Tercel

Pompous Bastard,

I believe an event is in principle unexplainable by methodological naturalism if it contradicts our current knowledge we have gained by methodological naturalism.

That is true. However that is not what I said here. I did not simply say than the event was inexplicable by current knowledge, I said that it contradicts it. The two are, to me, significantly different.

I do not believe the door is still open. I believe it is in principle impossible for future natural knowledge to actually contradict current knowledge.

It depends what the question is exactly. In your first post you wrote:
Can you describe for us the methodology you use to determine when "specific circumstances" warrant the conlcusion that methodological naturalism is not appropriate? In other words, how do you determine which events are not in principle explainable under meth. naturalism?
The two questions seem to me to be subtly different: When is methodological naturalism appropriate and when can it give an explanation in principle?

Not necessarily. I'm saying that a supernatural interference can only be identified by us as such if it occurs in a religious context.

As far as the criterion of reliability goes, I suggest we drop that since it seems to me to be sufficiently covered by the other 2 criteria as to be worthless.

Tercel

Tercel

Clutch,

It's quite simple. If I don't like the way you're talking to me I can refuse to talk to you. If Malaclypse and/or others don't like the way I talk to them they can stop talking to me.
You also fail to consider that there are certain other factors that apply in the tone of a discussion. I have discussed things with Malaclypse and HRG for about a year now, you however are a complete stranger. The appropriateness or otherwise of my language towards them compared to towards you is thus significantly different. But the long and the short of it is that if they have a problem they're welcome to tell me, and if I have a problem then I'm going to tell you.

True.

True. However there is a way of predicting what will be inexplicable naturalistically.

True.

Ironically, often when I do do math here I am met with the response of "I don't know much maths... but I think what you've written is wrong".

Tercel

Clutch

Sorta like, you can't tell if a number is even, but you can tell if it's odd? What sort of halfway-house between explicable and inexplicable are you assuming here?
Then you believe something that is transparently false. For one thing, if you take "known" to imply "known indefeasibly", then there is no such thing as scientific knowledge, current or otherwise. Science deals in more and less warranted explanations, and if any one thing is universally characteristic of science, it is the working assumption of the corrigibility of those explanations and principles. Setting that to one side, however, virtually any scientific advance represents a contradiction of some erstwhile warranted proposition.

Consider the principle of naturalistic explanation: There is a well-defined notion of absolute simultaneity. Or how about: Space and time are entirely distinct? There are inevitably examples of such principles that are outright logically inconsistent with the principles and explanations introduced by subsequent data and theories. So your claim that "it is in principle impossible for future natural knowledge to actually contradict current knowledge" is just wrong. There is no principled distinction between invoking a supernatural explanation and identifying a current gap or frontier in natural explanation.

[ April 15, 2002: Message edited by: Clutch ]</p>

Tercel

Yes. Something like that. We have things which we can currently explain. And we have things which are yet unexplained.
Of the things that are currently unexplained there would seem to be no way of predicting which ones will be explained in the future.
There is a way of of knowing some of the ones that definitely won't be explained in the future: If our current knowledge tells us that something certainly doesn't happen naturally then we know that it certainly doesn't happen naturally and we know that it certainly won't happen naturally in the future. Thus if it is reported to have happened we know that if it did happen then it wasn't natural and that it will never be "explained" naturally in the future.

True, science deals with probability proofs not absolute and utter proof. This simply means we can be sure of the non-natural nature of any event only to the degree of certainty science gives us about it.
By "knowledge" above I meant a correct understanding of the way the world works: The principle I gave was hence simply my affirmation of the validity of induction.
Since science only gives us relative certainty we can only be relatively certain of our conclusions with regard to any miracle claim. This is not a problem.

Tercel

Clutch

Tercel, The role of all of those "certainly"s is opaque; but the last clause in particular is just a blatant, tedious repetition of the fallacy identified again and again on this thread. We have or lack explanations, relative to a state of empirical information, but no state of empirical information rules in or rules out what explanations would be available under a different state of information, one not yet entertained. In short, precisely what we are never in a position to do is say, "This will never be explained naturally in the future." In order to assert this, we would have to know what those possible states of information -- the ones we don't have -- are. We don't.

daemon

Please. This is simply argumentum ad ignorantum.

E_muse

Occam's Razor is a rule governing our choice of explanations which are themselves based upon our ability to reason. In order to reject the idea of God using Occam's Razor one would then have to conclude that God is nothing but an explanation .. and nothing more. We couldn't, for example, regard him as a possible object in the universe.

Secondly, if we choose an explanation, which is yet incomplete, then it is reasonable to conclude that the explantion will become 'less simple' in the future. It would therefore seem erroneous (to me) to use an explanation that is know to be too simple to rule out something that is possibly beyond explanatory power. It would also seem silly to call it a 'better' explanation, knowing that it is inadequate, but that is very idiosyncratic anyway and 'better' depends upon what you are hoping to achieve!

I am arguing that God (if he exists) is beyond our reasoning abilities. Occam's Razor is a rule governing our choice of explanations which stem from our ability to reason and is itself the product of our reasoning abilities. I wouldn't say that God is a product of human reason and an attempted explanation.

If the main road to belief in miracles is faith, then this is simply evidence that not many miraculous occurences occur. When you say 'main way', what context are you referring to? Are you referring to a Western religious context? Are you simply referring to Christianity, or does your statement encompass other religions?

Again I shall draw a distinction. Paul's statements, "You are saved by faith", and, "Jesus came back from the dead" are two different statements. The writer of Acts states that Jesus showed himself alive by many convincing proofs.

If Jesus proved that he was alive to certain people, then their belief that he was alive did not rest on faith. They were convinced of his resurrection as a person can be convinced about any event.

Their belief that this risen Jesus would get them into Heaven and save them was a matter of faith.. but that is separate. It is the theological significance that is being attached to proved event. I think that there's a need to make a distinction between the two.

Even if most religious people are happy to accept the reality of miracles on the grounds of faith, this can hardly be used as a basis for arguing that all miracles must therefore only be based upon faith and therefore rejected out of hand.

Lastly, you would also have to demonstrate that people were religious when they had the experience. What of people who make theological commitments because of an experience which they claimed to have had?

Not if they witness it it doesn't!! That simply isn't true!

Also.. faith doesn't make a person believe anything. Faith allows people to believe certain things. People are still free to choose how they use their capacity for faith.. or at least should be.

Empiricism allows us to draw conclusions about events that we have witnessed or can test. Seeing is believing if you like. However, empiricist conclusions cannot be used to make conclusions about events that have not been witnessed or tested. To do such a thing seems a form of abuse to me.

Faith allows a person to believe that a certain event may have occured as reported and to keep an open mind.

Well, again, faith doesn't make people believe anything. There are many different faiths. People use their capacity for faith differently.

However, on the basis of empiricism, one cannot draw conclusions about events that have not been witnessed or rather experienced.

You make the claim about the pigs seem absurd by taking it out of context for example. You don't explain that a person, who seemed completely insane and required chaining up for many years and who lived in tombs, was suddenly in his right mind following the event. And the pigs didn't fly.. that is why they drowned!

What you're really saying is that, I should be considered stupid for being able to believe that such an event could have happened as it is described.

Which journalists are we talking about? Do they have to be western? Does it have to be on TV? Will the newspaper do? Just checking that there are no prejudices lurking!

The Nigerian newspaper, The Post Express, reported the alleged resurrection of Pastor Daniel Ekechukwu on Sat 8th December 2001 under the headline "Bonnke Raises Man from Death in Onitsha". I haven't been able to get hold of a copy of the report and the newspaper's website appears to be down at the moment.. have visited it in the past though. I tried to email them but didn't get very far. When their site was running, I did read several other reports on their website that reported alleged miracles.

The above story alleges that the man had been dead for two days, rigor mortice had set in and that he was in receipt of his death certificate. He had died in a car crash and, after he had fully recovered over a period of few hours, all his injuries had disappeared.

Whilst readers may wish to raise questions about whether the event happened as described, I do use it to show that the failure of newspapers to report alleged miracles is something to do with our culture and not something that is universally true.

[ April 21, 2002: Message edited by: E_muse ]</p>

Theli

E-Muse...

I'm sorry for barging in on your little discussion here, but this is plainly wrong.

God can't be considered an object in the universe before you have solid proof of his existence. Before that he's a possible explaination used to explain obtained and measured data. If the measured/obtained data has another simplier explaination then that of god then ofcourse Ockhams Razor applies.
It's the same as with black holes, noone has ever been near one or obtained sufficient data to remove all possible doubt that one exists but it's the most plausable explaination to the data that has been measured/obtained. If someone says that it's a huge green pig that in the middle that sucks all matter to itself instead of a black hole then Ockhams razor applies. The black hole requires less and simplier explainations than the pig.
Even if the pig would most definatly be an object.

E_muse

I'll attempt to make myself clearer.

Firstly, I said that the possibility of God could not be rejected using Occam's Razor unless God is nothing more than an explanation because Occam's Razor is a logical rule governing explanations. I'm referring to Occam's Razor as a potential tool for disproving God.

Unfortunately, unlike the green pig, God is something that is known beforehand to defy explanation. A pig would require explanation, because a pig is explainable. God by the very definition of what he is, is not. Also, to liken God to the pig seems to be an attempt to make arguements about God look ridiculous. Even great atheistic thinkers such as Sartre and Betrand Russell have confessed to a desire for God. The concept of God seems to be something more than that which can simply be trawled from the human imagination.

One might say then, that Occam's Razor rules out God. However, the conclusions reached using Occam's Razor are not complete. It can only ensure that we reach the best naturalistic explanation possible using our powers of reason.

Also, the fact that such conclusions are the simplest yet incomplete means that the true answer is 'less simple' than the answer at hand. We can therefore confidently assert the true answer is more complicated and of course, in light of this, it would be impossible to predict that the true answer were not infinitely complex.

I entertain the notion that what lies outside of ourselves has the potential to defy explanation - or our abilities to rationalize it - much in the same way that I cannot describe colours or taste. These things are very real to me but I cannot explain them. I could not tell you what chocolate tastes like for example - except to say that it tastes like chocolate! Simply, language is incapable of describing the whole of human experience. There are things that can't simply be described in terms of mathematics or language.

If we cannot explain something as simple as this.. and something so common to our experience, how do we ever hope to explain God?

As for solid proof, well, what constitutes solid proof differs from person to person. And what could be considered solid proof in the scientific field differs from what would constitute solid proof in other fields.

I know Christians and speak to Christians who have had experiences that challenge me and lead me to believe that there is more to it than simply 'God did it'.

Of course, this leaves me with another question. Must I be able to contain something within my logic or be able rationalize it in order to consider it real?

And of course there's the whole question as to whether we can obtain information other than directly through our senses?

Lastly - I'm tired, so forgive my rambling.

[ April 21, 2002: Message edited by: E_muse ]</p>

Philosoft

So we have a priori knowledge that God is unknowable? Or is this a special case of something that we can know without being able to explain it? Are there any other nouns that describe things that we can know but not explain?