Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

Against Religious Explanations 5
I shall be critical of Johnson’s work shortly, but in this case he is surely
right. It is true that he would not grant the premise of his own argument.
He would deny that the naturalistic programme of the sciences has been as
successful as its advocates urge. (Johnson is a leading opponent of evolutionary
theory and advocate of “intelligent design.”) But if he is wrong, if
the naturalistic research programme of the sciences has been overwhelmingly
successful, then one could argue that the best explanation of its success
is the truth of ontological naturalism. 35
Indeed I would go further. I would argue that for the purpose of offering
explanations, methodological naturalism is practically indistinguishable
from its ontological sibling. It is true that in itself methodological naturalism
entails no particular metaphysics. But this is only because it entails
nothing at all, since it is a procedural matter, a rule rather than a proposition.
What does that rule specify? If it specifi ed nothing more than a particular
method of enquiry, as Pennock suggests, it would be less controversial.
As Quine notes, we could not assume that adherence to such a method
would exclude the supernatural. But those who defend the methodological
naturalism of the sciences apparently mean something more than this. They
wish to exclude any possible appeal to a divine agent.
So it seems more plausible to interpret the phrase “methodological naturalism”
in a second way. It tells us that in our quest for knowledge we
should proceed as if ontological naturalism were true. If you accept this
defi nition, then at least in practice methodological and ontological naturalism
are indistinguishable. It scarcely matters if you hold to naturalism as
a procedural rule or as an ontological commitment. In both cases it will
guide your enquiry, determining what kinds of entities or forces you will
posit when offering explanations.
1.1.3 An A Priori Commitment?
So yes, one can distinguish between methodological and ontological
naturalism. But if the former means acting as if the latter were true, the
distinction has little practical signifi cance. Many opponents of scientifi c
naturalism, such as Phillip Johnson, would readily agree. What conclusion
do they draw? Well, Johnson argues that what presents itself as a modest
methodological naturalism is, in fact, nothing more than an a priori,
dogmatic commitment to a materialist world view. It is not the case, he
argues, that science has shown naturalism to be justifi ed, by demonstrating
the truth of its assumptions. Rather, he suggests, a prior commitment
to naturalism has determined the kinds of answers that will be considered
“scientifi c” and thus acceptable. As he writes of his particular bête noir,
namely the theory of evolution by natural selection,
Darwinism became unchallengeable scientifi c orthodoxy not because
the creative power of the mutation/selection mechanism was