Eric Metaxas responds to critics of his WSJ column on fine-tuning

_{Denyse O'Leary

January 12, 2015

Fine tuning, Intelligent Design}

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Column. Critics. Metaxas’ response here:

Not surprisingly, the piece had plenty of critics. One scientist wrote to the Journal complaining about “religious arguments for the existence of God thinly veiled as scientific arguments” and “allowing a Christian apologist to masquerade as a scientist.”

This objection, which I’m told figured prominently in the comments section at the Journal, essentially amounts to saying that only scientists should be allowed to talk about the religious implications of scientific things. Scientists, it seems, can dabble as metaphysicians, philosophers, and theologians, but not vice-versa.

This is the foregone conclusion even when the person of faith is merely citing scientific findings, as I did. However, this objection is not rooted in science but in scientism, which holds that “empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints.”

The criticism wasn’t limited to comments from atheistic scientists. Several religious believers, including those whose work I respect, took me to task for saying that science can “prove” the existence of God, much less the God of the Bible. As one Christian philosopher put it, a god whose existence can be proved scientifically isn’t God.

That is true, which is why I’m happy that I never said anything resembling that. More.

It actually doesn’t matter what Metaxas said. He challenged the dhimmis for naturalism (nature is all there is) racket. The racket works both sides of the street (atheists and theists).

See also: In defense of Eric Metaxas: Is God a scientific hypothesis?

Note: Of course, from a naturalist perspective, God is not a scientific hypothesis. A scientific hypothesis supports naturalism. That is how you know it is a scientific hypothesis, pure and simple.

Evidence is irrelevant (or else an actual distraction or false trail, or a risk to faith), whether we are talking about cosmology, origin of life, or human evolution, the human mind, or a host of other questions.

Glad we got that sorted. You must not look for evidence for anything but naturalism because if it does not support naturalism, it is not evidence. There. Glad we got that sorted. 😉

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Comments

Lou Jost@2, Upon reading your comment I initially thought I would respond in my usual frustrated manner. But I am trying to be a little bit different now and dialogue more than complain. You say, "naturalism is an empirical conclusion based on the lack of evidence for the action of Mind directly on nature without physical intermediaries". I am curious what you mean by "lack of evidence". 1. There is abundant evidence that current scientific theories of self-organization, evolution over time, etc. are inadequate to explain... the amount of information that is contained in life, the fine-tuning of the universe, the uniqueness of human beings, the unbiased observation of consciousness, the unbiased observation of exercise of free will. PLEASE NOTE:This is not positive evidence for.. but negative evidence that all existing naturalistic theories can not account for these things. 2. There is an appalling lack of evidence nor can I think of any way there could be any evidence that any of these things can be accounted for by just presupposing a multiverse. 3. There is abundant evidence from the world of human beings and the tools and entertainments they invent, that design ( i.e. gathering of information which is specifically used to create something meeting a preplanned functional specification ) is a function of "Mind directly on nature without physical intermediaries". This is positive evidence that it takes a MIND to create the design that we observe. 4. There is zero successful theories which account for consciousness and some evidence from QM that consciousness is actually more fundamental than matter. I could make many more points, but in light of these four observations which I don't think you can reasonably dispute, how can you claim that naturalism is an empirical deduction rather than an a priori faith assumption? IOW there is not a "lack of evidence" but rather a large amount of evidence you reject because of your a priori assumption of naturalism.JDH_{January 16, 2015
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Axel, I don't know BA77's citations but I am suspicious of your interpretation of them, based on what I know of cosmology. Regarding your comment on Bohr and Planck and the pioneering years of QM, here's pioneer Heisenberg's thoughts on "the observer" (Wikipedia). This would certainly be Planck's opinion as well, and probably Bohr's opinion too: "Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the "possible" to the "actual," is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory."[2]Lou Jost_{January 15, 2015
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Completely predictable, Lou. They are obdurate: a) Because Wigner's paradigm is repugnant to their world-view; b) Because they know which side their bread is buttered on. However, no evidence has ever been adduced, demonstrating that matter could create spirit, even in principle. In cosmology, the centrality to the universe of the observer has apparently been proved, according to BA77's citations, suggesting that we, each live in a little mental world of our own, albeit seamlessly coordinated to mutually coincide at the level of classical, mechanistic physics. Our world as a product of our minds was identified by both Bohr and Planck at the very earliest juncture of pioneering QM.Axel_{January 14, 2015
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Anthropic, most scientists today consider it a completely naturalistic theory. Yes, there are a few who felt that minds are what collapse the state vector. QM pioneer Eugene Wigner was one of the main proponents of that idea. (I had the honor to converse with him about that before he died.) Today this is a minority position.Lou Jost_{January 13, 2015
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Lou 2 Two words: Quantum mechanics.anthropic_{January 12, 2015
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I agree with everything in Metaxes's WSJ article, and only point 2 in Krauss's response (that we're finding more exoplanets than ever before), but did anyone else think Metaxes's response above was pretty underwhelming? I thought there was a lot more that could have been said in response.JoeCoder_{January 12, 2015
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"A scientific hypothesis supports naturalism. That is how you know it is a scientific hypothesis, pure and simple." Not sure if you were being sarcastic here or sincere. But regardless, I want to stress that for many scientists, science does not presuppose naturalism. Rather, naturalism is an empirical conclusion based on the lack of evidence for the action of Mind directly on nature without physical intermediaries. If it were possible to say some magic words and make miracles happen on demand, then scientists would have to reject most people's versions of naturalism.Lou Jost_{January 12, 2015
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Denyse, I am glad you are an old battle axe with a thick skin considering all the negativism constantly thrown at you. To me it is obvious that most of the objectors to what you write simply can't see the forest from the trees. They seem to be so wound up in the world view they have that they fail to think outside the little tiny box they have built for themselves. So, thank you once again for sorting it out for us dummies.fossil_{January 12, 2015
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