I think WLC’s perspective on this is nearly correct (forgive him for some picadillos on some scientific details):
(Like your spelling of peccadillos. 
)
2 Likes
His development of his understanding of random is interesting in that it does not preclude design, meaning or purpose:
So if the evolutionary biologist were using the word “random” to mean “undesigned” or “purposeless,” evolutionary theory would be philosophy, not science.
He refers to providence several times:
For example, suppose that God in His providence causes…
and invokes the middle knowledge of God in Molinism so that no intervening action by God is required (contradicting the above 'causes’):
God’s middle knowledge enables us to distinguish a kind of extraordinary providence that involves no divine intervention in the series of natural, secondary causes but which is discernable and distinguishable from God’s ordinary providence by its atypical and highly coincidental nature.
The distinction between special and general providence (he says ‘ordinary providence’) has been around for a while. His ‘extraordinary providence’ that he links to Molinism is in practice, so to speak, the same as special providence, which yes and absolutely has a ‘highly coincidental nature.’
So I don’t see how he really has ‘explained’ or ‘defined’ providence any additionally to what I have done or in a way that will appease John.
I’m not going to attempt a full treatment of providence, not even respond to this entire thread - I’ve written extensively at The Hump on it, because it needs extensive, not sound-bite, treatment.
However, I’ll just throw a couple of things out. The suggestion that you haven’t thought through God’s ability to violate natural laws in itself suggests a lack of thought about what “natural laws” actually are, and how they work. That question still taxes philosophers of science (as does the very meaning of the word “natural”).
But it’s worth remembering that the concept of “laws of nature” was introduced by Christian natural philosophers (think Bacon) wanting to minimise the autonomy of nature (previously seen as endowed with Aristotelian “powers”) by attributing regularities in nature to the same lawgiver who gave mankind the Law of Moses.
That substitution makes no difference to special providence, because just as God could employ, suspend or override the divinely created powers of entities in Aristotelian science, there is no good reason why he cannot do the same with those regularities conceived as laws.
To deny that mneans taking a step of faith that the universe is a closed system operating entirely and inviolably on a limited set of laws. That’s great for scientific endeavour, but was denied by the very people who started that scientific endeavour - much of the proceedings of the eraly Royal Society, for example, was concerned with special providence.
And as Clinton Ohlers has shown here and in Academia, even Bacon’s manifesto for the new science, New Atlantis, begins with an act of divine providence.
My own starting point for a theistic philosophy of nature: Monod divided causation between ill-defined powers called “chance” and “necessity”. I replace them, with no loss to the phenomena, with “choice” and “fidelity.”
2 Likes
Could you expand on what your view of natural laws are?
Normally, science is described as seeking to describe the world. Here it seems as though you think science generates some sort of prescriptive truths.
1 Like
Then the only conclusion is that you haven’t been thinking very well or deeply, if this is all you have. It appears that you can’t do more than repeat the same few buzzphrases without any thought about what they actually mean.
How did God make the moon be the size and distance it is? If you say “magic”, that’s a violation of natural laws. If you say “I don’t know”, how can you say it wasn’t through violation of natural laws? If you say “technology”, then what does that actually mean? You disappoint.
Proper spelling: pico de gallo.
If he “suspends” or “overrides”, that’s a violation of natural law. If he “employs”, what does that mean? The question is not whether God can work miracles by violation of natural law. It’s whether he can work miracles without doing so. And this is you have not addressed.
It’s a metaphor. Don’t get too excited. I refer to the way the universe works. Causality, action and reaction, forces, and such. If, for example, God nudges an asteroid to change its path, he must generate a force. But how does he do so? Forces have causes, yet a divine force would have no physical cause, and thus be a violation of the way the universe works. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
1 Like
What’s nearly correct about it? How does it relate to violation of natural laws? I find his basic claims problematic and, yes, incoherent.
Thanks for replying!
If that was addressed to me, I’m curious from what you inferred it – I certainly have no difficulty with his ability to violate natural laws.
But I don’t invoke it every time I turn around, as does YEC unreality. 
:
I would expect to see that italicized, since that phrasing has not been adopted as a loanword.
What does that actually mean. 
It’s an analogy, John. You disappoint. An uncontacted aborigine upon first seeing and hearing a radio, for instance, or seeing an airplane flying, would be clueless as to the technology that enabled their wonders – as are we with how God interacts with the natural order. But he does.
So it means nothing, really. It’s just a standin for “how God interacts with the natural order”. But is that through violating natural law, or by something else? And if it’s something else, then what? And if you don’t know, then how can you say what it isn’t? Once more, all you can do is repeat buzzphrases that you can’t further explain.
We are aborigines with respect to how God interacts with the natural order. One could have written exactly what you just did when speaking to a fellow, about an airplane or a radio.
And stand-in is hyphenated.
If so, then who are you to say how he doesn’t interact? How can you say that his interactions are not violations of natural law?
Because God is not part of nature by definition, as pretty much universally understood.
Go on. How does his not being part of nature (assumed for the sake of argument) mean he doesn’t violate natural law when he intervenes?
Are a machine operator’s hands part of the machine?
No. We can agree for the sake of argument that God is not part of nature. This is not a point under contention, so there’s no need to keep hammering at it. Try again.
You are unable to see the implications of the machine operator’s relationship to the machine and the analogous relationship of God to nature. Please give it some thought. I really would prefer not to have to spell it out.
That much is clear, if nothing else you say is. But why don’t you? What is obvious to you may not be so obvious to others, and it would help to clarify your thinking to yourself if you explained it.