|
 |
William Paley Institute
for
Intelligent Design™ |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Darwinism: Science or Philosophy - Chapter 8a
Response to Frederick Grinnell
by Peter van Inwagen
1994
This paper is a response to a presented paper.
THE BODY OF PROFESSOR GRINNELL's paper seems to me to be an argument
for what I would call methodological naturalism. This I take to be
the thesis that scientific explanations and theories should assert
or presuppose the
existence of nothing but natural objects. Scientific explanations,
moreover, should not assert or presuppose that these natural objects
have
any properties but natural properties. (Some might say that a
natural
object like Mt. Everest has such properties as being sublime or
being a
divine creation, and that, unlike height and weight and other
measurable
qualities of things, these are not natural properties.) It may be,
says
the methodological naturalist, that there are objects that are not
natural
objects; and it may be that some natural objects have properties
that are
not natural properties. But such things and such properties are, if
they
exist, irrelevant to the enterprise of science.
Many questions might be asked about methodological naturalism. One
of the
most important is: What does "natural" mean? But I will simply
assume that
we understand this term well enough to go on.
I know, have corresponded with, and have read books by many
scientists who
are Christians. Every one of them is a methodological naturalist.
All of
them, of course, believe that there are things that are not natural
things, and all of them believe that even natural things have
properties
that are not natural properties. Nevertheless, they would not dream
of
asserting or presupposing the existence of anything but natural
objects
and natural properties in their theories and explanations.
Methodological naturalism is, therefore, old news, and Professor
Grinnell's paper is largely an argument for the truth of this piece
of old
news. But there is nothing wrong with that. His paper is a
philosophical
paper, and one of the main tasks of philosophy is to argue for old
news.
There are a lot of good reasons for this: arguments for old news
help us
better to understand our beliefs. For example, and they remind us of
the
value of and centrality to our thought of various beliefs that we
might
otherwise be as unaware of as a fish is of water.
Is the argument a good one? Well, I have heard this sort of argument
before, and I have no quarrel with it. But it does strike me that
there
are some other things that might be said in defense of
methodological
naturalism.
In my own contribution to this symposium I mention a well-known
episode in
the history of science, the story of Newton and the instability of
the
solar system. I want to contrast this story with another story of
more
recent vintage. Several years ago, a few physicists suggested that
certain
effects could be explained only by the postulation of a fifth
fundamental
force (in addition to gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear
force,
and the strong nuclear force). They labeled this force
"hypergravity."
After a short while, however, general agreement was reached that the
effects the force was supposed to explain did not in fact exist, and
hypergravity was removed to the scientific attic, to gather dust
beside
phlogiston and the luminiferous ether.
Now suppose that someone were to reason as follows. "Newton and the
proponents of hypergravity each attempted to explain a certain
effect by
postulating something invisible to account for it-in the one case,
God,
and in the other, hypergravity. In each case it turned out that no
account
was needed, and the effort was dropped. But what is the difference
between
the two cases? If the postulation of a force called hypergravity
(which is
detectable only through the effects it is postulated to explain) is
something that one can do without violating the canons of science,
why is
the postulation of a being called God (who is likewise detectable
only
through the effects he is postulated to explain) not something that
one
can do without violating the canons of science? What is the
essential
difference between the two cases? Why not, in fact, reject
methodological
naturalism as foundational to science, and say that scientific
explanations involving God would be perfectly all right in
principle-it
just turns out that (as Laplace observed) they are not needed? (Not
so
far, at any rate. But we should recognize no fundamental objection
to
introducing them in the future if they should turn out to be
needed.)"
I think that this reasoning is misguided, and I am not sure that an
appeal
to "radical intersubjectivity" does a very good job of explaining
why it
is misguided. To explain why it is misguided, I appeal to the
following
considerations.
Newton did not have a theory about God and his relation to the solar
system that explained why or when or how God would correct the
orbits of
the planets. At any rate, he did not have a theory that explained
these
things in the sense that his theories of motion and gravitation
explained
Kepler's laws of planetary motion. According to Newton, correcting
the
orbits of the planets is something God "just does," and there is
really
nothing more to be said about the matter. The advocates of
hypergravity,
on the other hand, did not simply say, "There's a thing, a natural
force,
called 'hypergravity' and it is the cause of phenomenon X." Rather,
they
had a theory with a detailed mathematical structure, on the basis of
which
one could predict the occurrence (under conditions whose occurrence
in
conjunction with phenomenon X could be verified) of phenomenon X. If
they
had said, "There's a thing, a natural force, called 'hypergravity'
and it
is the cause of phenomenon X," and had said no more than this, then
they
would not have provided a scientific explanation of "phenomenon X,"
despite the fact that their statement appealed only to purely
natural
objects and properties.
The trouble with trying to construct scientific theories that appeal
to
God or to other supernatural agencies is, I suggest, that the
"theories"
always turn out not neatly to be theories at all. They turn out to
be
simple assertions, usually to the effect that some causal relation
holds
between God and some part of the natural world. I myself think that
the
statement "God is the creator of the cosmos" is true. And I think
that it
is a far more important truth than anything discovered by Newton,
Darwin,
or Einstein. But I do not mistake it for a scientific theory. It is
not a
scientific theory because it is not a theory of any sort. Theories
tell
you how things work, and this statement tells you what happened.
If the statement "God is the creator of the cosmos" is not a
scientific
theory, neither is the statement "Because God created it" a
scientific
explanation of the existence of the cosmos. It is an explanation all
right, but it is not a scientific explanation. Scientific
explanations
appeal to theories. They are applications of theories to particular
events
or types of event or phenomena. The statement "Because God created
it" is
no more a scientific explanation of the existence of the cosmos than
"Because Booth shot him" is a scientific explanation of the death of
Lincoln: in neither case is a theory involved.
Thus I would supplement Professor Grinnell's argument for
methodological
naturalism.
It is a commonplace in discussions like this to distinguish
methodological
from ontological or metaphysical naturalism. Ontological or
metaphysical
naturalism is the thesis that everything that exists is a natural
object
having only natural properties. (Whatever "natural" means; remember
that I
have not undertaken to define this term.)
It is obvious that metaphysical naturalism entails methodological
naturalism, in the sense that anyone who accepts the former is
committed
to the latter-one does not construct theories or explanations that
appeal
to things that one firmly believes not to exist. (This statement
probably
requires some qualification. I remember a course in colloid
chemistry from
my undergraduate days in which the instructor thought it permissible
to
appeal to "vibrations of the ether particles" in deriving some of
the
optical properties of colloids; this appeal was excused on the
ground that
the "ether particles" were, in this context, a "useful fiction.")
But what
are the implications of methodological naturalism for metaphysical
naturalism?
I know from experience that there are people who simply conflate
methodological and metaphysical naturalism. In a sense, these people
might
be said to believe that methodological naturalism entails
metaphysical
naturalism. But what these people are really doing is calling both
theories by one name-probably "naturalism"-and are treating
"naturalism"
as methodological naturalism when they are called on to defend it,
and as
metaphysical naturalism when they are drawing conclusions from it.
Among people who are clear about the distinction between
methodological
and metaphysical naturalism, however, it would be hard to find
anyone who
thought that methodological naturalism entailed metaphysical
naturalism.
Almost everyone who is clear about the distinction between them
would
agree that someone could accept methodological naturalism and reject
metaphysical naturalism without any logical inconsistency.
Let me offer an analogy that will help to explain why it is hard to
see
any logical connection between methodological and metaphysical or
ontological naturalism. Professor Grinnell tells the story of a man
who is
looking for his keys in the light of a street lamp, even though he
does
not know that that is where they are. In most versions of the story,
the
man is a drunk, and knows that the keys are not in the area lighted
by the
lamp. That is funny. Professor Grinnell's story is not funny,
however, not
really, since the hero of his story is simply following the very
sensible
policy of not trying to use his eyes in the dark; the keys may be in
the
lighted area, and that is the only place he has any hope of finding
them,
so that is where he is looking. He is, one might say, an adherent of
methodological claviluminism. But he does not accept (nor, of
course, does
he reject) the thesis of ontological claviluminism-the thesis that
the
keys are in fact somewhere in the lighted area. It is obvious that
the
adherent of methodological claviluminism is not logically committed
to the
thesis of ontological claviluminism. It should be equally obvious
that the
adherent of methodological naturalism is not logically committed to
the
thesis of ontological (metaphysical) naturalism.
Logical entailment and logical commitment are not everything,
however.
Some have suggested that the great and impressive mass of scientific
information, explanation, and theory that are the fruit of the
adherence
of scientists to methodological naturalism constitutes important
support
for metaphysical naturalism. It has been argued that the fact that a
science based on methodological naturalism has been so successful
implies
that the world is without "gaps" that need to be filled in by the
acts of
a deity: the success of a science based on methodological naturalism
shows
that "there is nothing left for God to do."
In my view, that argument is not cogent. In my view, it appeals to a
theologically very primitive notion of what it is that God is
supposed to
"do." But I don't wish in these remarks to address the questions
that this
sort of argument raises. I will remark only that it is a
philosophical
argument, and that it is by that very fact highly controversial. As
with
any other philosophical argument, you accept it or you don't, and it
is
probably not going to convince anyone who is not initially
sympathetic
with its conclusion.
I am not sure what Professor Grinnell thinks about the relation
between
methodological and metaphysical naturalism. I don't see any
unequivocal
evidence in his paper that he thinks that his arguments (which I
read as
arguments for methodological naturalism) offer any support for
metaphysical naturalism. There are, however, a few things that he
says
that make me a bit uneasy. Perhaps I have misunderstood him. I'll
quote
just one sentence.
The key question remained: is life a biochemical event, or the work
of a
creative intelligence?
The answer I would give to this "key question" is Yes. That is, I
think
that life is both a biochemical event and the work of a creative
intelligence. And I don't see any shadow of inconsistency or tension
between these two features that I ascribe to life. I am just
puzzled. I
would like to know more about what lies behind the very
exclusive-sounding
or in the sentence I have quoted.
In closing, I would like to make a few comments about what Professor
Grinnell says about religion. The following quotation seems to sum
up his
ideas. "Religious faith orients a person toward the ultimate meaning
of
the world." Well, yes, I can agree with that. But I think that such
a
statement could be very misleading. It could be taken to mean that
religious faith is primarily expressed in musing on the question
"What
does it all mean?" or at least in some type of philosophical
reflection.
It suggests that religious faith consists in some sort of reaching
out by
the individual or the community toward a passive infinite.
My faith holds that an active Infinite is reaching out toward me and
every
other human being. My faith holds that there is a living reality
that is
an active person, beside which the created world (which includes at
least
the totality of the distribution of matter and radiation in
spacetime) is,
in the words of St. Anselm, "almost nothing." This active, personal,
living reality has plans for me and for you and for everyone else,
and is
working to bring these plans to fruition. My faith is (so I believe)
a
piece of news about these plans, and it is designed (not by me; I am
a
mere recipient of this faith) to put me and anyone who accepts it
into
right relation to these plans and to their Author.
Let me sharpen these remarks about an "active Infinite' by
constructing my
own example of a "religious statement" about the sun. There is
nothing
particularly original about it; the thought behind it, if not the
exact
words I use, is a thought that any reasonably reflective theist
would
assent to. It seems to me better to reflect the religious attitude
(or the
theistic attitude; I am not convinced that there is any such thing
as "the
religious attitude," an attitude toward things that is supposedly
common
to, for example, Zen Buddhists and Sunni Muslims) than Joshua 10:12.
That
passage is a report of a speech made in the course of a narrative of
Joshua's military adventures. The speech it records is not science,
philosophy, or theology; it is what a novelist would call dialogue.
If you
wanted to compare it with something that was supposed to have come
from
the tongue or pen of a scientist, the famous words that Galileo
never
spoke about the earth (E pur si muove) would be a closer parallel
than the
words in Professor Grinnell's paper that Copernicus never wrote
about the
sun.{1}
But I digress. Here is my "religious Statement about the sun":
The sun exists at God's pleasure. It reflects his glory as surely as
the
moon reflects its light, and for that reason it is in many cultures
a
symbol of the divine. It exists from moment to moment only because
its
continued existence is his will, and it would instantly cease to
exist
if he stopped holding it in existence. In its interior, the
principles
of general relativity, quantum chromo- dynamics, and quantum
electroweak-dynamics combine to produce the photons that, aeons
after
their production. will fall on the surface of the earth to provide
the
energy that living organisms will exploit. These physical laws are
inventions of his, chosen freely by him, from among an unimaginable
number of alternative possible seas of laws. These laws hold from
moment
to moment only because their continued holding is his will, and if
he
were to stop willing that they hold, the sun and the rest of the
physical universe would instantly dissolve into chaos.
NOTE
{1} At least I don't see how he could have written them. Professor
Grinnell gives no citation, and the words he attributes to
Copernicus seem
clearly to misrepresent Copernicus' system. His planets (since they
are
embedded in rotating spheres) have to move in perfectly circular
orbits.
At the geometrical center of each planetary orbit is a point in
empty
space, from which the sun (which Copernicus hardly mentions) is
removed by
as much as several solar diameters. The orbits of the planets, as we
now
know, are slightly elliptical, with their foci near the center of
the sun;
in consequence, a system that made the planets move in perfectly
circular
orbits around the sun would make wrong predictions, and they would
be
wrong enough to have been definitely inconsistent with
sixteenth-century
observational data.
Foundation for Thought and Ethics.
Copies of the book Darwinism: Science or Philosophy are available
from:
Foundation for Thought and Ethics
|
|
|
Promoting an
Understanding of the Intelligent Design of the Universe
|
|