It is Miller who is fighting the wrong war. Science can exist without evolution, only scientism cannot; and if he's guilty of scientism, then he's a Catholic in name only. I'm sorry, but that's the way I see it.

Science is the study of God's Creation, not God himself. The What and the How. The Who and the Why are questions for Theology....different disciplines. I oppose ID in High School Science Classrooms, and side with the Atheists on that one...although not for the same reasons.

Folks,

Is it actually a requirement of Christian miracles that God intervene in the universe at any time later than the Big Bang?

I ask because a miracle always becomes a natural event: Miraculously produced wine makes people tipsy and miraculously multiplied bread makes them feel full.

The open question, then, is: "At what point does God's intervention occur, in any given miracle?"

Take Elijah on Mt. Carmel: Fire falls from the sky on cue. Let us say that the "fire" in question was a meteorite or something similar. Can it still be a miracle? Well, yes: God could have miraculously created the meteor a mile up, moments earlier. Or, a thousand miles, minutes earlier. Or, a million miles, weeks earlier. Or... He could have directed the particles of the Big Bang in exactly the required way to produce the meteorite, on cue for Elijah's benefit, eons later.

Now all Christians hold that the creation of the universe (the "Big Bang" if you like) was a supernaturally triggered and miraculous event over which God had complete "artistic control." So, following the notion that Elijah's fire from heaven was a meteorite, does this make it any less miraculous?

No. If anything, it makes all of the universe supernatural in origin, and any specific miracle merely a demonstration of God's ability to plan ahead. He sees all times as Now; He "hears" Elijah's prayer and "simultaneously" responds by altering the creation of the universe to produce the intended miracle.

While it is difficult (though not, I think, impossible) to explain all miracles this way, the existence of human life is one of the easiest miracles to explain this way: Evolution becomes yet another mechanism by which God can "plan ahead."

Christian fear of Evolution, then, often results from Christians not thinking clearly about the fact that God created the universe. No natural process is immune from His authority: If He forms man from mud by the slow process of Evolution, He is no less involved in the formation of man. The tiniest alteration of the creation event could have produced a very different humanity...or none. But God chose to make man this way: Predestining us to be as we are from before the foundations of the earth. Indeed, even from before there was time.

NOTE: My previous post will "not fly" with young-earth creationists or similar permutations of the literalist view re: the early chapters of Genesis. It will only "work" for those willing to accept the creation story not as eyewitness testimony hastily scribbled by an observer, but something more like an inspired rewriting of the pagan creation myths of the Ancient Near East, intended to correct the bad theology and bad philosophy of those other myths, and teach spiritual truth.

Some Christians are not comfortable with such an interpretation. I am, for various reasons:

(1.) That is how the text reads. Its style and content are not like the Gospels, or even the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel; they are far closer to that of Jesus' parables, the "throne room" scenes from Job, or the various prophetic visions full of symbolism. They are in some ways (e.g. the fun side-narrative explaining why snakes have no feet) even comparable to a Paul Bunyan story.

(2.) Around the year 400, St. Augustine was already writing theological treatises saying that the author of the creation story did not intend a literal, court-reporter-style interpretation.

(3.) Who was the "court reporter" anyhow? Prior to the creation of Adam ("Mr. Man") there could have been no eyewitness. We can hypothesize some heavenly vision given to Moses...but that's nowhere in Scripture. It's not kosher to go adding our own pet theories to the Bible.

(4.) Believing that God the Father Almighty made heaven and earth is in the Creeds; believing that the first chapters of Genesis are to be construed more literally than "turn the other cheek" is nowhere required by any Christian Creed.

Ultimately I believe that to take a hardcore-literalist view of the Genesis creation story is disrespectful to Scripture. It is reading into the text a meaning not intended by the author (or by The Author).

So, my earlier note, while incompatible with the view that the earth is 6,000 years young, is, I think, entirely compatible with Genesis as originally intended.

It should be understood in my preceding post that I am not asserting that all miracles are deterministically set in motion from the moment of the Big Bang, involving no later interference with the natural chain of Cause and Effect.

I am only stating that they could be, without (as far as I can see) abandoning a single tenet of orthodox Christian belief regarding God's omnipotence to cause any miraculous event He might wish, at any place and moment in all of space-time.

I could just as easily propose that miracles are always ever "triggered" at the moment they are observed, by asserting that they are all forms of "thermodynamic miracles"; i.e., collections of extremely improbable quantum events happening all at the same time. On this theory, the outcome of every quantum event, which we perceive as ruled by probabilities, is actually selected at each moment by God. What we perceive as outcomes which are more or less probable is an artifact of God choosing a mix of events intended to satisfy His priorities, including that of providing a stable universe.

This view would mean that the universe is sustained, at every point in space, at every nanosecond of time, by God's constant intervention: Also an orthodox Christian doctrine.

But both of these two views (the first stating that all events are "planned" from the Big Bang, including responses to prayers, and the second stating that miracles are rare quantum outcomes determined, like all quantum outcomes, by God's omnipotence) have the following two benefits:

(1.) They allow the scientist to believe both his own experimental observations, and the tenets of the Christian faith.

(2.) They allow the Christian to believe both the tenets of the Christian faith, and whatever scientists may ever happen to observe.

All truth is God's truth, and the truth cannot conflict with itself.

A question for R.C.: Do you agree that each human soul is created directly and immediately by God?

I agree with what you say about evolution with respect to the <i>material</i> component of man. But human beings are not only material. We have immaterial souls. And it is directly contrary to Catholic doctrine to believe that our human souls are mere products ("epiphenomena") of material evolution. Philosophically, this is not possible. Matter cannot produce something immaterial. They are two different realms of reality and one cannot create/produce the other from its own resources.

Yes, the soul and body are integrally united in human nature, and the body is a manifestation of the soul. But, this is not to say that the soul produces the body or the body produces the soul. Indeed, a creature such as man, having an integral unity of matter and spirit, is not explainable by any merely material scientific explanation. So, any explanation of man's origins that looks <i>only</i> to evolution as a complete explanation is woefully inadequate, for evolution can only say anything about the material component of man. It cannot say anything at all about the spiritual component of man (without which we are not human).

So, to speak as though evolution alone can be taken as a satisfactory explanation of the creation of man is necessarily to reduce man to a merely material creature. If we were only material creatures, then evolution alone could hold sufficient explanatory power to describe man's origins in a way that would still be compatible with divine dominion over creation. But, if we are not merely material, but spiritual as well, then any attempt to explain human origins that uses evolution alone and leaves it at that would be at the same time always an implicit reduction of man to a material creature only.

So, to quickly cut to the chase with someone who is enthusiastic about evolution as explaining man's origins, ask them right away: are you a materialist about human nature? If they are, their notion of evolution is inherently incompatible with and corrosive to Christian faith. If, however, they have room for accepting an immaterial component of human nature not explainable as a mere derivation from matter, then their notion of evolution may be compatible with Christian faith along the lines of Professor Miller as outlined in this review.

This is the problem with evolution as it is often spoken of in contemporary culture. Evolution is used by those who despise religion as an ideological weapon to deliberately imply that there was (and is) no God at all involved in bringing about the cosmos--including human life. The whole point of the widespread ideological use of evolution is to undermine belief in a divine creator by making a creator God superfluous--to explain the world in such a way that the very notion of God as creator (in any sense at all) is perceived as unnecessary to creation.

And the implicit materialism underneath the ideological use of evolution is not benign--it is explicitly hostile to any explanation of the origin of the world that would leave any room for God at all.

So, we should be clear in distinguishing a Miller-esque approach that we might as believers be able to accept and find admirable as taking science seriously and being able to see God as creator working in a hidden fashion within the natural rules He inscribed into matter itself, from a materialist ideological approach that has an explicit goal of trying to describe the origin of the world in such a way that a creator God is totally irrelevant. The creation of each human soul needs a divine explanation, even if there may be a way of reading the empirical material evidence to say that the creation of the material human body does not require a belief in God.

Evolution ideologues, in my opinion, are not impartial scientists trying to point only to where the evidence leads (claims to this notwithstanding), rather, they want to show that human beings can be completely explained--in all aspects of our human nature--without any reference to God of any sort. I think it is a legitimate concern to wonder whether Professor Miller is interested in or concerned about the abusive use of a materialist brand of evolution as a cudgel to undermine religious faith.

This topic is of great interest to me because for some time I held back from embracing Christianity partly because I thought it incompatible with what I understood to be the truth of the world as explained by evolutionary science. I think it is still a source of confusion for many, and contributes to a sneaking suspicion and distrust in people’s minds of their childhood understanding of faith.

Pardon me for being blunt, but this is a misrepresentation of Intelligent Design theory. I would go so far as to question whether you have ever even tried to understand it, or simply relied on the stereotypes and propaganda vomited out by its enemies.

Intelligent Design does not and cannot study God. It does, however, acknowledge that if God exists and is intelligent, then it is possible to recognize that he has been at work in the universe.

I do not see how anyone who claims to be Christian could disagree with that, at least without becoming a deistic heretic and perhaps becoming damned for all eternity.

I've never understood how so many Christians could fall for the heresy of deism, merely because it was dressed in a lab coat.

This is an excellent article, and a fascinating discussion. The best book ever written on this topic is G.K. Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man." He doesn't hinge religious belief on debunking scientific explanations for all that exists in the universe. But he does attack the notion that these explanations debunk God. He also suggests that these explanations tend to be overblown. Not surprising when one is trying to explain away God. It does seem to me that the evolutionists have created a secular religion that requires just as much of a leap of faith as any other religion, if not more. The idea that we evolved from fish is not proven, and is quite far fetched. Is there any evidence to date that any one species could possibly turn into another species? When will a monkey walk out of the jungle with a pencil behind his ear, capable of writing a sonnet? Why has this evolution from one species to another magically ended? Darwin himself was writing a theory and he knew it was far fetched, why don't we leave it at that, and teach it as such - an interesting fantasy?

Miller loses me at the title: only a theory.

Evolution is better described as a model, and most scientists would prefer that word. Evolution is a model that best describes the evidence the fossil and genetic record gives us for the natural changes that have taken place amongst species on Earth.

ID/creationism can be one of more of a number of disciplines, just not scientific ones as we define scientific inquiry today:

If God works outside of the Big Bang and other universal laws, we're talking religion, not a science that can be reproduced by mortals.

If aliens engineered and deposited life on Earth, that's also ID, but it would be politics or agriculture on an advanced scale--something human beings would need more time to perfect.

The main, if not only reason atheists use evolution as a tool against Christians is as a weapon against perceived attack. Many scientists are also aware of the history of human ignorance, so I cannot blame outspoken atheists for going on the offensive against creationists. I don't agree with them on the non-scientific attacks, but i can understand where they're coming from.

1. A theory can't be made to do what it was never set out to do. Darwin's theory set out to explain "speciation", that is, why we have species, tigers, and trees. And his theory is a lot better than Lamarck's. It was never set up to explain why we have life itself. Another theory will have to do that.

2. We should listen to St. Robert Bellarmine and the late Paul Feyerabend on the Galileo question. Before we celebrate without restraint the wonder-workings of natural science, technology, and "progress", we should submit the question to a jury of 12, 6 from Hiroshima, and 6 from Nagasaki. The men of the Enlightenment, the men of the 19 C, and our current crop of village atheists -- be they Whigs or be they Marxists --, told us tht everything under the rule of reason would be getting bigger and bigger and better and better, and that man was a pretty good fellow, and that all he needed was moral guidance and education. What we got were gas chambers and atomic bombs. Case closed.

Scott:


In so far as I understand the question, the answer is yes; that is, the soul is an immaterial thing, not an evolved part of man. In saying that, I am using the term "soul" as strictly as my dim mortal understanding allows, referring to that in a man which is able to decide to submit to and embrace God in love and truth (or not).

I am, of course, aware that much of what I might casually call the "soul" conversation may be partly rooted in physical biology: When I reflect that so-and-so is "one of the kindliest souls I know" and that such-and-such has a "contentious spirit" I am allowing for the possibility that such-and-such may have a constant neck-ache, and so-and-so, an unusually trouble-free digestion, resulting in outward behavior that make the one so agreeable and the other so disagreeable. But it is not all biology: Some portion of the person is transcendent and outlasts the physical body, in communion with, or rebellion against, God.

And I think this allows both freedom of will, the ability to perceive truth, and an explanation for the fact that human behavior en masse is predictable up to a point, but that individual choices persistently result in individuals swimming against the stream and even sometimes crowds doing unexpected things: "You cannot study men, you can only get to know them." Even were biology to determine 99.9% of behavior, there would remain that component which from outside the chain of causality of time and space allows people to be what they in fact are: Occasionally unexpected. You can brainwash a man, but you can't soulwash him save by the blood of Christ.

Are you adequately answered?

Right there...."if God exists..." That is where the red flag comes up. It starts with an assumption that cannot be proven or disproven using the Scientific Method, because the Scientific Method is the study of the Natural world, not of God. Spare me the "you must not understand ID.." schtick, I do understand it...and I stand by my assertion it has no place in High School Science classrooms. The question of whether or not God exists is not the realm of pure science...it is a Theological/Metaphysical/Philosophical Question. Different Disciplines altogether. For the Record, I believe in Intelligent Design...because I believe that God created the Universe. I don't disagree with ID, I just don't think it belongs in a High School Science Classroom. Let those questions be addressed in Theology/Philosophy classes.

One of the reasons why ID proponents rightfully express frustration against Evolution as it is taught in the nation's classrooms is that the thing being taught is often not good science, but bad philosophy.

Science, properly practiced, uses the Scientific Method, and the Method, properly understood, begins with a Working Assumption: That whatever I am about to test in the lab will not be altered by supernatural interference: It will be in a perfect cause-effect relation to the state of the universe prior to the experiment.

Now this is a perfectly reasonable assumption whether one is a Materialist or a Christian. For the Materialist holds dogmatically as a matter of blind faith that all events in the history of the universe are in perfect cause-effect relation to earlier events. And the Christian holds that, at a minimum, the vast majority of them are, and that Our Lord, ever the humorist but never a pointless practical joker, has no particular reason to sabotage his experiment, and that repeated tests, or replication of the experiment by others would be sufficient to make a single Divine or Demonic corruption of experimental results negligible.

So both Christians and Materialists can make use of the Method, and thereby be good scientists as a matter of practice.

The problem comes in when Materialist scientists "take their work home with them." The cause-effect assumption is a valid and necessary Working Assumption in the lab. It is even in accord with observed evidence (and Christian doctrine) to assume it about most of what happens. But to so expand it as to make a categorical statement about all events in the history of space-time is to transform a good generalization into a completely unproven and unprovable categorical assertion. Furthermore, the Materialist assumption is not only unfounded and unfoundable, but it is philosophically untenable and contrary, both to observations, and to our ability to validly observe.

Most Materialists don't know that...but then most Materialists aren't philosophers. We may properly listen to them on their topics of expertise whether they are experts in cosmology or chromatography, but on this topic they are rank amateurs making the errors amateurs make.

Now Intelligent Design advocates rightly note that Materialists are teaching their philosophy as if it were science, and getting away with it through sheer mental confusion, because their Unproven Categorical Assertion sounding so very much like the Working Assumption that all scientists must use in the lab.

So, Intelligent Design advocates come in and offer what I think is corrective philosophy: They demonstrate that there is a philosophical alternative to Materialism which is no more unfriendly to science than Materialism is, and better agrees with observation than Materialism does, on some points.

Well and good.

However, I think that Intelligent Design advocates should clarify that their philosophical statements are just that: Philosophical statements, not science as such. This is no admission of defeat, for in so doing they may also educate the public to see that Materialism is also philosophy, not science as such.

The same arguments that outraged Materialists use to challenge ID's claim to "be science" undermine exactly that segment of their own claims to which Christians object. They point at the mote in their (Theist) neighbor's eye, while carrying a beam in their own.

Which is the source of so much frustration by the Intelligent Design folks. Why should Materialists be the only ones with an unfettered license to make untestable assertions?

I found that Miller and the likes of Ayala tend to lean a little too much toward naturalism for my liking. Though, I must agree with Miller that ID is not science, at least as the term is used in the modern sense. Science deals with quantities, quantification and measurement; it cannot empirically prove design no more than Darwinism can disprove purpose in nature. In arguing for design and purpose, one enters the realm of philosophy and not science. Fr. Stanley Jaki, certainly no heretic or deist, has been a critic of ID for a long time. Here are some quotes from Fr. Stanley Jaki’s <i>Intelligent Design?</i> on the flaws of ID as Science:
“Intelligent Design as science is basically faulty because it implies that the “intelligence” which drives and directs evolution can be measured and observed.”
“It is surely bad philosophy...Thinking about the ultimate is surely not to be shirked in a subject as closely touching on the Ultimate as does human intelligence in its power to perceive design. There is a chink in logic in Behe’s remark ‘intelligent design itself says nothing about the religious concept of a creator.’ The chink is made manifest by the words ‘itself’ and ‘religious.’ While a scientist can think that in his laboratory work may dispense with deeper questions other than the ones implied in observation and measurements, the scientist who theorizes broadly cannot do so. Moreover, there is philosophical thinking about the Creator apart from thinking of Him in a religious framework.”
“The differentiation of the contemporary argument for intelligent design earlier forms such as Paley’s does not eliminate questions about the claim that ‘it is based on physical evidence and straightforward application of logic’ as urged by Behe. Design is in evidence through the operation of the mind and not through physical observation. Any slighting of this point will have enormous consequences on a ‘scientific’ theory, which claims to be ‘intelligent’. Proper use of intelligence above all should stay clear of equivocations.”
“Equivocation , which underlies the vitalization of nature, is again noticeable in Behe’s third claim on behalf of ID, namely, ‘we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that does not involve intelligence’…Behe tried to fight a battle which is philosophical by using scientific tools. The bad philosophizing which is everywhere in Darwinian ideology can only be fought philosophically.”
“As to the fourth or final point in Behe’s presentation, it also smacks of equivocation. The point deals with the origin of life that has to be the work of an intelligent design….there is no convincing evidence that purely biological life would involve anything more than mere matter. The crucial point relates to the pre-biological origin of evolution often called nucleosynthesis of the formation of elements, and indeed the formation of subnuclear particles. In all theories about them one finds not a nondescript matter but a matter with most specific properties as can be seen in any handbook on elementary particles."

“The suchness of all of them and of their totality sparks the sound philosophical question: why are they such and not something else? And if one also avoids, as any good philosopher must, the pitfalls of a regress to infinity, one would stop pushing the suchness of forever back along the chains of suchness to no end. The suchness, which involves the entire realm of matter, which is the universe…there is only one universe which is also breathtakingly specific no matter where and when it is looked upon, especially with the tools of science…what a scientist will make of his seeing design depends not on his science but entirely on his philosophical acumen, which judging by publications on intelligent design, seems to be in short supply by its champions. No wonder, they come mostly from the ranks of half-reconstructed fundamentalists and carry the heavy baggage of the reformers’ disdain of, indeed contempt of philosophy...."

Much of the misunderstanding about Evolution, ID, and the rest arises from failure to examine beginnings. And much of the lengthy discussions arises from the failure to define "species". "I know it when I see it" is not good enough for scientific discussion.

Now it is not impossible that one species began from another [although this has not been shown]. But what stands at the very beginning? How did LIFE arise? Many scientists [physicists and such] - Weinberg, Crick - finally look to outer space. [We would say from beyond space].

I do not think it a failure of ID when its proponents write of the extraordinary complexity of the universe, and the even more extraordinary complexity of living things. That this complexity arose in response to environmental challenges seems to me a gross simplification. Darwin [not a heavy thinker] was annoyed by the peacock's tail. The theories proposed to explain it are like those which explain the length of the giraffe's neck - JUST SO STORIES.

Gabriel,

Just a quick addition to your point about ET's, which is well stated, much of the funding for the SETI project (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is based on that fact that we cannot explain the origin of life one earth. That's a lot of money that goes into supporting the bad science of Darwinistic materialism.

R.C. Thank for responding to my question. I asked it because you had asked, "Is it actually a requirement of Christian miracles that God intervene in the universe at any time later than the Big Bang?"

I wondered, based on your comments in post no. 3, whether you were a materialist. I didn't think it likely that you actually are, but the way you suggest that God could set up the material aspect of creation so as to not require any further intervention from Him after the initial creation seems to ignore that human beings are not simply material creatures.

Your scenario of a God who minutely tunes the material cosmos so as to plan ahead for all future material exigencies including perceived miracles, while perhaps theoretically possible with regard to matter, is not relevant to the creation of each human soul.

We agree, of course (as Christian doctrine, and, as a conclusion of sound philosophy), that every human being has a unique, unrepeatable, spiritual (immaterial) soul. The soul is not explainable as a product of the evolution of material stuff. The existence of every human soul, because it is immaterial, requires the direct intervention of God for its coming into being. We might call this a "miracle" (though it does not involve matter). Every time a new human being comes into existence in his mother's womb, God acts at that point, directly, to bring that particular person's soul into existence out of nothing. (God does not "put a new soul together" from previously existing things). Each new soul is totally new and unique--it has no parts, has no components made from anything that had existed previously (one of the consequences of being immaterial).

I make this point because I wondered whether your explanation did not take into account the human soul. It might work as far as the body goes, but not the soul. Every soul (both human and angelic) is a result of a supernatural act of creation. There is no material evolving going on when we talk about the existence of souls. And so I just want to point out that when we speak of human beings, we must include an account for the existence of each unique soul, and not simply the body alone.

If we are not going to be materialists, we have to believe that God indeed does intervene in the universe after the big bang. Every time a new human being comes into existence He intervenes, to create each soul. A material explanation of the evolution of the body does not account for this. So, we can't agree with a materialist understanding of evolution as compatible with Christian faith. . . unless we do away with the human soul.


Also, R.C., perhaps you know this, but your take on the Genesis creation account is very much in line with the Catholic approach to interpreting Genesis. One simply takes seriously, given the literary and historical context, the intent of the human author, realizing that the account is indeed true--but, true in the sense meant by the author (which surely was not to provide a scientific description of creation as we look for today).

I have noticed some posts that tend to equate the Big Bang with creation. I thinking that this is a mistake. One, the Big Bang is science and not Theology. The Big Bang gives a sharp set of quantitative specificities about the assortment of galaxies. This set stretches 15B years into the past or the farthest point by which scientists can carry their investigations for the time being. This time is marked by an exceedingly high temperature and density where the present methods and tools of physics break down. At this time, the physics of the singularity is beyond all the laws of physics, scientists can merely trace a set of quantitative specificities to another set. While the BBT can take one fairly close to the possible beginnings of the universe, it is not "proof" of creation simply from the idea that some scientists argue, rather absurdly, that the singularity could be "infinite" in its oscillations.
I believe that the best "proof" of creation comes from philosophical conclusions of Leibniz's question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Or, it could be stated, “Why such a finiteness and not some other?” From this, one can conclude that a limited perfection can only exist if there is a infinite one. The question here is not God but the existence of things with limited perfection, and these are objects-that which passes before the senses. Now, science studies limited things, it moves from the study of one finite thing to another, a given limitedness to another. There the process has no practical limits. One need not consider the warning signs about a regress to infinity in looking for ever further possibilities to extend that tracing. That warning sign arises for scientists only when they postulate infinite long chain of links all of which are quantitative. They then should ponder the inner contradiction of an actually realized infinite number. As Hilbert stated, numbers have nothing to do with reality. They merely describe quantities and things.

There is a problem with intelligent desing as a theory, in that it seems to arise from a desire for it to be true than from the logical observation of facts (and data) - which makes it suspect in the realm of Science.

Science, for good or ill, is supposed to rest on the impartial observation of reality, the positing of theories that agree with those observations, and the testing of theories to prove and/or disproving them. Whether the investigator wishes that the theory be true should be irrelevant (except that he might have fallen in love with his own theory and is uwnilling to let it go even if it proves false).

So, the insistence that Intelligent Design is true seems to arise more out of the proponent will to believe in it than from a cold assessment of the facts.

In Science the argument that a theory might have negative philosohical implications is basically a irrelevance. Theories are either true or not (or at least form a workable basis for conjectures), and the philosophy ought to take care of itself.

If that attitude is lacking what you have is a hybrid of science and philosphy, and those mongrels do not turn out good.

Scott:

Yes, I agree that the creation of the soul represents an action by God.

However, does it represent an interference by God with the chain of natural causality in our universe? I don't think, in a direct sense, that it does: The soul is immaterial and not measurably part of our material universe any more than God Himself is. (Or, rather, "than God Himself" has been recently.)

When I talk about miracles being initiated by divine planning from the moment of the Big Bang, I am thinking specifically about the miracles to which Materialists object; the ones which separate the Deist with his distant Watchmaker God from the true Theist. These miracles are objectionable to Materialists not because they are an act of God, per se, but because they result in God "intruding" into the flow of cause and effect which emanates from the Big Bang. I use the term "intruding" advisedly: Materialists see it as a rude, crude kind of thing: A kazoo during a war requiem. Hence their irritable and contemptuous dismissal of actual reported miracles, the impatience with the whole notion.

It is this visceral objection to Theistic miracles as "intrusions" which I intended to debunk. The soul is a different sort of miracle, I think, and does not come in for as much dislike, which is why the Deist position, as a sort of half-way house between Theism and Atheism, is so popular.

A Materialist can get a rather different perspective on the whole issue when he sees that if he grants God the power to enact creation as He sees fit, and a perspective outside time, then none of the miracles he dislikes most, or the coincidences whereby "God acts anonymously," require intrusion in the fabric of cause and effect. Indeed, they may be that fabric, without their divine causation changing in the least.

Meanwhile (and more on-topic in this discussion), the Theist need not fear any naturalistic explanation -- ever! --for anything he has ever ascribed to God. Was Noah's flood "just" the collapsing of a land-bridge? Were the plagues against Egypt "just" the result of a volcanic eruption elsewhere? Was my mother's friend's sudden curing of MS just an unusually sudden and pronounced remission? "Sure!" says the Christian, laughing, "and wasn't it clever of the Lord to so design the universe as to produce these effects at the right time! What mastery of the art of universe-design, to so litter the landscape with love-notes for His children! The whole of space and time: One vast Easter-egg hunt, authored by the Author of Easter!"

It is in this atmosphere of fearlessness that I view the biological evidence for Evolution. Seen that way, it is lovely, is it not? That Our Lord, who could call things into being by brute force, would instead make such excellent work of matter -- a very Catholic notion, that -- to delicately do His bidding.

His style is not that of the Sorcerer's Apprentice, but of one who weaves an interdependent community of things high and low, each praising its maker in its own fit way. He makes man, and chooses a cavalcade of lesser things (each flowering in its season) as the tool or planning-pad to make him. But when man is made, God does not discard the tool or the sketch-pad, but shows them to be good and worthy members of creation in their own right. The angels came first, and yet we will judge them; the animals came first, and yet we rule over them. What a tapestry!

The notion that it all this somehow implies God is a fantasy and man is a matter-enslaved robot carrying out dumbly his role in the clockwork is not Evolution per se, but rather a dismal and weak philosophical add-on by those who would have found any other convenient vehicle for their philosophy had Evolution not shown up to carry it.

RC: On your comments, I wonder if you saw that episode of Futurama where Bender gets stranded in space and meets the manifestation of God, who tells him what the secret is "When you do it right, it is as if you had done nothing at all". In the end the cynical, selfish Bender acts responsibly and with compassion towards the monks, of his own free will, and we hear the manifestation's voice "When you do it right, it is as if you had done nothing at all".

I think that this is a good way of putting it.

R.C., thanks again for your thoughtful and enthusiastic reply. I don't mean to beat a dead horse here. . . . But, . . .

I agree with most of what you say and I appreciate your zeal to show that there is compatibility between Christianity, properly understood, and all that we can know as true about the world via modern science. Indeed, truth does not contradict truth (no matter whence it comes), and empirical science discovers genuine truth about the material world when rightly used (and properly distinguished from the different modes of discovery that come from philosophy and from Revelation). Christians ought not be fearful or defensive about the proper deployment of empirical science in the quest for truth about the world. And, at the same time neither do we need to back away from or be embarrassed about accepting the Bible as true. And, indeed, the harmony of faith and reason is a very strong and venerable theme in Catholic thought!

However, I still have some perplexity about your point of view because even as you agree above that "the creation of the soul represents an action by God," you go on to speak of divine action only in the material realm. Noah's flood, the plagues, physical healings, etc., are material events. I understand what you mean about materialist objections to (physical) miracles and pursuing an approach that might remove such objections. And I have no objection to the way that you go about explaining them. But, are you perhaps, in this endeavor, leaving by the wayside the simple reality that materialism is false? The world, indeed, is not simply matter. This is untrue. Both philosophy and revelation show us this in incontrovertible terms.

It is of no small consequence that the cosmos contains not only material things, but spiritual things as well. And these two realms are not by nature blendable--they do not by their very natures mix together. They are distinct realms of reality. (eg. angels can never be said literally to be located "at" any "place" in a physical sense--this does not apply--though we may use such language in an analogous sense, such as to say, the fallen angels are "in" hell)

I stress this because I think that if we use language that speaks only in materialist terms about divine involvement with the world we are misrepresenting the full picture of the created cosmos, which is not limited to material forms of existence. We should challenge the materialist, first, about his materialism, on philosophic grounds. For any materialist who is a consistent materialist, first of all, necessarily cannot even believe God exists at all! God, by nature, is totally immaterial. Materialism and either deism or theism are mutually exclusive. Any discussion about divine participation in the world with a true materialist is simply theoretical and cannot go anywhere along the road to conversion to Christianity, unless materialism is first abandoned. No Christian concept of God or of the nature of the human being (as a body-soul unity) can exist together in a person's mind along with genuine materialism.

And, so, while I think there is certainly much benefit in seeing the interplay between God and creation as more harmoniously interwoven than is often the case in ordinary Christian thinking, I don't think we should be overly optimistic about the long term outcome of explaining the world to materialists in such a way as to permit them to maintain their materialism.

[apologies for the length] Continuing with R.C. . . .

Your statement, "the Theist need not fear any naturalistic explanation -- ever! --for anything he has ever ascribed to God" pinpoints my perplexity. For, as I see it, this statement is false. And the problem is serious.

I'll try to explain: that most cosmos-transforming action of Jesus Christ--saving man from eternal damnation by His passion and resurrection--becomes superfluous in a merely naturalistic world view. Christ's salvation of man is not a natural event explainable in natural terms.

The fact that man, before Christ, has the stain and the effects of sin upon his soul--is not rectifiable in naturalistic terms. The healing of the soul from sin is a supernatural act done from within the immaterial, not the material, realm of existence; it happens in the realm of spirit. [and though this supernatural transformation has its impact upon our material selves, this follows what is first and primarily a spiritual event: being saved by Christ]

How do you explain in only naturalistic terms the following things which Christians accept as true?:

--That God creates each unique human soul immediately and directly out of nothing and unites it to the new physical body just as it is being constructed in the womb [the soul's creation and the joining of it to the body are not natural events]

--That God supernaturally inspired human authors to compose the various books of Sacred Scripture in such a way that we can say truly that all the Bible is authored by the Holy Spirit (even as we also maintain that the human authors were true authors) [Biblical inspiration is not a natural phenomenon]

--That when we become saved by Jesus Christ (as a Catholic, I accept this happens initially for the individual at baptism) the deadly effect of sin upon our soul--that we cannot live in eternal life with God because of sin's presence--is removed, and we become able upon our death to join our savior in the eternal bliss of heaven. Our sins are forgiven through Jesus Christ. [the bestowal of salvation upon an individual is not a natural event]

--That prayer is real. It is a genuine communion between God and man. When we pray, God truly hears us, and cares about our prayers, and always in some way (not always evident to us) answers our prayers. Is the making of prayer by a human being, and God's response, always explainable in naturalistic terms? [think of petitions that are inherently spiritual, such as, "remove the bitterness in my friend's heart" or, "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive . . ."]

--That when our body dies we do not cease to exist as a human person. And, we maintain our identity after physical death as the same person who lived before death. In fact, our soul is judged by Christ in light of our earthly life, and then, before the resurrection, we are sentenced to heaven or hell. Upon the resurrection of the dead, our self-same soul is then reunited with our now resurrected body. Is this natural?

--That the Apostles were given the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

--That Jesus, after His ascension to heaven, sent the Church the Holy Spirit to lead it into all truth.

--That Jesus Christ was a real, flesh and blood, historical man. He was an authentic human being, having all things human except for sin. He was also fully God. Fully human, and fully divine, united in one divine person, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. In the Incarnation, the eternal, omnipotent, omniscient God became man, assuming a human nature (human flesh) to Himself. [Is this natural?]

And there is more.

In other words, I am saying that the entire order of divine grace in regard to mankind--salvation, Biblical inspiration, the Incarnation, the gift of the Holy Spirit--is supernatural. Naturalism can't explain the gifts of grace.

[quote=David W.]Right there...."if God exists..." That is where the red flag comes up. It starts with an assumption that cannot be proven or disproven using the Scientific Method, because the

Pardon me, but it is a grave error to claim that science can only start with assumptions that can be proven or disproven using the scientific method. Indeed, an assumption that stupid could have only one result: the abolition of science.

Think about it: The First Principles of Philosophy, without which rational thought would be impossible, cannot be proven scientifically. And without rational thought, science is impossible.

Furthermore, it is a grave fallacy to claim that any field of knowledge cannot accept as assumptions conclusions from other fields. Intelligent Design accepts as certain a fact proven from non-scientific methods, and explores its implications for science.



But that's exactly my point. Though claiming to understand Intelligent Design, you make statements like this, which prove, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that you do not. Intelligent Design does not prove God's existence, it identifies the marks of his handiwork.

Once that has been done, of course, a philosopher can build it into a proof for the existence of God, but the mere recognition that the universe bears the hallmarks of an intelligently designed product does not constitute an argument for the existence of God, any more than finding a watch and noting that it bears the marks of having been designed by some watchmaker or other proves that it was designed by Mr. Smith and not Mr. Jones.

And by the way, I have a Masters in Philosophy myself, and my father (who's had an article published on Inside Catholic) and godfather are Ph.D's in Philosophy, so I appreciate your care to acknowledge that philosophy has some value. Not all those who claim to love science make that admission.

Michael,
You claim that ID bears the marks of God's handiwork, are you speaking in an empirical or metaphysical sense? If ID is not a matter for philosophy/metaphysics, then are you stating that design is empirical? How does ID, which claims to be an empirical science in some camps, prove the marks of God's handiwork? How does one move from an empirical claim of irreducible complexity or the improbability of life arising from inorganic to organic matter to the necessity and metaphysical claim of design? Darwinists make claims denying teleology based off their science as well, but Richard Dawkins has certainly been taken to task for his outlandish claims, and justifiably so.

If you are claiming that "design" is empirical and thus science, how could you argue against a Darwinist or a physicist who claims that man is just cosmic flotsam and jetsam based on their science? To me, they both are confusing the domains of empirical science and philosophy. I think that ID is not accepted as science by many Catholic scientists/theologians such as Fr. Jaki, Fr. Artigas and Archbishop Zycinski because they see science and philosophy as different conceptual domains. Today, science deals with quantities and measurement, its method cannot extend beyond the matter that it investigates. “Design” cannot be measured any more than empirical science can claim that man is just a cosmic accident.

I am merely pointing out that it is a different discipline, for a different class. I know full well that ID doesn't claim it is necessarily the "Judeo-Christian God"...and it is focused on seeing the mark of a Higher being in the Natural World. It starts off with an assumption...that there IS a higher being...and if so, you can see it's mark everywhere. As Rick noted above...can that be Empirically proven? No, it can't. Wouldn't you have to actually prove the existence of a higher being before you can jump to the next level of "seeing their hand in Nature?" Do you see the problem here? As I said, such questions belong in Theology/Philosophy classes, not in a High School Biology Class. Now if in college, one wishes to take a Theory course on ID, or Darwinism or whatever....that's great.

Scott:

Unfortunately I am in an extreme rush just now and cannot answer your post at length as it deserves.

However, my first thought on reading your last post(s) was: "It's not that naturalistic explanations are available for everything that is real; it's just that we need not fear naturalistic explanations for anything that we observe within our space-time."

So: That which is observable is a subset of that which is real; some of the miracles of Christianity produce directly observable physical phenomena (parted water, fire from heaven, a healed body); of these, the popular Materialist rejoinder is (when the thing is admitted to have happened at all) to say that it comes purely from natural causes. My answer is to say, "Well, surely it may: But where does Nature come from? Nature, being supernaturally caused, is Herself, for any of her contingent events, a supernatural cause."

As to salvation and prayer: I put those in another category because they aren't observable, and aren't therefore subject to the Materialist objection that they have "natural causes."

Gotta go!

Uh, in the preceding post, when I said that prayer and salvation "aren't observable" I was being imprecise.

Of course we can see a person praying, and of course we can see the results of a changed heart.

But we can't observe the prayer, or the communication of spiritual life to the formerly spiritually dead soul, if you follow me.

So, again, my statement that "we should not fear any naturalistic explanation -- ever! -- for anything [a Theist] ascribes to God" was intended to be confined, not to all the real things God has done, but specifically to the observable material phenomena we ascribe to God's actions. Those are the phenomena which a Christian may sometimes fear being "explained" by a naturalistic explanation, and my point was to say that there's actually no harm in that, at all.

...and, just in case I wasn't sufficiently clear before:

I'm no Materialist, and I think that the Material and Observable things are a minority of the things that are actually real.

All my preceding posts in this thread should be viewed in that context.

If you want additional context for them, please read C.S.Lewis The Weight of Glory and associated essays, especially the statement: "Nature is mortal, we shall outlive her...."

R.C, Thank you for clarifying. I see no serious problem now, at least not the one I described above, with your approach. (with one exception--see below)

[Yet I'm not convinced it would be effective in the long run in helping a materialist convert and accept faith in Christ. For, ultimately such a conversion, to be authentic, must entail as well a rejection of materialism and accepting the reality of the spiritual realm, including God Himself and the reality of an abundance of grace-filled acts by which God, in Christ, saves, heals, transforms, makes holy, communes with, guides, etc., His children until He brings us home.]

It's just that when you said we should not fear a naturalistic explanation for "anything" ascribed to God, I took you literally. For, "anything," as I read it, would cover any divine action in regard to any real thing, including the realm of the immaterial (like human souls tainted by sin).

We are more in agreement than it first seemed. And thanks for affirming that the material realm is perhaps only the lesser portion of all existing real things. I agree.

Please forgive my former confusion. But, I think you will admit that your original language did lead easily to being taken as reducing the truly supernatural to the merely natural, which would be a huge problem for all the major tenets of Christianity.

So, a revision to "we need not fear naturalistic explanations for anything that we observe within our space-time" is indeed more palatable, with the important caveat of still acknowledging God as involved with the world, but perhaps along the lines you described, as foreordaining or fine-tuning matter at once to build into it (so-to-speak) all the requisite responses as He would need for the duration of this world.

But (and please don't feel obliged to reply again unless you really want to; I'm throwing this out to ponder if you like), what about the bodily resurrection of Christ? This is an historical, physically observed event (Christ observed dead; the empty tomb; Christ being seen alive afterwards) that while having a material aspect, was not a natural act. It seems that, at least in regard to this unique event, your approach of allowing naturalistic explanations for divine acts within the material realm would not work.

Accepting that the Resurrection really happened historically as in the gospels (which I do and I assume you do; but a materialist would likely deny as historical) there is no natural reason that a truly dead body that had a hole slashed into the heart--dead since Friday afternoon--could possibly rise back to life, healed (but with scars), on Sunday. If this happened as told in the gospels I think a naturalism-only approach would fail as an explanation.

The materialist must either deny the historicity of the bodily resurrection of Christ, or, if he accepts it (as told in the gospels), must recognize that there simply is no fully natural explanation (attempts to debunk the resurrection and give other explanations for the empty tomb [Jesus wasn't really dead; the body was stolen; dogs ate the body, etc.] have long ago been thoroughly debunked, many times over). Indeed, classic Christian apologetics takes the resurrection of Christ to be the most powerful sign and proof of sorts (among other important though less powerful signs) of the divinity of Christ, precisely because it is obvious that there is no natural explanation available (accepting the gospel accounts as true), and, thus, the Resurrection had to be supernatural--i.e., a divine act.

So, would a naturalistic approach to explaining observable miracles work even for the Resurrection? I don't see how--without denying the undeniable (for a Christian) supernatural character of this singularly history-transforming event.
[Perhaps I am straying too far afield now.]

What a wonderful conversation. Unfortunately, I don't work on this level, but I would love to read more on this subject. Care to point me to a few good books (besides the titular one)? ;)

1. Theory in what should be called <i>Natural</i> Science is indeed demonstrated by experiment. Trouble is, one can't make an experiment upon the past, and it is about the past that Darwinism and ID are talking. We "know" a fossil is so many years old because of Carbon 14 testing, and we "know" the rate in time that the Carbon atom deteriorates. The question is, Has the Carbon <i>always</i> deteriorated at the same rate? We "know" this only by the Law of Uniformatarianism (natural law doesn't change [as natural science understands natural law], and this Law is an unexamined claim of Natural Science.

2. Which means that Edmund Husserl's statement that <i>Naturwissenschaft</i> is not a <i>strenge Wissenschaft</i>, a "strict science" which examines all its claims and foundations and attempts to strive to being systematic. The only strict science is philosophy.

Scott,
I find no one better writing on the topic of science, philosophy and religion better than Fr. Stanely Jaki. He is a modern day Chesterton with doctorates in physics and theology. Some of his work can be dense, but he has published amny pamphlets on ID, evolution, (each about 30 pages) and many other topics. Fr. Jaki's The BibLe and Science and Cosmos and Creator are fairly easy reads, all of his works can be ordered from Real View Books. Above all, he is Catholic to the core. I would also recommend Cardinal Schonborn's Chance or Purpose, it is a series of homilies put into book form.

I second Rick's recommendation of Chance or Purpose, by Cardinal Schonborn. And for works by Fr. Stanley Jaki, I would especially recommend his book, Genesis 1: Through the Ages.

Scott:

Thank you for your kind words.

As to your example of the Resurrection, I think you point to just one of a whole class of supernatural events which, while they are in principle to describable naturalistically, are in practice difficult to so describe not because of anything intrinsic to the nature/supernature divide, but rather because we don't have a sufficiently detailed understanding of what happened on the natural side of things.

(I'm sure that sounds like a load of gobbledygook. Give me a chance to clarify with an example....)

Take angels. Angels "appear" to human beings. But our senses are designed to respond to physical, material, input. How then can we "see" a spirit?

Well, as I see it, there are four possible ways:

(1.) The angelic being has something like a "body" but which is outside of our "plane" of existence most of the time. This "body" can be voluntarily moved by the angel to intersect with our "plane." As the body begins to intersect our "plane" it becomes perceivable to our senses. When different parts of the "body" intersect our plane, different "parts" of the angel (or seraph, or cherub) are visible, producing (sometimes) the appearance of a brilliantly-glowing human, and (other times) appearances that don't make sense to our eyes at all: flames within wheels within heptagons within eyes within lightning flashes in a sickening or disorienting visual tumult. (Consult with the C.S.Lewis book Perelandra, Edwin Abbot's Flatland, and of course the Book of Ezekiel.)

(2.) The angelic being causes an "appearance" through some tool or method affecting the air in front of the observer, so that it becomes ionized or oddly-refracting in the shape of a human being, or a being with four faces, or whatever. This would be a heavenly courtesy to the observer, to give us somewhere to focus our eyes. Presumably to be "heard" the angel could induce vibrations in the air.

(3.) The angelic being directly manipulates the relevant neurons in our brains, in the parts of the brain dealing with perception, so that we register sights and sounds that aren't actually "there" in the conventional sense.

(4.) The angelic being somehow temporarily alters our perceptive ability to extend to realms beyond their normal capacity. I think this would need to be something more profound than just seeing/hearing in different spectra; otherwise you could detect angels by infrared or radar detection, or hear them with subsonic detection equipment -- not very darned likely! But this notion is so vague that perhaps I'd have been better served to say: "(4.) Something else I lack the imagination to think of!"

...continued in my next post...

...continued...

Whatever the truth is about how we "see" or "hear" angels, this much seems certain: We are, in our physical bodies, beings which perceive the material. Our eyes see because they absorb photons; our ears hear because our eardrums are shaken by pressure waves in the air. If Thomas had remained doubtful long enough to put his hand into Christ's pierced side, he would have felt it because there were atoms there whose outer electron shells would have repulsived (in the magnetic sense) the negatively-charged shells of atoms in Thomas' own hand.

Thus Nature is not only her Creator's created thing, and His tool, but also His hostess. When He makes miraculous wine, it is wine that can make you tipsy; His multiplied bread makes people full...and presumably makes them visit the "Bethsaida Public Rest Area" some hours later. Just as a fallen meteorite might gradually be covered with terrestrial moss and worn away by terrestrial rain, so any miraculous intervention in nature is received by some reaction in Nature herself, interfacing in a perfect match as two adjoining puzzle pieces lock together.

And from that point forward, any "ripples" which spread through Nature from that contact with supernature are Natural ripples. If the Resurrected Christ has a spiritual body which can teleport hither and thither, fine: But when He is not busy vanishing and appearing in locked rooms, He is apparently eating fish, and one assumes His feet leave footprints in the perfectly natural sand.

Beyond this, there is a category of miracle which goes on constantly, but is not readily apparent: Namely, how our souls "control" our bodies through the medium of our brains. It is obvious that the souls themselves are not material. It is obvious that the nerves which cause our muscles to twitch are material, and the electrochemical impulses they propagate originate in the brain. How then does the soul cause the brain to generate these signals?

There are three possibilities:

(1.) The soul is somehow "interfaced" to the brain in such a way that, though we're unaware of it, our intentions determine events at the quantum level within our synapses;

(2.) The soul is "interfaced" not directly with the brain, but with God, such that our intentions are implemented by Him on our behalf, determining events at the quantum level within our synapses;

(3.) The soul is "interfaced" not directly with the brain, but with God, such that our intentions are implemented by Him on our behalf so as to change the Big Bang...thereby changing, eons later, the arrangement of atoms in our brains to produce the desired behavior;

All of these possibilities fit with observable phenomena. I don't see how we could testably determine which is correct, however. And there may be another possibility I haven't considered.

...continued...

Anastasia:

My problem with ID is that a great part of its advocacy seems based on the desire for it to be true. Now, a theory is neither true nor false based on how many people fall in love with it.

Which means that if you want to prove ID stop arguing about how wrong philosophically Darwinsim s, and try to come up with a method of proof that does not take your personal preferences into account.

Things are as they are, no matter what opinion we form of them.This is the first lesson.

...continued...

To return, Scott, to your example of the Resurrected Christ, let me say that it would be easy enough to explain the mere fact of resurrection.

That is, we know that quantum probabilities do not rule out such "thermodynamic miracles" as all the atoms in a bar of lead simultaneously changing into gold. It is possible that this could happen naturally...it is just so vanishingly improbable that it's not likely to ever happen within the lifetime of the universe.

We also know that God, in Steven Hawking's phrase, "not only does play dice with the universe, but sometimes He throws the dice in places where we can't read them." (I'm paraphrasing from memory, sorry if it's a bit off.) That is to say: In any quantum interaction, we know what the possible outcomes might be, and we even know what the possibility is of any given outcome, but we never see the "die roll" that "chooses" the outcome. All we know is that, by the time we see what actually has happened, the "probability wave" has collapsed producing a measurable result...and apparently in response to our measuring it! Weird stuff.

One possible source of observable miracles, then, is "quantum weirdness": Christ's body came back to life because, like several trillion atoms of lead simultaneously turning into atoms of gold, the atoms of Christ's body all simultaneously did the "improbable thing" and resumed the normal nerve impulses and blood flow of His previously living mortal flesh.

But this, of course, would be a raised physical body, like Lazarus'; it would not be a raised perfected body. It would not teleport or bend the behavior of the "pattern recognition software" in men's brains so as to be unrecognizable by disciples en route to Emmaeus.

So some ongoing phenomenon is therefore called for: An ongoing cascade of "thermodynamic miracles," apparently capable of reconstituting the physical body here or there as desired.

Have you ever read Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen? In it a superhero is "created" by a physics accident which subtracts the "Intrinsic Field" from a living man's body, destroying it; his consciousness survives, however, and consciously "reassembles" his body using whatever quanta are available to hand, and the resulting body walks through walls, teleports, and is a vehicle for his consciousness only when it is convenient. Not a bad imagining of the resurrection of the body, really. (Which is odd, given the author!)

But in all this, there is something Natural about the Supernatural: Jesus makes a point about it by eating fish and inviting Thomas' touch.

And if it is Natural, then it may (I do not say is, for how could I know?) be a part of the usual chain of events from the Big Bang...albeit preceding in an unusual fashion! Or it may be a cascade of quantum weirdness which God enacts right now. Or both...these two theories of miraculous phenomena are not mutually exclusive.

But when the Resurrected Body touches the sand, or the Soul's Intent touches the brain, the result is a natural event. The only question is how far back the chain of natural events goes, before it ends in a supernatural Prime Mover.

R.C. ,

Interesting thoughts, but just some comments on this:

"Beyond this, there is a category of miracle which goes on constantly, but is not readily apparent: Namely, how our souls "control" our bodies through the medium of our brains."

How can this be seen as miraculous? The typical definition of a miracle means a suspension of the laws of nature in one way or another, but the interaction of body and soul does not entail this. To me, it seems as if you are moving toward some type of dualism here, the problem is that it creates a dichotomy between person and nature. Natures are the field of possibilities that reside in persons. Human persons are a unity of body and soul, all our actions are that of persons and not natures. If the soul controls the body, then isn't is really the soul acting and not a person? Doesn't this render the body a mere shell? From a theological perspective, the Church teaches that all Christ's actions were that of a divine person acting through both natures. If there is a miracle in the interaction of body and soul, does this mean that every action of Jesus was also a miracle? What does this do to his human nature? To me, such a view could render his human nature as a shell for his divinity, and we know from the history of the Church that such views were and are problematic. I am not saying that is what you are stating, just trying to show the possible problems with such dualistic language.
Philosophically speaking, such dualisms can trap one in a Cartesian dualism whereby man becomes an intellect and the body a mere mechanism or utility of the intellect. Also, if taken to a logical extreme, it is also leads to solipsism because it would be impossible to prove the existence of an external reality apart from the mind.

Rick:

You state: "How can this be seen as miraculous? The typical definition of a miracle means a suspension of the laws of nature in one way or another, but the interaction of body and soul does not entail this."

Well, there are miracles as understood by theologians, and (more pertinent to the conversation with Scott) miracles as understood by Materialists.

The latter would call a "miracle" any matter/energy event in our space-time which was caused, not by an earlier matter/energy event in our space-time, but by something from outside our space-time.

If you consider the soul to be, or to be made of, "matter/energy events in our space-time" then you are a Materialist. But if you consider souls to be outside our space-time and therefore not measurable or directly observable, why then you're a Supernaturalist (as I am).

But if you take that view, then any decision made in the soul which results in outward actions by a man's body (which are events in our space-time, and are observable through physical methods) is, by the Materialist definition, a "miracle"; i.e., an "intrusion" into our space-time by something from without.

Part of the confusion is the difference between how you define Nature ("Natures are the field of possibilities that reside in persons") and how a Materialist defines it when he defines his belief as "Naturalistic." He certainly doesn't mean, by that word, that he believes in a field of possibilities residing in persons! (Indeed, he can scarcely be said to believe in the existence of persons, at all.)

Instead, he means, by Nature, what Carl Sagan meant when he used the word "Cosmos": The sum total of all matter/energy events in our space-time. His Materialist Creed is to assert that all these events were wholly caused by earlier events which were also matter/energy events in our space-time, which were wholly caused by other such events still earlier in time, et cetera, et alia, ad infinitum (or , rather, ad Big Bangium).

So my comments are within that context. They are intended to illustrate that even if the Materialist view of "Nature" were true, it would (a.) define the Big Bang itself as a non-natural event, and (b.) would provide no guard against God's ability to enact, in our space-time, any of the things in which Christians believe, that Materialists scorn as "superstitious nonsense."

For all the universe is supernaturally caused. A Deist who claims his Watchmaker God is somehow unable or unwilling to effect miracles here and now has merely not thought through the philosophical implications of his beliefs correctly. If he had, he'd find therein no protection against resurrection or parted waters or anything else. He might resist these possibilities from obstinacy, but Nature's laws, which he reveres, are no defense against them. Au contraire, Nature receives these events with all the humility and receptivity of a bride welcoming her groom.

Hello. R.C., I'll have to jump in again on Wednesday. Don't have time now to respond much. I'll be out of town tomorrow (job interview!).

Perhaps I'll pick this up later over on your blog, which I note you have. At any rate, I'll at least put a brief note here on Wednesday.

A quick remark for now on only one particular topic (after only super-skimming some of the above recent comments). Apologies if I repeat something already said by someone else. . .

The control of the body by the "brain" can be seen as more of a surprising thing if a different term than "brain" is used. Typically, the "brain" means the physical organ made of neurons and other stuff in your cranium. Muscle movement can be physiologically described as originating with electrical impulses in the brain, descending down certain motor tracts in the spinal cord, and going out to the the various muscles along known neural pathways.

However, if we use the term "mind," things are more surprising. By "mind," I mean the philosophical term, which does not refer to the physical organ, but to the thing (whatever it is) that you think with and within which a person has his conscious thought life. It is the seat of a person's self-awareness, self-understanding, knowledge, imagination, memory, and will. The mind thinks, understands, and directs personal actions. A neurosurgeon may cut into a brain; he does not cut into a mind.

Some equate "mind" with "brain"--that the two are no different (such could be a materialist position)--just different terms for the same thing. But, the Western philosophical tradition does not do so (modern and contemporary philosophy excepted). And I agree. Mind and brain are not identical. They are, for sure, deeply and intimately interrelated. And, the mind has a certain dependency on the physical brain for its full functioning. But, I believe that sound philosophical reasoning shows that the mind cannot be merely material, and thus, it cannot be equated to the physical organ.

So, if it is true, as I believe (and sound reason concludes) that the mind in its essence is immaterial and not a solely material reality, then, it becomes a perplexing question to wonder how the conscious mind voluntarily controls the movement of the body. Somehow, there is a seamless junction or union, between the immaterial mind and the physical body, with the brain as the primary locus of this mind-body junction.

Now, we enter the enigmatic waters of the anthropology of the human being as a body-spirit unity; two different types of being, united in one person. We take this for granted (because it's what we are). And so we don't appreciate that such a creature is rather remarkable in the universe, a being where two realms (matter and spirit) that are distinct and independent by nature, are together in one person.

Gentlemen-

A fascinating discussion, even for those of us who aren't well-trained in philosophy or science. I have something to throw in that relates to your earlier posts:

What is your basis for speaking with such certainty regarding the nature of the human soul?

I ask because I have been thinking about a person's identity and just how it is shaped by our lives. As a veteran of the pro-life movement, I have heard ad nauseum the assertions of pro-life Christians regarding how all miscarried and aborted babies are "waiting for us in heaven", and we'll "meet them" then. But just "who" will these individuals be? De-romanticize it for the sake of this discussion - without identities, without experiences in this life, without relationships, without memories - how can we speak of them as unique, unrepeatable "persons" at all?

Similarly, I would like to question your assertion regarding the notion that God specifically steps in and creates each individual human soul. I have always resisted this idea, partly because it is completely unobservable, mostly because it violates the laws of Nature He created. Not everyone who rejects this idea does so out of animosity for the Faith - many of us do it because it violates the nature of things as we see it, trivializes the Faith, and just seems plain wrong. Miracles are, by nature, suspensions of the natural order of things. Our God has created things to operate according to an observable, generally predictable nature. Ascribing a series of miracle events to a natural phenomenon is repugnant, since the exception soon swallows the rule. A past article in Crisis magazine juxaposed this strain of belief in Islam (that everything - everything - that happens occurs because "Allah wills it", not because of gravity, or some other cause-and-effect sequence) with Christianity, which readily acknowledges that God created things to operate according to their nature. It is uncomfortably similar to the "watchmaker" theory of God, but there it is.

As a final observation, this concept of "ensoullment" being a specific act of God - what do you say to IVF, where conception occurs in a petri dish? If IVF is intrinsically sinful, why would - nay, how can God have a hand in it and create a soul there? Or identical twins where division occurs some days after fertilization? Does he step back in and create a second soul?

It seems much more rational to believe that whatever this thing is that we call the "soul", it is intrinsic to the nature of a human being, and not deliberately and specifically created by an act of God every time. And yet you assert that this position violates clear Catholic teaching. So, after a long, roundabout posting, I return to my initial question: What is your basis for speaking with such certainty regarding the nature of the human soul?

A Frenchman works on his vines for a few months and miraculously every year he obtains a fine Claret.

Jesus does the same in Cana, just faster (although it was not Claret, I am almost sure).

Both are miracles, in my opinion. More so in the case of the Frenchman who has no idea how a bit of French soil can become a grape.

This book sounds interesting but I noticed a flaw already. The notion that God set up the universe, fine-tuned it, and kicked it off, so that life and eventually the current state of life would develop is bad science. It is determinism, which went out with Newtonian physics. Quantum physics shows us that any movement of particles can have nearly infinite repercussions, based on sets of potentials. Determinism was used by the Stoics, and later by 18th century "enlightenment" scientists to deny free will. Interestingly, the more up-to-date science seems to re-enforce more Catholic ideas. The argument is also not satisfying philosophically, since God keeps doing creation every time He makes a new human soul. If you consider that God is not a temporal being, then for Him there was no "beginning" of the universe, which He is now allowing to coast. God is eternal. All time is present to Him, and the act of creation is part of His nature - it sustains the universe. Paradoxically, the natures of things and people are also potentials, which are fulfilled through action and time. Physics determines how this comes to to pass, and the human mind/ soul (which is metaphysical) also has free will and thus some measure of causality.

However, that got away from intelligent design. Wow. Based on that kind of physics, though, it seems to me that there must be specific guidance over some aspects of evolution. Obviously the appearance of living things out of non-living material can't have happened on its own. However, I do not believe ID has a place in the science classroom, except to mention that there are other theories besides evolution, along with emphasis that evolution is also a theory. A real scientist would admit that they don't know how or why life first came to be and leave it at that. Scientific method cannot be applied to ID - heck, it can barely be applied to evolution. All you have is hindsight, and incomplete fossil record, and no means of doing controlled experimentation. There is at least a lot of evidence though, to make a theory. I do believe that the whole issue is an appropriate discussion for the social studies classroom.

A fascinating book about quantum physics and its implications for Christianity is "Modern Physics Ancient Faith" by Stephen Barr. Also, did anyone see Ben Stein's movie "Expelled?" It was quite good.