On 25 Dec 2003 22:01:20 -0800, keith wrote:
>IMO, the natural is simply one form of God's decree. let there be
>light, let there be garvity that is proportional to the square of the
>distance etc. In that sense, there is no natural; only supernatural,
>I'd say.
Well, say as you wish. But saying so, you've eliminated any difference
between natural and supernatural. As a Christian, that should disturb you,
since (if I read St Paul and Augustine correctly) the essence of Christian
belief is that the supernatural entered into and became the natural - and
that belief is nonsense if there is no essential difference between natural
and supernatural (or, in Christian terms, between the creator and its
creatures.) Conflation of the natural and the supernatural is IMO the essence
of paganism. IIRC, C S Lewis makes this point in his contribution to the
Cambridge history of English literature, in a chapter in which he draws
careful distinctions between magic and science, and points out that the
strict differentiation Between the natural and the supernatural was the
beginning of the transformation of medieval alchemy etc into science. -- But
that's getting OT, perhaps.
>For some people, that's true. For others "God exists" or "God doesn't"
>are the theorems that follow from *other* things they accept as
>axioms. The point of my post was that whatever your view, your beliefs
>include things you hold as axioms.
>>Keith
I'm aware of that. These people don't seem to realise that if statements
about god's existence are theorems, then god's existence is contingent, and
not absolute. It seems odd to me that people want to make god's existence
contingent on other assumptions. That means that a) these assumptions are
more basic and fundamental that any assumption about god's existence, and
therefore whatever they refer to must have a more basic and fundamental
existence than god; and b), the run the risk that any future discovery about
these things could falsify the assumptions about them, and therefore render
god's existence logically indeterminate.
--
Wolf Kirchmeir, Blind River ON Canada
"Nature does not deal in rewards or punishments, but only in consequences."
(Robert Ingersoll)