Chapter Three: God and Nature

All three Abrahamic religions are committed to belief that God can act in the world, even contravening the laws of nature, but they do not want to be perceived as ascribing acts of God loosely or frivolously.

The church is aware that some claimed miracles have been explained scientifically, and some claims of miraculous events come from social/political motivations.

THE THEOLOGIAN'S DILEMMA:

"If [theologians]affirm that God does act through miraculous interventions in nature, then they must explain why God acts on these occasions but not on numerous others (the problem of evil); why miracles are so poorly attested; and how they are supposed to be compatible with our scientific understanding of the universe."
"If they deny that God acts through special miraculous interventions, then they are left with a faith which seems to be little more than Deism."
"The job of the theologian is to try to articulate how God can act in and through nature while avoiding the two unattractive caricatures indicated above."

The case of Lourdes: there is an elaborate series of investigations before an alleged cure is declared miraculous. only 67 miracles recognized by the Vatican at Lourdes, out of the thousands of claimed cures.

GOD OF THE GAPS:
Protestant theologians have traditionally been somewhat more suspicious than Catholics about miracles.
Friedrich Schleiermacher went so far as to redefine ‘miracle’ as ‘merely the religious name for event.’
Another possible definition of 'miracle' that is compatible with science is -- An event, usually a very unlikely event, that occurs at just the right time and place to have great spiritual significance, but still accords with natural law.

1893, Scottish evangelical theologian Henry Drummond, a miracle was ‘not something quick.’ The whole, slow process of evolution was miraculous.
Drummond invented the “god of the gaps” argument - ‘reverent minds who ceaselessly scan the fields of Nature and the books of Science in search of gaps –gaps which they will fill up with God. As if God lived in the gaps?’ -He ridiculed the practice of many religious people to simply invoke God as an explanation for anything that science hasn't (yet) explained.
He thought the nobler conception was of a God present in everything - God immanent in nature

MOST MODERN SCIENTISTS SAW A PLACE FOR GOD, IN A VARIETY OF WAYS:

Newton theorized that God needed to intervene to keep planets and stars in their proper places.
Leibniz strongly objected-God created exactly the right laws of nature, and the planets and stars follow.
Laplace had no need for the god hypothesis.

"It was never the intention of the pioneers of modern science –men such as Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, or René Descartes –to undermine religious belief. They saw nature as an orderly system of mechanical interactions governed by mathematical laws. And they hoped that people would see in this new vision the strongest possible evidence of divine power and intelligence." - creator and law-giver, not intervening.

POSSIBLE STRATEGIES FOR MAINTAINING GOD'S ACTING IN NATUREFROM WITHIN A CONTEMPORARY SCIENTIFIC WORLDVIEW MIGHT USE:

1) philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright - modern science seems to show a ‘dappled world’ in which pockets of order emerge, using a patchwork of different scientific theories (from physics, to biology, to economics), none of which is applicable across all domains.

2) some arguments against divine action assume the universe is determinist, but quantum mechanics show that the universe is indeterministic, further, Quantum systems do not take on a determinate value until they are observed. There is a central function for consciousness in determining the natural world.
Recommended: On the new importance of consciousness in physicists’ view of reality: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-hippies-were-right-its-all-about-vibrations-man/

3) God can still be invoked as the "first cause, prime mover" needed to explain the whole causal history of the universe.

4) God as explaining why there is something rather than nothing. physical science cannot explain why the things that we call matter-energy and laws of nature ever came to be. There is an unclosable gap in our scientific knowledge, and one which all theists agree is filled by God.

5) universe seems to be ‘fine tuned’ for carbon-based life. An almost unimaginably unlikely combination of values for all the known cosmological constants is necessary for the universe to allow the evolution of life.
(see also, recommended: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-improbable-existence-is-no-evidence-for-a-multiverse/

Recommended reading: science pointing to a reality that is fundamentally mentalistic- https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-is-pointing-inexorably-to-mind/

AGAINST MIRACLES:

1748 essay ‘Of Miracles’, David Hume argued against miracles on the basis of the relative weakness of the evidence in favor of them. our current collective sense experience trumps ancient testimony. To believe that the miracle occurred, Hume argues, requires you to believe the falsehood of the ancient testimony would be even more “miraculous” than the event reported.

****Even more shocking, perhaps, is the realization that calling an event a miracle (in the sense of violating natural law) must presuppose that we have a complete, and completely accurate, understanding of all natural laws. No prudent scientist (nor religious believer, I presume) would ever claim that we have that. It is ironic that defenders of miracles must assume that our scientific knowledge of the world is perfect.

Science simply views unexplained events as material for further research, hopefully leading to an improved understanding of nature. See, for example, “Something Weird Just Happened That We Can't Really Explain With Existing Physics” https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a31262444/particle-decay-new-physics/ (Popular Mechanics)

Thomas Paine, skepticism based on the disciple doubting Thomas

Argument from evil. "If God exists and has the power to intervene in nature, and on occasion apparently uses that power, they ask, why does God fail to intervene in so many other cases of horrific injustice, cruelty, and suffering?"

https://youtu.be/9AzNEG1GB-k

Main historical argument against the existence of God

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