to go Back What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part 3
Yesterday I discussed the cosmological aspect.
see What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part TwoMechanical Naturalism believes that this universe is a lifeless huge machine which gets its form through matter and motion. This is not so difficult to argue in the negative because "Nothing exists outside the natural order" is the position of naturalism.
But as Rastaban writes in "Atheology," http://atheology.com/2007/08/06/naturalisms-touchstone-proposition/ "In his book, Faith & Reason, Ronald Nash declared that Naturalism’s touchstone proposition is that 'Nothing exists outside the material, mechanical (that is, nonpurposeful), natural order.'" [italics added]
There is an important distinction between the simple statement that "nothing exists outside the natural order," and the strawmen of "material," "mechanical," and "nonpurposeful." The theistic thinker will argue that the universe has the "purpose" of supporting life, when in fact that only became its purpose after the natural creation of life made it so. We can as easily argue that a woman's womb has the purpose of supporting the life that is within it; but if the woman is not pregnant, then her womb does not have the same purpose, and in fact no life ever need be within it.
Before the first forms of life appeared in the universe, the universe was entirely purposeless. Because the universe has no purposeful volition of its own by which to make the decision to be of purpose to life, it remains "purposeless" in its inherent nature.
In effect, this means to the Christian that the present and future are the result of the universe having been given its purpose by God; whereas for the naturalist it means the past and the present are states of "Being" and "Becoming."
For example, as Rastaban points out, "We had no evidence for the existence of neutrinos two centuries ago, yet neutrinos existed 200 years ago as certainly as they exist today. [ ]
"Evidence logically requires an observer, and there were no observers of neutrinos then. However, in 1807 neutrinos were nonetheless doing things that in theory were observable. Existence = Possibility of Evidence."
I.e., "Existence is Being = Possibility of Becoming."
There is more to this, however, on another level: "The ‘mechanical philosophers’ of the early seventeenth century held that any material body maintains a constant velocity unless acted on, and moreover held that all action is due to impact between one material particle and another. So stated, the mechanical philosophy immediately precludes anything except impacting material particles from producing physical effects. Leibniz saw this clearly, and concluded that it discredited Descartes' interactive dualism, which had a non-material mind influencing the physical world (Woodhouse, 1985). (Of course, Leibniz did not therewith reject dualism, but instead opted for ‘pre-established harmony’. Views which avoid ontological naturalistic views of the mind by denying its causal efficacy will be discussed further in section 1.6 below.)" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/
So on the one hand, the "present and future in terms of the past" refers the the Creation idea that in the past the universe was created by God to have a place to put his creature which he called Man. The naturalist position is that existence exists, has always existed, cannot ever have not existed without contradicting the definition of the word "existence," and so therefor the universe as we know it today may have been created naturally from cause-and-effect upon the material within existence; but that existence itself cannot have been created, bears no realtionship to time insofar as existence has no beginning and no end; and that the Big Bang did not create existence, it only (maybe) created the known universe.
On the other hand, since "the mechanical philosophy immediately precludes anything except impacting material particles from producing physical effects," it completely leaves out the theory of free will within the being of Man.
Telology is "The theory of purpose, ends, goals, final causes, values, the Good (s.). The opposite of Mechanism. As opposed to mechanism, which explains the present and the future in terms of the past, teleology explains the past and the present in terms of the future. Teleology as such does not imply personal consciousness, volition, or intended purpose (q.v.)." "Dictionary of Philosophy"; Runes; http://www.ditext.com/runes/t.html
Not implying personal consciousness merely means that the world would still exist even were no life extant as its witness. This is called the Primacy of Existence. see If A Tree Falls In the Forest--the Primacy of Existence
The Primacy of Consciousness dictates that the world does not and cannot exist without the consciousness of extant life as its witness. This results in such non-sensical philosophical questions as this: "If I die, does everyone else die too?"
I actually answered that question in another forum, so I know it is on peoples' minds. The same sort of question, metaphysically speaking is this: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there..."
I have never once read the correct answer to that question as it addresses the Primacy of Existence. That is why I wrote the column behind the link directly above.
Parts Four and Five, tomorrow and Friday (and perhaps into Part Six on Saturday if necessary, I will deal with the rest of the Academy's Strong Definition of Naturalism.
Note
: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CECmailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com
http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/
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