Adopting naturalism leaves a lot of questions unanswered; likewise adopting reductionism. One issue you haven’t touched on is whether there is always a reductive relation between causal relations on different levels, or whether there can be independent laws at difference levels.
Adopting naturalism leaves a lot of questions unanswered
Yes, it absolutely does; but then supernaturalism, even if granted, fails to actually answer them. It’s the difference between saying “Here are Maxwell’s Equations, which tells the angels where to push the electrons” or just, “Here are Maxwell’s Equations.” (Of course, the other option—having only the angels and not Maxwell’s laws—is obsolete; it would make an electronic device a miracle, and each other electronic device a separate and additional miracle.)
whether there can be independent laws at different levels
I would say that the history of science is a history of what seemed like contingent equalities turning out to have been necessary identities all along; that is the character of the Law, as far as we have grasped it.
Scientists have argued .for independent higher level laws.
You have tried to argue that supernaturalism fails to answer any question by extrapolation from one example, where naturalism does well. The supernaturalist could likewise cherry-pick examples.
Adopting naturalism leaves a lot of questions unanswered; likewise adopting reductionism. One issue you haven’t touched on is whether there is always a reductive relation between causal relations on different levels, or whether there can be independent laws at difference levels.
Yes, it absolutely does; but then supernaturalism, even if granted, fails to actually answer them. It’s the difference between saying “Here are Maxwell’s Equations, which tells the angels where to push the electrons” or just, “Here are Maxwell’s Equations.” (Of course, the other option—having only the angels and not Maxwell’s laws—is obsolete; it would make an electronic device a miracle, and each other electronic device a separate and additional miracle.)
I would say that the history of science is a history of what seemed like contingent equalities turning out to have been necessary identities all along; that is the character of the Law, as far as we have grasped it.
Scientists have argued .for independent higher level laws.
You have tried to argue that supernaturalism fails to answer any question by extrapolation from one example, where naturalism does well. The supernaturalist could likewise cherry-pick examples.
Examples where supernaturalism is methodologically successful? I would love to hear some!
(Not being sarcastic here; I really would.)
Consciousness, value,meaning....
Basically anything that regularly gets dismissed as a non question...
Hmm, I don’t know that we mean the same thing by “methodological.”
When has someone succeeded in producing any effect or predicting any event, specifically by invoking supernatural knowledge?
To which the supernaturalism replies: when did natural knowledge tell you what the meaning and purpose of your life is? Same problem as before, IOW.
I don’t know how I got into this. I only claimed that naturalist and reductionism don’t answer all questions. That doesn’t mean something else does.