INTRODUCTION
Belonging to a research tradition that has been corroborated time and time again, and can therefore be deemed successful, is an explanatory virtue that proposed theistic explanations lack:
“…the naturalistic research programme of the modern sciences has been stunningly successful since its inception in the seventeenth century. Again and again, it has shown that postulating the existence of a deity is not required in order to explain the phenomena.”[1]
“Some care is required here. I am not speaking of what we might call the ‘track record’ of the same hypothesis. For given that a hypothesis can be corroborated by known facts, considerations of past explanatory success would come under the heading of corroboration. But hypotheses cannot be fully understood, nor should they be evaluated, in isolation for one another. Any particular hypothesis can be seen as part of a research programme or a research tradition, which unites a series of proposed explanations sharing certain common assumptions. And we can include under background knowledge the past successes or failures of the research programme to which our hypothesis belongs.”[2]
Because the lack of past explanatory success is alleged to lower the prior probability of any proposed theistic explanation (if you are a Bayesian), it would be helpful to explore various relationships between facts and theistic explanations to see how they can fail and succeed to help us ultimately determine whether theistic explanations are really lacking in corroboration all things considered.
[1] Greg Dawes, Theism and Explanation (Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion), 131.
[2] Ibid, 131.
Belonging to a research tradition that has been corroborated time and time again, and can therefore be deemed successful, is an explanatory virtue that proposed theistic explanations lack:
“…the naturalistic research programme of the modern sciences has been stunningly successful since its inception in the seventeenth century. Again and again, it has shown that postulating the existence of a deity is not required in order to explain the phenomena.”[1]
“Some care is required here. I am not speaking of what we might call the ‘track record’ of the same hypothesis. For given that a hypothesis can be corroborated by known facts, considerations of past explanatory success would come under the heading of corroboration. But hypotheses cannot be fully understood, nor should they be evaluated, in isolation for one another. Any particular hypothesis can be seen as part of a research programme or a research tradition, which unites a series of proposed explanations sharing certain common assumptions. And we can include under background knowledge the past successes or failures of the research programme to which our hypothesis belongs.”[2]
Because the lack of past explanatory success is alleged to lower the prior probability of any proposed theistic explanation (if you are a Bayesian), it would be helpful to explore various relationships between facts and theistic explanations to see how they can fail and succeed to help us ultimately determine whether theistic explanations are really lacking in corroboration all things considered.
[1] Greg Dawes, Theism and Explanation (Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion), 131.
[2] Ibid, 131.
DIFFERENT POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS OF FACTS
There are two broad types of theistic explanations of facts with various sub-types appearing under the header of these two possibilities.
1) Facts Lacking a Natural Explanation--Some phenomena the theist tries to explain are those that do not have a natural explanation in one of two senses:
a) Naturally Unexplained—These involve facts for which we currently lack a natural explanation as a contingent matter of fact, but it is possible that there will be one in the future. An example would be recovering from an illness with no apparent natural explanation explaining how this happened.
b) Naturally Inexplicable Facts—(Brute facts for the atheist). In principle, these are facts which we cannot conceive of as having a natural explanation. Examples include the existence of the universe, and the laws of nature.
2) Facts Having Natural Explanations--When the atheist and the theist both agree that some fact is naturally explained, the theist might also think a complementary explanation is required. When the atheist and the theist both agree that some fact can potentially be naturally explained, the theist might think the natural explanation isn’t the actual explanation, and so will offer a competing explanation.
a) Facts with Accepted Natural Explanations—A theist could begin with a fact that has a proximate natural explanation, but also argue that there is an ultimate theistic explanation that is complementary. For example, when I move my hand we can give a proximate physiological explanation as to how this happened, but in order to explain why I moved my hand we have to appeal to a complementary explanation in terms of intention.
b) Facts with Contested Natural Explanations—These are facts which the atheist regards as having a successful natural explanation, although it is one that the theist contests. The theist can contest the alleged natural explanation by making either de facto or in principle arguments.
In the de facto case, what a theist would argue is that while there is a potential natural explanation of the facts in question, the theistic explanation is better because it fulfills certain explanatory virtues or Bayes theorem better than some natural explanation. An example of this would be the fine-tuning argument.
To make an in principle case, a theist would deny that the natural explanation in question is even a potential explanation. The clearest contemporary example of such an attitude is to be found among creationists, who reject Darwin’s account of the development of biological species.[1]
ASSESSMENT
CLARIFYING THE ARGUMENT
Why is it that the stunning success of methodological naturalism favors ontological naturalism over theism? After all, “Atomic theory can explain many chemical facts much better than theism, but that’s no reason to doubt theism. …atomic theory can also explain many facts better than naturalism or deism or pantheism or any other alternative to theism that is not ad hoc."[2] According to Dawes, the answer lies in comparing the track record of facts with contested, or competing theistic and naturalistic explanations (see above). Specifically, because past explanatory success just is corroboration by known facts, and since natural explanations have been corroborated time and time again, whereas potential theistic explanations have not, this counts against the prior probability of any proposed theistic explanations. For example, Sir Isaac Newton still required God to fine-tune the mechanics of his solar system, but by the time of Pierre Simon de Laplace (1749-1827), the astronomer notoriously had no need of that hypothesis. Or again, until 1859 it seemed that the diversity of living organisms could not be accounted for without reference to God, but Charles Darwin offered us a more successful, natural alternative.[3]
It is important to point out that a fundamental assumption of Dawe’s entire project is that theistic explanations just are (primarily) intentional, and causal; they are facts with contested natural explanations.[4] That is, theistic explanations are by definition interventionist, supernatural, and miraculous. Hence, if there are theistic explanations in the world, they cannot be explained by scientific theories and laws in principle. This type of theistic research programme certainly hasn’t been as strongly corroborated as the naturalistic research programme. Is the theistic research programme Dawes dismantles the only and/or most plausible one? I do not think so.
THEISTIC RESEARCH PROGRAMMES
Howard Van Till usefully distinguishes between the following types of theistic and atheistic research programmes:
ATHEISTIC NATURALISM—A comprehensive worldview that explicitly rejects not only supernaturalism but also the existence of any transcendent God. It could be called atheism, or ontological naturalism, or materialism. This position entails the success of the sciences.
RELIGIOUSLY AGNOSTIC NATURALISM—A point of view which makes no commitment regarding the existence or nonexistence of a transcendent God, but nonetheless does preclude the occurrence of supernatural divine interventions. The existence of a God who acts non-coercively is possible but not essential largely because of the track record of fruitfulness that scientific theorizing has had. Thus, it is also appropriate to call adherents to this programme scientific naturalists. Compared to atheists and materialists, scientific naturalists focuses its attention not on the ontology of the universe but on the manner in which it functions.
NATURALISTIC THEISM—A comprehensive theistic worldview that takes the existence and non-coercive action of God to be essential to the nature of Nature. This worldview sees supernatural (coercive) divine intervention as something that is precluded by the very nature of God, the World, and the God/World relationship, thereby ensuring that the World would necessarily be characterized by the RFEP. Non-coercive divine action is presumed to be effective—contributing to the outcome of natural events and processes—and manifest in such phenomena as the remarkable fruitfulness of the Universe’s formational history.
KENOTIC THEISM—A comprehensive theistic worldview that presumes the existence of a Creator-God who is capable of supernatural intervention but who nonetheless voluntarily chooses not to engage in supernatural intervention, at least not for the purposes of actualizing either inanimate physical structures or living organisms. From this perspective, there is no need for occasional episodes of form-imposing divine intervention because the Universe has been provided by its Creator with a robust formational economy. Supernatural intervention could play a role in events outside of the arena of the Universe’s formational history. Once could characterize this perspective as partially naturalistic theism.
SUPERNATURAL THEISM—A comprehensive worldview that posits the existence of a transcendent God who is not only able and, on occasion, willing to act supernaturally on the world, but is also presumed to have actually done so. God has engaged in occasional episodes of form-imposing intervention as the only means by which certain physical structures and life forms could have been actualized in time.[5]
The success of methodological naturalism is entailed by the first four perspectives defined and named above, but provides no definitive way of favoring either of them. The fifth and final perspective can be shown to have a low prior probability because of the success of the natural sciences. Hence, all that Dawes has shown so far is that Supernatural Theism lacks the virtue of past explanatory success. He has yet to show that kenotic or naturalistic theism has an unsuccessful track record. Perhaps Dawes would reply that on naturalism, there cannot be intentional supernatural explanations whereas on kenotic theism at least, there could be, even if there doesn’t have to be. Thus, on naturalism, we have antecedent reason to expect the success of the sciences but we have no such antecedent reason on theism given the principle of indifference and the theistic possibilities above. Is this true?
THE PRIOR PROBABILITY OF KENOTIC THEISM
Simply because God could do something doesn’t mean God would do something. Just because God has lots of options in principle, doesn’t mean there isn’t good reason to think God will do things one way rather than many other ways. For example, although it is strictly logically possible for God to create a world with pointless evil in it, it is not metaphysically possible given further facts about God’s nature. Likewise, just because God can create a possible world in which the research programme of supernaturalism would be corroborated, there are good reasons to think that God wouldn’t create such a world, but instead would create a world that is predicted by the kenotic theism research programme.
TWO PROBLEMS WITH SUPERNATURAL THEISM
CONCEPT OF GOD--It is important to distinguish between beliefs that are implied by the statement ‘God exists’ and other beliefs about God that are not implied by this claim. Adding claims, or auxiliary hypotheses, in the latter case to a research programme decrease the simplicity of the programme. The former does not decrease the simplicity of a research programme because it doesn’t add auxiliary hypotheses. The question becomes, what does the claim God exists imply about the success of scientific explanations in the universe? Does it imply that the modern sciences should be noticeably less successful than they actually are, or exactly as they appear? It isn’t obvious.
Leibniz argued that a God which had to intervene in the universe to accomplish His or Her purposes is one with less than perfect knowledge, power, and goodness. That seems very plausible to me. So, even if God could intervene, that doesn’t mean He would intervene. On the contrary, the concept of God seems to imply that we should be observing the very success of the natural sciences that we observe. What this means is that if there are theistic explanations, most or all of them are not going to be of the miraculous, supernatural, and scientifically contentious sort.
RATIONALITY OF THE UNIVERSE--If we are to have any trust in our knowledge of the world, God cannot work too many miracles. And of course there is something odd about the idea of a God who establishes the laws of nature only to violate them quite a lot.[6]
ONE PROBLEM WITH NATURALISTIC THEISM
NATURALISTIC THEISM— Given that God is omnipotent, it seems impossible for it to be impossible for God to perform a miracle. Thus, it seems that naturalistic theism goes too far in claiming that it is impossible for God to perform miracles, and/or that God would never perform any miracles.
In terms of prior probability then, it would seem that kenotic theism has the best start of all the theistic research programmes identified above.
UNDERSTATED EVIDENCE
THE SUCCESS OF MODERN SCIENCE CORRBORATES KENOTIC THEISM OVER NATURALSIM
UNDERSTATED EVIDENCE-- Even if the more general fact about the success of the natural sciences supports naturalism over even kenotic theism, there are four more specific facts which constitute understated evidence that corroborate theistic explanations within the kenotic theism research programme so much so that the prior probability of other kenotic theistic explanations would not be lowered, or low, and may even be moderately high, even given the success of the modern sciences.
AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE--On theism, the universe is supposed to be our home. That is, we wouldn’t predict an environmental mismatch between our existence and the regular workings of the universe. However, a universe in which supernatural, miraculous interventions were more corroborated than scientific natural explanations would be one of strong environmental mismatch. Paul Davies writes,
“The position I have presented to you today is radically different. It is one that regards the universe, not as the plaything of a capricious Deity, but as a coherent, rational, elegant, and harmonious expression of a deep and purposeful meaning… A universe in which the emergence of life and consciousness is seen, not as a freak set of events, but fundamental to its law like workings, is a universe that can truly be called our home.”[7]
Stuart Kauffman convincingly argues that the science of complexity extends Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection: that self-organization, selection, and chance are the engines of the biosphere. Indeed, Kauffman shows that ecosystems, economic systems, and even cultural systems may all evolve according to similar general laws that tissues and terra cotta evolve in similar ways. And finally, there is a profoundly spiritual element to Kauffman's thought. If, as he argues, life were bound to arise, not as an incalculably improbable accident, but as an expected fulfillment of the natural order, then we truly are at home in the universe.[8]
Thus, it isn’t enough to claim that the success of modern science simpliciter corroborates atheism over theism since there are countless ways in which life could be the result of a freak set of events (e.g. Boltzmann Brains, a planet in which we coexist with Dinosaurs, or some other monsters to whom we are easy food, and the like) on naturalism wherein scientific explanations would be just as successful as they are in this universe. Moreover, other non-theistic or even alien civilization theories about the success of science in a universe are just as likely to predict an environmental mismatch as they are to predict an environmental match, but theism leads us to predict that only the latter would be the case. Our existence is organically connected to the history of the universe; as Lawrence Krauss wryly quipped, ‘Forget about Jesus, billions upon billions of stars died so that you may live!’ Hence, the fact that the success of science has yielded data which imply that the universe is our home is strong complementary evidence that confirms theism over atheism!
THE OPENNESS OF THE UNIVERSE TO DIVINE ACTION--There is an item of understated evidence that is so many times more probable on theism than naturalism that even if the past explanatory success of sciences initially counts against theistic explanations of all sorts, such negative evidence would be cancelled out. On theism, and Christian theism we would expect the world to be structured and disposed so that God would have almost unlimited freedom to bring about any effect in the physical world (resurrect the dead, turn water into wine, change the constants and quantities and initial conditions of the universe to bring about a transformed creation, and the like) in as many modes as possible: interventionist, non-interventionist, episodic, and continuously. On some of the most widely accepted interpretations of quantum mechanics today, this is exactly the world we live in.[9] On certain other unlikely interpretations God's actions in the world are limited to varying degrees and even metaphysically impossible (et al Alexander Bird). Why would the world be set up for unlimited divine action if nobody is around to set it up that way and use it?! It is as if the universe is telling us to look for non-interventionist and perhaps continuous divine action as corroboration of theistic explanations.
THE FORMATIONAL ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE--The more robust the Creation’s formational economy is, the more creativity displayed by the Creator. By formational economy I mean:
“…the Universe possesses all of the right physical resources, all of the right structural and functional potentialities, and all of the right formational capabilities to make possible the forming—by natural processes alone—of every type of physical structure and life form that has ever existed, without need for occasional episodes of form-imposing divine intervention. At the same time, however, we understand that natural processes and events, while they do preclude any form of coercive divine intervention, may nonetheless include non-coercive divine actions as an effective factor. Although supernatural divine action is not categorically ruled out as something that is impossible, it is nonetheless seen as unnecessary for the particular purposes of actualizing new structures and forms in the course of time. Moreover, as a symbol of the Creator’s self-emptying supererogatory nature, and to achieve an autonomous creation, the Creator voluntarily chooses to refrain from overpowering it with coercive form-imposing interventions.”[10]
The interesting question becomes “…Why is the outcome of the Universe’s formational history so fruitful and creative as to include self-conscious, rational, morally aware, and morally capable creatures? Because that is God’s effective will for the World’s experience and the outcome of God’s (non-coercive) loving action within the World.”[11]
Because theism entails axiarchism, and part and parcel of the definition of axiarchism includes creativity, it would be unsurprising on theism if God created a physical world (creating a physical world would involve more creativity on God’s part than creating a non-physical world since God would be giving what he doesn’t have) that was itself the most self-creative universe possible on the known laws of nature. That is, a universe with a robust formational economy that resulted in valuable, creative, and interesting things is far more likely on theism than on naturalism. This would be a complementary theistic explanation to the success of the science that would corroborate theistic explanations precisely because of what science has revealed about the universes creative, gapless, and robust formational economy. It isn’t just that this formational economy is many times more probable on theism, it is also that it is very improbable on naturalism,
“You might be tempted to suppose that any old rag-bag of laws would produce a complex universe of some sort, with attendant inhabitants convinced of their own specialness. Not so. It turns out that randomly selected laws lead almost inevitably either to unrelieved chaos or boring and uneventful simplicity. Our own universe is poised exquisitely between these unpalatable alternatives, offering a potent mix of freedom and discipline, a sort of restrained creativity. The laws do not tie down physical systems so rigidly that they can accomplish little, but neither are they a recipe for cosmic anarchy. Instead, they encourage matter and energy to develop along pathways of evolution that lead to novel variety-what Freeman Dyson has called the principle of maximum diversity: that in some sense we live in the most interesting possible universe.”[12]
THE EMERGENT UNIVERSE--Emergence is the notion that various effects and properties in the universe are ontologically distinct from their causal bases. These properties and effects are causally dependent on their bases, but the effects and properties of these bases are wholly other than their causes. For example, liquidity emerges from hydrogen and oxygen gases when combined together in the proper way, self-consciousness arises from non-conscious neurons, classical space and time emerged from a state of the universe that cannot be described in terms of classical space and time, the normative arose from the non-normative, reason arose from non-reason, logic from the non-logical, purpose from the purposeless, determinate from the indeterminate, and so on. Indeed, the fact that the universe is permeated with emergent effects and properties is many times more probable on theism than it is on naturalism precisely because this giving what you don’t have type of causality is entailed by theism, but not on naturalism.
On theism, the concept of God, the irrationality of performing too many interventionist miracles, the prediction that there wouldn’t be an environmental mismatch between the universe and its inhabitants, the openness of the universe to unlimited divine action of a kenotic sort, the formational economy of the universe, and the emergent properties of the universe all render it unsurprising that the modern sciences have been so successful in explaining phenomena without reference to supernatural, and miraculous agency. On the contrary, these considerations seem to predict both the success of the modern sciences and to provide such strong corroboration of kenotic theistic explanations over atheistic explanations that any lowering of prior probability the general success of science may have on theistic explanations will be outweighed by more specific facts about the success of the modern sciences. This will hold true, I think, so long as such explanations do not fail to adequately meet the rest of Dawes’ criteria compared to atheistic explanations (which of course I am arguing they don’t). Indeed, we can briefly show that further facts strongly corroborate kenotic theistic explanations over atheistic explanations in our next section.
FURTHER CORROBORATION OF THE KENOTIC THEISM RESEARCH PROGRAMME
To deny that supernatural interventionist miracles will be rare or non-existent on theism (except for perhaps the creation of the universe), doesn’t mean that there won’t be any ways left to corroborate theistic explanations. Recall that we explored two broad types of possible theistic explanations above: facts lacking a naturalistic explanation, and facts having a naturalistic explanation. There were further sub-types of theistic explanations that fell under these heading as well; six total. Of these six possible types of potential explanations, the past explanatory success of the modern sciences only applies to the last one (in principle facts with contested theistic and natural explanations). It would apply to the de facto facts with contested natural explanations as well only if Dawes can make good on his promise to show that theistic explanations lack consistency with our background knowledge, empirical content, simplicity, informativeness, economy, and so on. However, not only are there other explanatory virtues that theism fulfills better than atheism (explanatory power, explanatory scope), the whole aim of my entire post series is to show that theism fairs better than atheistic explanations with respect to the explanatory virtues Dawes cherry-picked for his book! For now suffice it to say that proposed theistic explanations can be corroborated (primarily by facts with accepted naturalistic explanations that will be incomplete without a complementary theistic explanation given our previous discussion up to this point), and therefore do have great past explanatory success in the following ways for specific facts:
FACTS LACKING A NATURAL EXPLANATION
Naturally Inexplicable Facts (Brute facts for the atheist)—These types of singular explanations can favor theism when we compare them to the null hypothesis. Examples include:
Facts with Accepted Natural Explanation--A theist could begin with a fact that has a proximate natural explanation, but an ultimate theistic explanation that is complementary:
Facts with Contested Natural Explanations—These are facts which the atheist regards as having a successful natural explanation, although it is one that the theist contests. The theist can contest the alleged natural explanation by making de facto arguments. In the de facto case, what a theist would argue is that while there is a potential natural explanation of the facts in question, the theistic explanation is better because it fulfills certain explanatory virtues or Bayes theorem better than some natural explanation:
Past explanatory success just is corroboration. While the success of modern science does drive down the prior probability of any theistic explanation within the supernatural theism research programme, such success is predicted by the kenotic theism research programme. Both naturalism and kenotic theism entail the success of the modern sciences and importantly, we saw three reasons to think that kenotic theism has a higher antecedent probability than supernatural theism, and naturalistic theism. This significantly offests any lowering of the prior probability that the success of modern science would have on kenotic theistic explanations. Even if the success of modern science drives down the probability of kenotic theistic explanations to a significant degree, we saw four items of understated evidence that earn kenotic theists the right to claim that all things considered, the success of modern science has corroborated their research programme more than atheistic research programmes by way of complementary theistic explanations (primarily). With respect to other data, we also briefly saw that theistic explanations are corroborated much more than atheistic explanations. Thus, given the past explanatory success of complementary theistic explanations; primarily, naturally inexplicable facts; secondarily, and even facts with contested natural explanations; tertiarily, the prior probability of further kenotic theistic explanations is moderately high.
[1] Ibid, 65-71.
[2] Paul Draper, Scientific Approaches to the Philosophy of Religion (Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion), 54.
[3] Greg Dawes, Theism and Explanation (Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion), 131.
[4] Ibid, 50-51.
[5] Howard Van Till, The Nature of Nature: Examining The Role of Naturalism in Science, 16497-16524.
[6] Greg Dawes, Theism and Explanation, 73.
[7] Paul Davies, http://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24
[8] Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe
[9] Bradley Monton, God Acts in the World.
[10] Howard Van Till, The Nature of Nature: Examining The Role of Naturalism in Science, 16654.
[11] Ibid, 16654.
[12] Paul Davies, http://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24
There are two broad types of theistic explanations of facts with various sub-types appearing under the header of these two possibilities.
1) Facts Lacking a Natural Explanation--Some phenomena the theist tries to explain are those that do not have a natural explanation in one of two senses:
a) Naturally Unexplained—These involve facts for which we currently lack a natural explanation as a contingent matter of fact, but it is possible that there will be one in the future. An example would be recovering from an illness with no apparent natural explanation explaining how this happened.
b) Naturally Inexplicable Facts—(Brute facts for the atheist). In principle, these are facts which we cannot conceive of as having a natural explanation. Examples include the existence of the universe, and the laws of nature.
2) Facts Having Natural Explanations--When the atheist and the theist both agree that some fact is naturally explained, the theist might also think a complementary explanation is required. When the atheist and the theist both agree that some fact can potentially be naturally explained, the theist might think the natural explanation isn’t the actual explanation, and so will offer a competing explanation.
a) Facts with Accepted Natural Explanations—A theist could begin with a fact that has a proximate natural explanation, but also argue that there is an ultimate theistic explanation that is complementary. For example, when I move my hand we can give a proximate physiological explanation as to how this happened, but in order to explain why I moved my hand we have to appeal to a complementary explanation in terms of intention.
b) Facts with Contested Natural Explanations—These are facts which the atheist regards as having a successful natural explanation, although it is one that the theist contests. The theist can contest the alleged natural explanation by making either de facto or in principle arguments.
In the de facto case, what a theist would argue is that while there is a potential natural explanation of the facts in question, the theistic explanation is better because it fulfills certain explanatory virtues or Bayes theorem better than some natural explanation. An example of this would be the fine-tuning argument.
To make an in principle case, a theist would deny that the natural explanation in question is even a potential explanation. The clearest contemporary example of such an attitude is to be found among creationists, who reject Darwin’s account of the development of biological species.[1]
ASSESSMENT
CLARIFYING THE ARGUMENT
Why is it that the stunning success of methodological naturalism favors ontological naturalism over theism? After all, “Atomic theory can explain many chemical facts much better than theism, but that’s no reason to doubt theism. …atomic theory can also explain many facts better than naturalism or deism or pantheism or any other alternative to theism that is not ad hoc."[2] According to Dawes, the answer lies in comparing the track record of facts with contested, or competing theistic and naturalistic explanations (see above). Specifically, because past explanatory success just is corroboration by known facts, and since natural explanations have been corroborated time and time again, whereas potential theistic explanations have not, this counts against the prior probability of any proposed theistic explanations. For example, Sir Isaac Newton still required God to fine-tune the mechanics of his solar system, but by the time of Pierre Simon de Laplace (1749-1827), the astronomer notoriously had no need of that hypothesis. Or again, until 1859 it seemed that the diversity of living organisms could not be accounted for without reference to God, but Charles Darwin offered us a more successful, natural alternative.[3]
It is important to point out that a fundamental assumption of Dawe’s entire project is that theistic explanations just are (primarily) intentional, and causal; they are facts with contested natural explanations.[4] That is, theistic explanations are by definition interventionist, supernatural, and miraculous. Hence, if there are theistic explanations in the world, they cannot be explained by scientific theories and laws in principle. This type of theistic research programme certainly hasn’t been as strongly corroborated as the naturalistic research programme. Is the theistic research programme Dawes dismantles the only and/or most plausible one? I do not think so.
THEISTIC RESEARCH PROGRAMMES
Howard Van Till usefully distinguishes between the following types of theistic and atheistic research programmes:
ATHEISTIC NATURALISM—A comprehensive worldview that explicitly rejects not only supernaturalism but also the existence of any transcendent God. It could be called atheism, or ontological naturalism, or materialism. This position entails the success of the sciences.
RELIGIOUSLY AGNOSTIC NATURALISM—A point of view which makes no commitment regarding the existence or nonexistence of a transcendent God, but nonetheless does preclude the occurrence of supernatural divine interventions. The existence of a God who acts non-coercively is possible but not essential largely because of the track record of fruitfulness that scientific theorizing has had. Thus, it is also appropriate to call adherents to this programme scientific naturalists. Compared to atheists and materialists, scientific naturalists focuses its attention not on the ontology of the universe but on the manner in which it functions.
NATURALISTIC THEISM—A comprehensive theistic worldview that takes the existence and non-coercive action of God to be essential to the nature of Nature. This worldview sees supernatural (coercive) divine intervention as something that is precluded by the very nature of God, the World, and the God/World relationship, thereby ensuring that the World would necessarily be characterized by the RFEP. Non-coercive divine action is presumed to be effective—contributing to the outcome of natural events and processes—and manifest in such phenomena as the remarkable fruitfulness of the Universe’s formational history.
KENOTIC THEISM—A comprehensive theistic worldview that presumes the existence of a Creator-God who is capable of supernatural intervention but who nonetheless voluntarily chooses not to engage in supernatural intervention, at least not for the purposes of actualizing either inanimate physical structures or living organisms. From this perspective, there is no need for occasional episodes of form-imposing divine intervention because the Universe has been provided by its Creator with a robust formational economy. Supernatural intervention could play a role in events outside of the arena of the Universe’s formational history. Once could characterize this perspective as partially naturalistic theism.
SUPERNATURAL THEISM—A comprehensive worldview that posits the existence of a transcendent God who is not only able and, on occasion, willing to act supernaturally on the world, but is also presumed to have actually done so. God has engaged in occasional episodes of form-imposing intervention as the only means by which certain physical structures and life forms could have been actualized in time.[5]
The success of methodological naturalism is entailed by the first four perspectives defined and named above, but provides no definitive way of favoring either of them. The fifth and final perspective can be shown to have a low prior probability because of the success of the natural sciences. Hence, all that Dawes has shown so far is that Supernatural Theism lacks the virtue of past explanatory success. He has yet to show that kenotic or naturalistic theism has an unsuccessful track record. Perhaps Dawes would reply that on naturalism, there cannot be intentional supernatural explanations whereas on kenotic theism at least, there could be, even if there doesn’t have to be. Thus, on naturalism, we have antecedent reason to expect the success of the sciences but we have no such antecedent reason on theism given the principle of indifference and the theistic possibilities above. Is this true?
THE PRIOR PROBABILITY OF KENOTIC THEISM
Simply because God could do something doesn’t mean God would do something. Just because God has lots of options in principle, doesn’t mean there isn’t good reason to think God will do things one way rather than many other ways. For example, although it is strictly logically possible for God to create a world with pointless evil in it, it is not metaphysically possible given further facts about God’s nature. Likewise, just because God can create a possible world in which the research programme of supernaturalism would be corroborated, there are good reasons to think that God wouldn’t create such a world, but instead would create a world that is predicted by the kenotic theism research programme.
TWO PROBLEMS WITH SUPERNATURAL THEISM
CONCEPT OF GOD--It is important to distinguish between beliefs that are implied by the statement ‘God exists’ and other beliefs about God that are not implied by this claim. Adding claims, or auxiliary hypotheses, in the latter case to a research programme decrease the simplicity of the programme. The former does not decrease the simplicity of a research programme because it doesn’t add auxiliary hypotheses. The question becomes, what does the claim God exists imply about the success of scientific explanations in the universe? Does it imply that the modern sciences should be noticeably less successful than they actually are, or exactly as they appear? It isn’t obvious.
Leibniz argued that a God which had to intervene in the universe to accomplish His or Her purposes is one with less than perfect knowledge, power, and goodness. That seems very plausible to me. So, even if God could intervene, that doesn’t mean He would intervene. On the contrary, the concept of God seems to imply that we should be observing the very success of the natural sciences that we observe. What this means is that if there are theistic explanations, most or all of them are not going to be of the miraculous, supernatural, and scientifically contentious sort.
RATIONALITY OF THE UNIVERSE--If we are to have any trust in our knowledge of the world, God cannot work too many miracles. And of course there is something odd about the idea of a God who establishes the laws of nature only to violate them quite a lot.[6]
ONE PROBLEM WITH NATURALISTIC THEISM
NATURALISTIC THEISM— Given that God is omnipotent, it seems impossible for it to be impossible for God to perform a miracle. Thus, it seems that naturalistic theism goes too far in claiming that it is impossible for God to perform miracles, and/or that God would never perform any miracles.
In terms of prior probability then, it would seem that kenotic theism has the best start of all the theistic research programmes identified above.
UNDERSTATED EVIDENCE
THE SUCCESS OF MODERN SCIENCE CORRBORATES KENOTIC THEISM OVER NATURALSIM
UNDERSTATED EVIDENCE-- Even if the more general fact about the success of the natural sciences supports naturalism over even kenotic theism, there are four more specific facts which constitute understated evidence that corroborate theistic explanations within the kenotic theism research programme so much so that the prior probability of other kenotic theistic explanations would not be lowered, or low, and may even be moderately high, even given the success of the modern sciences.
AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE--On theism, the universe is supposed to be our home. That is, we wouldn’t predict an environmental mismatch between our existence and the regular workings of the universe. However, a universe in which supernatural, miraculous interventions were more corroborated than scientific natural explanations would be one of strong environmental mismatch. Paul Davies writes,
“The position I have presented to you today is radically different. It is one that regards the universe, not as the plaything of a capricious Deity, but as a coherent, rational, elegant, and harmonious expression of a deep and purposeful meaning… A universe in which the emergence of life and consciousness is seen, not as a freak set of events, but fundamental to its law like workings, is a universe that can truly be called our home.”[7]
Stuart Kauffman convincingly argues that the science of complexity extends Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection: that self-organization, selection, and chance are the engines of the biosphere. Indeed, Kauffman shows that ecosystems, economic systems, and even cultural systems may all evolve according to similar general laws that tissues and terra cotta evolve in similar ways. And finally, there is a profoundly spiritual element to Kauffman's thought. If, as he argues, life were bound to arise, not as an incalculably improbable accident, but as an expected fulfillment of the natural order, then we truly are at home in the universe.[8]
Thus, it isn’t enough to claim that the success of modern science simpliciter corroborates atheism over theism since there are countless ways in which life could be the result of a freak set of events (e.g. Boltzmann Brains, a planet in which we coexist with Dinosaurs, or some other monsters to whom we are easy food, and the like) on naturalism wherein scientific explanations would be just as successful as they are in this universe. Moreover, other non-theistic or even alien civilization theories about the success of science in a universe are just as likely to predict an environmental mismatch as they are to predict an environmental match, but theism leads us to predict that only the latter would be the case. Our existence is organically connected to the history of the universe; as Lawrence Krauss wryly quipped, ‘Forget about Jesus, billions upon billions of stars died so that you may live!’ Hence, the fact that the success of science has yielded data which imply that the universe is our home is strong complementary evidence that confirms theism over atheism!
THE OPENNESS OF THE UNIVERSE TO DIVINE ACTION--There is an item of understated evidence that is so many times more probable on theism than naturalism that even if the past explanatory success of sciences initially counts against theistic explanations of all sorts, such negative evidence would be cancelled out. On theism, and Christian theism we would expect the world to be structured and disposed so that God would have almost unlimited freedom to bring about any effect in the physical world (resurrect the dead, turn water into wine, change the constants and quantities and initial conditions of the universe to bring about a transformed creation, and the like) in as many modes as possible: interventionist, non-interventionist, episodic, and continuously. On some of the most widely accepted interpretations of quantum mechanics today, this is exactly the world we live in.[9] On certain other unlikely interpretations God's actions in the world are limited to varying degrees and even metaphysically impossible (et al Alexander Bird). Why would the world be set up for unlimited divine action if nobody is around to set it up that way and use it?! It is as if the universe is telling us to look for non-interventionist and perhaps continuous divine action as corroboration of theistic explanations.
THE FORMATIONAL ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE--The more robust the Creation’s formational economy is, the more creativity displayed by the Creator. By formational economy I mean:
“…the Universe possesses all of the right physical resources, all of the right structural and functional potentialities, and all of the right formational capabilities to make possible the forming—by natural processes alone—of every type of physical structure and life form that has ever existed, without need for occasional episodes of form-imposing divine intervention. At the same time, however, we understand that natural processes and events, while they do preclude any form of coercive divine intervention, may nonetheless include non-coercive divine actions as an effective factor. Although supernatural divine action is not categorically ruled out as something that is impossible, it is nonetheless seen as unnecessary for the particular purposes of actualizing new structures and forms in the course of time. Moreover, as a symbol of the Creator’s self-emptying supererogatory nature, and to achieve an autonomous creation, the Creator voluntarily chooses to refrain from overpowering it with coercive form-imposing interventions.”[10]
The interesting question becomes “…Why is the outcome of the Universe’s formational history so fruitful and creative as to include self-conscious, rational, morally aware, and morally capable creatures? Because that is God’s effective will for the World’s experience and the outcome of God’s (non-coercive) loving action within the World.”[11]
Because theism entails axiarchism, and part and parcel of the definition of axiarchism includes creativity, it would be unsurprising on theism if God created a physical world (creating a physical world would involve more creativity on God’s part than creating a non-physical world since God would be giving what he doesn’t have) that was itself the most self-creative universe possible on the known laws of nature. That is, a universe with a robust formational economy that resulted in valuable, creative, and interesting things is far more likely on theism than on naturalism. This would be a complementary theistic explanation to the success of the science that would corroborate theistic explanations precisely because of what science has revealed about the universes creative, gapless, and robust formational economy. It isn’t just that this formational economy is many times more probable on theism, it is also that it is very improbable on naturalism,
“You might be tempted to suppose that any old rag-bag of laws would produce a complex universe of some sort, with attendant inhabitants convinced of their own specialness. Not so. It turns out that randomly selected laws lead almost inevitably either to unrelieved chaos or boring and uneventful simplicity. Our own universe is poised exquisitely between these unpalatable alternatives, offering a potent mix of freedom and discipline, a sort of restrained creativity. The laws do not tie down physical systems so rigidly that they can accomplish little, but neither are they a recipe for cosmic anarchy. Instead, they encourage matter and energy to develop along pathways of evolution that lead to novel variety-what Freeman Dyson has called the principle of maximum diversity: that in some sense we live in the most interesting possible universe.”[12]
THE EMERGENT UNIVERSE--Emergence is the notion that various effects and properties in the universe are ontologically distinct from their causal bases. These properties and effects are causally dependent on their bases, but the effects and properties of these bases are wholly other than their causes. For example, liquidity emerges from hydrogen and oxygen gases when combined together in the proper way, self-consciousness arises from non-conscious neurons, classical space and time emerged from a state of the universe that cannot be described in terms of classical space and time, the normative arose from the non-normative, reason arose from non-reason, logic from the non-logical, purpose from the purposeless, determinate from the indeterminate, and so on. Indeed, the fact that the universe is permeated with emergent effects and properties is many times more probable on theism than it is on naturalism precisely because this giving what you don’t have type of causality is entailed by theism, but not on naturalism.
On theism, the concept of God, the irrationality of performing too many interventionist miracles, the prediction that there wouldn’t be an environmental mismatch between the universe and its inhabitants, the openness of the universe to unlimited divine action of a kenotic sort, the formational economy of the universe, and the emergent properties of the universe all render it unsurprising that the modern sciences have been so successful in explaining phenomena without reference to supernatural, and miraculous agency. On the contrary, these considerations seem to predict both the success of the modern sciences and to provide such strong corroboration of kenotic theistic explanations over atheistic explanations that any lowering of prior probability the general success of science may have on theistic explanations will be outweighed by more specific facts about the success of the modern sciences. This will hold true, I think, so long as such explanations do not fail to adequately meet the rest of Dawes’ criteria compared to atheistic explanations (which of course I am arguing they don’t). Indeed, we can briefly show that further facts strongly corroborate kenotic theistic explanations over atheistic explanations in our next section.
FURTHER CORROBORATION OF THE KENOTIC THEISM RESEARCH PROGRAMME
To deny that supernatural interventionist miracles will be rare or non-existent on theism (except for perhaps the creation of the universe), doesn’t mean that there won’t be any ways left to corroborate theistic explanations. Recall that we explored two broad types of possible theistic explanations above: facts lacking a naturalistic explanation, and facts having a naturalistic explanation. There were further sub-types of theistic explanations that fell under these heading as well; six total. Of these six possible types of potential explanations, the past explanatory success of the modern sciences only applies to the last one (in principle facts with contested theistic and natural explanations). It would apply to the de facto facts with contested natural explanations as well only if Dawes can make good on his promise to show that theistic explanations lack consistency with our background knowledge, empirical content, simplicity, informativeness, economy, and so on. However, not only are there other explanatory virtues that theism fulfills better than atheism (explanatory power, explanatory scope), the whole aim of my entire post series is to show that theism fairs better than atheistic explanations with respect to the explanatory virtues Dawes cherry-picked for his book! For now suffice it to say that proposed theistic explanations can be corroborated (primarily by facts with accepted naturalistic explanations that will be incomplete without a complementary theistic explanation given our previous discussion up to this point), and therefore do have great past explanatory success in the following ways for specific facts:
FACTS LACKING A NATURAL EXPLANATION
Naturally Inexplicable Facts (Brute facts for the atheist)—These types of singular explanations can favor theism when we compare them to the null hypothesis. Examples include:
- The existence of the universe, the beginning of the universe, the temporal and spatial ordering of the universe, and the information content of the first state of the universe.
Facts with Accepted Natural Explanation--A theist could begin with a fact that has a proximate natural explanation, but an ultimate theistic explanation that is complementary:
- At home in the universe (consider Boltzmann brains on naturalism), emergent properties permeate the universe, the most interesting possible universe (the formational economy of the universe), the temporal and spatial location of Earth, the speed and tempo of evolution, the retention of dispositional bundles throughout evolution, the retention of body plans throughout evolution, the systematic connection between pain, pleasure, and morality; the resiliency of humans through tragedies, our intrinsic religious and meaning making dispositions, and several more (for more arguments of this sort see my post: The Fallacy of Understated Evidence under Scholarly Naturalism/Paul Draper’s Work).
Facts with Contested Natural Explanations—These are facts which the atheist regards as having a successful natural explanation, although it is one that the theist contests. The theist can contest the alleged natural explanation by making de facto arguments. In the de facto case, what a theist would argue is that while there is a potential natural explanation of the facts in question, the theistic explanation is better because it fulfills certain explanatory virtues or Bayes theorem better than some natural explanation:
- An example of this would be the fine-tuning argument.
Past explanatory success just is corroboration. While the success of modern science does drive down the prior probability of any theistic explanation within the supernatural theism research programme, such success is predicted by the kenotic theism research programme. Both naturalism and kenotic theism entail the success of the modern sciences and importantly, we saw three reasons to think that kenotic theism has a higher antecedent probability than supernatural theism, and naturalistic theism. This significantly offests any lowering of the prior probability that the success of modern science would have on kenotic theistic explanations. Even if the success of modern science drives down the probability of kenotic theistic explanations to a significant degree, we saw four items of understated evidence that earn kenotic theists the right to claim that all things considered, the success of modern science has corroborated their research programme more than atheistic research programmes by way of complementary theistic explanations (primarily). With respect to other data, we also briefly saw that theistic explanations are corroborated much more than atheistic explanations. Thus, given the past explanatory success of complementary theistic explanations; primarily, naturally inexplicable facts; secondarily, and even facts with contested natural explanations; tertiarily, the prior probability of further kenotic theistic explanations is moderately high.
[1] Ibid, 65-71.
[2] Paul Draper, Scientific Approaches to the Philosophy of Religion (Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion), 54.
[3] Greg Dawes, Theism and Explanation (Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion), 131.
[4] Ibid, 50-51.
[5] Howard Van Till, The Nature of Nature: Examining The Role of Naturalism in Science, 16497-16524.
[6] Greg Dawes, Theism and Explanation, 73.
[7] Paul Davies, http://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24
[8] Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe
[9] Bradley Monton, God Acts in the World.
[10] Howard Van Till, The Nature of Nature: Examining The Role of Naturalism in Science, 16654.
[11] Ibid, 16654.
[12] Paul Davies, http://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24
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