From: mss2@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: Science and god:  Are they incompatible?  If so, why?
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 23:55:31 GMT

In article <1ebgfvINNol2@gap.caltech.edu> lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Nov16.214120.27547@midway.uchicago.edu>, mss2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer) writes:
>>	"Note that this does not restrict the _power_ of the player,
>>who may be `omnipotent' with respect to the pinball universe.
>
>Already covered in my description of the Deist's god, whom I described, if I
>recall correctly, "either can't or chooses not to interfere," or something very
>similar to that.  If the god in question is limited by rules, whether those
>rules are somehow intrinsic to the universe or they're simply rules that god
>has chosen to impose on himself, then he's not necessarily in conflict with
>science.  On the other hand, he's not omnipotent in any operational sense
>either.

	"What if he chooses to use that power _once_?  Or
three times over the course of fifteen billion years?  Now he's not
limited inherently by rules (at least not rules knowable by the
inhabitants) but he's still not interfering most of the time.  And in
that case, he's operationally omnipotent (there's nothing by which one
can infer with certainty that he can't/won't intervene tomorrow) but,
I think, still not generally in conflict with science on a day-to-day
basis.  Any scientific prediction has implicit caveats: X will
happen-- assuming our data are accurate and our theories are
sufficiently close to the truth to cover this case.  An
interventionist god or gods would add the caveat "and assuming no
miracle occurs".

	"For science to operate, miracles must needs be rare, true--
but the same is true for the concept `miracle' to be meaningful.
After all, if a world rotated due solely to the will of Gaia, but does
so all the time, then no one in a scientific culture would attribute
it to the will of Gaia even if they knew Gaia to exist (except perhaps
in a general "All things beneath the heavens are due to the will of
Gaia" sort of way).  The rotation must be due to some natural law,
whether or not they've discovered it.  Now, if Gaia _stopped_
exercising her will to turn the planet, _that_ would be the miracle--
even if in fact the rotation was the act and the cessation was a
switch to inaction.

	"If the universe has a supernatural creator deity or deities,
then natural law is as much a divine creation as its suspension would
be-- but 'miraculous' happenings are by definition an unusual
alteration of business as usual.  If interventions were arbitrary and
frequent, then it would not be possible to have lawful behavior-- but
this universe has nonlawful behavior in parts of it.  Perhaps God
personally determines the exact position and momentum of each and
every particle, and runs things within the event horizons of black
holes and in the vicinity of naked singularities according to whim.
However, such things are unknowable and as such (as far as I can tell)
irrelevant to people.  While one can imagine purposes (both good and
bad) for a deity to suspend laws occasionally, to do so often would be
the equivalent of having no laws at all-- and as such, wouldn't be
detectable as the suspension of laws.  Since the universe is
observably lawful in large parts, it must be presumed that if there is
an omnipotent (or sufficiently powerful) creator, said creator must
have willed it to be lawful.  That being the case, it does seem
logically necessary that suspensions be rare or very small-scale-- but
it does not seem necessary that _everything_ within the universe must
be lawful absolutely all the time, which would seem to be the Deist
position."

Michael
-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Indeed I tremble for my country
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 when I reflect that God is just."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
mss2@amber.uchicago.edu		    Virginia (1784)