Part 2
Often overlooked today are the mutually productive enlightening discussions going on between them for a millennium and a half since Augustine. The fundamental question between them has been that of causation. Is it natural, supernatural or both?? Supernaturalism and Naturalism are both based on notions of primary and secondary causation. God is everywhere the primary cause but is he the immediate cause of all effects. Naïve supernaturalism says yes but has never been given much weight. Nor has Occasionalism which holds that the link between cause and effect is an artifact of our perception Traditional Christianity says both but holds a position more on the side of naturalism. God is omnipotent but made things to operate within a Communis Cursus Naturae, a common natural causation that guarantees the validity of investigation in an (almost always) constant world. The crucial test lies in events that occur outside of or by the suspension of the natural order. We call them miracles when they show a disproportion between cause and effect inexplicable by every resource that the study of the Communis Cursus Naturae can muster. The idea originating in the reformation that the age of miracles is over unintentionally supported more extreme views on naturalism. The most extreme is Philosophical Naturalism that says nothing exists beyond the material thus denying anything supernatural. It forms the basis of current Atheism. Less strident is Methodological Naturalism holds that divine explanations are not to be used for things not understood but makes no claims for or against the existence of God. The Age of Science beginning in the 17 th century was ushered in by men of Faith. They espoused Natural Theology the belief that the order in the natural world can be used as a source of information about God and his attributes. Men like Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Leibnitz, Boyle and Galileo. But a Faith that over the next 4 centuries would be eroded by Deism and then Scientism. The Galileo Affair brought forth Realism; the view that scientific explanations only are literally true descriptions of the way things really are. Ever since the Affair is the most-often cited incident in the history of science-religion interactions most often to show the obstructive nature of the religious position.
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