It should be obvious.
- Even theists understand that the one can gain knowledge about the physical world by performing the observation first. Anything and everything is subject to observation in the physical world - either directly or indirectly.
- Theist also say that God constantly interacts with the physical reality. This interaction partially happens in the physical realm. “How” God does this is unknown and unknowable to us, because it does NOT happen within the physical world. That is not the question at this moment.
- Conclusion: since everything within the physical world is subject to the scientific method (observation, etc…) and since the effect of God’s interaction happens in the physical world, therefore it is subject to the scientific method.
To bad that that point 3 “conclusion” is DEEPLY FLAWED.
Not surprised that an atheist does NOT understand the foundations of science.
What is basically science in the end?
Basically it is the observation of “Regularities” and formulation of theories, usually through a mathematical model based on such regularities. That is observation of phenomena that are reproducible (if possible in a lab in a controlled way).
Mind you ‘regularity’ does not necessarily mean ‘deterministic’.
If we perform a measurement on the same system we should always get the same result (with some tolerance for noise and errors).
((Example: you throw a ball always with the same angle and initial speed, it will always follow the same parabolic path and land in the same place (within tolerance again), according to Newton’s laws. That’s a classical, deterministic, regularity.
or: you make 1 billion equal quantum systems, like a particle in a box, at time X and get a statistic for the position of the particle
if you perform again such experiment at time Y, with the same equal systems, you will get the same distributions. Such distribution follows the ‘wave function’. Such is a stochastic regularity
Only through those regularity we can build a meaningful theory and mathematical model
Even in evolution, which is trickier, since it’s an informal theory, not easily expressed mathematically, there is a sense of regularity determined by ‘random mutations + natural selection’ ).
Hence: From the results of the experiments people formulate mathematical laws that describe the ‘regularities’.
Such regularities might be deterministic in nature (as in classical physics) or stochastical (as in quantum physics).
That is the way science is DONE!
(yes sure sometimes people these days try to develop the theory first, like for quantum gravity, but in the end the proof that such theories are right is indeed the observation of regularities).
Now ‘God interacting with the world’ is NOT a ‘regularity’. God is not some sort of ‘force of nature’ (as perhaps you wrongly seem to imply).
God MIGHT interact physically, but does so not ‘regularly’.
Hence Gods action cannot BY DEFINITION be described scientifically.
The theists usually attempt to “cop out” by saying that God is non-physical, and therefore not subject to physical proof / evidence. (Of course they conveniently “forget” that God allegedly manifested himself in the physical world, many times.) As explained above, the interface is partially physical, and as such subject to observation. That is all.
that is no cop-out answer.
Rather it is YOUR approach which is an atheistic cop-out answer: “we cannot measure it physically so it does not exist”.
Sorry but this sort of scientism is deeply flawed. The very existence of mathematics (and not only that) which CLEARLY exhibits
not empirically verifiable truths but merely logical truths debunks your argument.
The very same logic that governs reasoning debunks ‘scientism’ and ‘empiricism’ (i.e. that only empirical truths are viable).
Basically such ideas were the base of Logical Positivism… which was indeed declared ‘dead’ by the very same (atheist) people that proposed it because it became soon clear it was self-refuting.
Moreover:
1- There are several proofs for God, not empirical ones perhaps, but as I said above not everything that exists need or can be proven empirically.
You might ‘refute’ the proofs, but in my experience such refusal usually comes out of misunderstanding and ignorance about such proofs (see Dawkins pathetic attempt at Aquinas…)
2- Russell’s tea pot argument is deeply flawed. It rests on the self-refuting scientism.
To see why it is so flawed you just need to apply Russell’s argument to ANY abstract truth, for example a mathematical truth or a logical truth.
The main problem is that the foundations of science and empirical knowledge rest on non-empirically verifiable foundations.
In the end you are just trying to cram some sort of “god of the gaps” argument, but no (good) theist thinker ever argued from a god of the gaps position.
Buddhists and Jains, for instance, agree with Western atheists that there’s no need to.
Here is you regularity. Too bad it points to a direction which is not “palatable” to you. It is true that absence of proof is not a proof of absence. However, absence of evidence is a very strong evidence of absence.