> The first thing I'm going to say is that there isn't much more that I can say on this subject. I am not an expert on these issues, merely one who has done a fait bit of reading, and I find that the more this thread continues, the more I would have to quote larger and larger portions of things that I have read in order to make my points. Since this leads to violation of copyright laws pretty quickly, I won't do this. What I WILL do is request (once more) that any who wish to see the Christian viewpoint on why science shows that God exists should read The Case For Faith by Lee Strobel (henceforth referred to as "the book"), particularly objections 2 and 3. In two separate posts now, gremlinn has stated (quite reasonably) that taking the "supernatural" (a term I now regret using) as a solution when no good natural solution presents itself is a non-answer. I agree. However, the historical evidence FOR the existence of a deity who can perform miracles is fairly well documented in objection #2 of the book, with five other texts on the subject of miracles referenced at the end of the chapter. I found one or two of the points within the chapter to be less than compelling, but again, I felt that this was because of space considerations, and I would like to read the reference texts for more information. As well, objection #3 deals with the evidence that the nature of life itself points to the existence of an intelligent designer--again, the reference texts would be good for more support.
>

I won't counter these arguments, because I probably know even less of the evidence for either side than you do. It's an interesting debate on its own, but it's not that relevant to what I've been arguing.

> > I'm not sure what you mean by a 'viable' explanation. If you mean one that is consistent with other knowledge and explanations, then choosing a supernatural explanation of something is about as viable as you can get. By saying that something doesn't follow natural laws, you have *no* chance of arriving at a contradiction with knowledge of the natural world.
>
> This argument is sound, but again presumes that God is not a part of the natural world insofar as "the natural world" is defined as "that which is scientifically explainable." Technically, the Christian viewpoint is that God is not a part of the natural world, but that He IS a scientific reality and thus could probably be described as a "natural cause" for events (at some level). I think it is safe to say that if God could be proven to be real, then God's intervention in other events would not be supernatural (to the extent that supernatural means "unexplainable by science") anymore. Thus, my definition of "supernatural" would simply be "outside of nature". Since science is based on what we can observe, though, I do not believe that the supernatural has to be defined as "outside of science" since it IS reasonable to believe that the supernatural could be observed.
>

Okay, that's a good point. I agree that something supernatural could be observed (though it wouldn't be necessarily provably supernatural). What's missing is another crucial element: the ability to be predicted accurately after some sort of law is formulated. I'll take the definition of the natural world as that which can be observed, and *in theory* predicted (note that this precludes considering something not yet fully understood as being supernatural). Everything else I'll call supernatural.

[Interesting side note: by quantum theory, we can't completely predict *any* physical property. So maybe we'd have to replace "predict" by "predict probabilistically" or something, at least on the microscopic level.]

Now that I think about it, I guess this definition would make God part of the supernatural world. After all, no one would venture to say we can both observe *and* predict the actions of God, whether or not we believe in God's existence. I'm not sure what this changes from my previous posts, now that I've revised a definition twice. I think my ideas are the same, at least.

> I do realize that this argument by itself holds no value; it is based on the premise that God exists, when I have not given any evidence to establish such a premise.

Heh, there's no problem with that. If you assume God exists, then he's supernatural by the above definition. If you assume he doesn't exist, then he's only metaphysical and thus supernatural anyway. :)


> > I didn't mean viable. I meant plausible according to one's reason. And, of course, everyone reasons differently, and has a different view of the natural workings of the universe. If you thought that God was provably a natural part of the universe (I personally don't, but I'm not saying that my reasoning is any better than anyone else's), it would most definitely be in your right to accept as a plausible explanation what I might consider implausible. This is definitely not an absolute term.
>
> A large portion of objection #3 would be required for me to answer this. In particular, the section under the heading "Reasoning by Analogy" (on pages 109-111 in my copy). This chapter shows not only where other theories fail to explain the origins of life, but it also shows how what we know about life and DNA points strongly to an intelligent designer. Since I am not going to post the details of this argument here, I would hope that you would read the book before disputing this point, since the point isn't even included here.
>

Regarding the origins of life debate: I wouldn't dispute this point even if I HAD read the book. I could only dispute it if I were an expert on molecular biology at the very least. I probably never will be. However, I don't doubt that for whatever evidence on either side of the debate, there's someone on the other side who can argue that it's invalid. Since I can't tell who's right from my limited knowledge, what good does it do for me? I'd also be subject to confirmation bias (oooh, that came up in chat today) when reading the evidence since my gut feeling goes to the "natural (not caused by a deity) formation of life" side.

> > If we can verify or prove a natural law (which is all that science deals with), then there must be a natural mechanism which causes it. If no natural explanation has been formulated for a phenomenon, that doesn't mean that the empirical data leads to a supernatural explanation. It just means that no natural explanation has been found *yet*. To say such data leads to a supernatural explanation is to say that not only do we not have a natural explanation, but it is provable that no such natural explanation could exist. I'm not even sure such a proof would be possible.
>
> I disagree here. Again the term "supernatural" crops up. I feel that there is a body of consistent evidence which points to the existence of a divine being; again, though (*sigh*)

I didn't say that everything must have a natural explanation. I'm saying that the temporary lack of a natural explanation shouldn't lead one into choosing a supernatural explanation. However, if one does end up choosing the supernatural explanation (as I've defined supernatural), you must accept the fact that you haven't done this *scientifically*. It follows by my definitions of science and the 'natural' world that science deals with *exactly* all of the natural world, and nothing more, and thus the end result of a scientific inquiry can not have a supernatural explanation. Like I said before, I'm not saying you can't validate knowledge without using science. Just don't say you can use science to establish something that it can't theoretically address. And of course, you can't use science for everything. You can't scientifically establish morality or the meaning of life (if you think you can, I'd be REALLY interested in seeing how that's wrong). I'm not throwing God in that category, because I can't deny that there may be evidence for his existence.

> I will simply have to say "read the book." (I am really beginning to wish that I had a doctorate in philosphy and years of experience studying this stuff so that I could say it for myself.) In this case, though, I don't think the one book would be sufficient to convince you of the existence of this body of evidence. Much of the evidence is referred to in passing. Please be aware that developing a scientific belief in the existence of God cannot be done in a short paperback book which covers eight issues where only two deal with science.
>
> Even more important here is the metaphysical question which is raised by your argument here. You said "If no natural explanation has been formulated for a phenomenon, that doesn't mean that the empirical data leads to a supernatural explanation." This is true; it does NOT mean that. However, you also said, "It just means that no natural explanation has been found *yet*." This is a problem of metaphysics. This solution assumes that there MUST be a natural explanation.

Again, if it's a explanation that you arrive at scientifically, there must be a natural explanation. Same discussion as above.

> However, you have no actual reason to make this assumption any more than you do to make the assumption that a supernatual explanation must exist. This is a question-begging argument. The reasonable approach to take in such a situation is to take your pool of live options (as I had mentioned previously) and select the most probable solution. As for the issue of plausibility, you said previously,
>
> "In this sense, I *don't* think that 'supernatural' explanations should be discarded completely, but rather kept in the back of the mind as evidence that may help extend the boundaries of the part of the natural world that is known. When the formerly 'supernatural' becomes tied in with a larger, still consistent body of knowledge, it becomes natural and can be considered part of a plausible explanation. But not before then."
>
> This needs to be addressed. First of all, historical evidence does exist which ties the existence of God in consistently with our existing body of knowledge. (Read the book.) More importantly, though, you said that supernatural explanations should be kept "in the back of the mind". Why? What reason do you have that makes the supernatural any less plausible?

Because under a scientific inquiry, a (seemingly) supernatural explanation is one that is unprecedented as an explanation for other questions. Again, this only applies to questions that you try to answer scientifically.

> This is a very key issue from a philosophical standpoint--we base science on a number of assumptions which often tend to beg the question, at least when we try to reduce the importance of the supernatural.
>

I'm not really sure where the circular reasoning here is. Is it that science supposedly assumes that every question has a natural explanation, and goes on to prove that everything can be explained naturally? If so, I don't think that assumption is made at all.

> > This is probably the same point, and I may have messed up the terminology in the last post. In some places, I should have replaced 'supernatural' by 'believed to be supernatural'. 'Supernatural' doesn't mean not *yet* understood by natural laws, it means not understandable by natural laws, period. Thus, not only have supernatural phenomena not been verified, they can not be scientifically verified even in principle. Of course, you're free to say that something can be verified through faith and introspection alone. And no one has any right to say that's invalid. Just don't call it science.
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> And THIS is the problem I have been having with the term "supernatural" all this time. I do not think that most of the things we have been labelling as supernatural should be labelled that way. The problem here is not that God's actions cannot be scientifically verified (thus making them supernatural); rather, the problem is that we have not established God as a valid scientific entity which could serve as a cause for those events presently labelled as supernatural. As such, I think the real issue in this discussion should be "Can God be scientifically verified?" and sadly, I am not capable of providing sufficient evidence to convince you of that.
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> I have a lot more that I could say on this subject, but the relevance is questionable, so I'll leave it at this.
>
> I started writing this about three hours ago, and then my roommate and I had a great discussion on metaphysics and the history of science. I then went back through this post and edited in bits of that stuff--now I'm so tired of the whole thing that I fear I have gone and gotten incoherent at some points. I will try to clean up this mess a bit later. Feel free to ask me what I meant by some of the stuff I said, so long as it doesn't pertain to my references to the book, which I won't go into any further.
>
> Don "Needs a philosophy degree" Monkey

I've probably been incoherent at many places, too. The terminology is all really vague and is different from what other people use. I don't think I really am disagreeing with you about the truth of various claims, just whether science should address them.

--gremlinn