Paradigm Shift

PARADIGM SHIFT: A CHALLENGE TO NATURALISM

by Gary R. Habermas

excerpt

...In agreement with this thesis Koestler explains that a "profound transformation of the physicist's world view" is now taking place—a change that involves the shattering of many established scientific concepts. He holds that those who ridicule the recent studies in parapsychology are in approximately the same position as those who belittled Einsteinian physics earlier this century. A similar breakthrough in studies of the human mind may now be imminent.3

An issue of the SCP Journal was dedicated to an investigation of these changing trends. As reported by Fetcho: "Science, the health professions, and the arts, not to mention psychology and religion, are all engaged in a fundamental reconstruction of their basic premises."4 In another article Albrecht and Alexander note the rising influence of these new developments:

In the last five years, however, both the scope and the intensity of the occult/mystical encroachment upon the consciousness of the scientific "establishment" have greatly increased. . . . Certainly the Eastern/ occult view of reality is riding on the momentum of a cultural and intellectual shift of enormous proportions—and not just in physics.5

What reasons may be given for such alleged changes in the contemporary world view? As Kuhn points out, one paradigm is often basically intolerant of change, even though nature must frequently be forced into its inflexible conception of reality. Further, contrary facts are sometimes ignored.6 Some believe that naturalists are often guilty of suppressing the facts to propagate their dogma.

A more subjective reason for change is that people are ready for a new way of thinking. When such a time arrives, a different model suddenly "appears" and begins to influence contemporary thought.7

A number of factors suggest that the influence of the naturalistic, radically empirical paradigm may be declining. Naturalism fails to give an adequate answer in four areas: methodology, the origin of life, theistic argumentation, and philosophy of the mind.8

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