Afterthought
Puritan Board Senior
What do you all think about the giving of divine attributes (e.g., eternity, omnipotence, omnipresence, immutability, incomprehensibility, infallibility, etc.) to scientific law as Poythress does in Redeeming Science? I can't quote the entire portion because it is too drawn out and not easy to summarize, but here is a small part of the section in which he responds to objections to the view he sets forth.
From Redeeming Science, p. 21 located here.
I also wonder whether viewing scientific law in this manner gets rid of second causes for "scientific law" and so views all "scientific law" as first, direct causes by God?
Poythress said:Are we Divinizing Nature?
But now we must consider an objection. By claiming that scientific laws have divine attributes, are we divinizing nature? That is, are we taking something out of the created world, and falsely claiming that it is divine? Are not scientific laws a part of the created world? Should we not classify them as creature rather than Creator?
I suspect that the specificity of scientific laws, their obvious reference to the created world, has become occasion for many of us to infer that these laws are a part of the created world. But such an inference is clearly invalid. The speech describing a butterfly is not itself a butterfly or a part of a butterfly. Speech referring to the created world is not necessarily an ontological part of the world to which it refers.
In addition, let us remember that we are speaking of real laws, not merely our human guesses and approximations. The real laws are in fact the word of God, specifying how the world of creatures is to function. So-called "law" is simply God speaking, God acting, God manifesting himself in time and space. The real mistake here is not a matter of divinizing nature, but of refusing to recognize that the law is the law of God, nothing less than God speaking. We are confronting God.
From Redeeming Science, p. 21 located here.
I also wonder whether viewing scientific law in this manner gets rid of second causes for "scientific law" and so views all "scientific law" as first, direct causes by God?