A "Reason" For All This

A relative of mine, who is an atheist scientist, once said, "The behavior of the electron is purely statistical, which gives a problem to anyone who thinks there is any 'reason' for all this."

An explanation of what he means. Scientists have noticed that the behavior of subatomic particles is in some way "statistical" or "random". For example, it is impossible for us to know the exact position and velocity of a particle at the same instant; if we know more of one, we know less of the other and vice versa. Furthermore, this is not a failure of the instruments we use to find these data; it is something inherent in the theory. This injects some uncertainty into our knowledge of the physical aspect of the universe. Not only are there things we don't know, there are things we can't know.

There are two main problems the aforementioned comment, though. First, it places the limits of knowledge in the mind of man and, second, it is a classic case of equivocation.

Our inability to measure nature exactly does not imply nature is itself random. Our scientific theories of Nature can only tell us so much. Claiming that what our theories can't tell us must be false or nonexistent is like the fisherman who claims what his net doesn't catch isn't fish. In fact, it is the very idea of the unknown that pushes Science forward. It is the apparent irregularity in nature that drives us to find the real regularity behind it. Our theories may simply not be sophisticated enough to fully explicate the real precision that Nature exhibits. We haven't dug deep enough.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume he is correct in saying that Nature is physically random. There is still a problem. He equivocates on the meaning of "randomness". He conflates epistemological randomness with physical randomness. He wants to say that Nature behaving randomly on a physical level implies that there is no overarching rhyme or reason to it. He wants to say that because my room is a mess it must have no occupant. Physical randomness (a messy room) says nothing about epistemological randomness (whether an occupant of the room or, say, God, exists).

Christianity of course places all full knowledge in God. He can know everything about Nature. We strive to know more and more as he allows, but we still have limits.

Miracles

Finally got the gumption to post something new. It only took me ten months, but I promise I'll start posting more often (for those of you who actually follow my blog).

One common objection to miracles is that if they were true, they would be breaking the Laws of Nature. If God exists, why would he break His own Laws? Would he not then be contradicting Himself?

But think about this: in formulating his Laws of Motion was Newton proving Einstein’s theory false? Of course not. Newton was explaining all the current astronomical data available to him. Later on, astronomers gathered more data that then falsified Newton’s theory because it could not explain the data. Einstein’s theory then explained all the data available at the time of its formulation.

But furthermore, as Christians we know that we can’t know everything about the universe. We do know that God rules Creation according to His Law, but we cannot claim to know this Law perfectly without claiming omniscience. We have no reason to think that Einstein’s Laws will not be falsified by more astronomical data, or that any other future theory will not be falsified. But science is not some hopeless endeavour. We are coming to a greater understanding of the Laws of Nature progressively, but we will never understand them perfectly. That kind of knowledge is left to the Lord. So there are Laws of Nature, I would call them Meta-Laws, through which God governs that universe; furthermore, we will never grasp these Meta-Laws, but that does not imply they are irrational or unLaw-like, because knowledge of the universe is not arbited by man. God’s action through miracles is part of this Meta-Law structure. He understands its rationality, whether or not we do or ever will.

But someone who argues that the Laws of Nature prove miracles impossible is arguing the same way as someone who says that Newton proved Einstein false. They are arguing that scientific law, as we currently understand it, proves that any aberration from that law must be impossible. But someone working under Newtonian physics wanting to prove Einstein must be false is arguing this way as well. They discount the possibility of their being a higher, Meta-Law structure to which the laws of physics and the workings of miracles conform. How do they know this? The only way is by claiming omniscience; they know exhaustively how the universe and can thus make claims as to how it cannot work. If man cannot know it, it cannot be true.