Briefly Examinig the Plausibility of Supernatural / Extraterrestrial Intervention with Natural Law

An overwhelmingly eighty three percent of scientists do not believe in the existence of a intelligent designer, of whom are either atheists, agnostics, or skeptics. A minority of about seven percent of scientists believe that, at least, some supernatural force or intelligent designer had initiated the initial creation of the universe. However, whether a portion of the minority believes that this being or force intervenes with natural law to fulfill his/her own goal that is another statistical inquiry that which I do not wish to bring up. I would like to question, however, whether a supernatural force or being can actually violate natural law to fulfill personal goals, and will reach a conclusion that will play a role in the science vs. religion controversy.

Personally, and to any other intellectual and inquirer, I do not believe that saying a supernatural being actively intervenes with natural law would, in any way, be helpful to increasing scientific knowledge and understanding about the universe. In fact, it does not explain anything!

Let me give an example. Can the trajectory of a planet around a young star be altered to adhere to the wishes of a supernatural or extraterrestrial force? Basic understanding of natural law tells any scientist that it cannot be done. For any planet to, say, accelerate, such change would have a cascading effect on other existent planets, and have a detrimental effect to the whole solar system. Here I am assuming that the solar system has already been formed, and that the change occurs only after its evolution as a growing solar system. Acceleration would affect the gravitational pull on other planets, changing the trajectory and path that other planets are conforming to. This would alter the velocity that which other planets are traveling at, and the cosmological chaos will cause all to, probably, come other and from a dense packed mass, turning the whole solar system into a black hole. Do not forget that this may happen simply due to a slight change in the system. However if we consider the evolution and stability of a solar system, one that forms and stabilizes, conforming to natural law, then the alteration by an external force claim will cease to make its mark in scientific inquiry. Say a star is born. Some of its gravitational pull pulls in some asteroids, and some asteroids happen to travel at the escape velocity that it requires to stay in orbit around the star. As more stones are captured by the star’s gravitational field, they combine randomly, first one being in orbit around the star and others from space. More and more asteroids clump together and eventually form a big rock that orbits around the young star. The pressure that is being exerted towards the inside portion of the rock causes that portion to heat up, and forming the basis of lava in the later stage of the rock’s development. I can go on but any individual who has some understanding about physics knows that an alteration to an already stable and evolving system will cause the system to have very detrimental effects.

Te claim that supernatural beings or some extraterrestrial force can actively intervene with natural law begs other questions. So what causes solar systems to stabilize despite such dramatic change in the solar system? What gives this force or being the ability to enforce its own free will on already stable systems – that is, what kind of super-naturalistic laws and principles exist to allow that force or being to enforce its own free will on stable systems, of which we do not yet know or understand? Supporters of religious sects come in to say that such questions are beyond are scope of understanding and reach. What this means is that, firstly, they themselves do not even a clue as to how this being or force can do something dramatic on a stale system. They do not understand the God that they claim to have existed since the beginning the universe, both before and after its creation. This is very paradoxical indeed because if religious people can get high academic achievements in their respective fields, and be put into high ranks in the church, then we should expect them to at least have some idea as to how this supposedly existing being or force works. Yet it is not so.

Such religious people often like to use people like Einstein and Stephen Hawking to support their own strange claims about their view of the universe. Yet close examination and analysis shows that such great scientists are not religious in the conventional view of being religious. They believe in what is called as pantheism. Pantheists are people who believe that God and nature are equivalent, but that this God is not the God depicted in religious texts. This is a God, or nature, that is mechanical and predictable, and of whom (or which) does not care about the lives of individual human beings – which is contrary to the depiction of God in religious texts. Religious individuals like to misuse quotes, and often claim that the meaning of the quote alludes to the existence of their hypothetical supernatural creator, the Lord. Yet close examination and analysis reveals the contrary. Let us consider one of many claims that have been misused: (from Einstein)

“God does not play dice with the universe.”

Religious fanatics claim that the God that Einstein is talking about is a caring and loving God, one of whom finely tunes the universe so that intelligent beings like us can come into existence – the anthropic principle from the cosmological perspective. However, we must constantly remind ourselves that when Einstein says ‘God,’ he actually means ‘nature’, or ‘natural law’. What he means is that because natural law is predictable and mechanical, the space-time continuum that created our universe did not simply create our universe simply based on probability, but that our universe was created based on greater natural laws that guide the creation of the universe. Though our existence is random on only probable, it is still restricted no natural law – such as Einstein’s theory of relativity – and not the intentions of a supernatural being.

Here I have briefly introduced the issue regarding the plausibility of the possibility that some supernatural or extraterrestrial force or being can actually intervene with natural law. Most scientists understand that this is not plausible because such an act will destroy and undermine the stability of systems and invite philosophical questions and answers that, at the core of philosophical inquiry, does not help us to understand the mechanics of the universe. While religious fanatics misuse the quotes of great scientists, they also remain largely misinformed about the ever-growing body of scientific literature that is founded on systematic acquisitions of empirical observation and data, and not on unfounded mystical experiences. Any individual who truly desires to understand the universe must step away from their religious ideologies, and step into the realm of intellectual inquiry.