Spin-off: Methodological Naturalism as an Ideology?

I most certainly do see the moderation as even handed here but then you must consider my frame of reference. I’ve spent much more time on one atheist website where one of the moderators is a very disturbed person who did more to incite a lord of the flies ambiance than to dispel it.

I clearly have a very different WV but it hasn’t been a barrier at all. I’ve found a lot of common ground among both users and mods here. I guess one thing I’ve appreciated most is that there are many people with a lot of specialized training that I don’t have who share very generously, your pal Chisty among them. What makes it easy to learn from her and others here is they don’t dwell on their qualifications and they don’t use them to intimidate or bully those who know less in their area. There is a good deal of genuine humility here.

When I was on atheist forums the Christian apologists (they called them chew toys) would come around and very often throw out lots of qualifications and make long cut and paste posts in which they would try to snow people with their self declared qualifications. I haven’t been as eager to engage you because I experience you as doing some of those things too.

I wouldn’t go that far. Maybe you’re just insecure or have terrible skills at reading a room. I’m not at all sure the ways you rub me and others the wrong way are intended for that effect. I do wish you’d come down off your high horse and engage as a peer and when it is your expertise which would most benefit a conversation I wish you’d be more generous about it.

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This started in another thread with: “methodologies that exclude divine creation from the outset (methodological naturalism)” - @DavidS

@cewoldt then expanded on that to compare OT scholar John Walton with mathematician and apologist John Lennox. The former embraced MNism, which the latter rejects it.

John Walton defends the outdated, and highly controversial, ideology called “methodological naturalism”, which was coined by ethicist & administrator at Wheaton College in 1983, according to historian Ron Numbers. Walton’s now also working at Wheaton College, where Paul de Vries worked when he coined MNism. That doesn’t have anything to do with Walton’s full-on support and indeed, usage of it in his book of de Vries’ ideology, does it?

Frankly, I just don’t value the contribution of MNism. To me, it’s junk thinking by Christians trying to be “secularists”. It’s simply pathetic philosophy that shouldn’t be used because there are better options (which some people are not yet aware of). Thus, I avoid it, like James McKay. It’s a much more “unfortunate” term than “evolutionism” or “scientism”. It’s a seriously misleading term from the start in de Vries’ article.

“Science education can promote methodological naturalism (refusing to resort to a “God did it” explanation in their empirical study) without indoctrinating students in metaphysical naturalism”. - Walton

Can science education promote ideology, Dr. Walton? This is just silly talk from de Vries coming from Walton’s tongue. Nope. No thanks. Wild goose chase in Walton’s book, just as Craig said. If it’s possible that Walton could be wrong about anything in that book, then we’ve got a problem with his dependance on de Vries’ ideology.

And frankly, it’s really not hard to show that Walton is a poor philosopher in this book, writing about “self-acknowledged teleological platforms”. So he’s a poor philosopher, so what?

The record shows that Craig is correct in this case. Christy is probably just once again promoting the division that Walton seeks to perpetuate, i.e. between “methodological” and “metaphysical”. Christy’s position nevertheless still leaves out, whether conveniently for her own support of MNism or not, that “naturalism” itself is the problematic ideology . This is a non-starter topic at BioLogos, since there are literally NO PHILOSOPHERS here who would face it. Even Thomas Burnett wouldn’t call “scientism” an ideology, since he thought it sounded “pejorative” - what a silly reason to avoid the correct term! = P

Christy seems to believe in this case that adding the adjective “methodological” suddenly makes “naturalism” non-ideological, but that doesn’t make much sense. That’s her “magic language” at work.

Walton in his book depends much for his definition on this topic in footnote 8 in Proposition 13:

Materialism is the view that the material is all there is (bottom layer only). Naturalism describes a cause-and-effect process in scientific terms, with the natural laws as the foundation. Naturalism describes the operation of the bottom layer (sometimes referred to as methodological naturalism). Materialism says the bottom layer is all there is (sometimes referred to as metaphysical naturalism). Christians need not deny naturalistic operations , but they denounce materialism.”

I’d be glad to elaborate on it elsewhere, but this is weak philosophy with misleading claims about what Christians need or “need not deny”, with a rather strange definiton of “naturalism” as if it were “scientific”.

“Methodological naturalism refers to the self-imposed restriction that no appeal will be made to supernatural agency” - Walton (Proposition 18) (Repeated: ““methodological naturalism” which is the acknowledgment that the scientific method only has tools to examine the natural world and cannot investigate the supernatural.” - Christy)

No, that’s poor, innacurate philosophy, no matter how aligned BioLogos is theologically with Walton’s views. The “restriction that no appeal will be made to supernatural agency” is not MNism. It’s instead more accurately and precisely called “anti-supernaturalism”. If anyone here disagrees, please say why the more accurate and precise term should be discarded instead for the innacurate and imprecise term? It makes no sense why Walton calls what is actually “anti-supernaturalism” instead “methodological naturalism”. No sense at all. Being clearer would have been better if Walton’s thinking would have allowed it.

@Gregory

If we called it “the scientific method” instead of “methodological naturalism” would that make you feel better?

Again, if God is the ground of being, He leaves no trace in nature. Methodological naturalism is the only approach that can accommodate that fact.

First, there are multiple scientific methods, not a single “THE” method across the range of sciences. Every student who has any hope of passing a Philosophy of Science 101 course will 1) know that, and 2) correct their language so that they don’t express outdated thinking, such as the existence of a universal SINGULAR “scientific method”.

Would it make a difference if you spoke of “scientific methods”, instead of “THE scientific method”? Yes.

Likewise, yes, it makes much more sense to speak of “natural scientific methods” instead of “methodological naturalism”. Otherwise, ideological naturalism too easily gets snuck in for free, sometimes on the back of philosophically-stunted Christians who promote MNism unwisely, not realizing what comes along with it.

I expect atheists, like yourself, @T_aquaticus, to both embrace and promote MNism. That’s “normal” for atheists and agnostics. I’m saying it shouldn’t be “normal” at BioLogos among evangelical Protestants.

Such as . . . . ?

That reminds me of how PR people renamed certain fish species to make them sound more exotic and edible, such as the toothfish being renamed the Chilean sea bass. If renaming MN into the scientific methods makes you feel better, then all the more power to you.

It’s surely more accurate and “neutral” to speak of natural scientific methods. MNism is an ideology best to dump. BioLogos is blind to ideology, so some BioLogosians unwisely embrace it. Wheaton College trust, apparently.

Crack a book in the philosophy of science, T., and you’ll quickly learn about multiple scientific methods It’s never too late to start, though you’ve demonstrated great resistance to wisdom with your scientific reductionism.

MN is a method, not an ideology. MN is the scientific methods, using your terminology. They are one in the same.

It sounds as if you cracked those books, so why don’t you fill us in? I tend to think that doing science makes you more of an expert on how science is done than someone who sits in an office philosophizing about science, but what do I know, right?

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MNism is NOT “just a scientific method”. How can you continue to miss this? They are NOT one and the same thing. Naturalism itself is not a “method”, it is simply an ideology. A method is a method. Naturalism is not an method. Please stop trying to blur this.

Fill you in?! Why not? Cuz you won’t learn it yourself. This has been demonstrated many times. You could just read, but “scientistic” minds are distorted to “not get it”. How to “learn some philosophy” if you won’t love wisdom, T.?

We aren’t talking about naturalism itself. We are talking about methodological naturalism which is a method, and it is the natural scientific methods (as you use the term). They are one in the same.

MN: Test hypotheses using empirical observations.
the natural scientific methods: Test hypotheses using empirical observations.

Learning bad philosophy does not make you wise.

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“Methodological” isn’t what the ideology is about. It’s about the naturalism, silly! :laughing:

Naturalism is an ideology, full stop. It doesn’t cease from being an ideology just because an adjective is put in front of it. ROTFL :rofl:

This is a keeper from a self-labelled “atheist biologist”: “Learning bad philosophy does not make you wise.” - T_aquaticus

Evolutionary creationism a totally different thing compared to creationism. How can this possibly be if words are not allowed to work that way?

This is where Christy gets her naturalistic approach to “Science” from. You two hold EXACTLY the same conflating view. Hmm…

Methodological naturalism & “evolutionary creationism” seem to be as high as BioLogos can go.

You’ve accused many here of being bullies - but I’m only seeing insults coming from you. In fact, somebody asked you to “fill them in,” and you responded by informing them that they don’t love wisdom, among other things. All-in-all, given your history here, I think you’re being charitably given more than a fair amount of opportunity to make your case. Are you going to squander it generating more bad will? …Now I see laughter at your conversation partners. It’s almost as if you desperately want to be chased away.

BTW - I happen to have been at least [actually - more than] a little sympathetic with your thesis that there are ideologies lurking pretty much everywhere. But you aren’t making any progress in advancing that case.

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Yeah, we’re conspiring together to lead the world astray. Or, maybe we independently came to that understanding based on what we were taught in science class.

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Quite wrong. One just needs to step outside of BioLogos to see that. Are you serious?!

Evolutionary creationism was coined by Denis Lamoureux. Let’s just say ECism is an ideological diversion all of it’s own!

They’re obviously not “totally different”; they both INTENTIONALLY embrace “creationism”.

And mean different things by the word creationism. That’s the whole point.

Nah, don’t give an inch @T_aquaticus. The trouble is, that’s already been given, in the thin end of the wedge of the term evolutionary creation beyond theistic evolution. This is what enables @Gregory here. So the battle will rage at that beachhead forever. I’m most comfortable with the uncomfortable Kierkegaardian (now there was philosophically-stunted Christian!) Christian existentialist position and recoil from the Evangelical language that BioLogos has no alternative but to use. At it’s most liberal edge we overlap. Some.

Methodological and even metaphysical naturalism do not invalidate faith in the slightest. Baselessly arrogantly opposing them in fear, in blind moral and existential panic does. So near, yet so far.

Sorry, but that’s obviously not going to fly once you get outside of BioLogos into a biology laboratory.

Creationism is still creationism. That’s the whole point. You’re not going to spin your way out of that, even if you’d really like to.

It makes the most sense to reject ALL creationism as ideology, not just some of it that Protestant ex-YECists don’t like. That’s the “most fair” way. Reject ideological creationism across the board, which does not require unbelieving in Divine Creation.

Evolutionary creationism = ideology
Naturalism = ideology
Methodological naturalism = ideology
Theistic evolutionism = ideology

Evolutionary biology = natural science
Evolutionary creation = attempt at science, philosophy, theology collaboration, not “just science”
Theistic evolution = attempt at science, philosophy, theology collaboration, not “just science”

It’s much simpler and clearer this way. And it makes it possible to push back against evolutionism not just as an atheist worldview, which is a HUGE advance. What do you find this difficult about this?

This is new for you folks at BioLogos, so perhaps that is why you are reacting so painfully, at what seems pretty obvious and painless for those willing.

This is pure, blind, mind paralysing terror.