Cēterīs paribus

"Cēterīs paribus"
Boy, there's a $10 phrase if I've ever heard one and for all of the confusion it has caused, it should be something different.

Ceteris paribus is Latin and means "holding other things constant". It is used "constantly" (ha-ha-ha!) in the hard sciences, economics and psychology, etc. as both an assumption and a experimental parameter. Here's how Wikipedia.org explains it:

"A ceteris paribus assumption is often fundamental to the predictive purpose of scientific inquiry. In order to formulate scientific laws, it is usually necessary to rule out factors which interfere with examining a specific causal relationship. Experimentally, the ceteris paribus assumption is realized when a scientist controls for all of the independent variables other than the one under study, so that the effect of a single independent variable on the dependent variable can be isolated. By holding all the other relevant factors constant, a scientist is able to focus on the unique effects of a given factor in a complex causal situation."*

When you're trying to explore, experiment and understand, ceteris paribus is a very important tool. But a big problem comes up when you begin to impute ceteris paribus onto the real world.

Example: A big problem in the climate change debate is that many people are operating on a ceteris paribus foundation. "The world was stable and unchanging and now it is changing, therefore we must restore stability." The truth is that God's creation reflects the creator: wild, untamed, independent and beyond our influence. We live and die at the mercy of nature's incomprehensible might. (Pretty uncomfortable stuff for people who place their own lives at the center of existence.)

Interestingly, the Bible addresses ceteris paribus. It is, as one teacher calls it, "The heresy of the end-times" and is described in 2 Peter 3:4. Here's the passage in context:

"First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

- 2 Peter 3:3-7

"...everything goes on as it has
since the beginning of creation."

Ceteris Paribus

Ceteris paribus is an important and useful tool in so many things, but the decision to apply it as a foundational principal at work in reality is often made unconsciously and fallaciously without due consideration. It's also a great way to establish premisses to science that automatically disqualify God from realistic consideration. (Note that the passage from 2 Peter, above, also says, "...they deliberately forget ...".)

As Christians we have nothing to fear from science. Science reveals so much of God's glory and the wonder of His creation. It challenges our limited, and often immature, conceptions of God and forces us to confront our true insignificance and acknowledge that our true significance is realized only from God's love of us.

As humans we have much to fear from error and abusing ceteris paribus is a big one... big enough to get a person into hell.

* _{Wikipedia contributors, "Ceteris paribus," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ceteris_paribus&oldid=288628203 (accessed May 14, 2009).}