Re: [asa] Creation and Incarnation

David Opderbeck wrote:

> So, I tend to think of the operation of natural laws as a chain of
> causation. I know this analogy can't be pressed very far because
> of quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle, but it still
> seems sound to me at a basic level, and it seems to be how natural
> scientists operate at a practical level. When natural scientists
> examine a phenomenon, they try to suss out the physical causes of
> the phenomenon. At a macro level, Science seeks to do this through
> the entire chain of causation, all the way back to fundamental
> physical laws (and perhaps, in the case of some cosmological
> science, before that to the cause of the physical laws).
>
> If a human choice is inserted into the chain of causation, it seems
> to me that the resulting phenomenon no longer falls purely into the
> realm of the natural sciences. Like you said, science (I'd clarify
> and say the natural sciences) can't fully determine the causes of
> things like Nebuchadnezzar's choice of which city to attack. So,
> if a conscious decision of an autonomous agent is involved, at some
> point the chain of causation is interrupted and the natural
> sciences are incapable of determining fully the truth of what
> happened. (Footnote -- I think I'd distinguish this from Michael's
> comment about his collie puppy -- natural science, as I understand
> it, presumes some sort of determinism for non-human choices;
> otherwise, the concept of natural selection would make no sense at
> all.)

I think that your error here is your statement : "So, if a conscious
decision of an autonomous agent is involved, at some point the chain
of causation is interrupted..." I would argue that there is no
necessary reason that the chain of physical cause-and-effect need to
be interrupted by the action of human choice. At the physical level,
I see no reason for a break in the continuity of neural activity,
biochemical activity, etc. AT THAT LEVEL there still could be a
complete account. However, that account would not explain everything
of interest to us. There are issues of the meaning and reason for
that choice that transcend the mere physical description.

I think that this distinction is critical. I do not see any a prior
reason why the continuity of physical cause-and-effect need every be
broken by the exercise of either God's purposive will or ours. A
complete cause-and-effect description would therefore be
theoretically possible -- even if practically unrealizable. But,
again that physical level description does not address many questions
that are of interest to us. If fact some of our most important
questions.

This is the view of Donald McKay, the British neuroscientist, as I
understand his writing. He argues against "nothing buttery" in which
the possibility of a complete physical description/explanation means
that all of physical reality can be reduced to such a description. I
am trying here to make that same point -- a complete physical
description in no way eliminates the validity of other complementary
descriptions, and the action of supernatural agents or free choice
does not require gaps in the physical description.

Keith

Keith B. Miller
Research Assistant Professor
Dept of Geology, Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506-3201
785-532-2250
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/

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Received on Sat Aug 26 10:12:32 2006