Posted on 01/27/2009 6:59:07 AM PST by betty boop
Edited on 01/27/2009 7:16:52 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
It'll drive ya batty for sure! LOLOL! Yet to me, it seems that God is, not rigorously deterministic with respect to His dealings with creation, but rather providential.
According to Catholic doctrine,
God is the source of being, and thus gives being to all that exists outside of himself. (God himself exists necessarily.) God is outside of time, and thus creates (and knows) everything, past, present, and future, by a single eternal (i.e., a-temporal) act. He is the creator of all finite beings in every aspect of their being, and hence creates them with all their natural propensities, powers, and mutual relationships. Consequently, while created things do have natural causal relationships to each other ("secondary causality"), God is nevertheless the direct cause of every thing ("primary causality"): God is the First Cause — "first" causally, not temporally. (A simple analogy is that a dagger and the playwright Shakespeare are both causes of Polonius' death in the play Hamlet: the dagger kills Polonius, while Shakespeare causes the whole scene, including Polonius, the dagger, Polonius' death, and the fact that the dagger causes Polonius' death. Shakespeare is analogous to the First Cause, the dagger to a secondary cause. Secondary causes only operate because of the First Cause.) It is Catholic dogma that "God, by his Providence, protects and governs all that he established, 'reaching mightily from end to end and ordering all things sweetly.'"...One sees that the doctrine of Providence is not only that God governs the world, but that his governance is wise and beneficent. Divine providence is distinguished into "mediate providence" and "immediate providence," the former exercised through secondary causes and the latter directly, without such mediation. Therefore, saying that an event is governed by Providence implies nothing about whether it has natural causes and can be naturally explained. Nevertheless, according to traditional teaching, the ordinary means of divine Providence is through natural secondary causality. As Suarez put it, "God does not intervene directly with the natural order where secondary causes are sufficient to produce the intended effect."
— Stephen M. Barr, "The Concept of Randomness in Science and Divine Providence," in Divine Action and Natural Selection, Singapore: World Scientific, 2009, p. 467. Emphasis added.A Catholic, Barr is Professor of Physics at the Bartol Research Institute and the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Delaware. In this article, he wants to know whether "randomness" in nature necessarily implies that nature is "unguided," "unplanned," and "undirected" in a sense that would contradict the notion of Providence. As a physicist, of course he knows that such things as quantum fluctuations and the motions of molecules in a gas are random. Barr also notes that biologists assume that genetic mutations are random. "Such assumptions," he writes, "are intrinsic to modern science's way of explaining the world and to our notions of what is 'natural'." On the chance/statistical randomness question, Barr concludes that chance events do occur in the natural world; but that it does not follow that such events are necessarily "uncaused." He gives an analogy by way of explanation:
Suppose one is driving down an interstate highway in the United States and observing the license plates of the cars that pass by. They will be from various States of the Union, and the sequence will exhibit some degree of randomness: New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Jersey, Florida, etc. (There are probabilities involved, as in any random process. On certain highways a license plate from New Jersey is more like to appear than one from Kansas....) The sequence of license plates is random in the sense that knowing where one car is from does not tell you where another is from: the cars are "independent" and thus "uncorrelated." This randomness, however, in no way implies that the cars' movements and locations are "undirected," "unguided," and "unplanned." Quite the reverse is true: the cars are directed by the wills of their drivers, who are guided by maps and pursuing plans. It is just that the plan of one driver has no direct connection to the plans of the other drivers, because the lives of the various drivers are (generally speaking) uncorrelated with each other. [Ibid., p. 470]Barr's conclusion is that "every event may be part of a chain of causality, but because there are many independent chains of causality that intersect each other and impinge on each other, sequences or juxtapositions arise that exhibit a lack of correlation and thus 'statistical randomness.' The world does not have one story line, but many story lines that have little direct relation to each other.... Events that impinge on a subsystem of the world from other parts of the world, or that result from some adventitious juxtaposition, seem as 'chance' events. These chance events can disrupt or substantially change the course of events in the subsystem. Events in this world, therefore, do not follow a predictable pattern, but are caught up in a vast web of contingency." [Ibid., p. 471.]
CottShop, when you averred that God's mode of causation of/in the world is "deterministic," the image that came to my mind was the system of mechanistic causation elaborated by Isaac Newton. But that system cannot do for God, it seems to me. For causation in Newton's world is always a local, time-bound phenomenon. God as First Cause (i.e., a-temporal cause) is not bound by the space/time system of classical mechanics. And yet it is also clear that Newton very much wanted to "put God into the world," in order to, among other things, "fine-tune" it (i.e., error correction) from time to time. These details are beyond the scope of the present writing.
Personally, I don't think a model like this does justice to God as First Cause. I think hosepipe's astute remark — that "God does not make Bluebirds. He made Bluebirds that make Bluebirds" — indicates the manner in which divine Providence tends to work in nature (i.e., through secondary causes). Certainly it seems that God directs and guides the world and all therein according to his plan and purpose; but he doesn't have to, say, directly mess with the (apparently random) quantum world in order for the "right" outcomes to occur in nature.
Analogously, inversely-causal metainformation (which is an a-temporal cause) might be thought of as First Cause (in the sense of Logos) of the biological world. All secondary causation in living nature flows from it, and is "constrained" by it.
Just trying to work through these ideas, my friend. Again, you're right: They'll drive you "batty!" Your thoughts?
Thank you for your kindness, TXnMA!
Maybe computer data compressor engineers should study DNA as well.. Could be they'd learn something.. Ya think!...
I suspect its not one algorithm.. but multiple subroutines for different purposes.. in a multifarious way.. Routines that can change their function as fully as the crystaline nature of water.. i.e. snowflakes..
Humans may be too lineal in their thinking to understand DNA..
I would however that Barr had tackled the word "random" per se - that in the natural sciences, it really means "unpredictable." At the root, mathematics, one cannot say something is random in the system when he doesn't know what the system "is." And we do not know and can never know the full number and type of dimensions, e.g. space and time.
Concerning predestination, I do aver that no one and no thing can thwart the will of God.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. - John 5:24
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. - Proverbs 3:5-6
Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. - Psalms 91:14
[[Personally, I don’t think a model like this does justice to God as First Cause. I think hosepipe’s astute remark — that “God does not make Bluebirds. He made Bluebirds that make Bluebirds” — indicates the manner in which divine Providence tends to work in nature (i.e., through secondary causes). Certainly it seems that God directs and guides the world and all therein according to his plan and purpose; but he doesn’t have to, say, directly mess with the (apparently random) quantum world in order for the “right” outcomes to occur in nature.]]
Not sure I’m following your line of reasoning here- God was indeed ‘first cause’, and it is my beleif that He created the genome to handle most mistakes thrown at it by designing the informaiton to adjust on the fly- this would take forethought and foreknowledge to code the metainfo to deal with intrusions- I’m not seeing how time constraints play into this? I don’t see that God has to keep ‘stepping in’ to adjust code ‘as needed’ as the code was ‘perfected’ (in the sense that it contianed all necessary info right fro mthe start to deal with problems- I’m not implying that all problems can be handeled, but rather that species specific info is able to handle most, but is still under hte curse and could potentially not be able to handle some, according to God’s directives at creation)
[[ In this article, he wants to know whether “randomness” in nature necessarily implies that nature is “unguided,” “unplanned,” and “undirected” in a sense that would contradict the notion of Providence.]]
No I don’t beleive so- God woudl know, being omniscient, what randomenss would do to species before it even occured, and would have designed creatures to either handle the problems or succumb to them according to His will. He very well could have created creatures to lvie for some itme, but die off- go extinct, and infact we know htis has happened, but it didn’t take God by surprise, as it were, when this happened- These die-offs are a result of sin, and were planned for.
As God directs everything, being omnipotent, even ‘randomness’ bows to His direction or rather is subject to His direction- this is another deep subject, as one has to wonder how somethign could be ‘random’ when it is ‘directed’ By God- but perhaps it owudl be better to state it is ‘used’ by God for His own purposes
[[The world does not have one story line, but many story lines that have little direct relation to each other.... ]]
I’m not sure I agree with htis- I think everythign is itner-related, and that an omniscient God sees all ‘independent lines’ (which are actually depenedent on other lines), and created everyhtign to either positively deal with, or negatively deal with, all possible ‘independent’ actions no metter what order they occure in (Which again, God, being onmiscient, woudl have already foreseen).
We’re only really able to see perhaps several ‘independent’ lines at a time (kind of like in a chess game- the best players can visualize quite a few lines of manuevers in advance) and htis I think limits our understanding, but if we were to be able to see all ‘indepenedent’ lines, I think we would see that they are all inter-dependent in actuality.
Ouch! Brain ache.
[[I would however that Barr had tackled the word “random” per se - that in the natural sciences, it really means “unpredictable.” At the root, mathematics, one cannot say something is random in the system when he doesn’t know what the system “is.” And we do not know and can never know the full number and type of dimensions, e.g. space and time.]]
Good point- We can’t comprehend or grasp the all knowing omniscience of God who would use a ‘total system’ made up of perhaps many smaller systems- the ‘total system’ would be the ‘metainformation system’ of creation that took every possible action into concideration before creation. (Not implying that God had to ‘concider’ anything, being bound to ‘discision making’ such as we are- I think natural facts and laws abotu everything simply dictated creation in an automatic fashion that didn’t require descision making- ugggh- leaping into another theological realm with that claim lol)
God's Name is I AM.
Beyond knowing that is His Name, we cannot put ourselves in His shoes so to speak.
By the way, one of my favorite meditations is that His Name, I AM, answers all my concerns.
"How did ...?" I AM
"Why does ...?" I AM
"But what about...?" I AM
and so on.
LOLOL!!! That's for sure!
I must go out today — it's my Dad's 88th birthday celebration! So, off I go, but will write again ASAP.
Woohoo- 88 Tel lhim Happy birthday from us all at FR for us :) Have a good time :)
Oh, thank you so very much for your birthday wishes for my Dad! We had such a splendid day! I hope you had a marvelous Valentine’s Day, too, dearest sister in Christ!
Beyond knowing that is His Name, we cannot put ourselves in His shoes so to speak.
Oh, so very true, dearest sister in Christ! And how very easy it is for us humans to lose sight of this indisputable fact. The result being that so often we see God through "rational filters" of our own making, which do not at all apply to God, let alone fully "specify" His divine will.
But He has already told us what His divine will is: I Am That Am. In so saying, He announces Himself to us by the name Creator and Lord of LIFE. Not — please notice — by the name God of Reason. Our Christian doctrines are "reasonable" to us. But they are not God in His inexpressibly sublime fullness. No mere human description could ever be.
And so, I wholly agree with you, "That's precisely why man-as-the-observer time-relative theological disputes are foreign to me." We shouldn't push doctrinal differences so hard that we occlude the real presence of God from our mind and spirit, and so lose Him in the ensuing dispute.
Thank you oh so very much for your absolutely lovely essay/post, dearest sister in Christ!
Yes, I entirely agree the problem can be stated in that way, and such statement would be absolutely true. But this does not shed any light into the nature of randomness itself.
I think Alamo-Girl has the correct common sense (and mathematical) definition of a random event: I.e., it is an unpredicted event, meaning it's an event that a human being cannot ascribe to a known cause in advance of the occurrence of the phenomenon he observes. Since it has no ascribable cause, it appears to be "undirected," perhaps purposeless — just a freak accident maybe. Still, to me, you cannot obtain a highly ordered system out of a causal chain of freak accidents, not even if you can prove the universe is "eternal"; i.e., had no beginning.
Anyhoot, I'm not at all in-amicable to the ideas you presented in your last lovely post, CottShop. I just want to know what the term "random" means in the natural sciences nowadays. Plus for some strange reason I have some deep-set, maybe intuitive idea that "random development," via the general situation of contingency in nature, is what introduces novelty and change in a natural system, preventing it from becoming completely "static" — which to my mind is practically indifferentiationable from the physical realization of thermodynamic entropy.
Anyhoot, what I truly liked about Stephen Barr's article in was that here, we have a physicist, speaking directly to other physicists, regarding his proposal of the reconcilability of divine Providence and "randomness" in nature, as these terms are used in the physical sciences nowadays.
You mentioned that you didn't think that "time constraints play into this." By which I take you to mean that the very fact of the eternity of God, and His Purposive Will, fully accounts for all organic (and for that matter, inorganic) entities in nature. I totally agree with you. But that is not a scientific insight.
If you want to have a conversation with scientists, you can't just say "God did it!" No more than they can just say, "(Random) nature did it."
And that's what's so spectacularly engaging about this book I've been citing recently, Divine Action and Natural Selection. I've been aware of this book for well over a year now, from its early pre-production stages, when "editorial posture" was being fleshed out. It finally went to press last October — with what I'm satisfied to say is a proper and just editorial tone.
This book is a confab of scientists speaking among themselves regarding the hot-button issues of Darwinian evolution theory vs. ID. At bottom, it raises — and ventilates from various scientific and cultural perspectives — the issue of whether science and religion, faith and reason, are mutually-exclusive "magisteria," or whether they may overlap in a certain key sense.
The book's plenty pricey. But oh, worth every penny, IMHO! Whatta feast!
Thank you so very much for your kind birthday wishes for my Dad, dear brother in Christ! And also for your keen, perceptive essay/post!
I think that it can also be applied to any event the outcome of which cannot yet be predicted because of the large number of variables and possible paths it can take being involved.
If we only knew enough, we could predict anything.
Hmmmm.....
[[If you want to have a conversation with scientists, you can’t just say “God did it!” No more than they can just say, “(Random) nature did it.”]]
Oh, I aggree with htat- I was just freeing myself from the constraints of being ‘politically/scientifically’ compliant for a bit
[[And that’s what’s so spectacularly engaging about this book I’ve been citing recently, Divine Action and Natural Selection.]]
Sounds liek maybe they too are freeign htemselves from the constraints of political/scientific compliance too- Sounds liek it might be a very telling book to see how they think behind hte restrictive mask of naturalism
Yes indeed, we had a beautiful Valentine’s Day!!!
But He has already told us what His divine will is: I Am That Am. In so saying, He announces Himself to us by the name Creator and Lord of LIFE. Not — please notice — by the name God of Reason. Our Christian doctrines are "reasonable" to us. But they are not God in His inexpressibly sublime fullness. No mere human description could ever be.
Thank you and thank you for your encouragements!
I also really enjoyed the excerpts from Barr's article! The book does indeed sound like a feast.
Nevertheless, if there were one more expanded dimension of time - an observer from that perspective could accurately say to an observer in our 4 dimensions (proceeding on a time line) precisely what will happen next.
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