Path: ultra.sonic.net!miwok!news1.best.com!news.apfel.de!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!aristos.demon.co.uk!aristos.demon.co.uk!sam From: Sam Dodsworth Newsgroups: alt.books.cs-lewis Subject: Re: Difficulties with "Miracles" - no quantum mechanics Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 17:08:25 +0000 Organization: Annexia Free Press Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <$+4nUCA4AiBzEwZr@aslan.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: aristos.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: aristos.demon.co.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: Turnpike Version 3.01 <7c0azr3XvpMr4dZzpifF$I+pPf> Lines: 126 In article <$+4nUCA4AiBzEwZr@aslan.demon.co.uk>, Andrew Rilstone writes >I am interested by the fact that Lewis doesn't insist, in 'Miracles; on >"the supernatural" being outside the universe, but merely on it being >the primary thing which all other things are derived from. He pushes >this point in so many other places -- that God exists in that >relationship to the Universe as an Author does to a book or a play -- >that this may simply be a slip on his part. Or maybe her thought it was >implicit in his use of the term super-natural. There's certainly nothing in Lewis' definition that requires the Supernatural to be outside the universe, although it is, in a different sense, outside the system of Nature. This is a point to watch out for (and one I hadn't spotted), but I don't think it makes much difference to Lewis' actual arguments. > >I wasn't meaning to imply that what science deals in is "just" laws of >thumb. I quite understand and agree that it discovers regularities and >deep structures which have predictive power and which are "really >there". What I have problems with is the idea that the laws are prior >to the universe, or that the universe is in some sense derivative from >the laws. It isn't a rule of thumb to say that, in any right-angled >triangle "(a x a) = (b x b) + (c x c)". We don't look around trying to >spot the one instance of a hypoteneuse mis-behaving it self: we accept >that this is simply true and in the nature of triangles. But I don't >think that this implies a supernatural conception in Lewis' sense. In >fact, I think that the geometrical theorom has boiled down "what we mean >by triangles" into a simple, easily graspable, manipulatable and >therefore *usefull* formula. I think that science does this to the >universe as a whole; and I think that what exites Hawking and others is >the idea that 'what we mean by the universe' could be boiled down into >rules which are very simple indeed. But I don't think that the formula >(or the "law" which it is a codification of) caused the triangle. > But we do have, for example, constants that define the relative strengths of different kinds of forces, and these constants appear to be arbitrary. A change in the constants would affect the universe, but the universe canot affect the constants. We also have a theory that the universe could spontaneously form out of fluctuations in a vacuum, but the vacuum and the laws that describe the fluctuations have to be pre- existant. >> None of your examples except Hawking are trying to do more than >>explain some part of nature in terms of other parts: to be a Naturalist >>you have to believe that _everything_ is part of one enormous process. >>What Hawking seems to be trying to produce in "A Brief History Of Time" >>is very close to Naturalism, but he still requires the laws of physics >>to be basic and original: that's why he has a problem explaining why we >>have these laws and not others. > >Does he? Or does he merely think that the universe shows regularity, and >this regularity can be brilliantly and elegantly described in simpler >and and simpler propositions? > Hawking's specifically trying to show that the beginning of the universe was simultaneous with the beginning of time making the universe a closed system with no "outside" and no "before", but he requires certain physical laws for this to work and he's working as a theoretician to propose regularities the experimentalists can search for. That looks to me like he's treating the universe as a manifestation of the laws of physics and not the other way around. > Speaking as a theist, I have much less problem with >the statment "The Form of the Good is God" or "Brama is God" than you >might think: they have enough of the divine attributes to make me feel >that we are talking about the same sort of thing. If it were really true >that the proposition E=MC squared existed outside of the universe, had >always existed and had caused the universe to come into being then I >might possibly say "Well then, E = MC squared is God." It would have >some divine attributes (necessary existence, pre-existence, eternal >existence, arguably perfection) but not others. None of this invalidates >your point that Lewis ought to have used the word a good deal more >carefully. All fair enough, as long as we accept that it's only a god if it's got _all_ the attributes. >Some theolgians would say that God *cannot* have desires or goals, since >this would > >a: imply that he wasn't perfect and > >b: violate the principle of divine impassibility (that God cannot change >or be acted on in any way). > >Anytime we see God apparently acting, or changing his mind, or being >angry we are simply applying anthropomorphic language to an expression >of what God always, absolutely, unchangably and fundementally *is*. On >this view, God has a good deal in common with the Platonic form of the >Good or the idealist Absolute which Lewis believed in prior to his >conversion. This all seems logical enough, but it leaves us with a god who is basic and original but has no desires or goals and performs no actions. This looks a lot like the laws of physics, if we accept the laws of physics as basic and original. >The negative or mystical Way (of, say the medieval "Cloud of >Unknowing") says that it therefore follows that we can only approach >this One Real Thing by totally emptying our mind of images. Anything we >think God might be, by definition, he isn't. (I shall refrain from >quoting the Apologist's Prayer again at this point.) Lewis's view seems >to be that > >a: While this is probably true, the Negative Way is too difficult for >most people > >b: That God wouldn't have communicated himself to us in images if he >hadn't intended us to use them > >c: That most attempts to correct those images ends up simply by >replacing them with less vivid images -- the "primitive" picture of a >fire-breathing God crashing through the sky on a winged beast is >replaced, not by no image at all, but by a vague picture of a bright >light or some smoke. > I think that (b) is the key point here. The negative way seems to come perilously close to saying that God is unknowable, and if that were so then there would be no point in trying to understand Him. Sam Dodsworth (sam@aristos.demon.co.uk) "I think there should be more sex and violence on television, not less. Both are powerful catalysts of social change, at a time when change is desperately needed." -J.G. Ballard