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John Walton defends the outdated, and highly controversial, ideology called “methodological naturalism”, which was coined by ethicist & administrator at Wheaton College in 1983, according to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.