Does that amount to, as the professor asks, a loss of mass/energy in the universe?

Dennis wrote:

Thank you for the reply. Just a reminder, saying that you don't hold to science producing knowledge about the world, but obviously it does if anything else, is simply not going to work. Either you hold to it doing so, or not. We can discuss the consequences (what you are doing), later. 

Dennis wrote:

God is not in space time, he is above and beyond it. Some people over here take space to be a substance in itself in which all other substances are put. So I'll leave it to them to argue from here if they wish to. The scope of scientific theories can be modified for the theist to simply add whatever you've characterized of the theist.

Okay, but then that requires adopting new theories with new scopes and rethinking all the evidence for those theories. You'll end up throwing out tons of what seems like evidence because the new theories have these restrictions on them.

KevinScharp wrote:

What's the demarcation between science and natural philosophy? Why think science doesn't produce knowledge? Don't you know that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around? Don't you think that this knowledge is produced by science? Where's the breakdown in your opinion?

Why does the Earth spin? Okay, it spins. You've now named two things, so we have at least the 'Sun' and the 'Earth.' What is a sun? What is a planet? What test will you do to find the identity conditions and not ultimately be doing metaphysics rather than predicting on ontologically loaded definitions? We're now engaged in metaphysics, and somewhere down the line, Natural Philosophy. 

You are ontologically committed to these entities whenever you make reference to them, what kind of ontological status they have, is the question for the enterprise of Metaphysics and the right analysis of nature. Obviously this is a contentious point, but that's what Classical Theists do. They proceed with heavy metaphysical aggression.

Bertrand Russell wrote:

It is not always realised how exceedingly abstract is the information that theoretical physics has to give.  It lays down certain fundamental equations which enable it to deal with the logical structure of events,while leaving it completely unknown what is the intrinsic character of the events that have the structure… All that physics gives us is certain equations giving abstract properties of their changes.  But as to what it is that changes, and what it changes from and to—as to this, physics is silent. (My Philosophical Development, p. 13)

Edward Feser wrote:

Empirical science, as it is typically understood in modern times, studies material reality by developing quantitative models and testing them by observation and experiment.  That, at any rate, is the paradigm, which is why physics -- with its mathematical formulae, rigorous predictions and technological applications, and discovery of strict laws -- is commonly regarded as the gold standard of science.   The philosophy of nature is a middle ground field of study, lying between metaphysics and empirical science.  Unlike metaphysics, it is not concerned with being as such, but with changeable, empirical reality in particular.  But neither is it concerned merely with the specific natures of the changeable, empirical things that happen to exist.  It is rather concerned with what must be true of any world of changeable, empirical things of the sort we might have scientific knowledge of, whatever their specific natures and thus whatever turn out to be the specific laws in terms of which they operate.  Nor is the philosophy of nature concerned merely with the quantitative aspects of material things, but with every aspect of their nature.  In Aristotelian philosophy of nature, these fundamental features of any possible empirical reality (or at least any sort we might have scientific knowledge of) include act and potency, substantial form and prime matter, efficient and final causality, and so forth.  (That is not to say that some of these concepts don’t also have broader metaphysical significance.  But the philosophy of nature approaches them from the point of view of the role they play in making sense of the empirical world, specifically.)[1]

I got the joke btw .

I had faith in you.

 

Dennis wrote:

KevinScharp wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by identity conditions. Usually these are the conditions under which a thing is what it is. So if God changed them, then he'd be redefining the conservation principle. But that doesn't really make any sense. It's a necessary truth that the conservation principle says [blah blah blah].

Consider the final cause of a batch of dough that rises when affected by a certain degree of heat. Consider another 'thing' which doesn't rise, but instead catches up in flames. Say that God changed the final cause of the dough, so that it doesn't rise at the given celcius/fahrenheit, then it wouldn't be that batch of dough. It could probably be some other class of dough. 

Take the same example and say that instead of rising at an elevated/decreased degree celcius/fahrenheit, it turns into an elephant. We couldn't call this a batch of dough by any means, it would altogether be a different thing.

KevinScharp wrote:

Let me finish this reply.But that doesn't really make any sense. It's a necessary truth that the conservation principle says [blah blah blah].

Just to make sure I'm not reading you wrong. Are you saying that the law of conservation is something that holds in all possible worlds? 

If so, I reject this. I know what supervenience is. You can ignore my comments on supervenience, I wouldn't know what ontological status the law of conservation would have (so that is a slip-up for me), so I can't say anything here. I'll wait for John to weigh in with his thoughts. Take your time Professor.

No, not at all. The conservation principles need not hold in all possible worlds. People are fond to talking about a certain class of possible worlds -- the nomically possible worlds -- which have the same natural laws as the actual world. I've been careful to not say anything about natural laws. But if the conservation principle turns out to be a natural law, then it holds in all nomic worlds. If instead we define a new class -- the conservation worlds -- where these are the worlds in which the conservation principle in question is true, then we can say that the conservation principle holds in all and only conservation worlds (duh!) but then I'd say that the class of conservation worlds need not exhaust the class of possible worlds.
 

Dennis wrote:

Why does the Earth spin? Okay, it spins. You've now named two things, so we have at least the 'Sun' and the 'Earth.' What is a sun? What is a planet? What test will you do to find the identity conditions and not ultimately be doing metaphysics rather than predicting on ontologically loaded definitions? We're now engaged in metaphysics, and somewhere down the line, Natural Philosophy. 

You are ontologically committed to these entities whenever you make reference to them, what kind of ontological status they have, is the question for the enterprise of Metaphysics and the right analysis of nature. Obviously this is a contentious point, but that's what Classical Theists do. They proceed with heavy metaphysical aggression.
l

A sun is a star -- any physical object with enough mass to ignite nuclear fusion in its core and held in equilibrium by gravity.

A planet is a physical objection orbiting The Sun whose shape is the result of gravitational equilibrium and which has cleared its orbital neighborhood.

There is no bright dividing line between these scientific definitions and metaphysics. According to these definitions, Pluto is not a planet. Is that a metaphysical conclusion? Yes. It's about what exists. You might have thought there was a planet existing out there beyond Neptune (but not super far out). That would be a metaphysical assumption. And it would be wrong by this definition.

Also, I can use the words without being committed to their existence. If I say "the Sun does not exist", then I'm not committed to its existence simply by using them term. This is just a basic point in philosophy of language, but it gets overlooked a lot.

By the way, I LOVE how you guys use the phrase "the Classical Theists". It's like you're a group of superheros.

iwpoe wrote:

KevinScharp wrote:

iwpoe wrote:

Technically Jesus' body rose into the sky until it was no longer visible. We don't know what was done with its mass/energy:

Acts 1:9:

And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.

[καὶ ταῦτα εἰπὼν βλεπόντων αὐτῶν ἐπήρθη καὶ νεφέλη ὑπέλαβεν αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτῶν.]

It could have been converted to energy, stored somewhere, chopped to bits, who knows? It's not even clear that after the resurrection itself the body is material in the way we normally understand material any longer. I don't know how God reconciles his actions with his general laws. Jesus claims to no be a spirit/ghost after his ressurection, but other than that, it's not clear.

So he has a material body -- and it ended up in heaven, which I'm assuming is not a location in spacetime. So some mass/energy disappeared.

No. Christ does not sit bodily as God. That makes no metaphysical sense. God didn't one day become material in his being. A major aspect of classical christology centers around this. Assuming that the post-resserection body is in any way material it would have needed to be shed and physically destroyed or placed somewhere intact or made to not be.

Do these details really matter? What exactly what the miracle? What natural event or phenomenon related to resurrection had a supernatural cause?