“In the context of ‘philosophical naturalism’ or ‘methodological naturalism’, ‘natural’ is opposed to ‘supernatural’. Thus, natural methods would be those operating in accord with the laws of physics, chemistry, etc. and non-natural methods would be ones that involve something outside such laws.” – David C.
O.k. then, but this takes us in another direction. I’m not particularly interested in the PN/MN dichotomy, since I don’t find it especially helpful. It is part of a wider problem in the U.S. which denigrates philosophy as if philosophical tradition weren’t of significant importance to the ‘science and religion’ discourse.
If you are going to oppose ‘natural’ with ‘supernatural,’ then I assume you’ll also be willing to speak about what constitutes ‘sub-natural.' Super- is a prefix rather than an actual fix to the larger problem.
“The natural/supernatural dichotomy is not exactly the best way to describe things from a Christian perspective” – David C.
Yes, then we are agreed. So then why perpetuate such a dichotomy by adhering to PN/MN ideology? Perhaps there is nothing else yet available in the philosophical realm?
The theology of ‘God is a hidden God’ would seem to only be capable of going so far until the likes of Dawkins and Dennett are proudly agreeing that it is the best way to speak about our Creator! The topic of divine kenosis may be helpful theologically-speaking, but it does nothing to assuage the doubts of persons who perpetuate the myth that not only is God a hidden God, but also a non-existent God!
The time has come when questioning whether or not scientific explanations work in a given situation is not always relevant. There could be extra-scientific explanations that are more important in a practical sense than playing a demarcation game. It seems to me that many ‘practising’ natural scientists have gotten themselves stuck in a philosophy of science discourse that has already played out its main meanings (Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend). By opening-up the discussion to social thought and philosophy of history, dependence on natural-science only would decline.
“Humans combine natural and supernatural aspects. Thus anything someone does probably has at least some natural component.” – David C.
Again, we are in agreement, though I would rather choose sub-natural, non-natural or extra-natural than ‘supernatural,’ for reasons already expressed. Yes, people have ‘natural’ components. But their ‘doing’ is something that can be analysed, studies, investigated, etc. without resorting to naturalistic language. Human action is something mysterious to natural scientists precisely because it does not fit into the rules of method laid down through natural science (even if sometimes the rules are applied closely). But let’s not ask the socio-biologists or evolutionary psychologists to give us their predominantly non-Christian (even un-Christian) views on this topic!
“An examples of a non-natural method would be prayer. Although one could analyze physiology, etc. associated with prayer, the basic premise of prayer is supernatural. Miracles would be examples of non-natural methods.” – David C.
Yes, if we consider prayer as a method, then it would seem ‘natural’ to a believer to do it, wouldn’t it? For Muslims, it is ‘natural’ to pray five times a day, isn’t it? I wouldn’t call miracles an example of non-natural method because to do so would be to take a God’s eye view, which I think, we would be wise not to take, following the advice of many here at ASA. Or maybe there are also different ways of expressing the non-naturalness method of prayer? Is the ‘basic premise of prayer’ therefore ‘non-natural’ or ‘supernatural’ or neither or both?
Please excuse if this doesn’t exactly get at what you’re saying. Let it be repeated that I am well-outside of the common dialogue space of ASA, being 1) non-American, 2) not a natural scientist, but a social scientist, and 3) taking eastern Christian views into account where western Christian rationality has dominated natural science even up to the current day. That being said, I hope that you will consider my commentary as interested in maintaining dialogue on these mutually important themes for science and religion dialogue.
G. Arago
---------------------------------
All new Yahoo! Mail -
---------------------------------
Get a sneak peak at messages with a handy reading pane.
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sat Jan 20 09:19:47 2007
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Sat Jan 20 2007 - 09:19:47 EST