Jack the Bodiless

Theo, you ASSUME causation is due to the government of an immaterial being.

Furthermore, you cannot answer the question of WHY God would govern in this way (or, for that matter, why God or anything else should exist at all).

It's just a "God of the gaps" argument.

I hereby "explain" natural causation as follows: It is a fundamental feature of existence. Just as you claim God to be.

So God is superfluous.

bd-from-kg

theophilus:

I think the crux of your confusion can be found in statements like:

And this:

And this:

The point seems to be that �atheistic� naturalism assumes that the universe is (to some extent at least) orderly, and that it has no �basis� for this assumption. In other words, the existence of order is assumed to be a �brute fact�; there�s no reason for it, it�s just the way things are.

Now naturalism as a metaphysical theory does seem vulnerable to this kind of criticism. It seems intuitively implausible to me, just as it does to you, that ultimately there�s no reason for the orderliness we find in nature. But where you go wrong is in supposing that the notion that nature�s orderliness is just a �brute fact� is in any way assumed by science in general or the theory of evolution in particular.

As I�ve said before, all scientific enquiry takes it as axiomatic that there are discoverable regularities in nature. After all, the whole point of the scientific enterprise is to discover such regularities, and this would be pointless if there were no regularities to discover. But to presuppose that there are regularities to be found is not to presuppose that there is ultimately no reason for such regularities. It�s just that the question of the reason (if any) for the �orderliness� of nature is outside the scope of science; it cannot be studied or examined by the methods of science. This question is part of metaphysics, not physics. One of the beauties of science is that it does not presuppose any particular metaphysics; it only presupposes that there are discoverable regularities.

Thus the assumption that forms the basis for the scientific enterprise is simply:

(1) There are regularities in nature that can be discovered by the human intellect

and NOT something like:

(2) There are regularities in nature because God�s orderliness is reflected in His creation

(1) does not contain a hidden clause �and this is just a brute fact about nature� or anything of the sort. It says nothing about whether there is an underlying reason for the existence of regularities, or if so, what its nature might be. In other words, science is not inherently naturalistic, nor does it have any sort of built-in �naturalistic bias�.

That�s why, when you said that evolution was a part of naturalism, I replied that evolution is a scientific theory whereas naturalism is a metaphysical theory. The theory of evolution is simply what you get when you look at the evidence objectively with a view to finding the regularities exhibited by the natural world.

It�s true that this discovery rules out certain theories about the ultimate nature of things. Science does that sometimes. But that�s exactly why one should not come to it with presuppositions that go beyond what�s necessary to do science. If one assumes only what one must assume to do science at all, the chances of going wrong from the outset are minimized. That�s why I said earlier that common sense prefers the least committal assumptions or presuppositions.

Jobar

I think theophilus has left the building, again- but I have one more observation which I hope he reads.

As best I understand theo's objections to atheistic ontology, it's because we have nothing on which to ground our ideas, our observations, our beliefs.

Science long looked for the place to stand from which we can move the world, a firm and unmoving base which will allow us to make our measurements absolute.

About a hundred years ago though, the best minds in physics realized that there are no absolute places to stand. There are no privileged reference frames. All observations and measurements are relative to the observer, and the measurer.

That's us, theophilus. *We* observe. *We* measure. And all we can see and know is valid only relative to us.

That includes all we can say about gods, and the universe. It's all relative to us.

I know you want to reject that. Hell, those early twentieth century physicists didn't like it one damn bit, either. But they were brave enough, honest enough, with themselves and with each other, to finally face up to the fact that there are no absolutes.

Will you ever find the honesty, and the bravery, to face up to that too?

HRG

Actually, I find the kind of universe we find ourself in rather plausible.

I don't know what an "unorderly" universe would be, in contrast to an orderly one. I think we call "order" just what the universe is.

I'd say that our universe is regular, in the sense that its behavior is invariant under translations in space and time (as long as you don't translate by cosmological distances). I.e. physics is the same on Earth as on Mars, and the same 5000 years ago than today But this looks rather plausible to me: why should points in space-time be singled out by special properties ?

In the absence of intermeddling gods, why should the universe change its behavior while time goes on ? That's more or less all we need for regularity.

Regards,
HRG.