We could weigh up Hume’s critique of Aquinas, or Lane Craig’s Kalam argument. But what gets my attention with the Cosmological argument is the strength opposition by atheists like Fed Hoyle, Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose etc—I think because they recognise it implies a transcendent agent. Consequently, each has put considerable effort into developing models of the universe that avoid a beginning.
Thanks for those references (the Sikkema link was unreachable for me). The Venema article is bang on topic; for further thought. For example, I appreciate (though am not convinced by) his position stated thus: “Personally, I am reluctant to ascribe to miracle what is not yet well studied scientifically, since more work may reveal a “natural” explanation – “natural”, of course, meaning part of the reproducible structure of the cosmos that God has put in place and continues to uphold that allows us to investigate it using science.”
Abiogenesis is an area of active research. Scientists will be researching nature until the end of the age, I’m sure. And discoveries in science don’t preclude the existence of God. What an idea!
The doctrine of God’s providence has important implications for his sovereignty and care, as you say. Does this touch on related questions of cessationism and continuationism? (Not suggesting going that rabbit hole here though)
Scientist should never give up searching, otherwise they will never find an answer. And God should not be a placeholder for scientific ignorance. Besides, I believe that God is more interested in interacting with his people than in tweaking DNA.
You’re assuming that there is a naturalistic explanation. But that is not a given—in fact it’s a main point of contention. An ongoing failure to find a naturalistic explanation may not be “scientific ignorance” at all, but the opposite: scientific evidence pointing to supernatural action.
It’s incumbent on ID to be beware the god-of-the-gaps; similarly, EC to beware assuming a priori uninterrupted naturalism. Neither position gets carte blanche. Isn’t to believe otherwise the end of discussion?
Agree that saving faith does not and should not depend on signs and wonders.
However, perhaps for another topic is how EC meshes with Romans 1:20:
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
It may, but the instances to which I refer (including documented ones in my own not-quite-yet lifetime of threescore and ten and then some ; - ) do not include any supernatural ones where natural laws were broken. There are just a slew with preternatural timing and placing, many in sets of disjunct events tied together only by the objective meaning induced amongst them, and not just one-off coincidences. But then, when Jesus calmed the Sea of Galilee no natural laws were broken either – a man in a boat said something during a storm.
Suggest to whom? To me? No. Besides, there has been enormous progress in explaining the origin of life naturalistically. All the evidence points to a naturalistic origin and nothing points to a supernatural origin. The best you can do is point to the singularity of the beginning of the universe and the origin of all the laws of nature and say that many explanations fit those circumstances equally well in that we have no objective evidence to uphold any of them.
39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”
41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Mark 4:39-41
The sudden—unnatural—ceasing of the wind was precisely a display of divine intervention. That’s why they were filled with fear.
The disciples exclamation could be paraphrased as, “Who then is this, that can even override the laws the nature with a command?”
“There is active scientific research about the origin of life (a field of study called abiogenesis), and currently no consensus exists among experts on a plausible scientific explanation for the origin of life. Perhaps it was one of those miraculous events for which there can be no scientific explanation, or perhaps scientists will eventually develop a plausible explanation.”
Or that even with an infinite number of universes with different values for physical constants, you still have a probability of near-zero of getting the values we have.
I didn’t at all mean to imply it wasn’t or to detract from it and the sovereignty of the Person involved, but just to point out that no natural laws were broken. And that is still God’s frequent M.O. in his providential interventions in the lives of his children today. How he does it is a wonderful mystery!
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
38
We know from the principle of mediocrity that there are infinite universes from eternity. Furthermore it’s not chance that six measured constants have the value that they do, it’s necessity; nature self tunes.
This a little out of date, though it is certainly an area of very active research. There has been considerable progress recently in putting together the ways the chemical processes of life could have come about. Other things to look up in order to find this research is “metabolism first theories” and “pre-biotic evolution.” Of course the chemical processes of life are many and very complicated so this is a long and difficult project. Nevertheless I wouldn’t be surprised to see a robust theory for how all this happened to be put together in my own life time. Most importantly, I think we have the basic theoretical framework and we are just piecing together all the chemical details. Once they have that, they will probably be able to run computer simulations and even calculate some of the probabilities.
But wouldn’t you agree that Jesus’ miracles, by definition, involved breaking natural laws:
Storm calmed: laws of physics
Water into wine: laws of chemistry
Walk on water: law of gravity
Lazarus raised: law of entropy
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
41
Again, abiogenesis is being most ably progressed in research like Nick Lane’s in The Vital Question.
Naturalism, physicalism, materialism is the given as there is no (rational) warrant whatsoever for supernaturalism until we get to the intentionality - or not - of the (eternal, infinite) ground of being.