Re: [asa] God as Cause

> I think it's much more subtle than that, and this is one thing that
> frustrates me about the impasse between TE and ID. Plantinga's basic move
> is an epistemological one. As we've seen, if you approach TE from a
> theology of the cross, you are making a very similar epistemological move,
> but your basis for using MN is grounded in other expectations about the
> nature of God's self-revelation. If you don't approach TE from a theology
> of the cross, and you want to preserve MN, it seems to me that you're giving
> up the epistemic high ground, or at the very least your epistemology is
> muddled. It seems that TE/MN without an epistemology grounded in the
> cross implies that human reason alone is the proper arbiter of truth claims --
> the "classical foundationalism" that Plantinga deftly critiques. Plantinga's
> questions about this posture then seem very trenchant. Of what value or
> reliability is a truth claim based on a faulty foundation that
> self-consciously excludes basic facts about God and his activity in nature?

It's not evident to me that Plantinga's critique is rooted in a solid
epistemological base rather than in an effort to dismiss rejection of
ID as naturalistic.

> The answer to this question usually is the pragmatic one you give below --
> we do this all the time and it enables us to navigate life. But do we
> really? Am I really just using "natural" methods to find out what you are
> saying, for example? Is my mind and consciousness entirely reducible to
> the "natural?" I don't think so. Indeed, my belief that you are an
> autonomous, rational agent, and that you therefore can make intentional,
> sensible statements, is informed directly by my presuppositions about the
> nature of human personhood, mind and consciousness as components of
> an "image of God" that is not merely reducible to its "natural" or material
> aspects. (Angus Menuge, in his book "Agents Under Fire," makes, I think,
> a compelling argument that materialism is incoherent to the extent it
> presumes that there is any such thing as intentional action by autonomous
> agents. Belief in intentional action by autonomous agents requires some
> sort of meta-natural presuppositions).

You are not just using natural methods. But you are using natural
methods. Therefore, the claim that using natural methods inherently
entails materialism is wrong. There are some useful things that can
be achieved by merely focusing on the natural methods. For example,
people have greatly improved the ease, efficiency, speed, etc. with
which messages are transmitted through study of physics, chemistry,
etc. That gives no guarantee that the message is useful; science
can't do much to address that. Nevertheless, one should not therefore
blame the science, nor is one justified in disregarding science when
it doesn't support what one wants it to.

> So, I think Plantinga's epistemic critique of TE is a strong one unless you
> ground your approach in something like George's theology of the cross,
> which includes certain assumptions about how God reveals himself in
> scripture and in nature. The question IMHO then becomes how well those
> assumptions hold up.

Not that the theology of the cross is not very important to
understanding everything (and often seriously neglected by advocates
of YEC and ID claims), but an understanding of "methodological
naturalism" as a proper and normal (though not exclusive) approach for
Christianity also derives from an understanding of creation. The main
points of Genesis 1-2 are that all things are part of God's creation
and that He has given man a special role in caring for creation. The
former implies that there are no rogue powers, rival gods, etc., in
contrast to polytheistic views. Thus, everything behaves as God
directs it to. As God is consistent, it is reasonable to expect His
creation to behave in a consistent manner. Also, because the objects
and forces of nature are merely created things, they do not have goals
of their own but rather are parts of God's plan. As a result, study
of the objects and forces is not very fruitful in revealing plan or
metaphysical purpose; however, if we know something about God, we can
get an idea of how those things fit into the plan.

If God has given man responsibility of stewardship over creation, we
must be able to predict the effects of our actions on creation in
order to care for it. This implies both that creation behaves in a
regular manner and that we can detect these patterns.

God's sovereignty over creation implies that He is able to do things
differently than the usual pattern. However, the observed tendency,
especially evident in Jesus' life but throughout history, is to
minimize such changes. For example, apocryphal accounts tend to stand
out from the canonical ones in the much higher frequency of miracles.
This is most explicitly addressed in Jesus' comments on why not to use
miracles (e.g., in the temptation). If a sign is to be notable, it
needs to stand out. There is a strong pattern of Biblical miracles
specifically addressing the question of "Which god?", e.g. YHWH versus
Egyptian and Canaanite deities, YHWH versus Baal or Baal-like
corruptions of YHWH, Jesus versus alternatives.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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