Our Naturalized God

Michael Shermer raises some good questions about naturalism and God.

He writes:

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If you attempt to reconcile religion and science on questions about nature and the universe, and if you push the science to its logical conclusion, you will end up naturalizing the deity, because for any question about nature—the origins of the universe, life, humans, whatever—if your answer is “God did it,” a scientist will ask, “How did God do it?, What forces did God use? What forms of matter and energy were employed in the creation process?” and so forth. The end result of this inquiry can only be natural explanations for all natural phenomena. What place, then, for God?

One could argue that God is the laws and forces of nature, which is logically acceptable, but this is pantheism and not the type of personal God to which most people profess belief. One could also argue that God created the universe and life using the laws and forces of nature as his creation tools, which is also logically fine, but it leaves us with additional scientific questions: which laws and forces were used to create specific natural phenomena, and in what matter were they used? how did God create the laws and forces of nature? A scientist would be curious to know God’s recipe for, say, gravity, or for a universe or a cell. For that matter, it is a legitimate scientific question to ask: what made God, and how was God created? How do you make an omniscient and omnipotent being? Finally, one could argue that God is outside of nature—super nature, or supernatural—and therefore needs no explanation. This is also logically consistent, but by definition it means that the God question is outside of science and therefore religion and science are separate and incompatible.

As a younger man, Shermer was an evangelical Christian and no doubt much of the opposition he deals with comes from evangelicals. A naturalized God would be anathema to orthodox Christianity, yet right at home in Mormon theology.

It seems to me that the tension between science and Mormon theology has much more to do with specific statements and scriptures and their bearing on prophetic authority, than with the big questions. We don't know many answers to the big questions, but we are not afraid to ask them and we expect different answers than our orthodox Christian brethren--something that I think that we sometimes forget.