When man investigates anything at all, using the 'Greek' mode of thought, he looks for causes for the effects he observes. This is the essence of the scientific method. Not only that, it is also the essence of the general western mode of thought. In many or most things. We look for predictive and explanatory powers. For this we look for an underlying theory, mechanism or set of laws. These laws then 'cause' all the emergent structures and behaviours of our experiments. Indeed, ultimately, they 'explain' everyday life. Or so it seems.
What is interesting to me is the types of cause we are able to admit into our scientific thinking.
With science, we are generally looking for causes we already understand, at least to a degree. I'd agree that with physical science, we often have a good or excellent understanding of how reality behaves. In science, we limit ourselves to naturalistic causes. Naturalistic causes are means and mechanisms which arise in the natural world around us. That's why we call them 'natural', to distinguish them from 'supernatural'.
We could argue about whether there even is a 'supernatural'. We could also discuss what would count as supernatural. I'll keep it relatively simple.
But how can we ever know that the means and mechanisms, behind everything and anything, were already in place for us to see? We can, with science, often infer realities we can't see directly. Sub-atomic particles like quarks, as an example, are inferred, along with the rules they behave under. Scientists would include them as part of natural explanations. Why? Not because they can be observed; they can't. But because they clearly exist within this creation and because they obey laws. We can make real predictions with them.
Isn't it clear that to assume all causes will be amenable to this kind of analysis and explanation is really a leap of faith? How can we really know we'll always be able to detect and understand the mechanisms and laws behind what we see? Yet science insists we will. The very definition of science restricts us to things we are already able to understand.
It is good to look for explanations, and this is not a call to defeatism or ceasing investigation. We won't find out unless we try. It is certainly possible we will be able to comprehend an underlying law or process in a certain scenario or remit. There may be no understanding at present, and understanding may develop with time. As an example, and whatever you think of Darwinism, there was clearly a mechanism for conveying the attributes of organisms onto their progeny. Although within his lifetime no-one had any real idea how the inheritance of traits occurred, it was evident that it did occur. You only had to observe your own family over a couple of generations to establish that. Of course the science of genetics and DNA followed on. Darwinism, if correct*, had a deeper potential theoretical underpinning.
It is perfectly reasonable to infer that a mechanism exists to explain the behaviour you observe. It's also reasonable to start by asking if it is one humanity is able to grasp, understand and use predictively.
It's at this point scientists and others usually jump the gun. They make an associated leap and infer that there always will be a mechanism of this type. One we can understand. A naturalistic one.
We need to be truthful and objective here. We need to note that
1) There is no solid reason to assume all mechanisms, all causes, are going to be 'naturalistic'. In other words, arising from within the creation we see.
2) Our idea of 'naturalistic' includes the assumption that our species can understand it.
3) We probably don't have a rigorous definition of 'naturalistic' anyway. What exactly fits into that category of explanation?
Anyhow, at some point, of necessity, we'll wind up tracing things back to something that 'just is'. Look at the overall flow of science. We've attempted to trace man back to an ancestral species, then to a primordial cell, then to chemical elements, then to particle physics, then to a basic field theory or other 'theory of everything'. This we don't have, but we are travelling hopefully and may get there. If we do, we can then ask, 'why is there a universe, one we experience consciously, built around that theory?' It's one thing to have an elegant set of formulas constraining the behaviour of everything, another to explain why there's an 'everything' corresponding to the mathematical laws. And why is the mathematics behind the laws even 'true'? Does mathematics need a universe to be valid? For example, is Euclidean geometry* just 'true', or is it only true in a universe like ours, with our consciousness?
I'd suggest there is no precedent whatever for the creation, or substantiation, of an experienced reality associated with any physical-mathematical law or laws. We can't consider this conflation of maths and physical substantiation as an inevitability
A creation like ours necessarily derives from a supernatural event, even if the laws associated with the event are themselves 'natural'.
My conclusion on naturalism? There seems an inevitable point coming where we will have to ditch it, in this one place at least.
We'll come to a line in reductionism where it's unrealistic, unreasonable even, to expect a naturalistic explanation. In fact, there are probably other such places, such as the beginning of life.
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
(Hebrews 11:3)
*Euclidean geometry is, physically speaking, an approximation, of course.
*I don't think it is correct, in the big picture. I use it as an example to highlight the flow of scientific investigation and discovery. There is much sound science in genetics.
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