Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

Conclusion 145
explanation that met the standards I have outlined. Any adequate explanation
deserves, ipso facto, to be classed as scientifi c. But if you want to
adopt a narrower defi nition of the “scientifi c,” and argue that a successful
theistic explanation would be a satisfactory explanation, but not a scientifi c
one, then this is merely a dispute about words. The important philosophical
question we should ask of any proposed explanation is not, “Does this
invoke a supernatural agent?” The important question is, “Is it a satisfactory
explanation?”
A Quinean naturalist might hold that (in the words of Susan Haack) “the
only means we have of fi guring out what the world is like, is our experience
of the world and our explanatory theorizing about it.” 1 The question then
becomes whether our “explanatory theorizing” could include reference to a
divine agent. As should be clear by now, I have no argument with a naturalism
of this kind. Indeed, my argument has presupposed it. My only qualifi
cation is that I see no reason to call such a position “naturalistic.” But
the naturalism with which I began, the methodological naturalism of the
sciences, is of a different kind. This entails something closely resembling
an ontological claim. More precisely, it is a procedural rule which demands
that in offering explanations we should posit only natural entities, however
those are defi ned. Such a rule would certainly exclude proposed theistic
explanations. (It would exclude other kinds of proposed explanations as
well, but it would certainly exclude theistic ones.) It is this kind of naturalism
that is invoked and defended by many of the opponents of intelligent
design theory. Does my analysis lend it any support?
If methodological naturalism is taken to mean that no proposed theistic
explanation could ever have any explanatory force, then no, my analysis
does not support this conclusion. Such a claim would correspond to a general
in principle objection, one which applies to all proposed theistic explanations.
It would hold that for any statement about divine agency, there
could exist no fact of which it would be even a potential explanation. Such
a sweeping dismissal, I have argued, cannot be justifi ed. What my analysis
suggests is that if we want to argue that proposed theistic explanations lack
explanatory force, we need to do so on case-by-case basis, by showing (for
instance) that a proposed theistic explanation fails to meet the optimality
condition. We would need to show that for this particular statement about
divine agency, then even if it were true, it would not explain the particular
explanandum to which it is being applied. Or even if it would, the proposed
explanation would be less than satisfactory on other grounds. It might (for
instance) be formulated in a way that lacks empirical content or lacks corroboration
by independent tests. I am confi dent that such arguments would
be often, if not always, decisive. But a sweeping, in principle dismissal of
proposed theistic explanations is unwarranted.
What about a more modest methodological naturalism? My analysis
does support the view that we ought to have a preference for natural explanations,
since these have a better chance of exhibiting the features that