Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

144 Theism and Explanation
with the rest of our knowledge, it comes from a tradition whose proposed
explanations have previously scored poorly, it is ontologically extravagant,
and it does not enable us to predict the precise details of the effect. It other
words, it lacks many of the qualities we would normally demand of successful
explanations.
What conclusion, then, have I reached? If, on a number of key points,
we give the theist the benefi t of the doubt, we cannot exclude the bare possibility
that there might one day exist a successful theistic explanation. The
reason for this is that at least some of these criticisms represent contingent
(rather than necessary) failings. As things stand, for instance, proposed
theistic explanations are not consistent with the rest of our knowledge.
But we can imagine things being otherwise. It follows that we cannot be
certain that no account of divine agency could ever warrant acceptance as
the explanation of some state of affairs. But if a proposed theistic explanation
must meet the conditions set out above—which are no more onerous
than those we demand of other explanations—then that possibility seems
remote. Many if not all proposed theistic explanations can be shown to be
not even potential explanations of the facts to be explained, since they fail
to meet the optimality condition (5.3.3). And even if they met this fi rst condition,
they will (at present) score poorly when ranked against key explanatory
virtues. They are unlikely to be the best explanations of any state of
affairs. And even if they were the only potential explanations on offer, we
would have good reason to seek natural alternatives.
Many atheists will regard this as an unsatisfying conclusion. For it does
not exclude the possibility that we could, one day, have suffi cient reason to
accept a proposed theistic explanation. The possibility may be remote, but
it remains “on the books” (as it were). It follows, they might argue, that my
arguments do not provide what is needed: a “silver bullet,” which could
“put a merciful end to all the nonsense.” There is no in principle argument
which would exclude any proposed theistic explanation, a priori (as it
were). Applied to the debate regarding scientifi c naturalism, my discussion
fails to offer a principled reason for excluding (once and for all) talk of
divine agency from the sciences.
8.2 Methodological Naturalism?
Does this matter? I suspect not. At the very beginning of my discussion
I distinguished between two senses of the term “naturalism.” The fi rst,
which I attributed to Quine, holds that there are certain standards which
any successful explanation must meet. If a proposed theistic explanation
met these standards, then we should embrace it. It is a further question,
albeit one much debated in the literature, whether we choose to call such
an explanation “scientifi c.” Politically and legally, it may be an important
issue, but nothing of any philosophical importance rests on the answer we
give. My own view is that it would be odd to exclude from the sciences any