Read part 1: Stephen Law on the allegiance of philosophy in the battle between science and religion.
Read part 2: Anglican theologian John Milbank's forthright response to Stephen Law.
Read part 4: Milbank argues that, when it comes to metaphysics, paradox is inevitable.
Thanks to John Milbank for responding to my opening piece on God and science. I initially suggested many God beliefs are empirically – and even scientifically – refutable in the sense that we might establish beyond reasonable doubt, on the basis of observation, that the belief is false. I gave three examples: belief there's a God that answers petitionary prayer; belief that there's a God who created the world 6,000 years ago; and belief there's a God that's omnipotent and omni-malevolent. I then suggested that, for similar reasons, we can reasonably rule out a god that's omnipotent and omni-benevolent.
John rejects that last suggestion and defends the view that his particular omnipotent, omni-benevolent God is indeed off-limits to any sort of empirical or scientific refutation. So what is his counter-argument?
First off, John suggests religious believers distinguish religion from mere magic. Belief in magic is belief in extraordinary forces or spiritual powers that can be manipulated to achieve some end. Religious belief, on the other hand, focuses on God: something 'beyond nature' that can be experienced but not manipulated. God's non-manipulability entails “he cannot be subject to verification or falsification in a ‘scientific’ sense, which is finally concerned with empirically observable items”. This, in turn, is because God is not one more item within the world but is “everything”. God is being itself, rather than just some an additional (as it were, really big) thing.
There are at least a couple of moves that John runs together here which I'll now tease apart.
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