Re: [asa] anti-evolutionism and deism

Though it's a statement that's often made (e.g., by Pannenberg, who's been quoted here), I think we have to be careful with the statement that the laws of physics are "descriptive, not prescriptive." It's true that the "laws" what human scientists come up with - e.g., Kepler's laws - are simply descriptive. But I maintain (& yes, I know that there's a big dollop of Platonism here) that there are laws - or patterns if you prefer - underlying entities & phenomena in the world which have an objective existence whether or not we've discovered them or not. What we call "laws of physics" are approximations to those patterns, approximations which generally improve in the course of scientific development. & those patterns are indeed prescriptive in the sense that the way an electron & an EM field interact (to take my earlier example) is prescribed by the patterns that those entities embody, patterns which are approximated by the Maxwell-Dirac equations.

One of the strongest arguments for the objective reality of such pattern - & in an approximate sense the laws of physics - is the ability of those laws to predict previously unknown phenomena.

These patterns are freely willed & "activated" by God. & the patterns which are embodied - i.e., which are the subject of applied & not merely pure math - are contingent. I.e., God could have created world with different math patterns. If God is understood to "maintain the laws of science" by cooperating with crated entities in such a way as to respect the properties with which God has endowed them then there is no way in which this can be interpreted as deism.

The 1st paper I ever wrote for PSCF, back when it was "Journal of the ASA" (& for that matter the 1st paper I ever gave at an ASA meeting) dealt with this - among other things. It can be found at http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1980/JASA12-80Murphy.html .

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Bertsche@aol.com
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 12:19 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] anti-evolutionism and deism

  In a message dated 4/20/2007 7:09:52 AM Pacific Daylight Time, gmurphy@raex.com writes:
> To follow up on all the excellent notes but especially Jon Tandys and
> Michaels. I have never figured out if:
>
> 1)God established and maintains the laws that we observe
> or
> 2)The laws that we observe are simply the normal (ie usual) way that God
> interacts with the universe. Implies that God continually makes decisions
> as to how matter-energy and space-time will behave. This would imply a
> view of providence that in some matters at least is extremely particular.
>
> I tend to lean towards #1 but don't have any real solid reasons for that
> choice. The Bible does not seem to say anything that applies or at least
> I have not found it. Doubt any experiment could tell the difference and
> am not sure it matters in any case as I am not a deist.

    2) suggests that matter is just inert pieces of "stuff" that God moves
    around according to arbitrary rules, like those of chess. The game does
    have fixed rules but they could be quite different: There is nothing
    intrinsic to the pieces shaped like horses that requires that they move in
    the way that the rules of chess specify for the knight. But everything that
    we know about, e.g., electrons & electromagnetic fields indicates that the
    motion of an electron in such a field is closely related to what an electron
    & an EM field _are_.

    1) is more consistent with the belief that God actually cooperates with
    created entities - i.e., that creatures actually do things in the world,
    though they do not do them independently of God.

    Shalom
    George
    http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  In spite of the problems noted by George, I like view 2. This is the view taken by Donald MacKay in his excellent booklet "The Clockwork Image" (out of print). He stresses that scientific law is DEscriptive, not PREscriptive, a concept which I often use to explain the relationship between God and science. View 2 is simpler than view 1, and easier to explain.

  View 1 may be more accurate, but it must be carefully nuanced so that it does not become deistic (or does not give the impression of deism when explained to others). C.John Collins does a good job of thinking through this in his "Science and Faith". I just started reading David Wilcox' "God and Evolution", which also does a good job of this.

  I believe the root problem has nothing to do with evolution, but with sloppy thinking about God's providence and immanence. It suggests a false dichotomy between God and scientific law; people tend to think that effects are caused EITHER by God OR by scientific law. We need to help people understand that both can be true simultaneously.

  Kirk

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Received on Fri Apr 20 18:30:38 2007