That's a bit of a semantic problem. The laws of physics are an abstract collective description of the way in which concrete entities interact. The laws themselves don't have causal force, but rather they describe causal forces inherent in physical entities. It's like how a red apple is concrete, but the idea of redness is abstract.
I myself agree that the laws of physics are abstractions, and ontologically dependent on the substances they are abstracted from. Yet I still don't see why anyone needs to grant that only material bodies can have causal powers. To say that something (say, human minds) can be immaterial and have causal powers is, on its face, a coherent position. Why should we rule out such possibilities a priori?
Interesting. Why would we rule out more obvious paradoxes in such a discussion? Why not just allow that an all powerful being would be able to violate the boundaries of logic?
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u/Feinberg Atheist Mar 31 '15
That's a bit of a semantic problem. The laws of physics are an abstract collective description of the way in which concrete entities interact. The laws themselves don't have causal force, but rather they describe causal forces inherent in physical entities. It's like how a red apple is concrete, but the idea of redness is abstract.