Re: [asa] Creation and Incarnation

David Opderbeck wrote:

> This seems sound to me. If it is sound, I'm not sure, Keith, how
> your position that "A complete cause-and-effect description would
> therefore be theoretically possible -- even if practically
> unrealizable " follows. Don't self-transcendence, the possibility
> of something new, openness and indeterminacy mean that a complete
> physical cause-and-effect description is in principle not
> possible? Or is Peters and Hewlett's position about the mind and
> soul here incorrect?

I think that we may be struggling to communicate with each other.
What I am stressing is the continuity of cause-and-effect physical
processes. I see no reason to suppose gaps or breaks in that
continuity. Also, as argued by McKay, we might provide a complete
cause-and-effect description at the physical level of someone's
religious experience. In fact, studies have been done that associate
certain types of brain activity with such experiences. Something is
going on neurologically during any human experience that correlates
with that experience, and can explain it AT THAT LEVEL. However,
such a description does not answer many of the most important
questions we might ask about that experience. The "completeness" to
which I am referring is restricted to the very limited realm of
reconstructing the continuity of cause-and-effect processes that
correlate to a particular event. Those physical processes would be
the same regardless of how one understands humanity from a
theological/philosophical perspective -- What is a soul? What does
it mean for us to image God? Is human nature fundamentally dualistic
or monistic? Can and does God communicate with us? We can study and
explore the physical neurological processes by science. We cannot
answer the theological/philosophical ones through science.

Keith

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Received on Sat Aug 26 13:00:06 2006