Is Nature Omnipotent?

[Don Mc]

One of the common criticisms of theism is that omnipotence seems like a meaningless escape clause. The basic idea is that whenever Christian theists like me run up against a logical challenge such as an argument from evil, say, or a critique of the shrouded ontology of the Trinity, we can always handily resolve the dilemma by a blanket appeal to God's "mysterious ways" and thereby escape the burden of having to make sense of apparent contradictions. Though I think answers are available to such dilemmas beyond simply "God's mysterious ways," I do think the objection is a fair one on its face.

But I also think the kind of scientific-naturalistic view of the world shared so by many atheists faces a similar criticism. On scientific naturalism, nature, much like God, is credited with creating the universe from nothing (or else existing eternally), creating life from nonliving chemical constituents (the "dust of the earth"), and bestowing humanity with intelligence, an appreciation for beauty, and a sense of morality – among other seeming miracles. I've heard serious naturalist philosophers propose that even if it could be verified that Jesus rose from the dead, that would not mean there could not be a naturalistic explanation for it (and I think they're right). And the paradoxes of general relativity or quantum mechanics seem no less confounding than the Trinity or the Incarnation of Christ. It appears that as understood by advocates of scientific naturalism, nature, no less than God, can do (and explain) anything.

Questions for debate/dialogue:

1. In principle, can nature do anything God can do?
2. If so, does it require a metaphysical assumption of some sort to believe nature can do anything God can do?
3. If not, what limits does nature face that God does not?

[VVilliam]

One of the common criticisms of theism is that omnipotence seems like a meaningless escape clause. The basic idea is that whenever Christian theists like me run up against a logical challenge such as an argument from evil, say, or a critique of the shrouded ontology of the Trinity, we can always handily resolve the dilemma by a blanket appeal to God's "mysterious ways" and thereby escape the burden of having to make sense of apparent contradictions. Though I think answers are available to such dilemmas beyond simply "God's mysterious ways," I do think the objection is a fair one on its face.

But I also think the kind of scientific-naturalistic view of the world shared so by many atheists faces a similar criticism. On scientific naturalism, nature, much like God, is credited with creating the universe from nothing (or else existing eternally), creating life from nonliving chemical constituents (the "dust of the earth"), and bestowing humanity with intelligence, an appreciation for beauty, and a sense of morality – among other seeming miracles. I've heard serious naturalist philosophers propose that even if it could be verified that Jesus rose from the dead, that would not mean there could not be a naturalistic explanation for it (and I think they're right). And the paradoxes of general relativity or quantum mechanics seem no less confounding than the Trinity or the Incarnation of Christ. It appears that as understood by advocates of scientific naturalism, nature, no less than God, can do (and explain) anything.

Questions for debate/dialogue:

1. In principle, can nature do anything God can do?
2. If so, does it require a metaphysical assumption of some sort to believe nature can do anything God can do?
3. If not, what limits does nature face that God does not?

A great OP.

I understand the answer to #1 is "Yes...Yes" /|\

Of course, this is dependent upon what one thinks a god should be able to do, to be recognized as a god. The planet specific has many of the attributes of a god, as far as the general understanding of 'god' applies.

#2 Not necessarily, but in light of Simulation Theory - the Universe is a Creation - therefore implying a Creator, therefore implying at least one alternate reality from which our one is sourced.

Essentially The Creator of this simulation can insert [whatever] into the simulation, even making it appear that it is 'nature' at work - effectively hiding behind the 'wall' the simulation creates between realms.

If Simulation Theory did not exist, [that it does is yet another sign] then whatever happens in this universe is caused by this universe and we can at least make the assumption that it is all happening inside the brain of an entity since we see the similar patterns as possible evidence of this being the case...this does not make the entity 'metaphysical' as it is all happening in the one place.

Whatever the truth...one cannot easily escape [explain away with hand-waving-words] the idea of a Creator/Creation.

[Don Mc]

Questions for debate/dialogue:

1. In principle, can nature do anything God can do?
2. If so, does it require a metaphysical assumption of some sort to believe nature can do anything God can do?
3. If not, what limits does nature face that God does not?

A great OP.

Thanks for that, and thanks for your comments.

I understand the answer to #1 is "Yes...Yes" /|\

Of course, this is dependent upon what one thinks a god should be able to do, to be recognized as a god. The planet specific has many of the attributes of a god, as far as the general understanding of 'god' applies.

Replace "the planet specific" with "the universe given scientific naturalism," and I would agree. From everything we can tell our planet could not exist apart from the larger universe surrounding it, and is subject to the corrosive effects of entropy. That would seem to make it decidedly ungodlike.

#2 Not necessarily, but in light of Simulation Theory - the Universe is a Creation - therefore implying a Creator, therefore implying at least one alternate reality from which our one is sourced.

Essentially The Creator of this simulation can insert [whatever] into the simulation, even making it appear that it is 'nature' at work - effectively hiding behind the 'wall' the simulation creates between realms.

As David Chalmers put it, "You’re not going to get proof that we’re not in a simulation, because any evidence that we get could be simulated." That leads me to think that simulation theory, like any theory of life's origin, is strictly unfalsifiable (hence largely metaphysical).

A related point is that if simulation theory is true, the presumed evolutionary history of life on earth is false. On simulation theory, even if our creator(s) evolved by selection and/or other natural processes, we and the simulation in which we live were directly created while any evidence cited in support of any particular theory of evolutionary history is simply part of the simulation.

If Simulation Theory did not exist, [that it does is yet another sign] then whatever happens in this universe is caused by this universe and we can at least make the assumption that it is all happening inside the brain of an entity since we see the similar patterns as possible evidence of this being the case...this does not make the entity 'metaphysical' as it is all happening in the one place.

I'm not quite following all that – though I can appreciate the basic idea of a pattern (or design, I would add) in creation reflecting the creative, active intelligence of a powerful creator. But to clarify for my part, what I meant by "metaphysical" is the assumption required to ascertain or infer the existence of any such entity (physical or not), not necessarily the entity itself.

Whatever the truth...one cannot easily escape [explain away with hand-waving-words] the idea of a Creator/Creation.

Agreed!

[VVilliam]

I understand the answer to #1 is "Yes...Yes" /|\

Of course, this is dependent upon what one thinks a god should be able to do, to be recognized as a god. The planet specific has many of the attributes of a god, as far as the general understanding of 'god' applies.

Replace "the planet specific" with "the universe given scientific naturalism," and I would agree. From everything we can tell our planet could not exist apart from the larger universe surrounding it, and is subject to the corrosive effects of entropy. That would seem to make it decidedly ungodlike.

Well if a god is also a being which is eternal, then it would not matter what happens to form. We are then entering the idea that the universe as a form can be occupied by an eternal being, for specific purpose which does not involve having to have the universe also be eternal.

This would make the planet Earth as form, specific to the purpose of the god occupying it.

#2 Not necessarily, but in light of Simulation Theory - the Universe is a Creation - therefore implying a Creator, therefore implying at least one alternate reality from which our one is sourced.

Essentially The Creator of this simulation can insert [whatever] into the simulation, even making it appear that it is 'nature' at work - effectively hiding behind the 'wall' the simulation creates between realms.

As David Chalmers put it, "You’re not going to get proof that we’re not in a simulation, because any evidence that we get could be simulated." That leads me to think that simulation theory, like any theory of life's origin, is strictly unfalsifiable (hence largely metaphysical).

So what is the thread subject exploring, if not the unfalsifiable in relation to the universe?

A related point is that if simulation theory is true, the presumed evolutionary history of life on earth is false. On simulation theory, even if our creator(s) evolved by selection and/or other natural processes, we and the simulation in which we live were directly created while any evidence cited in support of any particular theory of evolutionary history is simply part of the simulation.

Just because we may be existing within a simulation doesn't mean we can automatically regard the simulation history as 'false', especially if it can be experienced as 'real'. The two words probably become redundant, because they serve no practical purpose.

Also, just because we might exist within a simulation does not mean we ourselves were created. For all we know, we may have created the simulation ourselves...for the purpose of experiencing it from within it.

If Simulation Theory did not exist, [that it does is yet another sign] then whatever happens in this universe is caused by this universe and we can at least make the assumption that it is all happening inside the brain of an entity since we see the similar patterns as possible evidence of this being the case...this does not make the entity 'metaphysical' as it is all happening in the one place.

I'm not quite following all that – though I can appreciate the basic idea of a pattern (or design, I would add) in creation reflecting the creative, active intelligence of a powerful creator. But to clarify for my part, what I meant by "metaphysical" is the assumption required to ascertain or infer the existence of any such entity (physical or not), not necessarily the entity itself.

Yes - it might be that we have a different understanding of what 'metaphysical' means...in the context you appeared to be using it as descriptive of 'something other than' this universe.

With that in mind, what I am saying is that if everything that exists is all that exists, and is contained only in this universe, then 'metaphysical' does not exist.

For example, we know that the human eye-brain can only detect a portion of the spectrum of colors we know exist. This does not make the colors we cannot detect, 'metaphysical'.

Take the idea further, and we also know that most of the universe is unknown to us, but that which is unknown to us isn't 'metaphysical'.

Given we do not know if our universe is a cell in the brain of an entity (god) and such is unfalsifiable, does not mean it is 'metaphysical'. It just means we are not in a position to know.

But we do have the ability to conjecture based upon what we do know, which in itself is interesting. Perhaps that is one reason we created the simulation - to see what it was like to be in a position of pure ignorance...and move specifically from that point into knowledge...

But underlying the argument offers something of an answer to the OPQ. While nature can be regarded as an all-powerful thing in its own right, IF the idea is that God must be eternal, then that appears to be one thing the universe isn't...although some might argue that the universe has eternally been existing as a potential nothingness into a progressive something and back to a potential nothingness (total entropy) and if so, one has to wonder at what triggers it to become something.

And thus "A Creator" [mind intellect intelligence purpose] appears to be the simplest answer.

Thus matter - even as its fundamental inert 'nothingness' is a potential which requires another ingredient in order to make it into something. And something cannot really be anything if it is not experienced by 'mind' - that which perceives and acknowledges.

[bluegreenearth]

First, it is important to note that the "scientific naturalism" (i.e. methodological naturalism) you are describing does not dogmatically declare the "supernatural" to be nonexistent. In fact, should someone ever succeed at demonstrating the existence of anything supernatural, that "supernatural" thing would be included among the scientific things we know about. Effectively, we could refer to this perspective as "scientific supernaturalism."

Secondly, the unparalleled reliability and success of the scientific method is due, in part, to the principle of falsification. The principle was originally introduced by Karl Popper, a philosopher of science. Technically, nothing in science is ever proven to be absolutely true. Instead, falsifiable hypotheses are tested to determine if they can be proven false. This practice resolves the problem of induction. The Wikipedia quote below summarizes this idea:

One of the questions in scientific method is: how does one move from observations to scientific laws? This is the problem of induction. Suppose we want to put the theory that all swans are white to the test. We come across a white swan. We cannot validly argue (or induce) from "here is a white swan" to "all swans are white"; doing so would require a logical fallacy such as, for example, affirming the consequent.

Popper's basic idea to solve this problem is to flip it upside down. He noticed that while it is impossible to verify that every swan is white, finding a single black swan shows that not every swan is white. We might tentatively accept the proposal that every swan is white, while looking out for examples of non-white swans that would show our conjecture to be false. Popper argued that this is the usual practice in science, i.e., induction is never used in science. This is the basis of critical rationalism.

So, the issue with most supernatural claims is that they are almost always unfalsifiable. Given a list of unfalsifiable supernatural hypotheses, how do we rule-out any of them to determine which one will serve as the most reasonable candidate explanation? This essential objective is impossible to achieve when we have unfalsifiable hypotheses. Alternatively, we can rule-out all but the most reasonable falsifiable hypothesis because only the most reasonable candidate explanation will pass every test designed to potentially falsify it while the other falsifiable hypotheses will fail in that regard.

Thirdly, scientific naturalism does not credit nature with "creating the universe from nothing (or else existing eternally)" because such an unfalsifiable claim would be unscientific. Intellectual honesty compels professional scientists and most scientific naturalists to acknowledge where they have insufficient evidence to conclude anything about the universe prior to the Big Bang. However, there is certainly room for scientific speculation based upon the known properties of the universe without having to propose any undetectable supernatural entities or forces, but these conceptual models are not presented as demonstrable conclusions.

It would seem that the OP may have unintentionally straw-manned scientific naturalism or at least confused it with metaphysical naturalism (i.e. philosophical naturalism). Nevertheless, the posted questions deserve some consideration:

1. In principle, can nature do anything God can do?
This question presumes there is an existing God that does things for which nature's capabilities can be compared. Since the existence of a God has yet to be demonstrated but the existence of nature is inherently demonstrable, we are restricted to only observing the things nature can do. As such, this question is currently unanswerable.

2. If so, does it require a metaphysical assumption of some sort to believe nature can do anything God can do?
As was previously explained, we cannot compare nature's capabilities to a god that has not been demonstrated to exist. In order to answer this question, we would first have to make the metaphysical assumption that a God with a specified set of capabilities exists. Then, we would have to make the metaphysical assumption that nature has no other capabilities than what has already been directly or indirectly observed. There is no reasonable justification for making any of these assumptions. As such, the question cannot be answered at this time.

3. If not, what limits does nature face that God does not?
Once again, we can only know the capabilities of nature that are detectable. As for the capabilities of any proposed God, such a deity remains undetectable. Since an undetectable God is indistinguishable from a nonexistent God, it is impossible to know the capabilities of that deity. Therefore, it is currently impossible to answer this question.

[Don Mc]

I understand the answer to #1 is "Yes...Yes" /|\

Of course, this is dependent upon what one thinks a god should be able to do, to be recognized as a god. The planet specific has many of the attributes of a god, as far as the general understanding of 'god' applies.

Replace "the planet specific" with "the universe given scientific naturalism," and I would agree. From everything we can tell our planet could not exist apart from the larger universe surrounding it, and is subject to the corrosive effects of entropy. That would seem to make it decidedly ungodlike.

Well if a god is also a being which is eternal, then it would not matter what happens to form. We are then entering the idea that the universe as a form can be occupied by an eternal being, for specific purpose which does not involve having to have the universe also be eternal.

This would make the planet Earth as form, specific to the purpose of the god occupying it.

Interesting. While that's an unorthodox view I don't share, it does touch on points of traditional Christian theology. In the hypostatic union of Jesus (the) Christ, the eternal God in some way "occupied" the temporal human body of the man Jesus.

#2 Not necessarily, but in light of Simulation Theory - the Universe is a Creation - therefore implying a Creator, therefore implying at least one alternate reality from which our one is sourced.

Essentially The Creator of this simulation can insert [whatever] into the simulation, even making it appear that it is 'nature' at work - effectively hiding behind the 'wall' the simulation creates between realms.

As David Chalmers put it, "You’re not going to get proof that we’re not in a simulation, because any evidence that we get could be simulated." That leads me to think that simulation theory, like any theory of life's origin, is strictly unfalsifiable (hence largely metaphysical).

So what is the thread subject exploring, if not the unfalsifiable in relation to the universe?

Exactly that! My references to theories or theoretical entities as unfalsifiable or metaphysical are not meant to be derogatory. Christian theology deals openly with unfalsifiable realities, as do most views of the world – including those claiming to be scientific. The scientific enterprise itself cannot get off the ground without making certain untestable assumptions: that our perceptions accurately represent the world around us, that the physical universe is rationally intelligible, that inductive reasoning (or null hypothesis testing, if you prefer) is a reliable means of acquiring knowledge, etc.

If Simulation Theory did not exist, [that it does is yet another sign] then whatever happens in this universe is caused by this universe and we can at least make the assumption that it is all happening inside the brain of an entity since we see the similar patterns as possible evidence of this being the case...this does not make the entity 'metaphysical' as it is all happening in the one place.

I'm not quite following all that – though I can appreciate the basic idea of a pattern (or design, I would add) in creation reflecting the creative, active intelligence of a powerful creator. But to clarify for my part, what I meant by "metaphysical" is the assumption required to ascertain or infer the existence of any such entity (physical or not), not necessarily the entity itself.

Yes - it might be that we have a different understanding of what 'metaphysical' means...in the context you appeared to be using it as descriptive of 'something other than' this universe.

Or something that transcends the universe. So an untestable monistic belief that nature is "all there is," is rightly termed "metaphysical" naturalism.

I'm going to stop there for now. Your post frankly deserves more thought and more of a reply than I have given it, but I do appreciate your contributions to the thread so far.

[Don Mc]

Thanks for a well-crafted and thoughtful reply, BGE.

First, it is important to note that the "scientific naturalism" (i.e. methodological naturalism) you are describing does not dogmatically declare the "supernatural" to be nonexistent. In fact, should someone ever succeed at demonstrating the existence of anything supernatural, that "supernatural" thing would be included among the scientific things we know about. Effectively, we could refer to this perspective as "scientific supernaturalism."

I would go further and suggest that if supernatural entities and phenomena like angels, or ghosts, or healing miracles or resurrections, were to be directly observed and confirmed or verified repeatedly, they would also be categorized (by naturalists) among the natural things we know about. This is why I suggest that there is nothing in principle that God can do which nature cannot also do – because naturalism is an a priori metaphysical claim upon all of reality.

Secondly, the unparalleled reliability and success of the scientific method is due, in part, to the principle of falsification. The principle was originally introduced by Karl Popper, a philosopher of science.

The reliability and success of the scientific method is unparalleled in addressing and resolving questions of natural science, yes. But that's arguably not any more impressive than the unparalleled reliability and success of the historical method in addressing and resolving questions of history. The same holds for questions of metaphysics and philosophy, theology, logic, law, mathematics, engineering, etc., and the methods used in those fields.

Technically, nothing in science is ever proven to be absolutely true. Instead, falsifiable hypotheses are tested to determine if they can be proven false. This practice resolves the problem of induction.

I wouldn't say that it resolves the problem of induction, but that it attacks scientific-methodological questions from a non-inductive angle entirely. But I'm glad you said it. I've been chastised as a "science denier" more than once for questioning and criticizing the broader claims of evolutionary theory (macroevolution and common ancestry), but if a scientific theory is always falsifiable in principle, then it's fair game for questions and criticisms.

The Wikipedia quote below summarizes this idea:

One of the questions in scientific method is: how does one move from observations to scientific laws? This is the problem of induction. Suppose we want to put the theory that all swans are white to the test. We come across a white swan. We cannot validly argue (or induce) from "here is a white swan" to "all swans are white"; doing so would require a logical fallacy such as, for example, affirming the consequent.

Popper's basic idea to solve this problem is to flip it upside down. He noticed that while it is impossible to verify that every swan is white, finding a single black swan shows that not every swan is white. We might tentatively accept the proposal that every swan is white, while looking out for examples of non-white swans that would show our conjecture to be false. Popper argued that this is the usual practice in science, i.e., induction is never used in science. This is the basis of critical rationalism.

Agreed for the most part. I would add, though, that falsifiability is an ideal that unfortunately is rarely acknowledged in practice, which is why Popperianism is often termed "naïve falsificationism" (I agree that it's a worthy and necessary feature of science). The problem, as critics like Kuhn have observed, is that any theory can be saved from falsification by any number of ad hoc qualifications and exemptions for special situations.

That said, could you name any entity, event or phenomenon which, again in principle, would be sufficient to falsify naturalism? To put it another way: Are there any hypothetical or conceivable observations which naturalists could not find a way to explain and incorporate into their belief system, and thereby shield naturalism from falsification?

So, the issue with most supernatural claims is that they are almost always unfalsifiable. Given a list of unfalsifiable supernatural hypotheses, how do we rule-out any of them to determine which one will serve as the most reasonable candidate explanation?

Well, for theism generally we could derive an inference to the best explanation, for example, based on evidence from fine-tuning in physics, or observations of specified complexity in biology, or religious experience, or human intelligence and moral awareness. Or we could examine the various competing supernatural claims and cull out the ones that are demonstrably incoherent. In the case of Christian theism, we could also appeal to historical evidence surrounding its central claims, evidence so often entirely absent from competing religious claims. And so forth.

But the larger point is that naturalism appears to be equally, ultimately unfalsifiable in the same way as a supernatural claim. The important difference for me is that Christian theism is not supposed to be a scientific or falsifiable claim in the first place. In that sense, Christian theism seems more internally coherent than naturalism.

Thirdly, scientific naturalism does not credit nature with "creating the universe from nothing (or else existing eternally)" because such an unfalsifiable claim would be unscientific.

That argument holds so long as naturalism is an internally consistent view of the world and naturalists do not in fact make unfalsifiable or unscientific claims. But that's the question at hand. What's to prevent a scientific naturalist from making an unfalsifiable or unscientific claim?

I would argue not only that naturalists do often contend that the universe arose naturally and from nothing (Lawrence Krauss even wrote a book entitled A Universe from Nothing) or else has existed eternally (per the late Victor Stenger); but I would argue further that naturalism is not internally consistent, in that it continually appeals to science for support even while laying claim to realities quite beyond the reach of the scientific method.

Intellectual honesty compels professional scientists and most scientific naturalists to acknowledge where they have insufficient evidence to conclude anything about the universe prior to the Big Bang. However, there is certainly room for scientific speculation based upon the known properties of the universe without having to propose any undetectable supernatural entities or forces, but these conceptual models are not presented as demonstrable conclusions.

It would seem that the OP may have unintentionally straw-manned scientific naturalism or at least confused it with metaphysical naturalism (i.e. philosophical naturalism).

I suppose that's a possibility, though I don't believe that offering a critique of a philosophical viewpoint is necessarily a straw man. Contrary to what some (and I don't mean you necessarily) might think from reviewing a sampling of the threads here, not every point of disagreement involves someone committing a fallacy. Sometimes people simply have substantive disagreements. The question is whether I have misrepresented naturalists in order to more easily criticize naturalism (the basic definition of a straw man fallacy), or whether I have analyzed what seem to me naturalism's implications and criticized it based on that analysis and for reasons given.

To me there is little if any essential difference between metaphysical / philosophical naturalism and what has come to be known more recently as scientific naturalism. The latter phrasing, far as I can tell, just places more emphasis on the epistemic importance of science and its methodologies (and, equally importantly for some, places less emphasis on the metaphysical aspect). If you prefer to use the phrase "metaphysical naturalism," I'm fine with it. Henceforth I'm going with simply "naturalism."

Nevertheless, the posted questions deserve some consideration:

1. In principle, can nature do anything God can do?
This question presumes there is an existing God that does things for which nature's capabilities can be compared. Since the existence of a God has yet to be demonstrated but the existence of nature is inherently demonstrable, we are restricted to only observing the things nature can do. As such, this question is currently unanswerable.

No, the "in principle" part was put in there precisely to indicate that I am not presuming the existence of anything in particular or limiting the question to current observations of nature. But I will rephrase it: Assuming for sake of argument that God might exist and that naturalism might be true, can nature do anything (given naturalism) that God can do (given theism)?

2. If so, does it require a metaphysical assumption of some sort to believe nature can do anything God can do?
As was previously explained, we cannot compare nature's capabilities to a god that has not been demonstrated to exist. In order to answer this question, we would first have to make the metaphysical assumption that a God with a specified set of capabilities exists. Then, we would have to make the metaphysical assumption that nature has no other capabilities than what has already been directly or indirectly observed. There is no reasonable justification for making any of these assumptions. As such, the question cannot be answered at this time.

See my reply on question 1 above. Otherwise, I think most of that is fair enough. At the same time I think your position here resembles something more like empiricism or positivism than naturalism.

3. If not, what limits does nature face that God does not?
Once again, we can only know the capabilities of nature that are detectable. As for the capabilities of any proposed God, such a deity remains undetectable. Since an undetectable God is indistinguishable from a nonexistent God, it is impossible to know the capabilities of that deity. Therefore, it is currently impossible to answer this question.

I followed you up to the third sentence. There I would hesitate to agree that undetectability is tantamount to nonexistence. There is no way for any of us here to detect the thoughts you had that presumably led to your typing out the seemingly meaningful series of letters (words and sentences) visible in your posts. Does that somehow entail or imply that you did no thinking before posting? There is no way for any of us to detect the events of history, yet I don't think that's enough to conclude that the American Revolution, for example, simply did not happen. Until a few years ago the Higgs Boson (also known as the "God Particle" as irony would have it) was undetectable. But physicists had reason to believe it existed before it was detected, which is why they set about trying to detect it.

[VVilliam]

First, it is important to note that the "scientific naturalism" (i.e. methodological naturalism) you are describing does not dogmatically declare the "supernatural" to be nonexistent. In fact, should someone ever succeed at demonstrating the existence of anything supernatural, that "supernatural" thing would be included among the scientific things we know about. Effectively, we could refer to this perspective as "scientific supernaturalism."

Secondly, the unparalleled reliability and success of the scientific method is due, in part, to the principle of falsification. The principle was originally introduced by Karl Popper, a philosopher of science. Technically, nothing in science is ever proven to be absolutely true. Instead, falsifiable hypotheses are tested to determine if they can be proven false. This practice resolves the problem of induction. The Wikipedia quote below summarizes this idea:

One of the questions in scientific method is: how does one move from observations to scientific laws? This is the problem of induction. Suppose we want to put the theory that all swans are white to the test. We come across a white swan. We cannot validly argue (or induce) from "here is a white swan" to "all swans are white"; doing so would require a logical fallacy such as, for example, affirming the consequent.

Popper's basic idea to solve this problem is to flip it upside down. He noticed that while it is impossible to verify that every swan is white, finding a single black swan shows that not every swan is white. We might tentatively accept the proposal that every swan is white, while looking out for examples of non-white swans that would show our conjecture to be false. Popper argued that this is the usual practice in science, i.e., induction is never used in science. This is the basis of critical rationalism.

So, the issue with most supernatural claims is that they are almost always unfalsifiable. Given a list of unfalsifiable supernatural hypotheses, how do we rule-out any of them to determine which one will serve as the most reasonable candidate explanation? This essential objective is impossible to achieve when we have unfalsifiable hypotheses. Alternatively, we can rule-out all but the most reasonable falsifiable hypothesis because only the most reasonable candidate explanation will pass every test designed to potentially falsify it while the other falsifiable hypotheses will fail in that regard.

Thirdly, scientific naturalism does not credit nature with "creating the universe from nothing (or else existing eternally)" because such an unfalsifiable claim would be unscientific. Intellectual honesty compels professional scientists and most scientific naturalists to acknowledge where they have insufficient evidence to conclude anything about the universe prior to the Big Bang. However, there is certainly room for scientific speculation based upon the known properties of the universe without having to propose any undetectable supernatural entities or forces, but these conceptual models are not presented as demonstrable conclusions.

It would seem that the OP may have unintentionally straw-manned scientific naturalism or at least confused it with metaphysical naturalism (i.e. philosophical naturalism). Nevertheless, the posted questions deserve some consideration:

1. In principle, can nature do anything God can do?
This question presumes there is an existing God that does things for which nature's capabilities can be compared. Since the existence of a God has yet to be demonstrated but the existence of nature is inherently demonstrable, we are restricted to only observing the things nature can do. As such, this question is currently unanswerable.

2. If so, does it require a metaphysical assumption of some sort to believe nature can do anything God can do?
As was previously explained, we cannot compare nature's capabilities to a god that has not been demonstrated to exist. In order to answer this question, we would first have to make the metaphysical assumption that a God with a specified set of capabilities exists. Then, we would have to make the metaphysical assumption that nature has no other capabilities than what has already been directly or indirectly observed. There is no reasonable justification for making any of these assumptions. As such, the question cannot be answered at this time.

3. If not, what limits does nature face that God does not?
Once again, we can only know the capabilities of nature that are detectable. As for the capabilities of any proposed God, such a deity remains undetectable. Since an undetectable God is indistinguishable from a nonexistent God, it is impossible to know the capabilities of that deity. Therefore, it is currently impossible to answer this question.

When I read this:

3. If not, what limits does nature face that God does not?
Once again, we can only know the capabilities of nature that are detectable. As for the capabilities of any proposed God, such a deity remains undetectable. Since an undetectable God is indistinguishable from a nonexistent God, it is impossible to know the capabilities of that deity. Therefore, it is currently impossible to answer this question.

I wonder why the obvious is being left out. The detectable qualities of nature have to be factored into the idea that nature is a creation of a creator, then we can better ascertain the most likely nature of The Creator by observing what it is we can of The Creation.

In that way, we are equipped to observe the capabilities and 'detect' said Creator within said Creation and the question can thus possibly, now, be answered.

[bluegreenearth]

This is why I suggest that there is nothing in principle that God can do which nature cannot also do – because naturalism is an a priori metaphysical claim upon all of reality.

Metaphysical naturalism may be a priori but methodological (scientific) naturalism is a posteriori.

The reliability and success of the scientific method is unparalleled in addressing and resolving questions of natural science, yes. But that's arguably not any more impressive than the unparalleled reliability and success of the historical method in addressing and resolving questions of history. The same holds for questions of metaphysics and philosophy, theology, logic, law, mathematics, engineering, etc., and the methods used in those fields.

My understanding of the expectation implied by the OP is that we evaluate if scientific naturalism shares many of the same criticisms as theism in regards to its capability of addressing and resolving questions about the observable universe. As such, whether the reliability and success of the scientific method is any more impressive than that of the historical method does not appear to be relevant to this discussion. However, the scientific method's adherence to the principle of falsification and requirement for empirical evidence to be reproducible makes its conclusions inherently more reliable than any produced by the historical method. In fact, the scientific method is often employed by the historical method as the arbiter of truth for a variety of historical claims. Experimental archaeology is one example where this relationship is routinely demonstrated.

I wouldn't say that it resolves the problem of induction, but that it attacks scientific-methodological questions from a non-inductive angle entirely. But I'm glad you said it. I've been chastised as a "science denier" more than once for questioning and criticizing the broader claims of evolutionary theory (macroevolution and common ancestry), but if a scientific theory is always falsifiable in principle, then it's fair game for questions and criticisms.

Yes, all scientific hypotheses must be falsifiable and must pass every test designed to potentially falsify them. At the same time, when a scientific hypothesis has passed and continues to pass every test designed to falsify it, we would be unreasonable to deny that conclusion without having the necessary falsifying evidence. Given not only its continued success in passing all tests designed to falsify it but also its demonstrable predictive capabilities and practical applications, it is unreasonable for anyone to deny the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection at this point. Nevertheless, the Theory should never be dogmatically asserted as gospel because there remains a number of questions it has not yet been able to answer. However, we must remember that no scientific theory ever answers all the questions associated with it but has nonetheless been routinely demonstrated to be the most reasonable explanation. So, to deny the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection as the most reasonable explanation based on its current inability to explain everything that remains unknown about the origin of life and its subsequent diversification is completely unreasonable and slightly absurd. It is one thing to maintain a healthy level of skepticism but something else to be almost irrationally prejudicial. Let's be intellectually honest here, if it were not for theist's emotional investment in the belief that all life is divinely created, they probably wouldn't be any more skeptical of the Theory of Evolution than they would of the Theory of Gravity (despite the fact that the Theory of Gravity is not as well understood).

That said, could you name any entity, event or phenomenon which, again in principle, would be sufficient to falsify naturalism? To put it another way: Are there any hypothetical or conceivable observations which naturalists could not find a way to explain and incorporate into their belief system, and thereby shield naturalism from falsification?

The foundation of scientific naturalism is the scientific method. The scientific method functions as an epistemology in that it describes a process by which knowledge is acquired. Every epistemology is comprised of axiomatic statements which are arbitrarily exempt from further justification. Otherwise, every statement given as a justification for another statement would also require its own justification in an infinite regress. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to ask how an epistemology could be falsified (not that you necessarily asked) because an epistemology is precisely the method someone uses to determine whether a claim is true, false, or unknowable. Furthermore, since the scientific naturalist's application of their epistemology (the scientific method) to all claims doesn't necessarily conclude that "nature" is a satisfactory explanation for everything, there is no such claim to be falsified or shielded from falsification. If the supernatural could be demonstrated through the scientific method, then scientific naturalists should have the capacity to incorporate that knowledge.

Well, for theism generally we could derive an inference to the best explanation, for example, based on evidence from fine-tuning in physics, or observations of specified complexity in biology, or religious experience, or human intelligence and moral awareness. Or we could examine the various competing supernatural claims and cull out the ones that are demonstrably incoherent. In the case of Christian theism, we could also appeal to historical evidence surrounding its central claims, evidence so often entirely absent from competing religious claims. And so forth.

But the larger point is that naturalism appears to be equally, ultimately unfalsifiable in the same way as a supernatural claim. The important difference for me is that Christian theism is not supposed to be a scientific or falsifiable claim in the first place. In that sense, Christian theism seems more internally coherent than naturalism.

As was previously explained, the scientific method is the epistemological foundation of scientific naturalism and describes how to determine if a claim is true, false, or unknowable. Therefore, as long as the scientific method is applied consistently to all claims, the conclusions of scientific naturalism will remain internally coherent. The only way scientific naturalism would not be internally coherent is if it were to inconsistently apply the scientific method in its evaluation of claims. It is my understanding that scientific naturalism does not declare all supernatural claims to be false but classifies them as unknowable because they cannot be tested in accordance with the scientific method. If scientific naturalism were to support the conclusion that all supernatural hypotheses are false, then it would be making an unfalsifiable claim.

That argument holds so long as naturalism is an internally consistent view of the world and naturalists do not in fact make unfalsifiable or unscientific claims. But that's the question at hand. What's to prevent a scientific naturalist from making an unfalsifiable or unscientific claim?

I would argue not only that naturalists do often contend that the universe arose naturally and from nothing (Lawrence Krauss even wrote a book entitled A Universe from Nothing) or else has existed eternally (per the late Victor Stenger); but I would argue further that naturalism is not internally consistent, in that it continually appeals to science for support even while laying claim to realities quite beyond the reach of the scientific method.

Admittedly, it is not always easy to distinguish scientific speculation from falsifiable scientific claims. Scientists like Lawrence Krauss and Victory Stenger construct their scientific speculations from known and demonstrable scientific facts and theories, even though their unique intellectual proposals are not testable at this time. In other words, they do not need to invoke anything supernatural in order for their conceptual models to function as possible explanations. However, neither of those gentlemen would argue that their conceptual models are exempt from constructive criticism or claim that such scientific speculations are currently falsifiable given the limited capabilities of our technology. So, when scientific naturalists publish that type of literature, it is in the context of scientific speculation and not demonstrable scientific theory. The purpose of this type of scientific speculation is to foster and encourage the community to consider these possible explanations for future scientific research and not to have these ideas prematurely accepted as conclusive scientific evidence. They also function to refute the theistic notion that something supernatural is required to explain the existence of the universe.

I suppose that's a possibility, though I don't believe that offering a critique of a philosophical viewpoint is necessarily a straw man. Contrary to what some (and I don't mean you necessarily) might think from reviewing a sampling of the threads here, not every point of disagreement involves someone committing a fallacy. Sometimes people simply have substantive disagreements. The question is whether I have misrepresented naturalists in order to more easily criticize naturalism (the basic definition of a straw man fallacy), or whether I have analyzed what seem to me naturalism's implications and criticized it based on that analysis and for reasons given.

To me there is little if any essential difference between metaphysical / philosophical naturalism and what has come to be known more recently as scientific naturalism. The latter phrasing, far as I can tell, just places more emphasis on the epistemic importance of science and its methodologies (and, equally importantly for some, places less emphasis on the metaphysical aspect). If you prefer to use the phrase "metaphysical naturalism," I'm fine with it. Henceforth I'm going with simply "naturalism."

Metaphysical naturalism departs from scientific naturalism when it axiomatically asserts that any supernatural hypotheses will always be false. Meanwhile, scientific naturalism only classifies supernatural hypotheses as unknowable but not necessarily false. Therefore, I advise against referring to just "naturalism" as the term does not distinguish between metaphysical naturalism and scientific naturalism. Based on my understanding of that distinction, your criticism only applies to metaphysical naturalism and not scientific naturalism. If you have an argument against scientific naturalism as I've described it, I'm open to considering it.

No, the "in principle" part was put in there precisely to indicate that I am not presuming the existence of anything in particular or limiting the question to current observations of nature. But I will rephrase it: Assuming for sake of argument that God might exist and that naturalism might be true, can nature do anything (given naturalism) that God can do (given theism)?

If metaphysical naturalism is true, then it would serve as a sufficient explanation for everything within the universe and the existence of the universe itself regardless of whether it could or couldn't do everything God can do. In other words, metaphysical naturalism doesn't need to do everything God can do to serve as an explanation. Therefore, it would appear that a supernatural God is an unnecessarily complex explanation. However, neither theism nor metaphysical naturalism can be tested to know if they are true or false.

See my reply on question 1 above. Otherwise, I think most of that is fair enough. At the same time I think your position here resembles something more like empiricism or positivism than naturalism.

It is my understanding that scientific naturalism is not empiricism, logical positivism, or metaphysical naturalism.

I followed you up to the third sentence. There I would hesitate to agree that undetectability is tantamount to nonexistence. There is no way for any of us here to detect the thoughts you had that presumably led to your typing out the seemingly meaningful series of letters (words and sentences) visible in your posts. Does that somehow entail or imply that you did no thinking before posting? There is no way for any of us to detect the events of history, yet I don't think that's enough to conclude that the American Revolution, for example, simply did not happen. Until a few years ago the Higgs Boson (also known as the "God Particle" as irony would have it) was undetectable. But physicists had reason to believe it existed before it was detected, which is why they set about trying to detect it.

Undetectability doesn't necessarily imply non-existence but is pragmatically indistinguishable from non-existence. We need some way to distinguish things that exist in reality from things that only exist as imaginary concepts. Being able to detect something in reality is the only way to accomplish that objective. Historical events are inherently conceptual claims for this reason. However, historical claims can have an "implicit" empirical basis when they refer to things which have been previously demonstrated to exist in reality. For example, it is reasonable to believe the historical claim that the American Revolution occurred because it describes things and events which have been previously demonstrated to be possible in reality. Conversely, it is not reasonable to believe the historical clam that Mohammed flew to heaven on a winged horse because there is no empirical evidence for the existence of winged horses or people flying around on them. As for the Higgs Boson, physicists believed it existed because this claim also had an "implicit" empirical basis in that its potential existence was consistent with the Standard Model of Particle Physics which routinely passed every test designed to falsify it up until that point. There is no such "implicit" empirical basis for theistic claims.

[bluegreenearth]

I wonder why the obvious is being left out. The detectable qualities of nature have to be factored into the idea that nature is a creation of a creator, then we can better ascertain the most likely nature of The Creator by observing what it is we can of The Creation.

In that way, we are equipped to observe the capabilities and 'detect' said Creator within said Creation and the question can thus possibly, now, be answered.

Scientific naturalism does not need to presume nature is a creation in order for it to function. To presume nature is the creation of a creator is to add additional complexity where there is no reasonable justification to do so.