Del,
Could you elaborate on the term "nomic inertia"?
Thanks,
Dennis
Well, I can't elaborate too much, because I only made the term up this
morning and there is thus not a long developmental history.
But the idea I wanted to at least suggest was that God obviously (I
think it's obvious) could have created things in nature with an inherent
ability to continue to exhibit lawed behavior without any further action
on His part, in roughly the same 'inertial' way that (on a simple
Newtonian telling) objects continue to exhibit specified sorts of motion
after the removal of any contact, activity or input of any initiating
force or agency. Objects might be created to have (in Medieval terms)
"active powers" of their own, given to them.
The question, of course, is then: what exactly does upholding come to?
I'm not sure how to answer that question, but I am relatively suspicious
of the view that God is directly active in every 'natural' event, etc.
I suspect that that leads ultimately to the view that there simply are
no such things as genuine natural laws, that all actions (and events)
are God's actions, and so on. I'm not sure exactly what it is about
such consequences that I don't like, but I'm not sure it gives the
creation due credit for being _what it is_ and for being in some rubust
sense _real_. It is dependent - absolutely. It is a creation - no
question. But it does have a character and status of its own, and I
think that that should be given due recognition, even while admitting
that it is in some way upheld.
Del