Natural Laws vs. God's Actions

[Neil_Anthony]

For those of us who make distinctions between natural laws that are explainable by science, and things that are done by God, I’m curious which things we think are governed by natural laws, and which are the actions of God.

For example, some people see the work of God causing evolution to happen in a way to create new species and eventually man, while others see evolution as a purely natural phenomenon that does not involve God, and therefore believe in a different method of creation.

Another example is life-force. Many people believe that there is a force that gives life to living creatures that goes beyond the natural laws discovered by biology and chemistry.

In psychology there are different theories about **behaviour **and why people behave the way they do, and in some cases these theories even seem to deny that people can make decisions and be influenced by God’s grace.

Some modern theories even seek to explain political **history **through natural laws, like Marx’s dialectical materialism.

Then there are the basics, like the law of gravity.

So, which things do you think are explainable by natural laws vs. by the actions of God?

 

[rwoehmke]

The thing is that all of these things ultimately go back to the action of God. It is God who made it all happen and who established the laws of nature as well as the natural law.

I have never been a believer that natural disasters like Katrina or many un-natural disasters like 9/11 or Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a punishment meted out by God. Natural disasters happen because of the laws of nature established by God and at base we humans are not smart enough to get out of the way. The un-natural things we bring down on ourselves and each other because we are not an orderly people.

 

[Teakafrog]

My answer is “None of the Above”. God made all these laws exist. If God wouldn’t have made gravity, it wouldn’t exist. Everything works as miraculously as it does because God designed it to do that. He made our world to work within these principles, and it does, but the principles are all there because of Him.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

My answer is “None of the Above”. God made all these laws exist. If God wouldn’t have made gravity, it wouldn’t exist. Everything works as miraculously as it does because God designed it to do that. He made our world to work within these principles, and it does, but the principles are all there because of Him.

I was worried people would take the question that way. Is there a better way to phrase it to separate natural things from things that can’t be explained by science?

 

[Neil_Anthony]

I was worried people would take the question that way. Is there a better way to phrase it to separate natural things from things that can’t be explained by science?

Just take the question to mean, which of these things can be fully “explained” by science.

 

[ribozyme]

If you look at some of my posts, I sincerely believe that human behavior can be explained without recourse to a supernatural explanation.

 

[Em_in_FL]

I think this question is dependent on scientific discovery…

God created this world in a way that is understandable to human beings. This understanding grows with time…

Just because we currently understand the laws of gravity, doesn’t mean we did in the past. So did these laws change simply because we didn’t understand them in the past? No.

God created this world using a blueprint. I believe everything on the list will ultimately be “definable” by science. But that revelation over time doesn’t make the laws any less Divine.

 

[Contarini]

For those of us who make distinctions between natural laws that are explainable by science, and things that are done by God, I’m curious which things we think are governed by natural laws, and which are the actions of God.

For example, some people see the work of God causing evolution to happen in a way to create new species and eventually man, while others see evolution as a purely natural phenomenon that does not involve God, and therefore believe in a different method of creation.

Another example is life-force. Many people believe that there is a force that gives life to living creatures that goes beyond the natural laws discovered by biology and chemistry.

In psychology there are different theories about **behaviour **and why people behave the way they do, and in some cases these theories even seem to deny that people can make decisions and be influenced by God’s grace.

Some modern theories even seek to explain political **history **through natural laws, like Marx’s dialectical materialism.

Then there are the basics, like the law of gravity.

So, which things do you think are explainable by natural laws vs. by the actions of God?

I deny the distinction. Everything is done by God. Period. Some things are done through secondary causes, and some things are done directly. But the latter (miracles) are extremely rare.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I was worried people would take the question that way. Is there a better way to phrase it to separate natural things from things that can’t be explained by science?

The traditional language would be to separate those things God does through secondary causes from those things He does directly. The latter are miracles and are quite rare. The former can be explained by science, but that explanation does not cancel out divine causality.

Edwin

 

[SpiritMeadow]

The problem with the question is that it induces one to develop what is called the God of the gaps. We place God at the creation of everything we don’t know or understand. Problem is that has a bad habit of changing over time and the gaps get filled in with actual evidence. So it remains rather fruitless I think.

I suspect we are not to understand until we return to God how this all works together. Personally I assume God created out of Himself in no way reduciing himself. So the stuff of the universe is God. I also assume God created the basic laws we have discerned that regulate energy/matter. I personally think life arises as it will where it will given the right conditiions. God awaits his creation to reach sentience and then our conversation begins.

 

[strngrnrth]

I think all natural laws are themselves designed by God and He intervenes and goes outside those laws often, regardless of the law or phenomenon.
Science is the art of finding out the patterns God likes to set things in, always remembering that He does not always stay within those patterns.
I believe that God made the universe in six days: The Hebrew for day means “dark-light”. Many astronomical bodies pass through dark-light cycles, some of which take many millions of years. I believe God made every species or maybe just some species and other orders individually and they went through superficial changes through selective breeding. I don’t believe all species came form an accident or evolved species-to-species from some more primitive form. Evolution’s touted “smoking gun” is a sputtering water gun (gorilla-human DNA similarity). I have posted on why elsewhere.
Miracles abound. We are one.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

The problem with the question is that it induces one to develop what is called the God of the gaps. We place God at the creation of everything we don’t know or understand. Problem is that has a bad habit of changing over time and the gaps get filled in with actual evidence. So it remains rather fruitless I think.

I think human consciousness is something that won’t be explained through mechanical laws of science. Perhaps a new branch of science will emerge that can give an understanding of consciousness, but I don’t think it will be based on physics, simply because the properties that physical objects have aren’t the same kinds of properties as consciousness is.

 

[ribozyme]

I wonder how do Catholics explain the propensity for humans to be mired in pornography.

Of course, I do think evolutionary psychology, not original sin, will provide a cogent answer.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

I wonder how do Catholics explain the propensity for humans to be mired in pornography.

Of course, I do think evolutionary psychology, not original sin, will provide a cogent answer.

Certainly a lot of our inclinations can be explained through evolutionary psychology, and are also attributed to original sin. It will be interesting to see how those two concepts can be reconciled.

I suspect that the ‘Garden of Eden’ probably isn’t something that ever existed within the world that science deals with. I suspect it was a place like paradise or heaven or purgatory or hell, and that being expelled from the garden is symbolic for Adam and Eve being transferred into this world/dimension/realm/whatever. The evolutionary psychology stuff is a past that God created to allow our present situation to make sense according to natural laws.

Just my half-baked theory

 

[ribozyme]

Certainly a lot of our inclinations can be explained through evolutionary psychology, and are also attributed to original sin. It will be interesting to see how those two concepts can be reconciled.

I suspect that the ‘Garden of Eden’ probably isn’t something that ever existed within the world that science deals with. I suspect it was a place like paradise or heaven or purgatory or hell, and that being expelled from the garden is symbolic for Adam and Eve being transferred into this world/dimension/realm/whatever. The evolutionary psychology stuff is a past that God created to allow our present situation to make sense according to natural laws.

Just my half-baked theory

Well, the evolutionary psychology approach may also imply that some our instincts that have evolved in the African savannah (such as our proclivity towards pornography) are not optimal in today’s environment. Our propensity to “sin” was simply the result of a laissez-faire God who did not intervene in human evolution. I also guess that explains why some Catholics are gravitated towards libertarianism.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Well, the evolutionary psychology approach may also imply that some our instincts that have evolved in the African savannah (such as our proclivity towards pornography) are not optimal in today’s environment. Our propensity to “sin” was simply the result of a laissez-faire God who did not intervene in human evolution. I also guess that explains why some Catholics are gravitated towards libertarianism.

How does the african savannah create a proclivity towards pornography? Anyway, assuming that’s the case:

If the fallen nature of Adam and Eve in this parallel world called “garden of eden” included a proclivity towards pornography, then God would be correct to create their history in this world to incude ancestors who evolved in Africa… see what I mean? So the evolutionary process was chosen to match up what Adam and Eve were like in, say, 4000BC.

 

[ribozyme]

How does the african savannah create a proclivity towards pornography? Anyway, assuming that’s the case:

If the fallen nature of Adam and Eve in this parallel world called “garden of eden” included a proclivity towards pornography, then God would be correct to create their history in this world to incude ancestors who evolved in Africa… see what I mean? So the evolutionary process was chosen to match up what Adam and Eve were like in, say, 4000BC.

The lust for women and feelings of sexual arousal in males help them perpetuate their genes into offspring. The desire to have sexual intercourse with an attractive female will help facilitate the continuity of one’s genes through many generations. I am not saying that Africa was an environment that was conducive for the development of lust; all I am saying is that it developed in Africa (along with our bipedalism and intelligence.) There is simply nothing rational about these sentiments and I regard them as obsolete and primitive instincts.

Not saying anything about morality, but I want to point out that evolutionary psychology precludes a benevolent God who designed humans to act virtuously.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Not saying anything about morality, but I want to point out that evolutionary psychology precludes a benevolent God who designed humans to act virtuously.

That’s why I like my theory that the Garden of Eden existed in another world and that the ‘evolutionary history of man’ that we see in this world was created after the fact by God. That is, Adam and Eve were plopped into this world around 4000BC, but God in his myterious ways created a distant past in natural history to match up with their situation. So the pre-historic past was an effect of the fallen nature of Adam and Eve, rather than the ***cause ***of it.

Your profile’s answer under religion is confusing…what does “H+ / >H” mean? Are you a Christian?

 

[ribozyme]

That’s why I like my theory that the Garden of Eden existed in another world and that the ‘evolutionary history of man’ that we see in this world was created after the fact by God. That is, Adam and Eve were plopped into this world around 4000BC, but God in his myterious ways created a distant past in natural history to match up with their situation. So the pre-historic past was a ***result ***of the fallen nature of adam and eve, rather than the ***cause ***of it.

Your profile’s answer under religion is confusing…what does “H+ / >H” mean? Are you a Christian?

It is not a theory. Can it be falsified through scientific investigation? So apparantly God is the deciever who has provided false evidence for the scientific investigators about the history of* Homo sapiens*. That’s one implication for your “theory”.

That was mentioned and answered in another thread in the “Philosophy” forum yesterday by someone else, believe me.

No need to promote that agenda here.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

It is not a theory. Can it be falsified through scientific investigation? So apparantly God is the deciever who has provided false evidence for the scientific investigators about the history of* Homo sapiens*. That’s one implication for your “theory”.

I understand that my idea (thanks for explaining that it isn’t a theory) isn’t useful to most Christians. I think to really understand that it isn’t deceptive, you have to spend a lot of time imagining existing beyond spacetime with God… it probably isn’t really possible for humans to fully imagine that, but I’ve found that from this perspective it actually makes sense and doesn’t seem like deception. Anyway, it isn’t my goal try to convince you or others of it.

Would you mind directing me to the thread where that idea came up yesterday?