Try Aristotelian “natures,” based on the potentia of created things. Conceptually, they are easier to understand, because they are to do with what things will naturally do, not with unwritten laws that they mysteriously obey.
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Provide an example please.
Show a conventional, written “natural law”, vs. a “potentia” or a “nature”.
I would suggest there is no meaningful difference between them… though differences there may be.
I would argue that the mystery remains a mystery.
A nice little article here showing how Aristotelian approaches to science have made a comeback in recent decades, and particularly because general laws, though useful descriptively, are very difficult to explain as features of the world, as Ashwin and I have been saying. This brief extract explains a little in terms of Newton’s laws of motion. The article as a whole is very illuminating.
Many laws of nature characterize the properties of things in terms of the effects that an object’s having these properties lead to. For example, Newton’s second law of motion defines the force exerted on a body as the product of its mass and its acceleration (force equals mass times acceleration or f=ma ). Defenders of the reality of dispositions argue that this law can be understood as a definition of what, say, an object’s mass—one of its properties— really is : It is a disposition to accelerate under a given force, in accord with that equation. So rather than just describing a mere regularity between “loose and separate” existences, as the Humeans say, laws like Newton’s should be understood as defining the nature of properties in terms of their characteristic effects—that is, in dispositional terms.
Conceptually, that makes great sense: God creates massive objects with a disposition to be attracted to other massive objects, the mathematical relationships being as per the conventional law. But there is no implication at all that there is a law “out there” somewhere they have to follow - they are just being what they are. Wonderful to be made that way, of course, but the properties lie where you’d expect them to - within created entities, rather than imposed on the created entities from who knows where.
As you’ll see in the article, Nancy Cartwright’s arguments for dispositionalism also allows for the messiness of the actual world to be treated as reality, rather than the insistence on tightly controlled artificial coinditions which are the only circumstances in which abstract “laws” can be measured. It’s fascinating stuff, with potential (which I haven’t even thought about) for the whole question of the viability of “Pool Shot” theology.
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I dont see a meaningful difference in how these natures are described.
If one is a theist…it still comes down to the God of creation.
The ancient Greeks…
[A] Did they see one God as the suthor of creation?
[B] Or did they see nature as creating itself?
[C] Or something in between?
Going back to one of your earlier posts, you wrote: “But if nothing
moves faster than the speed of light, to call that a “law” is only a
human construct, derived from what seems always to happen.
Perhaps,though, it’s just a habit of God’s activity to limit the speed
of things. If it is a law, then where is it written down? Can we find
in the Bible, or on a stone tablet somewhere, “Thou shalt not travel
faster than light”? And how does it impose itself on nature?”
Jon, let’s by all means, let’s characterize something like the speed
of light as “just a habit of God”. I don’t see how this changes
anything we would be discussing, other than to remind the audience
that “laws of nature” are probably not imposed on God … it is God
imposing a nature on the Cosmos we inhabit. Works for me, Jon.
You write: “Such problems come into stark relief when we think
scientifically, ie naturalistically. After all, the concept of “laws
of nature” is one that comes from science. But if there isn’t a God
actually limiting the speed of photons by his power and will, it’s an
even bigger problem deciding what these “laws” actually are, or how
they work, or why they’re universal.”
I don’t think it’s any more of a problem than it ever was. You can
ask the question: “But if there is NOT a God …” But here we are
… and we are discussing what it means for us to adhere to the idea
that there IS a God… even @Ashwin_s.
I hear a lot of fussing and wondering… but I don’t really hear
anything that changes our paradigm…
You wrote: “Arent you confusing categories here? The “law” for evaporation/condensation would be descriptions of the temperature, pressure etc at which water turns to water vapour and temperature pressure etc at which water vapor condenses. These are scientific descriptions, not laws decrees by God.”
Did I answer this post already? Just in case I didn’t, let me state (or re-state): Ashwin, you make it sound like scientific descriptions (of the Universe created by God) is fundamentally different from “decrees by God”. But how would they differ? Wasn’t the whole point of Natural Philosophy, from the 1300s to the 1700s all about "learning about God’s nature by studying the God’s second book, the nature God created and sustains?
Ashwin, you write: “Perhaps God decreed these phenomenon as laws, but we don’t know if he has. This has not been revealed to us in any scripture.” And so? What would be the difference if it had? When God decrees a law of nature, do we mean it can never ever change? Why would that be true? Congress passes laws… but the laws are certainly changeable. The only thing the term “law” intends in this context is that it is what is a “regular” or “nominal” description of what is normal, or expected; it is not intended to mean that something can’t change when circumstances change.
You ask: “Does God control the water cycle by divine decrees or by other processes which result in a regular pattern. This is not revealed clearly in the Bible. In fact many of God’s decrees are executed through God’s actions/the actions of his angels in the bible.”
And so? You keep asking these rhetorical questions about the “metaphysical status” about the regularity of the natural world… to what end? What will this accomplish? How does this change any thing? Below is a list of various texts on Rain. Certainly God, and his prophets, all scramble to make God in charge of the rains. Sometimes he makes it stop and start, whenever and wherever he likes. Sometimes he rains on everyone, good and bad, because it is The Rainy Season. Every one of these texts can be precisely true, and yet still no contradict the text that says God does all this with rain via evaporation and condensation, as it is written in Isaiah:
Isaiah 55:10 - ". . . the rain and the snow come down from Heaven, and do not return to it [Heaven] without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish…"
The rest of the list:
2 Chronicles 7:13
13 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people,
Acts 14:17
17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.”
Amos 4:7
7 “I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One field had rain; another had none and dried up.
Jeremiah 14:22
22 Do any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies themselves send down showers? No, it is you, LORD our God.
Job 5:10
10 He provides rain for the earth; he sends water on the countryside.
Job 37:6
6 He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’
Joel 2:23
23 Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.
Leviticus 26:4
4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit.
Matthew 5:45
. . . He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Zechariah 10:1
1 Ask the LORD for rain in the springtime; it is the LORD who sends the thunderstorms. He gives showers of rain to all people, and plants of the field to everyone.
James 5:17-18
17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
1 Kings 8:35-36
35 “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain . . . Teach them the right way to live. . .
Then we can assure Nancy Cartwright and all those other people publishing volumes on the problems arising from the concept of laws of nature that George has established it’s a non-issue.
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Philosophy junkies have children to feed… like anyone else…