Methodological and Philosophical Materialism

Mr. Oard Confuses Methodological and Philosophical Materialism

Kevin R. Henke, Ph.D.

July 8, 2014

Mr. Oard repeatedly makes the serious mistake of equating the restriction of scientific hypotheses to the natural realm (actualism) with what he calls an “anti-theistic bias” or “atheism” (e.g., Oard 2009a, p. 114; Oard 2009b, p. 138). This is a poor attempt to “poison the well” by attaching atheism, which is universally unpopular with theists, with legitimate exclusions of the supernatural from all scientific investigations. Besides confusing the supernatural with theism (see “Mr.Oard Confuses the Supernatural with Theism”), Mr. Oard is also making the mistake of confusing “methodological materialism” with “philosophical materialism” (note: Oard and Reed 2009, p. 264, consider naturalism to be a synonym for materialism). While atheism is “philosophical materialism”, “methodological materialism” is non-theistic and not anti-theistic as Mr. Oard mistakenly believes. Methodological materialism refers to the secular methods (including actualism) that are used in all scientific investigations, court rooms, forensic studies of crime scenes, hospitals, auto repair shops, and the everyday activities of almost everyone, atheist or not (also see: “The Geologist's Biases are Your Biases”). Whether they realize it or not, the YECs in Oard and Reed (2009) actually use the natural laws and other methodological materialist methods of actualism to try to explain the origins of their supposed Flood geology deposits and their totally non-biblical “post-Flood ice age” (see “Why does Mr. Oard Embrace the Actualism that He Hates Instead of YEC Supernaturalism to Explain the Origin of Flood and Post-Flood Deposits?”).

If YECs are really convinced that supernaturalism is compatible with science, then they need to present field and laboratory methods and experiments that can detect evidence of miracles in their so-called Flood deposits (see here and here for rebuttals of YEC supernatural claims involving rocks). YECs have the burden of evidence to demonstrate that their supernatural speculations are real. If they cannot specifically identify any miracles in the geologic record outside of what the Bible supposedly tells them, then they are indeed relying on Bible literalism (religion) and not science to promote their outdated form of creationism.

References

Oard, M.J. 2009a. “Landslides Win in a Landslide over Ancient 'Ice Ages'“, chapter 7 in M.J. Oard and J.K. Reed (editors). 2009. Rock Solid Answers: The Biblical Truth Behind 14 Geological Questions, Master Books: Green Forest, AR, pp. 111-123.

Oard, M.J. 2009b. “Do Varves Contradict Biblical History?”, chapter 8 in M.J. Oard and J.K. Reed (editors). 2009. Rock Solid Answers: The Biblical Truth Behind 14 Geological Questions, Master Books: Green Forest, AR, pp. 125-148.

Oard, M.J. and J.K. Reed (editors). 2009. Rock Solid Answers: The Biblical Truth Behind 14 Geological Questions, Master Books: Green Forest, AR, 272 pp.