Re: [asa] on science and meta-science

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 2:34 PM, dfsiemensjr <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:

> David,
> Your definition of 'CHRISTIAN NATURALISM' is faulty. The first part is
> essentially deistic, nature on its own.
>

I don't think God pushes particles along. I think He set the laws of
nature, and therefore particles have attributes according to those laws.
But perhaps you are right - perhaps I haven't accurately described the
traditional idea of original Christian naturalism.

If someone wants to think God has to be involved in every particle, and
every attribute of every particle, at every instant of time, I wouldn't
object. But that seems to me to be a different sort of metaphysics. For
example, if God suddenly stopped paying attention, would all the particles
cease to exist? That would make deism rather impossible, don't you think?
   :)

The important part is that the church invented a form of naturalism.
Whether I've described it correctly is less important than that it existed
throughout history.

And the next important part is that deism and deistic-Christianity deviated
from this starting in the 17th or 18th century.

So, what does one do with the idea that the church invented naturalism in
order to claim natural phenomena follows, not the capricious whims of
supernatural beings, but the regular laws laid down by the one God? This
latter concept seems more consistent with traditional teachings.

The problem is, how does Stephen M Bar (or anybody) say that naturalism is
part of science AND that the church invented science? What then does
naturalism, in that context, possibly mean? I don't think it ever meant
deism in the sense that post-enlightenment people thought of deism. How
could it? There would have been nothing for deists to protest in the first
place. But we have a linkage between naturalism and Christianity, and we
also know it did not rule out God's role in any fashion. My conclusion is
that original naturalism is different than the naturalism being invoked
today.

Another important aspect is that all forms of naturalism are metaphysics.

Is anybody denying that?

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Received on Thu Nov 5 16:23:32 2009