Is Naturalism Incompatible with Scientific Explanation?

Dr. Tomas Borgardus joined me on the podcast to discuss his recent paper If Naturalism Is True, then Scientific Explanation Is Impossible.

As I pointed out in the discussion, Tomas’s paper has interesting similarities to traditional arguments from contingency. The primary one being this: if something is derived but there is never that from which that something is derived, then that something would not be there in the first place. For Thomists, the argument is often run using existence, highlighting the fact that for any finite being existence is had derivatively (by participation); thus, if one does not twist up to that which just is subsistent existence itself, it becomes impossible to explain why anything exists at all.

Tomas says something like this concerning explanation. Namely, if any part of an explanation has a critical component that itself crucially demands an explanation but lacks one, then that explanation fails — at least as a scientific explanation. The gist is that if we explain something via a natural regularity but that natural regularity is itself a brute fact, then we have not really offered an explanation; rather, we have simply enlarged the mystery. This seems right to be.

Less something can fundamentally explain itself, it seems nothing is ever ultimately explained. I’ll leave the rest for the conversation with Dr. Bogardus.