Please note: this is my first LW post/comment. Please let me know if I should respond differently—I’m super open to input.
Hey Aien,
I read your essay and found it very interesting- I wonder if it would be helpful to provide a Christian perspective on your belief. Here are a couple of resources I have found very interesting. They are both by a 20th-century author, scholar, theologian, radio personality, professor at Cambridge, tutor and fellow at Oxford, essayist, philosopher, poet, critic, lecturer, and novelist named CS Lewis. Enjoy!
MIRACLES,” SAID MY FRIEND, “OH, COME, SCIENCE HAS knocked the bottom out of all that. We know that Nature is governed by fixed laws.” “Didn’t people always know that?” said I. “Good Lord, no,” said he. “For instance, take a story like the Virgin Birth. We know now that such a thing couldn’t happen. We know there must be a male spermatozoon.” “But look here,” said I, “St. Joseph—” “Who’s he?” asked my friend. “He was the husband of the Virgin Mary. If you’ll read the story in the Bible you’ll find that when he saw his fiancee was going to have a baby he decided to cry off the marriage. Why did he do that?” “Wouldn’t most men?” “Any man would,” said I, “provided he knew the Laws of Nature—in other words, provided he knew that a girl doesn’t ordinarily have a baby unless she’s been sleeping with a man. But according to your theory people in the old days didn’t know that Nature was governed by fixed laws. I’m pointing out that the story shows that St. Joseph knew that law just as well as you do.” “But he came to believe in the Virgin Birth afterwards, didn’t he?” “Quite. But he didn’t do so because he was under any illusion as to where babies came from in the ordinary course of Nature. He believed in the Virgin Birth as something supernatural. He knew Nature works in fixed, regular ways: but he also believed that there existed something beyond Nature which could interfere with her workings—from outside, so to speak.” “But modern science has shown there’s no such thing.” “Really,” said I. “Which of the sciences?” “Oh, well, that’s a matter of detail,” said my friend. “I can’t give you chapter and verse from memory.” “But, don’t you see,” said I, “that science never could show anything of the sort?” “Why on earth not?” “Because science studies Nature. And the question is whether anything besides Nature exists— anything ‘outside.’ How could you find that out by studying simply Nature?” “But don’t we find out that Nature must work in an absolutely fixed way? I mean, the Laws of Nature tell us not merely how things do happen, but how they must happen. No power could possibly alter them.” “How do you mean?” said I. “Look here,” said he. “Could this ‘something outside’ that you talk about make two and two five?” “Well, no,” said I. “All right,” said he. “Well, I think the Laws of Nature are really like two and two making four. The idea of their being altered is as absurd as the idea of altering the laws of arithmetic.” “Half a moment,” said I. “Suppose you put sixpence into a drawer today, and sixpence into the same drawer tomorrow. Do the laws of arithmetic make it certain you’ll find a shilling’s worth there the day after?” “Of course,” said he, “provided no one’s been tampering with your drawer.” “Ah, but that’s the whole point,” said I. “The laws of arithmetic can tell you what you’ll find, with absolute certainty, provided that there’s no interference. If a thief has been at the drawer of course you’ll get a different result. But the thief won’t have broken the laws of arithmetic—only the laws of England. Now, aren’t the Laws of Nature much in the same boat? Don’t they all tell you what will happen provided there’s no interference?” “How do you mean?” “Well, the laws will tell you how a billiard ball will travel on a smooth surface if you hit it in a particular way—but only provided no one interferes. If, after it’s already in motion, someone snatches up a cue and gives it a biff on one side— why, then, you won’t get what the scientist predicted.” “No, of course not. He can’t allow for monkey tricks like that.” “Quite, and in the same way, if there was anything outside Nature, and if it interfered—then the events which the scientist expected wouldn’t follow. That would be what we call a miracle. In one sense it wouldn’t break the laws of Nature. The laws tell you what will happen if nothing interferes. They can’t tell you whether something is going to interfere. I mean, it’s not the expert at arithmetic who can tell you how likely someone is to interfere with the pennies in my drawer; a detective would be more use. It isn’t the physicist who can tell you how likely I am to catch up a cue and spoil his experiment with the billiard ball; you’d better ask a psychologist. And it isn’t the scientist who can tell you how likely Nature is to be interfered with from outside. You must go to the metaphysician.”
edit: removed a section that moderator was unsure of, added direct quote from a source
Please note: this is my first LW post/comment. Please let me know if I should respond differently—I’m super open to input.
Hey Aien,
I read your essay and found it very interesting- I wonder if it would be helpful to provide a Christian perspective on your belief. Here are a couple of resources I have found very interesting. They are both by a 20th-century author, scholar, theologian, radio personality, professor at Cambridge, tutor and fellow at Oxford, essayist, philosopher, poet, critic, lecturer, and novelist named CS Lewis. Enjoy!
https://www.basicincome.com/bp/files/Miracles-C_S_Lewis.pdf
https://www.orcuttchristian.org/Lewis CS—God_in_the_Dock.pdf (especially note chapter seven: Religion and Science, attatched below)
MIRACLES,” SAID MY FRIEND, “OH, COME, SCIENCE HAS knocked the bottom out of all that. We know that Nature is governed by fixed laws.” “Didn’t people always know that?” said I. “Good Lord, no,” said he. “For instance, take a story like the Virgin Birth. We know now that such a thing couldn’t happen. We know there must be a male spermatozoon.” “But look here,” said I, “St. Joseph—” “Who’s he?” asked my friend. “He was the husband of the Virgin Mary. If you’ll read the story in the Bible you’ll find that when he saw his fiancee was going to have a baby he decided to cry off the marriage. Why did he do that?” “Wouldn’t most men?” “Any man would,” said I, “provided he knew the Laws of Nature—in other words, provided he knew that a girl doesn’t ordinarily have a baby unless she’s been sleeping with a man. But according to your theory people in the old days didn’t know that Nature was governed by fixed laws. I’m pointing out that the story shows that St. Joseph knew that law just as well as you do.” “But he came to believe in the Virgin Birth afterwards, didn’t he?” “Quite. But he didn’t do so because he was under any illusion as to where babies came from in the ordinary course of Nature. He believed in the Virgin Birth as something supernatural. He knew Nature works in fixed, regular ways: but he also believed that there existed something beyond Nature which could interfere with her workings—from outside, so to speak.” “But modern science has shown there’s no such thing.” “Really,” said I. “Which of the sciences?” “Oh, well, that’s a matter of detail,” said my friend. “I can’t give you chapter and verse from memory.” “But, don’t you see,” said I, “that science never could show anything of the sort?” “Why on earth not?” “Because science studies Nature. And the question is whether anything besides Nature exists— anything ‘outside.’ How could you find that out by studying simply Nature?” “But don’t we find out that Nature must work in an absolutely fixed way? I mean, the Laws of Nature tell us not merely how things do happen, but how they must happen. No power could possibly alter them.” “How do you mean?” said I. “Look here,” said he. “Could this ‘something outside’ that you talk about make two and two five?” “Well, no,” said I. “All right,” said he. “Well, I think the Laws of Nature are really like two and two making four. The idea of their being altered is as absurd as the idea of altering the laws of arithmetic.” “Half a moment,” said I. “Suppose you put sixpence into a drawer today, and sixpence into the same drawer tomorrow. Do the laws of arithmetic make it certain you’ll find a shilling’s worth there the day after?” “Of course,” said he, “provided no one’s been tampering with your drawer.” “Ah, but that’s the whole point,” said I. “The laws of arithmetic can tell you what you’ll find, with absolute certainty, provided that there’s no interference. If a thief has been at the drawer of course you’ll get a different result. But the thief won’t have broken the laws of arithmetic—only the laws of England. Now, aren’t the Laws of Nature much in the same boat? Don’t they all tell you what will happen provided there’s no interference?” “How do you mean?” “Well, the laws will tell you how a billiard ball will travel on a smooth surface if you hit it in a particular way—but only provided no one interferes. If, after it’s already in motion, someone snatches up a cue and gives it a biff on one side— why, then, you won’t get what the scientist predicted.” “No, of course not. He can’t allow for monkey tricks like that.” “Quite, and in the same way, if there was anything outside Nature, and if it interfered—then the events which the scientist expected wouldn’t follow. That would be what we call a miracle. In one sense it wouldn’t break the laws of Nature. The laws tell you what will happen if nothing interferes. They can’t tell you whether something is going to interfere. I mean, it’s not the expert at arithmetic who can tell you how likely someone is to interfere with the pennies in my drawer; a detective would be more use. It isn’t the physicist who can tell you how likely I am to catch up a cue and spoil his experiment with the billiard ball; you’d better ask a psychologist. And it isn’t the scientist who can tell you how likely Nature is to be interfered with from outside. You must go to the metaphysician.”
edit: removed a section that moderator was unsure of, added direct quote from a source