Einstein found himself in a bit of a muddle. He was opposed to Christianity and attracted by the Darwinism of modern science, which removes Newton’s creator God from the equation of being. But he was not a materialist in spirit. He was in love with the feeling of exaltation he experienced when he thought he had glimpsed the mind of a transcendent intelligence through his thought-experiments. Thus he was essentially a religious man, and in fact ranked himself among the “religious geniuses” of all ages.

Einstein wanted to be known as a scientist-philosopher. He was not merely trying to understand how things work; he also wanted to have a say on the all-important question of how to obtain happiness, which is the subject of philosophy, not science per se. But it is impossible to find happiness in the accidental universe of modern science, the purely material universe that deprives humans of any sense of purpose or hope, particularly of the joy of feeling oneself to be in close contact with transcendent forces.

These pulling forces caused Einstein to try to fudge the issue. He wanted to slam the door on Christianity while simultaneously leaving it open for some sort of vague, undefined transcendent Intelligence presumed to be lurking behind the laws of nature—a concept of God not unlike Plato’s. This conception of God facilitates mysticism through the force of resistance found in intellect to the limitations of existent values: transcendent resonance is restored to the science philosopher as he pursues knowledge of nature through the esoteric theory of relativity.

Let it be noted, however, that the path chosen by Einstein was explored long ago and found wanting. As soon as transcendent being is equated with intellect, one’s concepts of being become divided by the nature of intellect itself between pure intellect (“thought experiments”) and synthetic concepts of value. Einstein’s theory of relativity cannot be tested directly in the realm of practical physics because it is impossible to accelerate the observer to the speed of light.

This weakness is also evident in Davies’ Goldilocks hypothesis, or the notion that the fine-tuning evident in the universe reflects the existence of multiple universes of which ours just happens to be an ideal one for life. This is a radical gesture that provides release from the mundane realm of experimentation by annihilating the significance of what we actually know or even can know.

Davies coyly intimates that it is possible to obtain happiness through his theory; that the Goldilocks hypothesis has the power to put us in touch with forces that transcend our unhappy existence. In reality, however, the theory negates knowledge of transcendent being, since those other hypothetical universes cannot be known—since they provide a permanent force of resistance even to our capacity for knowledge.

In the end, we find ourselves back at the beginning. All attempts to obtain knowledge of transcendent value through intellect are divided by the nature of intellect itself, between the love of transcendence seen in Plato, Descartes, Einstein and now Davies, which results in pure negation and the freedom to make God in our own image, and attempts to define transcendent value according to the goodness of that which already exists—the synthetic method seen in Aristotle, Aquinas, Newton and Kant, which leads to determinism and slavery to the limitations of those same values.

Davies dances exquisitely on the God theme in order to appear to be all things to all men and claim the mantle of philosopher. But he is profoundly antagonistic to Christianity and revealed religion, and his hypothesis leads to subjective concepts of value by negating the seeming significance of values that already exist. The “mind of God” becomes virtually the same thing as Paul Davies’ own mind and what he thinks about value and being.

Hebrews 11:3 – no doubt about it. And Psalm 100:3. Not to mention Hebrews 3:4. (I’m working with the King James here.) I always find it striking how a concise summary of any philosophical debate can be easily located in scripture. “There is no new thing under the sun.”

Having observed for some time the fruitless back-and-forth in this debate, I’m persuaded the real issues are more spiritual than scientific. 1 Cor 2:14 is a good description of the problem, and 2 Timothy 2:23-26 explains how we should go about addressing the other side.

Sometimes for me, just getting up in the morning is and act of faith.

From my observation of the ID debate as a Christian believer, it’s the truth of Hebrews 11:3 that the materialists are always banging their heads against.

The concession that science is based on “faith” is a rhetorical tactic. He wants to sound friendly to people of faith, when in fact the purpose of the article is to draw a bright line between faith in reason and religious faith–as if these were dialectical opposites.

This raises an interesting question. What if those natural laws do in fact have a supernatural origin? Would that make modern science with its insistence on purely natural causes irrational?

And in fact God is exactly that Infinity!

Mathematics cannot be entirely developed from any finite set of axioms (a fortiori cannot arise from the null set). This is exactly the meaning of the fundamental Gödel’s incompleteness theorem in metamathematics.

I was thinking of no “example in which a lower thing causes a higher thing” for the simple fact that such example cannot exist. So the attempt of atheists and evolutionists (to invert causality) is a … “mission impossible”.

The equations of scientism, “science = knowledge” and “religion = faith” are disputable.

Religion is based on the fact that the set of causes must have a highest (or first) cause. As such its truth has the same certainty of mathematics. As an analogy, from set theory, a set of included sets has always the largest set (the top one).

Besides, modern science is a patchwork of many fields, some of which are not at all “reliable” (e.g. evolutionary psychology) and others are even dead wrong (e.g. biological evolutionism).

However Paul Davies is free to try falsifying religion providing us with an example in which a lower thing causes a higher thing. If he succeeds I am ready to become in the same time an atheist, an evolutionist and a supporter of scientism.

We’re getting closer to understanding each other, but I don’t think we’re there yet. You say of a particular student that “he would not let [his] motivation colour his results or influence his objectivity”. I’m arguing – one level up, as it were – that his motivation has colored his results (since they probably wouldn’t exist without that motivation) and that his motivation has influenced his objectivity (since he may be devoting his time to something more or less important than something else, due to that motivation).

My point is that there is always one more “Why?” that can be asked, and that the answer to that last question will always be some kind of limbic, “unscientific”, personal preference or belief. That’s just how people are. All of us.

You misunderstand me. I have no doubt that the motivation for a scientist can be emotional (I may argue that is not necessarily unscientific, but that is for another time). However, what I am saying is the act of (for example) running a Western, counting GFP expressing HeLas, doing a ChIP… and the interpretation of the result from these need not depend on what your motivation is. Scientists can and should put their motivation to one side while the act of doing science is occurring. I know of a certain student who has a son with physical disability and who himself works on methods for treating this and other types of disability. I have no doubt of his motivation, he has told me himself. I also have no doubt that he would not let that motivation colour his results or influence his objectivity as to he research. The practice of science is not influenced by the motivation. His

Collection of data, formulation of hypotheses, and emprical tests
can and are done scientifically.

nullasalus,

you write:
In a case like that, all science can do is plead ignorance – “Well, we’ve hit a wall here. Maybe we’ll be able to make sense of this in time. Or maybe not, but perhaps it can still be rational and intelligible to someone in principle.” In other words, if something is beyond science, the only option for scientists is to keep on trying anyway. There is no ‘prove the process is irrational and unintelligible’ option.

I agree with this completely and apologize if I misunderstood your contention the first time.

Describe for me a typical “act” of science, in brief detail, and I’ll name some of the most likely unscientific underpinnings of that act, without which the act would not take place.

This is a simple demonstration that is frequently accomplished by small children. A little guy asks a grown-up why he or she is doing something, and before he gets two or three “whys” deep in the matter, the fundamental (and always unscientific) motivation of the thing is revealed. Excepting, of course, the case where the boy is curtly dismissed with the admonition that “children should be seen and not heard.”

“If nature or an aspect of nature is unintelligible or irrational, the only way we will be able to find this out is through the study of nature (science). The facts would lead in that direction. The facts may make an unintelligible, irrational story, but the facts would still exist.”

You don’t understand what I’m saying . Data that is irrational and/or unintelligible is not data that proves what we are studying is irrational or unintelligible, as far as science is concerned. Try to imagine how that would look like in a journal. “We’ve discovered a natural process that exists. However, we can’t reproduce the data because said process is irrational. We can’t describe it because it’s unintelligible. But we’re certain it exists.”

In a case like that, all science can do is plead ignorance – “Well, we’ve hit a wall here. Maybe we’ll be able to make sense of this in time. Or maybe not, but perhaps it can still be rational and intelligible to someone in principle.” In other words, if something is beyond science, the only option for scientists is to keep on trying anyway. There is no ‘prove the process is irrational and unintelligible’ option.