Here is the continuation of my paper on Methodological Naturalism from a Christian perspective. Here I note some problems with Methodological Naturalism and why I think it should not be held. Part I can be read here: Christianity and Methodological Naturalism. Pt I.
There are at least 3 reasons Theists in Academia do hold to Methodological Naturalism in no particular order:
1. Theists may hold to noninterventionism when it comes to God. So nothing is missed out by way of supernatural causes.
2. They may believe it is beyond a Scientist’s training.
3. It sets boundaries for the discipline (it also helps to gets rid of the God-of-the-Gaps Charge).
1
However although Methodological Naturalism is a meta-theoretic shaping principle it is not the only one. A person may drop it without loss since other MSP’s could take its place and carry out its work thus MN is ultimately superfluous.
2
William Lane Craig points out:
Some problems with MN are its restrictiveness and that it limits the Explanatory Resources of Science. Consider the fine-tuning of the Universe. According to MN the positing of an undetectable multiverse is scientific yet when one offers God as an explanation of this fine-tuning even if it were a better alternative it would be religion not science and this just seems ad hoc.
Archaeology, the SETI program, forensic science, psychology, sociology, etc., already use personal agencies and even their internal states as an explanatory concept. One might say these are permitted in Human Sciences but not Natural Science. This however is question begging smuggling in methodological naturalism into its definition.
4
Consider further, suppose God did fine-tune the Universe. According to MN only natural explanations may be posited so that science has to accept a false explanation. It also would conflict with scientific realism concerning reliable indicators of truth.
Consider the last case again of fine-tuning. According to MN one should choose a naturalistic explanation over truth if something like Design was indeed true. It would be a tragedy that because of Methodological constraint we’ve adopted that we would be prevented from knowing the truth about reality. Even if, as William Dembski points out, every Atom was inscribed with the label “made by God” we wouldn’t be able to infer design.
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Moreover one may be given grants, tenure, and would even be able to publish papers instead of the Theist even though his view is wrong and the Theist’s view is true.
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This is where a Theist can have an advantage here over the Naturalist who holds to MN in that he can be more open to follow the evidence where it leads. By contrast for the Naturalist holding to MN his presuppositions help to determine the explanation. History has also shown changes in the methodologies used in science, and who knows if one would need to revise it.
However for the one holding to MN he becomes to restricted. As Dr. Angus Menuge puts it:
Even more MN would rule out anti-realist views in the Philosophy of Science such as Pragmatism and Constructive Empiricism since MN assumes scientific realism. If these theories were true then the world of atoms would be useful fictions but even if they are not surely one could hold a view that takes something as real and other entities as fictions and it be consistent with Natural Science.
Consider for example the probabilities of finding a particle in a certain location, surely someone holding to Bohmian Mechanics can take an Anti-Realist view concerning these mathematical probabilities as merely incomplete descriptions that are completed when one takes into account particles. That is he can hold a deterministic not a stochastic view of particles positions and such and say we can only know where it would be probabilistically due to merely epistemic reasons among others.
Or take an Idealist approach to Science. Surely one could hold an Idealist instead of a Realist view of Science in terms of Ontology. If this were merely possible then one cannot make the existence of matter as a necessary condition of the natural sciences.
8
One last problem I want to mention is called the Demarcation Problem. If you recall one of the reasons theists hold to Methodological Naturalism, and I will add Naturalists, is for Science to have set boundaries. The demarcation problem is essentially the line in the sand between science on the one hand and nonscience or pseudoscience on the other.
Robert T. Pennock once said:
However as the Quantum Physicist Lee Smolin explains:
The failure to find a method unique to science is where the demarcation problem finds its root and many different fields employ very different methods which have changed overtime and often were and are contradictory.
For example Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz employed a mechanistic ideal in which scientific theories must provide mechanistic interpretations but this was rejected by Isaac Newton who provided no mechanistic explanation for his theory of gravitation but rather described it mathematically despite provocation by Leibniz.
Stephen C. Meyer summarizes:
Moreover he notes that Larry Laudan in his article, “The Demise of the Demarcation Problem”:
Mano Singham makes this problem more explicit in saying that since mind and consciousness come from the physical brain it is in the scope of scientific investigation. Singham goes on to say:
The Methodological Naturalist will often say that the supernatural is illegitimate when it comes to science but they fail to realize that they often make mention or use of things beyond the physical domain. Such things as logic and mathematics are not physical things. Even Naturalism and Methodological Naturalism are Philosophic views concerning science and as such are not empirically testable.
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Jeffrey Koperski puts it nicely:
One may claim that religious motives will exclude one’s work as being scientific but this is preposterous many religious believers such as Isaac Newton dedicated their work to God. As a matter of fact it was because of religious motives to understand the mind of God that really helped drive the Scientific Revolution.
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Anyway motives are irrelevant what matters is whether it is true.
A final argument for MN I will consider is that once a concept becomes a shaping principle it becomes immutable. This argument fails terribly not only does it depend on one’s Philosophy and contradict other shaping principles and theories one might pick or hold to, but shaping principles themselves often change with time.
As we have seen here Methodological Naturalism not only does not pose any challenge or threat to Christian Theism, it also can be rejected on good grounds.
(Einstein to Thornton, 7 December 1944, EA 61-574).
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1 Jeffrey Koperski, The Physics of Theism, God, Physics, and the Philosophy of Science (WILEY Blackwell, 2015), 203, 204.
2 Ibid., 212-214.
4 Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (IVP Academic, 2004), 359-361. Jeffrey Koperski, The Physics of Theism, God, Physics, and the Philosophy of Science (WILEY Blackwell, 2015), 211, 212. Much of this section and the following are indebted to these.
6 For a case of bias concerning the issue of Methodological Naturalism see, Stephen C. Meyer, Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life And The Case For Intelligent Design (HarperOne, 2013), 384-386. Also this can lead one to commit the fallacy of suppressed evidence. In which evidence is given to support a claim while suppressing or leaving out evidence that counts against said claim or which supports the opposing claim. This is done to make the claim appear better supported than it really is. As Dr. Menuge states: “In fact, a methodological naturalism that is assumed but not disclosed or discussed is more pernicious than a philosophical naturalism that is openly presented and debated, since in the latter but not the former case, those of theistic persuasion can readily discern the inconsistency of the ideology with their own beliefs.” See, Dr. Angus Menuge, Expert Witness: The Problem of Methodological Naturalism (2005), 3, 10. 15.
7 Ibid. 11.
8 Louis Agassiz whom Darwin himself praised was an Idealist who also was committed to the empirical method. He also rejected Methodological Naturalism. See, ibid. 18-20.
9 Kitzmiller vs Dover 2005, 83.
10 Lee Smolin, The Trouble With Physics (2006), 297.
11 Stephen C. Meyer, Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life And The Case For Intelligent Design (HarperOne, 2013), 387, 388.
12http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-New-War-Between-Science/65400/
13 Steven B. Cowan and James S. Spiegel, The Love of Wisdom: A Christian Introduction to Philosophy (B&H Publishing, 2009). Kindle Edition.
14 Jeffrey Koperski, The Physics of Theism: God, Physics, and the Philosophy of Science, (WILEY-Blackwell, 2015), 209.
15 Interview with Dr. Timothy McGrew
16 Einstein’s Philosophy. For more on Methodological Naturalism see, J.P. Moreland, Scientism and Secularism: Learning to respond to a dangerous Ideology, (Crossway, 2018), Ch. 13.
Hacking the Gate 