Science Stoppers
18 May '14 00:141 editA current thread prompted this thinking but I can't find it so I'll start afresh. It was Suzianne talking about the clarity of religion.
Alvin Plantinga says what I want to say better, from his Christian POV.
quote:
There is still another reason for methodological naturalism; this one, too, is common sense simplicity itself. God has created this whole wonderful and awful (both taken in their etymological senses) world of ours. One of the things we want to do as his creatures is to understand the world he has made, see (to the extent that we can) how it is made, what its structure is, and how it works. This is not, of course, the only thing God's children must do with the world; we must also appreciate it, care for it, love it, thank the Lord for it, and see his hand in it. But understanding it is valuable, and so is understanding it in a theoretical way. One way of understanding something is to see how it is made, how it is put together, and how it works. That is what goes on in natural science. The object of this science is nature; for Christians, its aim (one of its aims) is to see what the structure of this world is and how it works; this is a way of appreciating God's creation, and part of what it is to exercise the image of God in which we have been created.
But there will be little advance along this front if, in answer to the question, Why does so and so work the way it does? or What is the explanation of so and so? we regularly and often reply Because God did it that way or Because it pleased God that it should be like that. This will often be true, but it is not the sort of answer we want at that juncture. It goes without saying that God has in one way or another brought it about that the universe displays the character it does; but what we want to know in science are the answers to questions like What is this made out of? What is its structure? How does it work? How is it connected with other parts of God's creation? Claims to the effect that God has done this or that (created life, or created human life) directly are in a sense science stoppers. If this claim is true, then presumably we cannot go on to learn something further about how it was done or how the phenomenon in question works; if God did it directly, there will be nothing further to find out. How does it happen that there is such a thing as light? Well, God said, Let there be light and there was light. This is of course true, and of enormous importance, but if taken as science it is not helpful; it does not help us find out more about light, what its physical character is, how it is related to other things, and the like. Ascribing something to the direct action of God tends to cut off further inquiry.
unquote
https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/crusbult/web/pdf-to-html/mn2-ap.htm#stop
Alvin Plantinga says what I want to say better, from his Christian POV.
quote:
There is still another reason for methodological naturalism; this one, too, is common sense simplicity itself. God has created this whole wonderful and awful (both taken in their etymological senses) world of ours. One of the things we want to do as his creatures is to understand the world he has made, see (to the extent that we can) how it is made, what its structure is, and how it works. This is not, of course, the only thing God's children must do with the world; we must also appreciate it, care for it, love it, thank the Lord for it, and see his hand in it. But understanding it is valuable, and so is understanding it in a theoretical way. One way of understanding something is to see how it is made, how it is put together, and how it works. That is what goes on in natural science. The object of this science is nature; for Christians, its aim (one of its aims) is to see what the structure of this world is and how it works; this is a way of appreciating God's creation, and part of what it is to exercise the image of God in which we have been created.
But there will be little advance along this front if, in answer to the question, Why does so and so work the way it does? or What is the explanation of so and so? we regularly and often reply Because God did it that way or Because it pleased God that it should be like that. This will often be true, but it is not the sort of answer we want at that juncture. It goes without saying that God has in one way or another brought it about that the universe displays the character it does; but what we want to know in science are the answers to questions like What is this made out of? What is its structure? How does it work? How is it connected with other parts of God's creation? Claims to the effect that God has done this or that (created life, or created human life) directly are in a sense science stoppers. If this claim is true, then presumably we cannot go on to learn something further about how it was done or how the phenomenon in question works; if God did it directly, there will be nothing further to find out. How does it happen that there is such a thing as light? Well, God said, Let there be light and there was light. This is of course true, and of enormous importance, but if taken as science it is not helpful; it does not help us find out more about light, what its physical character is, how it is related to other things, and the like. Ascribing something to the direct action of God tends to cut off further inquiry.
unquote
https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/crusbult/web/pdf-to-html/mn2-ap.htm#stop
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