Is this statement testable? Or is it a philosophical claim about the limits of empirical testability? It’s humorous that all the people usually critiquing metaphysics are actually engaging in metaphysical arguments to do so.
Vinnie
It isn’t HUMOROUS … it is more IRONIC.
For example: Those familiar with discussions regarding the Paranormal wouold be aware of the typical description of ghosts being “immaterial” - - and thus it is concluded that ghosts cannot interact with the “material” realm. This is a metaphysical claim, and it is a claim that is impossible to confirm. Paranormal “specialists” who use electronic equipment to record paranormal lights, sounds, or movement of material objects apparently don’t believe that assertion.
There is no “supernatural rulebook” which says what is or isn’t possible.
I don’t know why you are bringing ghosts into a question of God’s existence and nature.The latter is sui generis. That you don’t recognize this is a problem with your conception of God going in. If ghosts exist, they too depend on God like everything else. But establishing “ghosts” (whatever those are) exist and that paranormal specialists (whatever those are) are not engaged in pseudoscience (good luck) is another matter. Comparing God to ghosts is what I would expect from a recent atheist thumper who is no longer posting here.
Vinnie
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As metaphysics is all about abstract that makes it inaccessible to the scientific methodology
In many ways it is not humorous at all but sad that some people cannot see beyond the tangible and measurable
Richard
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My point about “ghosts” and all things supernatural is that there is no rulebook
on metaphysics. I even stated this point in my last post. I find your tone overly
combative, argumentative and almost silly.
You tried to deflect my comments by dismissing it as more metaphysics.
You proved my point by making the very observation.
Whether it is Ghosts, God or Karma - - it is all metaphysics.
The incompatibility I see is that metaphysics is dogmatic while the scientific methodology requires testability and falsifiability.
I think it is misguided that people claim others can’t see beyond the tangible and measurable just because they don’t believe in the same things they do. I see beauty and compassion. I experience elation, fear, love, and a whole host of other intangible and immeasurable things.
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I think that there is a far more serious concern…
how can the Second Coming be considered a real event when it goes against the very fabric of science that Theistic Evolutionists hold so dear?
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Dead bodies that have long experienced biological death and decay being raised to fully conscious life (scientifically impossible)
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A human rising up into the atmosphere against the laws of gravity…to meet Christ in the air (scientifically impossible)
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Humans travelling into the vacumm of outer space (scientifically impossible)
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Spirits talking…an entitiy without a voicebox with which to manipulate air molecules to make sound is scientifically impossible!
If the Flood wasnt real because God couldnt do that, if Creation wasnt real 6,000 years ago because God couldnt create a fully mature planet (despite the text saying Adam was a man and not an embryo or infant), then how can he come again in the clouds of heaven at the Second Coming?
@adamjedgar (cc: @moderators )
I ask you to pull back from the abyss. Rhetoric aimed against one of the most ancient human impulse (the great hope of eternal life!) is not helpful here at BioLogos. There are plenty of non-theist sites where you can banter on such themes to your heart’s content.
Your post is like a slap in the face to the very founders of BioLogos and its mission.
I hope you understand me in the best possible spirit.
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That’s a poor way of putting it. It would be more accurate to say that the statement “God intervenes in nature” is meaningless.
Or to borrow a phrase from Luther, God is “in, with, and under” every event from quarks on up, something summed up in Paul’s quote from a Greek poet, “In him we live and move and have our being”.
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It is a supernatural event for which science can say nothing.
Nobody says God couldn’t do it. There is no evidence that He did.
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What a marvelous quote!!! And I’m not usually a fan of Paul.
Like energy levels for electrons? put in the right energy and different things happen?
Miracles don’t show that God is (exists), they show what He is like.
Exactly – it’s a meaningless statement.
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It doesn’t. Nothing in science says that power from outside this universe can’t enter into this universe.
Nope. Humans do that all the time.
Sorry, but humans do that, too.
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I think there is a third option. God created for relationship and thus the rules (natural law) allows for God’s participation in events. However, relationship is not control, and participation is not intervention. IOW natural law is never set aside but natural law is not a causally closed system.
Accordingly your objections to options 1 and 2 do not apply to this third option. God is involved and that involvement is part of the original design.
This is an argument to which I am opposed and I see no functional distinction from pantheism. It raises the question of whether God is unwilling or incapable of real creation – creating something that can stand on its own. And neither of these look viable to me – neither of these are a God which I can admire, neither are an authentic relationship.
A deeper question: is “something that can stand on its own” even a meaningful phrase?
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Hey, George, long time no see! I see I have been tagged on a lot of moderator things. Full disclosure, I had major spinal surgery Tueday, I just got home from the hospital and am high on a number of drugs, and you all are just going to have to fight amongst yourselves without playground monitors for a while. Other moderators have finals weeks and first semester grades due, and the general implosion of democracy to deal with, so for the love of all things good and holy, can you all just please play nice unsupervised for a few weeks? Thanks in advance!
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There are different views about this but at least some part of the apparent disagreements is just differing use of language. The use of terms and way to speak within the A-T or the other branches of philosophy differs from what is common in daily life. It is like two persons using similar-looking words but speaking different languages. Much wider gap than between British vs. US English.
With apparent miracles, one crucial point is that they differ from what is the ‘normal’ way how things happen. This difference needs to be expressed somehow. The way how philosophy expresses it may be quite accurate but that is not the way how people normally use language.
I might say that miracles are ‘statistical outliers’, without commenting on whether the causes leading to the observation are ‘natural’ or not. That kind of use of language may be ok for those who understand statistics but would not be useful for the others.
Some may speak about an intervention of God, without meaning all the attached claims that you associate to the expression because of your background in metaphysical philosophy. The expression is used just to tell that something extraordinary happened and it was the work of God.
With miracles, we do not usually know what caused the extraordinary to happen. It may have happened through an unusual path of ‘natural’ causation, it may have been the supernatural touch of God directing the process to a path that would otherwise be impossible, or it might be a more radical exception in the way how this universe operates. We simply do not know. We can just be thankful for what happened.
An additional complication is that people use the word ‘miracle’ in very different ways. What is a ‘miracle’ for someone may just be a fortunate ‘coincidence’ for another. We might say that we are miracles - the miracle of existence and subjective being. Someone else would classify as ‘miracles’ only those cases that clearly violates the basic laws of the universe - I assume that such a definition leads to the false(?) conclusion that there are no cases of ‘miracles’.
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I don’t really feel that I can add anything to the discussion because despite being a theist i don’t believe in creation. As in I don’t believe in intelligent design. As in planning or tinkering by a supernatural entity to create life, the universe or guides things like evolution. A lot of this stuff really places humans as the center of the universe.
There is also a concept. “everything is to good for us to have been random or is it we are random because it was good.”
Kind of like how we can look at everything in hindsight and believe it led to us by design or by chance. I am the latter.
An easier example would be a rock rolling down a mountain and killing a man in his car on his way to see a meteor show at a special spot hos dad took him to decades earlier.
We could feel like it’s by design.
For that rock to have fallen it had to have been formed. It was formed by uplift creating a mountain that begin before dinosaurs was here. It had to become dislodged and weaken from wind, traffic and water. Those elements go here form earth being created from this and that. Stars exploding sending matter and energy out. The car being created. A mind thinking of that brand, that model and a man who even thought of a car to begin with. That man has a whole long line of ancestors all the way back to two lunged bony fish. His dad stumbling upon the spot and taking his son there decades before. The kid remembering it. The sled rock being formed. Then all of this stuff going back millions and billions of years in the making all end at the same time. The meteorites downing up in the atmosphere, the man dying , the rock falling the car being crushed. Almost seems like a master plan. Or it’s just horrible coincidences.
That is absolutey exactly the aim there…one day intelligent people might finally realise that attempting to reconcile darwinian evolution with a book that is, at its very theological core, at odds with said belief to the extent that unless one is willing to face the scientific reality that men cant be raised from the dead, or rise into the sky against gravity, exist in the vacuum of outerspace …and that spirits cant talk…perhapsthen they will make a choice to either throw out futile faith or, accept that the proven historical stories of the bible demand that the darwinian evolutionary scientific approach must be thrown out.
Whether you are willing to admit it or not, bible history is real…one cant pretend that Eber (Shems great grandson) for example didnt exist. We know that Nahor, Abrhams great grandfather was E ers son Pleleg’s grandson… we also now the almost exact time in history scietifically (from non biblical methods) when these people actually lived…dates that align with the biblical timeline. To be able to trace history back that close to Noah, that is devastating for the Darwinian Christians theology…and that is just one of quite a notable number of significant historical problems which are proven well beyond what is required for the balance of probabilities. The reality of the existence of these indivduals cannot be explained away.
It is now believed that Noah and Abrahams lives likely either directly overlapped or very nearly did…they could have actually been alive at the same time or not too many years apart. What this means is that Eber and Ebers offspring would have absolutely known Abraham as well as Noah…its difficult to think they passed on a false tradition…that Noah claimed falsly that he survived a global flood!
Its rather odd that few here are willing to dive into biblical history. Atheistic theories cant disprove history..its a very inconvenient slap in the face for TEism. I dont have to prove this stuff…its easily researched if you woud just bother to go and look for it…this stuff is real…not assumed theory.
I am sorry @adamjedgar but you take the ant-science too far. There is just no need compare such things as the Ascension with Evolution. Science is not trying to disprove such things. Evolution is not an attempt to disprove Scripture.
Your all or nothing approach does not work, nordoes it need to.
Richard
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