Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Is God a science-stopper?

I'd like to revisit Richard Dawkins's "science-stopper" objection. He alleges that if you say "God did it," then there's no point seeking a scientific explanation.

i) At best, that only applies to miracles. Take a miraculous healing. There's no causal explanation beyond divine agency.

But even in that regard, there may still be a teleological explanation. If God miraculously heals somebody, there's still the question of why he healed that person rather than someone else. Does the healing have a larger purpose in terms of future outcomes?

ii) In addition, we can generalize the principle. Take the Antikythera mechanism. To ascribe the device to intelligent agency hardly nullifies a scientific investigation into how it works and what it's for. To the contrary, it's only because the product was designed that we presume it has a purpose. It if was like random patterns in sand dunes, we wouldn't ascribe any particular significance to the artifact. 

2 comments:

  1. On a related note:

    http://rockingwithhawking.blogspot.com/2016/09/god-of-gaps.html

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  2. Steve wrote:
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    He alleges that if you say "God did it," then there's no point seeking a scientific explanation.
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    To piggyback on what you said, this also shows more evidence that atheists view God as an impersonal force instead of as a personal agent. If someone asks, "Why is the window broken?" and someone says, "Bill did it" we don't respond by saying, "That's hardly a scientific response!" In fact, we can typically move right into "Why did Bill do it?" and continue from there.

    So perhaps a more fundamental problem is the complete incapability of an atheists to even conceptualize God as being a personal agent.

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