iwpoe wrote:

Greg wrote:

The law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as system mass cannot change quantity if it is not added or removed.

Could the theist just hold that the physical universe is not closed to all transfers of matter and energy?

I suggested this before (saying, "God is an opening in the system.") I think his reply was that this conflicts with the theory as presently articulated.

I see.

Sometimes you run into trouble when you are trying to figure out which statements are actually confirmed by certain observations. The classic example is the statement "All ravens are black," which is logically equivalent to "All non-black things are non-ravens." It seems like black ravens confirm the former, but green leaves shouldn't confirm the latter.

Suppose a scientist with physicalist commitments confirms that some (more or less) closed system other than the universe conserves mass/energy. He might infer that the same principle holds for the universe. Because he is a physicalist, and thinks the universe is a closed system, he takes this to mean that mass/energy in the mass/energy is always conserved in the universe. But he has invoked a metaphysical premise in obtaining this result, that the universe is all there is and that it is closed.

A theist, on the other hand, thinks he has adequate reason to believe that miracles have happened and that the universe before the miracle had a different mass/energy than the universe after. Thus he uses the principle of conservation of mass/energy in closed systems, which is well-confirmed, to infer that the universe is not closed.

iwpoe wrote:

KevinScharp wrote:

iwpoe wrote:

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?

It may if we're talking about theory conflict, yes. If it turns out either that the miracle amounts to a non-natural event (as the Spirit's procession from the father) and/or a non-conflicting but extraordinary natural event (as the parting of the red sea), then we've no actual conflict.

Miracles can simply be straightforwardly natural events with special supernatural relevance (Hume was mistaken in his conflict analysis.). The ten plagues of Egypt are not, for instance, incompatible with natural theory. Their miraculous character is simply their timing and significance as a sign of divine will. They manifest as intentional events writ-large.

I like the red sea case particularly for this: it is not a miracle because it is impossible that natural theory account for it mechanically. It is a miracle because a highly extraordinary path in the sea opened up in front of God's chosen people at the right time.

Good. I agree that this is an important distinction. Now the question is: do you defend Christianity by appeal to only scientifically compatible miracles? Or do you need scientifically incompatible ones?
 

KevinScharp wrote:

Greg wrote:

iwpoe wrote:

I suggested this before (saying, "God is an opening in the system.") I think his reply was that this conflicts with the theory as presently articulated.

I see.

Sometimes you run into trouble when you are trying to figure out which statements are actually confirmed by certain observations. The classic example is the statement "All ravens are black," which is logically equivalent to "All non-black things are non-ravens." It seems like black ravens confirm the former, but green leaves shouldn't confirm the latter.

Suppose a scientist with physicalist commitments confirms that some (more or less) closed system other than the universe conserves mass/energy. He might infer that the same principle holds for the universe. Because he is a physicalist, and thinks the universe is a closed system, he takes this to mean that mass/energy in the mass/energy is always conserved in the universe. But he has invoked a metaphysical premise in obtaining this result, that the universe is all there is and that it is closed.

A theist, on the other hand, thinks he has adequate reason to believe that miracles have happened and that the universe before the miracle had a different mass/energy than the universe after. Thus he uses the principle of conservation of mass/energy in closed systems, which is well-confirmed, to infer that the universe is not closed.

God isn't an opening in the system unless God part of the scientific theory. Which means we could use mathematics to make predictions about what God would do. And we can't do that. So God isn't an opening in the system.

This is just not an adequate response. The scientific theory does not detail the various possible sorts of "openings" in systems; it just says something about closed systems.

Moreover, we can construct otherwise closed systems that we can interfere with. We cannot mathematically model our own behavior, though, and being able to do so in principle is surely not a condition for the conservation principle to be good science; if it were, then (for instance) humans possessing libertarian free will would imply that we could not be "openings" in closed systems of our own contriving, and that implication is surely incorrect.

Are any of us Divine command Theorists? Most of us, I think, are inclined to think that God is the ontological ground of goodness, but not that goodness is up to God's will. I part company with Craig, I think, on this matter: unless I am vastly mistaken about my interpretation of his ethical ontology.

Re Christology, yes, Christ is the person with two natures, and I think it's the former not the latter, but I should sit down and make sure that the language conforms with what I understand Orthodoxy to be.

Greg wrote:

This is just not an adequate response. The scientific theory does not detail the various possible sorts of "openings" in systems; it just says something about closed systems.

Moreover, we can construct otherwise closed systems that we can interfere with. We cannot mathematically model our own behavior, though, and being able to do so in principle is surely not a condition for the conservation principle to be good science; if it were, then (for instance) humans possessing libertarian free will would imply that we could not be "openings" in closed systems of our own contriving, and that implication is surely incorrect.

Of course the scientific theory specifies what openings in the system are -- they're natural events that correspond to particular aspects of the mathematical structure in question. Closed systems are mathematically defined as are open ones. The mathematical structure for conservation principles is almost always some sort of abstract algebraic structure -- a group or a ring or a field. And it will display a certain mathematical property called symmetry. There's an amazing connection between conservation principles and symmetries that Emmy Noether proved (she's one of the most underrated scientists ever in my book). So, openings in the system are defined in terms of the mathematical structure.