Re: [asa] God as Cause

Hello George,
   
  Throwing the burden back onto me doesn't help to win your (natural scientific) argument. Are you suggesting 'natural methods' are enough to understand human choice? I doubt it.
   
  Rather, the viewpoint I present is simply meant to provide balance against the naturalistic viewpoint that you (and many others at ASA) are presenting, as if 'natural methods' are enough to understand human choice, including human existence (via biological and cosmological evolution). Of course, there *is* a theological dimension to human choice and existence. But when you are willing to recognize that social, cultural and historical methods have/deserve their own sovereign academic place then we'll be getting somewhere. Why it seems you won't recognize the 'meta-natural presuppositions' that David O. speaks about is a mystery to me.
   
  Let's flip your statement to me around - "You speak [George] as if it were self evident that 'natural' realities are not part of the 'social, cultural and historical' world. Thus, many of your criticisms depend on an unnecessary understanding of what is society, culture and history." - Yeah, that's exactly what a non-natural scientist would say! :-)
   
  What I'm seeking is some kind of balance instead of pure condescension and misunderstanding.
   
  Gregory

  George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
          Gregory -
   
  You speak as if it were self evident that "social, cultural and historical" realities are not part of the natural world. It seems to me that many of your criticisms depend on an unnecessarily understanding of what is natural.
   
  Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
    ----- Original Message -----
  From: Gregory Arago
  To: David Campbell ; asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 5:04 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] God as Cause
  

  “Everyday experience also shows that the use of natural methods is quite practical for all sorts of things. You are using natural methods to find out what I am saying (e.g., reading email rather thanexpecting the Spirit to reveal my thoughts to you), yet you ought to evaluate my statements from a thoroughly theistic perspective.” – David Campbell
   
  There are social, cultural and historical methods also for this task – ‘natural methods’ are not enough. Are they “quite practical for all sorts of things?” Yes. But still, natural methods are alone not enough.
   
  I would ask David C., on what scientific basis he makes the above claim? What ‘science of everyday life’ has he accessed to make this claim? Probably such a ‘science’ has escaped his mind.
   
  David Opderbeck’s statement that “Belief in intentional action by autonomous agents requires some sort of meta-natural presuppositions” is right on the mark. The gigantic problem is that natural scientists will not (and possibly cannot) recognize it. They simply cannot ‘get outside’ of a naturalistic framework to assess it!
   
  “You are not just using natural methods. But you are using natural methods.” – David C.
   
  Perhaps this was a typo?
   
  It is only the theology or the philosophy in/of people here at ASA that allows them to step outside of their naturalistic assumptions, cosmology included, to seek a balance whereby scientism isn't simply the norm.
   
  Arago

                 
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Received on Wed Jan 10 11:11:56 2007