
No. 5, November 1995, p67)
TI>FWIW - I do not claim that the scientific
>method is the "only way of knowing". It's definitely a systematic
>technique, but I do not claim that it's the only one available.
>You do what you can with what you have. Pace Hubert Yockey, about
>those things which you don't know, you really can't say (Hubert
>says it in German, however).
Indeed. Christians would claim that the Creator has given us another
and better "way of knowing", ie. He caused to be written in human
words., His own broad interpretation of reality that He requires
mankind
to also believe. Furthermore, that same Creator, sent Himself into
this
world in the form of a human being, to show mankind in the clearest
possible way that better "way of knowing".
Regards.
Stephen
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