Metaphysics in science and the concept of “miracle”
Arne Vangheluwe
Graduate Student
Institut Supérieur de Philosophie
Université Catholique de Louvain
The past decade has witnessed the revival of metaphysical thinking in the philosophy of science. This is due to the arrival of the so-called “new essentialism”, promoted most prominently by Australian philosopher of science Brian Ellis. Embracing a critical realist view on science, this essentialism aims to develop a third major position on laws of science, necessity and causation in contrast to established paradigms such as the Armstrong-Toole-Dretsky-view and especially the regularist view on laws of nature associated to humean and empiricist thinking. While the renewed interest in this area of philosophy of science is genuine, it may be questioned whether the term “metaphysics” is well chosen: the discussions have very little to do with the topics associated with traditional metaphysics, and they might better be seen as the search for the minimal conditions on ontology necessary to develop a realistic position in laws of science.
As such, this evolution does not seem to have a profound impact on the debate between science and religion. Nonetheless, there are a number of subjects in the “theology and science”-area where essentialism does have an impact. One of these points of friction between science and theology is the notion of specific divine action. It is my contention that the theological naturalism and many other elements found in the contemporary debates intellectually are a direct offspring of the debates around the notion of “miracle” in the late 18th century, Hume being the best known author of reference. This idea is confirmed by the curious side-effect of tacit predominance of a neo-humean (and therefore empiricist) philosophy of science, law of nature and necessity as found in debates concerning miracles and special divine action. This tacit philosophy must be put into question, as it formats very strongly the way these discussions take shape and what kinds of solutions are sought. Changing our viewpoint to the new essentialism, we may therefore discover the differences between true problems, and problems caused as a consequence of a particular philosophy of science. It can thus be hoped that a better formulation of the concept of “miracle”, and a clarification of our ideas of what might constitute a divine action, becomes possible.