Re: [asa] on science and meta-science

Cameron wrote:

I don't believe that this conception is *entirely* accounted for by
> empirical evidence, i.e., evidence that God has acted in nature only through
> natural laws. When it comes to origins, we are, for the most part, in the
> dark about how God chose to act. Yet most TEs have a strong *preference*
> for a naturalistic explanation of origins. And the source of this
> preference is not scientific but metaphysical. This is why I have a hard
> time accepting the criticism of ID from TE quarters which says that ID
> people confound the scientific and the metaphysical, thus doing damage to
> both science and theology. As far as I can see, TE is based on a
> metaphysical preference -- that, outside of a few (in the case of some TEs,
> *very* few) Biblical miracles, God always acts and always has acted
> exclusively through natural causes. Given this preference, TE people are in
> no position to accuse ID people of contaminating the objective study of
> nature by imposing metaphysical requirements upon it.
>

You seem to be confusing assumptions that are necessary for the doing of
science, with broader claims about reality. As I have been saying, science
as a discipline simply cannot test whether or not a particular event or
process was a direct or indirect result of God's action. Science attempts
to discover the cause-and-effect actions of physical agents and measurable
forces (the properties of energy and matter). Science will continue to
pursue the discovery of such cause-and-effect processes when none are
currently known. Such unanswered questions are what drive scientific
research.

But, this limitation does not apply to one's broader metaphysical
worldview. As I have stated, I have no theological objection to God acting
in ways that break the continuing of cause-and-effect processes (although
such times must be rare in order for the created universe to behave in a
generally predictable and understandable fashion). It is just that science
cannot resolve such questions.

The limitations inherent in science are in no way a limitation of God.

Keith

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Received on Mon Nov 9 13:44:25 2009