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Mathematician, Pierre-Simon LaPlace was once asked by the emperor of France where God was to feature in LaPlace's mathematical system. LaPlace replied, "I have no need of that hypothesis." The idea behind the quip is that if you can find a good explanations for something without God, then you don't need him. And if you don't need him, then this is good reason to suppose that he's not there. The kind of God supposed in such thought is the "God-of-the-gaps" kind of God, a God who is necessary only in so far that he explains some feature of the world - existence, the movement of the planets, the habits of our species, or the events of history. No Gaps, No God. The trouble is: there is no such God. If God exists, he would not be such a being as to only involve himself where he was needed. Instead, God would be involved in everything - responsible for the workings of all the laws of nature not merely for the ones that need a divine hand. Seco...

At school I was taught to anneal copper. This process entailed heating the copper to an exact temperature before working on it. There were no temperature gauges involved - one could tell what temperature the copper had reached by its color - cherry red. The color of the copper changed as the temperature changed. I remember thinking that God was both an artist and an engineer. He designed copper to include its own temperature gauge and made it beautiful at the same time. To a Christian, or any theist for that matter, the world appears to be designed by someone. It is not usually the whole world that appears designed, all at once, so to speak. Rather, it is usually some striking feature of the world that appears designed. A beautiful flower bursting with color, a hummingbird hovering, seemingly motionless in midair, or the detail of an eye with all its complexity, all appear to be designed. Even those who do not believe in a divine designer remark at the world's apparent design....

J.P. Moreland argues that certain features that we take to be part of what it means to be human are incompatible with naturalism but are every bit accounted for by Biblical Theism. Naturalistic views usually have three components – a commitment to an empirical epistemology, a historical account (“Grand Story”) reliant upon causal theory and emergenitism, and a constitutive account restricted to an ideal physics explainable with reference to causal theory. Moreland argues that consciousness, free will, rationality, an enduring soul, objective morality and human intrinsic value are all incompatible with naturalism. Moreland concludes by suggesting that the best the naturalist can offer is a dismissive strategy that takes human features for granted without explanation but he is pessimistic about the success of such a strategy. Moreland’s argument appeals to the most common conception of human features without which we would be caused to wonder if there is anything left that counts as...

According to Michael Rea, naturalism is a combination of a method and an assumption. Methodologically, naturalism is the attempt to understand the world through the natural sciences. The assumption, which, theoretically at least, can be overturned at any moment, is that everything that exists is material. The assumption can, in principle, be overturned at any moment because natural sciences don't claim to have all data at their fingertips. Fairies could be found at the bottom of an English garden and God might appear from behind a far off planet, but neither of these events seems plausible given only the data that the natural sciences have produced so far. Rea defines naturalism as a research program. As such it does not fit the bill as a substantive thesis. To say that naturalism is a substantive thesis would be to suggest that it is a thesis about metaphysics, epistemology or methodology. Rea argues that any such thesis is incompatible with naturalism. Consequently, naturali...

Naturalism has peeked. And when it has collapsed something else will take its place. The question is: What? Naturalism is a combination of a method and an assumption. Methodologically, naturalism is the attempt to understand the world through the natural sciences. The assumption, which, theoretically at least, can be overturned at any moment, is that all that exists is material (whether these two are happy bedfellows is a discussion better left for another day). I say that this assumption can be overturned at any moment because natural sciences don't claim to have all data at their finger tips. Fairies could be found at the bottom of an English garden and God might appear from behind a far off planet, but neither of these events seems plausible given only the data that the natural sciences have produced so far.