Ojuice5001

From Starboy:

I'm not so sure that makes sense. Surely there is a point where a natural explanation becomes less likely than the best supernatural explanation. For instance, under your proposed explanation of the resurrection, Jesus still should have been severely injured. So it has the odd implication that Jesus's disciples saw a badly wounded Jesus, and somehow or other, came to the conclusion that he did not have a narrow escape, but died and came back to life.

I'm not saying this means we should accept the resurrection. But surely, if this kind of problem pervaded all explanations of the resurrection to a great enough degree, we should accept it.

Anyway, though, I was talking about something else. I was talking about a supernatural explanation that is completely compatible with the natural explanation. The idea is that some natural processes are indeterministic, so that a supernatural agent can make things happen one way rather than another.

[ December 23, 2002: Message edited by: Ojuice5001 ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

Well said! You need only tell us which processes are "indeterministic", which "supernatural agent can make things happen", and how you come to determine each.

Ojuice5001

An event is indeterministic if it is both on a relatively small scale (say, smaller than an elephant), and unpredictable by naturalistic means. Examples include dice, certain decisions made by humans and warm-blooded animals, breaking a leg, and the catalysts for weather. (Weather itself happens on a large scale, but is determined by small, random events.) I got the idea because: These processes are no more complex than other processes that can be predicted, but they are not predictable. Indeterminism certainly seems to be the best explanation.

I'm not sure what you meant by asking, which supernatural agents can affect indeterministic processes? My answer is, all of them that interact with the natural world at all. I am skeptical about the existence of miracles, after all, and directed chance is about all that's left.

emotional

The question of deterministic and indeterministic effects is irrelevant to the naturalism-theism debate. The claim theism makes for the real world is that of overarching control - the existence of an overarching external sovereignty over all effects. I give the application of it in two instances:

Naturalistic Meteorology: rain falls because it falls. It falls of its own accord, without regards as to whether plants need water. It is because it falls that plants happen to grow. Mechanistic, not teleological, ie because the plants need water.

Theistic Meteorology: rain falls because an external sovereign (God or Rain-God) causes it to fall. The sovereign wishes to water the plants, so He causes rain to fall. Teleological.

Naturalistic Water-Boiling: I want to boil water for making coffee, so I turn the teapot on.

Theistic Water-Boiling: God has some purpose in having boiled water for coffee, so He makes me, though I am a free-willed agent, boil water for making coffee. The plan of God is mysterious.

Naturalistic Nations-War: the US has an interest in Iraq (perhaps lowering the price of Iraqi oil, or hunting down terrorists), so the US attacks Iraq.

Theistic Nations-War: God has a plan of history to carry, and the US war against Iraq, although both US and Iraq are free-willed agents, follows in accord with this plan.

Naturalistic Sickness: a few germs need resources for multiplying, and they happened to find me. I get sick.

Theistic Sickness: God wants to visit me upon something wrong I did, or give me some sort of message, so He sends the germs to make me sick.

Both theistic and naturalistic explanations are valid, but methinks the theistic explanation fails the following points: 1) anthropocentrism (appeal to the vanity of mankind's centrality), 2) mystery (raising more questions than it answers).

The final blow to the theistic worldview comes from the fact and theory of Evolution. Evolution is a non-teleological process, with no plan in mind (to quote George Gaylord Simpson: "Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind"). Since Evolution, the very process by which biodiversity on the planet has come about, is purposeless, it is safe to conclude that everything is without purpose - mechanistic, naturalistic, and not teleological, theistic.

If theists claim, despite all the evidence against it, that the universe is still teleological, then ON THEM is the burden of proof.