Lesson 2/16: Science, Naturalism and Materialism

Do naturalistic explanations of the physical world threaten God's providence over creation, or do they simply reveal to us the material means by which God governs his universe? If science is the systematic study of God patterns of ordinary providence, then why do we teach our Children to fear the natural sciences?

Category:

Education

Tags:

• science
• naturalism
• materialism
• evolution
• creation
• bible
• education
• classical
• christian
• deism
• theism
• providence
• sovereignty

[terryrozmus]

Oh yes, a good distinction between Science and Philosophy.

Would you also say that it is also a reasonable Philosophical possibility that God intervenes in all kinds of undetectable ways in the operation of the Universe in order to direct it toward particular goals he has for it? This may occur at the quantum level, or it may simply have been encoded into the laws of nature from the very beginning.

Beyond the tools of science perhaps, but a possibility none the less.

[glovergj]

Absolutely I think God interacts with his creation -- and quantum indeterminancy / complex systems provide an path that would definitely be beyond the tools of science to detect. But there stil lacks a material mechanism by which the immaterial can influence the material -- similar to the mind-body problem. In both cases, I think assuming that only an immaterial substance fits the bill is premature. What if these properties are inherent within the fabric of space / time / material?

[terryrozmus]

Is it possible we are asking the wrong questions here? It almost sounds like you are assuming that since God is Spirit he cannot directly interract with the matter of the Universe almost like he is some kind of cosmic ghost. Might it be better to ask what is 'Spirit'? If Spirit made matter, then it is possible that matter came directly from Spirit. Spirit then is the higher reality of which the material is only a part.

[glovergj]

That sounds like the same thing -- I think.

[ekpil2000]

I may not agree with everything but this is at least an interesting take.

[hugesinker]

One minor correction here, materialism is not necessarily a consequence of atheism. Some atheists are into new age pseudoscience and believe in things like spirits or astral projection.

[grits011]

This is one of the most compelling and lucid explanations of religious thinking I've ever heard on YouTube. I'm an atheist myself, and I've been in a lot of discussions with religious people who feel the need to argue against naturalistic science to support their beliefs. It's encouraging to see someone defending naturalistic science from a religious perspective. The materialism vs naturalism section was very enlightening. I'll be watching the rest of the series with great interest. Thank you.

[richardaberdeen]

And why this matters is, because ALL major historical scientists believed in God and they ALL mixed their beliefs about God with their beliefs about science. This is very clearly seen in the lives and writings of Plato, Aristotle, DaVinci, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein and the living Francis Collins. Even modern atheist scientists like Dawkins and undecided like Hawking mix their beliefs about God and science within their writings. In reality, there is no such division.

[richardaberdeen]

And regarding predicting the weather, in the past couple of weeks here in Nashville, the weather people predicted rain every day for about two weeks straight, while it actually only did rain to any extent in the past two days. When I lived at lake Tahoe in the 1980's, some bright reporter compared the guesses of what the weather would be by an elementary school class with the actual weather "forecaster", and they kids had a higher percentage of accuracy over a several weeks comparison study.

[richardaberdeen]

There really doesn't exist any such divisions in either the historical record or the 21st Century reality. Newton, for example, freely combined his studies of astronomy, astrology, physics and alchemy, as well as like virtually all historical scientists, reely combined his beliefs about God with his beliefs about science. And in the 21st Century, scientists continue to try to synthesize and manufacture diamonds and various compounds and elements of nature, similar in goal to Newton's alchemy.

[mtheoryrules]

@glovergj

Would you suggest that their could be a meta material that can interact with the physicality?

And that this is perhaps the reason there is so much difficulty in interpreting the micro scale of QM?

[RhunDraco]

@ThreeSixtydroid You know why that might be? Because the creationist wackos aren't touting this as good examples of Christian education, thus we don't see it. Instead you've got con-men like Hovind pushing his babbling as "science." If you and other thoughtful Christians care about honesty and proper science education, do what you can to see that people like Hovind and the founders of creationist museums don't get the upper hand and continue teaching that people rode on dinosaurs.

[Omnitrix12]

He failed to mention something important: to be true science, something must operate within the scientific method.

[notunskeptical]

LOVE the guy sitting outside his car if he accepts a supernatural explanation!

These are so good, Gordon. I'm finally making my way through each one.