Natural Laws Exist, but No Evidence of God Being Involved
Kevin R. Henke
September 23, 2022
In Henke (2022v), I made the following comments:
“In Henke (2022a), I gave the following definition of a supernatural act or miracle:
“I define a supernatural act or “magic” as a feat that violates the laws of chemistry and/or physics.”
Mr. Lundahl did not like this definition. In Lundahl (2022a), he references a section out of Lewis (1960, chapter 8,) to argue that miracles “add to” rather than violate the laws of nature.
“This was answered by C. S. Lewis in Miracles - a miracle is not a break away from natural physics, chemistry, or biology, but an addition to them.
A physicist - this is probably from chapter 8, "Miracles and the Laws of Nature" starting on p. 87 in the 2012 edition by William Collins, arguably reproducing C. S. Lewis' second, reworked, original edition - a physicist on a steamer is watching the pool balls roll on a table of pool. He can calculate the rolling period of the steamer to perfection (or simply detect it by a watch with split seconds), he can see the movements already ongoing, he can calculate how this will go on, very easily after some time - but he can't calculate whether someone will take up a queue and hit a ball with it. If someone does, the physicist's calculations have been broken, but the laws of movement haven't.”
In Henke (2022b), I replied to his comments:
“The pool (billiards) analogy from chapter 8 of Lewis (1960) and summarized by Lundahl (2022a) is totally ineffective in defending the existence of the supernatural. It only illustrates that a physicist would have difficulty making predictions about a pool game if a human (not a supernatural being) unexpectedly decided to hit one of the balls in the middle of the game. Although the conditions of the pool game might change, notice that Mr. Lundahl admits that no “laws of movement” were violated in this account. That’s because humans, and not God, demons, angels, or other supernatural agents, were playing in this game. When humans play pool, we’re stuck obeying the laws of physics. Now, if God exists, he, by definition, is not necessarily forced to obey natural laws. He supposedly created natural laws and if he can create natural laws, then supposedly he can make exceptions or undo them. God could play pool by either using his supernatural powers or he might simply restrict himself to using only natural laws. If he exists, he could do anything he wanted to. God could remove the effects of gravity from a pool ball and cause it to pass through the ceiling or allow the atoms of the ball to pass through the table, but humans can’t do these things.” [my emphasis]
Lundahl (2022i) then makes the following vague comment on the bolded sentence from my paragraph in Henke (2022b):
“Yes, and there is no law of movement broken in the former, namely His Omnipotence, it is an agency outside their field of description, but not a result contrary to their essence.”
Here, Lundahl (2022i) seems to be claiming without any evidence whatsoever that God would not break any “law of movement” when he does anything supernatural during a pool game. How does Mr. Lundahl know that? If God exists and is truly omnipotent as Mr. Lundahl claims, why does he have to be limited to obeying the laws of physics during a pool game as Mr. Lundahl demands? Certainly, God, if he exists, is outside of nature by definition, but then why would he necessarily be bound to the laws that control nature? Can’t he violate natural law whenever he wants? Isn’t he powerful enough to do that? Maybe God won’t or actually can’t violate the laws of nature, but if Mr. Lundahl wants to be so bold as to put that limitation on God, he needs to first demonstrate that his god even exists and then demonstrate that his god plays by his “no violation of natural law, but only adding to it” rules.” [my emphasis]
Lundahl (2022q) then comments on the bolded and italicized sentence in the last paragraph:
I heartily disagree on natural laws being that which controls nature. Natural laws are part of how God controls nature in what is called the "ordinary providence" - namely indirectly, through created causes.
Here, Lundahl (2022q) is making a superfluous assumption without any evidence by claiming that God is somehow involved in controlling nature. There’s no evidence of “ordinary providence.”
Lundahl (2022q) then continues to ramble on about medical issues:
The only thing that natural law actually does, is to describe what the natural causes can do. There are so many laws of nature that are relevant to an immune system's way of dealing with Hansen's Mycobacterium types (M. leprae and M. lepromatosis seem to be different bacteria with very similar symptoms and disease progression), and so many laws of nature that are relevant to what rifampicin, dapsone, or clofazimine. They do not control all that can happen to a case of leprosy. Obviously, if someone dies, soon he will have no skin or flesh on which the Mycobacteria can fester. If someone (it might be very stupid) cuts off the sole piece of skin and flesh infected, that might do the job (I would clearly not try that method). Neither of these are controlled by the natural law that describes the causality of immune systems or the natural law that describe the causality of dapsone.
I agree that “The only thing that natural law actually does, is to describe what the natural causes can do.” I basically said the same thing in Henke (2022x), where I described natural law as a human description of how nature functions. This is what I said in Henke (2022x):
“Certainly, the laws of physics are human descriptions of what we observe and test about the physical properties of nature. As I said before, our understanding of physics is certainly incomplete and physicists work to revise equations and better understand the laws of physics. However, when physicists revise their views of the laws of nature, such as what Einstein did with Newton’s laws, the new physics is still very predictable and consistent as explained by E = mc2 and other equations that were discovered in the 20th century (Henke 2022an). Miracles are not expected to be predictable and consistent. Miracles shouldn’t comply with equations because they violate at least one of the laws of nature. The laws of physics are very real and physicists work to better understand them. The proclamations on how God supposedly does miracles in Lundahl (2022a) and Lundahl (2022i) are fantasies without any supporting evidence.”
Nevertheless, for the sake of convenience, people normally talk about “not being able to violate natural laws” rather than the more clumsy, but accurate, “not being able to violate the natural processes that are described by natural laws.”
Lundahl (2022q) further makes the following comments:
“The idea that nature "is controlled by laws" - all of it, nothing by chance, nothing by wills, nothing by supernatural wills - is one that Henke would need to demonstrate, and I don't think he can [do] that.”
Again, nature is certainly controlled by processes that are conveniently described with natural laws. Nevertheless, Mr. Lundahl has yet to demonstrate that supernatural beings with wills even exist. Furthermore, as I have explained many times before, the individual making claims about the existence of God, angels, demons or other supernatural beings, and not the skeptics, has the burden of evidence here.
As discussed in Henke (2022x), neurologist Harris (2010, pp. 102-112) denies that human free will exists. Even if he is wrong and I am capable of acting under my own discretion, my actions are always limited by the laws of chemistry and physics. When I’m standing on my front yard, I can choose to walk to either the left or the right, but I can’t flap my arms and go up.
Chance is also limited by the laws of chemistry and physics. There’s a chance that a pencil will roll off my desk today. But some force controlled by the laws of physics would be needed for the pencil to start rolling. If that occurs, the pencil will always fall to the floor. It’s not going to float off in a random direction.
Lundahl (2022q) finally proclaims:
“That is why a miracle does not "violate the laws that control nature" because such laws simply do not exist. It also does not violate the law that describes the causality of a thing, because that causality is not the one actually working it : God is.”
No! The natural processes described by the laws of chemistry and physics definitely exist. The equations work. Mr. Lundahl is living in a fantasy world where the Talking Snake of Genesis 3 is real, but F = ma supposedly is not. Again, there’s no evidence that God is behind the laws of chemistry and physics. Lundahl (2022q) is making a superfluous assumption by injecting God into explaining physics and chemistry when there’s no evidence that he is even needed.
References:
Harris, S. 2010. The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Hunan Values: Free Press: New York, N.Y., USA, 291pp.
Lewis, C.S. 1960. Miracles, 2nd ed., printed 1974: Harper One: HarperCollinsPublishers, 294pp.