Re: Methodological naturalism & parallel tension in Christian thought

It's now common to make a distinction between methodological naturalism (MN
is the usual abbreviation) & "metaphysical" naturalism (which might better
be called ontological naturalism since it can then be abbreviated ON &
confusion avoided). But some fine tuning is needed. MN can be understood
either as a statement that science is limited to the study of natural causes
or that God is limited to acting through natural causes - what we might call
weak & strong MN. Those who hold to strong MN would rule out any phenomena
that are beyond the capacity of natural agents & would also, if consistent,
rule out /creatio ex nihilo/.
Both pantheism & some (in fact most) versions of process theology would be
in this category. It is not the same as ON but as far as the conduct of
science is concerned is quite similar.

Whether or not strong MN rules out miracles depends on what is meant by
"miracle." A traditional view is that a miracle by definition is something
that is beyond the capacity of created agents, but there's no compelling
reason to think that many of the events we describe as "miracles" are in
that category.

& prayer should not be a demand for a miracle, especially if "miracle" is
understood in the way I just described. If someone is sick we're encouraged
to pray for that person's recovery but we have no business telling God _how_
that person is to be healed. If God chooses to work a miracle (in whatever
sense), OK. But in the great majority of cases the healing will take place
through natural causes with which, as Christians, we believe God cooperates.
& those natural causes may include our own action.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: <drsyme@cablespeed.com>
To: "Mervin Bitikofer" <mrb22667@kansas.net>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 8:52 AM
Subject: Re: Methodological naturalism & parallel tension in Christian
thought

>
> A few years ago, I was asked to see a patient who was not waking up after
> a cardiac bypass. Unfortunately, he had a long period of hypotension and
> as a result was suffering from anoxic encephalopathy. This has a highly
> variable outcome, but he had many risk factors working against him, such
> as age, other comorbidities, and the length of time that he was continuing
> to be unresponsive.
>
> Months went by. In general patients that have a coma from anoxic injury,
> and then awake to a vegetative state, and remain in a vegetative state for
> months, often remain in a vegetative state permanantly. And this patient
> was still in a vegetative state months later, after having many other
> complications, and was still in the hospital.
>
> And then on Easter morning, many months after the surgery, I walked into
> his room and he said "good morning"!
>
> It was a dramatic change.
>
> So one could look at a story like this and proclaim it to be a miracle.
> Others could look at this and say, well, this kind of thing happens from
> time to time. And it is true, this kind of thing does happen, but this
> case was an outlier. Certainly the family, the patients' clergy, and the
> friends that were praying for him see this as a miracle.
>
> I dont know if it was a miracle or not. However, I dont think that one
> can point to this, or other things like it, and claim that it is proof
> that God exists.
>
>
>
> On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 05:28:13 -0600
> Mervin Bitikofer <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
>> It seems to me that Christians have their own version of "m.n." to
>> contend with. We pray, yes, but we also work (or we should) as if the
>> very solution itself must come from our own hands. The paradox is that
>> we know it really comes from God whether or not our own hands had a part
>> in the orchestration. I see no conflict with the scientist, Christian or
>> otherwise, acknowledging the limitation of scientific method to a
>> naturalistic methodology. The difference is that the Christian sees this
>> as a real and substantial limitation because he believes in a Creator
>> that transcends the created and even operates on it and within it.
>> Naturally, science cannot touch this, although as an unbelieving friend
>> of mine insists, science should still be able to at least observe these
>> alleged interventions and recognize them as such. The unbeliever, on the
>> other hand, sees this acknowledgment (the m.n. limitation) as a trivial
>> (indeed meaningless) concession because he doesn't believe anything else
>> exists anyway. He is happy to toss what he sees as a 'phantom bone' to
>> the philosophers and proselytes. Our preconception in this will
>> determine how we define science, and hence whether or not it would be
>> possible to recognize a 'miracle'. The unbeliever sees a fantastic
>> phenomenon and immediately subsumes it into his repertoire of observed
>> naturalistic phenomena - he sets about finding the natural causes (or
>> discovering the 'trick' if it was a human contrivance), and the
>> possibility of 'miracle' is precluded for him from the outset. The most
>> he can concede on it is that it may remain for the moment an unsolved
>> mystery. Hence, the philosophical "skeptic" assures by his own
>> preconceptions that no divine interventions will ever be observed. The
>> believer can (and as a scientific thinker probably will) do all the same
>> things with the one significant difference being that he does not, from
>> the outset, preclude the possibility of the Divine hand. Another
>> non-trivial difference is that the believer ought not concede in the
>> first place, that naturalistic phenomena cannot be of Divine origin. For
>> him, everything - whether gap or not, is a subset of the Divine reality.
>>
>>
>
Received on Tue Jan 10 10:45:17 2006