Watch an Atheist’s Brain Explode!
I recently rediscovered a book by Alister McGrath called “The Order of Things: Explorations in Scientific Theology“. There’s a very good reason why it’s taken me nearly six months to read 40 pages:
It’s meaty.
McGrath drops more bombs than a B-52, but here’s a particular gem that I find ruminating in my mind even now:
The ordering of the world, so fundamental an assumption of the scientific method itself, demands to be explained … It is not the gaps in the human understanding of reality that point to the existence of God; it is the very breadth of the human grasp of that reality, which itself requires explanation at a deeper level. Maybe nothing can be proved for certain–but that hardly stops us asking what that best explanation might be, and holding fast to it, once we have found it.
In short, McGrath is saying that it is because science has been able to “figure stuff out” to the extent that it has proves the existence of God; not in spite of it. In other words, the more science discovers, the more evidence we have that God must exist. Created order is simply too complex to figure this “stuff” out by happenstance.
Oy vey. How’s that for your Friday morning?
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yep. proof again that God rocks and so does Be Deviant. Thanks, Justin.
You are too kind, my friend!
ok, my head just exploded also.
For realz. My wife has been mopping up bits of my brain matter for months with this book… Who said Christians were dumb?!
I guess I still don't understand how that can be proof of god. Something is out of grasp…therefore it must be god….why not proof of santa claus? Which god does this prove the existence of? Where is the proof?
I appreciate your clarification. Basically the premise of McGrath's point is entrenched in a dialogue with Richard Dawkins' adherence to the Darwin's theory of evolution. McGrath maintains that the \”God of the gaps\” theory is terminally flawed as the more science is able to \”prove\” the more God is squeezed out of those \”gaps.\”
The quote I provided comes from the opposite direction, stating that when science is able to fill those \”gaps\” it should give us cause to stop and contemplate how, in the world, we are able to know what we know.
I'd encourage you to pick up the book and examine the fullness of what McGrath is saying here. It is, in a word, phenomenal.
Point still stands. A lack of complete understanding of how things are what they are or people know what they know does not open the door to leaping towards god. This is called giving up. It is basically saying that something is so mind boggling that we should just automatically attribute it to a god. That's pretty silly.
I like the premise that increased knowledge of the natural world does not decrease the knowledge of what is "above" nature, but I don't agree with the premise that it increases it. That value is a constant. The Scientific Method is an algorithm for testing hypotheses. Ideas that are not testable are outside the domain of this method.
Those important questions that fall outside this domain belong to the field of Philosophy, not to Science. That means the Scientific Method doesn't address questions of the supernatural (above nature), only those which are natural. Thus, no bit of supernatural information, whether to increase or decrease the validity of a supernatural God, has ever been scientifically obtained – therefore making that value a constant.
That leaves us with knowledge obtained via the scientific method, and knowledge gained without it. Once isn't necessarily better than the other, they both have their place – but they are worth classifying separately because they are so different.
In the way that 'conservative' is used in economics (risk reduction), as opposed the cultural stasis meaning, the Scientific Method produces the most conservative type of knowledge. Defaulting to the supernatural would be the opposite of conservatism.
Keep up the greats posts!
So I guess that anything we can't explain we can just say….hey that's supernatural…yeah, that's easy. Good thing there have always been members of our society that find tsuch things unacceptable….and resorted to…you got it…scientific method. Supernatural is again…the easy way out. I have yet to find anything above nature. Help me out…what is above nature?
That's a good question martin. I think the traditional answer to that is if you take nature to be the ultimate closed system governed by natural law, then concepts that don't fall within that are "above nature." For example, if you were to ask "who created this ultimate closed system?", that would be asking for information outside this closed system and thus supernatural in origin.
Since information of a supernatural nature is inaccessible via the Scientific Method, faith must be invoked to bridge these domains. In that context, the size of the supernatural knowledge landscape is infinite – because for every conceivable non-physical idea, a faith bridge can be constructed. Within the natural world, runaway infinities are usually nature hinting that you're doing something wrong. But whether or not that intuition can be carried over to the "other side" is a philosophical one – not a scientific one.
Some religions demand violation of natural law, some don't. Christian doctrine violates natural law in several ways. This is not something for Christians to be ashamed of, this is largely the root of Christian faith and thus should be a source of pride. One should be proud of their faith if that's the faith they choose.
Personally, I feel that what McGrath does ultimately reduces to suggesting there should be shame in having Christian faith. His writing are essentially a complex way of redefining 'nature' in such a way that 'supernatural' and 'natural' become the same word. He does this on several fronts, another of which is trying to equate axioms to faith.
I see fellow Christians fall into creationism vs. evolution debates like they have to pick a favorite spots team. As a result they come out looking foolish because they don't understand that evolution isn't an origin of life theory – it really is that simple – they're totally different concepts. It's apples and oranges, and when you try to force it to be apples and apples you just come off looking misguided and ignorant. I get the same feeling from McGrath. He writes and writes trying to force an orange to be an apple.
No matter how many times you redefine nature or the word axiom, the core dichotomy between those concepts always remain.
Your first paragraph makes a HUGE assumption…..a WHO created the universe. Really, it again boils down to a very difficult question about the origin of this universe…and because it is very difficult to answer…it appears that a WHO has been invented (many whos)….the answer is not above science…we just don't have it answered to the point that would completely satisfy us…and maybe it will never be answered….still not above science and not outside of science. McGrath flip flops his way through debates, I think he is one of those who are satisfied with "I don't know…must be god". The main reason I commented here was the assertion that this would blow an atheist's mind and that there was proof of god somewhere……where was the proof again? What about the mind blowing?