Good question! Supernatural
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I agree with Christy on this. Alvin Plantinga has a bunch of really interesting books on this, like Warranted Christian Belief. He makes a good point that many beliefs we have, like memory beliefs, beliefs in the existence of the past, other minds, etc are not taken on the basis of other beliefs or necessarily supported by logic.
I think it is unfortunate and misleading that we sometimes hear science is the “only” means of finding truth/knowledge. Much of this seems to be the relics of Logical Positivsm (which is considered to be “dead”). When we begin to think only questions science can answer are worth asking, we go too far. It has no ability to answer many of the deepest questions many of us ask: Is there a purpose to my life? How should I treat others?
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- I’m personally averse to that word because it tends to evoke notions of “magical”, “unnatural”, et al., which lend themselves to the belief that a non-human God is a magician, unnatural, unreal, or a delusion/fantasy. I’m not a fan of fearing or worshiping any of the latter.
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I got a response from Plantinga on a letter I wrote him about my interaction with his student and colleague Paul Draper.
It would be great if scientists and philosophers recognized that an uncaused cause is unobservable by nature. That would help a lot I think.
Plantinga gave a nice little talk, which I can no longer find online, about what happens when a freshman philosophy student has an insight that the senior professor for all his laborious reading of philosophy texts in the original languages missed.
Yes, but when you as a non-scientist “take issue” with established definitions and methodologies of science, it’s kind of irrelevant. You don’t get to decide things should be different. Science is what it is. You can either be aware of what terms mean and what they don’t mean and what people are saying with they assert something is “scientitific” or you can remain in ignorance, but you wishing science meant something different really will impact nothing.
I still don’t know what this means. Are you saying a conclusion can be based on good or bad science? Sure. Or good or bad logic. Or credible or unreliable testimony. Any conclusion can be evaluated to determine whether or not it is warranted. I don’t see how any of this has to do with questions like “is methodological naturalism central to the scientific method?” or “can science investigate God?” It seems like you are conflating a bunch of general terms from epistemology and reasoning with “science.” One can come to a conclusion based on all different kinds of reasoning, all different kinds of evidence, derived from many different ways knowing. No one kind of reasoning, or evidence, or epistemological tool guarantees a conclusion is true because finite, fallible humans are always doing the reasoning, evidence gathering and interpretation, and ascertaining.
That is one meaning of the word and it never stopped meaning that, but we shouldn’t have to explain that words have a semantic range and some words have multiple senses. You can have the science of psychology and the science of linguistics. But when you say something like “Science has demonstrated…” or “Science has proven beyond reasonable doubt,” you aren’t using the word to mean a department of study, you are using the word to mean a method. AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD CAN’T INVESTIGATE GOD.
True. One of his books, Where the Conflict Really Lies really helped me understand the idea of warranted belief.
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Is this yelling?
Did you see my comment about how the immediate effect of an uncaused cause may or may not be supernatural depending on how the term is defined?
Science can theoretically evaluate such an effect, and in the case of miraculous healings or the history of evolution, based on statistical science one might reasonably conclude we are approaching a boundary where God has acted in the world.
Is this beyond all reasonable doubt? No. And neither is solipsism if one wants to take it that far… thanks for that Plantinga!
It’s just typing passionately. 
Yes, but it just sounded like word salad to me. I don’t have any mental hooks for uncaused causes, nor am I concerned about describing or defining them because I don’t think the concept is useful to the things that interest me in the real world. Speculation about uncaused causes is metaphysics. If people like speculating about such things, more power to them, but I don’t think coming up with definitions of uncaused causes and deciding whether or not the investigation of uncaused causes fits in the discipline of science is worth investing in.
I disagree that evaluating likelihoods is “proving” anything at all about God’s involvement. Plus, behind that is a premise that if a natural explanation or a natural probability for an event exists, then God isn’t involved, and I reject that premise as not consistent with Christian revelation.
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I can agree with that. As well as with what is especially miraculous, sometimes naturalistic explanations don’t cut it. That woman who was healed on video with her condition impeccably documented and skeptics supposed she faked being a paralytic for 20 years is problematic.
Interestingly, while it’s totally unobservable, it’s what you are as a person who can act without being acted upon 
What is problematic about it? I don’t personally find what skeptics do or don’t believe threatening to my own faith. I don’t know why some people are so interested in convincing them they are wrong or what they think convincing them they are wrong would accomplish. “Proving” a woman was healed wouldn’t “prove” Jesus died for our sins to reconcile us to God. That’s not provable. None of the major Christian faith claims can be proven.
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- So, in your dictionary, “an uncaused cause” is something that’s alive?
As human beings, I’d say we are contingent and yet necessary with respect to our acting.
Remember the key is being able to act without being acted upon.
- Just connecting my set of dots with some of your dots, or at least trying to.
- At this time, this is my set of dots:
- Your “uncaused cause” appears to correspond to my #1 Concrete Animate set.
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Problematic in that it’s a reasonable hypothesis the methodological naturalist can make.
Funny how often you hear this, and yet Peter clearly says in Acts, “therefore know for certain.”
Where would the solipsist fit on the chart as necessary in existence and with respect to acting?
From the beginning. That definition applies just as well to liberal arts such as history and literature, and while there are subjective aspects to these fields, there are also objective facts concerning dates, places, and people, that would not normally be considered scientific. Therefore, it does not distinguish science in particular. That science does not encompass all knowledge is the case even if post modern critiques of objectivity are rejected.
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- The solipsist is animate, like a duck, not inanimate, like the Ace of Spades.
- And “solipsist” is a concrete noun, like an amoeba, not an abstract noun, like Absolute Space.
- Ergo, I conclude that a solipsist is a #1.
- Unless I’m missing something.
Do you honestly think in the context Peter was talking about scientifically proving something, which is what I am clearly talking about when I say faith claims can’t be proven? If you don’t, you’re just playing word games with the biblical text, which I have no interest in participating in.
Peter based his argument on the testimony of Scripture, his eyewitness testimony, and the self-evident testimony of the Spirit. I find this to be neither scientific nor philosophical. It may be the finest apologetic/evangelistic argument in Church history. John uses a similar method of assuring his readers in the knowledge of Jesus.
The solipsist is necessary, eternal and absolute being. Space is the mere appearance of nothingness from one’s own point of being.
I wrote this as a summary of Pseudo-Dionysius: “And here finding that which is beyond all description, it floats in the heavenly abyss and abides here with. Now resting from its motion, and discovering the perfection in being neither oneself nor someone else, it is complete through its absorption in unknowing. Only now that which is hidden can be praised. From the heart of wisdom the soul no longer perceives the emptiness around it, but the unending fullness of being itself.”
- Okay, so does your solipsist have parts?