To: ..............
From: Jitse van der Meer
Re.: paper on naturalism
Date: March 8, 1996
***************************************************************
Dear friends,
I decided to distribute this paper through evolution@Calvin.EDU and
not via private e-mail because some of you requested permission for
distribution in other discussion groups. Please feel free to
distribute this paper as you see fit. Obviously, I would
appreciate the benefit of your insightful comments. This paper is
being reviewed for publication, so please refer to it as an
unpublished manuscript. I am looking forward to your comments.
Jitse M. van der Meer
****************************************************************
THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN CHRISTIAN THEISM, METAPHYSICAL NATURALISM
AND RELATIVISM: HOW TO PROCEED IN SCIENCE?
by
Jitse M. van der Meer
(copyright)
Pascal Centre
Redeemer College
Ancaster, Ontario
Canada
(Preprint: November 24, 1995)
Comments to: jmvdm@redeemer.on.ca
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. 1.INTRODUCTION.
Interpreting natural phenomena is a complex process because
contributions come from observation, logic, and a variety of
methodological, ontological and religious beliefs. Methodological
materialism is a rule of science that tries to simplify
interpretation by excluding some of these contributions. It
prescribes that, in explaining natural phenomena, one should act as
if reality consists of nothing but matter. It assumes that one can
act as if the existence of non-material causes, whether created
(mind, spirit) or uncreated (God), does not make a difference in
our understanding of the material world. The exclusion of
uncreated causes (God) is known as methodological atheism, that is
the view that "no hypothesis according to which God has done this
or that can qualify as a scientific hypothesis".[1]
The meaning of the terms naturalism and materialism depends on the
meaning of one's conception of matter and nature. One can have,
for instance, spiritualistic and materialistic naturalism.
Likewise, there is materialistic monism such as physicalism (there
is no other matter than physical matter) and materialistic
pluralism (for instance, there is biological in addition to
physical matter). The contemporary discussion on metaphysical
naturalism in science, however, has a narrower focus. One set of
questions concerns the effects in the material world of non-
material created causes: do they identifiably affect matter? Does
the mind act on the body? Do spirits affect matter? In these
questions metaphysical naturalism narrows to metaphysical
materialism which denies the reality of the non-material. The
second set is about effects of non-material uncreated causes in the
material world. Does God act in the world and can this action be
identified as such? Here the interest of metaphysical naturalism
narrows to questions about the existence of God.
Methodological materialism raises two more sets of questions. Do
explanations of material phenomena need reference to non-material
created causes? Ought the human will to be included in
explanations of the movement of an arm? Finally, do explanations
of material phenomena need reference to non-material non-created
causes? Ought God's action in the world to be included in
explanations of the design of organisms? Or, if explanations in
terms of material causes are sufficient, do they need to be
evaluated in terms of what is known about the action of non-
material causes, created and uncreated, in matter?
I ask whether methodological materialism can avoid becoming a form
of metaphysical naturalism in science. I argue that materialism
can be excused to be methodological only if it is open to revision,
and that this requires replacing methodological materialism with a
methodological pluralism. Methodological pluralism is intended to
protect methodological materialism from the falsehood and
irrationality conferred on it in combination with metaphysical
naturalism and evolution.[2] I also suggest that the combination
of methodological materialism and the ideal of the universal
validity of scientific knowledge is self-contradictory. I conclude
that Christian theism provides the best context for methodological
pluralism because of the ontological diversity included in its
doctrine of creation.
2. WHY IS METHODOLOGICAL MATERIALISM IMPORTANT?
Methodological materialism maximizes control over nature. It does
this by prescribing that the causes in causal explanation must be
efficient causes to ensure predictability, and that they must be
material causes to ensure the universal validity of knowledge.
Efficient causation means that "If C happens, then (and only then)
E is always produced by it".[3] Predictability is ensured by
letting the cause precede the effect so that when the cause happens
the effect can be predicted to happen. In contrast, predictability
is diminished or absent in explanation referring to causes that
follow the effect, such as goals and intentions. Since Galileo,
such final causes have been banned from the domain of legitimate
science. Predictability is diminished or absent as well from
explanation in terms of causes that are unique (historical) because
they cannot be repeated. Finally, no prediction is possible when
explanation refers to occult or divine causes because they cannot
be known or manipulated.
Further, the belief that causes must be material (and efficient)
causes is claimed to ensure the universal validity of scientific
knowledge. This follows from the belief that the most universal
characteristic of reality is its material basis as opposed to, for
instance, goal-directedness which is found only in organisms. Thus
methodological materialism makes possible public agreement on the
type of phenomena and explanation that characterize science.[4]
Minds and divinities are excluded as objects of investigation and
as explanatory factors for the same reason occult forces were
excluded, namely that one cannot know how they will behave.
Methodological materialism is important because it acknowledges the
materiality of creation. It is reasonable and appropriate for
Christian theists to refer to the materiality of the world in
explanations and theories. Questions about the material dimension
of reality minimally require answers in material terms. The
importance of methodological materialism also derives from the
problems attached to its benefits. I have selected three
categories of problems. Methodological materialism destroys
theism, it needs theism to prevent it from functioning as
metaphysical materialism, and it is inadequate to deal with
reality.
3. BELIEFS CONSTRAIN METHODOLOGICAL MATERIALISM.
What does it mean for materialism to be held methodologically?
Materialism can be held in at least two different ways. For
instance, you can explain human behaviour in terms of material
causes. To the extent that it is known or believed that humans are
not merely material beings, such materialism is held as a fiction
or fruitful error. The fruit consists of predictions about the
material behaviour of humans that might otherwise be hard to come
by.[5] Heuristic or guiding fictions are common in science and
mathematics. The ideal gas in physics, Goethe's plant archetype
and the wild-type phenotype of an organism in biology and the
average college professor in sociology are examples of fictions
used because they help in gaining control over the phenomenon to be
studied. Fictions are not hypotheses because the latter are
potentially true whereas the former are known to be false.[6]
Rather, fictions are a necessary evil to be gotten rid of as soon
as feasible. Vaihinger insists that a fiction "is not to be taken
for reality, but represents a preliminary system designed for
heuristic and practical purposes."[7] Fictional materialism cannot
be problematic for Christians because falsehoods cannot contradict
Christian truths.
In addition to fictional materialism there is hermeneutical
materialism. To the extent that humans are unexplored, materialism
is applied provisionally as a method of discovery of the unknown
with a mind open to either the truth or the falsity of the result.
It is used as a metaphor. That is, one learns about the unknown
aspects of a human being by creative comparison with the known
material aspects. This involves a transfer of meaning between
knowledge of material reality and of the unknown. Human cognition
appears to be unable to do without both fiction and metaphor.[8]
I will argue that Christians can hold materialism as metaphor.
I suggest that a necessary requirement for materialism to be
methodological in the heuristic sense is that it be revisable.
There are two reasons. First, any guide to the study of reality
must be appropriate to the subject matter. This introduces beliefs
about the subject matter into the methodology of science. For
Christians, the contingency of reality upon the will of God means
that we must be open to any possible relation between the material
and the non-material. We must also be open to the possibility that
this duality does not exhaust all of reality. Therefore,
materialism should be held as a revisable guide for the study of
reality. The grounds for revision must be broad, encompassing
experience, logic and metaphysical as well as religious beliefs.
The second reason derives from the metaphoricity of methodological
materialism. Looking at reality as if it were an organism or a gas
cloud has two simultaneous effects. It focuses attention on one
class of possible phenomena and causes such as the material and,
thereby, excludes other classes such as the non-material. This is
fine as long as a plurality of metaphors is available for use, and
the use of a particular metaphor is a matter of free choice. In
reality, and this is my main point, the freedom to revise
materialism is constrained by ontological, epistemological and
axiological beliefs. I will argue that the Christian faith best
fulfils the epistemological, ontological and axiological conditions
for a revisable materialism because Christians are least likely to
be constrained by the beliefs that transform methodological
materialism into metaphysical materialism. The transforming effect
of these beliefs will be explained in sections 3.1-3.7.
3.1. Logical Independence.
If religious claims would entail scientific claims and vice versa,
religious beliefs about reality such as religious materialism would
block the possible revision of materialism. The absence of such
relations, therefore, is a condition for materialism to be
methodological. This condition seems to be fulfilled. There can
be no logical relation between a religious belief, strictly
speaking, and a logical proposition, strictly speaking, for the
same reason as there can be no logical connection between
observation and theory or between observation and religious belief.
This is because they are categorically different kinds of things.
However, they are categorically different only if science were
nothing but a logical-empirical endeavour, if scientific theories
were purely logical artefacts, and if religious beliefs were purely
emotional or fiduciary phenomena without conceptual content.
These reduced views of science and religion are questionable
abstractions. In reality there is more to scientific theory than
logic; and there is more to religious belief than trust and
emotion.[9] This is evident from the failure of scientific
materialists to refrain from drawing metaphysical or religious
implications from their observations and theories, and from the
failure of philosophers of science to separate science and religion
despite their logical independence.[10] Moreover, there must be
relations between theory and observation otherwise there would be
no science. There must be relations between observation and
religious belief otherwise there would be no religion. Likewise,
and as a matter of historical fact, there are relations between
religious belief and scientific theory.[11]
In other words, the absence of logical relations between religious
belief and scientific theory is a necessary but insufficient
condition for their independence, and for the revisability of
materialism. In addition, there should be no psychological,
historical, religious and semantic relations between the two.[12]
Some of these conditions and others will be the focus of the rest
of this paper. They include the depth of beliefs as well as
particular beliefs about the existence of the non-material and of
God, about His relation to creation, and about the goals of
scientific knowledge.
3.2. Kinds of Belief and Depth of Commitment.
Another condition for the revisability of materialism is that one
should not be committed to materialism in an existential or
religious way. This concerns the depth of the beliefs present in
the context of methodological materialism. The deeper one is
committed to materialism the more difficult it will be to revise
it. The depth of commitment to a belief depends on how the belief
functions and this depends in part on its content. I distinguish
between commitment to truth as a relation involving the whole
person with God or a pseudo-God (the world) and the conceptual
apprehension of truth. True religion is a whole-hearted,
undifferentiated and existential commitment of the whole person to
God. Quasi-religion involves such a commitment to the world. Such
existential commitments are seen to have content that can be
conceptualized in beliefs about God and about the world.
Theologies are systematic and deepened attempts at conceptualizing
the truth about God or pseudo-gods while the sciences attempt to
conceptualize truths about the world.
Only to the extent that a belief can be made explicit, can it be
exposed to rational argument and rational doubt. Existential or
religious commitments such as religious materialism cannot be made
altogether explicit in a conceptual way because it is an
existential frame of mind within which one dwells while attending
to the business of understanding the world. Existential beliefs
are held quasi-religiously with a very deep commitment while
conceptual beliefs are held more loosely, comparatively speaking.
Materialism as a religious belief cannot be doubted theoretically
because it is in the nature of implicit belief to be committed to
it. This is not to say that religious materialism cannot be
revised, but that such a revision requires a religious conversion.
Polanyi observed that "Since the sceptic does not consider it
rational to doubt what he himself believes, the advocacy of
'rational doubt' is merely the sceptic's way of advocating his own
beliefs".[13] This means that methodological materialism loses its
revisability in the hands of philosophical materialists and becomes
a philosophical or quasi-religious materialism.
3.3. The Possibility of a Non-Material Reality.
To be open to revision of materialism one must believe in the
possibility of the existence of the non-material. Otherwise, the
non-material could not be brought to bear upon methodological
materialism. This condition excludes quasi-religious materialists
because their materialism is prescriptive[14], dogmatic,
methodical, and characterized by an unconditional commitment and an
all-encompassing scope.
As a conceptual belief, however, materialism has a limited scope
and is held with a commitment that is conditional and open to
rational doubt. Methodological materialism may be seen merely as
a strategy to solve the problems concerning the explanation and
control of the material world, having no metaphysical implications.
The issue of existential doubt does not arise because the
materialism is not held existentially. Agnostics and theists are
among those who could hold materialism as a revisable conceptual
belief. Agnostics believe that the question whether reality is
material, non-material or both has not been decided because the
evidence is considered inconclusive.[15] Their primary concern is
with the possibility of rejecting one of these possibilities and,
therefore, they hold materialism as a working hypothesis which
could be false. However, believing that there might be a non-
material realm is only a necessary, but not a sufficient condition
for revisability. One must also believe that the non-material
affects material reality.
3.4. Can the Non-Material Affect Material Reality?
Revisability of materialism requires that one believes the non-
material realm can affect the material realm. This excludes the
non-interventionists among Christian theists because they believe
God does not act in material reality. It also excludes non-
interactionists because they believe that mind or spirit does not
act on body. However, the possibility of interaction between body
and mind or of intervention of God in nature is given with their
belief in the existence of the non-material. This belief weakens
their commitment to materialism compared to that of materialists,
especially if there are other religious beliefs that require
intervention and interaction.[16] For instance, belief in a God
who cares for his people requires a God who intervenes in material
reality. As well, the religious belief in life after death entails
the independent existence of the human spirit which must be capable
of interaction with the body.
3.5. Can Science Include the Non-Material?
Also excluded from holding materialism open to revision are those
interventionists and interactionists who want to limit science to
the study of material phenomena. They hold materialism as a
guiding fiction or fruitful error in order to preserve the
universal validity of scientific knowledge and predictability.
Because they claim to be open to the rejection or limitation of
methodological materialism, they appear to be in the best position
to hold materialism methodologically. That is, provided the
materialism can be rejected or limited. I will argue that this is
possible, but difficult due to the priority of explanation in
material terms (section 3.6.) and to the power of beliefs about the
purpose of science (section 3.7.).
3.6. Can Methodological Materialism be Limited to Appropriate
Cases?
One way of finding the limits of methodological materialism is to
look for experiences of the non-material. Let us imagine, for the
sake of the argument, that God created from nothing first matter
and energy without the potential to evolve into life. Then He
created life, but without the potential to evolve into self-
conscious and religious beings. This required a final act of
creation. The question is, how do we know that the emergence of
matter, life and mind needs explanation rather than acceptance as
givens of reality? Methodological materialism recommends that
whenever the non-material shows itself as a possibility,
explanations in material terms are to be preferred over those in
non-material terms. Methodological materialism as an ideal of
explanation will lead us right past non-material causes and givens
and guides us to construct an unbroken chain of material cause and
effect across these junctures. It will do this even despite
empirical evidence against the possibility of the transition of
matter to life.[17] The result may be the construction of a
virtual reality consisting of large-scale evolution from matter to
man with God at the beginning placing the potential for all of
reality's diversity in matter.
Virtual realities are routinely employed in science. The problem
is not with their employment, but with their identification and
correction. Failure to correct them leads to a lack of
intelligibility[18] which can have important practical
implications. Excluding non-material causes has resulted in a
distortion of knowledge of the material world. In physics, for
instance, the existence of a material aether was invented by Kepler
and Newton because they could not accept that material bodies would
affect each other through a non-material force acting across empty
space.[19] In biology, we can think of the distortions introduced
by behaviourism in the study of animal and human behaviour. For
instance, the study of psychophysical phenomena such as the lifting
of an arm requires explanation in terms of will power or
imagination. We know about the consequences for health care of
ignoring the effects of the mind on the body.[20]
Correction of distortions associated with virtual realities in
science is important. Correction is also possible. For instance,
the existence of a material aether was rejected on empirical
grounds. Sometimes correction requires deeper changes in
fundamental beliefs about reality. For instance, science has
accepted givens that require no further explanation. The
acceptance of inertial motion as a given rather than as something
to be explained, heralded the transition from Aristotelian to
classical Newtonian physics. Acceptance of such givens usually
signals a major conceptual revolution and involves the weighing of
observations, of the interpretation of experience, of beliefs about
the nature of reality as well as of beliefs about ideals of
explanation. Inertial motion, for instance, was initially accepted
as a given for aesthetic reasons and not on the basis of
experience, although that came later. Therefore, consistency with
various beliefs about reality is as important in such transitions
as consistency with empirical evidence. Below I will propose to
sanction this situation as methodological pluralism.
So far, however, corrections have been made within the confines of
methodological materialism. There has been no revolution
questioning this rule. The case of inertial motion did not
challenge methodological materialism. Is it possible to
incorporate into science potential non-material givens and causes
without turning them into virtual material realities? How can
complex behaviour in animals, such as feeding or nest building be
explained in terms of non-material "drives" or "motivations" while
explanation in terms of final causes has been excluded from science
(physics) since Galileo. Or take the role of information in
explaining the functioning of organisms and societies. It is
interesting because information can be measured, but it is non-
material. This inclusion of non-material causes is consistent with
methodological materialism, however, because the assumption is that
eventually non-material givens and causes will find interpretations
in material terms and that these interpretations will find support
in experience. Prigogine's theory of the self-organization of
matter and energy into complex, information processing entities is
an example. Methodological materialism forces an anti-realist
attitude towards the non-material in science.[21] Clearly,
methodological materialism effectively neutralizes any scientific
challenges and requires a challenge at the methodological level.
Below I propose to provide this challenge by adopting a
methodological pluralism in science.
3.7. The Purpose of Science.
Finally, the revisability of methodological materialism is undone
by the ideal of controlling nature which is one of the main
purposes of science. This purpose is served among others by the
ideal of the universal validity of scientific knowledge. Without
limitations on the domain of validity, this ideal confers universal
validity upon explanations in material terms and thereby excludes
revision of methodological materialism.
This creates a trap for Christians. A common strategy for avoiding
conflict between faith and science among Christians is to deny the
universal validity of scientific knowledge by reducing science to
physics. For instance, it is often argued that the neo-Darwinean
theory of evolution has no implications for Christian theism
because it deals only with the physical aspect of humanity. Since
physics does not deal with religion its explanations have no
religious implications, so the argument goes. However, if the
claim of universal validity for physical knowledge is not
relinquished physics becomes a model for true knowledge in
theology. An extreme example is Tipler's claim to have
demonstrated the existence of God and of a resurrection from the
dead using physics alone. The extent to which physics models his
"theology" shows when, after defining the physical universe as "the
totality of all that exists" he states: "Thus, if God exists,
He/She is either the universe or part of it."[22] Few Christians
will accept this demonstration, but this species of argument is
common among them.
In conclusion, Christians are among those predisposed to revise
methodological materialism: they are not religiously committed to
materialism and they believe in the existence of a non-material
reality. However, Christians are divided about other conditions
for the revisability of methodological materialism such as the
reduction of science to pure reason and observation, the reduction
of religion to pure emotion, and the effects of the non-material on
the material. This is why a methodological pluralism is necessary.
_____________________________________________________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 40546
Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt