Nathan,

Van Til wrote, “But this identification of the act of creatio and conservatio takes away the element of continued permanence from creation. Yes in another sense also the permanence of creation is dependent upon God, but it must be sought through the realization of second causes, not by their denial.” From “The Will in Its Theological Relations,” notebook 2, in Van Til, Cornelius, The Works of Cornelius Van Til, (New York: Labels Army Co.) 1997. The rest of that section on “Providence” may be of interest to you, because it deals in detail with the issue of how God interacts with secondary causes.

Nathan, you’re kind, but you’ve far surpassed me in your study of philosophy.

Paul,

Thanks for your suggestions. We try to keep it somewhat simple “college level” in responding to these philosophers. So it i difficult to run down the rabbit hole in a lot of these philosophers in such short time (I wish we could). What we are trying to accomplish is a basic reformed Vos/Vantil response to projected worldviews/metaphysics/epistemologies that are Biblically suspect. So that the average listener can get started. But thanks again for some insight in to where other modern day objections are being presented, and we would appreciate it in the future as well!

See Tim, this is why I miss living with you. These are all very helpful points for further consideration–thank you so much for taking the time to make them. And thanks for the article reference. I’ll get back to you when I feel smart enough to answer all these.

Nathan, the discussion of Edwards’ continuous creation in relation to Hume and occasionalism in chapter VII, “Edwards’s Occasionalism” in Paul Helm and Oliver Crisp’s Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian may be of some interest to you:

http://books.google.com/books?id=DDb5lGnf39MC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=continuous+creation+edwards&source=bl&ots=uL3Iuvl2wz&sig=YsPtC7eGAhRayoIhYwJ9OahQt3Y&hl=en&ei=7PhiTr2JNsrKsQLxtPScCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=continuous%20creation%20edwards&f=false

I imagine the way that nexus should be explained is that created entities’ ontology provides a necessary precondition of created/intra-creation secondary causality, but not of God’s primary causality. In other words, because God providentially sustains His creatures, they are what they are, and continue to be so. More specifically, because God created me to be alive, I am in fact alive–that is a pattern in my being. When God providentially sustains my life from moment to moment, He causes that created pattern to continue, so that created pattern is a necessary, though not sufficient, precondition of its own continued existence. So also with causality. God created, and providentially sustains, cause-and-effect relations and processes within creation.

It would appear to me that this explanation effectively denies Edwards’ continuous creationism, and because it provides a basis (in the continuation of created ontological patterns) for distinguishing ordinary and extraordinary providences, it opposes the implication some Calvinistic Charismatics draw from the premise that all events are supernatural acts of God’s providence: that all events are basically miraculous, and so to a greater or lesser extent, convey a form of special revelation.

Nathan,

Years ago Covenant College chemistry professor Dr. Larry Mehne told me he didn’t believe natural or scientific laws existed, but rather we should believe in the patterns of God’s ordinary providence. I appreciate much of his sentiment, but as I’ve pondered his statement, it seems to me it denies Biblical ontology, by absolutizing God’s acts of providence and failing to affirm the continuing ontological results of God’s acts of creation, which are often affirmed in scripture. So, I was a little surprised that you referenced the patterns of God’s providence in Gen. 9, at its relatively late point in biblical history, rather than Gen. 1. Gen. 9:11 says “I establish (qum, which implies the covenant, including some of its patterns of God’s providence, had a prior existence, not barah, which indicate the creation of a new entity, or carat, which tends to indicate the establishment of a new relationship) my covenant…that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood….” But Gen. 1:3 gives a necessary, if not sufficient, precondition to the regularity found in God’s Gen. 9 promise that He will order His providence in a regular way: “Let there be (an explicit verb of being)….” It appears to me the ontological nature of the entities God created includes a regular, and continuing, order.

I care to point this out because you are studying Hume, and as I understand him, Hume denies not only causation as a pattern of God’s ordinary providence (which you most excellently affirm!), but also the existence of ontological entities, so it appears to me that a fully biblical response to Hume should include not only an affirmation of God’s providence, but also of a principle of ordered, regular continuity over time within the entities God has created.

Do you think something like this biblical ontology provides a necessary precondition to the patterns of God’s ordinary providence? If so, can you describe it? While I would love a good explanation, there is no need to give one in detail here since that may belong better in an article, but perhaps at least this question can spur on your research. Particularly, with you I’m concerned NOT to say that in God’s providence, God depends on His creation, though, along with my concern to fully affirm the doctrine of creation, I am concerned to say that God uses His creation as a means in His providence. There is a nexus of concern that would prove fruitful to explain.

Thanks so much Kyle, that’s very encouraging and I’m glad you found it helpful.

Huh?

On (2), yes, primarily Bayesianism, though it’s broader than that. In terms of probability literature, I’d recommend Ian Hacking’s An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic (Cambridge, 2001) as a great intro. Also, probability specialist Tim McGrew has a great bibliography here

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~mcgrew/bayes.htm

You may also be interested in his paper, “Direct Inference and the Problem of Induction.” The Monist 84 (2001): 153-74.

1. Why is it mainly Kant who is always set against Hume, as if the failure of the former to answer Hume means Hume’s arguments still stand? I hardly ever see (in discussions like this) Reid placed against Hume. I’m wondering if Nathan addresses (or plans to address) Reid’s responses to Hume? If so, may I get a very brief primer on the tact you (Nathan) take? Or if not Nathan, how do the hosts of the show criticize Reidian responses?

2. Is there any (planned) interaction with Hume’s Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles by John Earman. If so, what is the direction you (Nathan) take in responding? Also, do the hosts of the show find Earman’s rebuttals strong? Given recent arguments for a strong connection between probability maths and logics and the problem of induction, doesn’t the argument need to shift away from Hume and into another kind of argument against the atheist, or is Hume affirmed against the probability theorists? If so, what’s the favored response to the probability handling of the matter?

3. An assertion, if I may: it seems as if there are some solid ways around Hume’s arguments (say, recourse to proper-basicality/function, or probability theory) which require a shift in the dialectic, e.g., a move toward Plantingan arguments against naturalistic accounts of proper-function, etc.

Thoughts, if anyone’s still reading?

Sorry, getting sloppy in my wording. In my last reply by providential explanations I meant (and have meant) something more specific, i.e., purposive explanations, the kind at play in a work like Vos’s Biblical Theology, and not Israel’s The Dutch Republic.

Nathan,

If you don’t like laws, read it as empirical generalizations. And I don’t like the dichotomy between either conceivability being coextensive with possibility or modal skepticism (unless you have a worked-out view on all the work that has been done in metaphysics of modality–and our knowledge of it–since Hume, in which case, you are ahead of the game!).

I really am at a loss likewise in understanding how you imagine history should be done, e.g. If you are only specifying the necessary preconditions for causation, and a fortiori historical causes and events (which would include, for instance, the providential workings of an omniscient, personal God, etc.–as opposed to “brute” facts and relations; but, again, that’s ignoring all the actual substantive theories offered in philosophy that would claim to reduce to neither of these poles), fine. But to me it sounds like you are describing not just the preconditions but the content of historical (or scientific, etc.) explanations. E.g., “Providential explanations are the only ones available.” Does this mean our history (and our science, etc.), has to be written solely about God’s purposes for n1…n?
For instance, I’m currently reading Jonathan Israel’s The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall—overall a fine work of history. What I don’t find in it is explanations of the history of the Dutch Republic in terms of what God desired in bringing out each notable event in the region’s history. Why did the Dutch grow so prosperous in the 18th century? Israel thinks it is due to many causes, from the technological innovations springing up in the provinces, to the relative tolerance of its laws. In your view, should Israel rewrite his book, instead, in terms of providential explanations, such as that the provinces grew prosperous because they were populated with God’s special people and he wanted to show his blessings upon obedience, or perhaps instead because they had turned against God and he wanted to raise them up only to send them crashing down as an example of the consequences of disobedience to other nations? Unfortunately, all we know is that God is on the side of the gospel. But that won’t help us explain the Dutch golden age or why the stock market has been so volatile, etc.

Maybe you would say the explanations Israel gives are providential explanations, but then I would say that doesn’t seem right at all and it seems like you are confusing the preconditions of explanation with the content. What I find in Vos’s Biblical Theology, now that’s providential explanation!–what I find in Israel’s The Dutch Republic, now that’s non-providential, even (rightly understood) naturalistic explanation (and even if God does have purposes behind them and His ordering of the events is the necessary precondition for their meaningful relationships and occurrence).

Thanks for the reply Nathan. I wasn’t as clear as I should have been, as I do agree that every state of affairs is ordained and that the ultimate explanation for its occurrence and properties owes to God’s providence and purposes. By “interpret” I meant something much more robust, not just as in acknowledging that every event has been ordained by God, but also how we make new predictions. As I said toward the end of my post and in my example of making new predictions about the stock market or the number of particles in a region at a time, we rarely are in an (epistemic) position to make inferences based solely on God’s providence.
So it remains a fact that most of our knowledge of God’s providential purpose for any given state of affairs is very thin–we know that God ordained it, we know that he has purposes in ordaining it, but that’s it–and as a result most of our knowledge of why things happen and what will happen next is naturalistic, nomological, etc., not purposive. You can see this at work in Reformed historians like Trueman, Clark, Hart, et al., who critique attempts to interpret historical events in terms of God’s providential working in those people and times, such as God’s purposes in the Reformation or founding of America or later events in the country’s history.

-Patrick:
Hume’s skepticism: as you probably know, Hume self-describes as an Academic skeptic rather than Pyrrhonian (e.g. EHU sec. 12). Hume says that if we limit our beliefs to the deliverances of reason, we will hold no beliefs at all. But he does not think that the suspension of all belief (that’s what he calls “Pyrrhonian Skepticism”) is either advisable or possible. Very roughly speaking, he advises us to adopt those beliefs which are useful and agreeable to ourselves and others.

CVT’s interpretation of Hume. I think CVT’s most extensive discussion of Hume is in Christian-Theistic Evidences; he also discusses him, as I recall, in Survey of Christian Epistemology. I’ve found Van Til’s remarks very helpful, although you’re right that he’s not doing close readings of Hume. In SCE he says that Hume is useful because he demonstrates how a non-Christian-theistic empiricism leads straight to skepticism, and that’s shaped my approach to Hume as well. Sometimes I don’t understand all that CVT is saying, but I don’t recall him saying anything that struck me as fundamentally ignorant or naïve.

Providence and the laws of nature. Patrick I may be misunderstanding you here but let me give it a shot:
-First, Calvin (Institutes 1.16) is at pains to say that each and every state of affairs is specially ordained by God, and that ‘laws’ or ‘regularities’ are just generalizations about the events which he’s individually decreed and brought about. It doesn’t work the opposite way—it’s not as if God fundamentally ordained natural laws, or as if his control of specific events is derivative from his having ordained the general laws.
-Second, as I read Calvin and Van Til, they do advocate interpreting every single state of affairs in terms of providence. This is possible just because God, in his word, has spoken (prophetically and covenantally) about all of history. It’s not a matter of whether we interpret states of affairs in terms of special revelation; it’s more a question of how much detail God has specially revealed about each state of affairs.
-Third, I wouldn’t contrast nomological explanation with providential explanation as if they were mutually exclusive, but I would argue that providential explanation is more fundamental, and that nomological explanations without the providential will be incoherent. I might argue this in a couple different ways depending on what you think a law of nature is. Do you think it’s a generalization over actual events—a description of regularities—or do you analyze it in terms of counterfactual conditionals, or in some other way?

Thanks for raising these great issues

Steve,

We didn’t feel like that was an opportunity we wanted to take. More than enough has been said about that in the public sphere and I’ve talked to Nathan enough about it to realize anything said would be what you would expect anyway (in a good way – no surprises, no previously unrevealed info). So, respectfully, I think that conversation is better suited for a different context.

I am curious what kind of skeptic Nathan thinks Hume is–he made it sound like Hume is a pyrrhonian, is that right?

I’m sure Nathan knows how contentious virtually any interpretation of Hume is in the contemporary secondary literature, but I’m also very curious to hear Nathan’s views on Van Til’s interpretation of Hume. Van Til is good at getting the forest but, except for idealism and Barth for instance, he doesn’t venture into the trees too often. Would Nathan recommend Van Til’s interpretation of Hume?

Finally, toward the end you contrasted laws of nature with providence as “governing history.” This puzzled me, as Reformed Christians do not advocate interpreting states of affairs in terms of providence (unless God reveals his purpose) much less putting natural descriptions (e.g., scientific) in conflict with providential. But even when God reveals, God’s purpose for x in history does not override the natural, nomological facts about x and why x occurred. E.g., there are N quarks in the universe at t2 as opposed to n+1, yes ultimately because God so determined it, but that does not override the fact that there are N quarks at t2 because there was N-1 quarks at t1 and given laws L this resulted in there being N quarks at t2. God accomplishes his purposes through natural means, yet still we cannot make any predictions about future states of affairs, be they numbers of quarks at t1 or what will happen to the stock market over the next week, based on providential, purposive inferences (unless revealed by God). I heard the RF crew as offering an “either-or” but it seems here we have a “both-and,” or am I missing something?