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Thank you so very much for your reply!

The difference between what you are saying and what we are saying is that emergent properties are an observable feature of the natural, material world as understood by mainstream physicists, chemists and biologists.

Emergent properties are indeed observable but they are not all corporeal and certainly mechanisms whereby they are theorized to have emerged (self-organizing complexity, cellular automata) are not corporeal, i.e. they are mathematics.

Moreover one must understand non-corporeal properties such as intelligence, mind or soul as either a primary phenomenon or an epiphenomenon, a secondary phenomenon which can cause nothing to happen.

The worldview that “all that there is” is “matter in all its motions” demands that such things be epiphenomenal, i.e. only the corporeal can cause anything to happen. For instance, your thinking to press the “post” key was an illusion, it was actually the physical brain that did it.

Other worldviews disagree and assert that willfulness is a primary phenomenon which causes things to happen. For instance, the selection of a mate causes the offspring to have unique characteristics. Yet another example, a bird thrown off a building chooses to fly away.

Such worldviews are philosophy, they are also non-corporeals and they are directly related to how we “do” and understand science.

Emergence and reduction are both valid ways of studying phenomena, just as style and grammar are both valid ways of examining writing. No mystical properties need apply in the domain of science.

Mathematics is not mysticism.

The way you used the word “mystical properties” - I presume you mean the “supernatural”. If so, we find ourselves at the false dichotomy. Where methodological naturalism prevails, the investigation seeks and thus can only arrive at a naturalistic conclusion. It is the only place it looks because naturalism is the presupposition to the investigation.

But it is a false dichotomy to say that “natural causes” and “supernatural causes” are mutually exclusive. In many if not most theologies (especially Christianity) – the natural was caused by the supernatural which is both transcendent and immanent. Finding a natural cause does not mean that the supernatural does not cause the natural cause, overarch the natural cause or imbue the natural cause.

But getting back to mysticism per se for a moment…

A more correct meaning of the term is divine knowledge. I speak a great deal about Spiritual revelation which is something that is probably intelligible only to those who have experienced it, i.e. Christian Spiritual revelation. Those who have never experienced it would likely deny that it exists.

But those of us who have experienced it know that it does not come from within our own reasoning or from sensory perception. That “Jesus Christ is Lord” is a Spiritual revelation which appears within us. From there, we receive many additional revelations which build on that foundation, which is the most certain knowledge we possess.

God the Father has revealed Himself in Christ, in the indwelling Spirit, in Scriptures and in His creation – which includes the physical and the spiritual, the heaven and the earth. So, yes, every time we Christians observe something in nature – whether corporeal or non-corporeal – whether formula, philosophy, agency or phenomenon – we see the hand of God.

A lot of scientists are Christian and hence have had at least one Spiritual revelation. They may not call it “mysticism” – but they too cannot miss the revelation of God in nature.

It's not that mystical properites need to apply to the domain of science, but rather that the context of everything the Christian learns about nature - or anything - is Christ Himself.

This great hierarchy of being - God, Man, World (nature/universe), Society - has likewise been understood from ancient times and across many cultures throughout history, albeit some never heard of, nor received, the revelation of Jesus Christ.

. . . the investigation seeks and thus can only arrive at a naturalistic conclusion. It is the only place it looks because naturalism is the presupposition to the investigation.

One has to begin somewhere. With naturalistic presuppositions intelligent design is hardly an easy matter to deduce, if possible at all. The theory of intelligent design presumes without proof that organized matter behaving under predictable laws is evidence of intelligent design. It is no more necessary for science to show in some material fashion "who" this designer is than it is for a play to bring its director onto the stage every moment just to assure the audience the play has a director. In fact, it would essentially spoil the play.

It is my contention that science would have no object if matter were not organized in such a way as to be manifest to the observer, whether physically or mentally. It is hardly an unreasonable leap of logic to consider that, where matter is organized, design is involved, and where design is involved, there is intelligence. For what reason might one be inclined to reject this fairly reasonable point of view? The wind blows where it will . . .

The theory of evolution also presumes without proof, that the presence of organized matter can be attributed to any number of causes other than intelligent design. That is the prerogative of those who espouse it, though I do not consider it proper to hide one's assumptions and proceed as if they have the only scientific point of view. The evidence for naturalistic science fits very well. In fact, there is nothing in the known universe that cannot possibly be explained by so-called natural causes. That includes so-called miracles.