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Thank you both so much for all of your engaging essay-posts!

Tortoise: The obvious limitations is that it would be true if and only if we were discussing our universe in isolation (which from the perspective of humans, we effectively are) and God is completely external to our universe.

To the contrary, tortoise, when we know God as Creator ex nihilio of “all that there is” there is obviously nothing of which anything can be made but His own will, including His permissive will.

That includes not only corporeal existents in space/time (regardless of dimensions) – but all non-corporeals, non-spatio/temporal “things” such as mathematics, geometry, physical laws and constants, qualia, autonomy, theories – and of course all of the spiritual realm as well, beings, principalities and such.

Those who start with the presumption that God is here and everything else is there have artificially reduced their worldview to the second reality - and thus whatever they determine in their investigations will be tainted by the “observer problem” from the beginning.

Tortoise: If God was not completely external, it would have consequences that are not in evidence. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence…

Null beliefs are neither true nor false, they are simply null. Beliefs that are either true or false in some fashion have consequences, but null beliefs have no consequences except for the amount of time spent considering them. A rational and economical person does not waste time on null beliefs because they are all equally silly.

Again to the contrary, God is not a “null belief”. He is Truth and there are consequences. Moreover, there is evidence – though I strongly disagree with your premise that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I’ve known Jesus personally for 46 years and counting. The knowing Him – the evidence - is from the indwelling Spirit Himself. All of us Christians received the Spirit, were “born again” when we experienced the direct revelation from God that Jesus Christ is Lord. And all of us Christians are somewhere along the path of sanctification, becoming more filled by the Spirit and relying ever more on Him.

God made it this way so that no one could boast. We Christians can’t be put under a microscope or run through an MRI to detect the presence of the Holy Spirit. But we know Him – we become more certain of that knowledge than of any other type of knowledge, including sensory perception. Of course, some Christians have doubts along the way as they learn to rely on Him – but doubting Thomas was an apostle too.

Indeed we are not the same persons we were before we knew Him. Scriptures come alive within us as our eyes scan the text. Without the Holy Spirit they would be merely text on paper – a manuscript like any other. We become ever more able to love the unlovable and forgive the unforgivable. All of this is breathtaking evidence to those of us who experience it.

Of course, with the “methodological naturalism” presupposition – even the Christians who are scientists/mathematicians do not officially acknowledge their own testimony much less the volumes of testimony in the human experience over millennia as betty boop has discussed.

This willful blindness is an “observer problem” – and it leaves the deep questions, the important ones, on the back burner of science and math. The net result is that science and math these days is more about instrumentation, application and utility than exploring the big questions. The days of the big thinkers in science and math are long gone.

Some are comfortable letting the theologians and philosophers deal with such things. And that would not be so troubling if others did not determine their atheistic worldview is supported by the method, i.e. methodological naturalism. How silly to arrive at that conclusion when microscope to telescope is the only place they looked.

[ This willful blindness is an “observer problem” – and it leaves the deep questions, the important ones, on the back burner of science and math. ]

Ah! the observer problem and the second reality..
The bane of all seekers of truth and axiom..

Without the "Spirit/spirit" my experience is I wouldn't know truth or axiom if I backed over it, fell down and buried my face in it.. My experience is that others are that way too...

The observer problem and second reality too, are ignored by many/most on these threads.. Sure they talk of minutia or talk around the subject at hand.. Admitting they have an observer problem(we all do) and could possibly be in a second reality(to some degree) is ignored..

The result(often).... two monologues...

"...even the Christians who are scientists/mathematicians do not officially acknowledge their own testimony much less the volumes of testimony in the human experience over millennia as betty boop has discussed."

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I'm returning late to the discussion -- without doing as much catch-up reading as I should, but...

This scientist has known Jesus personally for 52 years -- and counting. And it is my personal experience with having observed God interacting directly in my life and in the lives of other believers that convinces me that, not only is He justified in his claims that He created (and designed and planned) everything that is, He is still actively maintaining and fine-tuning the progression of the processes and events that control the entire Universe that He created.

And that is why I do not "get bent out of shape" when I encounter evidence that things have changed (evolved) over an immense span of time -- and over vast distances.

I, for one, do not feel competent to dictate how -- and at what rate -- He does His business -- certainly not based solely upon anyone's interpretation of His outline description in Genesis. OTOH, I never cease to enjoy being amazed at the brilliant intricacies and the awesome magnitude of what my instruments reveal to me of the minutely-planned majesty of His created works.

Don't call me a "Darwinist".

And, most certainly, do not insult me by calling me a "Creation Scientist".

Just call me a scientist (small "s") who thrills at learning ever more and more about the works and workings of One he knows on a personal basis.

I praise God the Living and True for your testimony!

You offered, "The days of the big thinkers in science and math are long gone." You may want to rethink that, Girl. I am presently reading a book by Robert B. Laughlin (1998 Nobel prize for his work regarding the fractional quantum Hall effect) in which he casually offers an astounding 'big idea' that the laws of physics are emergent qualities of the universe. Here is a passage from his book (A Different Universe) along those lines:

[The} principle of relativity was not fundamental at all but emergent --a collective property of the matter constituting space-time that becomes increasingly exact at long length scales but fails at short ones. ... It would mean that the fabric of space-time was not simply the stage on which life played out but an organizational phenomenon, and that there might be something beyond.

And to the honorable Terapin of Math I offer (from the same book):

Despite all this evidence that the reductionist paradigm in physics is in trouble, subnuclear experiments are still generally described in reductionist terms. This is especially curious considering that much of the thinking built into the standard model reflects the idea that the vacuum is a phase and that the laws of physics are reasonably simple and straightforward at the nuclear scale --but not beyond-- because they are universal properties of that phase. Nonetheless, instead of low-energy universality, physicists speak of effective field theory. Instead of phases, we speak of symmetry breaking. Instead of phase trasitions, the unification of forces. ... The subordination of understanding to principles of phase organization is a similarly unthinkable failure of one's mission to master the universe with mathematics. In situations that matter, mythologies are immensely powerful things, and sometimes we humans go to enormous lengths to see the world as we think it should be, even when the evidences says we are mistaken.

This willful blindness is an “observer problem” – and it leaves the deep questions, the important ones, on the back burner of science and math. The net result is that science and math these days is more about instrumentation, application and utility than exploring the big questions. The days of the big thinkers in science and math are long gone.

Thank you so very much for your beautiful witness, Alamo-Girl.

I hope and pray the days of "big thinkers in science and math" are not long gone. Yet sadly, I note that oftentimes these days, the big new ideas get "peer reviewed" into oblivion. It seems that science is losing its impartial habit of mind and, along with it, its integrity....

May God abundantly bless you, dearest sister!