[BroJoeK]

betty boop (#1,237): "Well I suppose it's easier for you to redirect me to the reexamination of our past back-and-forth statements than it is to simply answer a simple question: What is the foundation of science itself?"

But that was not the question you asked in post #1,210 and to which in #1,214 I referred you back to a previous answer in #1,196.

betty boop (#1,237): "Then there is the problem of: What "allegations" have I made?
Can you recite them back to me?"

One example was posted right there, in #1,214, along with my response referring you to previous answers.

betty boop: "Whatever the case, BroJoeK keeps intoning the official mantra of Neo-Darwinism: All explanations of Nature must be predicated on "natural causes."
It doesn't ever seem to occur to him that "natural causes" can be downstream from a Cause that is not "natural" in the sense BroJoeK and his like-minded friends do not and cannot recognize, given their prior commitment — their epistemically prior commitment — to the theory of universal, reductionist materialism."

So here is the actual quote from my post #1,196:

"I've posted here several times that I believe the entire Universe is intelligently conceived, planned, designed, created and managed by God, from the Beginning.

Precisely how God accomplished (and accomplishes) all His miracles, we don't know, but science has suggested a very small number of theories.
By that I mean: the ratio of what we think we know versus what we don't know is still similar to that which Sir Isaac Newton reported 300 years ago when he said:
'I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.' "

betty boop (#1,237): "What is the foundation of science itself?"

Natural explanations for natural processes, period.

betty boop (#1,237): "As ever, I would like to know: WHO defined "science" in this way?
(Would you just tell me???)"

Here is one question of which you, Ms boop, can be 100% epistemically and ontologically certain: it's not you.
You personally get no say, no vote, no influence or suggestions on the subject.
You can't define "science", you can't touch it, it's not yours.
Natural-science belongs to somebody else.
Who does it belong to?
Well, natural-scientists, of course -- people who understand that the word "science" means: natural explanations for natural processes.

Since you, Ms. boop, don't understand that, or won't accept it, you get no say in what science is, or where it's going.
In that sense, you have the same relationship to science that, say, an atheist has to Christian theology.
Your opinions are irrelevant.

betty boop (#1,237): "Certainly we can't blame Thomas Aquinas, Saint and Doctor of the universal Church.
He never artificially divided the spiritual from the natural world; it was not he who proposed them as somehow mutually exclusive categories, such that "science" has to choose between them in order to do its business."

But of course, it was Aquinas who first drew our attention to the, ahem, difference, distinction, contrast or division between theology based on the Bible and "natural-philosophy" based on inputs from our senses.
As I posted in #275, my understanding of Aquinas comes, in part, from here:

"Aquinas was a Christian theologian, but he was also an Aristotelian and an Empiricist, and he substantially influenced these two streams of Western thought.

He believed that truth becomes known through both natural revelation (certain truths are available to all people through their human nature and through correct human reasoning) and supernatural revelation (faith-based knowledge revealed through scripture), and he was careful to separate these two elements, which he saw as complementary rather than contradictory in nature."

As I said from the beginning of this thread: after Aquinas, the "complementary nature" of theology and natural-science became increasingly disputed.
Do you not "get" that?

betty boop (#1,237): "Thomas never indicated the two realms were mutually exclusive.
Why do you, dear BroJoeK?"

FRiend, boop, across many posts here, I've been consistent from the beginning in pointing out what you've just said: that Aquinas himself did not consider theology and natural-science to be in conflict, but that since Aquinas in historical fact they often have been, at times resulting in bloody violence.
Aquinas showed us the difference between them, others changed difference to violent dichotomy.
Do you not remember that discussion?

betty boop (#1,237): "And I have absolutely no problem with the idea that the universe and everything in it "evolves."
What else could you possibly expect a cosmic-scale spatio-temporal process to do?"

Sure, the term "evolution" is used in any number of highly informal & imprecise senses such that virtually any change can be said to "evolve".
But the precise scientific definition of "evolution" is simply: speciation through 1) descent with modifications and 2) natural selection.
Science itself says that evolution is teleologically "purposeless" which only means that if we see a purpose in evolution, then that purpose is supplied from a non-scientific realm, i.e.: theology.

betty boop (#1,237): "When you asked me, 'So please tell us how such a simple concept can be so difficult for you to grasp?'
I definitely got the impression that you were trying to stage me as some kind of stoopid religious fanatic who, being "religious," is necessarily "stoopid."

Of course, you refused to answer my question, and instead changed the subject.
Does that make you "smart" or "stooped", FRiend?

Why not just give the answer to my question: simple, straight forward and to the point?

[betty boop]

Aquinas was a Christian theologian, but he was also an Aristotelian and an Empiricist, and he substantially influenced these two streams of Western thought. He believed that truth becomes known through both natural revelation (certain truths are available to all people through their human nature and through correct human reasoning) and supernatural revelation (faith-based knowledge revealed through scripture), and he was careful to separate these two elements, which he saw as complementary rather than contradictory in nature. Thus, although one may deduce the existence of God and His attributes through reason, certain specifics (such as the Trinity and the Incarnation) may be known only through special revelation and may not otherwise be deduced.

That is the complete paragraph from the linked site Aquinas from which your statement at Reply #1243 was abstracted. I would love you to help me analyze it.

But first, may I note that you are submitting "evidence by Authority." So, who is this "authority?" The person who holds the copyright on this philosophy website goes by the name of Luke Mastin. He seems to be the same person who holds the copyright on yet another website devoted to explicating all of physics. Evidently, he is a prodigious individual: If he had any help from other people, he doesn't mention it.

Just saying. Since I wasn't able to find out anything more about this person, I doubt I will accept him as a bona fide authority.

Now to the analysis of the statements at the top of this reply.

As already pointed out in an earlier post, I reject the idea of "special revelation" as being the exclusive province of "people of the Book": Plato for example never heard of the Holy Scriptures, nor of Jesus Christ. Yet he managed to infer a unitary cosmos that was ruled by Logos, which to me dovetails very well with my understanding of Genesis 1. He did not accomplish this merely by means of a process of deductive reasoning. He did not do this merely by sorting out external evidence, trying to find some sort of explanatory pattern for observed phenomena. Plato worked "from the inside out" — so to speak — from apperceptive, subjective mind (nous) in direct response to "pulls" from "outside," which are not of material, but of divine origin and character (Nous).

Of course it is true that "the Trinity and the Incarnation ... may be known only through special revelation and may not otherwise be deduced." Well, certainly they can never be "deduced." They are articulations of the greatest story ever told that exists at the very foundation of Western culture and civilization. [No wonder you and spirited irish have been in such a tizzy lately....]

As to what can be "deduced" from "natural revelation": Natural revelation does not reduce to "computability" concerns — as it would be according to the present method of science. I have been subject to "natural revelation" regarding the very order of the universe from a young age, just from stumbling around in nature in my childish gambols, and "exploring" it. The upshot being: I could never doubt subsequently that the universe has a divine origin and purpose.

Anyhoot, Plato makes it clear that he sensed an "outside correspondent" participating in his meditations. This may be represented by his great symbol of the Demiurge of Timaeus. But I, a Christian, would simply call it: the Holy Spirit, conducting the Light of Christ Logos.

You continue to claim that science is all about "natural explanations for natural processes"; indeed, is so defined. And then make it clear that if I disagree with you about this, then there is something seriously wrong with my reading comprehension, or general level of intelligence.

My childhood epiphany about God and His Order (before I was "theologized") was a perfectly "natural process," at the lowest level of description. After all, I am a human being, a natural living organism, not a member of the Angel community; nor am I a unicorn or some such other fantastic creature.

I think that what is most wrong about your "definition" of science is that it presupposes that the natural world is entirely material, physical, always directly observable in all its most important phenomenological aspects.

At the root of this expectation is the utter confidence that many scientists continue to have in "classical physics" — that is, Newtonian physics — as the tool for the job of explicating the ever-persistent mysteries of biology. It seems to me that Newtonian physics is just dandy at handling problems involving closed, inorganic systems in nature. It essentially specifies and then reifies a "machine model" whose activities are driven by local causation exclusively.

But biological systems in nature are not machines. And given their organizational structure — which is the most fascinating thing about them, and which is, if anything, a "super-natural" property (in that it cannot be reduced to an observable, but whose absence would quickly translate a living organism into a dead one).

BTW, I do agree with you that natural and supernatural revelatory experiences are "complementary."

Which is why I find it so odd that, nowadays, so many popular defenders of science — e.g., Richard Lewontin, Richard Dawkins, "the usual suspects" — want all investigations of "super-nature" to be killed in the cradle....

You can't just segregate one unified Whole — which is the Universe of Nature itself, including human nature — into abstract categories according to personal taste — e.g., "natural vs. supernatural" — and then expect Nature to comport with your abstraction. Indeed, this would be a fine example of A. N. Whitehead's "Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness."