I explain it in a similar way to you g8, making a distinction between scientific and spiritual. I see scientific and synthetic as being things we can measure, test, explain, see, touch, prove, rationalise etc - the things that fit in with my intellectual understanding and processing of the world. Whereas spiritual and thus outside of synthetic being things that we cannot see, touch, test, measure etc, things that are not necessarily compatible with an intellectual understanding and processing of the world.

I see this as meaning that the doctor is conceding they they are "book learned" and all of their knowledge is based on medical, scientific fact, but spirituality comes from within...not something that can be taught. It's something each person must discover & awaken on their own from what is already, perhaps laying dormant, inside them, a feeling....

A doctor would be capable of teaching a med student how to set a broken leg and how food is digested in a
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format, but no matter what tools or resources that are laid out before them, they are of little to no use in explaining the feeling associated with a deep connection with a higher power (which I think is what they are stating is necessary) because like Nicky stated, they have no tangible proof. Of course, being a newbee here....I'm just learning & this is how I interpret this passage. :)

Synthetic knowledge is probably knowledge based on scientific research studies.

G8, I explain it as the difference between the tangible (proven fact, science, medical - that which can be seen, recorded and measured) and the intangible (spirituality, consciousness, sensory perception).

I think he is trying to say that they are not God - "not well equipped to apply the powers of good that lie outside our synthetic knowledge".

Maybe synthetic (meaning man made) is referring to their head knowledge but not born of experience.

This makes me think about every time a new drug comes out someone on the main board mentions it and how it can help the alcoholic. They hope for a magic cure all pill, because the easier softer way of AA is too hard for them. If you think about it, science is trying to make a pill for everything except common sense. They are afraid you might realise you can do things without all the drugs

Quit trying to explain it or make sense of it.
Live it.
Demonstrate it in your every word and action.
Don't go into details just explain that you know it to be true for you and your life and if they work the steps they will find something similar.
No one can scientifically prove that God does not exist nor that he does. It is a question of faith.
If you act in faith your sponsees will see that and act accordingly.

I'm currently going through the big book by listening to Joe Hawk on mp3 and am having a really great new experience.

He focuses on this very paragraph so I'll paraphrase him here. He said that there are three expressions that he needed explaining to him to fully understand the paragraph, as follows:

Moral Psychology = The then medical profession's way of saying Spiritual Experience.
Our = the doctors'
The power of good outside our synthetic knowledge = the Power of God.

So the paragraph would read like this:

We doctors have realized for a long time that some form of SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE was of urgent importance to alcoholics, but its application presented difficulties beyond THE DOCTORS' conception. What with THE DOCTORS' ultra-modern standards, THE DOCTORS' scientific approach to everything, we are perhaps not well equipped to apply the POWER OF GOD that lie outside THE DOCTORS' synthetic knowledge.

If other words, the doctors can do little to help our alcoholism. That has certainly been my experience. However there is a power out there that is enough to completely recover from alcoholism, if we seek it and more importantly, experience it.

This passage also reminds me of what Carl Jung said to Roland Hazard when he admitted that there was nothing he could do to help him. He admitted he had been trying to bring about a huge emotional and mental rearrangment that had occurred as phenonena throughout history in the form of vital spiritual experiences, but he had failed.

The term moral psychology has several meanings depending who used the term.
The Quakers -Loving someone fully- to bring about healing from a malady
Also in the early history treating a patient with a Lobotomy it was referred to as Moral Psychology
Dr. Silkworth after many years working with chronic alcoholics states, science has not been able to bring about, with sufficient force a remedy for a number of Maladies.Alcoholism being one.So Dr. S. says to Bill W. hang on to what have Bill. .Dr. Bob gets clean and sober and through the Absolutes with The Oxford group . The early signs of World War 2, which brings misgiving with affiliation with the leaning of the Oxford group and with The Oxford Groups affiliation with drunks. Bill W.and the boys begin to gain more evidence, begin writing the Book and The Fellowship of AA is Born. Lets not forget Ebby though ,The message he was given by The Oxford Group He gave to Bill W. and after a bad case of jitters and while being locked up in the Alcoholic Ward he became sold on the ideas Ebby and The Oxford Group were offering.and Dr. S said " you better hold on to this thing Bill". A little rambling but I hope you get the point, this was how it was explained to me many yrs. ago.
One Drunk helping Another language of the heart.
Billy C..

'Synthetic knowledge' - the understanding that even bringing all that was known about alcoholism and the treatment of it - from the physical to the mental, through science and moral values, there was no synthesis (a bringing together or fusion of ideas etc) that would treat the alcoholic successfully.