Thread: Supernatural explanations are a science-stopper?

Kenneth Miller was interviewed by Joe McMaster, producer of "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial". Below is one of the questions that Joe McMaster asked Kenneth Miller and Miller's answer. If you want to see the question and answer online, I have provided the following link:

NOVA | Intelligent Design on Trial | In Defense of Evolution | PBS

Q: What's wrong with bringing God into the picture as an explanation?

Miller: Supernatural causes for natural phenomena are always possible. What's different, however, in the scientific view is the acknowledgement that if supernatural causes are there, they are above our capacity to analyze and interpret.

Saying that something has a supernatural cause is always possible, but saying that the supernatural can be investigated by science, which always has to work with natural tools and mechanisms, is simply incorrect. So by placing the supernatural as a cause in science, you effectively have what you might call a science-stopper. If you attribute an event to the supernatural, you can by definition investigate it no further.

If you close off investigation, you don't look for natural causes. If we had done that 100 years ago in biology, think of what we wouldn't have discovered because we would have said, "Well, the designer did it. End of story. Let's go do something else." It would have been a terrible day for science.

Kenneth Miller says, "So by placing the supernatural as a cause in science, you effectively have what you might call a science-stopper. If you attribute an event to the supernatural, you can by definition investigate it no further."

I would disagree with Miller's statements. Just because God caused something to happen does not mean that He is the only cause. God can and does use secondary causes to accomplish His purposes and scientists can find out what those secondary causes are.

Kenneth Miller says, "If you close off investigation, you don't look for natural causes. If we had done that 100 years ago in biology, think of what we wouldn't have discovered because we would have said, 'Well, the designer did it. End of story. Let's go do something else.'"

My response: That is not true. God uses secondary causes and scientists can find out what those secondary causes. God usually works through means and scientists can find out what God uses to bring certain things to pass.

I think the guy is right in one sense, and wrong in another. That is because God has two ways of doing things; in olden times they called them mediate and immediate, I think, or with means and without means. If God works through the ordinary means, we can inspect that; only when he works extraordinarily, or supernaturally, is it above the tools of science.

For example, I am pretty sure God wants the Earth to revolve around the Sun, and the Sun to revolve around the very, very big black hole in the center of our galaxy, and our galaxy to hurl through the universe at a credible fraction of light speed, and I am also pretty sure these are all through natural causes; therefore, one can investigate them.

So no, God is not a science-stopper. On the other hand, I think belief in God encourages people to practice science; it was Newton who said he was merely thinking God's thoughts after him, whereas van Leeuwenhoek presented "God's almighty finger in the workings of the louse"; there being a God who created everything is an incentive to research that creation, because you are sure beforehand that there is some order to be found in creation, because God is a God of order.

On the contrary, I would pose that evolutionism is a science-stopper. They want to prove so badly that everything is imperfect and came together by chance, they try and find things to call useless or rudimentary. Two good examples are junk DNA (found to play a number of important functions, recently, and not junk at all), and the 'rudimentary' appendix (which turned out to be important for the immune system in babies and little children, and then gradually losing importance when adulthood is reached). If everyone had believed the Darwinistic interpretation that these had no good use, we would still not have known their uses.

To conclude: evolutionism/atheism stops good science, not a belief in God.

Originally Posted by Rocketeer

it was Newton who said he was merely thinking God's thoughts after him, whereas van Leeuwenhoek presented "God's almighty finger in the workings of the louse"; there being a God who created everything is an incentive to research that creation, because you are sure beforehand that there is some
To conclude: evolutionism/atheism stops good science, not a belief in God.

Absolutely, my favourite quote on the Bible concerning evolutionism is:

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Romans 1:21-23 emphasis mine

Concerning Scientists

Newton even called gravity the hand of God.

Altough Eisntein was a pantheist and a admirer of Spinoza ( sorry Co, our nations are together on this, Spinoza had Portuguese Jewish parents who fled to Amsterdam because of the Inquisition),

I like to quote Einstein to people who claim to have a scientific mind, and because of that deny the existence of God. Fools is what the Bible calls them.

Quote Einstein? Yes.

Didn’t Paul quote Aratus poem to the Athenians? Acts 17:28

Einstein's faith is still not in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Einstein's belief is still not in the God of Blaise Pascal.

But makes people deeply wonder about their preconceptions, then it’s vital to explain Who really is the unknown God of Acts 17.

Einstein on God.

«Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind»

«I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.»


«God does not play dice with the universe»

«My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.»

Albert Einstein Quotes on Spirituality