What is a law of nature? This seems like a highly speculative question – and in a sense it is. But it is not just a question for philosophers. It matters, in the end, for anyone concerned with the viability of belief in God; and especially for anyone racking their brains over the relationship between faith science.

This is because a chief activity of natural science is the discovery, by way of observation, of the mathematical laws that govern the operations of nature. In fact, this is the scientific activity par excellence; it is the grand goal of modern science in a nutshell. Scientific theories – the grandest achievements of scientific work – consist ultimately in the assemblage and interpretation of these laws, which activity allows us to develop a proper systematic framework for understanding nature.

To ask, “What is a law?,” therefore gives us important insight into the question concerning religion and science. Compared to the standard topics of this perennial debate, it is a sort of meta-question. After all, most of popular debates today concern the compatibility of certain scientific theories with certain kinds of religion or theology.

For these investigations – of the kind that ask, say, how different models of evolution might line up with different understandings of Christian Scripture (and, in turn, different conceptions of the relationship between Scripture, Reason and Tradition) – their focus is nearly always on a concrete theory. This is not bad; in fact, that sort of concreteness often begets a fruitful and honest inquiry (as opposed to the discussions of, say, “how religion poisons everything” – which are always too broad to be anything but vapid). But asking the meta-question concerning just what scientists actually do – or, in this case, what they are looking for (natural laws) – can yield even greater insights.

In this post, I want to use Alfred North Whitehead’s brilliant (though brief) discussion of natural laws in his book Adventures of Ideas to help show just how this sort of meta-question can be useful. In the book Whitehead describes four different ways of thinking about law. I will list them in a different order from Whitehead here.

THE FIRST THEORY OF THE LAWS OF NATURE: IMPOSITION

The first, and most common conception, is the theory of impositional laws. This theory sees laws as universal, and transcending the entities they describe. These entities are completely self-contained in their definition; they only relate to each other through the laws that govern them from outside.

This theory is the one advanced by Sir Isaac Newton in his Mathematica Principia. It is also the conception advocated by Rene Descartes. From thence it has continued to be hugely influential on scientists and laypeople alike. It is also the theory most advocated by atheists and opponents of religion, since the guaranteed universality of such laws would seem to give us explanations for natural phenomena that do away with the need for a governing deity or Mind.

Yet this advocacy from atheists is quite strange, and (I think) ill-considered. Sir Isaac Newton was convinced that the universal physical laws he had discovered gave definitive proof for a deity. And he was not wrong to think this. As Whitehead writes:

The explanation of the doctrine of Imposition both suggests a certain type of Deism, and conversely it is the outcome of such a Deistic belief… [Newton] certainly thought that the conception of the solar system exhibited in his Principia was sufficiently ultimate to make obvious the necessity of a God imposing Law. Newton was certainly right to this extent, that the whole doctrine of Imposition is without interest apart from the correlative doctrine of a transcendent opposing Deity. This is also a Cartesian doctrine. (Adventures 113).

Newton was right for this reason: that if these governing laws of the universe are indeed external to matter, and they impose themselves from outside of material being, then it is very difficult to see why we should think that they somehow come from material being itself.

In fact, upholding both transcendent, imposed physical law, and a philosophical “materialism” – the belief that only physical matter exists – is contradictory on a basic level. If these laws are not somehow part and parcel of materiality itself, then something more than the material plane must exist; and if these laws (someway, somehow) are in fact material, then it is very hard to say just why on earth they should be universal. After all, does it not seem obvious that a material law that arises through the relationships between material beings should be local to those relationships and interactions? But more on that in a bit, for it will be relevant to another theory of law.

Oftentimes, if scientists are theists, then it is the very fact of transcendent, universal law that has convinced them. Of course, such scientists must admit that there could just happen to be set of transcendent, universal laws cognizable by us (presumably due to some evolutionary advantage from doing so); but the likelihood of this seems very low. It is certainly possible that evolution might have brought human beings to a position where they came to understand certain fundamental aspects of the world’s physical laws. But it is very hard to imagine that those laws themselves would just be without rhyme or reason, and would have no relationship to a larger Cohesion or Coherence that is in some sense analogous to our own minds.

In other words, if we have developed evolutionarily advantageous minds that are capable of discerning the operations of the cosmos; then it stands to reason that this evolution of ours might be advantageous to us precisely because it has made our minds more like that which (or he who) holds these laws together. It seems very unlikely that our minds should comprehend the laws of the universe, if the universe itself remains unlike our minds.

But the desire to deny the doctrine of a transcendent Mind is strong, especially in the modern age. And there are other ways in which more thoughtful skeptics have articulated the nature of physical laws. These articulations form the next two theories about natural law, which in fact are closely related.

THE SECOND THEORY: POSITIVISM

The second theory Whitehead calls the theory of description, or “law as observed order of succession” Adventures 111). This theory is fairly simple, but also powerful in its own right. It states that physical laws do not in fact exist in nature. Or, at least, they do not exist in such a way that we can know them in sp,e transcendent universality. What we can say about physical laws is simply that they express (or describe) the successive order of events that we consistently observe in relation to previous events. Laws describe this occurrence; but they likely do not exist in themselves – and they certainly do not exist in any transcendent realm!

This is the positivist doctrine of natural law. It claims that scientists simply give positive descriptions of natural processes that they observe, and make no metaphysical claim beyond that. This doctrine has convinced many reflective scientists, and was the basis for a very influential philosophical school in the twentieth century, which proclaimed that one should only speak on matters that could be empirically and experimentally verified. Anything that could not meet this “verification principle” – such as the speculations of metaphysics – could not properly be considered an intelligible statement, and should be “passed over in silence,” to quote the positivist (early) Wittgenstein. Whitehead’s own work with Bertrand Russell in their Principia Mathematica had influenced many of these thinkers. But Whitehead never adopted the positivist position himself.

THE THIRD THEORY: CONVENTIONALISM

This theory is closely related to the third theory: the theory of Law as conventional interpretation. This theory is nearly the same as the positivist one, except it admits that our observations of law may not be entirely objective. It too rejects the notion of natural laws as transcendent, metaphysical rules governing the cosmos; and it too sees “laws” as coming from the scientific observation of the correlations between successive events. The main difference, as I see it, is a significantly greater honesty about what scientists are doing if we accept this account of law.

For according to the conventionalist, scientists do not merely observe, in some totally detached way, the correlations between events; rather, they actively interpret these events, and – based upon acquired habits and conventions of thought – come to understand these correlations in particular ways. This is not to say that these laws are merely opinions proffered by scientists; but it does mean that their claims about correlative natural laws falls short of “objectivity.” The natural laws of science are in fact interpretations of correlations of events according to a) the way in which one event tends, conventionally, to follow after another, and b) the conventions, or thought-norms, of that society.

Notice that I speak of correlation here and not causation. This is intentional, for neither the positivist nor the conventionalist theory of law can allow itself to speak of causation at all. Causation is a metaphysical principle, after all. This idea may confuse us at first, but after a moment’s reflection it is easy enough to see. After all, if we speak of metaphysical laws as laws that transcend local, material beings, and which apply in all circumstances – in other words, if we think of “meta-physics” according to its Greek meaning, the “beyond-physics” – then it is not hard to see why causation should be deemed metaphysical. Is causation not an immutable law, which governs every event? Does it not transcend physical time and place, and apply to all things? If so, then it is a metaphysical law, and must express something “beyond” the physical.

But this is not just my argument. Most of the greatest philosophers have agreed with this in one sense or another. David Hume, the greatest conventionalist of all, famously argued against causality, stating from his more general skepticism towards metaphysical claims that causation is merely something we attribute to a given succession of events, once we notice certain tendencies in that succession.

However, this theory (and positivism with it) has three serious flaws. The first major problem, as many scientists and philosophers – including Whitehead and Werner Heisenberg – have noted, is that this “conventionalist” doctrine, and with it the “positivist” doctrine, makes scientific activity impossible: for scientists in their work must presume the existence of a law which will in fact cover the entirety of events being observed. For if nothing underlay events and their succession, then why should scientists bother to try to interpret their observations at all? There would be little point.

Scientists do not pursue their work to find “conventions” or mere useful “descriptions.” If that were all they did, then to most scientists their whole discipline would be a massive waste of time. Most scientists instead believe that they are pursuing the truth about our universe. This is what compels them. If this turns out to be wrong, then science risks being something of a sham – even if it is a technologically useful one for modern society.

The most famous philosopher to be chagrined by this outcome of Hume’s skeptical project was undoubtedly Immanuel Kant. Though Kant embraced much of Hume’s thought, crediting the British philosopher for “awakening me from my dogmatic slumber,” he became very concerned with the way that Hume’s thought’s on causality, logic, natural laws, mathematics, etc. clearly made scientific activity impossible or pointless.

This very concern with the consequences of Hume’s skepticism inspired Kant to create his own critical (not skeptical) philosophy. Indeed, the question that governs his great Critique of Pure Reason, the question “Are a priori synthetic judgments possible?,” is simply the question of whether we can find a notion of transcendent law after the critiques of conventionalism. I hope to pursue his answer to this question – and its grand philosophical legacy – in my next blog post.

The second major problem is that the “verification principle” – the postulation that we should only make claims which we can physically verify – turns out to be, in itself, an unverifiable claim! To put this objection in its classic form: “The verification principle is unverifiable.” The claim that we should only make claims that are physically verifiable cannot be confirmed physically; it is a meta-claim. This discovery seriously threatens positivism’s rigor, for the assertion of its basic principles requires that we leave the bounds of its methodology. A satisfying philosophical theory does not do this; it can always account for its claims from within.

And the third, (in my view) fatal problem with the positivist and conventionalist conception of natural law is this: if we accept the claim that natural laws are merely correlations we observe and/or interpret, then it is hard to say just why natural phenomena should be ordered at all. Whitehead says it well: “Lastly apart from some notion of imposed Law, the doctrine of immanence [a term which here covers the positivist and conventionalist notions of law] provides absolutely no reason why the universe should not be steadily relapsing into lawless chaos” (Adventures 115). This is because the laws of nature become entirely a matter of subjective cognition. They have no reality in the external world. And hence there is no conceivable reason why the material world should follow these laws.

THE FOURTH THEORY: IMMANENT EMERGENCE – ACCORDING TO PLATONIC FORM

The fourth explanation of natural law – which both Whitehead and I endorse – constitutes a rebellion against this anti-metaphysical sentiment. But it is not for the sake of a renewed Idealism. Rather, Whitehead explains the fourth theory of natural law – the doctrine of Law as immanent – thus:

By the doctrine of Law as immanent it is meant that the order of nature expresses the characters of the real things which jointly compose the existences to be found in nature. When we understand the essences of these things, we thereby know their mutual relations to each other. Thus, according as there are common elements in their various characters, there will necessarily be corresponding identities in their mutual relations. In other words, some partial identity of pattern in the various characters of natural things issues in some partial identity of pattern in the mutual relations of those things. These identities of pattern in the mutual relations are the Laws of Nature. Conversely, a Law is explanatory in some community in character pervading the things which constitute Nature. It is evident that the doctrine involves the negation of ‘absolute being’. It presupposes the essential interdependence of things. (Adventures 112).

Whitehead’s explanation is difficult, so I will try to put it more simply. Ultimately, this theory states that natural laws emerge from local relationships. The interrelationships between beings a) produce the identities of the things which are relating in the first place; and b) they produce the very laws that govern these identities as they relate. This means that patterns of relationship are not simply collections of occasions which we observe and call laws; rather, they actually produce laws. These laws are not reducible to the patterns that create them, however; rather, these laws emerge from said patterns and thereby attain their own ontological validity. Laws are real; but they are local and organically produced, so to speak.

If these laws are local, then they are not universal. They do not transcend time and space, nor are they “above” materiality. They are simply organic, emergent rules of relationship. Therefore they are not metaphysical. But if this is the case, we have to ask the question: how can they be laws at all? If they are not governed by a higher metaphysical law – the law of causality – then how can such natural laws occur? In short: how can natural laws possibly emerge without a metaphysical law to guide them? And the answer is: They cannot possibly so emerge. “A Platonic ‘persuasion’ is required” (Adventures 115).

Whitehead’s thoughts here, to a certain extent, involve his whole metaphysics; and this is not the place to explain his thought in its entirety. But we can and should note Whitehead’s cleverness with this line. For his statement not only means that one must lean in a Platonic direction to accept this fourth theory; he also means that the theory itself requires a kind of “persuasion” on the part of the Platonic forms.

These forms, which Whitehead calls “eternal objects,” make up the Platonic heart of Whitehead’s metaphysics. They are the “final causes” by which entities (and laws!) come to be.  They are “pure potentialities” – real, eternal forms that gather and define things according to their possibilities. These entities mark the possibilities of the thing, what it could be; and they coax the thing to fulfill that potential. In so doing, these things “ingress” into their form, hence becoming “actual entities” realizing their eternal object (though never doing so totally!). By becoming an actual entity, and realizing this form, the thing in question thereby attains what he calls “objective immortality.”

Whitehead puts it this way: “But definition is the soul of actuality: the attainment of a peculiar definiteness is the final cause which animates a particular process; and its attainment halts its process, so that by transcendence it passes into its objective immortality as a new objective condition added to the riches of definiteness attainable, the ‘real potentiality’ of the universe” (Process and Reality 223).

“Objective immortality” signifies something important here. It does not mean that the Platonic form, here called an “eternal object,” has now been so fully realized that it no longer subsists as a coaxing, gathering final cause for other things in the world. But it does mean that, to the degree that a thing has fulfilled its form or end, it has to that degree actually realized its own transcendence. This is why the thing’s movement unto its form is called an “ingression:” since Whitehead, as a Platonist, believes that eternal objects are real potentialities – and hence no less real than anything actual – he therefore believes that there is a genuine objective form which the thing is “moving into.” In short, transcendence is ingression because formal potentialities are real.

This means that things which have come to participate in eternal objects are themselves to a degree eternal and immortal. They have attained the status of a metaphysical entity. And, in the next moment, as the thing goes on to move or change, it will do so in a leap from this objective, immortal state. Each movement and alteration of the thing, therefore, is a leap from one state of immortal objectivity unto another that has yet to be realized, but which already lures it forward. One occasion, therefore, is not isolated from the next: each is connected to, and influences, the moment before and after it – and this by way of the transcendent objectivity each moment attains. In this way, each moment conditions the other. This is Whitehead’s doctrine of causality.

How, then, do these entities and laws emerge? From patterns and interrelationships, yes, but also from the eternal objects, the Platonic forms, which gather up all things and lure them into transcendence. These objects help form the identities of things, and they help to create the consistent patterns by which natural laws emerge. Without them, it is doubtful that the relationships between things would ever emerge orderly enough for identities or laws. Identities and laws emerge out of the interrelationships that form through the lure of eternal objects. This is Whitehead’s doctrine of natural law.

HOW THIS SPEAKS TO THE SCIENCE AND RELIGION DEBATE TODAY:

With all this in mind, we can understand Whitehead’s full quote on this topic:

Lastly apart from some notion of imposed Law, the doctrine of immanence provides absolutely no reason why the universe should not be steadily relapsing into lawless chaos. In fact, the Universe, as understood in accordance with the doctrine of Immanence [Whitehead’s doctrine], should exhibit itself as including a stable actuality whose mutual implication with the remainder of things secures an inevitable trend towards order. The Platonic ‘persuasion’ is required. (Adventures 115).

Finally, we now see the full meaning of this quote, which I think is essential for anyone trying to engage in the question of the relationship between philosophy and science. Whitehead means this: that no purely immanent account of nature will ever be able to explain the existence of natural law. Every model fails in some way. Every model fails to account for certain necessary features of any account of natural law. These include: causality, the universality of metaphysical laws, and the apparent order of the universe. Material accounts of nature can in no way prevent the possibility of a lapse into lawlessness; rather, they leave that possibility likely – so likely, in fact, that it makes these explanations suspect, since physical laws are broadly consistent. Therefore, the materialist account fails to satisfy.

What then remains? Two possibilities: the theory of Imposition, and Whitehead’s particular doctrine of Immanence, which depends to a great deal on the notion of transcendence. (Indeed, the name is only appropriate because physical laws specifically are regarded as both immanent and local in his account.) In either case, a notion of transcendence will be needed. The notion of a definitive, universal lawful form will be required as well. More than that, the notion of a God who creates and/or guides such forms is also a key notion in these theories. The notion of transcendent forms, inherited from the Platonic account of the universe – this, Whitehead claims, is necessary for a consistent account of natural law.

This claim, I believe, is an important challenge to the atheist. For it means that, to retain his belief, he must do something that none of the great atheist minds before him have done: he must produce a coherent account for natural laws. If he fails to do so – or if he does not want to – then he must stop pretending that science is presumably “on his side.” He must admit that his account of the universe is hardly readymade for scientific work. And this, I think, will be quite damaging to his hypothesis.

DAN TATE is a writer and blogger at Christ & Cosmos. A former atheist, he’s been surprised and amazed by the God of all things, and he’s passionate about sharing the gospel in ways that respond to contemporary concerns about theology, philosophy, spiritual practice, science, art, and more. A lifelong writer hailing from Upstate New York, he has a B.A. from Allegheny College, an M.A. from Syracuse University, and an M. Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary.