The Legitimacy of Miracle 0739184210, 9780739184219

Citation preview

The Legitimacy of Miracle

The Legitimacy of Miracle Robert A. Larmer

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Published by Lexington Books A wholly owned subsidiary of Rowman & Littlefield 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom Copyright © 2014 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Larmer, Robert A. H., 1954The legitimacy of miracle / Robert A. Larmer. pages cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7391-8421-9 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-7391-8422-6 (electronic) 1. Miracles. I. Title. BT97.3.L37 2014 231.7'3--dc23 2013030874 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

For Melissa

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Divine Agency, Miracles, and the Biblical Data Defining Miracle Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument Further Epistemological Challenges Miracle as a Pseudo-Concept Miracles and Evidence Miracles and Theism Miracles and Christian Apologetics

7 27 53 79 101 121 145 167

Epilogue

187

Bibliography

189

Appendix: Four Instances of Healing

197

Index

207

vii

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Dr. Hugh Gauch who read the penultimate draft and made numerous helpful suggestions. Thanks also to James Kitchen for his diligence in helping prepare the bibliography. I am grateful for the support that I have received from my family, friends, and colleagues. Some of the material in chapters 2, 3, and 4 has appeared in an earlier form as: “Is There Anything Wrong with ‘God of the Gaps’ Reasoning?” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 52, 2002, pp. 129-142. “C.S. Lewis’s Critique of David Hume’s ‘Of Miracles,’” Faith and Philosophy, Vol 25, No. 4, 2008, 154–171. “Interpreting Hume on Miracle,” Religious Studies. Vol. 45, No. 3, 2009, 325-338. “Divine Intervention and the Conservation of Energy: A Response to Evan Fales,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (Online version June 2013).

I am grateful to these journals for permission to use this material. Finally, I would be remiss if I were not to acknowledge the expertise and dedication of Christine Fahey, Jana Hodges-Kluck, and Jay Song of Lexington Books. I greatly appreciate their work in bringing this project to completion.

ix

Introduction

One would expect that miracles, considered as paradigm instances of God acting in particular ways, at particular times and places, would feature prominently in contemporary discussions of divine agency. As Nicholas Saunders notes, the immense particularity of God’s activity is found in even a cursory reading of the Bible. Not only does God originally create and continuously sustain the universe in existence, but we see a God who acts in particular times and places. 1

In most instances, however, discussions of divine agency ignore or virtually ignore the concept of miracle. 2 Phillip Clayton’s massive work The Problem of God in Modern Thought, 3 for example, has no index entry for ‘miracle.’ Rather than being seen as especially clear examples which function to help us formulate and clarify our understanding of divine agency, miracles are regarded as an embarrassment; a hindrance rather than a help in articulating a coherent account of how God works in creation. The reason this is so is not hard to discern. The assumption that miracles, understood as supernatural interventions overriding the usual course of nature, imply violation of the laws of nature is very deep rooted. Given such an assumption, it appears inevitable that any evidence for miracles must be judged to conflict with the evidence for the laws of nature. This places those wanting to combine religious faith in the personal God of theism with a healthy respect for science in an awkward position. The temptation, of course, is to dismiss the concept of miracle as irrelevant to genuine faith. Yielding to this temptation, however, hinders more than it helps. The idea of special divine action, miracles being the paradigm examples of such action, is inextricably intertwined with the very concept of God as personal. As 1

2

Introduction

Saunders notes, “it becomes impossible to make higher-level claims about the promotion of divine attributes in the world if we have no persuasive approach to . . . SDA [special divine action]” 4 and “without a developed and credible account of God’s localised and specific actions in the world, much other theological doctrine crumbles irrevocably.” 5 It will not do, therefore, to ignore the issue of special divine action on the grounds that it is irrelevant to genuine faith. Neither will it do, as is the project of many scholars, to attempt to develop accounts of divine agency that make no reference to miracles. If one cannot make sense of miracles as paradigm instances of special divine action, then the prospect of successfully defending a coherent theory of divine agency in the world is exceedingly remote. If, on the other hand, a coherent account of miracle can be offered that is consistent with a healthy respect for science then it is scarcely likely that the idea of divine action in the world will prove problematic to defend. How then to defend the concept of miracle, yet give the scientific enterprise the respect it deserves? It appears inevitable that if miracles are correctly defined as implying violating of the laws of nature then the evidence for the laws of nature must be taken opposing, and thus undermining, any presumed evidence for miracles. When one adds to this concerns about whether it even makes logical sense to talk of a law of nature being violated, it is scarcely surprising that difficulties in maintaining the rationality of belief in miracles arise. But is the assumption that miracles must violate the laws of nature correct? If it is not then Humean balance of probability type arguments, depending as they do on a presumed conflict between the evidence for the laws of nature and the evidence for miracles, have no force, since there is no reason to think that the two bodies of evidence are in any kind of necessary opposition. Equally, the question of whether it makes sense to talk of a law of nature being violated does not arise as a reason to question the legitimacy of belief in miracles. A central thesis of this book is that the view that a miracle—in the strong sense of God overriding the normal course of nature so as to produce an event that could not otherwise occur—implies violation of the laws of nature is mistaken. Once this is realized, it can be seen that the burden of proof concerning the rationality of belief in miracles dramatically changes. Rather than the believer needing to demonstrate in the teeth of the vast evidence for the laws of nature that belief in miracles is nevertheless rational, it is the critic who needs to explain why, despite the fact that the evidence for miracles does not in any way conflict with the evidence for the laws of nature, she is prepared to reject belief in miracles as unjustified. A successful defense of this thesis promises not only to provide a better conceptual foundation for the discussion of miracles, but also to open up promising avenues for more general discussions of special divine action.

Introduction

3

Contemporary accounts of special divine action tend to be non-interventionist, in the sense of attempting to show how such action can take place in a universe that is energetically closed. The motivation for attempting such noninterventionist accounts is primarily based on the assumption that interventionist accounts inevitably imply violation of the laws of nature, the principle of the conservation of energy in particular. Given that non-interventionist accounts have, at least to this point in time, proven radically implausible, 6 and given that divine intervention implies no violation of the laws of nature, it is important that interventionist accounts of special divine action receive a fair hearing and not, as is frequently the case, be summarily dismissed as unworthy of serious consideration. The organization of this book is, I hope, straightforward and easy to follow. In chapter 1, I consider the broad model of divine agency within which the concept of miracle should be located. Bearing in mind the fact that, despite “the appropriation of so much Biblical material into modern discussions of the relationship between SDA and science, there has been relatively little detailed study in this context of the Biblical conception of nature,” 7 I make the case that the biblical authors embrace a supernaturalist model of divine agency, albeit at an implicit and largely pre-philosophical level. I argue that taking seriously these authors’ understanding of how God works in creation provides the context in which a philosophically precise definition of miracle can be formulated without losing touch with the essential elements of that understanding, namely that such events are wonders and signs. In chapter 2, I take up the task of definition. I attempt to do justice to the fact that miracles, in the biblical understanding, are events which reveal a God who is not simply the creator and sustainer of the universe, but who is also actively engaged with creation; a God who is willing to engage in special activity at specific times and particular places in order to achieve His purposes. The definition I propose is that a miracle is an unusual and religiously significant event which reveals and furthers God’s purposes, is beyond the power of physical nature to produce, and is caused by an agent who transcends physical nature. By way of concluding the chapter, I defend the claim that this definition in no way implies that any law of nature must be violated for a miracle to occur. Chapter 3 is devoted to a discussion of David Hume’s famous a priori argument, found in Part I of his essay Of Miracles, concerning the rationality of belief in miracles based on testimony. Given that commentators disagree over what the argument was intended to demonstrate, I spend the first part of the chapter defending what I take to be the correct interpretation of the purpose of the argument, namely to provide a demonstration that testimonial evidence is incapable, even in principle, of justifying rational belief in miracles. I next demonstrate that, even accepting Hume’s mistaken claim that a miracle must be defined as violating the laws of nature, the argument is

4

Introduction

severely flawed. I conclude the chapter by pointing out that, since miracles should not be defined as violating the laws of nature, Hume’s argument of Part I cannot even get started, depending as it does upon postulating a necessary conflict between the evidence for the laws of nature and the testimonial evidence for miracles. Hume took for granted that certain events, were they to occur, would accurately be described as miracles, and attempted in Part I of his Of Miracles to provide an a priori epistemological argument demonstrating that belief in the occurrence of such events could never, even in principle, be justified on the basis of testimony. In chapter 4, I discuss other epistemological challenges to accepting the occurrence of miracles which focus not on the question of whether certain events could justifiably be believed to have occurred, but rather on whether they could ever be legitimately viewed as miraculous. In chapter 5, I examine arguments to the effect that the concept of miracle is logically incoherent. Such arguments are made on a variety of grounds ranging from the claim that the laws of nature are exceptionless—here the reader will recall the importance of the fact that miracles can take place without violating any laws of nature—to the claim that miracles are incompatible with the perfection of God. I conclude that none of these arguments succeeds in making plausible the claim that the concept of miracle is incoherent. Having disposed of in-principle arguments that rule out the possibility of ever justifying belief in the occurrence of a miracle, I turn in chapter 6 to questions concerning the assessment of evidence. What types of evidence are relevant to establishing their occurrence and what are the basic principles by which evidence is to be assessed. I examine the commonly made claim that miracles, as extraordinary events, require an extraordinary amount of evidence if belief in their occurrence is to be justified and argue that it is mistaken. I conclude the chapter with a discussion of Hume’s four a posteriori arguments found in Part II of his Of Miracles. Chapter 7 takes up the issue of the evidential relation of events plausibly viewed as miracles to theism. A number of writers have claimed that such events cannot function as evidence for God, since to call an event a miracle is to presuppose the existence of God. In reply, I argue that it is the event, not the description of it, which functions as evidence for God. Calling an event a miracle simply reflects one’s judgment that the best explanation of its occurrence is provided by theism. I go on to argue that ‘the argument from miracle’ is best understood as a special form of the teleological argument. In my 8th and concluding chapter, I explore the issue of whether miracles can serve as evidence for one religious form of theism, over and against other forms of theism. More specifically, in a very brief and preliminary way, I explore in what sense well-evidenced contemporary miracles and the mira-

Introduction

5

cles described in the New Testament count for Christianity, as opposed to the other major theistic religions of Judaism and Islam. In raising this issue and answering in the affirmative, I take myself to be endorsing what a number of writers have begun to describe as ‘ramified natural theology,’ namely the view that publicly testable elements of purported revelation can legitimately enter into the project of natural theology. 8 If, having disposed of in-principle philosophical arguments to the effect that belief in miracles can never be justified, the historical evidence for a miracle such as the Resurrection is strong, then it is entirely appropriate that such evidence be taken into account by natural theology. In the epilogue I draw together and briefly summarize the overall conclusions of the book. I then make some brief remarks concerning the relation of my conclusions to historical research concerning miracles and what may be termed ramified natural theology. By way of illustrating the type of evidence that the philosophical arguments of the book are relevant to, I include an appendix in which I describe four very dramatic cases of healing that I have personally investigated. NOTES 1. Saunders, Divine Action and Modern Science, 3. Similarly, Thomas Tracy notes that the monotheistic Abrahamic religions are committed to two broad categories of divine action which are closely linked, namely that “God creates and sustains the universe as a whole, and God acts within the world’s history at particular times and places to advance specific divine purposes.” “Scientific Vetos and the Hands-Off God: Can We Say That God Acts in History?” 55. 2. Ibid. 48. 3. Clayton, The Problem of God in Modern Thought. 4. Saunders, Divine Action and Modern Science, 18. 5. Ibid. 13. 6. Apart from the fact that ‘noninterventionist’ accounts of special divine acts based on quantum mechanics, chaos theory, or the concept of supervenient properties, do not really do away with the concept of intervention, but rather render such interventions scientifically undetectable, there are radical difficulties with all three models. Regarding appeals to quantum mechanics, Nicholas Saunders observes that despite the fact that quantum theory ultimately rests on a quite different set of physical postulates to classical mechanics, it remains totally determinate . . . the relationship between SDA and the HUP [Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle] is not simplistically that the HUP introduces an indeterminism into quantum mechanics which would be suitable for the action of God—in actual fact the HUP changes nothing about the ontological status of determinism in quantum physics despite the fact that it raises potentially insurmountable epistemological difficulties . . . it is not the case that the HUP introduces any open possibilities into nature’s womb . . . which is crucial for the assertion of quantum SDA. Regarding appeals to chaos theory, it is noteworthy that the standard accounts of chaos theory are deterministic. Saunders notes that attempts to exploit chaos theory as the modus operandi of special divine acts requires the ontological existence of infinitely complex fractal attractors in which the energy differences between potential trajectories become zero. However, there is good reason to assert that the existence of these infinitely complex regions of space is not a realistic part of chaos theory. Indeed it would seem that God is prevented from acting in this manner in any chaotic chemical system, and many other physical systems by implication, because of the absence of the required equal energy trajectories. Divine Action and Modern

6

Introduction

Science, 199. Neither do appeals to the concept of supervenience work well, since as Jaegwon Kim comments there are no new causal powers that magically accrue to M [upper-level properties] over and beyond the causal powers of P [lower-level properties]. No new causal powers emerge at higher levels, and this goes against the claim . . . that higher-level properties are novel causal powers irreducible to lower-level properties. Philosophy of Mind, 232. For an overview of the various difficulties inherent in attempts to conceive the possibility of special divine acts in an energetically closed universe, see Larmer, “Divine Agency and the Conservation of Energy,” 543-557. 7. Saunders, Divine Action and Modern Science, 4-5. 8. See, for example, Gauch, “Recent Transitions in Natural Theology: The Emergence of a Bolder Paradigm.”

Chapter One

Divine Agency, Miracles, and the Biblical Data

Discussions of miracle often fail to consider the broader understanding of divine agency within which the concept is being located. As a result there can be considerable ambiguity regarding what is meant by the term ‘miracle.’ A goal of this chapter is to make clear the fundamental philosophical and theological options regarding the operation of divine agency in creation. Achieving this, we will be in a position to make explicit how differing models of divine agency conceive what it is for an event to be a miracle. A second and related goal is to examine the biblical data with an eye to discerning how the authors of Christian scripture understood God as acting in creation. I shall make the argument that these writers embrace a certain model of divine agency, albeit at an implicit and largely pre-philosophical level. Taking seriously their understanding of divine agency provides the context in which a definition of miracle can be formulated, allowing us to pursue precision without losing touch with the understanding of events our definition is intended to capture. Once this stage is set in this first chapter, we will be in a position to pursue the issue of a philosophically precise definition of miracle in chapter 2. MODELS OF DIVINE AGENCY Broadly speaking, there are three basic models by which theists conceive God as achieving His purposes in creation. These may be termed the occasionalist model, the deistic model, and the supernaturalist model.

7

Chapter 1

8

Occasionalism The term ‘occasionalism’ arises out of the view that what appear to be instances of causal interaction in the world are, in reality, occasions of the exercise of direct divine agency. This model of divine agency has as its core thesis the claim that God is the sole cause of all that happens. Thus Nicolas Malebranche, probably the best known occasionalist in Western philosophy, held that everything that happens is directly and solely caused by God, writing that it is a contradiction . . . for one body to be able to move another. Further, I claim, it is a contradiction for you to be able to move your armchair. Nor is this enough; it is a contradiction for all the angels and demons together to be able to move a wisp of straw. . . . No power can convey [an object] to where God does not convey it, nor fix nor stop it where God does not stop it . . . God communicates His power to creatures and unites them with one another, only because He establishes their modalities, occasional causes of the effect which He produces Himself. 1

This means that we should not judge that a ball in motion is the . . . cause of the movement of the ball it finds in its path. . . . The collision of the two balls is the occasion for the Author of all motion in matter to carry out the decree of His will, which is the universal cause of all things. He does so by communicating to the second ball part of the motion of the first, i.e., to speak more clearly, by willing that the latter ball should acquire as much motion in the same direction as the former loses, for the motor force of bodies can only be the will of Him who preserves them. 2

On the occasionalist view, created things are purely passive, having no causal powers. Thus “the study of nature is false and vain in every way when true causes are sought in it other than the volitions of the Almighty, or the general laws according to which He constantly acts. 3 To the degree that science provides descriptions of natural entities with causal properties, it must be conceived anti-realistically. The particles described by physicists do not act causally upon one another, but rather are acted upon by God. That two atoms of hydrogen are often found closely associated with one atom of oxygen has nothing to do with the essential causal properties of either hydrogen or oxygen, but rather is the result of God willing them to associate in such a manner. Thus, for the occasionalist, “there is no sense in which there exist real natural propensities . . . [and] no real concept of natural causality or independent event whatsoever.” 4 The result is that creation has no functional integrity of its own. 5

Divine Agency, Miracles, and the Biblical Data

9

According to the occasionalist, what we call laws of nature are to be understood as codifications of God’s direct agency in its usual manifestations and what we call miracles are instances of God directly willing something other than He usually does. Regarding events understood as miracles, Mark Corner suggests that the occasionalist can, describe what otherwise might be called ‘the laws of nature’ as something like ‘customary divine behaviour.’ And if that is acceptable . . . [the occasionalist] might then want to speak of another category of divine action called ‘uncustomary behaviour.’ Both God’s customary and uncustomary forms of behaviour would be determined entirely according to God’s will, but the distinction between the two types of behaviour would still be a useful one. 6

On such an understanding of divine agency, any distinction between natural and miraculous events is simply one of quantity; there exists no qualitative difference between the two classes of events, since both are equally expressions of God’s direct primary causation. For occasionalists, any talk of divine intervention in nature is meaningless, inasmuch as it posits a natural order possessing its own causal efficacy. Few, if any, contemporary Christian theists would identify themselves as occasionalists. Nevertheless, it is not unusual to find expressions of what essentially amounts to that position. We find claims that the laws of nature are “not alternatives to divine activity but only our codification of that activity in its normal manifestation,” 7 and that to talk of laws of nature is to “grant an effective autonomy to nature” 8 over against God. Such claims are especially evident in the writings of biblical scholars committed to the existence of a radical dichotomy between Greek and Hebrew thought, and in the works of philosophers and theologians concerned to emphasize the absolute sovereignty of God. Two examples will suffice: the first from Claus Westermann, an Old Testament scholar, the second from G.C. Berkouwer, a Dutch theologian in the Calvinist tradition. Westermann, in his Elements of Old Testament Theology, writes that in the Old Testament . . . the entirety of the universe is understood primarily as something which happens, and only in a secondary sense as something which exists. If God is the creator of the world and of humanity, then world events and human history are in his hands from beginning to end. . . . The Old Testament’s speaking of the creator necessarily involves a universalism that attributes to the God . . . everything that happens from the beginning to the end of time. 9

Concerning miracles, he writes that, for the Hebrews of the Old Testament,

10

Chapter 1 to speak about God’s works is to speak about God’s miracles. . . . A miracle is never comprehensible according to the phenomena accompanying it which one can verify. One cannot verify miracles. . . . [A] miracle is an occurrence between God and his people, and has its reality alone in this vis-à-vis. Therefore there can be no externally acquired criteria for it, no standard according to existing norms. Something seen objectively, from a distance, is no longer a real miracle. 10

We find echoed in Westermann’s account of Hebrew thought the occasionalist themes that God is solely responsible for all that occurs and that miracles are termed such not on the basis on any qualitative difference in how they are caused, but rather on the subjective responses they elicit from observers. Occasionalism is also evident in Berkouwer’s The Providence of God. He explicitly rejects any distinction between first and secondary causation, claiming that use of the terms first and second causes implies that God is only the most important cause among equal causes. . . . The terms, by their arrangement . . . suggest a causal circle in which God and man alike are involved. 11

He goes on to say that “the basic error of this kind of reasoning is that an injustice is done to the incomparability of the Divine activity.” 12 When Berkouwer considers miracles, he quotes with approval Reformed philosopher Abraham Kuyper’s claim that to call an event a miracle “means nothing more than that God at a given moment wills a certain thing to occur differently than it had up to that moment been willed by Him to occur.” 13 Berkouwer goes on to say that “a miracle is not an abnormal or unnatural occurrence presupposing the normality of nature” 14 but rather God taking “another way than that which had come to be expected of Him in the usual course of events.” 15 According to Berkouwer, Christian Scripture views “all things without exception as lying each instant in God’s hand . . . [and] focuses our attention not so much on the ‘point of intersection’ of the supernatural with the natural, as on the content and purpose of God’s activity in the world.” 16 For Berkouwer, created things have no essential natures that would enable them to genuinely interact with each other, but are totally passive, their behavior being entirely determined by the Divine Will. We thus find expressed the occasionalist view that created things are absent of causal powers, and the consequent denaturing of nature so characteristic of this view. 17 As regards this denaturing, David Hume’s comment seems on the mark. He writes that, not content with the principle, that nothing exists but by his will, that nothing possesses any power but by his concession: they [occasionalists] rob nature, and all created beings , of every power, in order to render their dependence on the Deity still more sensible and immediate. They consider not that, by this

Divine Agency, Miracles, and the Biblical Data

11

theory, they diminish, instead of magnifying, the grandeur of those attributes, which they affect so much to celebrate. It argues surely more power in the Deity to delegate a certain degree of power to inferior creatures than to produce every thing by his own immediate volition. 18

Deism Historically, the term ‘deism’ arose as a description of certain characteristic claims of a movement that principally manifested itself in seventeen century English thought. 19 Although “it is difficult, if not impossible, to class together the representative writers who contributed to the literature of English deism as forming any one definite school,” 20 our contemporary use of the term is to describe the view that God created and constantly sustains the universe, but does not directly intervene in its ongoing history. In contrast to occasionalism, deism is committed to created things having causal powers. Deists agree with occasionalists that God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, but unlike occasionalists they hold that created things have causal capacities and that it thus makes sense to talk of the operation of secondary causes, that is to say, of causal interactions between created entities. Indeed, so impressed are they by the explanatory power of secondary causes that they restrict God’s direct primary causality to originating and sustaining the universe. For deists, all that occurs in the universe is to be explained in terms of the operation of secondary natural causes. On this view, God chooses to accomplish His purposes in creation exclusively through the indirect instrumentality of secondary causes. This does not necessarily mean that a deist cannot speak of miracles, but rather that such events would in principle be completely explicable in terms of secondary causes. One of the early deists, William Wollaston, in his The Religion of Nature Delineated, poses the question ‘May we expect miracles?’ and answers yes, so long as such events are not conceived as involving “some extraordinary and new influence from God.” 21 On this view, an event would be deemed a miracle not by virtue of its being supernaturally caused but rather because it serves in a dramatic and unusual way to reveal God’s intentions in a particular circumstance. We have noted that, like occasionalists, deists are not willing to posit supernatural interventions into a natural order. Their reasons for this refusal are very different, however. For the occasionalist, it is a mistake to think there is a natural order that is the product of the operation of secondary causes and thus the question of whether interventions into such an order take place cannot arise. In contrast, deists acknowledge the existence of a natural order that is the result of the operation of secondary causes, but insist that God never directly intervenes in that order and thus that all events must be explained in terms of natural causes. It is ironic to find these radically op-

12

Chapter 1

posed views regarding the existence and operation of secondary causes so united in their rejection of the possibility of defining or detecting a miracle by virtue of it constituting a supernatural intervention in the natural order. For both the occasionalist and the deist, to call an event a miracle is not to make an objective claim that it was produced by a qualitatively different mode of divine agency than usually holds, but rather to describe the subjective impact it had on those who experienced it. 22 Deism is a term avoided by Christian scholars but, as in the case of occasionalism, it is not unusual to find contemporary expressions of what amounts to deism. Two dominant models of integrating scientific and religious beliefs, theistic complementarianism and theistic naturalism, are fundamentally deistic in their approach, inasmuch as they locate any appeal to divine agency outside the scientific enterprise of recognizing causes at work in the world. Theistic complementarians, many of whom would describe themselves as theologically conservative, typically maintain the following claims: 1. Science, at least in principle, enables us to explain what happens in the world entirely in terms of secondary natural causes. 2. The world can be studied at many different levels of description. 3. A complete account at one level of description does not invalidate or detract from descriptions at other levels. 4. An adequate understanding of reality requires the utilization of different levels of description. On the theistic complementarian view, to call an event a miracle is not to make a claim concerning how it occurred, that is to say in a manner different from God working exclusively through secondary natural causes, but rather why it occurred. These two levels of description are conceived as occupying entirely different conceptual spaces and thus incapable of coming into conflict. This complementarian strategy enables Richard Bube to defend the orthodoxy of a paper which attempts a complete explanation of the Virgin Birth in terms of secondary natural causes. 23 Bube writes that violent objections to this paper must come, it seems to me, from the classic and tragic fallacy of believing that a mystical event incapable of scientific description is somehow more properly seen as having supernatural significance than an event that is capable of scientific description. The church has stumbled on this fallacy repeatedly through recent centuries, and sadly it still remains an unconscious inheritance from the past. 24

Similarly, R.J. Berry, in attempting an explanation of the Virgin Birth purely in terms of natural processes, insists that such an explanation would not count against the miraculousness of the event 25 and goes on to assert that “probably all miracles are susceptible to an explanation other than the super-

Divine Agency, Miracles, and the Biblical Data

13

natural.” 26 Stuart Judge likewise asserts that “miracles may be God’s signs to us whether or not they have a naturalistic explanation. 27 Theistic naturalists tend to be more liberal in their theological outlook than theistic complementarians. Rather than attempt to provide natural explanations of events such as the Virgin Birth, they are inclined to deny that such events actually occurred. Nevertheless, their account of divine agency is basically the same as that of theistic complementarians. Influential ‘scientisttheologians’ such as Arthur Peacocke and Howard Van Till are reluctant in any way to countenance the possibility of special divine action. As Mark Corner notes, “it is a general rule with many of the ‘scientist-theologians’ that whenever you find God’s general providence is being lauded, you know that God’s special providence is about to be denied.” 28 Van Till, for example, argues that theists should adopt the ‘robust formational economy principle,’ namely the assumption that there are no gaps in the formational economy of the universe. In Van Till’s view, the universe should be seen as ‘fully gifted’ in the sense that the capacities of matter are sufficient to account for the actualization of all structures and events in the history of the universe without positing the direct intervention of its Creator. 29 Peacocke expresses substantially the same view when he writes that “divine causative influence would never be observed by us as a divine ‘intervention,’ that is, as an interference with the course of nature and as a setting aside of its observed relationships.” 30 In a similar vein one finds theologians such as Maurice Wiles and Gordon Kaufmann insisting that the notion of divine intervention should have no place in our thinking about God. Wiles asserts that divine action should be understood as God’s fundamental act of creating and sustaining creation and consequently “the primary usage for the idea of divine action should be in relation to the world as a whole rather than to particular occurrences within it.” 31 To suggest that God might intervene in the natural order to bring about an event that would not have occurred were only natural created causes operative is, in Wiles’ view, absurd. 32 Any talk of God’s mighty deeds in history must be understood non-literally. Such language, he asserts, must be understood poetically or symbolically. 33 Likewise, Gordon Kaufmann finds it inconceivable that any modern person could think of the world except in terms of an unbroken web of natural causes and their effects. 34 It appears that Wiles’ and Kaufmann’s view that the history of the universe must be seen as a single act of God in which it is unnecessary, indeed inappropriate, to talk of particular specific divine acts such as miracles, is essentially philosophical deism expressed in theological dress. 35 It comes as no surprise, therefore, to find proponents of this view insisting that “the theological question about miracles is only well-formed when it does not look for a ‘gap’ within physical causality,” 36 and that “miracles must be thought of as mediated by created secondary causes.” 37 Neither does

14

Chapter 1

it come as a surprise to find that they are prepared to accept as historical the ‘miracles’ which they feel can be given a natural explanation, but insist that events which cannot be plausibly explained in terms of natural causes must be regarded as legendary accretions which “should be examined less for their historical than for their theological content.” 38 Thus John Macquarrie is willing to accept Jesus’ healing miracles as historical events on the grounds that it is not “necessary to suppose that the agent or instrument of such healings possesses magical or supernatural powers,” 39 but insists that “stories of walking on the lake or feeding thousands with a few scraps of food,” 40 must be rejected, since they would necessitate the use of supernatural power. Such stories, he asserts are not to be taken literally but rather metaphorically or allegorically. This means that the story of Jesus walking on water must be regarded as a metaphor demonstrating how Jesus, “in his humanity . . . shared all the insecurity and vulnerability of our earthly life,” 41 and the accounts of Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes must be understood as “allegories of the eucharist, where minimal quantities (in a physical sense) of food and drink convey the very life of Christ himself, his body and his blood.” 42 Supernaturalism The model I have termed supernaturalism can best be seen as a via media between occasionalism and deism. It concurs with both those positions in holding that God is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. It refuses, however, to view God as exclusively achieving His purposes in creation through either direct divine causation, that is to say, occasionalism, or through secondary causes, that is to say deism. It refuses, pace occasionalism, to denature nature to the extent that it is impossible to speak of the operation of created secondary causes, or, pace deism, to insulate nature from any possibility of divine intervention. On the supernaturalist view, nature is totally dependent on God inasmuch as it was created ex nihilo by God and, although ontologically distinct from God, is constantly sustained by Him. The entities which make up nature have, by virtue of God’s creation of them, certain properties and causal powers. The interaction of these entities, that is to say secondary causes, gives rise to a regular order of nature. Most events within nature are explicable by reference to the operation of these secondary causes upon one another; bearing in mind that the ultimate explanation of there existing such causes is God willing them to be. God, however, can directly act upon the created entities which make up nature so as to produce an event which is not wholly explicable in terms of the operation of secondary causes. Such an event would, in the supernaturalist’s view, be properly termed a miracle inasmuch as it constitutes a divine intervention into the natural order. 43 On

Divine Agency, Miracles, and the Biblical Data

15

the supernaturalist view, unlike the occasionalist and deist view, miracles are, at least in principle, detectable as qualitatively different expressions of divine power than what usually occurs. 44 This, however, in no way implies, as is often charged by its detractors, that viewing miracles as supernatural interventions commits one to holding that the natural order is somehow autonomous and independent of God. Indeed, it seems strange for opponents of the supernaturalist view to insist that the God who creates and sustains the natural order cannot be thought ever to intervene in that order. Equally, their insistence that belief in miracles as supernatural interventions implies that one cannot believe that God also works through the instrumentality of secondary causes seems strange. There seems no principled reason to insist that, if one maintains that the universe exhibits a general teleological order implicit in the operation of secondary causes, one cannot also hold that God might have good reasons in certain circumstances, to act directly in the universe. 45 In the Catholic tradition the supernaturalist view of miracle has been held by influential thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas. Although Augustine is prepared to talk of hidden seeds in nature (semina seminum), which might suggest that he is open to a deistic account of miracle as requiring no intervention in nature by God, such an interpretation of his views on miracle must reckon with his explicit assertion that God “did not stick all causes into creation as originally established, but reserved some to his own will, these which he reserved to his own will are not indeed dependent on the necessity of those which he created.” 46 In describing the creation of Eve, for example, he observes that “God has in himself the hidden causes of certain deeds and events, which he did not insert in things he had made; and he does not activate them by that work of providence by which he set up natures in order for them to be.” 47 Thus, although Augustine’s concept of hidden seeds can be taken as suggesting a general providential order in nature, it should not be taken as suggesting that Augustine did not think of miracles as involving divine interventions in the natural order. 48 Aquinas also takes a supernaturalist view of miracles. He insists that natural causes cannot bring about a miracle, writing that a miracle . . . [must] be beyond the order of the whole created nature. But God alone can do this, because whatever an angel or any other creature does by its own power is according to the order of created nature; and thus it is not a miracle. Hence God alone can work miracles. 49

He takes such events to be especially revelatory, asserting that, the divine power at times works apart from the order assigned by God to nature, without prejudice to His providence. In fact, He does this sometimes in order to manifest His power. For by no other means can it better be made

16

Chapter 1 manifest that all nature is subject to the divine will, than by the fact that He sometimes works independently of the order of nature; for this shows that the order of things proceeded from Him, not through natural necessity, but through His free will. 50

In the Protestant tradition, prominent theologians such as Charles Hodge espoused a supernaturalist account of miracle. Hodge distinguishes three different types of events. First, “there are events . . . [which are] due to the ordinary operations of second causes, as upheld and guided by God . . . [and ] to this class belong the common processes of nature.” 51 Second, there is a class of events which is “due to the influences of the Holy Spirit upon the hearts of men, such as regeneration, sanctification, spiritual illumination, etc.” 52 Finally, there is a third class of events, whose distinguishing characteristics are, first, that they take place in the external world, i.e., in the sphere of the observation of the senses; and secondly, that they are produced or caused by the simple volition of God, without the intervention of any subordinate cause. To this class belong the original act of creation, in which all cooperation of second causes was impossible. To the same class belong all events truly miraculous. 53

Hodge goes on to say that, “a miracle, therefore, may be defined to be an event, in the external world, brought about by the immediate efficiency, or simple volition of God.” 54 Contemporary expressions of the view I have termed supernaturalism are found in the writings of Christian scholars such as Keith Ward. Ward accepts the existence of secondary created causes. He is prepared to speak of the causal powers of created entities that explain “their tendency or disposition, in appropriate circumstances and in relation to other objects, to behave in regular and largely predictable ways.” 55 He does not, however, accept the view that God should be conceived as working exclusively through secondary natural causes, since “if there is a God, a Creator of the universe, it is plainly possible that God might perform miracles, might bring about events that no created cause has the power of itself to bring about.” 56 He goes on to say that the question of miracles is the question of whether a God who is constantly causally active in the cosmos sometimes acts in ways that wholly transcend the regular operations of nature for a sufficiently good reason—for instance, to forward in a conspicuous way the purpose of bringing persons to know and love God. At the very least, such extraordinary acts would not be improper or arbitrary. The occurrence of a miracle would be largely a matter of degree, of the extent to which a divine action transcends the normal powers of natural objects and functions as a disclosure and realization of a divine purpose. 57

Divine Agency, Miracles, and the Biblical Data

17

OCCASIONALISM, DEISM, SUPERNATURALISM AND THE BIBLICAL DATA We have seen that all three models of divine agency in creation have philosophical pedigrees and can boast of contemporary adherents. We have also seen that, in seeking to give an account of miracle, proponents of these models develop the concept in such a manner as to cohere with their claims regarding divine agency. Given that these three models are at odds with one another in how they conceive God as acting in creation, the question which must be asked is whether one of them better fits with the biblical data than its competitors. If in fact one model better fits the biblical data then it seems appropriate to explore and develop the concept of miracle in the context of that model. My contention is that the biblical data, when read in a hermeneutically responsible way, supports what I have termed supernaturalism rather than occasionalism or deism. I turn now to a brief defence of this claim. 58 Before considering occasionalism and deism directly, it is important to deal with two general and frequently conflated objections to the claim that the biblical data can be taken as supporting supernaturalism rather than its philosophical competitors. First, it is often objected that, since the various writers of Scripture—covering a historical period of more than a millennium and expressing themselves in a variety of literary genres—make no attempt to develop a systematic philosophy, it is a mistake to suggest that the biblical data can be taken as supporting one philosophical model of divine agency over another. Second, it is frequently objected that Scriptural authors had no conception of nature and thus provide us with no relevant data regarding how God should be conceived as acting in nature. As regards the first objection, while it is true that the writers of Scripture show no interest in formulating an explicit philosophical formulation of how divine agency is to be understood, this does not imply that it is impossible to identify a biblical mentality and the contours of the implicit worldview underlying that mentality. 59 I shall argue that when this is done we find that what the biblical authors say regarding divine agency clearly has implications for philosophical formulations of how God is to be conceived as active in creation. As regards the second objection, one frequently meets the claim that since there is no word in biblical Hebrew for ‘nature’ the Scriptural authors must therefore have lacked any concept of nature or supernatural event. Such a judgment is overly simplistic, inasmuch as it ignores the fact that the absence of the term ‘nature’ does not imply the absence of a concept of nature. 60 By way of analogy, Collins notes that “the ordinary Hebrew way to say ‘I have something’ is by the periphrasis ‘there is something to me,’ but we could not legitimately conclude from this philological fact that the Hebrew language

18

Chapter 1

lacks the capacity to speak of possession.” 61 Collins goes on to comment that “the right way to do theological word study is not to suppose that words always mean the same thing, or that they have a one-to-one relationship with concepts; rather, we want to see what the use of a particular word (its ‘sense’) contributes to our understanding of the thing being talked about (the ‘referent’). 62 Neither does the fact that the biblical authors were primarily interested in the meaning rather than the manner of God’s working in creation imply that they drew no distinction between the agency of God expressed in the regularities of nature and the agency of God as expressed in mighty deeds especially revelatory of God’s will. It is precisely the fact that such events imply a qualitatively different type of divine action that allows them to function as dramatic expressions of God’s intentions and plans. For example, a great deal of the significance of Issac’s birth to Abraham and Sarah is that they were far advanced beyond the years of child-bearing, yet God intervenes to bring about an event they are inclined to think of as naturally impossible. Abraham’s first reaction to God’s announcement that Sarah will bear a son is to fall on the ground and laugh in disbelief that the regular order of physical events, that is to say nature, could be so abrogated. 63 In a similar vein of argument, Brian Davies cites numerous other examples which make it clear that the biblical writers had an apprehension of natural order that allowed them to distinguish between different expressions of God’s agency in the world. 64 Occasionalism and the Biblical Data If occasionalism is to be judged an adequate philosophical expression of how the biblical writers understood the world and God’s agency within that world then its proponents must be prepared to argue that the biblical authors did not believe that created things possess causal powers. The problem occasionalists face is that numerous texts, both directly and indirectly, make clear that the biblical writers regard created things as having, by virtue of God’s creation of them, certain properties and causal powers. It is not difficult to find texts of the Old Testament era in which Hebrew and Greek terms such as ‘kōah’ and ‘δύναμις’ are used to refer causal powers that reside in created entities. For example, in Deuteronomy 8:17-18 the Israelites are warned about viewing their success as the result of the power and might of their hands and admonished to remember that it is God who is the source of their powers. The intention of the author is not to assert that people do not have causal powers, he clearly assumes that they do, but rather to remind his readers that the ultimate source of their powers is God. Similarly, in Genesis 31:29 Laban informs Jacob that it is within his power to harm Jacob, but that he has been warned by God not to exercise that power.

Divine Agency, Miracles, and the Biblical Data

19

Further, numerous texts make clear that created entities other than humans are viewed as having causal powers that spring from their essence or nature. Thus, for example, we find passages that describe food as imparting strength, passages which warn that overindulgence in alcohol causes intoxication, passages which view rain as the cause of growth, and passages in which we are told that it is the nature of something that causes it to bring forth what it does or to reproduce after its own kind. 65 Neither, as Collins points out, is it difficult to find New Testament texts that refer to the causal powers of created entities. In Matthew 7:16-18, Jesus takes for granted that his listeners will agree that it is impossible for thorn bushes to produce grapes or for a bad [sick] tree to produce good fruit. The shared assumption between Jesus and his audience is that grapevines, by virtue of what God has created them to be, have a natural causal power to produce grapes which is not possessed by other plants, and that good, that is to say healthy, trees have a natural ability to produce fruit that is not shared by bad, that is to say sick, trees. A few verses later in Matthew 7:24-27 we find this assumption stated even more explicitly by Jesus in his parable regarding the wise man who built his house on a rock foundation, as contrasted with the foolish man who built his house on a sand foundation. It is because rock has certain properties not possessed by sand that makes it a better foundation for a house intended to weather storms. It is because the house is founded on the rock, and can thus depend on the rock’s natural power to withstand flood conditions, that the house will not fall. Like Jesus, Paul takes for granted, and shares with his audience, the view that created things have their own unique causal powers that set them apart from other created things. In addressing Gentile converts to Christianity, Paul likens them to branches of a wild olive tree that would not normally be able to grow on a cultivated olive tree and contrasts them to the Jews, the branches which would normally grow on such a tree. Paul makes the observation that, because of their unbelief, some of the normal branches have been broken off and the wild branches grafted into the tree in their place, thus being able with the remaining normal branches to “become a partaker of the root and fatness of the [cultivated] olive tree” Rom. 11:17. Paul warns the Gentile Christians against undue pride or feeling themselves superior to the Jews. He writes, if they [the Jews] do not continue in unbelief, [they] will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree. (Rom. 11:23-24)

20

Chapter 1

Clearly, what underlies Paul’s metaphor is the belief that wild olive trees differ in their nature and causal powers from cultivated olive trees. Thus, if wild branches are to be grafted into the cultivated tree this requires some external agency to supplement the natural powers of the wild branches. 66 Occasionalists might be tempted to respond that there are many texts which emphasize God’s intimate involvement in His creation. We read, for example in Jer. 1:5 that God formed Jeremiah in his mother’s womb, and in Hebrews 1:3 that Christ upholds all creation. The problem with interpreting texts such as these in an occasionalist manner is twofold. First, the claim that God is intimately involved in creation does not imply the non-existence of secondary created causes. The emphasis of such texts is upon God’s involvement in a creation that is entirely dependent upon Him. Given this emphasis, the fact that such texts make no mention of instrumentalities through which God may have worked constitutes no reason to think that the authors of these texts had no belief in the existence of such instrumentalities. Second, insisting that such passages be read as demonstrating that the biblical authors had no conception of secondary created causes makes it impossible to do justice to numerous Scriptural texts. These texts, both in their explicit ascription of causal powers to created things, and in the presuppositions underlying their communicative intent, make clear that biblical authors believed that, although God is the primary cause of all that exists, created things nevertheless have causal powers. 67 I conclude that the biblical data does not support, much less require, occasionalism as a viable model of divine agency. The acknowledged emphasis of the biblical authors on God’s intimate involvement with creation and its complete dependence upon Him is consistent with recognizing causal powers in created things. That the biblical authors did recognize such secondary causal powers is evidenced in numerous texts. Deism and the Biblical Data This brings us to the question of whether deism can be judged an adequate philosophical expression of how biblical authors understood the world and God’s agency within it. I have already argued that these authors regarded created things as possessing, by virtue of God’s creation of them, certain properties and causal powers. The question then is whether they viewed God as working exclusively through secondary causes in accomplishing His purposes. It seems clear that these authors thought of God as acting not simply through the instrumentality of secondary created causes but also on occasion in a direct, qualitatively different manner. Numerous passages in both the Old and New Testament support this conclusion.

Divine Agency, Miracles, and the Biblical Data

21

In the Old Testament there are abundant texts which depict the natural powers of created things being surpassed by special divine action. As has already been noted, Sarah and Abraham’s initial reaction to God’s promise of a son is portrayed as one of hilarious disbelief, since Sarah is no longer naturally capable of bearing children. That she is able to conceive is clearly taken to be the result of God acting in a qualitatively different manner than He usually does, so as to produce an event that would not otherwise occur. Similarly, there are texts which speak of God’s Spirit coming upon people and enabling them to do what is otherwise beyond their natural powers. Thus, for example, in Numbers 11:25 we read of seventy elders of Israel who, “when the Spirit rested upon them . . . prophesied, although they never did so again.” Collins notes that an example of Old Testament authors drawing a distinction between God as acting directly, rather than instrumentally, is found in the account of the Philistines’ capture of the ark of the covenant and its subsequent return (1 Sam. 5-6). 68 The Philistines, having captured the ark, are finding themselves beset with disease. They are concerned that God may be directly inflicting disease upon them as a punishment for their possession of the ark. The Philistines decide to put the ark on a cart drawn by two milk cows. If the cows, as would be their natural inclination, return home to their suckling calves then the Philistines will know that, as regards the disease, “it is not His [God’s] hand that struck us—it happened to us by chance” (1 Sam. 6:9) If, however, contrary to their nature, the cows haul the cart straight to Beth Shem´esh, Israelite territory entirely unfamiliar to the bovines, then this indicates that the disease plaguing the Philistines is being directly caused by God. 69 There are also numerous New Testament texts which depict the natural powers of created things being surpassed by special divine action. It is clear, for example, that Scriptural accounts of Jesus’ conception and resultant birth portray it as the result of a qualitatively special divine action. Mary, puzzled concerning how she a virgin is to conceive, is told by Gabriel that “the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you.” (Lk. 1:34-35) Joseph, very aware that virgins do not in the natural course of events conceive, is minded to quietly break the engagement. (Mt. 1:18-20) He is divinely reassured, however, that Mary has become pregnant not through natural means, but rather by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Mt. 1:20) In many instances, the New Testament authors take for granted that readers will recognize certain events as being the result of God acting in a qualitatively different way than He usually does. Thus when the disciples are in a boat striving to make way against a strong headwind and Jesus, who had been left behind, approaches them walking on the water “they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure, and marvelled” (Mk. 6:51) Similarly,

22

Chapter 1

in another instance when Jesus by a spoken word calms the storm which is threatening to capsize their boat, the disciples “were afraid, and marvelled, saying to one another, ‘Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!’”(Lk. 8:25) Although it is not explicitly stated, it is clear that the ground of the disciples’ wonder is their experience of God acting in a qualitatively different manner than they have previously experienced. In other instances New Testament authors explicitly affirm that God has worked in ways that are beyond the natural powers of created beings. Nicodemus views Jesus as a teacher with divine authority on the grounds that “no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” (Jn. 3:2) Similarly, Peter, having healed a man crippled from birth, assures witnesses that it was not by any human power that the man was healed. (Acts 3:12) Examples such as these make it abundantly clear that the biblical authors thought of God as acting not solely through the instrumentality of secondary created causes but also, on occasion, in a direct qualitatively different manner. The biblical data does not, therefore, support deism as a viable model of divine agency. Supernaturalism and the Biblical Data Even so summary and examination as has been undertaken reveals that the authors of Christian Scripture, although not possessing a developed philosophical account of divine agency, viewed God as acting both directly and indirectly in creation. Implicit in their thinking is the model of divine agency that I have termed supernaturalism. These authors stress the radical dependence of the world upon God, yet also recognize that created things have natures from which flow genuine secondary causal powers, for example the power of a wheat plant to produce seeds that will give rise to new wheat plants. They conceive God as working through the instrumentality of these secondary causes, but also affirm that there are occasions where God acts directly. Such direct interventions give rise to wonderful events that would not naturally occur in the outworking of secondary causes and which are taken as especially revelatory disclosures of God’s presence and intentions. These authors thus display an implicitly supernaturalist understanding of divine agency in creation. They endorse a general teleology which they attribute to God’s creation and sustaining of a physical world, whose entities have natural powers. It is the nature of food to nourish, sleep to restore, and plants and animals to reproduce after their own kind. God is to be revered and thanked as the creator and upholder of all good things. The biblical authors also recognize, however, a much more specific form of divine agency. God is thought sometimes to intervene directly in the course of nature at particular times and places in order to reveal his purposes in a clearer and

Divine Agency, Miracles, and the Biblical Data

23

more detailed manner than would otherwise be possible. The events arising from such interventions are taken as especially revelatory signs of His presence and purposes. Thus the writers of the New Testament view Jesus’ resurrection as the result of God directly and powerfully intervening in nature and accord it special revelatory significance as a sign of God’s validation of Jesus’ status and ministry. CONCLUSION The brief consideration of broad philosophical models of divine agency and their relation to the biblical data undertaken in this chapter allows us to draw three important conclusions that bear on our task in chapter 2 of exploring how a miracle is best philosophically defined. First, certain events described by the biblical writers—whether one accepts that these events actually occurred or not—are taken as providing paradigm examples of what it would be for an event to be a miracle. It will not do, therefore, to suggest that philosophical conceptions of miracle can be cut free from how these writers viewed such events. Second, it is evident that the biblical authors conceive God as acting both directly and indirectly in the world. It is thus clear they are implicitly committed to the model of divine agency I have termed supernaturalism. Third, these authors attach special revelatory significance to events which God is viewed as having caused directly. Such events are understood by them not simply as exhibiting the power of God but as signs disclosing His presence and intentions in particular historical situations. This means that if we are to do justice to the concept of miracle we must situate our definition in a model of divine agency that views a miracle as involving supernatural intervention into the usual course of nature. It also means that conceiving of a miracle as an unusual event cannot be allowed to eclipse the importance of conceiving it as an event that reveals in a special and specific way the presence and purposes of God. It is with these requirements in mind that we take up in chapter 2 the task of developing a philosophically precise definition that will serve to guide our subsequent discussion. NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Malebranche, Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion, 115-116. Malebranche, The Search after Truth and Elucidations of the Search after Truth, 225. Ibid. 662. Saunders, Divine Agency and Modern Science, 109. Ibid. 31. Corner, Signs of God, 10. Mackay, The Clockwork Image, 57.

24

Chapter 1

8. Sharp, “Miracles and the ‘Laws of Nature,’” 2. 9. Westermann, Elements of Old Testament Theology, 101-102. 10. Ibid. 56-57. 11. Berkouwer, The Providence of God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1952), 155. 12. Ibid. 157. 13. Kuyper, E Voto, I, 240, quoted in Berkouwer, The Providence of God, 196. 14. Berkouwer, The Providence of God, 211. 15. Ibid. 214. 16. Ibid. 204. 17. As in the case of Berkouwer and Kuyper, one associates explicit endorsements of this theological position with thinkers in the Calvinist tradition, but scholars in other theological traditions often find themselves navigating into what look like occasionalist waters. Karl Rahner’s transcendental Thomism is at a great remove from Berkouwer’s Calvinism, but Rahner is far from clear that what believers call miracles or special providences, that is to say special divine acts, need involve any qualitatively different kind of causation than holds for nonmiraculous events. He writes we ask whether God appears in his world in a tangible way, whether, for example, he hears prayers or works signs, intervenes in history with his power, and so on. When to the extent that we are religious persons we answer these questions in the affirmative, this does not mean however that what is immediately tangible in this ‘intervention’ does not exist in a functional relationship with the world or that it could not be explained causally. Outside of a religious and transcendental relationship to God and in certain circumstances it might not be able to be incorporated into this functional relationship because of the fact that it is disregarded as something not yet explained and as something justifiably left out of account, but not because it is in principle removed from the causal relationships of the world. . . . The moment I experience myself as a transcendental subject in my orientation to God, and the moment I accept this concrete world in all its concreteness and in spite of all the functional interconnectedness of all of its elements, accept it as the concrete world in which my concrete relationship to the absolute ground of my existence unfolds historically for me and I actualize it in freedom, then within this subjective transcendental relationship to God . . . [the event, (Rahner uses the example of regarding a ‘good idea’ as coming from God)] receives objectively a quite definite and positive significance. Hence I can and must say: it is willed by God in this positive significance as a moment of the one world established in freedom by its ground as the world of my subjective relationship to God, and in this sense it is [a special divine action] of God. Of course it could be objected against this that in this way everything can be regarded as a special providence, as an intervention of God, presupposing only that I accept the concrete constellation of my life and of the world in such a way that it becomes a positive salvific concretization of my transcendental relationship to God in freedom. But against this objection we can simply ask the counter-question: Why, then, may this not be the case? (Emphasis added). Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 87-89. 18. Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 71. 19. Deism, Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04679b.htm (Accessed Oct 17, 2012). 20. Ibid. 21. Wollaston, Religion of Nature Delineated, 179. Unlike Wollaston, the majority of seventeenth and eighteenth-century thinkers known as deists accepted a definition of miracle as a divine intervention into the natural order. As a result, they typically, though not invariably, rejected the occurrence of miracles. Wollaston presents us, however, with an early example of how someone who claims that God acts exclusively through secondary causes can nevertheless attempt to make room for the concept of miracle.

Divine Agency, Miracles, and the Biblical Data

25

22. Perhaps this explains why some authors seem to embrace both positions at once. Richard Bube, who as we shall see is prepared to defend the orthodoxy of a paper which attempts to provide a complete explanation of the Virgin Birth in terms of secondary natural causes, elsewhere writes To achieve his purposes in the world, God does not intervene in the world as though he were normally absent and needed to make his presence felt in an independently existing reality. To perform a miracle God does not break his natural laws; such laws are our human descriptions of the normal way in which God’s activity in the world manifests itself. Such laws are our inventions; they are descriptive and not prescriptive.When it is realized that the very existence of the world from moment to moment depends upon the creative and sustaining power of God, that no natural law has any power of its own to continue, that no ‘expected’ circumstance has any ability to bring itself into being, we come to the conclusion that God’s activity in a miracle is not qualitatively different from God’s activity in natural phenomena. In bringing to pass the natural phenomena that lead to our scientific description in the law of gravity or the laws of electromagnetic radiation, God acts freely and continuously, He is not constrained by these laws, as if he had to meddle with them to produce a different result. At rare times and in accordance with his specific purpose, he acts freely to produce what the world interprets as a miracle. Bube, Putting It All Together, 70. Such a passage might well have been written by someone who embraces occasionalism. 23. Kessel, “A Proposed Biological Interpretation of the Virgin Birth,” 129-136. 24. Bube, “In Defense of Edward Kessel,” 64. 25. Berry, “The Virgin Birth of Christ,” 108-109. 26. Berry, “A Response to Addinall,” 77. 27. Judge, “How Not to Think about Miracles,” 98. 28. Signs of God, 44. 29. Van Till, “Science and Christian Theology as Partners in Theorizing,” 234. Van Till does not the suggestion that his view amounts to deism but it is nevertheless true that the position he espouses is essentially that deism. Thus he writes that “in contrast to all forms of episodic creationism, . . . I envision no gaps (formed by missing capabilities) in the Creation’s formational economy-ontological gaps of the sort that would necessitate occasional episodes of form-imposing supernatural intervention in order to actualize at least some of the structures and life forms that comprise the Creation. “Is the Creation’s Formation Economy Incomplete?: A Response to Jay Wesley Richards,” 114. 30. Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 163. 31. Wiles, God’s Action in the World, 28. 32. Wiles, Faith and the Mystery of God, 26. 33. As Gwynne notes, Wiles seems erroneously to assume that poetic language is necessarily non-literal and that symbolic language necessarily lacks reference to reality. Special Divine Action, 34. 34. Kaufman, “On the Meaning of “Act of God,” 191. 35. There is an unfortunate tendency on the part of many thinkers, especially scientisttheologians, to elevate the claim that the regularity of nature can be understood as expressing the general providence of God into an absolute prohibition on miracles. Thus Gwynne notes the willingness of many authors to insist that science dictates to theology what is and is not possible for God. Special Divine Action, 250, note 25. 36. Kasper, Jesus the Christ, 93. 37. Ibid. 92. 38. Ibid. 90-91. 39. Macquarrie, Christology Revisited, 38. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 39.

26

Chapter 1

43. I do not take myself at this point to be offering a developed or nuanced definition of miracle, but rather making the point that, for the supernaturalist, the notion of divine intervention in the natural order is a key component of whether an event should be regarded as a miracle. 44. Collins, The God of Miracles, 36-37. 45. Schwöbel, “Divine Agency and Providence,” 229. 46. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Bk. 6, 18. 47. Ibid. Bk. 9, 18. 48. See, for example, Houston, Reported Miracles, 13-16. 49. Aquinas, Summa Theologica Question 110, Art. 4. 50. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk. 3, Chapter 99. 51. Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, 594. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 594-595. 54. Ibid. 595. 55. Ward, “Believing in Miracles,” 742. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid. 744. 58. For a comprehensive defense of this claim see Collins, The God of Miracles. 59. Gwynne, Special Divine Action: Key Issues in the Contemporary Debate 60. Unpacking the philosophical import of this biblical mentality must be done carefully, in an exegetically responsible way. As Collins notes, If we are going to ask philosophical questions of the Bible responsibly, we must make the effort to ascertain the ‘with-respect-to-whatness’ of the biblical statements (that is, what questions were they actually trying to answer, and in what realm are they making truth-claims?), and to relate those statements to other biblical statements (being cautious of their communicative intents) and to the ways in which humans reason. . . . Good philosophy, like good theology, depends in the first place on careful attention to how words express meaning and how texts work to communicate. The God of Miracles, 53. 60. The Hebrew word ţebą, which is translated ‘nature’ does not appear in the biblical material and is not found in a literary source prior to the Mishnaic period. Collins, The God of Miracles, 63. 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid. 65. 63. Genesis 17: 15-17, Genesis 18:10-15. 64. See, for example, Davies, “Miracles,” 105-106. 65. Collins, The God of Miracles, 67-86. 66. Ibid. 63-64. 67. Ibid. 107-119. 68. This example, and a number of others are discussed in Collins, The God of Miracles, 9397. 69. The fact that it is the Philistines who reason in this manner is beside the point. The account makes clear that the Israelites are familiar with this mode of reasoning, that is to say distinguishing between divine agency as underlying the regular working of nature and divine agency as intervening upon the regular working of nature. It also strongly suggests that the Israelites viewed the Philistines as correct in seeing God as the direct cause of the troubles they were experiencing.

Chapter Two

Defining Miracle

In chapter 1 we have seen that the concept of miracle finds its proper home in a supernaturalist model of divine agency; a model which acknowledges not only the operation of created secondary causes, but also the reality of divine interventions in the natural order. 1 Miracles reveal a God who is not simply the creator and sustainer of the universe, but who is also actively engaged with creation; a God who is willing to engage in special activity at specific times and particular places in order to achieve His purposes. The Hebrew words used to to describe resulting events are: niplā ̓ôt ̸pele ̓(wonder), ̓ôt (sign), mōpēt (portent, symbol) and gěbûrâ (act of power), and the Greek words associated with such events are: δύναμις (act of power), τέρας (portent) and σημεον (sign). 2 It is a commonplace that the English word miracle derives not from these Greek or Hebrew terms but rather from the Latin word miraculum which has as part of its meaning wonder or amazement. Despite its derivation from Latin rather than from Hebrew or Greek, the word ‘miracle’ captures the biblical idea that such events are a result of God’s direct interventive agency; occasions of wonder and amazement that serve as revelatory signs of God’s direct purposeful involvement in creation and His sovereignty over nature. 3 MIRACLES AS WONDERS AND SIGNS This suggests that an adequate definition of a miracle must do justice to two key claims. The first is that miracles are wonderful, that is to say full of wonder, in the sense that they are events which physical nature could not, at least at the time and place and way in which they occur, have produced on its own. The second is that miracles are signs; they serve to reveal in a powerful way God’s nature and purposes. 27

Chapter 2

28

Both claims have been disputed in the philosophical literature. Regarding the first claim, R.F. Holland, in a widely cited article, has argued that a miracle need not always involve an overriding of nature, but can sometimes be viewed as an unusual and religiously significant coincidence. He provides the following example: A child riding his toy motor-car strays on to an unguarded railway crossing near his house and a wheel of his car gets stuck down the side of one of the rails. An express train is due to pass with the signals in its favour and a curve in the track makes it impossible for the driver to stop his train in time to avoid any obstruction he might encounter on the crossing. The mother coming out of the house to look for her child sees him on the crossing and hears the train approaching. She runs forward shouting and waving. The little boy remains seated in his car looking downward, engrossed in the task of pedalling it free. The brakes of the train are applied and it comes to rest a few feet from the child. The mother thanks God for the miracle; which she never ceases to think of as such although, as she in due course learns, there was nothing supernatural about the manner in which the brakes of the train came to be applied. The driver had fainted, for a reason that had nothing to do with the presence of the child on the line, and the brakes were applied automatically as his hand ceased to exert pressure on the control lever. He fainted on this particular afternoon because his blood pressure had risen after an exceptionally heavy lunch during which he had quarrelled with a colleague, and the change in blood pressure caused a clot of blood to be dislodged and circulate. He fainted at the time when he did on the afternoon in question because this was the time at which the coagulation in his blood stream reached the brain. 4

Holland goes on to comment that the significance of some coincidences as opposed to others arise from their relation to human needs and hopes and fears, their effects for good or ill upon our lives. So we speak of our luck (fortune, fate, etc.) and the kind of thing that, outside religion, we call luck is in religious parlance the grace of God or a miracle of God. . . . But although a coincidence can be taken religiously as a sign and called a miracle . . . it cannot without confusion be taken as a sign of divine interference with the natural order. 5

What Holland does not take into account in making this suggestion is that those who would call such an event a miracle do not regard it simply as a coincidence. The established use of the term coincidence is to refer to noteworthy instances of fortuitous concurrence which are not causally linked. Those who would call the event a miracle are making the claim, perhaps mistakenly, perhaps not, that the event was the result of God’s purposeful action and not a mere coincidence which nature, so to speak, produced on its own. They see God as somehow specially involved, not as simply observing the outcome of the interaction of secondary causes. Christopher Hughes is

Defining Miracle

29

thus prepared to say that, if in the face of coming to understand that no supernatural intervention was required for the event to occur, the woman nevertheless insists it was a miracle, then she “could be rightly accused of having an unacceptably loose concept of a miracle,” 6 going on to assert that “if you see from the start how an event could be explained without appeal to divine intervention, you’re unlikely to believe that that event is miraculous, because you’re unlikely to believe an explanation which involves more causes than seem explanatorily necessary.” 7 Mark Corner thus seems correct in his assertion “that the ‘coincidence’ view of miracle does not . . . let us off the hook of explaining what a ‘special act of God’ is.” 8 A somewhat similar suggestion would be to suggest that a miracle could be engineered “simply by setting up the deterministic system [nature]—at its inception—to achieve the miraculous effect through the law-like progression of events.” 9 Leaving aside the fact that this suggestion requires the assumption of absolute divine determinism with all its attendant theological difficulties, this conception of a miracle requires a deistic model of divine agency that does not fit with what religious believers typically take themselves to be claiming when they call an event a miracle. In calling an event a miracle they are making the claim—correctly or incorrectly—that the event was at least partially caused by God’s direct intervention, so as to produce an event that would not otherwise occur. To revert to Holland’s example, the issue is not whether God could have conceivably produced the event by setting up the initial conditions of a deterministic physical universe at its inception, but rather what are religious believers claiming in calling the event a miracle. It seems clear from our discussion in chapter 1 that in describing an event as a miracle they are making the claim on the basis of an understanding of divine agency that is supernaturalist rather than deistic in nature. In other words, they typically view such ‘coincidences’ as the result of divine intervention, rather than the result of the determined outworking of created secondary causes. Yet another attempt to suggest that miracles should not be understood as interventions in the natural order is found in David Corner’s claim that divine agency is not synonymous with divine causation. 10 Following Arthur Danto, Corner argues that some actions of an agent are basic in the sense that no prior event is necessary in order to bring them about. 11 Thus an agent can form an intention without there being some prior event that is the cause of that intention. Similarly, an agent can act without there being some event that is the cause of that action. The origin of such intentions or acts lies not in some prior event, but rather in the agent forming the intention or performing the action. Corner holds that such basic acts are uncaused. I agree that they are uncaused in the sense that no prior event is necessary to produce them, but they are hardly uncaused in any absolute sense for they are made to happen,

30

Chapter 2

that is to say caused, by an agent. This, however, is not the central point of disagreement between Corner and myself. 12 Rather, it is his claim that a miracle, conceived as a basic action of God, or involving a basic action of God, is consistent with a complete natural explanation of the event. Thus, for example, he writes that “the possibility that God has acted, in turning . . . water into wine, is not diminished by the fact that the companion event that accompanies God’s action, namely the water’s turning into wine, has a natural explanation.” 13 Corner argues for this on the basis of asserting that in cases of human agency, for example willing one’s arm to move, such basic intentional actions are compatible with a neurophysiological account of the raising of one’s arm. 14 He argues that the reason this is so, is that the basic action of willing one’s arm to raise, is accompanied by a companion event, namely the raising of one’s arm. It is this companion event which has a complete neurophysiological explanation and which would presumably have occurred in the absence of the basic action of willing one’s arm to move. 15 Analogously, God’s willing water to turn into wine, will be accompanied by a companion event, namely the water turning into wine, which may have a completely natural explanation, and which would have occurred regardless of God’s basic action of willing it to happen. Corner is correct in his claim that divine agency must be seen as, at least in some respects, analogous to human agency, since otherwise we can have no idea of what we mean by the term. 16 Similarly, the concept of a basic action is helpful in understanding the difference between agent causation and event causation. Unfortunately, however, his account of human agency commits him to an untenable epiphenomenalism, which in turn vitiates his account of miracle. In the example he gives of human agency, Corner talks of two events; the first is the basic action of intentionally willing one’s arm to rise, the second is the companion event of one’s arm raising. According to Corner, these two events are entirely distinct, with the second event having a complete neurophysiological explanation that will make no reference to one’s intention to move one’s arm. It appears then that one’s intention to move one’s arm, although perhaps a basic action, has no influence on what actually occurs in the physical world. It turns out on Corner’s account to be a happy accident that the basic action of willing one’s arm to raise, coincides with the physical event of one’s arm raising. The reason this is so is that an intention, qua intention, can play no role in a neurophysiological account of one’s arm raising. If, as Corner is prepared to say, there is a complete neurophysiological account of the raising of one’s arm, then that event was going to happen whether or not one intended it to happen and the basic action of intending it to happen was irrelevant to whether it would take place or not. As an account of human agency, Corner’s view is, to say the least, implausible, since it

Defining Miracle

31

implies that the basic acts of agents can have no influence on what actually takes place in the world. 17 Analogously, his account of miracle seems to imply that what God wills has no influence on what takes place in the world; the water was going to turn into wine, whether or not God as a basic action willed it to. This epiphenomenalism as regards human and divine agency can, of course, be avoided if one is prepared to hold that the basic act of intentionally willing an event to occur can affect the material world. Corner, to his credit, entertains that possibility in other parts of his work. 18 He fails to realize, however, that agency can find no grip on the material world if complete explanations of events in terms of natural causes are always available. He is correct in his view that human agency provides a model for thinking about divine agency, but incorrect in his assumption that genuine human agency is consistent with complete neurophysiological accounts of intentional bodily movement. What this means is that Corner must take the possibility of mindbody interaction more seriously, since genuine human agency requires some form of dualism. 19 To do so, however, is to admit that immaterial agents intervene on the physical world, and that, to the degree that miracles are taken as analogous to human instances of agency, they too should be viewed as interventions in the physical order. Regarding the second claim, namely that religious believers in calling an event a miracle are making a claim about its causal origin, Christine Overall has argued that “the term ‘miracle’ [should] be taken to mean a ‘break in the space-time causal sequence,’ a definition that does not presuppose transcendent agency, and is neutral with respect to whether or not the break is created by God.” 20 This, however, is to ignore how the term is actually employed and to employ her own private stipulative definition. There is, of course, a place for stipulative definitions, but they are hardly adequate when one is trying to capture how a complex concept is actually understood by those employing it. As C.S. Lewis notes, language is not an infallible guide, but it contains, with all its defects, a good deal of stored insight and experience. If you begin by flouting it, it has a way of avenging itself later on. We had better not follow Humpty Dumpty in making words mean whatever we please. 21

The problem with Overall’s definition is that she fails to do justice to the fact that, in asserting the existence of a miracle religious believers are not just claiming that an unusual event occurred. They are also making a claim about the cause of the event. Just as calling a corpse a homicide victim entails the claim that a murderer was the cause of the victim’s death, calling an event a miracle entails the claim that a supernatural agent was the cause of the event. The Resurrection, for example, is understood by Christians not simply as

32

Chapter 2

Jesus coming back to life, but as God raising him from the dead. To call an event a miracle is to make a claim about its cause, and not simply to observe that it is somehow unusual. It seems clear, therefore, that any philosophically adequate definition must convey both the understanding that miracles are wonders, that is to say supernaturally caused events beyond the capacity of nature to produce, and the understanding that they are signs, that is to say events which especially reveal God’s nature and purposes. 22 We turn now to the task of elaborating and defending a philosophical definition of miracle that does justice to these two key elements of what it is for an event to be properly understood as miraculous. DEFINING A MIRACLE I have defended the view that the concept of miracle finds its proper home in a supernaturalist model of divine agency. Key to the concept are the requirements that a miracle is a supernaturally caused event nature would not on its own produce, and that it serves as a revelatory sign of divine purposes. This implies that miracles are in some sense unusual and religiously significant events. The primary sense in which miracles are unusual is that they are supernaturally caused events that unaided physical nature would not otherwise produce. They are, therefore, extraordinary, inasmuch as they constitute exceptions to what would occur were nature left to itself. Whether miracles being considered unusual in this sense implies that they must be easily recognizable or thought to occur only extremely rarely are questions that we will, for the moment, postpone examining. The religious significance of miracles flows from the fact that they are events which reveal and further God’s purposes. Contra Overall, miracles are not understood as dysteleological surds frustrating our ability to comprehend nature, but rather as events which show forth God’s ongoing involvement in creation and His willingness to be involved in the particularities of history. The fact that they are events beyond the capacity of nature to produce on its own reveals the existence of an agent superior to nature, and the contexts in which they occur enable them to serve as revelatory of God’s nature and purposes. Drawing together these various elements, I define a miracle as an unusual and religiously significant event which reveals and furthers God’s purposes, is beyond the power of physical nature to produce in the circumstances in which it occurs, and is caused by an agent who transcends physical nature. I turn now to the task of further elaborating this definition and defending it from objections.

Defining Miracle

33

A question that arises from the claim that a miracle is caused by an agent who transcends nature is whether this agent must be God or whether a miracle might be caused by a lesser created agent. How one answers this question depends on how one defines nature and on what additional supernatural agents exist. If, following Aquinas, one identifies nature with the totality of creation then it seems to follow logically that only God can cause a miracle, since God is the only agent that transcends nature. On this view, angels as created beings do not transcend nature, but rather are part of nature. They might be able to intervene in the physical realm to cause events that would not otherwise occur, but such events would not properly be called miracles since they were caused by created beings exercising their natural powers. 23 If, however, one is willing to limit the term ‘nature’ to what is physical, or to employ the term ‘physical nature’ then a miracle might conceivably be done by an agent other than God. Relative to physical nature, angels are transcendent or supernatural, even though they are created beings. It seems best, therefore, at least in the context of our present discussion to employ the term ‘nature’ in the sense of physical nature. This allows us to do justice both to the biblical data that agents other than God may be the direct cause of a miracle 24 and to the way in which the term is used by contemporary religious believers. We have noted that the primary sense in which miracles are considered unusual is that they are events that unaided physical nature would not otherwise produce. They are, therefore, extraordinary, inasmuch as they constitute exceptions to what would occur were nature left to itself. A question which was previously deferred but which must now be raised is whether the extraordinary quality of a miracle has to be recognizable. Might an event be an exception to what an unaided physical nature would produce, yet not be recognizable as such? David Hume, certainly thought so, asserting that a miracle may either be discovered by men or not. This alters not its nature and essence. The raising of a house or ship into the air is a visible miracle. The raising of a feather, when the wind wants ever so little of a force requisite for that purpose, is as real a miracle, though not so sensible with regard to us. 25

Without denying that supernatural interventions into nature can occur without being easily recognizable as such, I suggest that the term ‘miracle’ should be reserved for events that very clearly and very directly can be interpreted as the result of supernatural intervention. The justification for this is that it allows a distinction, commonly drawn by religious believers, between events regarded as instances of special providence, that is to say events which plausibly but not compellingly suggest supernatural intervention, and events regarded as miracles, that is to say events which compellingly suggest supernatural intervention. For example, getting better from a cold, after being

34

Chapter 2

prayed for, in half a day, rather than the six days one usually takes to recover, might plausibly be viewed by a religious believer as due to supernatural intervention, but it scarcely compels such an interpretation. On the other hand, if immediately upon receiving prayer, a patient in the last stages of terminal cancer were to be completely healed and regain full strength in a matter of ten seconds, this would much more compellingly suggest supernatural intervention. Bernard Ramm seems, therefore, correct in his assertion that “the qualia of the miraculous is of such a nature as to strongly and clearly suggest to the human mind the presence of the supernatural.” 26 That miracles are best conceived as events which physical nature would not produce in the absence of supernatural intervention has led many thinkers to suggest that miracles, by definition, can be thought of as occurring only extremely rarely. Hume, for example, claims there must “be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation.” 27 This seems to suggest that a miracle must contradict the whole course of human experience and thus be an absolutely unique event. It is true that miracles constitute an exception to the usual course of nature in the absence of supernatural intervention. It is also true that if God were to be constantly intervening in nature it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to say how nature behaves in the absence of such intervention. This scarcely implies, however, that miracles can only occur extremely rarely. We routinely recognize instances of what Del Ratzsch has termed ‘counterflow,’ that is to say, events produced by human agents intervening to alter the course nature would otherwise take. 28 There seems no reason, therefore, to suggest that miracles, conceived as instances of counterflow produced by supernatural agency, can only be recognized if they are extremely rare events. 29 The question of how often events plausibly viewed as miracles occur is an empirical question that should not be avoided by insisting that, by definition, miracles must be conceived as occurring only extremely rarely. That miracles have religious significance derives from the fact that they are supernaturally caused events that further God’s purposes in creation. If an event is to be called a miracle then it must be possible to interpret it as contributing towards a divine purpose. Miracles, therefore, are not events which are contrary to nature, but events which fulfil nature. As Richard Swinburne notes, an event which is a miracle is not in accordance with the nature of the objects involved in it, [but] it is nevertheless in accordance with the divinely ordained natural order as a whole. . . . Miracles are events with a point in the overall scheme of things and so in a sense very regular. 30

In a similar vein, John Henry Newman writes that “a miracle is a deviation from the subordinate for the sake of the superior system, and is very far

Defining Miracle

35

indeed from improbable, when a great moral end cannot be affected except at the expense of physical regularity.” 31 An objection which has been raised by David and Randall Basinger is that religious significance should not be seen as a definitional criterion, since there appears to be no set of objective independent criteria by which the theist can determine in all cases whether an event contributes to some holy, just purpose. Rather, the theist may in some cases be able to declare that an event contributes to a holy purpose only after she has determined that it has been caused by God. 32

The Basingers seem to be suggesting that, in defining a miracle as an event with religious significance, the theist is arguing in a circle, since, at least in some cases, it is only on the basis of her belief that an unusual event was directly caused by God that she accords it religious significance. This objection seeks to take into account that there may be instances where we are willing to identify an event as a miracle, even though its religious significance is not immediately apparent. Nevertheless, it appears misguided for several reasons. First, it assumes that miracles are only performed by God. This, as has already been argued, seems an unduly restrictive use of the term miracle, and does not take into consideration the biblical data which suggests that agents other than God may sometimes be the direct cause of a miracle. Second, it fails to take into account that to call an event a miracle is to claim that it can be, either immediately or in the longer term, legitimately interpreted as furthering God’s purposes. When believers call an event a miracle they are not simply claiming that it is a dramatic exception to the usual course of nature, but that it was produced by a transcendent agent acting to further divine purposes. Miracles occur and are recognized in a context. They are, in Newman’s words, presented to us, not as unconnected and unmeaning occurrences, but as holding a place in an extensive plan of Divine government, completing the moral system, connecting Man and his Maker, and introducing him to the means of securing his happiness in another and eternal state of being. 33

Third, both Old Testament and New Testament writers are sensitive to the fact that interventions into nature might be produced by transcendent agents who are in opposition to God’s will. Jesus warns his followers of false prophets capable of performing great signs and portents (false miracles) which might deceive even the elect if they are not careful. He recognizes the point made by the Basingers, namely that in the short term it may not always be easy to discern whether a supernaturally caused event should be regarded as a miracle (Mt. 24:24), but insists that the results of such events, judged

36

Chapter 2

over a period of time, that is to say in biblical terminology their fruits, will reveal whether such intervention were in accord with God’s purposes and thus genuine, rather than false, miracles (Mt. 7:15-23). Religious significance should not, however, be understood in an restrictively narrow sense. Psychologically, it may be easier to ‘see’ a particular event as having religious significance if it occurs in an explicitly religious context and can be understood as directly confirming a specific point of doctrine. This, however, is to forget that a great deal of Christian doctrine flows out of God’s desire to heal the sick, comfort the discouraged, help the poor and reach out to those who do not know His love. Thus, when Jesus is asked by John the Baptist’s disciples whether he, Jesus, is the Messiah, he points to the fact that he is performing miraculous works of healing and preaching the good news of God’s love. Jesus makes it explicit that he is the prophesied Messiah, but this is in the context not simply of conveying a propositional truth to be intellectually entertained, but also existentially exemplifying that truth. (Lk. 7:22-34) This makes it clear that God is concerned not just with conveying doctrinal truth, but also with the welfare of His creatures. God, in His mercy, may perform a miracle even if the recipient of that miracle, or the human instrument through whom God performs the miracle, is mistaken on points of doctrine. Miracles do witness to the nature and purposes of God, but it is a mistake to think that in general their chief purpose is to provide an ironclad guarantee of some point of disputed doctrine. I say in general because there are instances where the chief purpose of a miracle does seems to be the direct and immediate validation of a truth claim. For example, Elijah, on Mount Carmel, challenges the prophets of Baal to a contest of who can call down fire from heaven, in order to persuade the people of Israel that their God is the only true God. (1 Kin. 18:21-39). These instances are rare, however. I have defined a miracle as an unusual and religiously significant event which reveals and furthers God’s purposes, is beyond the power of physical nature to produce, and is caused by an agent who transcends physical nature. Many philosophers would claim that this definition is incomplete, inasmuch as it makes no mention of miracles being violations of the laws of nature. The view that violation of the laws of nature is a conditio sine qua non for an event being a miracle seems to stem from Hume’s influential essay ‘Of Miracles.’ His claim that “a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature” is an essential element of his argument attacking the rationality of believing in miracles on the basis of testimonial evidence. Significantly, however, many writers prior to Hume did not define miracles as violating the laws of nature. 34 Hume’s claim seems based on the assumption that miracles, defined as events which would not occur except through a transcendent agent intervening in nature to produce an event which would not otherwise happen, can

Defining Miracle

37

only take place through violating the laws of nature. Put differently, the claim that miracles must violate the laws of nature is advanced as a presumed implication of the more fundamental claim that miracles are the result of supernatural intervention in nature. A central thesis of this book is that this presumed implication does not hold, and that miracles should not, therefore, be defined as violating the laws of nature. I turn now to defending this claim. MIRACLES AND THE LAWS OF NATURE It is commonly held that, insofar as miracles are conceived as involving a dramatic overriding of the usual course of nature by a supernatural agent, they must violate the laws of nature. The presumption, as we have noted, seems to be that the only way a supernatural overriding of the normal course of nature can take place is by violating some law of nature. If this presumption is correct two problems immediately arise. First, it is far from clear that the concept of a law of nature being violated is logically coherent. Three major types of theories are proposed as accounts of the laws of nature: (1) regularity theories, (2) nomic necessity theories, and (3) causal disposition theories. 35 On all these theories the concept of a violation of a law of nature is problematic. 36 On regularity theories, laws of nature are universal generalizations made on the basis of, and summarily descriptive of, what actually happens in nature. Such theories imply that no event could violate a law of nature, since laws of nature are understood simply to describe what actually happens. 37 On nomic necessity theories, laws of nature are taken to describe necessary connections between events. Such theories regard laws of nature not simply as statements of the actual course of events but as universal generalizations that support counterfactual conditionals, namely what must take place if such and such occurs. Again, the implication is that no event could violate a law of nature, since, as William Craig notes, “so long as natural laws are universal generalizations based on experience, they must take account of anything that happens and so would be revised should an event occur which the law does not encompass.” 38 On causal disposition theories, laws of nature express metaphysically necessary truths regarding causal dispositions possessed by physical things. Such theories hold that physical things have natural tendencies or powers that are a result of their nature and that the laws of nature describe these tendencies or powers. On this view, the laws of nature are expressions of objects’ essential natures. 39 Given these natures, they will have essential tendencies to behave in certain ways. 40 For example, sodium chloride has an atomic structure that disposes it to dissolve in water, all other things being equal and no other causal forces intervening. If something does not dissolve

38

Chapter 2

in water under such conditions then it is not salt but something other than salt. 41 As in the case of regularity theories and nomic necessity theories, causal disposition theories imply that no event could violate a law of nature, since laws of nature are taken to express metaphysically necessary truths. 42 On all three major theories the idea that a law of nature can be violated seems, to use Antony Flew’s strong language, logically scandalous, since laws of nature are conceived as exceptionless. 43 Defining miracles as involving violation of the laws of nature seems to commit one to the claim that miracles are logically impossible, inasmuch as they have to be conceived as exceptions to exceptionless regularities. 44 It comes as no surprise, therefore, to find writers insisting that the term ‘miracle’ “cannot consistently name or describe any real or alleged event.” 45 Second, even if sense can be made of the idea of violation of the laws of nature, the claim that a miracle implies such violation opens the door to Humean ‘balance of probabilities’ type arguments which pit the evidence supporting belief in the laws of nature against the evidence supporting belief in miracles. We thus get arguments along the following lines: 1. A miracle must be defined as violating the laws of nature. 2. Any evidence in favor of a miracle inevitably conflicts with the evidence in favor of the laws of nature. 3. The evidence in favor of a miracle cannot exceed, even in principle, the evidence in favor of the laws of nature. 4. Therefore belief in the occurrence of a miracle can never be justified. Those who accept that a miracle implies violation of the laws of nature, yet who wish to defend the rationality of belief in miracles, are forced to attack the third premise of this argument. This is not an easy task. Even if they are successful in demonstrating there could be circumstances in which there is sufficient evidence to justify belief in the occurrence of a miracle, they are forced to view this evidence as necessarily conflicting with another body of evidence we are strongly inclined to accept, namely the evidence which justifies belief in the laws of nature. It seems, however, that the assumption that divine intervention in the natural order necessarily involves violating a law of nature is incorrect. That it is mistaken can be seen by reflecting on the fact that the laws of nature do not by themselves allow the prediction or explanation of any event. 46 Scientific explanations must make reference not only to laws of nature but also to the material conditions to which the laws apply. 47 As C.E.M. Joad notes, science will never succeed in dispensing with the necessity for postulating a something which is regarded as that to which at any given moment its laws are applicable, and this something, from the very fact that it is its working and

Defining Miracle

39

consequences which scientific law maps and predicts, must itself be other than the . . . law. 48

It is, for example, impossible to predict what will happen on a billiard table by making reference solely to Newton’s laws of motion. One must also make reference to the number of balls on the table, their initial position, the condition of the felt, the angle the cue stick is held at, and so on. This means that, although we often speak as though the laws of nature explain the occurrence of an event, in and of themselves, this is not the case. C.S. Lewis makes this point, commenting that, we are in the habit of talking as if they [the laws of nature] caused events to happen; but they have never caused any event at all. The laws of motion do not set billiard balls moving: they analyse the motion after something else (say, a man with a cue, or a lurch of the liner, or, perhaps, supernatural power) has provided it. They produce no events: they state the pattern to which every event—if only it can be induced to happen—must conform, just as the rules of arithmetic state the pattern to which all transactions with money must conform—if only you can get hold of any money. Thus, in one sense the laws of Nature cover the whole field of space and time; in another, what they leave out is precisely the whole real universe—the incessant torrent of actual events which makes up true history. That must come from somewhere else. To think the laws can produce it is like thinking that you can create real money by simply doing sums. 49

This basic distinction between the laws of nature and the stuff of nature suggests that miracles can occur without violating any laws of nature. If God creates or annihilates a unit of mass/energy, or simply causes some of these units to occupy a different position, then He changes the material conditions to which the laws of nature apply. He thereby produces an event that nature would not have produced on its own but breaks no laws of nature. One would not violate or suspend the laws of motion if one were to introduce an extra ball into a group of billiard balls on a billiard table or alter the position of one of the balls already on the table, yet that action would alter the outcome of what would otherwise be expected to happen. Similarly, if God were to create ex nihilo a spermatozoon which fertilized an egg in the body of a virgin no laws of nature would be broken, yet the usual course of nature would have been overridden in such a way as to bring about an event nature would not otherwise have produced. It should be emphasized that to claim that a miracle is an event which nature is incapable of producing on its own, is not to claim that natural processes are not involved. Thus the miracle of the Virgin Birth can be seen as an event in which divine intervention combined with existent natural processes, namely the normal growth and development of a fetus during pregnancy. Lewis puts this point very helpfully when he writes,

40

Chapter 2 if God annihilates or creates or deflects a unit of matter He has created a new situation at that point. Immediately all Nature domiciles this new situation, makes it at home in her realm, adapts all other events to it. . . . If events ever come from beyond Nature . . . the moment [they] enter her realm they obey all her laws. Miraculous wine will intoxicate, miraculous conception will lead to pregnancy, inspired books will suffer all the ordinary processes of textual corruption, miraculous bread will be digested. The divine art of miracle is not an art of suspending the pattern to which events conform but of feeding new events into that pattern. It does not violate the law’s proviso, ‘If A, then B’: it says ‘But this time instead of A, A2,’ and Nature, speaking through all her laws, replies, ‘Then B2’ and naturalises the immigrant, as she well knows how. 50

Miracles, as events at least partially caused by the direct intervention of a supernatural agent in no way imply that the laws of nature are violated, since they describe not the operation of natural causes, but the operation of a supernatural cause. 51 Thus Jan Cover notes, believing in events having supernatural causes, needn’t saddle one with believing that there are false laws of nature, laws having exceptions. Miracles are so to speak ‘gaps’ in nature, occurrences having causes about which laws of nature are simply silent. The laws are true, but simply don’t speak to events caused by divine intervention. 52

There is no reason, therefore, to think that miracles involve violation of the laws of nature. Two objections are liable to be raised against this line of argument. First, it might be objected that the term ‘law of nature’ should not be understood in a technical sense but rather more colloquially as meaning simply a wellestablished regularity of nature. On this understanding a violation of a law of nature would be an event that is a dramatic exception to such a regularity. Unfortunately for the critic, this suggestion does not reflect even in a nontechnical sense how the term ‘law of nature’ is actually used. It is possible to think of exceptions to established regularities of nature that would nevertheless not be regarded as violations of the laws of nature. Consider the possible case of a woman who is a virgin and has a fertilized egg implanted in her uterus through a medical procedure. She remains a virgin and nine months later gives birth. We would hardly regard the event of her baby’s birth as involving a violation of any law of nature. The critic might protest that justice has not been done to her suggestion. Granted that we must distinguish between laws of nature and regularities of nature, it is nevertheless true that we are convinced there are established regularities of nature that in the absence of extraordinary circumstances admit of no exceptions. Could not such exceptions be plausibly viewed as violations of the laws of nature?

Defining Miracle

41

One can accept that, all other things being equal, there is good evidence that some regularities of nature suffer no exceptions and that virgins not giving birth falls into this category. The believer in a miracle, however, contends that all other things were not equal; in the instance of a miracle, God intervenes into nature to produce an event that would not otherwise occur. Those who believe in the Virgin Birth hold that it is analogous to our hypothetical case of a virgin who through medical procedures had a fertilized egg implanted in her uterus. It is analogous not in the means by which the result of a virgin birth is achieved but rather by virtue of the fact that in neither case are ‘all other things equal.’ In our hypothetical case a human agent, the doctor, intervenes to change a material situation to which the laws of nature apply thus producing an event that would not otherwise occur. In the case of the Virgin Birth, a supernatural agent, God, intervenes to change a material situation to which the laws of nature apply thus producing an event that would not otherwise occur. Both cases are exceptions to a well-established regularity of nature but in neither case are ‘all other things equal,’ and in neither case is there reason to suppose that the laws of nature were violated. 53 Second, it might be objected that on the account of miracle that has been given at least one law of nature must be broken, since the creation, annihilation, or moving of material entities by a nonphysical agent, involves the creation or destruction of energy and thus violates the Principle of the Conservation of Energy. William Stoeger takes this line, claiming that “direct divine intervention . . . would involve an immaterial agent acting on or within a material context as a cause. . . . This is not possible . . . if it were . . . energy . . . would be added to a system spontaneously and mysteriously, contravening the conservation of energy.” 54 This objection fails to take into consideration an important distinction between two forms of the Principle, however. The Principle is commonly stated either as ‘Energy can neither be created nor destroyed,’ or ‘In an isolated system the total amount of energy remains constant.’ It is routinely assumed that these two statements are logically equivalent. This assumption is false. From the proposition ‘Energy can neither be created nor destroyed,’ the proposition ‘In an isolated system the total amount of energy remains constant’ can be deduced. But from the proposition ‘In an isolated system the total amount of energy remains constant,’ the proposition ‘Energy can neither be created nor destroyed’ cannot be deduced. The latter claim involves a greater ontological commitment than the former. The significance of this distinction is considerable. Theists cannot accept the claim that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, since it not only rules out miracles but creation ex nihilo. An essential claim of theism is that God causes the universe to exist. If the universe is conceived to be composed of forms of energy, and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, then this

42

Chapter 2

claim is false. Saunders misses the point when, in response to this observation, he writes that Larmer surely overstates his case here, and his theology is decidedly suspect, not least because it is an arguably sound theistic argument to assert that the laws of nature are products of God’s creation of the world and are contingent upon. It is thus not reasonable to make retrospective claims concerning the limitation of divine freedom in creating the world out of nothing on the basis of a set of laws which have only evolved due to its establishment. 55

The point is not that God could not have created a different world with different laws of nature, but that the claim that energy can neither be created nor destroyed is logically incompatible with the claim that God created a universe composed of different forms of energy. God, it is generally agreed, cannot perform the logically impossible. It is one thing to claim that God could create a world that has a different material nature than our own, and consequently a different set of laws. It is quite another to claim that God could accomplish the logically impossible task of creating something which can neither be created nor destroyed. Saunders fails to see that, to claim that energy can neither be created nor destroyed is to pay the compliment of necessary existence to energy rather than God. Theists can, however, accept the claim that energy is conserved in an isolated system. They reject not the scientific claim that energy is conserved in an isolated system but the speculative metaphysical claim that nature is an isolated system not open to the causal influence of God. In short, they are in a position to affirm the Principle when it is formulated as a scientific law and not as a metaphysical commitment which excludes the possibility of theism. Conceiving of a miracle as involving the creation or annihilation of energy does not imply violation of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy, so long as there is good reason to adopt the scientific rather than the metaphysical form of the Principle. Accepting the occurrence of a miracle does not commit one to denying the vast body of experimental evidence supporting the claim that energy will be conserved in an isolated system. 56 Rather, it commits one to arguing that any attempt to move from the scientific formulation of the Principle to its metaphysical formulation is ill-founded. That such attempts are questionable seems evident. All that any experiment can be thought to have shown is that to the degree that a system is isolated the amount of energy in it will be conserved. This evidence is neutral regarding the further question of whether there exists something capable of creating or destroying energy. If the move from the scientific to the metaphysical form of the Principle is to be justified it must be on the grounds that there exists no evidence that energy is ever created or destroyed and that the metaphysical form provides a deep structural explanation of why the weak form holds true. This move is problematic on several counts.

Defining Miracle

43

First, the theist is able to provide an alternative deep structural explanation of the scientific form of the Principle’s truth. The theistic conception of the universe as a contingent reality in which secondary physical causes operate equally explains why the scientific form holds true. It will not do, therefore, for the critic to suggest that the claim that energy can neither be created nor destroyed is the only possible deep structural explanation of the truth of the scientific form of the Principle. Second, the metaphysical form is at odds with the Big-Bang theory of the origin of the universe. This theory is commonly interpreted as implying an absolute beginning to the mass/energy that composes the universe. 57 It is possible to accept both the scientific form of the Principle and the Big-Bang theory but it is hard to see how acceptance of the metaphysical form of the Principle is consistent with Big-Bang cosmology, since it would imply that the mass/energy making up the universe had no beginning. 58 Third, the metaphysical form of the Principle cannot be used to reject accounts of miracles. Given a positive body of evidence for miracles, it will not do to attempt to frame a balance-of-probabilities argument designed to show conflict between the experimental evidence taken to support belief in the Principle of the Conservation of Energy and the evidence in favor of miracles. The occurrence of miracles conceived as instances of creation or annihilation of energy conflicts not with any positive scientific evidence supporting belief in the Principle but rather with the negative claim that no events occur which involve the creation or annihilation of energy. If the occurrence of miracles constitutes evidence that energy can be created or destroyed, then it will not do to dismiss reports of them on the grounds that there exists no evidence that energy is ever created or destroyed. Endorsement of the metaphysical form of the Principle requires the claim that there exists no positive evidence that energy is ever created or destroyed. When faced with reports of miracles, the occurrence of which would constitute evidence that energy can be created or destroyed, it begs the question to dismiss such reports as antecedently improbable on the grounds that they imply the falsity of the metaphysical form of the Principle. One cannot adopt the metaphysical form of the Principle on the basis that there is no positive evidence against it and then use one’s acceptance of that form of the Principle to rule out miracles on the grounds that they would constitute evidence that energy can be created or destroyed. It seems evident, therefore, that attempts to move from the well-evidenced claim that, to the degree that a physical system is causally isolated, its energy will be conserved, to the speculative claim that energy can neither be created nor destroyed cannot be justified on either conceptual or empirical grounds. The claim that energy can neither be created nor destroyed pays the metaphysical compliment of necessary existence to energy rather than to God, making it clear that the metaphysical form of the Principle functions not

44

Chapter 2

simply as a statement of observed regularity in nature but rather as a defining postulate of physicalism. Insofar as acceptance of the metaphysical form of the Principle a priori rules out the possible truth of theism, and insofar as any attempt to justify its acceptance on the basis of the scientific form of the Principle fails, there exists no reason to claim that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. 59 Three further points regarding the distinction I have drawn between the metaphysical and scientific formulations of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy deserve mention. First, the only completely isolated system ever proposed is the universe, since all systems within the universe are causally affected by their surrounding physical environment. I have argued that to presuppose that the universe is an isolated system is to beg the question of whether there is a God who may choose to intervene in its workings. It seems, therefore, that theists are committed to the claim that there exist no truly isolated systems. How then, the critic might ask, can the theist accept as a law of nature that energy is conserved in an isolated system? Is not such a claim vacuous, finding no application in the physical universe? Such an objection fails to recognize that scientists routinely make reference to ideal gas laws, even though they are cognizant of the fact that no gases actually behave in such a manner. Just as an ideal gas law conveys genuine information, inasmuch as it tells us that to the degree that an actual gas resembles an ideal gas the actual gas will behave in a certain way, the scientific form of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy conveys genuine information, inasmuch as it tells us that to the degree that a physical system is causally isolated its energy will be conserved. 60 It will not do, therefore, for Saunders to suggest that distinguishing between the metaphysical and scientific formulations of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy “requires a radical reinterpretation of the claim that mass/energy is conserved in physical processes.” 61 Belief in miracles is entirely compatible with the well-evidenced scientific claim that, to the degree that a physical system is causally isolated, its energy will be conserved. Acceptance of this claim does not entail that in fact the universe is a causally isolated system in the sense that God never intervenes in its workings. Only if one insists on a speculative metaphysical formulation of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy that is at odds with Big-Bang cosmology, goes beyond what the experimental evidence most directly shows, and a priori rules out the possible truth of theism is it possible to oppose belief in miracles with acceptance of the Principle. Second, it deserves emphasis that in making this distinction between the two forms of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy the theist is in no way committing to the existence of some non-physical repository of energy and matter that God either debits or credits in performing a miracle. 62 What it does assume is that God, as an immaterial cause, can act directly on units of

Defining Miracle

45

matter to change their position or, more radically, can create (or annihilate) such units ex nihilo. Such direct action by God will have energetic implications for the universe, but these do not arise because of any transfer of energy from some immaterial realm. Divine activity of this nature is inconsistent with the claim that energy can neither be created nor destroyed but it is entirely compatible with the claim that energy is conserved in an isolated system. The theist denies not that energy would be conserved in an isolated system, but rather that the universe is in fact an isolated system. Neither, it should be stressed, is such divine action inconsistent with dynamical laws. 63 Dynamical laws apply to the relations between physical objects. God, however, is not a physical object and the relation between God and those physical objects which He creates, annihilates or changes the position of, is not a physical relation. 64 It will not do, therefore, to suggest, as has John Collier, that God’s creation or annihilation of energy is inconsistent with Newton’s Third Law of Motion. 65 It is true that any physical objects which God creates will both act upon and be acted upon by other existing physical objects, but this cannot be taken to imply that God, a non-physical agent is subject to the Newton’s Third Law. Third, it will not do for critics such as Evan Fales to observe that miracles require that God generate energy ex nihilo, 66 and then to rule out their occurrence on the grounds that we have abundant evidence that energy is never created, only transferred from one physical system to another. 67 Such an argument fails to take seriously that our best cosmology indicates an absolute beginning for the mass/energy making up the physical universe. If the totality of the mass/energy comprising the universe is understood to have come into existence rather than being transferred from some physical source, it will hardly do to claim that energy is only ever transferred, never created. Further, Fales appears to commit the fallacy of division, inasmuch as he seems to argue that because the class of non-miraculous events is inevitably larger than the class of miraculous events that the likelihood that a particular event is non-miraculous will always be greater than the likelihood that it was miraculous. It is true that the class of physical events which can be explained in terms of the operation of physical causes—for the theist, these will be seen as created secondary causes—will be much larger than the class of miracles, that is to say events arising from divine intervention. It is therefore true— leaving aside the issue of the origin of the mass/energy that makes up the physical universe—that the class of events which can be explained in terms of the transfer of energy from one physical system to another will be much larger than the class of events which must be explained in terms of the ex nihilo creation of energy. It is clear, however, that the numerical size of a class of events has little to do with the probability that a particular member of that class has or has not occurred. As Gary Colwell notes, “the likelihood of occurrence of a particular event should be determined by all the weight of

46

Chapter 2

evidence, pro and con, relevant to that one event, and not simply by contrasting the number of past events in the class to which the particular event belongs with the number of related contrary events outside the class.” 68 Fales also appears to beg the question of whether miracles actually occur. Having noted that miracles would involve the creation of energy ex nihilo, he is prepared to assert “there is no case in which, given sufficient understanding of a system we have failed to find . . . a physical explanation [i.e., the transfer of energy from physical systems].” 69 Given such an assertion, one would expect him to provide an argument that if events such as Jesus turning water into wine or his returning to life after three days of being dead actually occurred, there is a plausible natural explanation for such events. Fales, however, provides no such argument. His assumption seems to be that there is no need to provide a natural explanation of such events, since they do not in fact occur. This, however, is to beg the question against the theist of whether such events occur. If such events do in fact occur, it is far from obvious that there is good reason to think they can be explained in terms of natural causes. 70 Indeed it is precisely the difficulty of explaining such events in terms of natural causes which leads many scholars to insist that they did not occur, though this, as has been observed, is to beg the question of the truth of naturalism. One cannot endorse naturalism on the basis that there are no events which require supernatural explanation, and then reject reports of miracles on the grounds that the occurrence of such events is inconsistent with the truth of naturalism. CONCLUSION A miracle may be defined as an unusual and religiously significant event which reveals and furthers God’s purposes, is beyond the power of physical nature to produce, and is caused by an agent who transcends physical nature. The view that a miracle must be defined as involving violation of the laws of nature rests on the mistaken assumption that such events can only take place if the laws of nature are violated. There exists, therefore, no necessary conflict between evidence that supports belief in the laws and nature and evidence that supports belief in miracles. This conclusion, as we shall see in the next chapter, has important implications for assessing the force of David Hume’s famous argument against the rationality of belief in miracles, found in Part I of his essay ‘Of Miracles.’ NOTES 1. Christine Overall makes the strange, unargued claim that to speak of divine intervention in the sense of an overriding of nature commits one to an untenable anthropomorphism, inasmuch as “‘nature’ is implicitly represented as a fallible person, one who is usually in control of

Defining Miracle

47

what happens in physical reality, but whose will can be overcome or overridden by a being with superior, indeed transcendent powers,” “Miracles and God,” 744. J.L. Mackie appears closer to the mark when he notes that, there is no obscurity in the notion of intervention. Even in the natural world we have a clear understanding of how there can be for a time a closed system, in which everything that happens results from factors within that system in accordance its laws of working, but how then something may intrude from outside it, bringing about changes that the system would not have produced of its own accord, so that things go on after this intrusion differently from how they would have gone on if the system had remained closed. All we need do, then, is to regard the whole natural world as being, for most of the time, such a closed system, we can then think of a supernatural intervention as something that intrudes into that system from outside the natural world as a whole. The Miracle of Theism, 21. 2. Collins, The God of Miracles, 65. 3. Gwynne makes the obvious but important and often overlooked point by those stressing the significance of miracles as signs, that “there is no logical reason why one could not continue to define a miracle in causal terms as a direct SDA [special divine action], and simultaneously speak in intentional terms of its communicative value.” Special Divine Action, 99. 4. Holland, “The Miraculous,” 43. 5. Ibid. 44. 6. Hughes, “Miracles, Laws of Nature and Causation,” 189. 7. Ibid. 190. 8. Corner, Signs of God, 14. 9. McDermid, “Miracles: Metaphysics, Physics and Physicalism,” 131. 10. Corner, The Philosophy of Miracles, 83. 11. Ibid. 84. 12. Corner seems somewhat open to revising his claim that basic acts are uncaused, asserting: I do think that, in general, when we speak of causes it is event causation that we are talking about. Still, a critic may wish to argue that there is some other sort of cause that might be operating in the case of my basic actions. . . . I will grant for the sake of argument that such an account may be correct. It will be sufficient . . . that the notion of causation is not that of event causation, and that references to this special sort of causation will be, in principle, teleological. . . . I do not intend to offer reasons for ruling out the idea that there might be some conception of causation that might have a role to play in our analysis of basic actions. The Philosophy of Miracles, 87. 13. Ibid. 91. 14. Ibid. 90. 15. Corner writes, Let us say that a basic action may generally be associated with a companion event; in this case, the companion event with respect to my act of raising my arm would be my arm’s rising. What I want to say is that the possibility that I have acted, in raising my arm, is not diminished by the fact that the companion event that accompanies my action, namely my arm’s rising, has a natural explanation which may be filled out in event-causal terms. The Philosophy of Miracles, 90. 16. Corner is prepared to admit that “the requirements for special divine agency may be the same as those for libertarian agency on the part of human beings. The Philosophy of Miracles,

48

Chapter 2

122. He is also prepared to say that a causally closed, determinist physical universe makes libertarian agency and special divine action impossible. Rather than admit a causally open universe upon which libertarian agents and God intervene, he holds that a causally closed universe in which non-determined physical events occur can accommodate libertarian agency and special divine action. He writes, Suppose . . . that God acts, in a basic way, by curing Sally of some terrible disease. On our supposition, this is only an instance of special divine agency if some form of non-determined events—for example, events occurring at the quantum level— are involved with the remission of Sally’s illness. Thus it may be a metaphysical implication, of the assumption that this is a special divine action, that the physical processes by which Sally’s being cured manifested itself are connected in some way with non-deterministic phenomena such as quantum states. But this does not mean that God brought about those quantum states in order to cure Sally. Strictly speaking, all that is implied by describing God as acting, in curing Sally, is that an event occurred which may be described as Sally’s becoming cured. And of course the point here is that there is nothing standing in the way of our describing God’s curing Sally as a basic action. . . . none of this requires us to think of the universe as causally open, at least if that is taken to mean that it is subject to some form of nonphysical influence . . . [if] Sally’s being cured manifests itself . . . in the occurrence of various non-deterministic phenomena, we do not have to think of God as acting within the gaps of these phenomena to effect Sally’s cure. We may think of these . . . [phenomena] as simply occurring, that is . . . as mere events rather than as divine actions. The Philosophy of Miracles, 124. For a criticism of this type of strategy as a means of defending libertarian agency, see Robert Larmer, “Free Will, Hegemony and Neurophysiological Indeterminism,” 177-189. 17. Kim, Philosophy of Mind, 2nd ed., 174-202. 18. Corner, The Philosophy of Miracles, 98-101. 19. Corner seems to suggest that there is some logical difficulty in thinking that an immaterial agent might act on the material world. The Philosophy of Miracles, 43, 88. It is hard to see how this squares with his taking psychokinesis seriously, and arguing that it provides an analogy to how God may produce a miracle. If God, an unembodied agent, by means of a basic action causes a fork to bend, that is to say directly makes it happen without any accompanying natural causes, then it would be an intervention in the material world by a non-material agent. 20. Overall, “Miracles and Larmer,” 127. 21. Lewis, The Four Loves, 8. 22. Thus Clarke criticises Mumford’s definition of miracle (“Miracles: Metaphysics and Modality”) on the basis that it does not include any necessary reference to divine intent, “Response to Mumford and Another Definition of Miracles,” 459-463. For an attempt to defend Mumford against Clarke’s criticisms, see Luck “In Defence of Mumford’s Definition of a Miracle,” 465-469. 23. Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, 1a., 114, 4. 24. Christian Scripture claims in a number of places that angels can perform miracles, e.g. Mt. 4:6, Lk. 1:20. It also claims that humans can, on occasion, perform miracles through the gifting of God, e.g. 1 Cor. 12:28-29. 25. Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Antony Flew (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1988), 149. 26. Ramm, Protestant Christian Evidences, 126. 27. Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 148. 28. Ratzsch, Nature, Design, and Science, 41-42. 29. Ibid. 30. Swinburne, The Concept of Miracle, 9. 31. Newman, Two Essays on Biblical and on Ecclesiastical Miracles, 17-18. 32. David and Randall Basinger, Philosophy and Miracle, 22.

Defining Miracle

49

33. Newman, Two Essays on Biblical and on Ecclesiastical Miracles, 22. Newman is sensitive to the fact that some events regarded as miracles in Christian Scripture are not easily seen as in accordance with God’s character and purposes, but asserts such events are but a few in the midst of an overpowering majority pointing consistently to one grand object, they must not be torn from their moral context, but, on the credit of the rest, they must be considered but apparent exceptions to the rule. It is obvious that a larger system must consist of various parts of unequal utility and excellence; and to expect each particular occurrence to be complete in itself, is as unreasonable as to require the parts of some complicated machine, separately taken, to be all equally finished and fit for display (47). In a footnote to this passage, he argues that in thus refusing to admit the existence of real exceptions to the general rule, in spite of appearances, we are not exposing ourselves to that charge of excessive systematizing which may justly be brought against those who, with Hume, reject the very notion of a Miracle as implying an interruption of physical regularity. For the Revelation which we admit, on the authority of the general system of Miracles, imparts such accurate and extended information concerning the attributes of God, over and about the partial and imperfect view of them which the world affords, as precludes the supposition of any work of His being evil or useless. Whereas there is no voice in the mere analogy of nature which expressly denies the possibility of real exceptions to its general course. 34. Hume’s use of the term ‘violation’ seems to have been influential in the adoption of this view. See Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles: From Joseph Glanvill to David Hume, 23436. 35. Bilynskyj, “God, Nature and the Concept of Miracle,” (PhD dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 1982). Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 143-144. 36. For a fuller discussion see van der Breggen, “Miracle Reports, Moral Philosophy and Contemporary Science.” 37. McKinnon, “‘Miracle and ‘Paradox,’” 309. A fatal flaw for such theories is that the laws of nature do not by themselves allow prediction of what will take place, but rather in conjunction with a set of initial conditions not specified by the laws. This point also applies to nomic necessity theories. 38. Craig, “Creation, Providence and Miracles,” 153. Richard Swinburne, attempts to make sense of the notion of a violation of a law of nature, by defining violations as non-repeatable counter-instances to laws of nature. The Concept of Miracle, 26-28. His attempt seems unsuccessful. As Martin Curd notes, the proposal “that ‘All A’s are B’ is a genuine law even though there is a nonrepeatable instance of an A that is not B . . . is logically impossible: if ‘All A’s are B’ is a genuine law then all A’s are B without exception.” “Miracles as Violations of Laws of Nature,” 182. Also, Corner, The Philosophy of Miracles, 24. 39. Ellis, The Philosophy of Nature, 88 40. Ellis, Scientific Essentialism, 217. 41. van der Breggen, “Miracle Reports, Moral Philosophy, and Contemporary Science,” 91. 42. This is not to claim that physical objects exist necessarily, but rather, given that they exist and have a certain nature, they will necessarily behave in a certain way. There could, for example, be worlds which have no water, but there cannot be worlds which have water that is not H2O. Ellis, The Philosophy of Nature, 110-111. On this view, God could create a universe which is composed of material objects of a different nature than those in this universe. Such a universe would necessarily have different laws of nature than our own. What God cannot do, on this view, is create a world that has the same type of objects as our own, but which has different laws of nature. 43. Flew, God and Philosophy, 148.

50

Chapter 2

44. Odegard has argued that it is possible to conceive of a violation of a law of nature. He defines law-violations as events of a kind that is epistemically impossible, unless there is good evidence of a god’s producing an instance. “Miracles and Good Evidence,” 37-46. 45. McKinnon, “Miracle and Paradox,” 308. Nicholas Everitt takes a similar tack as McKinnon, writing that, to say that an occurrence violates a law of nature means that the claim that there has been such an occurrence is incompatible with a statement of the laws of nature. Since these statements are by definition true, necessarily every such claim is false. Necessarily, therefore, there are no miracles. “The Impossibility of Miracles,” 349. 46. Alston, “The Place of the Explanation of Particular Facts in Science,” 17-24. 47. This is a point that is ignored by writer after writer on the topic of miracle. Nicholas Saunders makes this typical mistake when he asserts “that knowledge of the complete set of the laws of nature entails a complete description of the workings of nature.” Divine Action and Modern Science, 74. This is to ignore the fact that the laws of nature do not, in and of themselves, allow the prediction or explanation of any event. One can know, for instance, that masses attract one another, but knowledge of the law of gravity tells us nothing of the amount of gravitational attraction the earth and moon will exert on one another. Only if one knows the mass of the moon and the earth and their distance apart will one be able to calculate that value. Even if one disallows the possibility of divine intervention, what happens in the universe depends not simply on the essential properties of matter as expressed by the laws of nature, but also on the amount of matter in the universe. Saunders is thus wrong in his assertion that, “while it is certainly possible to claim that SDA operates by God altering the substratum of the universe . . . such an approach is inherently at odds with the physicalist necessitarian approach to laws of nature in which the laws derive from the intrinsic properties in the nature of the entities they govern.” Divine Action and Modern Science, 75-76. Knowing the laws that describe the intrinsic properties of matter will not allow prediction or explanation of any event in the absence of the material conditions to which they are applied. Contra Saunders, it is therefore entirely possible to embrace a necessitarian account of the laws of nature, yet hold that God may alter the material conditions to which they apply. 48. Joad, “The World of Physics and of Plato,” 162-3. 49. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, 71. In an earlier essay Lewis links miracles to the doctrine of creation. He writes, The smallest event, then, if we face the fact that it occurs (instead of concentrating on the pattern into which, if it can be persuaded to occur, it must fit), leads us back to a mystery which lies outside natural science. It is certainly a possible supposition that behind this mystery some might Will and Life is at work. If so, any contrast between His acts and the laws of Nature is out of the question. It is His act alone that gives the laws any events to apply to. It is His act alone that gives the laws any events to apply to. “The Laws of Nature,” 79. 50. Ibid. 72. 51. J.S. Mill makes this point, writing that, in order that any alleged fact should be contradictory to a law of causation, the allegation must be, not simply that the cause existed without being followed by the effect, for that would be no uncommon occurrence; but that this happened in the absence of any adequate counteracting cause. Now in the case of an alleged miracle, the assertion is the exact opposite of this. It is, that the effect was defeated, not in the absence, but in consequence of a counteracting cause, namely, a direct interposition of an act of the will of some being who has power over nature; . . . A miracle . . . is no contradiction to the law of cause and effect; it is a new effect, supposed to be produced by the introduction of a new cause. The Collected Works

Defining Miracle

51

of John Stuart Mill, Volume VII—A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation (Books I-III), ed. John M. Robson, Introduction by R.F. McRae (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974). Bk. 3, Ch. 25, Section 2, http://oll.libertyfund.org/index (Accessed August 29, 2012). 52. Cover, “Miracles and Christian Theism,” 362. Young makes basically the same point, writing that God is an active agent-factor in the occurrence of miraculous events such that his presence introduces a new (possibly unique) set of causally sufficient factors. His presence ceteris paribus alters the outcome from what it (perhaps) would have been if, contrary to fact, he had not been present. Here there is no sense of violation or physical impossibility, [or] mere coincidence. “Miracles and Physical Impossibility,” 33. 53. As Ratzsch notes, the laws of nature always operate within the context of implicit ceteris paribus clauses. Nature, Design and Science, 98. Richard Otte makes a similar point in his article, “Mackie’s treatment of miracles,” 151-158. 54. Stoeger, “Describing God’s Action in the World in Light of Scientific Knowledge of Reality,” 244. This concern has led scientist-theologians such as Nancey Murphy, Arthur Peacocke, and John Polkinghorne to suggest that divine interventions into the natural order should be understood as imparting information, rather than energy, into the universe. This is to ignore, however, that the creation or transfer of information always has energetic implications. See, for example, Larmer, “Divine Agency and the Conservation of Energy,” Zygon 44:3 Sept. 2009. Also Koperski, “God, Chaos, and the Quantum Dice.” Saunders, Divine Action and Modern Science, 94-206, provides an extended critique of views that quantum mechanics and chaos theory are capable of providing a non-interventionist account of special divine action. Saunders is more optimistic concerning the prospects of Peacocke’s proposal of top-down causation, but ignores the fact that higher-level supervenient properties do not bring about new causal powers. 55. Saunders, Divine Action and Modern Science, 74. 56. Plantinga notes that conservation principles apply to isolated or closed systems . . . there is nothing to prevent God from miraculously parting the Red Sea, or changing water into wine, or bringing someone back to life, or, for that matter, creating ex nihilo a full-grown horse in the middle of Times Square. It is entirely possible for God to create a full-grown horse in the middle of Times Square without violating the principle of the conservation of energy. That is because the systems including the horse would not be closed or isolated. For that very reason, there would be no violation of the principle of conservation of energy, which says only that energy is conserved in closed or causally isolated systems-ones not subject to any outside influence. It says nothing at all about conservation of energy in systems that are not closed; and, of course, if God created a horse ex nihilo in Times Square, no system containing that horse, including the whole of the material universe, would be closed. Where the Conflict Really Lies, 8-79. 57. Craig and Sinclair, “The Kalam Cosmological Argument,” 125-196. 58. It will not do for the critic to suggest that to interpret Big Bang cosmology as implying an absolute beginning to the mass/energy that composes the universe is to commit to an untenable absolutist conception of time, and probably space. Leading writers on the topic such as Quentin Smith and William Lane Craig, explicitly argue that time and space began as a result of the Big Bang, yet hold to an absolute beginning of the mass/energy making up the

52

Chapter 2

universe. Smith writes that the empirically established cosmological theories that predict a beginning of the universe do so by predicting a beginning of time” (Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology, 118), and Craig notes that the standard big bang model, as the Friedman-Lemaître model came to be called, thus describes a universe that is not eternal in the past, but which came into being a finite time ago. Moreover-and this deserves underscoring-the origin it posits is an absolute origin ex nihilo. For not only all matter and energy, but space and time themselves, come into being at the initial cosmological singularity. Creation out of Nothing, 223. Also see Robert Spitzer’s very detailed discussion in his New Proofs for the Existence of God, 13-74, and Bruce Gordon’s postscript (“Inflationary Cosmology and the String Multiverse”) to Part One of Spitzer’s book. 59. Ducasse, writing in 1951, fails to distinguish between what I have termed the weak form and strong form of the Principle. He sees clearly, however, the implications of the strong form of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy when he notes that “conservation of energy is something one has to have, if (as the materialistic ontology of . . . naturalism demands) one is to be able to conceive the physical world as wholly self-contained, independent, isolated.” Nature, Mind, and Death, 241. 60. Ellis notes that ideal laws often remain the fundamental ones, even when much more realistic laws are known. The perfect gas laws . . . are still the fundamental laws of the theory of gases, even though real gases are not perfect. The Philosophy of Nature, 94. 61. Saunders, Divine Action and Modern Science, 75. 62. The notion of a non-physical repository of energy seems a contradiction in terms. McDermid makes this point when he writes that “by allowing conservation laws into the nonphysical, one must first let in dynamical laws—and that appears to effectively make the formerly [presumed?] non-physical portion of the universe physical.” “Miracles: Metaphysics, Physics, and Physicalism,” 129-130. McDermid mistakenly assumes that the model of miracle I have proposed commits one to the existence of such a repository. 63. McDermid makes much of the fact that dynamical laws imply symmetries. This is true, but such symmetries are only implied in the absence of any intervening cause, that is to say in causally isolated systems. 64. Larmer, “Against ‘Against Miracles,’” 58. 65. Collier, “Against Miracles,” 53. 66. Fales, Divine Intervention, 98. 67. Ibid. 16. 68. Colwell, “On Defining Away the Miraculous,” 331. 69. Fales, 16. 70. The possibility of natural explanations of events traditionally viewed by theists as miracles will be further explored in a later chapter.

Chapter Three

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

Few pieces of philosophy are as famous as Hume’s essay ‘Of Miracles.’ The argument in Part I of the Essay appears, at first glance, simple, elegant and compelling, and seems, paraphrasing Hume, to provide an ‘everlasting check’ to what he views as ‘superstitious delusion,’ namely belief in historical accounts of miracles. This initial impression is, however, misleading. Commentators disagree both over what the argument was intended to demonstrate and whether it succeeds in its purpose. This chapter has, therefore, two goals. The first is to establish how Hume intended the argument of Part I of the Essay to be read. The second is to evaluate the argument. INTERPRETING HUME ON MIRACLES Interpretations of the argument of Part I of the Essay fall into two camps. Traditionally, it was understood, both by its advocates and critics, as an attempt to demonstrate that the testimonial evidence for the occurrence of miracles can be dismissed without ever examining the particulars of any account. This interpretation was basically unchallenged until the publication of Antony Flew’s influential Hume’s Philosophy of Belief. Since that time, commentators have increasingly tended to argue that it was never Hume’s intention to suggest that testimonial evidence is incapable, even in principle, of justifying rational belief in miracles. Thus Robert Fogelin, in his monograph, A Defense of Hume on Miracles, insists that Hume’s intention was not to demonstrate that, no matter its quality, testimonial evidence must always be judged insufficient to establish rational belief in the miracles, but rather that the actual testimonial evidence available is not sufficient to justify such 53

54

Chapter 3

belief. 1 Similarly, John Earman, although far from a friendly critic, maintains that Hume did not intend to suggest that testimonial evidence can never be sufficient to ground the credibility of a miracle. 2 As has been noted, the tendency to interpret the argument in this manner is in marked contrast to earlier commentators. Prior to Flew, there was widespread agreement between friends and critics of the Essay that its purpose was to provide an argument whereby testimonial evidence for the occurrence of miracles can be dismissed without examining the particulars of any case. George Campbell, whom Hume recognized as one of his most capable critics, wrote that Hume’s intention is “to prove, that miracles which have not been the objects of our own senses, at least such as are said to have been performed in attestation of any religious system, cannot reasonably be admitted by us, or believed on the testimony of others.” 3 Somewhat later, C.D. Broad expressed the consensus of opinion that existed prior to Flew, when he wrote that the goal of Hume’s Essay is to demonstrate that “we have never the right to believe in any alleged miracle however strong the testimony for it may be.” 4 Popular though they have become, interpretations of the Essay which claim that it was never Hume’s intention to disallow the theoretical possibility of justifying belief in miracles on the basis of testimonial evidence appear mistaken. There are two mutually supporting lines of evidence, one direct and one indirect, which demonstrate that such interpretations are not tenable. First, at the direct level, it seems clear that earlier commentators were correct in viewing the argument in Part I as an attempt to demonstrate that testimonial evidence is in principle insufficient to justify belief in the occurrence of a miracle and that there is therefore no need to consider the details of any reported instance of a miracle before rejecting it as providing insufficient evidence to warrant belief. To avoid suspicion of eisegesis, I give the argument in Hume’s own words: 1. “Experience [is] our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact.” 5 2. “It must be acknowledged that this guide [experience] is not altogether infallible but in some cases is apt to lead us into errors.” 6 3. “A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. In such conclusions as are founded on an infallible experience, he expects the event with the last degree of assurance, and regards his past experience as a full proof of the future existence of that event. In other cases, he proceeds with more caution: He weighs the opposite experiments: He considers which side is supported by the greater number of experiments: to that side he inclines, with doubt and hesitation; and when at last he fixes his judgement, the evidence exceeds not what we properly call probability.” 7

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

55

4. “[I]t is evident that we ought not to make an exception to this maxim in favour of human testimony, whose connexion with any event seems, in itself, as little necessary as any other.” 8 5. “A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.” 9 6. Since “a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.” 10 7. Thus there is “a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior.” 11 8. Therefore “no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force which remains, after deducting the inferior.” 12 Commentators following Flew have made much of the fact that Hume does not explicitly draw the conclusion that testimonial evidence could never be sufficiently strong to justify belief in miracles. Given that he nowhere explicitly states such a conclusion, and given that he sets out in the final paragraph of Part I the conditions under which belief in a miracle would be justified, namely that the falsehood of the testimony would be more miraculous than the event related, they draw the conclusion that earlier commentators were wrong to interpret Hume in the way they did. This seems disingenuous, however. It can hardly have escaped Hume’s notice that it follows from what he has claimed that testimonial evidence is incapable even in principle of establishing the occurrence of a miracle. To claim that “the proof against a miracle . . . is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined” 13 (emphasis added) and that “such a proof [cannot] be destroyed or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior” 14 does not allow the possibility of establishing a miracle on the basis of testimonial evidence, since there is no way, even in theory, that one could trump a proof against miracles which ‘is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.’ The very most that the proponent of belief in miracle might hope for, even supposing she could produce an entirely convincing proof of miracle, is a mutual destruction of arguments, i.e., a suspension of belief one way or another. Hume, of course, is not unaware that this conclusion must follow, but with typical irony and what Flew terms ‘mischievous modesty’ 15 he suggests that belief could be justified if, per the impossible, the evidence for a miracle could exceed the evidence against it. 16

56

Chapter 3

A stronger reason for questioning the traditional interpretation appears to be the existence of Part II of the Essay. If the argument of Part I was intended to demonstrate that testimonial evidence is in principle incapable of grounding rational belief in miracles, why include Part II in which Hume argues that the actual testimonial evidence is very poor? The answer to this question appears to be found in Hume’s psychology. J.C.A. Gaskin notes that “it is as clear as anything could be that in his own person Hume strenuously and totally disbelieved in miracles.” 17 Although he was convinced that the argument in Part I was decisive, Hume was nevertheless aware that many of his critics would disagree. Demonstrating impatience that the topic of belief in miracle should enter into rational discussion, he takes himself in Part II, to be making the point that, even if his opponents are not convinced of his ‘in-principle’ argument of Part I, the actual evidence supporting belief in miracles is more worthy of ridicule than serious discussion. 18 Whatever is the explanation of Part II it is clear that throughout it there are a number of comments which presuppose the argument of Part I understood as establishing the impossibility of grounding belief in miracles on the basis of testimony. Early in Part II, Hume straightforwardly identifies the miraculous with the utterly absurd 19 and shortly thereafter asserts that those who are wise and learned are justified in deriding a report of a miracle as absurd, “without informing themselves of the particular facts by which it may be distinctly refuted.” 20 Evidently in Hume’s view the fact that a reported event is a miracle makes rational justification of belief in its occurrence impossible. Detailed examination of apparent evidence in its favor is, therefore, unnecessary. Given there can never, even in principle, be enough positive evidence to justify belief in a miracle, reports of miracles should be rejected out of hand as absurd. An even clearer example of the fact that Hume takes himself to have demonstrated that testimonial evidence can never even in principle be sufficient to ground belief in miracles is found in his discussion of the Jansenist miracles. In the first argument of Part II Hume informs us that there is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good-sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time, attesting facts performed in such a public manner and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable. 21

Later, when he comes to consider the Jansenist miracles, he writes that

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

57

many of the miracles were immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned age, and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the world. Nor is this all: a relation of them was published and dispersed every where; nor were the Jesuits, though a learned body, supported by the civil magistrate, and determined enemies to those opinions, in whose favour the miracles were said to have been wrought, ever able distinctly to refute or detect them. Where shall we find such a number of circumstances, agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? 22

If Hume intended to leave open the possibility that testimonial evidence might be sufficient to establish a miracle, one would expect him to argue that the requirements he set out in the first argument of Part II have not really been met. He does not, however, argue that the evidence is less strong than it first appears, even though by the time of the second edition of the Essay, he knew that some of the reports of healing had been investigated and found fraudulent. 23 Rather, we find him asserting What have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events, which they relate? And this surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as a sufficient refutation. 24

Short of simply making a dogmatic assertion that miracles cannot occur, Hume must be taken as justifying this claim on the basis of his argument in Part I, understood as precluding the possibility that there could ever exist sufficient testimonial evidence for a miracle. Fogelin rejects this conclusion. He notes that later in the Essay Hume writes, I beg the limitations here made may be remarked, when I say, that a miracle can never be proved, so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. For I own, that otherwise, there may possibly be miracles, or violations of the usual course of nature, of such a kind as to admit of proof from human testimony; 25

and that Hume follows this with an example of a nonreligious ‘miracle.’ Suppose all authors, in all languages, agree, that, from the first of January 1600, there was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days: suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among the people: that all travellers, who return from foreign countries, bring us accounts of the same tradition, without the least variation or contradiction: it is evident, that our present philosophers, instead of doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain, and ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived. The decay, corruption, and dissolution of nature, is an event rendered probable by so many analogies, that any phenomenon, which seems to have a tendency

58

Chapter 3 towards that catastrophe, comes within the reach of human testimony, if that testimony be very extensive and uniform. 26

Fogelin holds that the point of Hume’s remark and subsequent example is to demonstrate that “even if the standards for testimony in behalf of miracles are high, they remain, in principle, satisfiable.” 27 He neglects to mention, however, that Hume immediately follows this account of a nonreligious ‘miracle’ with an account of another nonreligious miracle, which, even with testimony that is in principle as extensive as that in his preceding example, he would refuse to accept. Suppose, that all the historians who treat of England, should agree, that, on the first of January 1600, Queen Elizabeth died; that both before and after her death she was seen by her physicians and the whole court, as is usual with persons of her rank; that her successor was acknowledged and proclaimed by the parliament; and that, after being interred a month, she again appeared, resumed the throne, and governed England for three years: I must confess that I should be surprised at the concurrence of so many odd circumstances, but should not have the least inclination to believe so miraculous an event. I should not doubt of her pretended death, and of those other public circumstances that followed it: I should only assert it to have been pretended, and that it neither was, nor possibly could be real. . . . The knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence, than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature. 28

The question Fogelin fails to discuss is, ‘What is the difference between these two cases, that Hume would treat them so differently?’ The answer appears to lie in the distinction Hume felt compelled to draw between a marvel and a miracle. A criticism of his argument that appears to have concerned Hume is that it is unreasonable to insist that one’s uniform personal experience should inevitably trump the testimony of others. His concern to deal with this criticism seems to be what motivated him in the 1750 second edition, to include a discussion of the example of the Indian prince. This concern also seems to be responsible for the inclusion of the “I beg the limitations here made . . .” passage that we are examining. The Essay was first published in 1748, but this passage was only incorporated into the main body of the text in 1768; previously appearing as a lengthy footnote. Burns suggests that the fact that this passage first appeared as a footnote indicates that it was written after the main body of the text in response to this criticism. Its shift to the main body of the text seems to indicate that Hume came to take this objection more seriously as time went on. Hume attempts to deal with this criticism by drawing a distinction between miracles, events which are contrary to experience, and marvels, events which are not conformable to experience. In the case of the Indian prince, the

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

59

fact that water can become solid is not conformable to his experience in the sense that it is foreign to anything he has personally experienced, but it is not contrary to his experience in the sense that he has no experience of how water behaves under different causal conditions than those with which he is acquainted. Given his lack of experience of how water behaves under these different conditions, and given sufficient testimonial evidence, he is justified in believing that water can become solid. Hume’s aim seems to be to distinguish between unusual events which can be viewed as having a natural, though unknown, explanation, from unusual events that require a supernatural explanation. The first class of events he calls marvels and holds that testimonial evidence is capable of justifying belief in their existence; the second class of events he calls miracles and denies that testimonial evidence is capable of justifying belief in their existence. 29 It is this distinction which explains his different treatment of the examples of eight days of darkness and the resurrection of Queen Elizabeth. In the case of the eight days of darkness, it is clear that Hume would regard its occurrence as what he terms a marvel. This is demonstrated by his comment “our present philosophers . . . ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived.” 30 His use of the plural ‘causes’ makes clear the fact that Hume has in mind natural causes and that by ‘philosopher’ he means natural philosopher or scientist. 31 The suggestion that scientists should search for the natural causes of an event that, by definition, is supernaturally caused makes no sense and reveals that despite his loose use of language, Hume would not view such an event as a genuine miracle, but rather as an unusual event with a natural explanation. 32 In the case of the resurrection of Queen Elizabeth, however, Hume does regard such an event as a miracle, remarking earlier in the Essay, “it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country.” 33 It is precisely on the basis that he would regard it as a genuine miracle, rather than an unusual natural event, that he denies the possibility of there ever existing sufficient testimonial evidence to establish its occurrence. Fogelin is mistaken, therefore, to claim that “the point of Hume’s example of the eight days of total darkness . . . [is to demonstrate that] even if the standards for testimony in behalf of miracles are high, they remain, in principle, satisfiable.” 34 Taken in conjunction with the example of the resurrection of Queen Elizabeth, its point is to demonstrate exactly the opposite; namely that, although it might prove sufficient to justify belief in marvels, testimonial evidence could never be sufficiently strong to justify belief in miracles. Far from undermining the argument of Part I, understood as precluding the possibility of justifying belief in miracles on the basis of testimonial evidence, Hume’s discussion of the eight days of darkness and Queen Elizabeth’s resurrection reinforces this reading of the argument. Contrary to Fogelin, it

60

Chapter 3

provides good reason to think that Hume’s dismissal of the Jansenist miracles is based on his view that he has already shown in Part I the impossibility of establishing a rational belief in miracles by means of testimony. 35 We have been dealing directly with the text; but there are also indirect indications that Hume takes his argument to provide an insurmountable obstacle to accepting accounts of miracle. Several lines of evidence lend support to the reading of the text that has been defended. It is unfortunate that interpreters of the Essay typically ignore this body of evidence. First, we have evidence regarding the origin of the Essay in the form of two letters Hume wrote, one to Henry Home dated December 2, 1737, and the other to George Campbell dated June 7, 1762. In the Home letter of 1737, Hume notes that he is enclosing “some reasoning concerning miracles”; but that he is not going to include these reasonings in his Treatise on Human Nature for fear of giving offense to readers. 36 In the Campbell letter of 1762, Hume writes of the argument of the Essay as occurring to him while “walking in the cloisters of the Jesuits’ College at La Flèche . . . and engaged in a conversation with a Jesuit of some parts and learning.” 37 Hume stayed at La Flèche between 1735 and 1737 and his Treatise on Human Nature was completed by the end of 1737, though not published until the beginning of 1739. There seems, then, good reason to think that what Hume conceived to be the main argument of the Essay existed in written form by 1737. 38 There is also good reason to think that Hume understands the argument spoken of in the Campbell letter as the argument of Part I, taken in the traditional sense of demonstrating the impossibility of establishing a miracle on the basis of testimony. Certainly, Hume speaks of the argument not of arguments, which suggests that he has the argument of Part I in mind, rather than the four arguments of Part II. 39 Further, in the Campbell letter, Hume writes with evident pride that his argument “very much graveled” his Jesuit companion. 40 This strongly suggests that, at least originally, Hume regarded the argument of Part I as simple in structure, not needing support by supplementary arguments, and as decisive, destroying at one blow any argument from miracle. Second, although the existence of Part II may signal a response to anticipated criticisms, 41 the pride Hume so clearly took in the Essay supports reading the argument of Part I as intending to demonstrate the impossibility of rational belief in miracles. This pride is evident not only in the Home and Campbell letters, but also in the phrasing of the Essay itself, and in Hume’s later refusal to engage in serious discussion of criticisms of his argument. 42 This pride is difficult to explain if Hume only took himself to be making the point that a greater degree and quality of testimonial evidence is required to justify belief in a miracle than is the case for ordinary non-miraculous events. This was a point already granted by orthodox apologists such as Sherlock. 43 Add to this the fact that each of Hume’s four arguments of Part II was well

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

61

known and far from original to Hume and it becomes a mystery, if Flew’s and Fogelin’s readings are accepted, why Hume would display such pride in the presumed originality and decisiveness of the Essay. 44 Third, it is significant that all the responses made to the Essay during Hume’s lifetime took him to be arguing the impossibility of testimony justifying belief in miracles, but Hume never suggested that these critics misunderstood his intent. Philip Skelton’s Opiomaches or Deism Revealed 45 contains the first published reply to the Essay and takes it as attempting to demonstrate that belief in miracles can never be rational, yet Hume as the publisher’s reader recommended publication of Skelton’s manuscript. 46 Similarly, Campbell in his Dissertation on Miracles, takes Hume to be arguing for an in principle rejection of establishing belief in miracles on the basis of testimony. Hume accepted an invitation to respond to Campbell, but at no point in criticizing Campbell does he suggest that Campbell has misunderstood what the argument of Part I is intended to establish. Hume’s silence is inexplicable if he felt that his respondents fundamentally missed the point, but makes good sense if, as is evident from considerations already discussed, he intended to assert that no amount of testimonial evidence could be sufficient to justify accepting a miracle report. It seems, therefore, that the insistence of Flew and many later commentators that Hume never intended to disallow the possibility of justifying rational belief in miracles on the basis of testimonial evidence is mistaken. Attractive though it may be to adopt a reading that absolves Hume of the charge that he dogmatically rejects the possibility of rational belief in a miracle, both direct and indirect lines of evidence strongly indicate that he took his argument as establishing that there can ever exist, even in principle, sufficient testimonial evidence to justify belief in a miracle. This is not to suggest that he was unaware of possible criticisms of the argument of Part I or that he made no attempt to respond to such criticisms. 47 It is to assert that he never ceased to view the argument of Part I as decisively demonstrating the impossibility of establishing rational belief in miracles by means of testimony. 48 CRITICISMS OF HUME’S ARGUMENT Despite its initial impression of simplicity and decisiveness, Hume’s argument in Part I of the Essay is vulnerable to a number of criticisms that undermine any such judgment. One of the most obvious is that, in light of his treatment of induction and causality, it seems inconsistent for Hume to talk of unalterable experience. C.D. Broad long ago noted that Hume has told us that he can find no logical ground for induction. He cannot see why it should be justifiable to pass from a frequent experience of A followed by B, to a belief that A always will be followed by B. All that he

62

Chapter 3 professes to do is to tell us that we actually do make this transition, and to explain psychologically how it comes about. Now, this being so, I cannot see how Hume can distinguish between our variously caused beliefs about matters of fact, and call some of them justifiable and others unjustifiable. . . . Hume’s disbelief [in a miracle] is due to his natural tendency to pass from the constant experience of A followed by B to the belief that A will always be followed by B. The enthusiast’s belief is due to his natural tendency to believe what is wonderful and makes for the credit of his religion. But Hume has admitted that he sees no logical justification for beliefs in matters of fact which are merely caused by a regular experience. Hence the enthusiast’s belief in miracles and Hume’s belief in natural laws (and consequent disbelief in miracles) stand on precisely the same logical footing. In both cases we can see the psychological cause of the belief, but in neither can Hume give us any logical ground for it. 49

A similar criticism was later raised by C.S. Lewis. Unless Nature always goes on in the same way, the fact that a thing had happened ten million times would not make it a whit more probable that it would happen again. And how do we know the Uniformity of Nature? A moment’s thought shows that we do not know it by experience. . . . Experience . . . cannot prove uniformity, because uniformity has to be assumed before experience proves anything. . . . Unless Nature is uniform, nothing is either probable or improbable. And clearly the assumption which you have to make before there is any such thing as probability cannot itself be probable. . . . The odd thing is that no man knew this better than Hume. His Essay on Miracles is quite inconsistent with the more radical, and honourable, scepticism of his main work. 50

Fred Wilson suggests that Broad’s and, by implication Lewis’s, reading of Hume on this point is superficial. In response to the claim that Hume’s treatment of miracles is not consistent with his views regarding induction, Wilson writes that “there is a certain implausibility to this claim that makes it a difficult one to entertain seriously, since it is unlikely that a philosopher as careful as Hume would have failed to recognize the inconsistency if it existed.” 51 While it may be agreed that it is unwise to be overhasty in attributing inconsistency to a philosopher of Hume’s stature, it is scarcely unknown that the greatest thinkers are quite frequently guilty in this regard. There seems no reason, therefore, to assume that Hume was invariably consistent in his claims. The real question is whether the text supports Wilson’s interpretation, as opposed to Broad’s and Lewis’s. Wilson offers two arguments in support of his contention that Hume is not guilty of inconsistency. The first is that neither the scepticism inherent in Hume’s treatment of causality and induction nor the dogmatism characteristic of his explicit statements in Of Miracles represents his true view concerning the laws of nature. Wilson suggests that in order to arrive at Hume’s true view of the laws of nature, we must examine his account of probable reason-

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

63

ing and its grounding in human psychology. When we do this we find that the idea of necessary connection is retained as an essential element of the concept of causality, but that this idea of necessary connection is grounded in human psychology, not in nature itself. 52 The justification of taking our admittedly psychologically grounded concept of causality as involving necessary connections seriously is that it offers a pragmatic justification of science and it is science alone that is capable of satisfying our curiosity and desire for truth. 53 Belief in miracles explains nothing and leaves our experience incomprehensible, whereas belief in causality and the uniformity of nature allows us to understand the world. Two critical comments are in order. First, Hume’s most explicit remarks concerning the laws of nature occur in Of Miracles. It is exegetically suspect to ignore his explicit treatment of the laws of nature in Of Miracles in hopes of deriving a more palatable alternative from a different portion of his philosophy. Further, deriving a more palatable alternative would not absolve Hume of the charge of inconsistency, since it would remain true that it is not the concept of natural law he is working with in Of Miracles. The issue is not whether Hume could have developed a concept of the laws of nature consistent with his treatment of induction and causality or whether such a concept might be developed from remarks found elsewhere in his work, but whether the concept explicitly employed in Of Miracles is consistent with his treatment of induction and causality earlier in the Inquiry. It seems clear that it is not. In Of Miracles, Hume is prepared to use the term ‘unalterable experience,’ yet earlier in the Inquiry, where he discusses causality, he writes “it is impossible . . . that any arguments from experience can prove . . . resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance.” 54 Second, the suggestion that belief in the uniformity of nature can be pragmatically justified on the basis of the success of science begs the question of whether Hume’s treatment of induction is consistent with the view of science being espoused by Wilson. 55 Wilson appears to feel that any difficulty in this regard can be overcome if we realize that “the fact that we run across an event that violates a regular pattern of our experience provides evidence only that the pattern is not a law, but it does not falsify the belief that there is a law that explains it, for the latter can be inferred on the basis of our more general experience, which leads us to conclude that for any event there is a law that explains it.” 56 He fails to see, however, that any appeal to experience as justifying the conclusion that for every event there is a law that explains it is inconsistent with Hume’s account of induction. We have already noted Lewis’s comment that “experience . . . cannot prove uniformity, because uniformity has to be assumed before experience proves anything.” 57 Once one accepts Hume’s denial of necessary connections and his reduction of causality to constant conjunction, it becomes impossible to argue that the

64

Chapter 3

fact that certain events have been constantly conjoined in the past provides any reason for thinking they will be constantly, or even probably, conjoined in the future. 58 As Hume comments, “it is impossible . . . that any arguments from experience can prove . . . resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance.” 59 Wilson’s appeal to the rules of eliminative induction as grounding science presupposes that we can justify prediction of the future on the basis of past experience and involves a view of induction that contradicts Hume’s explicit treatment of this issue. Wilson’s second argument attempting to absolve Hume of the charge of inconsistency is that Hume’s account of causal reasoning is not simply that in our experience an event A is always followed by an event B. Hume recognized that in our experience “‘tis frequently found, that one observation is contrary to another, and that causes and effects follow not in the same order of which we have had experience, [and in such instances] we are oblig’d to vary our reasoning on account of this uncertainty, and take into consideration the contrariety of events.” 60 Thus, “from the observation of several parallel instances, philosophers form a maxim, that the connexion betwixt all causes and effects is equally necessary, and that its seeming uncertainty in some instances proceeds from the secret opposition of contrary causes.” 61 Wilson concludes from remarks such as this that “Hume’s crucial move [in Of Miracles] is to insist that simply because an event is somehow incomprehensible to a spectator, it does not follow that one can reasonably infer that it is a miracle, or even probably a miracle.” 62 He goes on to chastise Broad for failing to recognize that “the fact that we discover exceptions to what we have previously thought to be regularities hardly testifies to there being events that are miracles, that is, events that violate laws of nature.” 63 This second argument of Wilson’s also seems deficient. It is true that Hume wants to distinguish between unusual events that can plausibly be viewed as having natural though unknown causes, that is to say, marvels, and those that cannot, that is to say, miracles. He is aware that the class of unusual events is not exhausted by miracles, and that we quite often accept the occurrence of unusual events outside our personal experience on the basis of testimonial evidence. On pain of his argument proving too much, Hume must argue not that it is in general impossible to establish the occurrence of unusual events on the basis of testimonial evidence, but that it is impossible to establish the occurrence of a special type of unusual event, namely miracles, on the basis of such evidence. He wants to claim that testimony can be sufficiently strong to establish the occurrence of marvels, but not of miracles. He attempts to do this on the ground that an event that is a marvel is unusual, but it does not contradict our firm and unalterable experience, whereas a miracle does. Marvels are in accord with the laws of nature and reports of their occurrence can be justifiably believed on the basis of testimony. Mira-

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

65

cles, though, are violations of the laws of nature and reports of their occurrence can never be justifiably believed on the basis of testimony. 64 Thus Hume would reject any account of the resurrection of Queen Elizabeth, no matter what the testimonial evidence, on the basis that such an event would be miraculous. 65 Even on the most superficial reading of the text, explicit assertions such as “it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life” 66 make it clear Hume was convinced that if certain events were to occur, they would be genuinely miraculous, that is to say, he would view them as violations of the laws of nature. Wilson goes wrong in failing to distinguish between two logically distinct questions: ‘How much testimonial evidence is needed to establish the occurrence of an unusual event?’ and ‘On what basis could it be established that an unusual event is a miracle?’ 67 Wilson takes Hume to be addressing the second question and interprets him as arguing that it is impossible to justify belief that an unusual event is a violation of the laws of nature. On Wilson’s reading, Hume’s argument is directed not at the difficulties of establishing unusual events on the basis of testimonial evidence, but at the impossibility of ever rationally believing that an unusual event constitutes a violation of the laws of nature. This, however, makes nonsense not only of Hume’s explicit willingness to identify certain conceivable events as miracles, but also of his emphasis on the inability of testimonial evidence to establish such events. If Wilson’s reading is accepted, it becomes a mystery why Hume would concern himself with issues of testimony, since the argument would establish that no matter what the unusual event, it must be not regarded as a miracle, since it is irrational to view it as a violation of the laws of nature. Contra Wilson, Hume’s aim is not to argue that the Resurrection of Jesus could never be accurately described as a miracle, but rather that testimonial evidence could never justify belief that it did in fact occur. What Broad and Lewis recognize, but Wilson fails to see, is that Hume’s argument is directed not at demonstrating that it is irrational to believe that miracles would violate the laws of nature if they were to occur, but at showing there could never be sufficient testimonial evidence to justify belief in the occurrence of such events. Wilson does not succeed, therefore, in demonstrating that there is no inconsistency between Hume’s treatment of induction earlier in the Inquiry and his claims regarding ‘unalterable experience’ in Of Miracles. It appears, therefore, that Hume should have either repudiated his explicitly stated position concerning induction and causality or else admitted that his conception of what is meant by a law of nature prohibited him from pressing his objection to belief in miracles. If, as Hume held, belief in the laws of nature results from nothing more than a strong psychological tendency to believe in uniformity, then it can hardly constitute a legitimate reason for rejecting reports of non-uniform events such as miracles.

66

Chapter 3

The criticism we have just explored has something of an ad hominem flavour. Leaving aside the question of how the argument of Part I of Of Miracles fits with the rest of Hume’s philosophy, it can be asked how the argument fares on its own merits. One of the most serious objections is that the argument proves too much, that is to say, it reduces to absurdity. Thus, for example, Richard Whately, in his Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte, published in 1819, while Napoleon was a prisoner on St. Helena, and two years before Napoleon’s death, argued that Hume’s argument, if consistently applied, would preclude believing testimonial evidence concerning the existence and exploits of Napoleon. 68 Another aspect of its proving too much is that the argument seems to militate against progress in science. Belief in the laws of nature, no less than belief in miracles, rests mainly on testimonial evidence. Moreover, there have been many statements held to express natural laws because of an apparently invariable experience in their favor which, upon later observations of exceptions, were subsequently abandoned. If Hume’s argument is accepted, this procedure must be judged irrational, since the first reported exception, to anyone who has not observed it, occupies the same logical status as the report of a miracle. Thus Broad notes that Hume’s argument requires that those . . . to whom the first exception was reported ought to have rejected it, and gone on believing in the alleged law of nature. Yet, if the report of the first exception makes no difference to their belief in the law, their state of belief will be precisely the same when a second exception is reported as it was on the first occasion. Hence if the first report ought to make no difference to their belief in the law, neither ought the second. So that it would seem on Hume’s theory that if, up to a certain time, I and every one else have always observed A to be followed by B then no amount of testimony from the most trustworthy persons that they have observed A not followed by B ought to have the least effect on my belief in the law. 69

In the 1750 second edition of the Essay, Hume appears to have attempted to deal with this type of criticism, a version of which had already been raised against him by Skelton. He discusses the example of an Indian prince who, never having directly observed that water freezes, is told that at a certain temperature water becomes hard enough to walk upon. In various guises, this example appears in Locke (king of Siam), Skelton (negro from Guinea), Sherlock (man in a warm climate), and Butler (Indian prince) and Hume would have expected his readers to be familiar with the suggestion that his argument precluded not only belief in miracles, but belief in any events foreign to one’s personal experience. 70 In considering the example, Hume writes,

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

67

it must be confessed that, in the present case of freezing, the event follows contrary to the rules of analogy and is such as a rational Indian would not look for. The operations of cold upon water are not gradual, according to the degrees of cold; but whenever it comes to the freezing point the water passes in a moment from the utmost liquidity to perfect hardness. Such an event, therefore, may be denominated ‘extraordinary’ and requires a pretty strong testimony to render it credible to people in a warm climate: but still it is not miraculous, nor contrary to uniform experience of the course of nature in cases where all the circumstances are the same.

Hume’s crucial move is to draw a distinction between marvels, that is to say unusual events with an unknown natural cause, and miracles, that is to say, unusual events with a supernatural cause. Marvels may be foreign to one’s personal experience, but are nevertheless in some sense conformable to experience, and can thus be rationally believed on the basis of sufficiently strong testimonial evidence. Miracles, on the other hand, are absolutely contrary to experience and thus no amount of testimonial evidence could ever be sufficiently strong to justify belief in their occurrence. Thus we find him claiming that testimonial evidence could, in principle, establish the occurrence of eight days of darkness over the world, that is to say, an event that is a marvel, but that it could never establish, even in principle, a resurrection, that is to say, an event that is a miracle. There are at least two reasons why Hume’s marvel/miracle distinction will not do the work he wants it to. First, with regard to the Indian prince example, it may be granted that it seems plausible for the prince to reason that, since he has no experience of the conditions under which water is said to become solid, it is not irrational to believe on the basis of strong testimony that water does in fact become solid under such conditions. Equally, however, it must be granted that it is plausible to think that, given strong testimony that an unexpected event contrary to one’s personal experience occurred, then there is good reason to hold that something was different in the circumstances under which it occurred, even if that difference is not immediately obvious. It is precisely the fact that one has strong testimonial evidence that the event did in fact occur that leads one to search for a difference in the conditions under which it took place. Thus, for example, it may happen that a researcher reports an exception to an alleged general law even though she cannot identify any relevant background circumstance that is different from those under which more usual results are obtained. Unless suitably strong testimony establishes at least a provisional belief in the occurrence of the event, theoreticians have no reason to think there is anything that needs explanation or investigation and other researchers have no reason to attempt to duplicate the first researcher’s results. Second, the question of whether an event occurred is logically distinct from the question of what caused it, if it did in fact occur. It is the first

68

Chapter 3

question that Hume claims to address in the Essay, yet his marvel/miracle distinction bears on the question of whether an unusual event has a natural or supernatural cause, not on the question of whether there is sufficient testimonial evidence to justify belief that the event occurred. As Mark Corner notes, it is clear that there is a difference between a ‘miracle’ and a ‘marvel,’ . . . But it is also clear that in the case of either the testimony has to be believed before there is any point in analysing what has happened. 71

The criteria for accepting that an event did in fact occur are quite different from the criteria for determining whether its cause was natural or supernatural. One might have strong testimonial evidence that a man walked on water, accept that the event occurred, yet ask whether the event is best explained in terms of a natural or supernatural cause. Given that Hume explicitly claims that if certain events occurred they would be miracles and attacks the rationality of believing in such events on the basis of testimonial evidence, his introduction of the marvel/miracle distinction seems a red herring. Hume might be absolved of the charge of introducing a red herring if he can make good his claim that marvels, unlike miracles, are in some sense conformable to experience, and hence can be established on the basis of testimony. But on what basis is he entitled to claim this? Apart from at times simply asserting that miracles are impossible, 72 he argues that some unusual events, that is to say marvels, can be believed on the basis of their analogy to our general experience, but that miracles have no analogy to our general experience and thus reports of their occurrence cannot be believed. Thus belief in the marvel of eight days of darkness could be justified on the grounds that the decay, corruption, and dissolution of nature, is an event rendered probable by so many analogies, that any phenomenon, which seems to have a tendency toward that catastrophe, comes within the reach of human testimony, if that testimony be very extensive and uniform. 73

This appeal to analogy seems inconsistent given that in his discussion of the Indian prince example Hume writes, “it must be confessed, that, in the present case of freezing, the event follows contrary to the rules of analogy, and is such that a rational Indian would not look for.” 74 Even if we ignore this inconsistency, Hume’s appeal to analogy as justifying belief in marvels, but not miracles, fails. Miracles, understood as events produced by a supernatural agent, can be viewed as analogous to events produced by human agents, inasmuch as both sets of events can be viewed as the result of intelligent agency. Human agents routinely produce within nature events which would not otherwise occur. Appeal to analogy, therefore, does not preclude believing in miracles on the basis of strong testimonial evidence. It is thus

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

69

clear that Hume’s distinction between marvels and miracles will not do the work he wanted it to do. Leaving aside discussion of Hume’s marvel/miracle distinction, the objection that the argument proves too much can be made even more pointed. Hume never takes into consideration the possibility of witnessing a miracle oneself. Once this is done, the claim that no testimony, no matter how strong, could ever warrant belief in a miracle seems incapable of defense. Consider the story of Lazarus found John 11:1-44. Suppose, as attending physician and friend, you were able to ascertain by personal observation and tests that Lazarus had truly died and been entombed. Suppose also that, after four days, Jesus arrives and you personally witness him visiting Lazarus’ tomb and issuing the command ‘Lazarus, come forth.’ To your astonishment, Lazarus emerges from the tomb, alive and well. You are able to resume your friendship with him and enjoy many more years of his company. Hume writes, ‘it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life,’ 75 so presumably, in his view, you would be justified in believing that you have observed a miracle. But are you in a position to believe that other persons who claim to have witnessed the miracle are not lying or deceived? On Hume’s argument, it appears you would have to judge it more probable, or at least as probable, that they are in fact lying or deceived than that they did in fact witness the miracle you observed. Similarly, although each one of them would be justified on Hume’s view in believing he or she witnessed a miracle, none of them would be justified in believing their fellow witnesses’ claims to having observed the miracle. Given such a result, it is hard to resist the conclusion that the argument reduces to absurdity. A further criticism is that the argument of Part I appears, at least prima facie, to be viciously circular, that is to say, it begs the question of whether miracles actually occur. Hume tells us that “a firm and unalterable experience has established the laws of nature,” that “it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed, in any age or country,” that “a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature,” that “there must . . . be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation.” 76 One of Hume’s early critics, William Samuel Powell, argued that Hume’s claim that “nature . . . is uniform and unvaried in her operations . . . either presumes the point in question, or touches not those events which are supposed to be out of the course of nature” 77 and William Paley, in the nineteenth century, notes that “to state concerning the fact in question that no such thing was ever experienced, or that universal experience is against it, is to assume the subject of the controversy. 78 Similarly, C.S. Lewis argues, now of course we must agree with Hume that if there is absolutely ‘uniform experience’ against miracles, if in other words they have never happened, why

70

Chapter 3 then they never have. Unfortunately we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all the reports of them are false. And we can know all the reports to be false only if we know already that miracles have never occurred. In fact, we are arguing in a circle. . . . The question, ‘Do miracles occur?’ and the question, ‘Is the course of Nature absolutely uniform’ are the same questions asked in two different ways. Hume, . . . treats them as two different questions. He first answers ‘Yes,’ to the question whether Nature is absolutely uniform: and then uses this ‘Yes’ as a ground for answering, ‘No,’ to the question, ‘Do miracles occur?’ The single real question which he set out to answer is never discussed at all. He gets the answer to one form of the question by assuming the answer to another form of the same question. 79

The charge that the argument of Part I is viciously circular is frequently dismissed by contemporary commentators as based on a superficial reading of the Essay. Robert Fogelin accuses Lewis of misreading Hume, suggesting that charges of circularity arise from “attributing an a priori argument [against the possibility of rationally justifying belief in a miracle on the basis of testimonial evidence] to Hume where there is none.” 80 Fogelin’s defense presupposes that Hume never intended to argue it is in principle impossible to justify belief in a miracle on the basis of testimonial evidence. As we have seen, however, this interpretation of the argument cannot be sustained. Joseph Houston is another commentator who argues that Lewis can raise the charge of circularity only by misreading Hume. Houston claims that Lewis misreads Hume inasmuch as he takes Hume as claiming that a law of nature is based on uniform invariable experience that can allow of no exceptions if it is to be a law. Houston acknowledges that such an understanding of the laws of nature implies that miracles cannot occur, since they would be exceptions to what are, by definition, exceptionless regularities. He insists, however, that since Hume did not take himself simply to be exploring the implications of his definition of the laws of nature, Hume cannot have held this view of the laws of nature. 81 While it seems true that Hume did not take himself simply to be exploring the implications of a definition of the laws of nature, what he in fact says about the laws of nature seems to imply that they must be defined as exceptionless regularities. We are told early in the argument that the laws of nature are based on ‘infallible experience’ and a little later that they have been established by ‘firm and unalterable experience.’ 82 Lest we misunderstand what is meant by the phrase ‘firm and unalterable experience’ Hume tells us that “it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country” and that “there must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation.” 83 Further, when Hume is faced with what would seem to be extremely strong evidence for the occurrence of an event plausibly viewed as miraculous, he is prepared to assert either that the event

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

71

could not have occurred on the basis that miracles are absolutely impossible, or, if the event occurred, it must not be a miracle. 84 It thus seems that, although Hume may have not noticed that he ruled out the occurrence of miracles by definition, there is good reason to think that this is in fact an implication of how he conceives the laws of nature. Strictly speaking, ruling out belief in miracles on the grounds that there cannot exist exceptions to what are, by definition, exceptionless regularities, does not commit one to a circular argument, but rather to the claim that the concept of miracle is logically incoherent, that is to say, a pseudo-concept. Thus David Johnson suggests that Hume might attempt to escape the charge of circularity by making a conceptual argument from the very concept of a law of nature against the logical possibility of a miracle. 85 The problem, as Johnson notes, is that, although there are elements of the Essay which suggest that miracles are to be ruled out as logically impossible, such a move does not fit well with Hume’s claim of weighing the evidence for miracles against the evidence for the laws of nature. If the concept of miracle is a logical absurdity—akin to the idea of a married bachelor—there is no need to raise the issue of conflicting bodies of evidence, since there can exist no evidence for what is logically impossible. I think a good case can be made that there are conflicting lines of argument in the Essay. Although Hume’s official stance seems to be that miracles are logically possible but that there are insurmountable difficulties in justifying belief in their actual occurrence, the claims he makes at several points in attempting to develop his argument imply the stronger conclusion that miracles are logically impossible. It is this conflict between his official stance and what he actually says in attempting to justify it that enables authors such as Johnson and Earman to suggest that Hume’s goals are so confused as to make it impossible to determine what his argument is. 86 What is clear is that, unless he is simply willing to suggest that the concept of a miracle is logically incoherent, Hume’s talk of ‘firm and unalterable experience’ as ruling out the possibility of belief in miracles leaves him open to the charge of circularity. 87 CONCLUSION We have seen that in Part I of the Essay Hume attempts to develop a balance of probabilities argument to the effect that reports of miracles can be a priori dismissed on the grounds that, from the very nature of the case there can never be sufficient testimonial evidence to justify belief in miracles. We have also observed that his argument is deeply flawed, being vulnerable to charges that it reduces to absurdity by proving too much and begs the question of whether miracles actually occur by defining them out of existence. Attempts

72

Chapter 3

to defend Hume from ‘dogmatic obscurantism,’ to use Gaskin’s phrase, go well beyond what the principle of charity allows as a legitimate reading of Hume’s intent in the Essay. 88 There is, however, an even more fundamental objection than the ones we have mentioned. Hume appears to have thought that miracles, defined as events which would not occur except through a transcendent agent intervening in nature to produce an event which would not otherwise happen, can only take place by violating the laws of nature. His assumption that miracles must violate the laws of nature is advanced as a presumed implication of the more basic claim that miracles are the result of supernatural intervention in nature. It is this assumption which allows him to generate the a priori balance of probabilities argument of Part I, pitting the evidence for the laws of nature against the testimonial evidence for miracles. We have seen in chapter 2, however, that the assumption that divine intervention in the natural order necessarily involves violating a law of nature is incorrect. A miracle, understood as the result of a transcendent agent overriding the usual course of nature so as to produce an event that would not otherwise occur, can take place without violating any laws of nature. This reveals that not only is Hume’s argument of Part I deeply flawed, it is irrelevant to the issue. Given there exists no necessary conflict between the evidence which supports belief in the laws of nature and the testimonial evidence which supports belief in miracles, Hume is not entitled to pit the two bodies of evidence against each other. His argument of Part I, depending as it does on a necessary conflict between the two bodies of evidence, cannot get started and thus provides no justification for Hume’s a priori dismissal of the possibility of there being sufficient testimonial evidence to justify belief in miracles. Despite its enormous influence, it provides no rational basis for rejecting reports of miracles. NOTES 1. Fogelin, A Defense of Hume on Miracles. In his introduction Fogelin comments that, My exposition of Hume’s position concerning miracles turns crucially on rejecting what I take to be two common misreadings of the text. . . . The first misreading is that, in Part I of his essay on miracles, Hume maintains that no testimony could ever be sufficient to establish the occurrence of a miracle. Hume does not say this in Part I. Indeed, Hume nowhere asserts this, though in Part II he does say, ‘Upon the whole . . . it appears, that no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever amounted to a probability, much less to a proof’ (EHU, 10.35, emphasis added). The second common misreading of the text is that in Part I Hume presents what he takes to be an a priori argument sufficient by itself to establish his fundamental theses concerning the status of testimony in behalf of miracles (2). In his concluding paragraph of the book, Fogelin writes that, since “for him [Hume] no matter of fact can be established a priori, it [therefore] remains an open, though remote, possibility that testimony could establish the occurrence of a miracle (62).

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

73

Fogelin’s appeal to Hume’s phrase “no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever amounted to a probability, much less to a proof” seems somewhat disingenuous as he neglects to mention that, prior to 1768, the wording in the Enquiry was “no testimony for any kind of miracle can ever possibly amount to a probability, much less to a proof.” 2. Earman, Hume’s Abject Failure, 21-22. 3. Campbell, A Dissertation on Miracles, 5. 4. Broad, “Hume’s Theory of the Credibility of Miracles,” 80. 5. Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 110. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 111. 9. Ibid. 114. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 115. 12. Ibid. 116. 13. Ibid. 114 14. Ibid. 115. 15. Flew, Hume’s Philosophy of Belief, 171. 16. Fogelin, in his article “What Hume Actually Said about Miracles” makes this point, writing that it would be altogether wrong, in fact would miss the whole drift of Hume’s argument, to read this passage [the last paragraph of Part I] as leaving open the possibility that the falsehood of the testimony just might, on some occasion, be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish. Hume surely expects us to remember the claim made only a paragraph earlier that the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined (84) (Fogelin’s emphasis). Indeed, Fogelin was prepared to go even further and assert that Hume’s claim that there could never be sufficient testimonial evidence to establish a miracle derives from a stronger and more basic claim that miracles could not in fact occur. He writes that, it is important to see that Hume describes this thesis concerning testimony as the plain consequence of some other thesis, and that other thesis can only be the one just stated, namely that there is a direct and full proof from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle. Thus, contrary to the traditional reading, the text contains both a thesis denying the existence of miracles and a thesis denying the credibility of testimony in favour of miracles, and Hume explicitly describes the latter as a consequence of the former (84) (Fogelin’s emphasis). It is surprising, therefore, that in his more recent A Defense of Hume on Miracle, Fogelin asserts that Hume did not intend to disallow the “possibility that testimony could establish the occurrence of a miracle,” but makes no attempt to explain the basis upon which he would reject his earlier claims concerning the Essay’s intent (62). 17. Gaskin, Hume’s Philosophy of Religion 122. Gaskin accepts Flew’s reading, holding that the intent of the argument of Part I is only to demonstrate that “the wise man will require more evidence than usual” (115). He recognizes that Hume makes far stronger claims than this in the Essay, but regards such claims as “occasional extravagances” (120) which are inconsistent with the main thrust of Hume’s argument. Gaskin’s motive for insisting on Flew’s reading seems to be that if the traditional interpretation is correct, the argument of Part I leads to “dogmatic obscurantism” (120) regarding the rationality of belief in miracles. The desire to save Hume from the charge of dogmatic obscurantism is understandable, but it cannot be allowed to eclipse the question of whether the interpretation of the text being proposed is

74

Chapter 3

justified. It seems clear that Hume’s intent was precisely to demonstrate that belief in miracles could never be justified on the basis of testimony. 18. As will be argued, there is good reason to think that Hume originally conceived of the argument of Part I in the early 1730s and that he viewed it as dealing a decisive blow to orthodox apologetics. It appears that in the period between when he first conceived the argument and its appearance in print Hume anticipated that not all critics would find it persuasive. Part II seems both a response to those who would refuse to accept his ‘in-principle’ argument of Part I and, at certain points, a somewhat reluctant recognition that demonstrating the decisiveness of the argument might not be quite as simple a matter as he first thought. There may also have been certain stylistic concerns motivating the inclusion of Part II. R.M. Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles notes that, “its inclusion may . . . have been motivated in part simply by a desire to lengthen the essay on the stylistic grounds that the unsupplemented argument of Part I might otherwise appear too short and sharp to be taken seriously by many readers” (157). That Hume continued to regard the argument of Part I as decisively ruling out the rationality of belief in miracle is evidenced by the fact that in Part II he several times reverts to an ‘inprinciple’ interpretation of it. 19. Hume, Inquiry, 120. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 116. 22. Ibid. 124-25. 23. Timothy McGrew and Lydia McGrew, “The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth,” 656-657. 24. Hume, Inquiry, 125 25. Ibid. 127. 26. Ibid. 127-128. 27. Fogelin, A Defense of Hume on Miracles, 31. 28. Hume, Inquiry, 128. 29. It is dubious that this distinction will do the work Hume wants it to do, since the question of whether or not an event occurred is distinct from the question of what one takes its cause to be Justifiably or not, however, it is clear that Hume holds that testimony is capable of establishing the occurrence of a marvel, but not of a miracle. 30. Hume, Inquiry,128. 31. Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles, 149. 32. As Flew notes, “anyone who after admitting that some marvelous event had taken place still insisted on proceeding to search for its causes would thereby reveal that he did not really concede it to have been genuinely miraculous. For a genuinely miraculous event . . . would . . . have . . . no natural causes,” Hume’s Philosophy of Belief, 200. 33. Hume, Inquiry, 115. Fogelin, asserts that “Hume nowhere argues, either explicitly or implicitly, that we know that all reports of miracles are false.” A Defense of Hume on Miracles, 19. He ignores this explicit claim of Hume’s that we know all reports of miracles that involve a resurrection are false. 34. Fogelin, A Defense of Hume on Miracles, 31. 35. When Hume asserts “what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events they relate” he appears to be claiming that either such events are miracles, in which case it is impossible to believe they occurred, or, if they did occur they are not miracles, but marvels, that is to say, unusual and poorly understood natural events. Leaving aside the suspicion that Hume begs a lot of questions at this point, it is clear that he wants to claim that rational belief in miracles is an impossibility. Unless one wishes to charge him with simply being dogmatic, this requires reading the argument of Part I as intending to demonstrate the impossibility of testimony ever justifying belief in miracles. 36. Hume, New Letters of David Hume, edited by R. Klibansky and E. Mossner (Oxford University Press, 1954), 2-3. 37. Hume, Letters of David Hume, edited by J.Y.T. Greig (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1932), Vol. 1, 361.

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

75

38. Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles, takes the ‘reasonings concerning miracles’ mentioned in the letter to Hume, to be an early draft of the argument of Part I (140). 39. Burns makes the point that “Hume uses the singular, and also would clearly had had difficulty in thinking up all five arguments of the essay at once while walking in the cloisters.” The Great Debate on Miracles, 133. 40. Hume, Letters of David Hume, ed. Greig, Vol. 1, 361. 41. Burns argues that Part II of the Essay was probably composed in the 1740s and that the inclusion of the four a posteriori arguments, all of which were well known in the philosophical literature of the day, was a reluctant response to prepublication criticisms of the a priori argument of Part I. The Great Debate on Miracles, 140, 154-158. 42. Ibid. 155, 158. 43. Sherlock, The Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus, 62. 44. As Burns comments, “if the Flew reinterpretation is accepted, the essay becomes a mere restatement of well-worn commonplaces, noteworthy only for the vigor and forcefulness of its presentation, and it becomes almost impossible to explain Hume’s sustained pride in it.” The Great Debate on Miracles, 153. 45. Skelton, Opiomaches or Deism Revealed, Vol. 2, 15. 46. Mossner, The Life of David Hume, 232. 47. Thus, for example, we find Hume including in the 1750 second edition of the Enquiry a discussion of Locke’s Indian prince example, in an effort to deal with the objection that his argument may prove too much by automatically ruling out the acceptance of any events foreign to one’s personal experience. 48. The fact that the argument taken in this manner is vulnerable to a number of serious objections, not least of which, to use Gaskin’s phrase, is the charge of “dogmatic obscurantism” (Hume’s Philosophy of Religion, 115) should not cause commentators to insist that Hume cannot have meant what he so clearly claims. When Gaskin writes that “in off-duty moments . . . [Hume] seems to want to use” (ibid. 113) the argument of Part I as establishing the impossibility of rational belief in miracles, but that these are “occasional extravagances” (ibid. 120) that do not express Hume’s considered view, it is hard to escape the impression that he is trying to make Hume claim what Gaskin thinks Hume should claim, rather than what Hume does claim. 49. Broad, “Hume’s Theory of the Credibility of Miracles,” 91-92. Likewise, A.E. Taylor notes that “from the position of his own sceptical philosophy,” Hume is not entitled to regard the belief of the man who “has the miracle in himself” as inherently more or less unreasonable than his own. “David Hume and the Miraculous,” 353. 50. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, 123-124. 51. Wilson, Hume’s Defence of Causal Inference, 285. 52. Ibid. 287. 53. Ibid. 54. Hume, Inquiry, 38. 55. Wilson charges Broad with a superficial reading of Hume, yet ignores the fact that Broad discusses the possibility that belief in the uniformity nature can be pragmatically justified at considerable length. See Broad, “Hume’s Theory of the Credibility of Miracles,” 9294. 56. Wilson, “The Logic of Probabilities in Hume’s Argument against Miracles,” 260. 57. Lewis, Miracles, 123-24. 58. It might be argued that it is overly simplistic to claim that Hume reduces causality to constant conjunction. Hume recognizes that humans have a psychological propensity to regard events which are constantly conjoined as necessarily conjoined. This suggests that, for Hume, consonant with his general view of belief, the concept of causality has a non-rational component. The central point, however, is that, given Hume’s thoroughgoing naturalism, there are no rational grounds for thinking this psychological propensity provides genuine insight into the nature of reality, and thus provides no reason to think that events which have occurred together in the past will continue to occur together in the future. 59. Hume, Inquiry, 38. 60. Ibid.

76

Chapter 3

61. Ibid. 91 62. Wilson, “The Logic of Probabilities in Hume’s Argument against Miracles,” 255-275, 63. Ibid. 260. 64. It is an error, therefore, to suggest, as does J.C.A. Gaskin, that Hume can dispense with the distinction he attempts to draw between marvels and miracles. Hume’s Philosophy of Religion, 122. 65. Hume, Inquiry, 128. 66. Ibid. 115. 67. Thus A.E. Taylor notes that it is clear that there are two quite distinct, though connected, questions which need to be carefully distinguished: (1) What sort and amount of evidence is needed to justify belief in the reality of an unusual occurrence? (2) Whether such occurrences, if there is evidence for them, can rightly be employed as proof of the control of events by a divine purpose? It is one question whether there can be adequate evidence of the occurrence of events “out of the common course” and another what the evidential worth of such events as testimony to the doctrines of a ‘religion’ may be . . . nothing but confusion can come of the attempt to treat the two questions as one. “David Hume and the Miraculous,” 343. 68. Richard Whately, Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte. 69. Broad, “Hume’s Theory of the Credibility of Miracles,” 87. Also see Earman, Hume’s Abject Failure, 31. 70. Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles, notes that this example was current in the philosophical literature of the time. He comments that “it is quite clear that Hume expected his readers to be familiar with the story and to be aware that it amounted prima facie to a telling argument against his position,” 166-67. 71. Corner, Signs of God, 26. 72. In commenting on the Jansenist miracles, Hume writes, “And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events, which they relate?” Inquiry, 125. Miracles seem ruled out by fiat. Either the event would have been a miracle, in which case it could not have occurred, or it occurred, in which case it could not be a miracle. 73. Ibid. 128. 74. Ibid. Footnote 1, 114. 75. Ibid. 115. 76. Ibid. 114-115. 77. William Samuel Powell, Discourses on Various Subjects, 95. 78. The larger context of Paley’s remark is worth mention. He writes Now there appears a small ambiguity in the term ‘experience,’ and in the phrases ‘contrary to experience,’ or ‘contradictory experience,’ which it may be necessary to remove in the first place. Strictly speaking the narrative of a fact is then only contrary to experience, when the fact is related to have existed at a time and place, at which time and place we being present did not perceive it to exist; as if it should be asserted that in a particular room, and at a particular hour of a certain day, a man was raised from the dead, in which room, and at which time specified, we being present, and looking on, perceived no such event to have taken place. Here the assertion is contrary to experience, properly so called; and this is a contrariety which no evidence can surmount. It matters nothing whether the fact be of a miraculous nature or not. . . . And short of this, I know no intelligible signification which can be affixed to the term ‘contrary to experience’ but one, viz., that of not having ourselves experienced anything similar to the thing related, or such things not being generally experienced by others. I say ‘not generally,’ for to state concerning the fact in question that no such thing was ever experienced, or that univer-

Hume’s A Priori Epistemological Argument

77

sal experience is against it, is to assume the subject of the controversy. A View of the Evidences of Christianity, 6-7. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. that

Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, 122-23. Fogelin, A Defense of Hume on Miracles, 19-20. Houston, Reported Miracles, 129. Hume, Inquiry, 122. Ibid. 122-123. Ibid. 133. Johnson, Hume, Holism and Miracles, 18-21. Johnson, Hume, Holism, and Miracles, 18-21. Earman, Hume’s Abject Failure, writes

Commentators who wish to credit Hume with some deep insight must point to some thesis which is both philosophically interesting and which Hume has made plausible. I don’t think that they will succeed. Hume has generated the illusion of deep insight by sliding back and forth between various theses, no one of which avoids both the Scylla of banality and the Charybdis of implausibility or outright falsehood (48). 87. A.E. Taylor notes, the apparently strange logic of Hume’s argument. On the face of it, there would seem to be something amiss with reasoning which proceeds from the principle that “a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence” to the conclusion that in a vast, if none too well defined field, the “wise man” will simply refuse to consider “the evidence” at all. “David Hume and the Miraculous,” 332. 88. In spite of accepting the unduly charitable reading of contemporary commentators that Hume never intended to rule out the possibility of testimonial evidence being sufficient to justify belief in a miracle, Earman writes, I find it ironic that so many readers of Hume’s essay have been subdued by its eloquence. And I find it astonishing how well posterity has treated “Of Miracles,” given how completely the confection collapses under a little probing. No doubt this generous treatment stems in part from the natural assumption that someone of Hume’s genius must have produced a powerful set of considerations. But I suspect that in more than a few cases it also involves the all too familiar phenomenon of endorsing an argument because the conclusion is liked. There is also the understandable, if deplorable desire to sneer at the foibles of the less enlightened-and how more pleasurable the sneering if it is sanctioned by a set of philosophical principles! Hume’s Abject Failure, 71.

Chapter Four

Further Epistemological Challenges

We have seen that Hume takes for granted that certain events, were they to occur, would accurately be described as miracles. He takes himself as providing, however, in Part I of the Essay, an epistemological argument that belief in the occurrence of such events could never, even in principle, be justified on the basis of testimony. Other epistemological challenges to accepting the occurrence of miracles have focused not on the question of whether certain events could justifiably be believed to have occurred, but rather on whether such events could ever be legitimately viewed as miraculous. I wish to emphasize that in this chapter we are examining objections to the effect that it would never be legitimate to view an event as a miracle. What is presently at issue is not whether certain events such as those described in Christian Scripture actually occurred, but rather if they, or events of a similar nature, are historically actual should they be viewed as miracles. Questions of the amount and type of evidence that would be needed to establish the occurrence of such events will be taken up in later chapters. MIRACLES AND THE ‘GOD OF THE GAPS’ OBJECTION A frequent charge made against those who defend the proposition that God acts upon nature to cause events which nature would not otherwise produce is that they are committed to a ‘God of the gaps.’ Proponents of miracles or, to use the currently popular language, special divine acts, are told that “there is no ‘God of the gaps’ to take over at those strategic places where science fails,” 1 that God “cannot be the old ‘God of the gap,’” 2 and that they must come “to learn that God is not in the gaps in the nexus of events but is somehow in the whole process.” 3 Denis Edwards speaks for many when he insists that acts of God must take effect 79

80

Chapter 4 in and through all the regularities and constraints of nature, including chance events occurring within the structure provided by the laws of nature. . . . There are no gaps in the causal explanation at the empirical level that theology should fill. 4

Any appeal to divine intervention to bridge what seem to be otherwise unbridgeable gaps in naturalistic explanations is thus viewed as theologically and philosophically naive. 5 So strong is this sentiment, “that merely labeling an explanation as ‘God of the gaps’ is often taken to constitute an unanswerable refutation of it. 6 Unfortunately, although the phrase ‘God of the gaps’ is widely and disparagingly used, and is understood by those employing it to refer to reasoning that is clearly fallacious, there has, until recently, been no rigorous examination of this presumed fallacy. Exactly wherein the fallacy lies and whether those who defend the claim of divine intervention in the course of nature are really guilty of such reasoning is typically ignored by those who charge their opponents with committing it. The charge of fallacious reasoning appears to be grounded in the view that the evidence taken to justify assertions of supernatural intervention must be based on the existence of gaps in our scientific understanding of physical processes. To consider such gaps as evidence for supernatural intervention is fallacious, it is claimed, inasmuch as it takes our ignorance of how nature works as evidence for supernatural intervention. Any ‘God of the gaps’ argument is thus presumed to be an example of the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam, that is to say, an appeal to ignorance. The fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam is standardly cited in texts as an argument that takes either of the following forms: There is no proof (or you have not proved) that p is false. Therefore p is true. There is no proof (or you have not proved) that p is true. Therefore p is false. 7 Thus, “if an argument claims that some statement is false, just because it is not known to be true or has not been proven, or it claims that a statement is true just because it is not known to be false or because it has not been refuted or disproved, then that argument commits the fallacy of appeal to ignorance.” 8 A problem with the standard discussions of argumentum ad ignorantiam is that it tends to be very short and the examples used in texts to illustrate this fallacy are, in many instances, artificial. Discussions of the fallacy are typically in the order of one to two pages and illustrations of the fallacy frequently bear little resemblance to real life arguments. Irving Copi’s widely used Introduction to Logic devotes one and one-half pages to discussing argumen-

Further Epistemological Challenges

81

tum ad ignorantiam and provides the ‘practical’ example that it is fallacious to argue that there must be ghosts because no one has ever been able to prove that there are not ghosts. 9 Unfortunately, Copi ignores the fact that it would be difficult to find anyone who justifies his or her belief in ghosts solely on the basis that no one has ever disproved their existence. That considerably more needs to be said on the subject of whether gap arguments are necessarily fallacious is evident. Ex silentio arguments are frequently used in historical research, psychology recognizes the reasonableness of ‘lack of knowledge’ inferences made by experimental subjects, the natural sciences employ the concept of ‘negative evidence,’ and philosophers recognize the legitimacy of ‘no-see-um’ inferences. 10 The relation of these widely accepted forms of reasoning to the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam needs to be made clear. Equally, it needs to be recognized that the examples routinely cited of argumentum ad ignorantiam are often a caricature of how arguments actually take place. The artificiality that plagues the short discussions of argumentum ad ignorantiam found in so many textbooks on informal logic results from the fact that in real life it is difficult to find arguments based simply on ignorance. It is certainly fallacious to argue that a statement must be false solely on the basis that it has not been proven true, or that a statement must be true solely on the basis that it has not been proven false. Typically, however, people do not argue in such a manner. Usually, we find them utilizing a premise, whether it be implicit or explicit, that if a proposition P were true (or not true) then we should reasonably expect to find evidence for it being true (or not true). When we do not find such evidence we can take this as a kind of evidence that P is false (or true). Douglas Walton is, therefore, correct to note that presumed examples of the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam can often be redescribed in a positive way that reveals them not to be arguments from ignorance at all. He writes, this redescription or transformation turns an argument from ignorance into a more positive-appearing kind of argumentation using modus tollens, and an implicit conditional assumption. . . . The transformation is based on the condition that if you have looked for something, and clearly it is not there, then this observation can count as a kind of positive evidence that it is not there. 11

Consider an example. Suppose I am told that there are alligators in the sewers of a large city. I and others conduct a thorough and exhaustive search over many months and days, but never find any trace of alligators. Would I commit the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantium if I were to conclude that on the basis of a lack of evidence of their presence there are no alligators in the sewers? It seems not, since I have enough positive knowledge of alligators to reasonably expect that if indeed they were in the sewers there would be

82

Chapter 4

positive evidence of their presence. The fact that after a thorough and exhaustive search no such evidence is found justifies me in concluding that they are not there. In such instances, the absence of evidence can legitimately be taken as evidence of absence. Hence, philosophers are prepared to talk of the legitimacy of ‘no-see-um’ inferences. It appears then that genuine instances of the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam are rare. In most instances, arguments which might at first glance appear to commit the fallacy of simply appealing to ignorance, reveal themselves on further inspection not to be arguing that a particular proposition P has been proved false simply on the basis that it has not been proved true, but rather on the basis that there is good reason to believe that if P were true then we should have been able to find evidence for its truth. The fact such evidence is lacking provides good reason, via modus tollens, for concluding that P is false. In such instances, it is a mistake to insist that the argument for concluding -P is based simply on ignorance and thus commits the fallacy of ad ignorantiam. 12 This suggests that in most instances what is at issue in assessing the worth of gap arguments is not the logical structure of the argument, that is to say whether it can be considered valid, but rather the status of the claim that if P were true (or false) then we could reasonably have expected to find evidence that it is true (or false) and thus, lacking such evidence, are entitled to conclude that P is false (or true). If such a claim is in fact true, then the absence of evidence can legitimately be taken as evidence of absence. It is important, therefore, not to be too quick in raising the charge of argumentum ad ignorantiam. Applying this analysis to the “God of the gaps” objection, we can ask whether those who appeal to gaps in attempted naturalistic explanations of events, say for example the Virgin Birth, as evidence of supernatural intervention in the course of nature do so solely or simply on the basis of ignorance of how natural causes operate or rather on the basis of presumed positive knowledge of how natural causes operate. If the former, then those who appeal to such gaps as evidence of supernatural intervention are guilty of the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam. If the latter, although one may wish to dispute the truth of their conditional premise, one can scarcely accuse them of an error in logic. 13 As Ratzsch notes, identification of the agency as supernatural depends upon the implicit claim that neither nature alone nor finite agent activity is causally or explanatorily adequate for the phenomena in question. Those conditions constitute the defining characteristics of God-of-the-gaps explanations-explanations that appeal to supernatural activity, on grounds of allegedly otherwise unbridgeable explanatory gaps in broadly scientific accounts of relevant phenomena. . . . [S]uch arguments have no formal logical problems. After all, if neither nature nor

Further Epistemological Challenges

83

finite agency can produce some phenomenon inarguably before us, then supernatural agency is about the only option left. 14

The crux of the matter is not the logical structure of ‘God of the gaps’ arguments, but rather the legitimacy of the premise that enough can be known about the operation of natural causes to make it reasonable to conclude that at least some gaps in purely naturalistic explanations are evidence of supernatural intervention. It will not do, therefore, to suggest that gap arguments can be dismissed as logically fallacious. If they are rejected it must be on some basis other than they are guilty of a failure in logic. The real issue is not whether such arguments are in principle inadmissible, but whether there is good evidence for the claim that natural causes are inadequate to explain certain phenomena. An assumption that seems to underlie the rejection of the legitimacy of any type of gap argument is that the advance of science has invariably diminished the gaps in our understanding of how natural causes can account for phenomena previously attributed to supernatural intervention. Keith Parsons, for example, asserts that, examples can be thought of in which people encounter events that seem utterly inexplicable to them but which turn out to have scientific explanations. Suppose that a group of Papuan tribesmen were to witness for the first time a helicopter rise vertically from the ground into the sky. Never in their previous experience had they observed a large, solid object rise, without anything seeming to lift or throw it, into the air. The phenomenon would run totally counter to all their previous experience of how such objects behaved. It seems entirely reasonable to suppose that it would appear to them to be as miraculous an event as the instantaneous curing of leprosy would be to us. Of course we know a great deal more than do the Papuan tribesmen, but we can no more harbor the pretension that we know all of the causes and laws that might operate within nature than they can. 15

He goes on to claim that it is possible to construct a very strong inductive argument that concludes that if an event is believed explicable only as the effect of a supernatural agent, it will turn out in the long run to have a scientific explanation. . . . At various times in the past disease, eclipses, lightning, insanity, earthquakes, monstrous births, crop failures, rain, pregnancy, and victory in war (to name a very few examples) were all thought to be brought about by gods. . . . History is replete with so many such instances that when we come across an event that presently is claimed to have a supernatural explanation, we have very good grounds for rejecting that claim and confidently awaiting a scientific explanation. 16

We find expressed by Parsons the very common view that those who employ gap arguments are like children trying to defend sand castles against the

Chapter 4

84

incoming tide, with each increase in scientific understanding further eroding the foundation of a fundamentally untenable enterprise. 17 Several points need to be made in response to this line of argument. First, it seems that the Papuans would recognize the helicopter as a type of artifact. Artifacts are not things that nature produces on its own, but rather are designed and produced by intelligent agents. The Papuans view that the helicopter is a product of the ‘gods’ can be understood as an expression of their recognition that the helicopter is an artifact and thus a product of intelligent agency. Given the difficulty of accounting for human consciousness and agency entirely in naturalistic terms, 18 the Papuans may not be mistaken in thinking the helicopter requires a non-natural explanation, that is to say an explanation in terms of a designing agent capable of acting upon nature, but not itself explicable in natural terms. It remains to be shown, therefore, that the Papuans would be mistaken in their employment of a gap argument. 19 Second, the assumption that, prior to the rise of science, theists typically inferred that God was the immediate cause of any event they did not understand is historically naive. John Mark Reynolds notes that medieval theologians were not guilty of postulating God’s intervention simply on the basis of ignorance of natural causes. He writes, no unmodified gaps argument [i.e., an argument based solely on ignorance of how natural causes operate] would have been possible during that time. The theology of the period, for example that of Thomas Aquinas in the West or Maximos in the East, was simply too sophisticated. Neither the scholastic nor the Byzantine scholar postulated divine action only in those places where the science of the day failed. In fact, like Augustine, both were willing to allow for direct and indirect divine action. The philosopher-theologians of the period gave natural and theological reasons for any postulated instance of direct, divine action. 20

In a similar vein, James Simpson comments that, it is open to some question . . . whether the choice of those who have been singled out to support a general thesis to the effect that the Church through many centuries was not merely obscurantist and hostile to, but actively did its best to discourage and even suppress the investigation of natural causes, has been altogether fair. 21

and goes on to observe that, in Gregory of Nyssa, on the basis of his Hexaemeron alone, the Early Church possessed a teacher competent to take his place with the ablest of the pagan philosophers. He had a real idea of scientific method, and evidenced a worthy respect for the views of those from whom he was led to differ. 22

Further Epistemological Challenges

85

It is just not the case that theologians were willing to posit the direct intervention of God simply on the basis of ignorance. Augustine and Aquinas, two of the most influential medieval Christian thinkers, distinguished between direct (primary) and indirect (secondary) divine action. Both held that supernatural interventions in nature take place, but neither argued for such interventions on the basis of ignorance of how secondary causes operate. This is not to suggest that it may not be possible to find examples of a simple appeal to ignorance, especially among the laity, in postulating supernatural intervention. It is to assert that it is a cultural myth that such reasoning was the stock in trade of Christian philosophers or theologians. Third, even if it is the case that certain classes of events were mistakenly viewed as instances of supernatural intervention in the past—to use two of Parson’s examples, earthquakes and crop failures—this hardly constitutes a strong inductive argument that all classes of events viewed as miracles can be explained in terms of natural causes. One cannot argue that because pigeons are easy to catch foxes will likewise be easy to catch. There is a great difference between a pigeon and a fox and our success in catching pigeons will have little or no bearing on whether we will be successful in catching foxes. Similarly, there is a great difference between the event of an earthquake and the event of a person returning to life after three days of being dead. Our success in explaining earthquakes in terms of natural causes hardly provides us with a strong inductive argument that we can explain a resurrection in terms of natural causes. Fourth, any appeal to the argument that the progress of science may invalidate miracle claims is double-edged. The claim of those defending gap arguments is that we can know enough about the operation of natural causes to conclude that the explanation of certain phenomena in purely naturalistic terms is either unlikely or impossible. This claim can be undermined if, as science progresses, it becomes clear that a complete explanation of such phenomena purely in terms of natural causes can be given. Equally, however, it must be acknowledged that this claim is strengthened if, as science progresses, the prospects of providing naturalistic explanations become increasingly remote. In other words, those hoping to employ a progress of science objection against gap arguments must grant the possibility that the progress of science has strengthened, rather than weakened, certain ‘God of the gaps’ arguments. In the case of events traditionally and centrally described as miracles, it is evident that our increased knowledge of how natural causes operate has not made it easier, but more difficult, to explain them naturalistically. The science underlying wine-making is more advanced today than it was in firstcentury Palestine, but these advances have made it more, not less, difficult to explain in terms of natural causes how Jesus, without any technological aids, could, in a matter of minutes, turn water into high quality wine. Our knowl-

86

Chapter 4

edge of human physiology is vastly increased from that of first-century Palestine, but this increase does not make it any easier to provide a natural explanation of how Jesus could rise from death. Indeed, it is the difficulty of providing a naturalistic account of such events that leads many critics to deny that they ever occurred; though this looks suspiciously like begging the question in favor of naturalism. It is clear that if such events have occurred the advance of science has made them more, rather than less, difficult to explain in terms of natural causes. Fifth, insisting the occurrence of such events must be viewed as explicable in terms of unknown natural causes rather than supernatural intervention not only issues a promissory note of dubious value, it also commits one to unwarranted skepticism concerning our understanding of how nature works. One must abandon what appear to be basic, well-evidenced, accurate accounts of what we can expect to occur naturally and instead adopt a radical scepticism concerning the claims of science. One has not an explanation in terms of natural causes, but rather the hope that one will someday be available. This is in sharp contrast to the person willing to posit supernatural intervention, who is able to offer an account of how one may accept the occurrence of such extraordinary events, yet retain faith in our knowledge of how nature operates. As has already been argued, miracles do not violate the laws of nature. They threaten not our understanding of how nature works when not intervened upon by something other than itself, but rather the insistence that nature is never affected by supernatural agency. Consider, by way of analogy, a man who places diamonds in a safe to which he believes only he has the combination. He is confident that the diamonds will be in the safe when he returns to claim them at a later date. When he returns, however, he finds that the diamonds are missing. Two hypotheses are available to the man. The first is that he is radically mistaken in what he thought he knew about the nature of safes and diamonds; that somehow, in as a yet unknown way, it is possible for diamonds to evaporate through the walls of safes. The second is that, although he thought he was the sole possessor of the combination to the safe, in reality he was not. There seems every reason to prefer the second hypothesis over the first. It appears more rational for the man to give up his belief that he is the sole possessor of the combination, than to insist that it is possible for diamonds to evaporate through the walls of safes. Similarly, if events such as the Resurrection or Jesus turning water into wine actually occurred, it would seem more rational to view them as indicating that the universe is open to the intervention of supernatural agency, rather than insisting that we do not really understand the nature of dead bodies or what processes are involved in the natural, as opposed to supernatural, production of wine. To take the latter course of action regarding these events is not to provide any kind of natural explanation of

Further Epistemological Challenges

87

what religious believers take to be a miracle, but rather to issue a promissory note of very dubious value that someday a natural explanation will be forthcoming. Sixth, it deserves emphasis that events traditionally viewed as miracles do not occur as mere anomalous surds, but as part of a larger teleological pattern that itself needs explanation. Jesus does not simply rise from the dead, he predicts that he will rise from the dead (Matt. 17:22-23, Mk. 9:30-32, Lk. 9:43-45). Paul is not only struck blind, he is told to go to Damascus and wait for further instructions: meanwhile, Ananias in prayer is given specific instructions to go to a certain address where he will meet Paul and heal him of his blindness (Acts 9:3-19). Peter is not only given a vision that he should not discriminate between Jews and Gentiles, but at the same time Cornelius is told in a vision that he should send for Peter (Acts 10:1-48). Jesus’ mother, Mary, does not simply find herself pregnant while still a virgin, but has a vision in which she is told that this will occur (Lk.1:28-31). 23 More examples could be cited, but enough has been said to make clear that any explanation in natural, rather than supernatural, terms requires not simply an explanation of the event itself, but also the teleological context in which it is embedded. 24 It appears, therefore, that, properly understood, ‘God of the gaps’ arguments deserve to be taken seriously, rather than summarily dismissed as is so often the case. They are neither logically fallacious nor inevitably weakened by the progress of science. MIRACLES AND THE ‘SCIENCE STOPPING’ OBJECTION Another attempt to undermine the legitimacy of ever terming an event a miracle is the objection that to do so is to undermine or make impossible the practice of science. Guy Robinson, for example, has argued that to call an event a miracle is to abandon the scientific enterprise. He writes, notice what would happen to the scientist if he allowed himself to employ the concept of an irregularity in nature or of a miracle in relation to his work. He would be finished as a scientist. . . . To do this would be simply to resign, to opt out, as a scientist . . . Scientific development would either be stopped or else made completely capricious, because it would necessarily be a matter of whim whether one invoked the concept of miracle or irregularity to explain an awkward result, or on the other hand accepted the result as evidence of the need to modify the theory one was investigating. 25

Robinson’s claim that science will be undermined inasmuch as it is necessarily a matter of whim whether one regards an unusual event as a miracle or the result of presently unknown natural causes seems mistaken. It assumes, with-

88

Chapter 4

out supporting argument, that religious believers routinely label any unusual event they encounter as a miracle. At the heart of Robinson’s claim is the supposition that there are no criteria by which to distinguish events most plausibly viewed as instances of supernatural intervention from events most plausibly viewed as the result of unknown natural causes. This is not the case, however. Religious believers typically appear to apply the following criteria: 1. The event took place in a context in which it can reasonably be understood to have religious significance. 26 2. The regularity to which the event constitutes an exception is strongly confirmed and is known to apply to the same type of physical circumstances in which the event took place. These criteria appear to provide a basis upon which to differentiate events most plausibly viewed as the result of supernatural intervention from events most probably viewed as due to yet unknown natural processes. This is not to claim that it will always be a simple matter to decide whether these criteria have been met. It has been well said, however, that the fact that there is twilight should not persuade one that day cannot be distinguished from night. The fact that there may be cases where it is difficult to decide whether these criteria are met, does not imply that there are not clearly recognizable cases in which they are met. In such instances it will be legitimate to view the event as a miracle. Contra Robinson, it is not the case that it is inevitably a matter of whim whether an usual event is to be viewed as a miracle or an anomaly whose natural causes are not yet known. MIRACLES AND METHODOLOGICAL NATURALISM Recently, the term ‘methodological naturalism’ has come into vogue, with many theists and non-theists alike arguing that, whatever one’s metaphysical convictions, it is never legitimate to posit direct supernatural agency in seeking to explain physical events. On this view, science differs from other modes of human inquiry such as theology or philosophy by its commitment to methodological naturalism. God may exist, but science could never, even in principle, recognize an event as a miracle. Thus Michael Ruse writes, in no sense is the methodological naturalist . . . committed to the denial of God’s existence. It is simply that the methodological naturalist insists that, in as much as one is doing science, one avoid all theological or other religious references. In particular, one denies God a role in the creation. 27

Further Epistemological Challenges

89

To label an event a miracle, therefore, would be unscientific and not to be countenanced. 28 Commitment to methodological naturalism as the conditio sine qua non of what it is for an inquiry to be ‘scientific,’ rather than ‘unscientific,’ seems to arise from a desire to resolve what is known in philosophy of science as the demarcation problem. Historically, there have been numerous attempts to specify criteria that allow drawing a hard and fast distinction between what can be considered ‘science’ and ‘non-science.’ The motives underlying such attempts have varied. Early demarcationalists were motivated by the assumption that science achieves certainty, whereas other modes of inquiry such as philosophy are only capable of producing opinion. Later demarcationalists, aware that scientific knowledge is subject to uncertainty, have typically attempted to demarcate the line between science and non-science not on epistemic grounds, but rather on methodological grounds, claiming that science can be distinguished from non-science on the basis of the methods it employs. Before directly considering the question of whether adopting methodological naturalism is essential to scientific investigation of phenomena, three general points deserve to be made. First, it deserves emphasis that demarcation criteria are frequently employed as a discrediting device. Given the prestige that science enjoys, it is rhetorically effective if one can cast one’s own position as ‘scientific’ and one’s opponent’s position as ‘unscientific.’ Larry Laudan notes that “demarcation criteria are typically used as machines de guerre in . . . polemical battle[s] between rival camps . . . [and] many of those most closely associated with the demarcation issue have . . . hidden (and sometimes not so hidden) agendas of various sorts.” 29 Rather than critically engage with those with whom one disagrees, it is easier to dismiss their arguments as unscientific and unworthy of being taken seriously. Second, labels such as ‘scientific’ or ‘unscientific’ should not be taken as automatically conferring epistemic warrant or authority. It is fallacious to think that classifying an argument or hypothesis as ‘unscientific,’ rather than ‘scientific,’ somehow refutes it. As Stephen Dilley remarks, mere terminological labels do not change epistemic properties. Just as theists cannot lower the epistemic plausibility of [naturalist] hypotheses merely by deeming them ‘arrogant bluster’ so naturalists cannot lower the epistemic plausibility of God hypotheses by labeling them ‘unscientific.’ As an epistemic matter, each rival hypothesis must be evaluated on its evidential and conceptual merits. 30

Refusing to consider empirical evidence that bears on the existence of God and miracles on the grounds that such concepts are ‘unscientific’ may be rhetorically effective at certain levels of popular discussion, but it is scarcely rationally persuasive. Even if one were to concede the claim of methodologi-

90

Chapter 4

cal naturalists that all ‘scientific’ explanations of phenomena must be naturalistic, such a concession is irrelevant to the question of whether a non-naturalistic, that is to say ‘non-scientific,’ explanation of certain phenomena is superior to a naturalist explanation of the phenomena. Simply insisting that the concept of miracle is ‘unscientific’ is scarcely a substitute for rational examination of whether an event should be regarded as a miracle or not. Third, philosophers of science are largely agreed that attempts to specify a set of necessary and sufficient conditions that demarcate ‘science’ from ‘non-science’ have both failed and are ill-motivated. Having surveyed the failure of demarcation strategies across centuries, Laudan asserts that “if we . . . stand . . . on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like ‘pseudoscience’ and ‘unscientific’ from our vocabulary; they are just hollow phrases which do only emotive work for us.” 31 This failure should come as no surprise. The word ‘science’ comes from the Latin term ‘scientia,’ which means to know or understand. Knowing and understanding require a disciplined, honest, reasoned approach to whatever it is one studies. What is required, however, in terms of methods for such an approach may vary from discipline to discipline. If one wants to insist on distinguishing ‘science’ from ‘nonscience’ it should be on the basis of whether a disciplined, honest, reasoned approach was taken, rather than whether a particular methodology that may be appropriate to one discipline or area of study, but not to another was employed. Leaving aside the difficulties inherent in attempts to provide any kind of precise demarcation between ‘science’ and ‘non-science’ and the rhetorical pitfalls implicit in labels such as ‘scientific’ and ‘unscientific,’ we return to our question of whether methodological naturalism is a conditio sine qua non of pursuing scientific inquiry. We need to bear in mind, however, that the failure of attempts to neatly demarcate ‘science’ from other areas of rational inquiry, raises considerable doubts concerning the frequently made claim that methodological naturalism is metaphysically neutral. 32 Miracles, if they occur, are events that take place in the physical world. Further, claims of their occurrence are ongoing. There seems no reason why such claims cannot be scientifically investigated. In many cases, claims of miraculous healing can be investigated in terms of before and after medical records and what we know regarding various diseases and physical ailments. If there is good reason to accept the occurrence of events which meet criteria mentioned earlier in this chapter, it seems obscurantist to insist that any explanation in terms of supernatural agency must be automatically dismissed as unscientific on the grounds that scientific investigation can only reveal the operation of natural causes? If one thinks that a goal of science is to uncover the causes of events in the natural world then methodological naturalism appears a threat to this goal since it a priori rules out recognizing supernatural causes of events even if such causes exist and operate. As Ratzsch notes,

Further Epistemological Challenges

91

“if part of reality lies beyond the natural realm, then science cannot get at the truth without abandoning the naturalism it presently follows as a methodological rule of thumb.” 33 At least on a realistic conception of science, scientists are in the business of investigating the nature of reality. Whether in metaphysics, religion, science, or other human endeavors, one needs to be able to follow the evidence where it leads. Methodological naturalism skews from the outset what will count as evidence and what form explanations can take, inasmuch as it requires that evidence be interpreted, and theories constructed, in such a manner as to conform to a naturalist framework. It guarantees that even if supernatural causes operate within nature they can never be recognized. Adopting methodological naturalism puts its practitioners in danger of violating a fundamental epistemic obligation to allow for some experience or set of experiences to serve as a defeater for the belief that natural causes are responsible for all that occurs in the physical universe. If no matter what the physical phenomena and no matter how they resist explanation in terms of physical causes or non-supernatural agency, it is never admissible to posit a supernatural cause then we have moved to a position that is unfalsifiable in the worst possible sense. Short of simply decreeing that only natural causes are operative in the ongoing history of the universe, there appears no reason to think that it is inconceivable that scientific investigation, in considering whether a naturalistic explanation can be given for a certain phenomenon, might come to the conclusion that it would never have occurred were nature left to its own devices. Ratzsch is thus correct in his observation that “any stipulation that it would be scientifically illegitimate to accept the inability of nature to produce . . . [certain events] no matter what the empirical and theoretical evidence, has, obviously, long since departed deep into the philosophical and worldview realms. 34 The problem with insisting that the practice of methodological naturalism is metaphysically neutral and its adoption constitutes what it is for inquiry to be scientific is that it assumes that the methodology one employs has no links to one’s beliefs about the nature or possible nature of reality. Not only is this assumption far from self-evidently true; it seems simply false. If, for example, I believe that there exist, or may possibly exist, mental states which play a causal role in determining bodily behavior, it makes no sense to adopt methodological behaviorism, since its adoption guarantees the development of psychological theories in which mental states either do not exist or play no causal role in bodily behavior. Only if I have already established beyond possible doubt that mental states do not exist or, if they do exist, play no causal role does it make sense to insist on methodological behaviorism as a prerequisite of developing psychological theories. To insist on its employment in the absence of sound reason for disbelieving in the existence of

92

Chapter 4

mental states or their causal powers is to beg the question of whether its adoption is justified. Similarly, methodological naturalism might seem a sensible approach to scientific theorizing if one believes that supernatural agents do not exist, or that if they do exist they never intervene in the operation of the physical universe. 35 If, however, one believes that a supernatural agent, say God, exists, or may exist, and might possibly intervene in the operation of the physical universe, it will seem misguided to adopt a methodology which forbids ever positing such intervention. Insisting that methodological naturalism be adopted, implicitly commits one either to the claim that supernatural agents do not exist or to the claim that if they do they never intervene on the natural order. This, however, begs the important question of whether such claims are justified. Insofar as it guarantees that no matter what the evidence is it cannot be thought to lead to a supernatural cause, methodological naturalism makes the claim that all physical events have natural causes unfalsifiable. Despite obvious concerns regarding the presumed neutrality of the practice of methodological naturalism, might it be argued that its adoption is justified on the basis that it is the only game in town as regards scientific inquiry? One meets a number of arguments to this effect. One finds claims that: supernatural causation would involve violating the laws of nature, supernatural causes are not empirical and therefore cannot be considered by science, supernatural causation is not scientifically testable, viewing an event as supernaturally caused is a ‘science-stopper’ and explanations in terms of supernatural agency are not genuine explanations. Since the claim that miracles would involve violating the laws of nature has already been examined and found wanting, I move to consider the other objections commonly made to the claim that science should be open to the legitimacy of recognizing events as miracles. The claim that supernatural causes are not empirical and cannot on that account be considered by science appears specious. It may be true that supernatural causes are non-empirical but this hardly demonstrates the impossibility of legitimately postulating them on the basis of empirical evidence. Many of the entities of physics are not themselves directly observable; their existence is arrived at via empirical observations of effects of which they are taken to be the cause. There seems no reason why this cannot be true in the case of supernatural causes. Ratszch makes this point, noting that within the scientific context, all that is required for something to be a legitimately empirical matter is for it to have appropriately definable, theoretically traceable empirical consequences or effects or connections. Those connections can be exceedingly indirect, and they typically are not direct consequences just of the theoretical matters in question, but only of those matters in conjunction

Further Epistemological Challenges

93

with a variety of other principles (sometimes referred to as ‘auxiliary’ or ‘bridge’ principles). It is by that means that even such exotica as quarks and the deep past get included within the empirical realm. But although a supernatural being could obviously have untraceable effects on nature, surely it cannot be claimed that a supernatural being simply could not have traceable effects upon empirical matters. 36

In a similar vein, Fales argues that, a central task of science is to discover and study the causes of things . . . if anything is causally connected to other things that are, in their turn causally connected to yet others, then that thing makes a difference . . . to what happens in the world. . . . if God causally interacts with the world it should be possible, . . . to identify His effects upon the world. 37

The fact that God is not a material being is not, therefore, a reason to think that science could never be justified in viewing an event as miraculous. The claim that supernatural causation is not scientifically testable also seems false. Entities that are not directly observable may be postulated on the basis of empirical evidence but this is not a haphazard, anything goes, process. If their postulation seems too ad hoc or a different cause seems better able to explain the empirical evidence and is consilient with what we take to be true in other areas of inquiry then this will constitute reason to reject postulating such entities. An example of how this works is provided by William Dembski in his reply to the charge that intelligent design is not scientifically testable. His comment apply equally well to the issue of miracle. He writes, if it could be shown that biological systems that are wonderfully complex, elegant and integrated . . . could have been formed by a gradual Darwinian process . . . then intelligent design would be refuted on the general grounds that one does not invoke intelligent causes when undirected natural causes will do. In that case Ockham’s razor would finish off intelligent design quite nicely. 38

Similarly, if it should turn out that there are plausible naturalistic accounts both of the unusual events believers have termed miracles and the teleological context in which the events occurred, then the application of Ockham’s Razor dictates that the claim that such events were indeed miracles should be called into question or abandoned. It seems clear that calling an event a miracle is not a science-stopper. First, it deserves emphasis, that calling an event a miracle, that is to say, an event at least partially produced by the direct action of God, “need no more block continued inquiry into the possibility of a naturalistic explanation than would the apparent finding that one event was directly, and naturalistically,

94

Chapter 4

produced by another block further inquiry into the possibility of different or intervening causes.” 39 In areas where worldviews such as naturalism and theism clash, or might seem to clash, it is appropriate for scientific inquiry to allow a methodological pluralism that enables the exploration of competing points of view. To do so seems a necessary condition of fostering a healthy intellectual environment. Taking seriously the hypothesis that further scientific investigation will emphasize the inadequacy of purely natural causes to account for the occurrence of events viewed by religious believers as miracles, hardly implies that research cannot continue regarding the possibility of demonstrating that a plausible naturalistic account of such events can be given. 40 Far from being a ‘science stopper’ or encouraging intellectual laziness, such competition holds hypotheses to a much higher standard than they would otherwise have to meet. Indeed, it is the insistence of the practice of methodological naturalism that is potentially a ‘science-stopper’ in the investigation of such events, since its adoption guarantees that even if events are miracles, that is to say instances of divine intervention, they can never be recognized as such. 41 One frequently meets the claim that explanations in terms of supernatural agency are not genuine explanations. Robert Pennock, for example, insists that science is only possible on the methodological assumption that supernatural entities do not intervene to negate lawful natural regularities. . . .Supernatural theories . . . can give no guidance about what follows or does not follow from their supernatural components. . . . God may simply . . . zap anything into or out of existence. Furthermore, in any situation, any pattern (or lack of pattern) of data is compatible with the general hypothesis of a supernatural agent unconstrained by natural law. 42

The issue of explanations in terms of intelligent purposeful agency is an important one that will be taken up further in subsequent chapters. In the context of our present discussion two points need to be made by way of reply to objections such as Pennock’s. First, there seems no reason why science cannot in principle establish the existence of a physical event for which there exists no explanation in terms of natural causes. Arguably, in the case of Big-Bang cosmology, it has actually done so. In such instances it seems unduly dogmatic to insist that no consideration of a hypothesis of supernatural causation is legitimate. Christian theists committed to the claim that the physical universe came to be, and continues to exist, by the will of God should be especially sceptical of such dogmatism. Second, it is far from clear that all explanations must be in terms of law or that the concepts of explanation and prediction can be equated. If one takes seriously the possibility of agents with libertarian free will—if God exists He

Further Epistemological Challenges

95

would surely qualify as having such free will—then certain events might well be explained not in terms of laws and predictability, but rather by reference to an agent’s choices and purposes. Why, if forensic scientists, archaeologists, anthropologists, cryptographers, and the like routinely recognize agency in their investigations, should labelling an event a miracle be in principle outside the purview of scientific inquiry? Neither will it do to suggest that on the hypothesis of theism “God may simply zap anything into or out of existence.” Theists hold that what God wills is free but that it is nevertheless in accordance with his nature and thus not purely arbitrary or irrational. As Fales, who would scarcely consider himself a theist, comments, “it does not follow from the fact that God is a free agent that His purposes and behavior (including the occasional performance of a miracle) cannot be made intelligible or studied in systematic ways.” 43 I have been arguing that methodology should not be allowed to trump following the evidence where it leads. The danger in insisting that the practice of methodological naturalism constitutes the essence of whether inquiry is scientific is that such a practice is far from metaphysically neutral, inasmuch as it places a straightjacket from the very outset upon what can count as a legitimate explanation. It guarantees in advance that science could never legitimately come to the conclusion that there exist some physical events which we are justified in thinking do not have a physical cause; an insistence that seems ironic in the light of Big-Bang cosmology. Why, if our best science points to the conclusion that the entire universe resulted from an event for which there is no natural explanation, should it be insisted that it could never be legitimate for science to reach the conclusion there exist other events for which there is no explanation in terms of natural causes. It should come as no surprise that attempts to neatly insulate scientific inquiry from metaphysical issues inherent in naturalism’s and theism’s competing views of reality can never be wholly successful, since, as E.L. Burtt reminds us, “even the attempt to escape metaphysics is no sooner put in the form of a proposition than it is seen to involve highly significant metaphysical postulates.” 44 Burtt goes on to note that, the history of mind reveals pretty clearly that the thinker who decries metaphysics will actually hold metaphysical notions of three main types. For one thing, he will share the ideas of his age on ultimate questions, so far as such ideas do not run counter to his interests or awaken his criticism. . . . In the second place . . . he will be under a strong and constant temptation to make a metaphysics out of his method, that is, to suppose the universe ultimately of such a sort that his method must be appropriate and successful . . . [and third when ultimate questions] are powerfully thrust upon [him] by considerations arising from [his] positivistic investigations . . . inasmuch as [he] has failed to

96

Chapter 4 school [himself] in careful metaphysical thinking [his] ventures at such points will be apt to appear pitiful, inadequate, or even fantastic. 45

Embracing the practice of methodological naturalism as both metaphysically neutral and as the conditio sine qua non of scientific inquiry guarantees not that one avoids importing metaphysical assumptions into one’s science, but rather that those assumptions are held unconsciously and thus uncritically. The result is that they are passed on far more readily than are critically examined metaphysical stances, since such assumptions are propagated by insinuation rather than by direct argument. 46 Nothing in what has been said should be taken as suggesting that there are not large areas of science where the assumption that events can be explained in terms of the operation of natural causes is justified. Theists can perfectly well acknowledge that God works through the instrumentality of created secondary causes. The degree to which differing metaphysical commitments of naturalists and theists impinge on scientific practice should not, therefore, be exaggerated. John Lennox is correct when he writes that such “commitments, . . . are not likely to figure very largely, if at all, when we are studying how things work, but they may well play a much more dominant role when we are studying how things came to exist in the first place, or when we are studying things that bear on our understanding of ourselves as human beings. 47 It seems evident, however, that if one takes seriously the principle that it is unwise to adopt on theoretical grounds a position which prevents as a matter of principle discovering that something is indeed the case, 48 then any blanket prescription that scientists must only ever consider explanation in terms of natural causes is unjustified. If, for example, the raising of Lazarus took place as described in the Gospel of John, that is to say a man who had been clearly dead for four days was returned to life upon the spoken word of Jesus, 49 it seems more rational to think an explanation in terms of supernatural agency is correct than to insist that the only rational course of action is to seek an explanation in terms of natural causes. Those seeking an explanation in terms of natural causes are, of course, free to do so. What they cannot mandate, however, is that science can never be in a position to reach the conclusion that an event is best explained as a miracle. There seems, therefore, no principled reason why scientific inquiry might not reach the conclusion that certain events are best explained not as the result of natural causes, but rather as the result of supernatural agency. 50 CONCLUSION I conclude that the claim that calling an event a miracle is necessarily to be guilty of the fallacy of ad ignorantiam is mistaken. Gap arguments, properly

Further Epistemological Challenges

97

conceived, are entirely legitimate. Equally mistaken is the view that the progress of science inevitably undermines any claim that an event can justifiably be regarded as a miracle, that is to say, as having a supernatural cause. The progress of science has made the occurrence of certain events, for example, the return to life of a four-days-dead corpse at the spoken command of Jesus, harder rather than easier to explain in terms of natural causes, as opposed to supernatural agency. A proper regard for science forbids one to a priori dismiss such events as impossible or to simply legislate that they must be regarded as the result of unknown natural causes. If to be scientific is to follow the evidence where it leads in seeking the best explanation then, if there exists good evidence that certain events do in fact occur, it appears entirely scientific to regard them as miracles. NOTES 1. Coulson, Science and Christian Belief, 32. 2. Peacocke, Creation and the World of Science,78. 3. Ibid. 132. 4. Edwards, How God Acts, 65. 5. There is a tendency on the part of those who raise the ‘God of the gaps’ objection to suggest that proponents of gap arguments are somehow committed to viewing God as acting only through miracle, never through the instrumentality of secondary causes. This seems a caricature. Those who accept miracles and consequently gaps in any purely natural explanation of such events are hardly committed to the view that divine purposes cannot ever be achieved through the instrumentality of secondary causes. 6. Ratzsch, Nature, Design and Science, 47. 7. Walton, Arguments from Ignorance, 25-26. 8. Freeman, Thinking Logically, 86. 9. Copi, Introduction to Logic, 94-95. 10. Walton, Arguments from Ignorance, 64-65. 11. Ibid. 134-135. 12. Walton proposes that we distinguish between fallacious and nonfallacious forms of argumentum ad ignorantiam. Fallacious forms of argumentum ad ignorantiam occur when there is no implicit or explicit conditional premise by which to generate a modus tollens argument, nonfallacious forms occur when there is such a conditional premise employed. I prefer, in line with common usage, to reserve the term argumentum ad ignorantiam for reasoning that is clearly fallacious, and thus do not define arguments which appeal to an implicit or explicit conditional premise to generate a modus tollens as instances of the fallacy. 13. This is especially so inasmuch as the proponent of miracle claims is not simply basing his or her argument on the fact that no natural causes appear sufficient to explain the phenomenon, but also upon the fact that we have experience of agents being able to produce in nature events which would not otherwise occur. For an elaboration of this point, albeit in a different context, see Meyer, Signature in the Cell, 373-395. 14. Ratzsch, Nature, Design, and Science, 47. 15. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_parsons/thesis/chap4.html (Accessed April 17, 2012.) 16. Ibid. 17. Michael Martin, provides another example of this line of thought when he insists that “the scientific progress of the last two centuries” undermines the legitimacy of ever labeling an event a miracle. Atheism, 196. As we shall see, Francis Beckwith is on firm ground when, in response to Martin, he observes that

Chapter 4

98

the nature of scientific progress over the past 200 years seems to point in the opposite direction. No particular theory, discovery, invention, etc., developed over the past 200 years casts doubt upon, or calls into question, the miraculous nature of any of the primary miracle-claims of the Christian tradition if the accounts of them are accepted as historically accurate. Theism, Miracles, and the Modern Mind, 224. 18. See, for example, Moreland, Consciousness and the Existence of God. 19. Parsons is not entitled simply to assume that human agency is explicable in naturalistic terms. If human agency cannot be explained naturalistically and is necessary to account for machines such as helicopters then there will inevitably be gaps in any purely natural explanation of such machines. 20. Reynolds, “God of the Gaps,” 327. 21. Simpson, Landmarks in the Struggle between Science and Religion, 96. 22. Ibid. 111. 23. Nor do things stop there. Joseph, understandably concerned about Mary’s pregnancy, is reassured in a dream of Mary’s fidelity (Matt. 1:18-21) and Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, and herself unexpectedly pregnant, prophetically recognizes the importance of the child Mary carries (Lk. 1:42-45). 24. Newman, noting the “subtle question . . . respecting the possible existence of causes in nature, to us unknown, by the supposed operation of which the apparent anomalies may be reconciled to the ordinary laws of the system,” comments that, it is impossible, from the nature of the case, absolutely to disprove any, even the wildest, hypothesis which may be framed. . . . It becomes, then, a balance of opposite probabilities, whether gratuitously to suppose a multitude of perfectly unknown causes, and these, moreover, meeting in one and the same history, or to have recourse to one [supernatural cause] . . . miraculously exerted for an extraordinary and worthy object. Two Essays on Biblical and Ecclesiastical Miracles, 5354. 25. Robinson, “Miracles,” 159. 26. Ramm makes the point that, a hypothesis does not receive fair treatment if viewed disconnected from its system, and further, that any hypothesis proposed must make peace with the system that it is associated with—even to revolutionizing the system, e.g., Copernicus and Einstein. It is therefore impossible to see miracles in the Christian [religious] perspective if viewed only as problems of science and history, i.e., to use only historical and scientific categories for interpretation. It is not asked that miracles be accepted blindly simply because they are associated with the Christian system; nor do we argue in a circle asking one to view miracles from the Christian position to see them as true when the Christian system is the point at issue. No hypothesis in science is confirmed until tentatively accepted as true. The tentative acceptation does not prove the hypothesis but it is absolutely necessary to test the hypothesis. Protestant Christian Evidences, 129. 27. Michael Ruse, “Methodological Naturalism under Attack,” 365. 28. The term ‘methodological naturalism’ is comparatively recent. Ronald Numbers writes that it was coined in 1983 by Paul de Vries, then teaching at Wheaton College. De Vries distinguished between what he called ‘methodological naturalism,’ a disciplinary method that says nothing about God’s existence, and ‘metaphysical naturalism,’ which “denies the existence of a transcendent God.” Ronald L. Numbers, “Science without God: Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs,” 320, Note 2. 29. Laudan, “The Demise of the Demarcation Problem,” 344. 30. Dilley, “Philosophical Naturalism and Methodological Naturalism,” 136.

Further Epistemological Challenges

99

31. Laudan, “The Demise of the Demarcation Problem,” 349. 32. Fales observes that methodological naturalism should not be embraced by any sane theist. Consistently applied, it would not only spell the end of natural theology, but also count as irrelevant to theology historical scholarship concerning the past that (insofar as it purports to verify the occurrence of miracles) is critically important to historical religions such as Judaism and Christianity. Divine Intervention: Metaphysical and Epistemological Puzzles, 1. 33. Ratzsch, Science and Its Limits: The Natural Sciences in Christian Perspective, 105. 34. Ratzsch, Nature, Design, and Science: The Status of Design in Natural Science (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001), p. 119. 35. Even in such instances its adoption is questionable, since what is proposed is a methodology that, by its refusal to countenance the legitimacy of ever postulating a non-natural cause for a physical event, precludes any marshaling of evidence in favour of theism. As Dilley notes, under [methodological naturalism] scientific counter evidence against [ metaphysical, naturalism] is barred. Since [methodological naturalism] requires that all scientific evidence be given a natural explanation, evidence can never disconfirm [metaphysical naturalism], no matter what the evidence on hand actually is. This is not to say that scientific evidence fails to disconfirm [metaphysical naturalism] as a matter of fact, but that it cannot as a matter of principle. Empirical evidence cannot so much as murmur against [metaphysical naturalism], and no rival hypotheses, however, modest, can cast a shadow on its scientific stature. “Philosophical Naturalism and Methodological Naturalism,” 129. 36. Ratzsch, Nature, Design, and Science: The Status of Design in Natural Science, 106. 37. Fales, Divine Intervention, 4. Monton, Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design, similarly defends the possibility of science identifying supernatural causes. 38. Dembski, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design, 281. 39. Fales, Divine Intervention, 6. 40. If, however, the event is genuinely miraculous, that is to say the result of supernatural intervention, the progress of science will tend to make attempted naturalistic explanations increasingly less plausible. 41. Fales notes that the objection that a supernaturalist explanation can never be properly final in the sense that other, naturalistic explanations may always be available amounts to nothing more than the familiar point that theory is underdetermined by data. This cuts both ways: when ultimate naturalistic explanations are offered, there may well be an alternative supernaturalistic explanation to be considered. Divine Intervention, 6. 42. Robert Pennock, “Naturalism, Evidence, and Creationism: The Case of Phillip Johnson,” 89. 43. Fales, Divine Intervention, 5. 44. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, 228. 45. Ibid. 229. 46. Ibid. 47. Lennox, God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?, 37. 48. Nicholas Rescher, Metaphysics, 133. 49. Jn.11:1-44. 50. If it be observed by the critic that all scientific claims are provisional this should scarcely bother the theist. The claim that the moon circles the earth is a scientific claim and

100

Chapter 4

thus, according to the critic also provisional. If miracle claims are in this sense provisional that is hardly a reason to take seriously the contention that they will be shown to be mistaken.

Chapter Five

Miracle as a Pseudo-Concept

We have been examining epistemological challenges to the possibility of justifying belief in miracles. Many philosophers, however, have attempted to mount a much more fundamental and ambitious objection to the rationality of belief in miracles. They have attempted to argue on various grounds that the very concept of a miracle is logically incoherent. There can, they claim, no more exist evidence for a miracle than there can exist evidence for a married bachelor. We turn now to these very ambitious attempts to demonstrate that rational belief in the occurrence of miracles is impossible. MIRACLES AS EXCEPTIONS TO EXCEPTIONLESS LAWS OF NATURE An issue that we noted in chapter 2 is that many philosophers urge that the laws of nature must be conceived as exceptionless. It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that the most straightforward attempt to demonstrate that the concept of miracle is logically incoherent is the claim that miracles must be conceived as violations, that is to say as exceptions to the laws of nature, but that the laws of nature are, by definition, exceptionless. On this view, events may occur which conflict with presumed laws of nature, but this only demonstrates that the statement of the presumed law was not in fact true, not that a miracle occurred. This, as we have noted, leads thinkers such as Nicholas Everitt to argue that “it is . . . logically impossible for any assertion that a miracle has occurred to be true,” 1 since if a law of nature can be correctly stated as ‘All A’s are B’s’, “it follows that any miracle report which says that there is an A which is not a B is false.” 2 Everitt’s argument is very similar to the tack taken twenty years earlier by Alastair McKinnon, in his well-known article “Miracle and Paradox,” in 101

102

Chapter 5

which he argued that the term ‘miracle’ “cannot consistently name or describe any real or alleged event.” 3 McKinnon defends this conclusion on the basis of two claims. First, “the concept of natural law, . . . if it is to be allowed at all, is and must be universal in its application.” 4 Second, a miracle must be understood as either: (1) “an event involving the suspension of natural law,” or (2) “an event conflicting with our understanding of nature.” 5 Regarding the claim that miracles involve a suspension of natural law, McKinnon takes the laws of nature to be “simply highly generalized shorthand descriptions of how things do in fact happen.” 6 This yields a contradiction inasmuch as a miracle must then be defined as “an event involving the suspension of the actual course of events.” 7 Regarding the claim that miracles conflict with our understanding of nature, McKinnon holds that a contradiction is generated, since one “cannot believe both that the event happened and that the conception of nature with which it conflicts is adequate.” 8 The concept of miracle is thus revealed to be incoherent, inasmuch as the believer must “surrender either the historicity of the event or the conception of nature with which it conflicts.” 9 Various attempts have been made to defend the legitimacy of the idea of a law of nature being violated. 10 The most influential of these is Richard Swinburne’s elaboration of Ninian Smart’s account of a violation of a law of nature conceived as a non-repeatable counter-instance. 11 Swinburne acknowledges that, in the case of a purported law of nature, if there are repeatable counter-instances, that is to say, counter-instances which would be repeated in similar circumstances, this would demonstrate that the purported laws of nature was not in fact a genuine law of nature. He asks us to consider, however, the possibility of a non-repeatable counter-instance; what are we to say if we have good reason to believe that an event E has occurred contrary to predictions of a formula L which otherwise we have good reason to believe to be a law of nature, and we have good reason to believe that events similar to E would not occur in circumstances as similar as we like in any respect to those of the occurrence of E? . . . The evidence shows that we cannot replace L by a more successful law allowing us to predict E as well as other phenomena supporting L. For any modified formula which allowed us to predict E would allow us to predict similar events in similar circumstances and hence, ex hypothesi, we have good reason to believe would give false predictions. Whereas if we leave the formula L unmodified, it will, we have good reason to believe, give correct predictions in all other conceivable circumstances. Hence if we are to say that any law of nature is operative in the field in question we must say that it is L. 12

A number of criticisms can be made of Swinburne’s attempt to defend the legitimacy of the concept of a violation of a law of nature. I shall content myself with raising three basic concerns. First, it is not clear how the term

Miracle as a Pseudo-Concept

103

‘non-repeatable’ is to be cashed out. Does the fact that Jesus is reported to have healed more than one case of blindness disqualify these events as nonrepeatable counter-instances, thus requiring us to seek a law of nature under which they are to be subsumed? Must an event be absolutely unique before it can be legitimately viewed as a miracle? Does the fact that a number of dramatic healings have taken place at Lourdes disqualify them as miracles on the grounds that numerous events of this nature have occurred? Surely, as Fales comments, “if God can perform a miracle once, He can perform it several times—or many times.” 13 What Swinburne seems to be seeking to identify in his idea of a nonrepeatable counter-instance is the requirement that a miracle must, so to speak, ‘run against the grain of nature.’ It is not clear, however, that nonrepeatability is essential to such recognition. Thus, for example, we routinely recognize repeated instances of human agency, even though it is far from evident that human agency can be accounted for in a naturalist framework. Perhaps Swinburne means to cash out the term ‘non-repeatable counterinstance’ as claiming that identical physical circumstance under which the event occurred would not be sufficient to produce another similar event, that is to say that supernatural intervention would also be required. As has been observed, however, such a claim does not require that a law of nature has been violated, but rather that an extra causal factor was operative. What is really at issue in the ontological question of whether the event is a miracle is not whether it is non-repeatable or a violation of the laws of nature, but whether it is an instance of supernatural intervention in the course of nature. 14 Second, Swinburne seems to confuse the epistemological issue of whether any revision of a purported law of nature would allow prediction of a nonrepeatable counter-instance with the ontological question of whether a genuine law of nature can have exceptions. It might be that, for various reasons, we will never be able to state a law which accounts for the counterinstance, but this does not demonstrate that in fact laws of nature can have exceptions. As Martin Curd notes, the proposal “that ‘All A’s are B’ is a genuine law even though there is a nonrepeatable instance of an A that is not B . . . is logically impossible: if ‘All A’s are B’ is a genuine law then all A’s are B without exception.” 15 It appears, therefore, that Swinburne’s notion of a nonrepeatable counter-instance serves more as an epistemological criterion for identifying events most plausibly viewed as miracles than as an explanation of how the laws of nature can be violated. 16 Third, Swinburne’s defense of the idea of a violation of a law of nature a priori rules out any theory in which the laws of nature are taken to express metaphysically necessary truths regarding causal dispositions possessed by physical things. 17 Given the attractiveness of thinking of the laws of nature not simply in terms of mere descriptions of regularities, but rather as expres-

104

Chapter 5

sion of the capacities of natural objects, this seems another reason to view Swinburne’s defense of the idea of a violation of a law of nature as less than successful. We have seen in chapter two that the notion of a violation of a law of nature is logically problematic. When this is coupled with the assumption that a miracle could only occur if the laws of nature are violated, it is easy to see how McKinnon can dismiss the idea of miracle as a pseudo-concept, incapable of consistently naming or describing any real or imagined event. It is a mistake, however, to think that miracles, conceived as acts of supernatural intervention producing in nature events which could not otherwise occur, require violating the laws of nature. Once this mistake is realized, it becomes clear that there are at least three reasons to reject McKinnon’s conclusion. First, his claim that we may substitute the expression ‘the actual course of events’ for the expression ‘law of nature’ is mistaken. Laws of nature, for example the statement that “if an object is in motion it tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by something external to it,” are conditional statements that cannot, by themselves, serve to predict or explain events. They acquire predictive or explanatory power, only when taken in conjunction with a set of relevant material conditions to which they apply. 18 McKinnon is therefore wrong in his claim that the terms ‘actual course of events’ and ‘laws of nature’ are interchangeable. Second, the claim that a miracle must violate or suspend the laws of nature is mistaken. As has been argued in chapter 2, a miracle need not be taken as indicating that the laws of nature no longer apply or are temporarily suspended. Rather, it points to the fact that God, or possibly some other supernatural agent, has changed the material conditions to which the laws apply and thus introduced into nature an event which nature would not otherwise have produced. Third, McKinnon begs the question of whether events might have a supernatural cause. Having noted that a miracle is an event that is contrary to the natural course of events, that is to say, an event nature would not have produced on its own, he interprets this to mean that a miracle must be thought of as an event contrary to the actual course of events. Unless he is prepared to argue it is inconceivable that an event could have a supernatural cause, this conclusion is question-begging. A miracle is contrary to the natural course of events not in the sense that it is an event which cannot actually happen, but in the sense that it cannot happen except through the action of an agent who transcends nature. Given that such events are logically conceivable, then, contra McKinnon, the term ‘miracle’ can ‘consistently name or describe a real or allegedly real event.’

Miracle as a Pseudo-Concept

105

SUPERNATURAL CAUSATION AS UNINTELLIGIBLE The concept of miracle is sometime dismissed on the basis that no sense can be made of an immaterial agent exerting causal influence on physical objects. This, of course, is an objection that is frequently raised against substance dualism mind-body interactionist theories. Richard Taylor expresses the view of many philosophers when he remarks, “try, I say, to form a conception of this, [an immaterial mind acting on a physical body] and then confess that, as soon as the smallest attempt at any description is made, the description becomes unintelligible and the conception an impossible one.” 19 In a similar vein, Jaegwon Kim writes, “Just try to imagine how something that isn’t anywhere in physical space can alter in the slightest degree the trajectory of even a single material particle in motion.” 20 In the context of discussing miracles, David Corner raises basically the same objection when he writes, the supernaturalist faces a dilemma in making out the notion of a supernatural cause. If she construes this as too closely analogous to a natural cause, then she will be hard-pressed to say what is supernatural about it. On the other hand, if a supernatural cause bears no resemblance at all to the sort of causes we find in nature, we may wonder why we should refer to them as causes—or indeed, whether the notion of a supernatural cause has any content at all. A further difficulty is that if the supernatural entities that are supposed to have causal efficacy in the natural world are conceived as being too different from natural entities, it will be hard to say how there can be any causal interaction between nature and the supernatural. 21

There seem to be two related concerns motivating Corner’s objection. The first is whether it is logically possible that immaterial and material entities could stand in a causal relation; the second is whether we could have any conception of the nature of a non-material cause. By way of reply, a number of points bear mention. First, and most obviously, this objection, if successful, demonstrates not only that the idea of a miracle is incoherent, but that the idea of a creator God is incoherent, since if an immaterial God cannot stand in a causal relation to a material world, He can scarcely be viewed as its creator. One might be forgiven for thinking that an objection which a priori rules out the possible truth of theism proves too much. Second, it should be emphasized that all basic causal relations are, in the final analysis conceptually opaque. Thus Ellis notes that, sooner or later, in the process of ontological reduction, we must come to events and processes that are not themselves structures of constituent causal processes. These most elementary causal processes, . . . will consist entirely of elementary events (for example, basic causal interactions between parti-

106

Chapter 5 cles) . . . the identities of the basic causal interaction that initiate and terminate elementary causal processes . . . cannot depend in turn on their causal structures. 22

Even in cases of causation in the physical world we have at the most basic level no account of how one thing causes another. We may become familiar with the fact that masses attract one another. We may even give the name of gravity to the fact that they do so and describe it as one of the fundamental processes of nature. To the degree that it is fundamental, however, there will be no question of how it can be the case that masses attract each other, only the observation that they in fact do so. 23 As William Hasker notes, we find the kinetic theory of gases, with its ping-pong-ball molecules bouncing off each other, fairly readily understandable. This, however, is only because we have learned from experience about the behavior of actual ping-pong balls, and our expectations in such cases have become so habitual that they seem ‘natural’ to us; we have no ultimate insight into the causal relations involved, except to say, ‘That’s the way things are.’ 24

Third, the claim that we can form no conception of a non-material cause, that is to say, a supernatural agent, seems implicitly to concede too much to naturalism. We experience ourselves as agents in the world, bringing about events which would not otherwise occur. Put differently, we are as familiar, perhaps more familiar, with the fact that our conscious decisions causally affect the material world, as we are with the fact that material objects causally interact with each other. The concept of miracle similarly makes use of the idea of agency. As Houston observes, as an action of an intelligent agent, whose intelligible purposes we (think we may) have recognised, an act of God can be analogous to the action of persons known in our mundane experience. So events which would otherwise be difficult to explain may be made intelligible, incorporated in our system of beliefs, by utilising that analogy. 25

To claim, therefore, that we have no basis in our experience upon which to ground a concept of supernatural cause is mistaken. The naturalist will, of course, want to claim that consciousness can be accounted for in wholly natural terms. That this is in fact the case is very dubious. For instance, having insisted in the introduction to his Philosophy of Mind that any account of the mind must be physicalist, 26 Kim in his conclusion notes that physicalism is caught in what he terms a profound dilemma: if we are prepared to embrace reductionism, we can explain mental causation. However, in the process of reducing mentality to physical/biological properties, we may well lose the intrinsic, subjective character of our mentality-

Miracle as a Pseudo-Concept

107

arguably, the very thing that makes the mental mental. In what sense, then, have we saved ‘mental’ causation? But if we reject reductionism, we are not able to see how mental causation should be possible. But saving mentality while losing causality doesn’t seem to amount to saving anything worth saving. For what good is the mind if it has no causal powers? Either way, we are in danger of losing mentality. That is the dilemma. 27

Naturalism seems to force on its proponents the stark choice of either denying that we are in fact conscious, that is to say, have mental states, or denying that conscious mental states have any causal power, that is to say, have any influence on bodily behavior. Leaving aside the fact that this result seems to come close to providing a reductio ad absurdum of naturalism, a point that deserves emphasis is that at the very least, it seems to us that we are capable of acting as conscious agents in the world. As John Searle notes, if there is any fact of experience that we are all familiar with, it’s the simple fact that our own choices, decisions, reasonings, and cogitations seem to make a difference to our actual behaviour. There are all sorts of experiences that we have in life where it seems just a fact of our experience that though we did one thing, we feel we know perfectly well that we could have done something else. 28

The denial that we are in fact conscious agents capable of producing in nature events which would not otherwise occur stems from a commitment to a naturalist metaphysic in which agency can find no home, not from any inability to understand what it is like to act as an agent. The charge, therefore, that we have no basis in our experience upon which we can conceive of miracle as the result of supernatural agency is misguided. 29 An implication of this which bears mention is that Ernst Troeltsch’s famous argument for dismissing ancient miracle reports actually becomes an argument for taking such reports seriously. Troeltsch was correct to argue that “analogous occurrences that we observe both without and within ourselves furnish us with the key to historical criticism,” 30 but incorrect in his claim that experience provides no analogy by which miracles can be conceived. Human agency provides an analogy for divine agency, and there are hundreds of millions of people in the world who claim to have witnessed or experienced what they regard as miraculous healings. 31 Troeltsch’s assumption that reports of ancient events plausibly understood as miraculous could not be accepted, since there exist no modern well-attested reports of analogous events was ill-informed, reflecting not a considered examination of data, but rather a dogmatic Enlightenment antisupernaturalism. 32 Keener is therefore correct in his observation that, “given the vast number and variety of claims, one . . . [cannot] take for granted that uniform human experience a

108

Chapter 5

priori excludes extranormal events for which many observers would find a specifically theistic interpretation particularly persuasive.” 33 MIRACLES AS INCAPABLE OF PREDICTIVE EXPANSION Another attempt to argue that the idea of miracle is a pseudo-concept is made by Patrick Nowell-Smith. He begins his argument by making the point that “evidence must be kept distinct from explanatory theory.” 34 To say that an event is a miracle is not simply to claim that an unusual event occurred; it is also to make a claim that it was caused by a supernatural agent. The question of whether extraordinary phenomena occur must, therefore, be kept separate from the question of whether they are properly called miracles. Having distinguished these two questions, Nowell-Smith goes on to assert that “science is committed, not to definite theories or concepts, but to a certain method of explanation.” 35 This means that, even though it might involve new terms and unfamiliar concepts, it might be possible at some future time to frame a strictly natural explanation of the extraordinary events we are tempted to call miracles. Thus, “the problem is not whether science can explain everything in current terms but whether the explanation of ‘miracles’ requires a method quite different from that of science.” 36 The final step of Nowell-Smith’s argument is his claim that a genuine explanation must always have predictive power and involve “a law or hypothesis capable of predictive expansion.” 37 Given that it is impossible to distinguish a ‘supernatural’ law from a ‘natural’ law, we are forced to conclude that an event is either naturally explicable or no explanation at all is possible. “The supernatural seems to dissolve on the one hand into the natural and on the other into the inexplicable.” 38 A fundamental problem with this argument is that it begs a number of important questions. Nowell-Smith takes for granted, for example, that explanation and prediction are logically equivalent; that to be able to explain an event is to be able to predict it. Such a claim needs to be argued for, rather than simply assumed. It can, and has been, argued that explanation is fundamentally explanation in terms of intelligibility, or of insight into the nature of reality, and only derivatively in terms of predictive capacity. On such a view, prediction is valued because it is taken as an indication that a theory which enables successful prediction provides genuine insight into the workings of nature. 39 Similarly problematic is the fact that Nowell-Smith takes no notice of the possibility of distinguishing between explanations which involve the purposes or intentions of agents and explanations which do not. While it is true that explanations which make no reference to agency typically involve citing laws capable of predictive expansion, this is not the case in explanations

Miracle as a Pseudo-Concept

109

involving agency. Such explanations make reference not to laws, but rather to the intentions or purposes of the agent. The essential element of such teleological explanations is not their ability to yield predictions, but rather their ability to render events intelligible in light of an agent’s intentions. 40 It is only by ignoring explanations in terms of agency that Nowell-Smith is able to insist that the supernatural dissolves either into the natural or the inexplicable. That he ignores the possibility of explanation in terms of agency is unsurprising, since, as has been noted, a naturalist ontology does not take seriously the idea of agent causality. To refuse to do so, however, is to beg the question of naturalism’s truth, which is precisely what is at issue in deciding whether an event is best explained as a miracle. MIRACLES, AGENCY, AND REPEATABILITY A related attempt to demonstrate that the concept of miracle is incoherent has been provided by George Chryssides. Recognizing that to call an event a miracle is to explain it in terms of agency, he argues that “the assignment of agency implies predictability . . . [and] no event can be assigned to an agent unless it is in principle possible to subsume the putative effect brought about by his action under scientific law.” 41 Teleological explanations in terms of agency are thus reducible to non-teleological explanations which make no reference to purpose or intentions. Chryssides generates his argument by raising the issue of how miracles are to be distinguished from fortuitous coincidences. He writes, Suppose Jones sees a mountain in the distance and says to the mountain, ‘Mountain, cast yourself into the sea!’ whereupon the mountain is observed to rise up from its surroundings and fall into the water. If such a phenomenon occurred, why should we say that Jones moved the mountain, rather than Jones addressed the mountain in a certain way and that by a strange coincidence the mountain happened to move an instant later and fall into the water. 42

The answer he gives is that miracles are distinguished from coincidences by virtue of the fact that calling an event a miracle implies that it was caused by an agent. To say, however, that an event, A, causes another event, B, is to say that B is in general repeatable on the occurrence of A. Chryssides sees this as a necessary condition of attributing causality and calls it the Repeatability Requirement. 43 He argues that the Repeatability Requirement presents the person who wants to defend the concept of miracle with an insurmountable challenge. On the one hand, the Repeatability Requirement must be met if miracles are to be distinguished from mere coincidences. On the other hand, if the Repeat-

110

Chapter 5

ability Requirement is met then it will prove possible to formulate a law by which they can be predicted. As Chryssides puts it, because the Repeatability Requirement must be satisfied in order to ascribe agency, either an allegedly miraculous event is a violation of scientific law, in which case it could not be performed by an agent, or else it is performed by an agent, in which case it could not be a violation of scientific law . . . in short . . . there is an inherent self-contradiction in the notion of an agent performing a miracle. 44

Chryssides’s argument appears seriously flawed, inasmuch as he fails to distinguish between what we mean by saying that an agent caused an event, and the epistemic grounds on which we attribute causality to an agent. When we claim that an agent caused an event we mean to say that the agent made it happen, that is to say, the event would not have occurred in the circumstances it did, had not the agent willed it to occur. This implies repeatability, in the sense that if under identical circumstances the agent willed a recurrence of the event we would expect it to recur. However, the epistemic attribution of agent causality is not based solely on our ability to predict the recurrence of an event. In many instances, we attribute agency on the basis of context and intelligibility. Thus Norman Geisler comments, repeatability is not as good an indication of rational agency as is intelligibility. Any scientist who saw even one message in alphabet cereal spilled on the breakfast table reading ‘Take out the garbage. Love, Mary’ would not hesitate to conclude an intelligent being had formed the words. It would not have to be repeated every morning for days or weeks before the scientist came to that conclusion. 45

Despite his failure to distinguish the ontological question of what we mean by saying an agent caused an event from the epistemological question of what criteria are used in judging an event to be the product of agent causality, Chryssides is aware that attributions of agency need not be tightly tied to the ability to predict. In order to lend plausibility to his argument, he adds numerous qualifications to his Repeatability Requirement. Subject to these qualifications, the Repeatability Requirement does not: (1) “imply that we can state at what point in time any event attributed to a rational agent will recur,” (2) “demand that an agent performs an action on a number of occasions before we can assign the ensuing events to his agency,” (3) “demand that the agent is actually capable of repeating the event which is ascribed to his agency,” and (4) “demand that the antecedent conditions of an event can be specified in practice, either by the agent responsible, or by anyone else.” 46 So qualified, the Repeatability Requirement does not appear to pose a problem to belief in miracles. It can be agreed that miracles will recur when

Miracle as a Pseudo-Concept

111

relevant antecedent conditions recur, so long as God’s will is included as a relevant antecedent condition. Put bluntly, all the Repeatability Requirement requires is that miracles will recur if God wills them to recur. It does not, therefore, support Chryssides’ claim that there is an inherent self-contradiction in the notion of an agent performing a miracle. MIRACLES AS INCONSISTENT WITH THE PERFECTION OF GOD At a theological level, it is sometimes urged that the concept of miracle is inconsistent with affirming the perfection of God. By way of concluding this chapter, we examine three objections along these lines. Miracles as Implying God Is a Bumbler Peter Annet, a Deist writing prior to Hume, claims that if God ever acts by a different method than that of his standard laws; it must be either because he could not foresee the consequences, which is like blundering in the dark; or he foresaw it would be needful; and then it would be like a blunder in the design and contrivance; or he foreknew and determined this own works should not answer his own ends without his mending work, which is worst of all. 47

Demonstrating that what is old becomes new, Paul Davies protests that the notion of God as a cosmic magician meddling with matter, moving atoms around and rearranging them is offensive not only on scientific grounds but on theological grounds as well. I’m sympathetic to the idea that overall the universe has ingenious and felicitous laws that bring life and indeed intelligence into being, and sentient beings like ourselves who can reflect on the significance of it all. But I loathe the idea of a God who interrupts nature, who intervenes at certain stages and manipulates things. . . . It would be a very poor sort of god who created a universe that wasn’t right and then tinkered with it at later stages. 48

In a similar vein, David Jenkins insists that “a God who uses the openness of his created universe . . . to insert additional causal events from time to time into that universe to produce particular events or trends . . . would be a meddling demigod, a moral monster, and a contradiction of himself. 49 Leaving aside the emotionally slanted prose, that tends to characterize the writing of those making this objection, their claim seems to be that the perfection of God implies that He create a universe which requires no intervention. Presumably, a God who performs miracles must be conceived as something of a bumbler who is analogous to a beginning painter who paints himself into a corner and then cannot get out except by undoing some of his

112

Chapter 5

previous work. The universe, like a well-made machine, is most perfect if it does not require service calls to adjust its operation. A universe in which God finds it necessary to intervene is a universe unworthy of being created by a perfect God. 50 Miracles, therefore, are an impossibility. But why think the perfection of God implies that if He creates a universe it must be along the lines of a maintenance free machine? Why not, for example, think of the universe along the lines of a musical instrument? Musical instruments exist precisely to be played, that is to say, intervened upon. To claim that the creator and upholder of the universe could never appropriately intervene in its history seems founded more on a rationalistic prejudice that any adequate idea of nature implies an absolutely settled order that can never be interfered with, than the theistic view of a creation that is loved and valued by its creator. More fundamentally, most theists maintain that God has endowed people with free will and consequently the capacity to influence history. They also maintain that God has purposes that He wishes to see fulfilled. Given these two beliefs, the idea that God might at times intervene in the usual course of events, so as to bring about certain of His purposes which might otherwise be thwarted can scarcely be viewed as inconceivable. F.R. Tennant seems correct when he notes that, if . . . the world . . . [has] a derived or devolved activity permitted to it, as relatively independent of its self-limited Creator; and if any of God’s creatures are in their lesser way also creators: then . . . why should not God encounter obstacles within His own created world? Is it not inevitable that He will do so? [Those who insist that God would never intervene in the natural order are] so shocked at the attribution of anything like arbitrariness to the Deity that, in their zeal to rule it out, they also by implication remove all possibility of God’s directivity, of adaptation of immutable purpose to emergent needs. In their haste to eliminate from the idea of God the very anthropic quality of caprice and changefulness, they ascribe to Him the equally anthropic qualities of indifference and impassive obstinacy. 51

There appears, therefore, no reason to think that a perfect Being, that is to say God as conceived by theists, would never find it appropriate to intervene the outworking of history. Indeed, it seems safe to say that we might expect precisely the opposite. Steven Boyer and Christopher Hall observe that the intensely personal nature of God invites us to expect that the relationship between God and creation will never be merely a static business of maker and made, source and product. It will instead involve real personal engagement, real mutuality, real self-giving, real interpersonal knowledge and exchange. 52

Miracles cannot, therefore, be dismissed as inconceivable on the basis that their occurrence would imply that God is a bumbler, incapable of getting

Miracle as a Pseudo-Concept

113

things right the first time around. Rather, their occurrence would seem probable on the hypothesis of a personal God interacting with created free agents living in a non-autonomous physical order. Miracles as Implying That God Is Unjust A further attempt to suggest that miracles should be viewed as logically incompatible with the perfection of God is the charge that the occurrence of miracles would imply that God is unjust. Again, such charges were anticipated by a number of eighteenth-century deists. Thomas Woolston, for example, insists that Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree, especially at a time when figs were not in season, displays a petulance and triviality that discredits his other miracles. Surely, if Jesus could multiply loaves and fishes for other, he could provide for his own needs rather than destroying a tree for not bearing fruit out of season. 53 In typically colorful prose, he writes, cursing the Figtree in this Fashion spoils the Credit, and sullies the Glory of his other Miracles. It has in its own Nature of such a malevolent Aspect, that it’s enough to make us suspect the Beneficience of Christ in his other Works, and to question whether there might not be some latent Poyson and diabolical Design under the Colour of his fairer Pretences to Almighty Power. 54

In contemporary discussions we find James Keller claiming that the occurrence of miracles would be immoral inasmuch as “they [would] imply that God takes the initiative in doing for one person something qualitatively different from what God does for others in a similar condition.” 55 Similarly, we find Christine Overall claiming that if miracles occur they constitute evidence against the God of theism, since “in choosing to favour just a few individuals God shows himself to be arbitrary in his beneficence to some and cruel and unfair in his neglect of others” 56; a view echoed by Jordon Sobel when he writes that “a fair God would presumably want miracles not to be ‘sporadic’ and distributed arbitrarily to only some of otherwise similar potential beneficiaries. 57 Why a miracle is granted in one instance but not in another is no easy question. This should come as no surprise, since it is essentially an aspect of the problem of evil. It could just as easily be asked why certain other goods such as intelligence or beauty are not more evenly distributed throughout creation. This is not to minimize the force of the objection but only to point out that it is a form of the general question of why, if God exists, there is not more good and less evil in the world. This suggests that standard theistic responses to the general problem of evil will also be relevant to objections made by critics such as Keller, Overall, and Sobel. More specifically, a number of points may be made in response to the charge that in performing miracles in one instance, but not in another appar-

114

Chapter 5

ently similar instance, God would be unjust. First, it seems disingenuous of critics such as Overall to suggest that God should not perform any miracles at all, 58 yet simultaneously hold that God should perform more miracles than He does. 59 It is hardly clear that one can have it both ways. Second, although miracles confer a good, for example the restoration of health, the good conferred is not on a theistic view the highest good. The highest good is to come into a proper relationship with God, that is to say, spiritual health. There are times when receiving a lesser good might distract one from pursuing or receiving a higher good. Thus Jesus in one instance provides food for a crowd of people who had so committed themselves to hearing his message that they were prepared to go without food to the extent that they were about to faint from hunger (Mt. 15:32), but faced with a hungry crowd who only wanted free food, he refuses to perform a similar miracle (Jn 6:26). A soul making theodicy should not be overpressed, but it is nevertheless true that, in many instances, suffering draws individuals closer to God. It will not do, therefore, for Keller to make the assumption “that the goods which believers have seen as conferred in a miracle on one person are typically not matched by an equal good conferred on another who is not the recipient of a miraculous benefit.” 60 Paul Moser appears correct in his claim that God’s self-revelation need not include miracles irrelevant to human transformation toward God’s moral character of unselfish love, even though God could use such miracles on occasion to get our wayward attention. A perfectly loving God who aims at human redemption could, and would, seek human knowledge of divine reality that arises simultaneously with filial knowledge of God’s reality. Accordingly, God will be impervious to the charge of negligent restraint in performing spectacular miracles, so long as God conclusively reveals divine reality, in self-manifestion of perfect love, to anyone suitably receptive. 61

Third, on a theistic understanding of reality, our individual goods are to be used in the service of others; the implication being that miracles have a purpose beyond the simple benefit to the individual recipient. As David Mckenzie argues, objections such as Keller’s fail to take into account “the actual relations that are prominently displayed in the lives of believers involving prayer, belief, community, and recovery.” 62 McKenzie goes on to note that within the various denominational contexts in which belief in miracles has been prominent . . . there is a tradition of expectation that miracles will occur, accompanied by full realization that in many, perhaps most cases in which prayers are offered the desired result will not occur. Recoveries are often reported in these contexts, but rarely with a sense of pride on the part of the recipient or on the part of those who prayed. Rather, the entire experience is

Miracle as a Pseudo-Concept

115

typically one of humility in which those who recover confess their unworthiness and commit themselves to the task which God, they believe must have for them based on their miraculous recovery. 63

In this context, it deserves emphasis that those experiencing miracles do not have noticeably less suffering in their lives than those who do not. The Apostle Paul, hardly a stranger to the miraculous, reports that in addition to routinely experiencing hunger, thirst, and sleeplessness, he was scourged five times with thirty-nine lashes, beaten with rods three times, shipwrecked three times, and was once stoned and left for dead (2 Cor. 11:23-27) and Jesus frequently reminded his listeners that those to whom much is given much is required (Lk. 19:11-27). This suggests that miracles are best understood not as conferring some private individual benefit, but as a divine investment that enables individuals to go forward in furthering God’s purposes in the world. Fourth, it seems that God is generally reported to perform a miracle through the instrumentality of a human agent. God does not directly heal Paul of his blindness, but rather instructs Ananias to go to Paul as the instrument through whom God will heal Paul. This requires a considerable step of faith on Ananias’s part, since Paul was known as someone who ‘breathed threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord’ (Acts 9:1-2). This raises the possibility that there are occasions when God wishes to perform a miracle but is frustrated by the fact that the person through whom He wishes to work is not willing to cooperate. That God, even in the case of miracles, is to be understood as working in cooperation with human agents, helps to make sense of the fact that miracles are not typically reported to occur in settled climates of disbelief. The Gospel of Mark records that in the location where Jesus grew up many people refused to take him seriously, making the claim that this is the reason that Jesus “could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them” (Mk. 6:5). Fifth, considerations such as those just mentioned undermine the charge made by critics such as Overall, that miracles are just arbitrary and that no pattern can be discerned in their occurrence. Mckenzie observes that by and large they [miracles] seem to be reported in the context of a believing community, as a result of prayer, with expressions of great faith by those involved. Sometimes they take place in conjunction with a Marian visitation or at holy shrines of the Church such as Lourdes; and sometimes they take place in conjunction with the ministry of faith-healing crusades. More often, however, there is no public spectacle. Rather, it occurs in the privacy of personal or group Bible study and prayer. Surely when we see these experiences over and over, as charismatic Christians report, in the context of faith in God and in response to the prayerful appeal for divine intervention, it is reasonable to say that there is a pattern to the miraculous, though in faith and humility believers would always confess that we can never control God. 64

116

Chapter 5

It appears, therefore, that the claim that God is unjust in performing miracles, unless He likewise performs a miracle in similar physical circumstances cannot be maintained. It takes an unrealistic and overly simplistic view of the relation of miracles to the spiritual life of religious believers. Further, it fails to take into account the role human cooperation plays in God’s willingness to bring about a miracle and presupposes a narrow individualism that does not do justice to the relation of miracles to a community of faith. Miracles as Inconsistent with God’s Transcendence A strange, but nevertheless in some quarters widely urged, objection to the concept of miracle as supernatural intervention is that miracles, so conceived, are inconsistent with God’s transcendence. I say strange because many of those making this objection also seem inclined to suggest that miracles suggest a deistic, rather than theistic, conception of God. The thought underlying this objection seems to be that if God were to intervene in the natural order he could not be understood to be the infinite transcendent agent upon which all of creation depends for its very existence. One thus meets the claim that to think of God performing miracles is to reduce Him to being an ‘agent among agents’ rather than the transcendent cause of all creation. Presumably, to think of God as performing a miracle is to reduce Him to the status of a secondary cause. Walter Kasper, for instance, insists that there are serious theological objections to this concept [that is to say miracles as supernatural interventions]. God can never replace this-worldly causality. If he were on the same level as this-worldly causes, he would no longer be God but an idol. 65

It is difficult to think of such claims as posing anything other than a false dichotomy. It is precisely the fact that God is the transcendent cause of all creation, continually upholding it in existence, which provides the conceptual ground for thinking that He could intervene in its history. The categories of primary and secondary causes are expressions of the idea that, although nature is ontologically distinct from God, it is totally dependent upon God for its existence. Created entities are not God; they have their own natures and causal powers. They depend, however, for their very existence upon God continually willing them to be. One can hardly deny God the ability to intervene in history on the basis that He is the fundamental condition of there being history. That God might causally interact with created entities is in no way to deny that He also continually causes their very existence. Gwynne is therefore correct is his observation that, the almost hackneyed claim that God [in performing a miracle] would become ‘an agent among agents’ is too glib and ignores the fact that primary causality

Miracle as a Pseudo-Concept

117

alone does not exhaust the attributes of God, especially the God of the JudeoChristian tradition. What that claim misses is a sense of the potential for this transcendent-immanent, divine agent to act in an inter-personal manner which may involve occasional, particular actions in time and space. 66

CONCLUSION Attempts to provide an in-principle rejection of the rationality of belief in miracles on the basis of the claim that the concept of miracle is logically incoherent all appear to beg important questions. Whether it be McKinnon’s failure to consider the possibility of a supernatural cause, which leads him to suggest that a miracle must be defined as ‘an event contrary to the actual course of events, Nowell-Smith’s and Chryssides’ reduction of teleological explanations in terms of agency to non-teleological explanations which make no reference to purpose or intentions, Overall’s and others’ assertion that miracles are inconsistent with the God’s perfection, or Kasper and others, claim that miracles are incompatible with acknowledging God’s transcendence, we find questionable, and largely unargued assumptions at work. In many instances, the truth of naturalism is implicitly assumed, over and against the possible truth of theism. In other instances, we find unjustified a priori theological assumptions regarding how God must be conceived as achieving His purposes in creation. It comes as no surprise, therefore, to find that objections based on these assumptions tend simply to define miracles as inconceivable. Neither should it come as a surprise that when one questions these assumptions, it becomes impossible to maintain the view that the concept of miracle is logically incoherent. We have seen that attempts to provide on epistemological and conceptual grounds a priori arguments that rational belief in miracles can never be justified fail. Philosophers and theologians cannot from their armchairs decree that the evidence could never be such as to warrant belief in the occurrence of miracles. We turn therefore in chapter 6 to considering the types of evidence and the principles for assessing evidence that are relevant to questions of whether belief in miracles is justified. NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Everitt, “The Impossibility of Miracles,” 347. Ibid. McKinnon, “Miracle and Paradox,” 308. Ibid. 309. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. 310

118

Chapter 5

9. Ibid. The claim that the laws of nature must be conceived as exceptionless is, of course, hardly original to McKinnon. One finds, for example, John Stuart Mill asserting that, “we cannot admit a proposition as a law of nature and yet believe a fact in real contradiction to it. We must disbelieve the alleged fact, or believe that we are mistaken in admitting the supposed law.” Mill sees much further than McKinnon or Everitt inasmuch as he goes on to write that in order that any alleged fact should be contradictory to a law of causation, the allegation must be, not simply that the cause existed without being followed by the effect, for that would be no uncommon occurrence; but that this happened in the absence of any adequate counteracting cause. Now in the case of an alleged miracle, the assertion is the exact opposite of this. It is, that the effect was defeated, not in the absence, but in consequence of a counteracting cause, namely, a direct interposition of an act of the will of some being who has power over nature; . . . A miracle . . . is no contradiction to the law of cause and effect; it is a new effect, supposed to be produced by the introduction of a new cause. A System of Logic, Bk. 3, Ch. 25, Section 2, (Accessed August 29, 2012). 10. See, for example, Odegard, “Miracles and Good Evidence,” 37-46. 11. Smart, Philosophers and Religious Truth, 37; Swinburne, The Concept of Miracle, 26. 12. Swinburne, The Concept of Miracle, 27-8. 13. Fales, Divine Intervention, 20. 14. Ibid. 19. 15. Martin Curd, “Miracles as Violations of Laws of Nature,” 182. Also, David Corner, The Philosophy of Miracles, 24. 16. Fales, Divine Intervention, 20. 17. I take such a view to claim that the laws of nature are necessary, not in the absolute sense that God could not have created a different world with different laws, but that He could not have created a world identical to our own in its material makeup that has different laws. By analogy, just as it is no threat to God’s omnipotence that He cannot make a triangle that has a different number of sides than three, so it is no threat to God’s omnipotence if He cannot make iron that does not have the atomic number 26. 18. Although not discussing the issue of miracle, Rescher is correct in his observation that “if there indeed are actually contingent eventuations in nature-occurrences which, while conformable to the laws, are not required by them—then nature’s laws need not and indeed cannot determine the totality of its concrete facts.” Metaphysics, 134. 19. Taylor, Metaphysics, 25. 20. Kim, Philosophy of Mind, 4. 21. David Corner, The Philosophy of Miracles, 42. 22. Ellis, Scientific Essentialism, 51. 23. I am not here taking a position on whether it is likely that physicists will eventually be able to show that gravity is not a fundamental force. The point, rather, is that fundamental instances of causality are always conceptually opaque. 24. Hasker, The Emergent Self, 150. 25. Houston, Reported miracles, 228. 26. Kim, Philosophy of Mind, 9. 27. Ibid. 237. 28. Searle, Minds, Brains and Science, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 87. 29. Given that agency can find no home in naturalism, any ascription of conscious agency will be in some sense ‘supernatural.’ In this sense, genuine human agency is as incompatible with naturalism, as is divine agency. 30. Ernst Troeltsch, “On the Historical and Dogmatic Methods in Theology,” 13. 31. Keener, Miracles, 212. 32. We are in a better position than Troeltsch to know of the vast body of evidence supporting belief in events plausibly regarded as the result of supernatural agency, but Troeltsch was certainly in a position to have known of well-evidenced reports that could not be written off as

Miracle as a Pseudo-Concept

119

the result of, in his words, “deception, dubious dealings, fabrication of myth, fraud and party spirit.” See, for example, Keener, Miracles, 375-394. 33. Keener, Miracles, 210. 34. Nowell-Smith, “Miracles—The Philosophical Approach,” 395. 35. Ibid. 396. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 399. 38. Ibid. 397. 39. I take it that such an understanding of the nature of explanation and its relation to prediction is inherent in what I have termed causal disposition theories of the laws of nature. 40. Hasker notes that on causal disposition theory, both agent causation and what is ordinarily termed event causation are instances of causation by substances, in which the particulars in question produce their effects by exercising their inherent causal powers. The difference between the two types of cases would be that, in ‘event causation,’ the individual in question automatically produces the effect in response to a ‘triggering event,’ whereas in agent causation the substance is a person, who confronted with a situation involving various motives, opportunities to act, and surrounding circumstances, may act in any of several ways or may decide to do nothing at all. There is still plenty of difference between the cases, but this schema makes it intelligible that both are instances of causation, that is, of a substance producing an effect in virtue of its inherent causal powers. The Emergent Self, 101. 41. George Chryssides, “Miracles and Agents,” 322. 42. Ibid. 319. 43. Ibid. 322. 44. Ibid. 323. 45. Geisler, Miracles and the Modern Mind, 39. 46. Chryssides, “Miracles and Agents,” 323-324. 47. Annet, Supernaturals Examined in Four Dissertations on Three Treatises, 44. 48. Quoted in Ratzsch, Nature, Design and Science, endnote 19, 198. 49. David Jenkins, God, Miracle, and the Church of England, (London: SCM, 1987), 63. 50. Leon Pearl takes the view that miracles were necessary for founding Christianity, but that subsequent to this the occurrence of miracles must be judged vastly improbable, since “God’s perfection necessitates that He not only create a universe which is a providential system but that it also satisfy the aesthetically oriented imagination of the scientist.” It is on this basis that he is prepared to assert that “the best theological position is not that God created the world and then Sir Isaac Newton took over, but that He created the world, revealed Himself and then Sir Isaac Newton took over. “Miracles and Theism,” 494-495. 51. Tennant, Miracle and Its Philosophical Presuppositions, 90-91. In criticizing Tillich’s insistence that “miracles cannot be interpreted in terms of a supernatural interference in natural processes” Systematic Theology, 116, Ward makes much the same point as Tennant. He writes, might God . . . be a personal agent who specifically intends to bring about some state of affairs in order that creatures may come to know him more clearly and enter into a more personal way of relating to his mind and will? If so, a miracle could be more than a part of the natural process . . . It could be a special act of a personal and transcendent God, . . . Some such revelation would be needed in any universe in which creatures do not clearly discern the nature of the personal reality by relation to which alone their true fulfilment will be found. A personal God will wish to show his nature and purpose sufficiently clearly for those who so desire to be able to relate to him appropriately. Divine Action, 178. 52. Steven Boyer and Christopher Hall, The Mystery of God, 74.

120

Chapter 5

53. Thomas Woolston, “A Third Discourse on the Miracles of Our Saviour,” Six Discourses on the Miracles of Our Saviour and Defences of His Discourses, 6-8. 54. Ibid. 11. Unfortunately for Woolston, his example is ill-chosen and displays an ignorance of the nature of fig trees. Jesus was in a position to know that the tree would not bear figs, even in season. F.F. Bruce thus comments that for all its fair show of foliage, it was a fruitless and hopeless tree. The whole incident was an acted parable. To Jesus the fig-tree, fair but barren, spoke of the city of Jerusalem, where he had found much religious observance, but no response to His message from God. The withering of the tree was thus an omen of the disaster which, as He foresaw and foretold, would shortly fall upon the city. F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents, revised 5th ed., (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans 1953), 73-74. 55. Keller, “A Moral Argument against Miracles,” 58. Keller does not argue that miracles per se necessarily imply that God is unjust. Rather, he claims that the pattern of miracles claimed to have occurred imply that God would be unjust in allowing them. 56. Overall, “Miracles and Larmer,” Dialogue, 42, (2003), 123-135, 131. 57. Sobel, Logic and Theism: Arguments for and against Beliefs in God, 309. Sobel appears to embrace the widely held view that theologies that depict a ‘hands off God’ are better able to cope with the problem of evil, that is to say, they hold that the occurrence of miracles would intensify the problem of evil. Thomas Tracy seems correct, however, when he claims that this view is mistaken, not because it is easy to defend a “hands-on” God, but because the problem of evil is a profound challenge for either view. Just as the defender of a hands-on God can be pushed to explain why God does not do more to prevent or ameliorate various evils, so the advocate of a hands-off God must explain why this policy of inaction is justified, given the terrible cost at which it comes. “Scientific Vetos and the Hands-Off God: Can We Say That God Acts in History?” 67. 58. Overall, “Miracles as Evidence against the Existence of God,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 23, No. 3, 1985, 347-353. 59. Overall, “Miracles and Larmer,” 131. 60. Keller, “A moral argument against miracles,” 59. 61. Moser, The Elusive God, 133. 62. Mckenzie, “Miracles Are Not Immoral: A Response to James Keller’s Moral Argument against Miracles,” 81. 63. Ibid. 64. Ibid. 82. 65. Kasper, Jesus the Christ, 92. 66. Gwynne, Special Divine Action, 244.

Chapter Six

Miracles and Evidence

It has been argued in the preceding chapters that, whether on logical or epistemological grounds, attempts to provide a priori in-principle rejections of the rationality of belief in miracles fail. Philosophical analysis can clear away conceptual underbrush, but it cannot serve as a substitute for the actual examination of evidence. TYPES OF EVIDENCE Swinburne, in his influential monograph The Concept of Miracle, argues that there are four basic types of evidence relevant to establishing the occurrence of a miracle. These are: 1) personal observation, 2) relevant physical traces, 3) the testimony of others, and 4) our contemporary understanding of what things are physically impossible or improbable. 1 In his view, any positive evidence for miracles from one or more of the first three sources must be weighed against this fourth type of evidence. If belief in any particular miracle is to be justified then the positive evidence from the first three possible sources must outweigh the negative evidence from the fourth. It is significant that Swinburne admits that this fourth type differs from the other types of evidence in that it functions “only [as] a corrective to the other three, not [as] an independent source of detailed information.” 2 His commitment to this fourth type of evidence and its inevitably conflicting with any positive evidence for miracles is the result of his willingness to define miracles as violating the laws of nature; a move which we have already seen to be problematic. This error in definition is further compounded by Swinburne failing to take into consideration the fact that the laws of nature do not, by themselves, make any event either impossible or improbable. To revert to an example already mentioned, although the laws of nature 121

122

Chapter 6

may suggest that virgins do not conceive unless some intelligent agent overrides the usual course of nature, they do not entail that such an event cannot happen or is antecedently improbable. Swinburne is mistaken, therefore, in thinking that a fourth type of evidence exists, which necessarily opposes any evidence for miracles. One may, independently of having examined the evidence for miracles, have a view concerning whether one thinks they are likely or not. Given, however, that miracles do not imply violation of the laws of nature, such a view will depend not upon one’s acceptance of the evidence for the laws of nature, but upon one’s worldview, and must be open to revision upon actual examination of the evidence. World-views, if they are to be rational, must be based on evidence, not dictate what the evidence must be. Regardless of one’s particular worldview, one needs to maintain certain fundamental evidential allegiances, whether in metaphysics, religion, science or other human endeavors. World-views constitute a response to a comprehensive body of evidence and cannot, therefore function as evidence themselves. It will not do, therefore, for the naturalist to ignore or dismiss the enormous body of evidence that exists for events plausibly viewed as miraculous, on the basis that such events conflict with the evidence for the laws of nature or are not readily accommodated within her worldview. 3 PRINCIPLES OF ASSESSING EVIDENCE Put simply, the basic principle of assessing evidence is that we strive to accept as much evidence as possible in developing a coherent account consistent with the evidence. Like many fundamental principles, it is easily stated but much more difficult to apply. Three subsidiary limiting principles that guide its application must be noted. The first is that, at least in many instances, one will be justified in weighing one’s own memories of an event more heavily than the testimony of others concerning the event. Thus Swinburne remarks that one’s own apparent memory ought as such to count for more than the testimony of another witness (unless and until evidence of its relative unreliability is forthcoming). If I appear to remember having seen Jones yesterday in Hull, but Brown says that he had Jones under observation all day yesterday and that he went nowhere near to Hull, then—ceteris paribus—I ought to stand by my apparent memory. This is because when someone else gives testimony it always makes sense to suppose that he is lying; whereas, when I report to myself what I appear to remember, I cannot be lying. 4

My use of the phrase, ‘at least in many instances’ is deliberate, and indicates that I take Swinburne to be overstating his point. It may well be that I have

Miracles and Evidence

123

knowledge that Brown is a very competent and reliable observer, and that my own powers of observation are not nearly so keen, in which case it is quite possible that the person I observed was not in fact Jones. There is also the fact that, at a phenomenological level, we are not equally confident in all our rememberings, that is to say, there are some memories one is very certain are correct, other memories one is only moderately confident in their accuracy, and still others one may have very little trust they are accurate. A second subsidiary principle is that particular evidences should be given different weights based on empirical evidence relevant to their reliability. This is done on the basis of what Swinburne terms “narrowing the evidence class.” 5 For example, in evaluating the testimony of an individual we are interested not in the worth of testimony in general—any comprehensive investigation, scientific or otherwise presupposes that at least in some instances the testimony of others can be trusted—but rather investigate the worth of the individual’s testimony in particular. We are interested in whether the testimony of the individual has been found to be reliable in the past. Do we have empirical evidence, perhaps in the form of physical traces or the testimony of others, that the individual reliably reports events? In cases of physical traces of a purported miracle, say before and after X-rays, do we have supporting evidence that the X-rays were properly interpreted? Useful though the procedure of narrowing an evidence class is, its employment presumes that there is some evidence which ought to be accepted even without further evidence in its favor. Thus Swinburne notes that the testing of evidence of one class can only be performed if we presuppose the reliability in general of other evidence. . . . We may have empirical evidence about the reliability of such other evidence but as such evidence will consist of more empirical evidence we have to stop somewhere, with evidence which we can take to be reliable without empirical evidence thereof. 6

This highlights the importance of the fact that miracles need not be defined as violations of the laws of nature, and thus evidence for their occurrence need not be understood as conflicting with the evidence for the laws of nature. Unless there is conflicting evidence which throws doubt on the reported occurrence of an event plausibly viewed as a miracle, the evidence for the event having occurred should be accepted. In other words, in absence of conflicting evidence, the burden of proof lies upon those who wish to claim that reports of such events are to be rejected. A third subsidiary principle is that coincident lines of evidence provide strong support for the claim that an event has occurred. The thought here is that, if various pieces of evidence converge, the best explanation of their convergence is that the reported event did in fact take place. Thus if a number of witnesses agree in their testimony, or if their testimony is further but-

124

Chapter 6

tressed by physical traces, it becomes very difficult to think the event they describe did not actually occur. An important point to emphasize in considering the application of this principle is that, although there is a legitimate expectation that independent witnesses of an event will agree on it major details, it is not necessary that they agree upon, or even report, the same minor details. If in fact they were to submit identical or virtually identical accounts of the event down to the minutest detail this would lead us to suspect collusion to be the best explanation of the coincident evidence. It is not possible to say in advance just how much agreement and how much disagreement we should expect in multiple reports of a miracle, other than to suggest that they would exhibit both the agreement as regards the major details of the event and the diversity concerning minor details that is characteristically found in independent reports of the same event. MIRACLES AND TESTIMONY Having noted the types of evidence relevant to judging whether a miracle has occurred, and the principles by which such evidence is to be assessed, the question of whether testimonial evidence could ever be such as to justify belief in a miracle can be raised. This is not to discount the possibility of personally witnessing a miracle, or the fact that there may be relevant physical evidence in some cases. It is to say that, as with any historical event, testimony will be the basis upon which most people base their belief in its occurrence. Even if I personally experience or observe a miracle, my belief in other miracles will be based on accepting testimony. Physical traces may be relevant, but they tend to disappear over time, and even when the event in question is recent such traces generally need to be supplemented with testimony. The late Antony Flew argued against the possibility of testimonial evidence ever being sufficient, writing that the criteria by which we must assess historical testimony, and the general presumptions which alone make it possible for us to construct the detritus of the past as historical evidence, must inevitably rule out any possibility of establishing upon purely historical grounds that some genuinely miraculous event has indeed occurred. 7

The basis of Flew’s argument is that miracles are to be defined in terms of inconsistency with the laws of nature, that is to say, as violations of the laws of nature, and, since there will always be more evidence for the laws of nature than for any particular miraculous event, there could never be sufficient testimonial evidence to justify belief in a miracle. This, however,

Miracles and Evidence

125

amounts to restating Hume’s a priori argument of Part I of the Essay; an argument which loses whatever force it has if one does not incorrectly define miracles as violating the laws of nature. It seems, therefore, that there is no reason to think that testimonial evidence could never be sufficiently strong to ground rational belief in miracles, scarcely a surprising result given the conclusions reached in preceding chapters. The question, then, is not whether testimony could ever be sufficiently strong to justify belief in a miracle, but rather how strong such testimonial evidence would have to be. Here one is liable to meet the claim that ‘extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence.’ The origin of this phrase is generally attributed to the late Carl Sagan of Cornell University, 8 but the sentiment it expresses goes back much further. Christian apologists of the eighteenth-century such as Sherlock agreed that miracle claims could not be justified in the absence of very strong evidence and the deist Annet, writing in 1744, remarks that “a history of an extraordinary uncommon kind should have more than common proof.” 9 It must be asked, however, in what sense is it true that events plausibly viewed as miracles require extraordinary evidence. The failure of Hume’s claim that the evidence for the laws of nature must inevitably conflict with the evidence for miracles leads to an important conclusion; namely that, unless there exists a conflict between two relevant bodies of evidence, it only takes a modest amount of evidence to justify belief that an event has occurred, even if the event is rare or unusual. We routinely accept claims with low pre-evidence probabilities on the basis of limited testimonial evidence. If my son, who does not buy lottery tickets, phones to tell me that he found a lottery ticket lying in the street and that when he took it to the store he was informed that it was the winning number for a jackpot to which he is now entitled, it would seem irrational to inform him that I cannot accept his report, since extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. The point, put differently, is that his claim constitutes, in itself, strong evidence for the event he reports. 10 If the critic is to dismiss miracle claims on the basis that extraordinary events demand extraordinary evidence, in the sense in which that phrase is usually employed, he will have to make reference to some conflicting body of evidence that undermines the confidence we would otherwise place in the positive testimonial evidence for miracles. There seem two strategies the critic might employ; one at a very general level, the other at a much more specific level. At a very general level, the critic could attempt to argue that the evidence against theism is so strong as to outweigh any positive evidence for miracles. But exactly how is the critic to argue this? Aquinas seems correct in his observation that the two fundamental objections raised against belief in theism are 1) all that occurs can be explained without reference to God, and 2)

126

Chapter 6

the existence of evil. 11 Regarding 1), this is an appeal to Ockham’s Razor, namely that entities should not be multiplied needlessly. If all phenomena can be explained most simply without reference to God then belief in God is unjustified. An appeal to Ockham’s Razor, however, cannot be the basis upon which to dismiss evidence for events that would most plausibly be understood as miracles. If one asserts that there are no rabbits in the woods on the grounds that no evidence has been forthcoming, one cannot then reject reports of someone finding positive evidence for their existence in the form of tracks or scat, by insisting that one has already established that there are no rabbits in the woods. Analogously, one cannot justify disbelief in God on the basis that there is no evidence for His existence and then insist that evidence for miracles cannot be accepted, since it has already been established that theism is false. Ockham’s Razor states not that one should not multiply entities, but that one should not multiply entities needlessly. It cannot serve, therefore, as a reason to insist that the evidence for miracles must be of extraordinary strength to justify belief in their occurrence. Michael Licona is, therefore, correct in his claim that it is the responsibility of the historian to consider what the evidence would look like if she were not wearing her metaphysical bias like a pair of sunglasses that shade the world. It is not the responsibility of the evidence to shine so brightly that they render such glasses ineffectual. 12

He goes on to note any requirement for extraordinary evidence to justify belief in miracles cuts both ways. If a historian proposes a natural theory such as group hallucinations in order to acount for the reports of the postresurrection appearances of Jesus to groups, he will be required to present a case for the possibility of group hallucinations. Since modern psychology generally regards group hallucinations as highly improbable if not impossible, the assertion that group hallucinations account for the post-Resurrection appearances is an extraordinary claim and thus requires extraordinary evidence. Nontheist historians are not licensed to claim that a hypothesis that is terribly ad hoc or that strains the data beyond what it can bear should be preferred over a hypothesis with a supernatural element that meets every claim to historicity. And those who feel compelled to do so indirectly admit the strength of the data in favor of a miracle. 13

His observations in this regard are especially apt if the presumed justification for rejecting theism is that there is no evidence for the existence of supernatural agents. Regarding 2), the existence of evil is routinely raised as an objection to accepting theism. Can the critic develop a Humean-type balance of probabilities argument in which the existence of evil is taken as evidence against the occurrence of miracles, thus justifying the conclusion that an extraordinary

Miracles and Evidence

127

strength of evidence is required if belief in miracles is to be rationally justified? 14 Arguably, the critic cannot. Attempts to demonstrate that there is logical inconsistency between asserting the existence of God and acknowledging the existence of evil have failed. Critics of theism argue not that the existence of evil disproves God in any absolute sense, but rather that it provides strong evidence against theism. The question which must be asked, however, is whether alternative views of reality can better account for evil than theism. If they cannot, if theism provides the most adequate understanding of the nature and existence of evil that we possess, then the existence of evil cannot be taken as evidence against the existence of God. To put it paradoxically, if evil is a feature of the world that cannot be simply explained away, to use C.E.M. Joad’s words, as “a by-product of circumstance, the result of imperfect development or inadequate training,” 15 but is rather best accounted for by theism, then this is a reason to accept, rather than reject, theism over other worldviews. If worldviews other than theism do not allow us to view events such as the Jewish Holocaust or the Rwandan Genocide as fundamental instances of evil, then this is reason to think that, despite whatever difficulties theists have in explaining the existence of evil, their worldview is superior to worldviews which ultimately explain away the existence of evil in terms of some presumably more basic concept. Theism’s main rivals in providing a comprehensive understanding of reality are naturalism and pantheism. Arguably, neither provides as adequate an understanding of the nature and existence of evil as does theism. Much can be said in support of this claim. In the present context it is sufficient to note that, to the degree that naturalism is unable to acknowledge the reality of agent causation and libertarian free will, it cannot provide an adequate account of moral evil, and that, to the degree that pantheism negates any ultimate distinction between good and evil, it cannot be said to provide an adequate account of evil. As regards naturalism, it is generally agreed that libertarian free will and the theory of agency it implies are incompatible with naturalism. Libertarian free will is possible on the assumption of an agent with the capacity to act or refrain from acting, but naturalism which only recognizes ‘event-event causation’ has no place in its ontology for such agents. John Bishop notes that, agent causal-relations do not belong to the ontology of the natural perspective. Naturalism does not essentially employ the concept of a causal relation whose first member is in the category of person or agent. . . . All natural causal relations have first members in the category of event or state of affairs. . . . The problem is that the natural perspective positively rejects the possibility that any natural event should be agent-caused. From the natural perspective, all events have the status of happenings, and the problem is that the ethical perspective

128

Chapter 6 requires some events that are doings and for which, other things being equal, an agent may be held morally responsible. 16

It is for this reason that naturalists typically either deny the existence of free will or insist on defining it in a compatibilist manner, despite the fact that either option negates attributing moral responsibility. 17 As regards pantheism, the insistence on reality being constituted by an all-embracing unity leads pantheists to deny any ultimate distinction between good and evil. Thus we find Spinoza writing that “if the human mind had only adequate ideas, it could not form any notion of evil.” 18 Insofar as pantheists conceive of evil as a problem, they think of it as a logical problem of how unity can exist within an impersonal all-embracing divine reality that exists outside of any moral categories, and thus cannot be described as being good or evil. Thus pantheist Michael Levine suggests that “the very idea of evil may be something the pantheist wishes to eschew.” 19 It seems plausible that if one is to avoid reducing the concept of evil to some presumably more basic concept one will find oneself having to embrace a theistic worldview. To claim, as naturalism seems to imply, that the concept of moral responsibility is a chimera, and thus that we could never attribute moral responsibility to the Nazis for the atrocities they committed, violates our deepest intuitions. To claim, as pantheism seems to imply, that drawing any distinction between good and evil is to engage in confused inadequate thinking, and thus be unable to view the slaughter of almost 800,000 Tutsi by Hutu extremists as genuinely evil, is again to violate our deepest intuitions. If evil qua evil is a concept that only theists in the final analysis are entitled to employ then the critic cannot maintain that the existence of evil provides a body of counter-evidence to theism, such that events plausibly regarded as miracles could not be accepted in the absence of extraordinarily strong evidence for their occurrence. At a very specific level, the critic might attempt to argue that the positive evidence for miracles is subverted or outweighed by the evidence we have regarding the unreliability of testimony under certain circumstances. 20 Undoubtedly, there are instances where the person reporting a miracle cannot be considered reliable, but on what grounds is the critic entitled to assume that this is invariably the case? It will not do for the critic to decree from his or her armchair that because some reports of miracles come from unreliable witnesses that all or the majority of reports of miracles can therefore be discounted. It cannot be assumed that the majority of miracle claims have been found fraudulent and that there thus exists a large body of counterevidence such that any specific miracle-claim must have an extraordinary amount of evidence in its favor before it can be accepted. Abusus non tollit usum, the fact that testimony is sometimes of questionable worth, scarcely establishes that it is always of questionable worth. Indeed, as Swinburne

Miracles and Evidence

129

notes, “in general we necessarily assume or have reason to believe that apparent memory, testimony and states of particular types are reliable evidence about past states and events.” 21 Unless there are specific reasons to think that someone is an unreliable witness, that is to say an existing body of evidence pointing to her unreliability, we would normally think her testimony should be accepted rather than rejected, since the most basic principle of assessing evidence is to accept as much evidence as possible that permits the development of a coherent account consistent with the evidence. 22 Newman thus seems correct in his observation that, a miracle . . . calls for no distinct species of testimony from that offered for other events . . . it is as impossible to draw any line, or to determine how much is required, as to define the quantity and quality of evidence to prove the occurrence of an earthquake, or the appearance of any meteoric phenomenon. . . . But in any case the testimony cannot turn out to be more than that of competent and honest men; and an inquiry must not be prosecuted under the idea of finding something beyond this, but to obtain proofs of this. 23

MIRACLES, WORLDVIEW, AND ‘PLAIN WITNESSING’ I have been suggesting that, unless there exists a body of counter-evidence against miracles, it is a mistake to claim that rational belief in their occurrence can only be justified on the basis of extraordinarily strong evidence. Put simply, even modest evidence for a particular event plausibly viewed as a miracle gives good grounds for believing it occurred, unless such evidence conflicts with other evidence tending to disconfirm the miracle. Various suggestions as to what might constitute counter-evidence against the occurrence of miracles have been examined and found wanting. Miracles should not be conceived as violating the laws of nature, so it is illegitimate for Hume and his followers to insist that the evidence for the laws of nature must be taken as in conflict with the evidence for miracles. Similarly, there seems little reason to take seriously the claim that the existence of evil must be taken as providing evidence against miracles. In light of this, and in light of the fact that a basic epistemic principle is that we accept as many pieces of evidence as is consistent with developing a coherent account of what actually took place, it appears that the burden of proof is upon the sceptic to explain his or her rejection of miracle accounts. At this point it might be objected that the argument I have been developing proves too much. Would it not require a too easy acceptance of miracle claims that even those convinced that miracles occur should reject? As C.S. Lewis observes,

130

Chapter 6 no one really thinks that the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection is exactly on the same level with some pious tittle-tattle about how Mother Egarée Louise miraculously found her second best thimble by the aid of St. Antony. . . . The whoop of delight with which the sceptic would unearth the story of the thimble, and the ‘rosy pudency’ with which the Christian would keep it in the background, both tell the same tale. Even those who think all stories of miracles absurd think some very much more absurd than others: even those who believe them all (if anyone does) think that some require a specially robust faith. 24

Lewis appeals to what he terms “our ‘innate sense of the fitness of things,’” 25 as a criterion by which the plausibility of particular miracle reports can be evaluated, though he is careful to note that it cannot be substituted for a “close inquiry into the historical evidence.” 26 He suggests that disbelief in miracles is, in the majority of cases, “based on a sense of their unfitness” 27 rather than on a close examination of the evidence. Even if one does not acknowledge the existence of an ‘innate sense of the fitness of things’ the accuracy of Lewis’s observation is evident. Evidence is routinely evaluated in a framework of prior beliefs as regards what is possible or probable. This can hardly be avoided; we rightly seek coherence in our beliefs. Two important points need to be made, however. First, coherence should not be sought at the cost of recognizing the primacy of what Stanley Jaki has termed ‘plain witnessing.’ 28 Otherwise, one runs the very great risk of maintaining coherence by ignoring the facts. It is sobering to realize that when Pictet, a fellow academician of the French astronomer Laplace, urged a reconsideration of the evidence provided by ‘lay-people’ that stones sometimes fell out of the sky, Laplace shouted him down exclaiming ‘We’ve had enough such myths.’ 29 The influence of Laplace and like-minded scientists, who had no room in their theories for such phenomena, was such as to result in the discarding of all meteorites from many museums. 30 As Jaki notes, even in the systematic isolation or carefully controlled conditions which science demands for its facts, their usefulness ultimately depends on the reliability of plain human witness about them. Without that witness not only the vast enterprise known as scientific endeavour would lose its claims to truth, but also the far more vast social life would be deprived of its right to justice. . . . In none of those forums can a discrimination against plain witnessing of unusual facts be condoned or else the most important cases may be prejudged and the only avenues for progress be blocked. 31

Whether or not an unusual event, plausibly viewed as miraculous, occurred should be judged on the customary criteria by which we assess testimony, not on the basis of whether it fits a favored worldview. In this respect, we do well to note a point made by Newman. He writes,

Miracles and Evidence

131

while we reasonably object to gross ignorance or besotted credulity in witnesses for a miraculous story, we must guard against the opposite extreme of requiring the testimony of men of science and general knowledge. Men of philosophical minds are often too fond of inquiring into the causes and mutual dependence of events, of arranging, theorizing, and refining, to be accurate and straightforward in their account of extraordinary occurrences. Instead of giving a plain statement of facts, they are insensibly led to correct the evidence of their senses with a view to account for the strange phenomenon. . . . Miracles differ from other events only when considered relatively to a general system, it is obvious that the same persons are competent to attest miraculous facts who are suitable witnesses of corresponding natural ones. . . . A physician’s certificate is not needed to assure us of the illness of a friend; nor is it necessary for attesting the simple fact that he has instantaneously recovered. It is important to bear this in mind, for some writers argue as if there were something intrinsically defective in the testimony given by ignorant persons to miraculous occurrences. To say that unlearned persons are not judges of the fact of a miraculous event, is only so far true as all testimony is fallible and liable to be distorted by prejudice. Every one, not only superstitious persons, is apt to interpret facts in his own way; if the superstitious see too many prodigies, men of science may see too few. . . . It may be said, that ignorance prevents a witness from discriminating between natural and supernatural events, and thus weakens the authority of his judgment concerning the miraculous nature of a fact. It is true; but if the fact be recorded, we may judge for ourselves on that point. 32

Newman’s observations in this passage make clear the importance of a second point, namely that it is essential to distinguish the question of whether an extraordinary event occurred, from the question of whether it should be viewed as a miracle. The grounds on which an event is judged to have occurred are very different from the grounds upon which we would judge it to be a miracle. Laplace was wrong to summarily reject reports of stones falling out of the sky on the grounds that there was no place in his astronomical theory for such occurrences, but it would have been legitimate for him to question whether such happenings are miraculous. This may seem obvious, but reports of events that are plausibly viewed as miracles are routinely dismissed, not on the basis of a close examination of the evidence for their occurrence, but rather on the basis that they would strongly resist any explanation in naturalist terms. In the context of a discussion of methodological naturalism at a recent conference on science and religion, I had opportunity to raise to a panel of speakers the following question. “If the events in the account of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus took place as described (Jn. 11:1-44) would it be more rational to view Lazarus’s return to life as miraculous, rather than to insist on some, as yet, unknown natural explanation?” 33 Every member of the panel failed to distinguish between the question of whether the event took place and the question of whether, if the event actually happened, it should be described as a miracle. Even upon this distinction to

132

Chapter 6

being drawn to their attention, they failed to distinguish the two questions, with a number of members of the panel making reference to how stage magicians can perform feats of illusion. It was evident that they were willing to dismiss reports of events plausibly viewed as miracles not on the basis of evidential considerations relevant to establishing their happening, but on the basis that if such events were to occur they would be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to view as having a natural explanation. This, however, is to be guilty of Laplace’s approach to reports of meteorites. The critic, as was earlier emphasized, is entitled to accept on the basis of testimonial evidence that events plausibly regarded as miracles have occurred, yet attempt to argue that, despite initial appearances, there is good reason to view these events as having a natural explanation. The critic is entitled to his or her attempts, but, as has been argued, there may be little reason to take such attempts seriously. 34 Should there be good reason to believe that Jesus actually died on the cross and three days later returned alive, and that he in fact predicted his return to life earlier in his ministry, the prospects of a natural explanation are not bright. The progress of science, far from suggesting a natural explanation is likely to be forthcoming, suggest quite the opposite. We know vastly more of human physiology than we did two thousand years ago, but this increased knowledge makes it harder rather than easier to propose some plausible naturalistic account of how such an event could take place. Indeed, it is precisely the difficulty of providing a natural explanation that leads naturalists to deny that it occurred. This, however, is to confuse the criteria for judging that an event took place with the criteria for judging that it has a natural explanation. It will not do to insist that an event be dismissed as unhistorical on the sole ground that its occurrence defies naturalistic explanation. It appears, therefore, that the commonly accepted view that belief in events plausibly viewed as miracles can only be justified if there exists extraordinarily strong evidence in their favor is mistaken. Such a claim rests on the mistaken assumption that the evidence for such events must inevitably conflict with a body of conflicting evidence against their occurrence, such as the evidence for the laws of nature or the existence of evil. Given there is no necessary conflict, it cannot be urged that belief in events best understood as miracles requires extraordinarily strong evidence before it is justified. Two final comments are in order. First, I have emphasized that there is no necessary conflict of evidence. This is not to say that in a particular instance there might not be conflicting bodies of evidence; for example, the testimony that a healing occurred might conceivably be at odds with the physical evidence from an X-ray scan, or the testimony of another witness. It is to say that the critic must demonstrate such conflicts, rather than simply assuming they are inevitably present. Second, nothing in what I have said suggests that for a great many events best understood as miracles there is not extraordinar-

Miracles and Evidence

133

ily strong evidence. It bears notice, for example, that for a cure to be recognized as miraculous at Lourdes, the illness must be organic or caused by injuries, serious, and with an irrevocable prognosis. Further there must be no treatment at the root of the cure, the cure must exceed the known laws of the illness’s evolution, and the cure must be instantaneous, total, and lasting, without convalescence. 35 Such extraordinary evidence is certainly welcome as a witness to the reality of miracles, but it is not a necessity for belief in them to be rationally justified. HUME’S A POSTERIORI ARGUMENTS It is open to the critic to attempt to argue that the presumed positive evidence for miracles is subverted or outweighed by the evidence we have regarding the unreliability of testimony under certain conditions. Despite the fact that this would seem a matter best taken on by historians and psychologists— freed of course from philosophical presuppositions regarding the impossibility of justifying belief in miracles—philosophers have not shown themselves to be shy in suggesting such arguments. Earman, for example, despite an overall even-handedness in his treatment of the possibility of rational belief in miracles, dismisses instances of faith healing on the grounds that there “is a palpable atmosphere of collective hysteria that renders the participants unable to achieve the minimal reliability condition—indeed, one might even say that a necessary condition for being a sincere participant in a faith healing meeting is the suspension of critical faculties essential to accurate reporting.” 36 It is unfortunate that Earman is unaware that his description is far from characteristic of all faith healing services. He is also unaware that the majority of healing reports do not come from faith healing services, and less than a quarter attribute their healing claims to prayer during a special service by a healing evangelist. 37 The best known arguments purporting to show that testimonial evidence for miracles is never obtained under conditions in which testimony can be considered reliable are found in Part II of Hume’s Of Miracles. None of these four arguments is original to Hume, being part of the stock and trade of the deist critics writing prior to Hume, 38 and none of these arguments is of the importance of the a priori argument of Part I, but given the influence of Of Miracles it is fitting to discuss their force, or lack thereof, in concluding this chapter. Hume’s first a posteriori argument regarding the unreliability of testimonial evidence for miracles is that there is not to be found in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as

134

Chapter 6 to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time, attesting facts, performed in such a public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable. 39

This first argument is a thinly veiled attack on Christian apologists of the day such as Thomas Sherlock, who stressed the reliability of the various Apostles as eyewitnesses. Thus Burns writes that “far from being an inventory of the requirements in principle necessarily required in order to establish any reported fact with ‘full assurance’ and which happen, simply as a matter of act, never to have been fulfilled in the case of miracles, the list is an ad hoc compilation specifically directed against the credentials of the Apostles as witnesses.” 40 Even so sympathetic a critic as Flew, is prepared to say that Hume presents not an argument, but rather “a categorical denial that there has ever in fact been a case in which various specified requirements have been met, and where the evidence has been sufficient to justify belief [in miracles].” 41 Leaving aside that Hume sets unrealistically high standards of evidence which would leave one sceptical regarding the vast majority of events, the ‘argument’ depends on a factual claim that is very dubious. 42 Indeed, Hume seems prepared to admit that this is the case. Concerning the Jansenist miracles which began with the well documented healing of Pascal’s niece, he writes, there surely never was a greater number of miracles ascribed to one person than those which were lately said to have been wrought in France upon the tomb of Abbé Paris, the famous Jansenist with whose sanctity the people were so long deluded. The curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, and sight to the blind were everywhere talked of as the usual effects of that holy sepulchre. But what is more extraordinary; many of the miracles were immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned age and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the world. 43

One would expect, that having written this, Hume would go on to argue that despite initial appearances, close examination indicated that the evidence was not in fact strong. For some of the Jansenist miracles, this is the case; a fact of which he was certainly aware by the time of the second edition. 44 Hume, however, does nothing of the sort. All that he says in response to his own example is “what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events which they relate.” 45 Flew attempts to provide a defense to the charge that Hume simply retreats into dogmatism at this point in the Essay, by suggesting Hume was

Miracles and Evidence

135

using the term ‘impossibility’ to refer to physical, rather than logical, impossibility. Aside from the fact that this seems an unduly charitable reading of Hume, Flew’s attempted defence requires Hume to argue either that an event which is conceivable is nevertheless impossible or that the concept of miracle is incoherent, neither of which was his official view. 46 Even if one were to accept Flew’s suggestion, the fact remains that Hume does not so much defend the ‘argument’ as abandon it. Perhaps the most charitable reading, though it may be too charitable in light of the language Hume actually uses, 47 is that his remarks presuppose the a priori argument of Part I, understood as demonstrating that, even in principle, there can never exist sufficient testimonial evidence to justify belief in a miracle. Hume’s second a posteriori ‘argument’ amounts to asserting that whenever a miracle story is told in a religious context its credibility is nil. He writes that, if the spirit of religion joins itself to the love of wonder, there is an end of common sense, and human testimony in these circumstances loses all pretensions to authority. A religionist may be an enthusiast and imagine he sees what has not reality, he may know his narrative to be false and yet persevere in it with the best intentions in the world for the sake of promoting so holy a cause. 48

Once again, it bears observation that this passage is more an assertion than an argument. Three points deserve emphasis by way of reply. First, it seems that Hume commits the straw man fallacy. It may be admitted that not all miracle reports are equally convincing and that at least some religious believers are guilty of exaggeration and uncritical credulity. To claim, however, that it is universally the case that all religious believers who report firsthand experience of miracles are gullible and guilty of exaggeration is simply false. 49 It is based not on any kind of considered empirical examination of actual testimony, but rather parrots the polemic of Hume’s deist predecessors. Hume was certainly in a position to know that his claim was questionable. As Colin Brown observes, “although Hume’s own circle of friends consisted largely of moderate Edinburgh Presbyterians, he writes as if all believers are either deceivers or the deceived.” 50 Second, Hume fails to be even-handed in applying his observation that people have a tendency to believe what they wish to believe. He treats religious gullibility as the preeminent example of this tendency, without ever considering the question of whether religious sceptics are guilty of the same tendency. If religious believers might have a tendency to be too readily accepting of miracle reports because such reports fit well with their belief in God, it equally seems the case that religious sceptics might have a tendency to be too readily dismissive of miracle reports because such reports do not fit well with their disbelief in God. As we have already noted, even so careful a

136

Chapter 6

philosopher of Earman, after judging Hume’s case against belief in miracles to be an abject failure, finds it possible to dismiss reports out of hand on the basis of his unexamined assumption that such events are only reported under conditions of collective hysteria where participants are unable to achieve a minimal reliability condition. 51 Craig Keener is correct in his observation that “dogmatic irreligion is no less blinding than dogmatic religion.” 52 Third, Hume ignores the fact that religious belief may act as an incentive against acceptance of miracle reports. George Campbell, one of Hume’s most capable early critics makes this point in speaking of the worth of the Apostles’ testimony for Christ’s miracles. He writes, the prejudice resulting from the religious affection, may just as readily obstruct as promote our faith in a . . . miracle. . . . If the faith of the witnesses stood originally in opposition to the doctrine attested by the miracles; if the only account that can be given of their conversion, is the conviction which the miracles produced in them . . . [then there is] a very strong presumption in favour of that evidence. 53

The same point can be made as regards later reports of miracles. Keener reports that reported miraculous healings have played a large role in church growth in much of Asia. He writes that, those who witness or are close to those who witness such reports take them quite seriously. Often these are people reared in entirely different religious traditions, for whom changing their faith tradition is socially costly, sometimes even leading to ostracism or persecution. Nevertheless, they act as if they fully regard the cures as qualitatively or quantitatively strongly different from the sorts of recoveries to which they are accustomed. 54

Within Christianity, cessationalist theology holds that miracles were a special divine dispensation given for the establishment of the early church and should not be expected to occur in modern times. Augustine, in his earlier writings, held such a view, 55 but later on the basis of personal experience of what he took to be miraculous events came to the conclusion that he had been mistaken to hold that miracles no longer occurred. 56 If anything, his earlier religious views predisposed him not to accept the continuing occurrence of miracles. Similarly in contemporary times, the testimony of Jack Deere, a professor who gave up his post at a cessationalist seminary, on the basis of witnessing and experiencing events he considered to be miraculous, can scarcely be judged to be the result of his theological views predisposing him to accept, or propagate, the claim that miracles still occur. 57 Hume’s third a posteriori ‘argument,’ like the first two ‘arguments’ in Part II of the Essay, amounts to an assertion rather than an argument. He writes,

Miracles and Evidence

137

it forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors who transmitted them with that inviolable sanction and authority which always attend received opinions. 58

This is a very curious claim for Hume to have made, given his own example of the Jansenist miracles; the reports of which Hume acknowledges came from multiple “witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned age, and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the world.” 59 Even discounting his own reference to the Jansenist miracles, Hume was certainly aware that some of the leading intellectuals of his time, for example Robert Boyle, took seriously reports of miracles continuing to occur. 60 It also bears noticing that there is more than a hint of ethnocentrism in Hume’s talk of ignorant and barbarous nations. 61 His unstated assumption appears to be that non-Caucasians living before the rise of science, unacquainted with the course of nature, and insufficiently intelligent, would be unable to recognize miracles. 62 This seems arrogant on Hume’s part. A peasant such as Joseph living in ancient Palestine was as capable as Hume in recognizing that virgins do not conceive in the natural course of events. Friends of Lazarus would be as capable as Hume of recognizing a living man who had several days ago been clearly dead. The suggestion that reports of the occurrence of events most plausibly explained in terms of supernatural intervention cannot be accepted because they come from an earlier time than one’s own seems without warrant. It is, of course, open to the critic to argue that such events, contrary to first appearance, have a natural explanation. This, however, is a different question from the one that Hume is ostensibly dealing with, namely is there good reason to think such events did in fact occur. Regarding this question, there was no reason for Hume to claim that the powers of observation of non-Caucasians living in a time prior to himself were less reliable than his own. Unlike the first three ‘arguments’ of Part II of the Essay, Hume’s fourth a posteriori argument is actually an argument, albeit not a very convincing one. He writes, as regards miracles, that there is no testimony for any, even those which have not been expressly detected, that is not opposed by an infinite number of witnesses; so that not only the miracle destroys the credit of testimony, but the testimony destroys itself. To make this the better understood, let us consider that, in matters of religion, whatever is different is contrary; and that it is impossible the religions of ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China should, all of them be established on any solid foundation. Every miracle, therefore, pretended to have been wrought in any of these religions (and all of them abound in miracles), as its direct scope is to establish the particular system to which it is

138

Chapter 6 attributed; so has it the same force, though more indirectly, to overthrow every other system. In destroying a rival system, it likewise destroys the credit of those miracles on which that system was established; so that all the prodigies of different religions are to be regarded as contrary fact, and the evidences of these prodigies, whether weak or strong, as opposite to each other. . . . This argument may appear over subtile and refined; but is not in reality different from the reasoning of a judge, who supposes that the credit of two witnesses, maintaining a crime against any one, is destroyed by the testimony of two others, who affirm him to have been two hundred leagues distant, at the same instant when the crime is said to have been committed. 63

Hume’s use of this argument is hardly original; it was widely used by the deists and even earlier versions of it are found in the polemical arguments between Catholics and Protestants. 64 There are a number of reasons why it is unconvincing. First, Hume assumes that differing religions are mutually incompatible in all respects. This, of course, is false. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, for example, are all monotheisms and share many beliefs concerning God in common. Many Jews and Muslims have no problem accepting the healing miracles of Jesus, and thus do not find themselves in conflict with Christians as regards miracles of healing, since such events do not directly bear on disputed points of belief. Even in instances of non-theistic religions which do not provide a viable conceptual home for the idea of miracle, the possibility exists that God in His mercy might perform a miracle to alleviate human suffering and perhaps help persons towards a more adequate view of Himself. Second, most religions, Christianity being a notable exception, place little emphasis on a miracle, or miracles, as basic to warranting their claim to be accepted. Thus Houston notes that “the incidence of claimed miracles in Islam is low; and little if any burden of vouching for, or warranting, Islam rests on them” 65 and C.S. Lewis notes that the majority of religions could dispense with miracle claims, without altering their essential character. 66 In contrast to Christianity, it is generally accepted that the founders of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Islam did not claim to work miracles, and were only credited with performing miracles at a much later date. 67 Hume is mistaken, therefore, in his claim that all religions equally claim and emphasize the importance of miracles. Third, Hume takes for granted that all testimonial evidence for miracles in different religions is to be taken equally strongly, yet gives no argument for doing so. He gives no attention to issues of whether some religions provide better attested reports than others. His motive, as Earman suggests, seems to have been a reluctance to leave the high ground of asserting that miracle reports need never be taken seriously, “and descend into the trenches where, as he must have been aware, there were opponents who had considered the

Miracles and Evidence

139

contrary miracles argument and were prepared to argue on the basis of contextual details for the superiority of the New Testament miracle stories.” 68 Given Hume’s own personal conviction that miracles never occur, one can understand how, at a psychological level, he would have been reluctant to engage in the nitty-gritty discussion of particular miracle reports, but his unwillingness to take seriously the issue of the weight of some miracle reports relative to others undermines his argument. Houston provides a far more realistic approach to the issue when he observes that, even if all religious systems did invoke miraculous events, some attention would need to be given to the strength or weight or evidential value of these respective reports in themselves, and to how far other factors in their religious systems add to or subtract from the credibility of the miracle reports. Among these other factors will be questions about how seriously and literally reports of putative miracles were intended; were they meant and understood to be colourful stories only half-believed by anyone? Or were they reported and taken with historical seriousness? . . . It may be that one religion can fairly claim in support vastly more and better-attested miracles than all others, even though all others claim some miraculous support, albeit meagre and feebly attested. If that be so, it will be of importance. . . . 69

Once this more realistic approach is granted it becomes an empirical issue whether the number, quality, and type of miracle reports from different religions are such that they cancel out any possibility of miracles providing strong confirmation for any one religion over its competitors. Hume takes no notice that, in contrast to Christianity, reports of miracles attributed to founders of other major world religions only appear centuries later and are not corroborated by multiple sources or neutral-to-hostile witnesses, yet this clearly bears on assessing the plausibility of individual claims. The fact that some miracle claims are poorly evidenced cannot be taken to imply that there cannot be well-evidenced claims, any more than the fact there is counterfeit money can be taken to imply there is no such thing as genuine money. 70 Fourth, Hume’s claim that his approach to miracle reports from different religions is analogous to the reasoning used in courts of law regarding conflicting testimony, misrepresents what actually happens in court. Johnson is correct in his observation that “only in a fatuously inept criminal court is it possible that the case for the prosecution should consist simply in the fact that two witnesses say they saw the accused commit a crime at time t, and the case for the defense consist simply in the fact that two witnesses say they saw the accused at t, but so far from the location of the offence that he could not have acted as he is accused of acting.” 71 Rather, as was noted earlier, there will be attempt to narrow the evidence class. Attempts to judge the witnesses’ reliability will be made, 72 as will attempts to provide a coherent account explaining apparent inconsistencies between differing testimonies.

140

Chapter 6

In instances where no reconciliation can be made between differing claims, rather than both accounts being viewed as cancelling one another, one account may be rejected entirely and the other accepted entirely. As Houston notes, the testimony of witnesses which formed part of the rejected case may often properly be discarded, set aside and ignored. Having been considered, dealt with, and disposed of so as to be altogether discounted, the witnesses’ evidence for the rejected case need not be counted at all against the evidence of the witnesses in the better, to-be accepted account. Indeed, the best account, where there are several competitors, may see of its rivals one by one without having its evidence of testimony countered and weakened cumulatively by each piece of testimonial evidence which is offered in favour of some other inferior case. 73

It will not do, therefore, for Hume to claim that his argument concerning reports of miracles from different religions is simply an extension of the practical use of reason in courts of law. Far from the detailed examination of evidence and its weight that characterizes courts of law, his argument decrees in advance that all reports of miracles in varying religions, no matter their provenance, be accorded equal weight and regarded as cancelling one another out. Given the absurdity of such a decree, it is hard to take the argument which rests upon it seriously. 74 CONCLUSION There are three types of evidence relevant to establishing rational belief in the occurrence of events best explained as miracles. These are physical traces, the testimony of others, and one’s own experience. Given that miracles should not be defined as violating any laws of nature, that is to say, the evidence for their occurrence does not in any way conflict with the evidence supporting belief in the laws of nature, and given that a basic and fundamental principle of evaluating evidence is that we ought to accept as much evidence as is possible and yet develop a coherent account consistent with the evidence, it is up to the sceptic to explain what grounds justify rejecting evidence for events plausibly regarded as miracles. To paraphrase Earman, the sceptic must be willing to eschew from on high pompous solemnities to the effect that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and enter the trenches of actual detailed examination of the evidence. 75 NOTES 1. Swinburne, The Concept of Miracle, 33. 2. Ibid. 38.

Miracles and Evidence

141

3. Keener notes that surveys indicate that hundreds of millions of people currently alive claim to have either personally witnessed or personally experienced miraculous healing. Miracles, 205, 238-239. 4. Swinburne, The Concept of Miracle, 37. 5. Ibid. 38. 6. Ibid. 38-39. 7. Flew, God and Philosophy, 145. 8. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/sagan-alien-abduction.html(Retrieved June 27, 2011). Although Sagan used this phrase in the context of discussing reports of alien abductions, in an interview conducted shortly before his death in 1996, it is frequently used as a rhetorical device that presumably justifies a quick and easy dismissal of the rationality of belief in miracles. 9. Annet, The Resurrection of Jesus Considered in Answer to the Tryal of the Witnesses, 14. 10. I am indebted to Robin Hanson for this way of making the point. See his “Extraordinary Claims ARE Extraordinary Evidence.” http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/01/ extraordinary_c.html (Retrieved June 27, 2011). 11. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 2, Article 3. 12. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 196. 13. Ibid. Footnote 203. 14. See, for example, Basinger, “Miracles as Evidence for Theism,” 56-59. 15. Joad, God and Evil, 175. 16. Bishop, Natural Agency, 40. 17. Despite the cleverness of Frankfurt examples, there is good reason to think that moral responsibility requires libertarian free will. See, for example, Hasker, The Emergent Self, 8694. 18. Spinoza, Ethics, Part 4, Corollary of Proposition, 64. 19. Michael Levine, “Pantheism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/pantheism/ ,(Retrieved June 30, 2011). 20. This is the tack taken by Hume in Part II of the Essay. We will examine his arguments in the concluding part of this chapter. 21. Swinburne, The Concept of Miracle, 38. 22. Ibid. p. 37. 23. Newman, Two Essays on Biblical and on Ecclesiastical Miracles, 73. 24. Lewis, Miracles, 129. 25. Ibid. 128. 26. Ibid. 129. 27. Ibid. 28. Jaki, Miracles and Physics, 99. 29. Ibid. 94. 30. Ibid. Note 8 31. Ibid 99. 32. Newman, Two Essays on Biblical and on Ecclesiastical Miracles, 81-83. 33. “God, Nature and Design,” Conference, Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion, St. Anne’s College, Oxford, Great Britain, July 10-13, 2008. The panel discussion took place on July 13, 2008. 34. As Newman comments, “it is impossible, from the nature of the case, absolutely to disprove any, even the wildest, hypothesis which may be framed. . . . It becomes, then, a balance of opposite probabilities, whether gratuitously to suppose a multitude of perfectly unknown causes, and these, moreover, meeting in one and the same history, or to have recourse to one . . . miraculously exerted for an extraordinary and worthy object.” Two Essays on Biblical and on Ecclesiastical Miracles, 54-55. 35. http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=1252(Retrieved July 18, 2011). 36. Earman, Hume’s Abject Failure, 61. 37. Keener, Miracles, 253.

Chapter 6

142

38. Burns writes that “not one of the four arguments of part 2 was original,” The Great Debate on Miracles, 153. Also 72-82. 39. Hume, Inquiry, 116-117. 40. Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles, 237. 41. Flew, Hume’s Philosophy of Belief, 180. 42. Keener, Miracles, 211-599. 43. Hume, Inquiry, 124-125. 44. Timothy and Lydia McGrew, note that by the time of the Essay’s second edition, Hume knew that many of the reported miracle claims associated with the Jansenists had been shown to be fraudulent. They suggest that, had the love of truth overpowered Hume’s love of literary fame, he might have withdrawn the example in subsequent editions of his work or at least mentioned the contrary evidence provided by the Archbishop of Sens. But he did neither. Instead, he inserted a lengthy footnote into the second edition claiming that many of the miracles were “proved immediately by witnesses before the officiality or bishop’s court at Paris, under the eye of Cardinal Noailles, whose character for integrity and capacity was never challenged, even by his enemies,” and go on to claim that, had the cures reported at the tomb of the Abbé Paris lived up to the characterization Hume gives of them, there would indeed be reason to believe that they had taken place. But they do not; and Hume never acknowledged, in any of the successive editions of his essay published in his lifetime, the numerous factual errors that critics like Adams, Douglas, and Campbell had pointed out in his presentation. “The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.” 657.That at least one of the events associated with the Jansenists was strongly evidenced and could not be plausibly shown to be due to natural causes was the healing of Pascal’s niece, Mauguerite Perrier.. For an excellent account of the healing and the details surrounding it see Hunter, “Arnauld’s Defence of Miracles and Its Context,” 114-116. 45. Hume, Inquiry, 125. 46. Flew, Hume’s Philosophy of Belief, 185-87. Flew claims that Hume was arguing defensively, showing the problems in rival viewpoints, rather than offensively. This suggested interpretation seems more based on a desire to save Hume from the charge of dogmatism, than a faithful rendering of what Hume actually says. 47. Hume’s remark concerning ‘the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events’ seems to imply that Hume is committed to the view that either the reported event did not occur, in which case we would be content with calling it a miracle, or it did in fact occur, in which case it was not a miracle. This apparently commits him to the claim not simply that the evidence could never be sufficient to establish belief in a miracle but the much stronger claim that miracles are logically impossible. 48. Hume, Inquiry, 117. 49. See, for example, Keener, Miracles, 264-358. 50. Brown, Miracles and the Critical Mind, 97. 51. Earman, Hume’s Abject Failure, 61. To Earman’s credit he acknowledges in the same passage that his view on the matter is a personal opinion and that it is of the kind whose substantiation requires not philosophical argumentation and pompous solemnity about extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary proofs, but rather difficult and delicate empirical investigations both into the general workings of collective hysteria and into the details of particular cases. 52. Keener, Miracles, 194.

Miracles and Evidence

143

53. Campbell, Dissertation on Miracles, 108. 54. Keener, Miracles, 265. 55. Augustine, Of True Religion, Section 47. 56. Augustine, City of God, Bk. 22, Ch. 8. 57. Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, 13-23. 58. Hume, Inquiry, 119. 59. Ibid. 124. 60. Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles, 51-57. 61. See for example, Taliaferro and Hendrickson. “Hume’s Racism and His Case against the Miraculous,” 427-41. 62. It should not be forgotten that Hume takes for granted that if certain events occur, for example a dead person returning to life, such events are in fact miracles. Inquiry, 115. 63. Hume, Inquiry, 121-122. 64. Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles, 72-73. 65. Houston, Reported Miracles, 204. 66. Lewis, Miracles, 83, 159-160. 67. See, for example, Clark, “Miracles in the World Religions,” 202-205. 68. Earman, Hume’s Abject Failure, 70. 69. Houston, Reported Miracles, 204-205. 70. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 146. 71. Houston, Reported Miracles, 205. 72. As Earman notes, “judges and juries are not always at a loss when presented with testimonies that are directly or indirectly in conflict, for they may have good reason to give high credibility to the testimony of some witnesses and low credibility to the testimonies of others. Hume’s Abject Failure, 69-70. 73. Houston, Reported Miracles, 206-207. 74. Earman writes that Hume’s contrary miracles argument has some effect against those who take miracles to be proofs of religious doctrines. But against those who take miracles only as providing confirmation of religious doctrines, Hume argument is not vouchsafed by any valid principles of confirmation—at least not of the Bayesian variety. Hume’s Abject Failure, 70. 75. Earman, Hume’s Abject Failure, 61, 70.

Chapter Seven

Miracles and Theism

We have focussed in previous chapters on issues of how miracles are to be defined, their relation to the laws of nature, different objections to belief in miracles, and the types and amount of evidence relevant to justifying belief in their occurrence. In this chapter, we examine in what sense, if any, the occurrence of events plausibly viewed as miracles can be taken as providing evidence for the truth of theism. MIRACLES AS LOGICALLY INCAPABLE OF PROVIDING EVIDENCE FOR THEISM As has been stressed earlier in our discussion of how the concept of miracle is to be defined, to call an event a miracle is not only to make a claim about the occurrence of an unusual event, but it is also to make a claim about the cause of the event’s occurrence. Belief in the Resurrection is understood by Christians not simply as involving the claim that Jesus returned from death, but also as involving the claim that this event was supernaturally caused by God. To call an event a miracle, therefore, one must be committed to the existence of God. This being the case, it is argued, miraculous events cannot function as evidence for God, since this would involve a vicious circularity of presupposing that God exists in order to call events miracles, but then arguing that God’s existence can be confirmed on the basis of the occurrence of miracles. Thus, for example, A.E. Taylor claims that “it would involve an obvious circle in our reasoning if we alleged the occurrence of miraculous events as the ground for adopting a theistic metaphysic.” 1 The superficial attractiveness of this argument is belied by the fact that if one asks convinced sceptics what it would take to convince them of God’s existence the frequent answer is the occurrence of a miracle. It seems strange 145

146

Chapter 7

to suggest that such an answer must be dismissed as irrational, with the assumption being that its utterer would fail Critical Thinking 101. Perhaps a more charitable interpretation of the answer deserves a hearing. Such an interpretation is not far from hand. What the sceptic is to be construed as requesting is good reason to believe in the occurrence of an event, the best explanation of which is that it was supernaturally caused by God, or perhaps a supernatural agent understood as acting in accordance with God’s purposes. It is the event, not the subsequent description of it as a miracle, which functions as evidence for God. All that the sceptic need do is to entertain the hypothesis that God exists and ask whether that hypothesis provides the best explanation of the occurrence of the event, as compared to other hypotheses. While it is true that once the event is described as a miracle one commits oneself to the existence of God, this in no way prevents the event from functioning as evidence for God, since it is on the basis that theism provides the best explanation of the event that one is prepared to call it a miracle. To claim otherwise, is analogous to claiming that a corpse, the existence of which is best explained on the hypothesis of a murderer, cannot function as evidence for the existence of a murderer. True, once the corpse is described as a homicide victim one commits to the existence of a murderer, but this scarcely implies that the corpse cannot function as evidence of a murderer. Analogously, the fact that an event is described as a miracle scarcely implies that it cannot function as evidence for God. 2 There is, therefore, no logical reason why events best understood as acts of supernatural intervention by God cannot be taken as providing evidence for God. Victor Reppert is thus correct in his claim that “if there is evidence that certain events deviate from the ordinary course of nature, and if affirming the existence of God would render that evidence more comprehensible than otherwise, then it must be admitted that evidence that these events have occurred is evidence that God exists.” 3 MIRACLES AS EPISTEMOLOGICALLY INCAPABLE OF PROVIDING EVIDENCE FOR THEISM A related, but somewhat more subtle, form of the objection we have just been examining is the claim that, unless one is already a theist, one will never find it plausible to describe an event as a miracle. The assumption seems to be that, unless one is already a committed theist, it is always more rational to view such an event as having a natural though unknown cause. John Stuart Mill provides an early and typical example of this objection when he writes, if we do not already believe in supernatural agencies, no miracle can prove to us their existence. The miracle itself, considered merely as an extraordinary fact may be satisfactorily certified by our senses or by testimony; but nothing

Miracles and Theism

147

can ever prove that it is a miracle [that is to say an event which is supernaturally caused]: there is still another possible hypothesis, that of its being the result of some unknown natural cause; and this possibility cannot be so completely shut out as to leave no alternative but that of admitting the existence and intervention of a being superior to nature. 4

Considerable attention has already been paid in chapter 4 to the issue of whether it is always more rational to view an unusual event as having a natural rather than supernatural cause, no matter the event or the context in which it occurs. In terms of our present discussion, it suffices to make two further points. First, Mill, as is characteristic of those making this type of objection, ignores the possibility that theism may be entertained as a hypothesis. As was noted above, all that is required in deciding whether an event deserves to be characterized as a miracle is that a person is open to the possible truth of theism. Of course, if a person is not open to the possible truth of theism it will be impossible that they ever come to believe that an event is a miracle, but that is hardly surprising, since their position is essentially that evidence has no bearing on the question of the truth of theism. Second, in claiming that the possibility of the event being the result of some unknown cause “cannot be so completely shut out as to leave no alternative but that of admitting the existence and intervention of a being superior to nature,” Mill conflates logical possibility with probability. It is, perhaps, logically possible that a random concatenation of natural events results in the arrangement of ink on this page. It is also logically possible that intelligent agency was involved. That both are logical possibilities scarcely implies that both have an equal claim to having correctly explained the phenomenon. The fact that we routinely experience intelligent agency as bringing about events which are otherwise vastly improbable justifies one in thinking that the arrangement of ink on this page is to be explained in terms of such agency. Similarly, we are familiar with the fact that intelligent agents, for example engineers, can bring about states of affairs that nature could not otherwise produce. No sane person coming across a structure such as the Eiffel Tower would refuse to view it as the result of intelligent agency, on the basis that the alternative that it occurred by chance cannot be so completely shut out as to leave no alternative to intelligent agency. 5 Grace Jantzen is thus correct in her observation that “just as there could come a point where it would be irrational to deny that the event occurred, so there could at least in principle come a point beyond which it would be foolish to deny that it was genuinely miraculous.” 6 Indeed, this point seems implicitly granted by naturalists. Faced with a report of an event such as the resurrection, their inclination by far is to attempt to reject the historicity of the event,

148

Chapter 7

rather than to argue that it could be explained in terms of natural unintelligent causes. As Geivett notes, the tendency to treat reports about the resurrection as fictitious, as fabrications, is evidence that such an event would be considered eminently recalcitrant for naturalism by naturalists themselves. They would sooner describe the alleged ‘event’ as a nonevent than be forced to come up with a plausible explanation that is compatible with naturalism. 7

It appears, therefore, that Mill and others who make the objection that one could never reasonably come to view an event as a miracle unless one already believes in God are mistaken. It follows that events most plausibly viewed as instances of supernatural intelligent agency can function as evidence for God. MIRACLES AS EVIDENCE FOR THEISM Given that events most plausibly viewed as miracles can function as evidence for God, the question arises of the relation of the ‘argument from miracle’ to other arguments for God’s existence. I suggest that it is best understood as a form of the teleological argument. A generic version of the teleological argument might be the following: Certain events or features of the physical universe (and perhaps the physical universe itself) exhibit design. Design cannot be produced by unguided natural means. Therefore there exists a non-natural intelligent designer or designers. As a form of the teleological argument, the argument from miracles has both strengths and weaknesses, not found in other versions of the argument. In most forms of the teleological argument what is at issue is the status of the claim that certain entities or events within the universe, for example living things, actually exhibit design. No one doubts that there are living things; rather, the debate turns on the question of whether in fact they exhibit design. The tack of many critics is to argue that, although the appearance of living things may initially suggest design, closer inspection of the facts reveals they are not in fact designed. Whilst acknowledging the appearance of design, these critics argue that the theory of evolution provides an explanation of the characteristics of living things entirely in terms of natural causes, and that there is, therefore, no need to appeal to design in explaining living things. Francis Crick, for example, writes that “biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved,” 8 and Richard Dawkins opines that “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” 9 Despite their lack of philosophical sophistication, Crick

Miracles and Theism

149

and Dawkins express the sentiment that arguably underlies most dismissals of the teleological argument, namely that the physical universe evidences no instances of genuine design. A strength of the argument from miracles is that, in contrast to more usual forms of the teleological argument, what is at issue is not whether the occurrence of certain events, or patterns of events, would be evidence of supernatural agency, but rather whether they in fact occur. Few people, becoming convinced that Jesus did in fact return from the dead and that he predicted his return (Mk. 8:31-33), are liable to try and make the argument that this is not evidence of supernatural agency. As has been argued in chapter 4, given the nature of certain reported events, and the context in which they are said to have occurred, the prospects of natural, as opposed to supernatural explanation, are exceedingly dim. A weakness of the argument is that, in contrast to more usual forms of the teleological argument, it is harder to establish the existence of the evidence to which one appeals. No one doubts the existence of biological entities that at least give the appearance of design, whereas many doubt the occurrence of events they would be willing to view as miracles. It cannot be denied that the evidence for biological entities is more readily available than is the evidence for miracles; all of us have observed living things, not all of us have observed events best understood as miracles. The contrast in the strength of these respective bodies of evidence should not be overstated, however. Western academics have been far too ready to dismiss reports of miracles as the result of credulity, ignorance, and superstition without ever seriously examining the evidence. Philosopher Michael Levine, for example, finds it possible to assert that only fundamentalist biblical scholars and historians take the occurrence of miracles and the historical accuracy of the New Testament seriously, providing no references in support of this clearly false claim. 10 This is to ignore the fact that hundreds of millions of people in the world claim to have either experienced or witnessed firsthand what they consider to be instances of miraculous healing. 11 Keener is correct in his observation that “regardless of how fashionable the view may remain in many circles that genuine supernatural activity by a deity, deities, or spirits may be dismissed a priori, in today’s multicultural world it is uncritically naive for otherwise critical scholars to simply accept and propagate that consensus without analysis of the empirical data.” 12 There exists in fact a massive amount of evidence that events plausibly understood to be the result of supernatural agency intervening on the usual course of nature occur. There is no reason, therefore, why the argument from miracle should not be taken as seriously as other forms of the teleological argument. Indeed, it may serve to strengthen, or make more plausible, other forms of the teleological argument, since it seems reasonable to think that if miracles occur it is likely that there are other types of evidence for the existence of

150

Chapter 7

God. 13 If there is good evidence of supernatural agency intervening in the course of nature in historical times, this at least suggests taking seriously the possibility that supernatural intervention may have taken place during prehistorical times. Taking seriously such a possibility could serve as a check on the a priori and dogmatic insistence, evident in many quarters, that the origin and development of life must, no matter what, be said to be explicable entirely in terms of natural causes. 14 Similarly, should there be good evidence that events best explained as miracles actually occur, the suggestion that the fine tuning of the universe is only apparent will seem less plausible. There are a number of criticisms routinely raised against more standard forms of the teleological argument. Some of these have a degree of force against the argument from miracles, others much less so. It is appropriate, therefore, to consider some general criticisms of the teleological argument, with an eye to assessing their force against the argument from miracles. An objection routinely raised is that there may exist a plausible alternative explanation of the evidence that does not find it necessary to recognize design. Thus, although living entities certainly have the appearance of being designed, it is argued that, given enough time, enough mutations that provide incremental advantages, and the filter effect of natural selection, it is possible to explain how such entities are entirely the product of undirected natural causes, requiring no appeal to design to account for their existence. Obviously, such an explanation will not do in the case of paradigm examples of events traditionally viewed as miracles by religious believers. The return to life of a corpse dead four days (Jn. 11:1-44) or the multiplication of loaves and fishes (Jn. 6:1-13) upon the spoken word of Jesus are not candidates for this type of explanation. The inclination of critics, of course, is to suggest that there is little evidence that such events did in actuality occur; the thought being that if one can deny their occurrence, the awkward task of providing a naturalistic explanation can be avoided. The problem that critics face is that there is compelling evidence that similar events take place in contemporary times. 15 As Keener observes, in speaking of reports of dramatic unusual healings, regardless of how we interpret miracle reports and other supernatural claims, their frequency in various sectors of today’s world indicates that large numbers of intelligent, sincere people believe that such cures are occurring today. . . . This is true even in the modern West; how much more likely would this be the case in a generally less skeptical culture like the world of the first Christians? There is no intrinsically historical reason to think that the Gospel writers had to invent such miraculous claims. 16

The prospects, as we have seen in chapter 4, of providing naturalistic explanations of such events is exceedingly dim. Indeed, the fact that naturalistic explanations of living entities require long periods of time, the accumulation

Miracles and Theism

151

of incremental changes, and the mechanism of natural selection, speaks against the possibility of explaining in naturalist terms the return to life of a corpse dead four days or the multiplication of loaves and fishes. If living fish cannot be thought to have spontaneously appeared on earth through natural causes, it hard to see how the multiplication of dead fish (Mk. 6:35-44) can be thought to spontaneously appear through natural causes. Similarly, it beggars credulity to think that the decay that a four-day-dead corpse (Jn. 11:1744) would have undergone, would spontaneously reverse itself through natural causes. Paradoxically, it is our knowledge of what is required if a naturalistic explanation of living entities is to be at all plausible, that provides assurance that the occurrence of certain events such as the resurrection of Lazarus cannot be explained in naturalist terms. Another objection frequently raised against the teleological argument is that, even if successful, it is compatible with the existence of more than one supernatural agent. Considered as events pointing to supernatural agency, in what sense do ‘miracles’ confirm the existence of the one supreme Creator God of theism? Does not the concern of circular reasoning again arise, since a miracle has been defined as an unusual and religiously significant event that furthers God’s purposes, is beyond the power of physical nature to produce, and which is caused by an agent who transcends physical nature? If miracles can be brought about by more than one supernatural agent, how do they provide evidence for the existence of one supreme deity, the creator of all other supernatural agents? 17 Might ‘miracles’ be evidence for polytheism, rather than theism? 18 Several comments are appropriate in response to this objection. First, it is very dubious that polytheism can be defended as a comprehensive, consistent worldview. Inevitably, questions of the relations between various gods and the origins of the gods arise. In Greek mythology, gods such as Zeus were said to be the result of sexual procreation of earlier gods, a mechanism that lends itself to problems of infinite regress as an account of such beings. Even more fantastically, Aphrodite’s origin is the foam that collected around the genitals thrown into the sea when Zeus castrated his father Uranus. It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that the rise of systematic philosophical thinking meant that polytheism ceased to be a live option in the West. Similarly, in Eastern thought, developed philosophies and theologies are not polytheistic. Any attempted development of polytheism into a comprehensive worldview seems to require a shift towards theism, with lesser ‘gods’ and spirits being considered creations of one God, or a shift towards pantheism, with gods and spirits being considered appearances or aspects of a more fundamental One. Second, there is no reason to insist that the teleological argument must be considered completely in isolation from the cosmological argument. The cosmological argument, if successful, confirms the existence of one necessary being, upon which all other beings depend for their existence. A stan-

152

Chapter 7

dard criticism is that, even if successful, the cosmological argument only confirms the existence of a necessary being upon which all others depend, but that it provides no information concerning the character of that being. Teleological arguments can be understood as providing insight into the nature of the necessary being, inasmuch as they confirm it to be an intelligent agent. Third, even leaving aside any appeal to the cosmological argument, there may be reason within the pattern of occurrences to think that, although they could be caused by more than one supernatural agent, they are nevertheless under the control of a supreme being. There are, for example, accounts in Christian Scripture of supernatural agents, that is to say angels, who witness to the fact that they are operating under the directions of a supreme being (Lk. 1:11-38). Similarly, there are accounts of supernatural agents, that is to say demons, who act in opposition to a supreme being, yet acknowledge the existence of a supreme being (Mk. 5:1-20). Further, there are accounts in which the hypothesis of one God having power over other presumed supernatural entities is put to the test (1 Kings 18:1-40). My point is that if the reality of supernatural interventions in the course of nature is granted, we must acknowledge not simply the bare implications of such an event occurring, but also the possibility that the intervening agent provides a self-revelation. Much more will be said on this issue in the next chapter, where we will examine the issue of to what extent the argument from miracle might be taken not simply as confirming a general theism, but more specifically as confirming Christianity. Another objection routinely raised against more usual forms of the teleological argument is the existence of evil. In regard to the argument from miracles, this objection takes two forms; the first being the claim that a perfect all powerful God should not find it necessary to intervene in the course of nature, the second being the claim that God is unjust if He does not perform miracles for everyone in a similar situation. I have dealt with these two claims in chapter 5 and do not purpose to repeat myself. I also remind the reader of the argument made in chapter 6 that accounts of the nature and existence of evil are worldview specific, and that theism, in contrast to its rivals, does not force us to give up the notion of moral evil, or claim there is ultimately no distinction between good and evil. Given that there is no demonstrated logical inconsistency between the claim ‘God exists’ and the claim ‘Evil exists, and given that other worldviews provide a less adequate understanding and account of the existence of evil than theism, the existence of evil cannot, therefore, be taken as a legitimate reason to accept a worldview other than theism.

Miracles and Theism

153

MIRACLES AND PANENTHEISM It is clear that the concept of miracle can find no home in physicalism. Similarly, it is clear that it can find no home in pantheism. Both worldviews are monistic in nature, 19 unable to admit the reality of ontologically distinct levels of being, and thus unable to countenance the intervention of one type or level of being upon another. Neither in the final analysis has room for the concept of the supernatural. Equally significant is that neither in the final analysis has room for the concept of agency; both physicalism and pantheism view ultimate reality as fundamentally impersonal. 20 The concept of a supernatural agent intervening on an ontologically distinct reality is not one they can accommodate. The occurrence of events plausibly viewed as miracles, that is to say as events best explained as caused by a supernatural agent or agents, would count, therefore, as confirming theism over and against physicalism or pantheism. It might be asked, however, whether such events count for theism, over and against panentheism. Unlike theism, which holds that God is fully actual and the efficient cause of the universe from which He is ontologically distinct, panentheism holds that God is bipolar possessing an actual pole, the world, and a potential pole, the realm of possibilities or, to use Whitehead’s term, ‘eternal objects.’ These eternal objects have no actuality in themselves, rather they exist as possibilities to be realized (or not) in the occurrence of particular events. As such, they can never function as efficient causes of what takes place in the world, but only as final causes. 21 The world is not distinct from God, but rather part of God, and God can never act in the world as an efficient cause. 22 For the theist, although God respects the freedom he gives the world, He remains free to act in the world and be an agent in history. For the panentheist, however, it is not that God allows the world freedom while nevertheless having the power to intervene, but that God is metaphysically incapable of ever determining events. 23 It is only the creative use of language equating efficient causation with coercion which allows panentheists to cast the inability of God to act in the world as an implication of His supreme love, rather than a metaphysical deficiency inherent in the fact that He is not the creator of the world. Miracles, however, are paradigm examples of God acting as an efficient cause. It is clear, therefore, that the concept of a miracle is bound to prove impossible to incorporate into panentheism. The writings of panentheists bear this out. Eugene Peters, in suggesting that panentheism provides “one of the most powerful resources available to Christian theologians of the twentieth century,” 24 asserts that one of the most obvious and important implications of a theologian working within a panentheist metaphysic is that he or she will view the world as a causally closed single, structured whole. This means, for Peters, that the theologian must

154

Chapter 7 reject supernaturalism; he will deny that there is another—perhaps a wholly different—order or realm outside the world in which he exists. All realities, he holds, share with one another a kinship so that no absolute barrier divides any of them from all the rest. . . . the process theologian will not speak of miraculous, divine intervention in the world. He will try to conceive creation, incarnation, resurrection, and so forth, not as bewildering supernatural acts of God, which have little or no affinity with the structures and processes of the experienced world; rather, he will conceive these as expression, in mythical or symbolic form, of facts which, however religiously profound, are yet within the warp and woof of the world’s single order. 25

Panentheist philosopher and theologian Philip Clayton is similarly uneasy with the concept of miracle. His massive and well-known work, The Problem of God in Modern Thought, does not have a subject heading for the term ‘miracle’ in its index. He holds that “the question of divine agency is one of the least well-articulated challenges facing theism today [and that] to avoid deism, theists must say that God can be, and is, active in the world subsequent to creation.” 26 Nevertheless, he refuses to consider the possibility of God ever directly intervening in the natural order, asserting that divine intervention would threaten the integrity of this [natural] order, disrupting the regularity and predictability of the natural world that is necessary for free and reasonable human action. It also threatens to make a mockery of scientific method, since if there were regular miraculous divine interventions one could never know whether a given natural occurrence even had a natural cause. Finally, divine interventions seem to break the law of the conservation of energy. 27

Earlier chapters have responded to such objections in detail, so there is no need to engage with Clayton’s very brief dismissal of the possibility of taking divine interventions seriously. Suffice it to say that one can perhaps be forgiven the suspicion that Clayton and other panentheists have, in this matter, a tendency to make a virtue out of a necessity. Embracing a metaphysic which does not allow God to create the universe ex nihilo or to intervene in the universe, it becomes attractive to claim that any such acts would be coercive, that is to say incompatible with God’s love, and that any amount of intervention on the part of a creator God in the natural order would destroy all hope of scientific rationality and human freedom. Whether or not such objections stand up to serious scrutiny is another matter. What is clear, is that panentheism has no conceptual room for miracles. John Cooper is thus correct in his judgment that “on this issue it [panentheism] is just another species of modernist theology that challenges the supernaturalism of traditional Christian theology.” 28

Miracles and Theism

155

THEISM, MIRACLES, AND AGENCY We have seen in previous chapters how the concept of miracle presupposes the reality of agent causation. Indeed, it seems fair to assert that the inability of the metaphysical systems of physicalism, pantheism, and panentheism to accommodate the concept of miracle lies in the fact that, in the final analysis, they cannot admit the reality of agent causation and libertarian free will at a fundamental ontological level. For the physicalist, although we make reference to agents and agent causality in our everyday speech, and we talk as if our intentions to act in a certain way affect the world, and we routinely ascribe praise and blame, such concepts are either dismissed as illusions of folk psychology or seen as descriptive of epiphenomena supervening on a more basic non-teleological reality. It is no accident that physicalists find themselves embracing compatibilist rather than libertarian accounts of free will; just as it is no accident that they struggle to give any account of how our intentions or reasons can exert causal influence upon the material world. 29 The fundamental ontological entities of physicalism leave no room for the existence of genuine agency. Similarly, the metaphysics of pantheism have no room for agent causality. The inclusive Unity of pantheism does not have purposes or intentions to act in a certain way. Thus Levine notes that “they [pantheists] deny the existence of a ‘minded’ Being that possesses the characteristic properties of a ‘person’ such as having intentional states, and the associated capacities like the ability to make decisions.” 30 Neither do we find pantheists embracing the idea of libertarian free will, but rather talking of inevitability, whether this be conceived as fixed, a la Spinoza, or in some sense unfolding, a la Hegel. Panentheism, we have already noted, does not allow God to have created the world or to act as an agent in the world. This raises the question of in what sense God or human beings can be agents. 31 As regards God, pride of ontological place seems to go to ‘Creativity’ and ‘unordered possibilities’ rather than to a personal agent, 32 or to the impersonal Absolute as the ground of the consequent personal God. 33 Since for panentheists, God’s actuality must be understood as consequent upon the world, this means that God “[cannot] possibly be active in the world, since his primordial or abstract nature has no personal actuality except as ‘it’ passively receives concrete actuality from the world.” 34 This leads Clark Pinnock, a theologian who acknowledges his debt to process thought in a number of respects, to nevertheless judge panentheism unacceptable, inasmuch as it is doubtful whether the process God can be considered a person. It is much more like a principle in the overall organism of the process. When God is said to wipe away every tear, it is not so much that the divine Agent actually deals

156

Chapter 7 with us personally, as it is that the metaphysical system implies that the tears which fall get soaked up by the cosmic sponge. 35

As regards human beings, panentheists adopt a monistic account of the person that is identical with that proposed by non-reductive physicalists. As such, despite placing great rhetorical emphasis on human agency and freedom, they find themselves no more able than physicalists to give a convincing account of the possibility of genuine agency and freedom. Like physicalists, they reject any dualist account of human nature as inherently unscientific; insisting that “‘mental events’ in human beings are the internal descriptions we offer of an actual total state of the brain itself and are not events in some entity called the ‘mind’ which exists in some other non-physical mode that is ontologically distinct from matter.” 36 Appealing to the concept of supervenience, they hold that there are various levels of description of brain events and processes and that there are no bridge laws by which higher levels of description can be reduced to lower levels. Thus it is possible to describe a particular event in the brain at a lower level of description as a series of neuron firings and also at a higher level of description as a conscious decision to perform an action. They assert that the fact that these levels of description remain linguistically distinct justifies the claim that “the language we use concerning the connections between our mental experiences—the language of reasons, intentions, and so forth—really does . . . refer to actual causal linkages.” 37 It is on this basis that they attempt to defend the existence of emergent properties with genuine causal powers distinct from those possessed by their subvenient base. 38 This seems a mistake. Although the concept of supervenience may allow us to distinguish between higher and lower-level properties, it does not warrant ascribing irreducible causal power to higher-level properties. To say that higher-level properties supervene on lower-level properties is to say that higher-level properties can only exist through being realized in a particular configuration of lower-level properties. The relation is one of dependency with no new causal powers being created. Thus John Searle, commenting on whether a physical monistic view of the person allows for the possibility of libertarian free will, writes the following: Our basic explanatory mechanisms in physics work from the bottom up. . . . Mental features are caused by, and realised in neurophysiological phenomena . . . top-down causation works only because the mental events are grounded in the neurophysiology to start with. So, corresponding to the description of the causal relations that go from the top to the bottom, there is another description of the same series of events where the causal relations bounce entirely along the bottom, that is, they are entirely a matter of neurons and neuron firings at synapses, etc. As long as we accept this conception of how nature works, then it doesn’t seem that there is any scope for the freedom of the will

Miracles and Theism

157

because on this conception the mind can only affect nature in so far as it is a part of nature. But if so, then like the rest of nature, its features are determined at the basic micro-levels of physics. 39

It seems clear, therefore, that panentheists, despite their waxing eloquent on human freedom, embrace a monistic view of the person as an entirely physical being that does not allow for genuine human agency and free will. Given that they suggest that their account of the mind/body relation is in many respects analogous to the God/world relation, this constitutes a further reason to think that their metaphysic does not allow us to think of God as a personal agent. Throughout the course of this book, I have made the argument that miracles are, in an important sense, analogous to acts of human agents. If human agents are able to act in ways that produce exceptions to the regularities of nature, which would not otherwise occur, it is reasonable to hold that a divine agent is likewise capable of doing so. If human agents can produce such exceptions without violating the laws of nature, it is reasonable to hold that a divine agent can do likewise. 40 I have also made the argument that a monistic materialist account of the human person does not allow for agency and libertarian free will. Thus John Searle notes that, if libertarianism . . . were true, it appears we would have to make some really radical changes [that is to say, abandon physicalism] in our beliefs about the world. In order for us to have radical freedom, it looks as if we would have to postulate that inside each of us was a self that was capable of interfering with the causal order of nature. 41

If the notion of human agency implies that such agents in some significant way stand outside physical processes, yet act in such a way as to influence physical processes, this commits one to some form of mind-body interactionist dualism. It appears, therefore, that if one wants to defend the reality of miracles, one must take up a certain position on the mind-body problem. That such intertwining of positions exists is only to be expected. In the final analysis, the question of miracles cannot be considered in isolation from other important philosophical issues. Given that both consider the possible action of immaterial mind upon the physical world, it would be surprising if there were not important links between miracles and the mind-body problem. 42 As we have seen in earlier chapters, many of the objections made to the possibility of mind-body interaction, for example, the presumed impossibility of two disparate substances causally interacting, are transferred to discussions of miracles. It should not be surprising, therefore, that a strong case can be made out that ordinary human actions, no less than miracles, disconfirm physicalism, and confirm theism. 43

158

Chapter 7

I have also argued that theism provides the only metaphysic capable of accommodating genuine human agency. A possible criticism at this point is that I cannot have it both ways. How is it possible to argue for miracles on the basis of postulating a divine being bringing about events that are analogous to events produced by human agents, but then argue that such a being is necessary if human agency is to exist? By way of answer, we may distinguish between how we come to have a concept of agency, and the ontological ground required for agency actually to exist. 44 It is clear, as Searle notes, that, if there is any fact of experience that we are all familiar with, it’s the simple fact that our own choices, decisions, reasonings, and cogitations seem to make a difference to our actual behaviour. There are all sorts of experiences that we have in life where it seems just a fact of our experience that though we did one thing, we feel we know perfectly well that we could have done something else. 45

It is scarcely surprising, then, that we can form a concept of agency. It is nevertheless possible to hold that, although we all experience the feeling of being agents exercising free will, we are not in fact freely choosing agents. Thus Searle rejects the existence of agent causality and libertarian free will on the basis that “science allows no place for the freedom of the will, and indeterminism in physics offers no support for it.” 46 This is simply to make the point that libertarian free will cannot be accommodated within a materialist metaphysic. This forces Searle, a materialist, to assert that it is simply a strange fact that, although “our conception of physical reality simply does not allow for radical [libertarian] freedom, . . . evolution has given us a form of experience of voluntary action where the experience of freedom, that is to say, the experience of the sense of alternative possibilities, is built into the very structure of conscious, voluntary, intentional human behavior. 47 There is, then, no contradiction in holding that we derive the concept of agent causality from our experience, and also holding that theism must be true if genuine agency is to exist. Given that we derive the idea of agent causality from our experience, an objection that is sometimes raised against the possibility of thinking of God as an agent is that in our experience the ability to act as an agent requires having a body. To act, in our experience, requires bodily movement of some sort. It follows, it is argued, that God, having no body, cannot act and therefore cannot be considered an agent. In the present context two points suffice by way of reply. First, even in the case of human agency, it is far from clear that agential concepts logically tied to bodily movement. William Alston makes this clear, writing,

Miracles and Theism

159

is it any part of the meaning of these terms [‘making’ and ‘commanding’], in the sense in which they are applied to human beings, that the external effects in question are produced by movements of the agent’s body? No doubt it is completely obvious to all of us that human beings cannot bring about such consequences except by moving their bodies. But to repeat the point once more, it does not follow that this fact is built into human A[action]-concepts. Perhaps our concept of making a soufflé is simply that of bringing a soufflé into existence, the concept being neutral as to how this is done. 48 (Italics in the original)

Second, even if it were to be granted that human agency is logically linked to bodily movement, it does not follow that this means that our concept of divine agency requires us to think of God as performing bodily actions. Alston is again helpful when he writes that we should not suppose that the question of the applicability of A-predicates to an incorporeal being is prejudged by the fact that all cases of overt action with which we are most familiar involve bodily movements of the agent. A feature that is common to the familiar denotata of a term may not be reflected in the meaning of that term, even if this class of denotata is the one from which we learn the meaning of the term, and even if it contains the only denotata with which we are acquainted. . . . Even though our concept of animal was formed solely from experience of land creatures that concept might still be such that it contains only features that are equally applicable to fish. And even if that were not the case—even if the capacity to walk on legs is part of our concept of an animal—it may be that it can be easily extended to fish, merely by dropping out the feature just mentioned. The moral of the story is obvious. We cannot assume in advance that our concept of making, commanding, or forgiving includes the concept of bodily movements of the maker, commander, or forgiver. And even if it does, this may be a relatively peripheral component which can be sheared off, leaving intact a distinct conceptual core. 49 (Italics in the original)

One is not, therefore, in holding miracles to be acts of supernatural agency in some sense analogous to the ordinary acts of human agents, in any danger of committing oneself to the proposition that God must have a body in order to act as an agent. A somewhat similar objection to the one we have just examined is the claim that God as uncreated Creator is so fundamentally different than any created contingent being that it is impossible to apply any human concepts to Him. Thus theologians such as Paul Tillich are not prepared to accept the idea of God as a personal agent, insisting that we must instead talk of ‘Beingitself’ or the ‘Ground of Being.’ 50 Indeed, Tillich was prepared to go further and insist that ‘God,’ in the traditional sense in which theists have understood the term, does not exist. According to Tillich, a mature religious consciousness must acknowledge ‘The God above God,’ a reality which is neither

160

Chapter 7

object nor subject, a reality which is apprehended when the personal God of theism disappears in the anxiety of doubt. 51 Philip Clayton is thus correct in his judgment that, for Tillich, “‘God’ is the symbol for God.” 52 Tillich’s approach is an extreme example of the via negativa, that is to say, the way of negation. Given the ontological distinction between God and creation, there must be a sense in which God is radically other than any created contingent being. This means that it is possible to describe God by pointing out what He is not. Thus, when theists describe God as infinite, they are describing Him by pointing out what He is not, that is to say, finite. If God’s transcendence and distinctness from creation is to be maintained, use will have to be made of the via negative. If concepts drawn from finite limited human experience are applied without qualification to an infinite God then it becomes very possible to fall victim to anthropomorphism. It bears emphasis, however, that a totally negative approach to describing God cannot work. Logically, every negation implies some kind of prior affirmation. If we can have no positive knowledge of God prior to what we negate of Him, there is no meaningful way to know what to negate. Essential though the via negativa may be, it must be realized that complete negation without any affirmation leads to complete skepticism about the nature of God. 53 It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that theologians who emphasize the via negativa to the point where they hold that God cannot be described as a personal agent find themselves defending an impoverished rather than enriched conception of God. As C.S. Lewis observes, if a man watches his own mind, . . . he will find that what profess to be specially advanced or philosophic conceptions of God are, in his thinking, always accompanied by vague images which, if inspected, would turn out to be even more absurd than the man-like images aroused by Christian theology. For man, after all, is the highest of the things we meet in sensuous experience. He has, at least, conquered the globe, honoured (though not followed) virtue, achieved knowledge, made poetry, music and art. If God exists at all it is not unreasonable to suppose that we are less unlike Him than anything else we know. No doubt we are unspeakably different from Him; to that extent all man-like images are false. But those images of shapeless mists and irrational forces which, unacknowledged, haunt the mind when we think we are rising to the conception of impersonal and absolute Being, must be very much more so. For images, of the one kind or of the other, will come; we cannot jump off our own shadow. 54

The via negative, the way of negation, must, therefore, be balanced by the via affirmativa, the way of affirmation. 55 An example of this balancing is found in the claim that God is omnipotent, that is to say, all powerful. From our human experience we derive the concept of agency, that is to say, what it is like to exercise power on the basis of conscious decisions. In order to apply

Miracles and Theism

161

that concept to God, we negate all the factors that limit the exercise of power in humans. God’s exercise of power is thus in some respects similar to human agents, in other respects, radically different. The via negativa, on such a conception, functions not as the negation of all positive attributes of God, but rather the denial of any imperfections or external limitations. 56 This balancing of the via negativa and the via affirmativa allows theists to hold that there is univocity in the concepts we apply to God and humans, yet also hold that the way in which these concepts are predicated of creature and Creator are radically different. 57 Concepts can be univocal when abstracted but analogical when predicated of different things. 58 As Alston notes, what it is for God to make something is radically different from what it is for a human being to make something; but that does not rule out an abstract feature in common, e.g., that by the exercise of agency something comes into existence. . . . Many theistic thinkers have moved too quickly from radical otherness to the impossibility of any univocity, neglecting this possibility that the otherness may come from the way in which common features are realized. 59

There is, therefore, no reason to hold that the radical otherness of God implies that it is somehow inaccurate to speak of God as an agent whose action is the result of His knowledge, intentions, and purposes. Admitting univocity in the concepts we apply to humans and God does not mean that the way in which these concepts are realized by humans and God cannot be radically different. The way in which God has an intention may be very different from the way in which a human agent has an intention, but it is nevertheless the case that this is consistent with holding that it is literally true that God is indeed an agent who acts on His intentions. The radical otherness of God that the theist must insist on is not to be construed as God having no features in common with human agents, but rather in the way in which such features are realized in the divine being. 60 Talk of divine action has, to use Alston’s phrase, “a hard literal core” 61 CONCLUSION I conclude that events most plausibly understood as miracles can function as evidence for the truth of theism. It is true that once an event is termed a miracle one is committed to theism, but this in no way implies that such events cannot function as evidence for God, since the decision to call the event a miracle is a result of the fact that the event is best explained on the hypothesis of theism. Calling an event a miracle does not preclude the possibility of further evidence persuading one that the event is not best explained on the hypothesis of theism, and should not, therefore, be viewed as miraculous.

162

Chapter 7

The ‘argument from miracles’ is, I have argued, best seen as a form of the teleological argument. Its potential weakness is that, in contrast to other forms of the teleological argument, many would deny that the events suggesting the existence of a supernatural agent actually occur. While it is true that not everyone has firsthand experience of such events, the amount and quality of the evidence for such events is typically underestimated by critics. Its strength is that, granted the events in question occurred, the prospects of any kind of naturalistic explanation are virtually non-existent, with advances in scientific knowledge increasing, rather than decreasing, the difficulty of providing any such explanation. Events most plausibly viewed as miracles confirm theism over and against other metaphysical systems such as physicalism, pantheism, and panentheism, inasmuch as it can accommodate the concept of agency at a fundamental level, whereas they cannot. Our experience of human agency, or at least what feels like agency, allows us to talk of supernatural agency. Objections that God must be conceived as so radically other than creation that no concepts drawn from human experience can be applied to Him, fail to take into account that even if they are instantiated, that is to say predicated, in a different manner in God, it is legitimate to speak univocally of God and humans as agents. NOTES 1. “David Hume and the Miraculous,” 363. 2. Geivett puts the point well when he writes the evidential basis of miracles is brought to light in the process of using events that we later come to regard as miracles to infer the existence of God. What we consciously appeal to in this argument for the existence of God is our sense of the limitations of natural causes to account for the event and our awareness of the availability of a nonnatural explanation for the event. We are not at the outset of the reasoning process aware of the miraculous status of the event, though, of course, it will have been a miraculous event all along. That it is a miracle is something we find out as a result of carrying the argument through, “The Evidential Value of Miracles,” 182. 3. Reppert, “Miracles and the Case for Theism,” Philosophy of Religion 25 (1989), 35-51, 35. 4. Mill, A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation. Bk. 3, Ch. 25, Section 2. 5. Plantinga raises the issue that the recognition of design may be understood as more like perception than inference, Where the Conflict Really Lies, 245. I am sympathetic to this possibility. If it is in fact the case that recognition of design is more akin to perception than inference, this would make it even harder to deny that certain events are properly designated miracles, since possible defeaters are even fewer than if an inference is involved. 6. Jantzen, “Hume on Miracles, History, and Apologetics,” 324. 7. Geivett, “The Evidential Value of Miracles,” 182. 8. Crick, What Mad Pursuit, 138.

Miracles and Theism

163

9. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 4. Inconsistently, later in the book Dawkins is prepared to say “that, even if there were no actual evidence in favour of the Darwinian theory . . . we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories, The Blind Watchmaker, 287. 10. Michael P. Levine, “Philosophers on Miracles,” 299. To name only three examples out of many, A.N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament, N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, and Dale Allison, Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (New York: T&T Clark, 2005) are all prominent nonfundamentalist scholars who take miracles and the accuracy of the New Testament very seriously. 11. Keener, Miracles, 238. 12. Ibid. 206. 13. Geivett, “The Evidential Value of Miracles,” 184. 14. Lewontin, provides a striking example of this dogmatism when he writes, we take the side of science . . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. “Billions and Billions of Demons” (review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, 1997), The New York Review, 9 January 31. Lewontin’s remark is striking in its forthrightness, but is scarcely unique as regards the attitude it expresses. 15. Keener, Miracles, 508-599. 16. Ibid. 219. 17. As noted in chapter 2, beings such as angels may be considered supernatural in relation to the physical realm and capable of performing miracles, yet they will be created contingent beings dependent for their existence upon God. 18. Morgan Luck seems to hint at such an argument when he suggests that unless one accepts Aquinas’ claim that only God can perform miracles, one is not justified in viewing the occurrence of miracles as evidence for God, “‘Aquinas’ Miracles and the Luciferous Defence,” 176. 19. Pantheism is a monism in the sense that there exists but one substance, physicalism is a monism in the sense that there exists but one type of substance. 20. Clarke notes, only those religions that invoke supernatural agents will have any use for the concept ‘miracle.’ Religions that lack supernatural beings will lack suitable agents to perform miracles, so their adherents will have no need of the concept ‘miracle.’ “Luck and Miracles,” Religious Studies, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Dec. 2003), 471-474, 472473. 21. Holmes, “Why God Cannot Act,” 187. 22. Gruenler notes that “process theism . . . locates actuality in the finite universe, making God its eternal consequent possibility-becoming-actual; God is eternal only because it is assumed that some finite universe or other will everlastingly afford him spatiotemporal actuality,” The Inexhaustible God, 125. Put differently, as Paul Copan and William Craig note, panentheism implies the eternality and necessity of the physical world Creation Out of Nothing,14. Thus, despite the insistence of process thinkers that their metaphysic better accords with science than classical theism, panentheism is contradicted, rather than supported by our best

164

Chapter 7

cosmological theories, which are generally taken as implying an absolute beginning to the physical universe. 23. Pinnock, “Between Classical and Process Theism,” 318. 24. Peters, “A Framework for Christian Thought,” 374. 25. Ibid. 375. 26. Clayton, The Problem of God in Modern Thought, 504. 27. Ibid. Clayton, in a footnote, notes the suggestion made by Polkinghorne and others that God might act by introducing information, rather than energy, into the natural order. As I noted earlier, this suggestion ignores that any introduction of information would also have energy implications. 28. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers, 334. Cooper notes that earlier thinkers such as Dionysius, Eriugena, Eckhart, and Nicholas of Cusa believed the biblical miracles. He views these thinkers as panentheists and takes this as evidence that panentheism in what he calls its classical, as opposed to moderm, forms can accommodate the concept of miracle. I am inclined to argue that unless such thinkers accept the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, in which case they are not panentheists, they will be unable to consistently accept the possibility of God acting as an efficient cause in the universe. 29. Hasker, The Emergent Self, 58-109. 30. Michael Levine, “Pantheism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/pantheism/ (Retrieved June 30, 2011). 31. Schwöbel notes the tendency of panentheist thinkers such as Tillich to “[replace] the concept of divine agency with a complex system of ontological categories to explain God’s relation to the world,” “Divine Agency and Providence,” 225-226. 32. Gruenler, “Reflections on a Journey in Process,” 352-353. 33. Clayton, The Problem of God in Modern Thought, 505. 34. Gruenler, The Inexhaustible God, 124. 35. Pinnock, Between Classical and Process Theism, 320. 36. Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 60. 37. Ibid. 61. 38. Moreland argues that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever for genuinely emergent properties. For one thing, the in-principle unpredictability of emergent properties from exhaustive knowledge of their alleged emergent bases entails that there is no empirical evidence for emergence. And the fact that there are no criteria for identifying a “sufficient degree of complexity” apart from slapping the label on whatever was present when the emergent property appeared in an ad hoc after-the-fact manner, implies that there is no straightforward scientific evidence for emergence, Consciousness and the Existence of God, 148. 39. Searle, Minds, Brains and Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 93. Kim makes a similar point writing that given the close similarity between supervenience and the realization relation, we may regard the two models as essentially identical in philosophical import. Both construe higher-level causal relations as grounded in, or derivative from, the causal processes at a more basic level. If physical facts determine all the facts . . . then physical facts, including causal facts about physical processes, must determine all the causal facts, including facts about mental causation. . . . [The] causal powers of M [higher-level properties] are wholly derived from the causal powers of its realizer P [lower-level properties]: This instance of M [higher-level properties] causes whatever its physical realizer P [lower-level properties] causes. Since whatever causes P [lower-level properties] to be instantiated also causes M [higher-level properties] to be instantiated thereby, it follows that the given instance of M [higher-level properties] enters into exactly the same causal relations that the corre-

Miracles and Theism

165

sponding instance of P [lower-level properties] enters into: Something is a cause or effect of the M-instance [higher-level properties] if and only if it is a cause or effect of the P-instance [lower-level properties]. There are no new causal powers that magically accrue to M [upper-level properties] over and beyond the causal powers of P [lower-level properties]. No new causal powers emerge at higher levels, and this goes against the claim . . . that higher-level properties are novel causal powers irreducible to lower-level properties, Philosophy of Mind, 232. 40. This is hardly a new point. Richard Price, one of Hume’s earliest critics writes that the supposition that a miracle . . . implies a violation or suspension of the laws of nature . . . is by no means necessarily included in the idea of a miracle. A sensible and extraordinary effect produced by superior power, no more implies that a law of nature is violated, than any common effect produced by human power, Four Dissertations, 437. Emphasis in the original. 41. Ibid. 92. 42. Charles Taliaferro provides an extended treatment of the interconnectedness of theism and issues in philosophy of mind, in his Consciousness and the Mind of God. 43. Moreland, Consciousness and the Existence of God, develops an extended detailed argument in support of this claim. 44. Moreland notes, in the order of knowing, it is appropriate to move from us to God. But in the ontological order, things go in the other direction. . . . Whatever else may be different between us and God, . . . God . . . [is] the paradigm case of a conscious personal agent, and, as such, the paradigm case grounds the class of conscious personal agents precisely as such in that each member bears the relevant similarities with the paradigm case. It is hard to see what these analogy-grounding similarities would be if not a self-conscious, substantial agent-self, Consciousness and the Existence of God, 152. 45. Searle, Minds, Brains and Science, 87. 46. Ibid. 92-93. 47. Ibid. 98. 48. Alston, “Can We Speak Literally of God?” 57. 49. Ibid. 54. 50. Tillich, The Courage to Be, 186. 51. Ibid. 185-190. Tillich, as is not uncommon for thinkers who take the via negativa as the only means of describing God, embraces panentheism as a metaphysic. 52. Clayton, The Problem of God in Modern Thought, 467-468. 53. Geisler, Philosophy of Religion, 266. 54. Lewis, Miracles, 78-79. 55. Regarding the use of metaphor in Christian Scripture, Pinnock writes, we need to avoid both literalism [anthropomorphism] and agnosticism. The way forward is to work with the diversity of metaphors and follow the grain of them. . . . One avoids literalism by denying a one-to-one correspondence between metaphors and God’s being and agnosticism by affirming a real correspondence between them. One looks for the implications of the metaphors and appropriates the insights they offer into divine reality. All language is anthropomorphic and metaphorical, it is all we have to work with. God reveals himself in the medium of such language, albeit partially. If we lose the metaphors, we lose the self-disclosure. We would end up saying nothing at all. An ‘infinite’ God beyond metaphor is not a God we can know anything about, Most Moved Mover, 63.

166

Chapter 7

56. Farrer, Finite and Infinite, 60. 57. Geisler, Philosophy of Religion, 280-281. 58. Ibid. 59. Alston, “Functionalism and Theological Language,” 67. Alston notes in a footnote that his point is similar to St. Thomas’ distinction between the property signified by a term and the mode of signifying. 60. Ibid. 66-67. 61. Alston, “Divine and Human Action,” 102.

Chapter Eight

Miracles and Christian Apologetics

I argued in the previous chapter that the occurrence of events best explained as miracles, that is to say events which an unaided nature could not be expected to produce and which advance what can reasonably be believed to be divine purposes, provide evidence for theism. In the present chapter, I explore the issue of whether miracles can serve as evidence for one religious form of theism over and against other competing forms of theism. More specifically, I explore in what sense well-evidenced contemporary miracles and the miracles described in the New Testament count for Christianity, as opposed to the other major monotheistic religions of Judaism and Islam. It is unfortunate that many contemporary Christian theologians either downplay or dismiss the significance of miracles. Far from being as Goethe remarks, “faith’s favorite children,” 1 reports of miracles, either in New Testament times or more recently, are regarded as a source of embarrassment, best left unmentioned, or explained away as the result of a less than scientific mentality. C. Schwöbel notes the very prevalent view that any theology wishing to be taken seriously must free itself of the crudely primitive concept of a “‘God who acts’ . . . no theologian today can fail to take into account the modern understanding of nature and history as relatively self-contained systems of interrelated factors which are subject to natural explanation.” 2 G.F. Woods, while not quite rejecting the concept of appealing to divine intervention to explain certain events, nevertheless opines “that the problem of the evidential value of the miraculous in support of the truth of the Christian faith is unlikely to receive a generally accepted solution for a very long time, if ever.” 3 Even in more conservative circles, miracles are often viewed as an apologetic liability. Stephen Wykstra, for example, is pessimistic concerning the prospects of an apologetic from history that appeals to the resurrection of Jesus, on the basis that the Christian apologist must 167

168

Chapter 8 adopt a policy of systematic inconsistency with respect to the probabilityestimating procedures he employs. He must employ the normal procedures when appraising the possibilities envisioned by naturalistic alternatives to the resurrection hypothesis, and abstain from these procedures when gauging the probability of the resurrection. 4

Given this climate of thought, it is perhaps unsurprising that prominent authors such as Alister McGrath (Science and Religion: An Introduction), 5 John Haught (Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation), 6 and the contributors to Arthur Peacocke’s (The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century) 7 make no mention of miracle in their discussions of the relation of scientific and religious beliefs. When in a later book, Theology for a Scientific Age 8 Peacocke does consider the concept of miracle, his discussion occupies a mere two pages. 9 There are at least two important reasons to question such quick dismissals of the apologetic significance of miracles. First, that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies of a coming Messiah and that his miracles were confirmation that in Him the Messiah had arrived, was regarded by first- and second-century apologists as the strongest argument for Christianity. 10 To cite only a few examples, Paul appeals to prophecy and the historical evidence for the resurrection as the basis for belief (1 Cor. 15:3-8), Ignatius 11 and Justin 12 argue that Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy, and Origen is prepared to say that without miracles the early church could not have been established. 13 Second, the claim that belief in miracles is at odds with science is false. As has been argued in the preceding chapters, miracles, understood as events produced by a supernatural agent overriding the usual course of nature, imply no violation of the laws of nature. Further, there exist criteria by which to distinguish events most reasonably believed to be miracles, from anomalous events most reasonably believed to have natural, though unknown causes. Stephen Davis is correct in his comment that it is unclear . . . precisely what it is that forbids us . . . from holding that God can and does occasionally act miraculously in the world. One wishes that [theologians such as] Gilkey, Bultmann and Harvey [would] spell out just what they take the argument to be. 14

Belief in miracles should not, therefore, be deemed unscientific, and the reluctance of much of contemporary Christian theology to engage with the topic is unjustified. I am, therefore, going to take as granted that there is strong evidence that New Testament accounts, as well as many contemporary reports, of events best understood to be miracles are accurate, that is to say that the events they describe actually took place. Lest it be objected that I am being too bold, that

Miracles and Christian Apologetics

169

I write as a philosopher and not as a historian, it bears emphasis that the rejection of such events as actually occurring is typically based on philosophical, rather than historical, grounds. Unless one is prepared to justify the assumption that, to the degree a text contains accounts of miracles it must be considered unhistorical, the claims of form and redaction critics that the Gospels in their present form are late, largely imaginative, creations of the Christian community seem on very thin ice. As Tim and Lydia McGrew observe, there are good reasons for dismissing the sweeping negative conclusions of form criticism regarding the authenticity and reliability of the narratives. There are no independent textual traditions preserving the allegedly earliest forms; one must discern them in the existing text, and in many cases the layers are visible only when the text is viewed with eyes of form-critical faith. There is a substantial and growing body of evidence that the Gospels were indeed written by eyewitnesses or by those with access to eyewitnesses. And the conjectures of the form critics regarding the dating and accuracy of the New Testament writings have repeatedly been shown by scholars in other fields to be embarrassing blunders. 15

It is even more difficult to brush aside well-evidenced contemporary reports of events virtually impossible to be regarded as anything but miraculous. 16 Given that attempts to provide a priori, arguments justifying in-principle rejection of miracle reports fail, and given that when one sets aside unjustified philosophical prejudice, a strong case can be made for the occurrence both of contemporary miracles and the miracles described in the New Testament, it is irresponsible for contemporary Christian philosophers and theologians to ignore the apologetic import of such events. 17 An unconvinced reader may, however, if he or she wishes, treat my argument as hypothetically demonstrating what follows if I am correct in my claim that there is in fact such a strong case. The issue, in arguing that miracles provide confirmation for theism generally, and more specifically Christianity, is to explain how such events, considered as physical occurrences, are best explained on the basis of Christian theism, since, as has already been stressed, the question of whether an event occurred must be distinguished from the question of whether it is properly viewed as a miracle. In the case of confirming theism at a general level, the recalcitrance of such events to naturalistic explanation, that they are analogous to acts of human agents, and that they can be seen to further what can plausibly be understood as divine purposes, allows them to function as evidence for theism over and against other worldviews. 18 It is one thing, however, to argue for a general theism, quite another to argue for a specific form of theism such as Christianity, over and against other theistic religions. Thus Earman, while allowing that “the evidentiary function of miracles . . .

170

Chapter 8

which . . . was envisioned by Hume’s more able eighteenth-century opponents is more sophisticated than is allowed by many modern commentators” 19 nevertheless feels it necessary to assert that “the weak point in the envisioned evidentiary function lies in the fact that even after the miraculous event has been probabilified, there is still work to be done in assessing the support it gives to some religious doctrine. 20 He is careful to point out, however, that this difficulty is parallelled in science in deciding how empirical events bear on competing hypotheses, and “that there are no in principle obstacles to a positive outcome in either science or religion.” 21 Earman’s comment concerning the analogy with science is helpful, though also too limited, as we shall see. Various forms of theism can be thought of as competing versions of a large scale hypothesis. Just as within the larger theory of evolution one might ask whether a certain body of data better confirms neo-darwinian, punctuated equilibrium, or evo-devo versions of evolution, so one can ask whether well-evidenced reports of miracles tend to confirm Christianity rather than other theistic religions or worldviews. Do miracles generally better fit within Christianity, than other developed versions of theism? More particularly, can certain miracles that play a central role in Christianity be accommodated by its rivals? It is to these two issues that we turn our attention. ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS AND MIRACLES In terms of comprehensive, theologically and philosophically articulated, theistic religions, Judaism and Islam are Christianity’s major competitors. All three appeal to the idea of a theistic God revealing himself in history. Specifically, they all appeal to a common revelation given to Abraham, and thus are commonly described as Abrahamic religions. Although all three have conceptual room for miracles, and in their traditions acknowledge miracles, they have significant differences in their views concerning miracles. Insofar as Judaism is committed to viewing Christianity as a heretical offshoot, and insofar as the miracles associated with Jesus could be seen to lend credence to the claim that he is the Messiah, the miracles reported in the New Testament tend to be dismissed in Jewish thought as unhistorical on ideological grounds. Judaism does not reject the possibility of contemporary miracles, but it does not take their actuality very seriously. 22 The commitment to miracles seems largely eschatological in the sense that their role is understood to be that of ushering in a new age that will mark the end of history. Islam is ambivalent in its view of miracles. The Qur’an views Muhammad as the culmination of a line of prophets, “each sent to a particular community with a proclamation from God and usually accompanied by evi-

Miracles and Christian Apologetics

171

dential miracles.” 23 One would expect that he, like his prophetic precursors would perform miracles, but, when challenged to perform a sign, he replies that he is only a moral messenger (Surah 17:90-93). It is true that some Muslim commentators on the Qur’an have attempted to credit Muhammed with miracles. David Thomas notes that the reference in 94.1-4—‘Have we not expanded thee thy breast? And removed from thee thy burden, the which did gall thy back? And raised high the esteem [in which] thou [art held]?’—was understood by some interpreters to mean that Muhammad’s chest had physically been opened by angels and his insides cleansed . . . [and that] the reference in 54.1-2—‘The hour [of judgement] is night and the moon is cleft asunder. But if they see a sign, they turn away, and say ‘This is [but] transient magic’—was interpreted as a physical occurrence in the heavens witnessed by Muhammad and people around the world. 24

These later amplifications of texts which, on the most charitable reading, only vaguely hint at the possibility of supernatural intervention, seem an attempt to “boost [Mohammad’s] status to that of at least the equal of the greatest of his predecessors.” 25 Although not denying that in Islam, as in Christianity and other religions, there is a demographic which is ‘miraclehappy’ in the sense of readily accepting miracle reports, however poorly evidenced, 26 it is fair to say that Islam generally downplays the significance of miracles, with the exception of what it takes to be the supreme miracle, namely the Qur’an itself. The Qur’an is regarded by Muslims as a miracle insofar as they view its literary form to be so sublime that it could not have been produced by natural means. 27 Indeed, for many Muslims, the production of the Qur’an is the only miracle they are prepared to accept. 28 Christianity, it is fair to say, places a greater emphasis on the miraculous than does Judaism or Islam. Jesus, while recognizing that even the most dramatic of miracles would not convince his critics, when asked whether he is the Messiah, points to his miracles as validating his claim (Lk. 7:18-23). Peter preaches the first evangelistic sermon at the miraculous event of Pentecost where disciples from Galilee were able to speak in languages they had no knowledge of (Acts 2:1-13). Peter’s message is that prophecy of Joel has been fulfilled; that Jesus’s resurrection has ushered in a new age in which supernatural interventions of God are to abound (Acts 2:14-41). A great deal of the growth of Christianity both historically and in contemporary times is attributed to non-Christians converting on the basis of what they take to be miraculous events, these being primarily healings, though reports of other events analogous to those recorded in the New Testament also exist. 29 Keener notes that a large cause of church growth in Asia is attributed to miraculous healings. He points out

172

Chapter 8 that those who witness or are close to those who witness such reports take them quite seriously. Often these are people reared in entirely different religious traditions, for whom changing their faith tradition is socially costly, sometimes even leading to ostracism or persecution. Nevertheless, they act as if they fully regard the cures as qualitatively or quantitatively strongly different from the sorts of recoveries to which they are accustomed. 30

One finds miraculous healing playing a similar role in Africa, Latin America, and the Carribean. 31 It appears, therefore, that at a very general level, Christianity is more accommodating of miracles than either Judaism or Islam. While all three acknowledge the possibility of miracles, Judaism and Islam are less comfortable with their actual occurrence than Christianity. If, therefore, there exist numerous well-evidenced accounts of events best explained as miracles, this counts in favor of Christianity. JESUS’ MIRACLES AND SELF-UNDERSTANDING At a much more specific level, it may be asked whether there are miracles which, if taken as occurring, confirm the central claim of Christianity, and disconfirm Judaism and Islam to the extent that these religions find it necessary to deny Christianity’s central claim. The claim I am referring to is, of course, Christianity’s claim that Jesus was God incarnate. It would be hard to argue that the answer is not a clear yes. It is for this reason that critics of Christianity are at pains to attack the historicity of the New Testament accounts. One does not meet individuals who, accepting the miracles surrounding Jesus’ life and death, deny his divinity, though historically there have been some inclined to deny his humanity. The task then is not to explain whether if the occurrence of these miracles is granted they count in this way, but how they do so. A central point which was made in chapter 4 but which bears emphasizing in our present discussion is that the miracles recorded in the New Testament occur in the context of a larger teleological whole. Pinnock very forcefully makes this point concerning Jesus’ resurrection, the central miracle of the Christian faith, insisting that in the historical apologetic based on the bodily resurrection of Jesus, it is important to observe the full context of the putative event. If the occurrence be wrenched from its setting like a severed toe and held up to view, of course the Christian significance of it cannot be registered. . . . The resurrection event is part and parcel of a much longer narrative. 32

The resurrection, as Pinnock points out, is intricately connected to a web of other events. Jesus takes himself to be fulfilling Jewish prophecy, announc-

Miracles and Christian Apologetics

173

ing that because he is present a new age of salvation has arrived (Lk. 4:1621). He both explicitly 33 and implicitly 34 claims to be God. He understands himself to be the suffering servant described in Isaiah 52 and 53, who will give his life as a ransom for many (Mk. 10:45), but have his life restored by God (Mk. 10:34). He claims personal authority over the Divine Law given in the Torah, something no rabbi or prophet would ever presume to do (Matt. 7:28-29), and regards himself as having the divine prerogative of forgiving sins (Mk. 2:5-11). 35 The resurrection functions as evidence for Christianity not as some starkly anomalous event, but rather in the fact that it is embedded in a larger narrative that shows it to be the culmination and validation of Jesus’s ministry. An element of this embeddedness that should be remarked on, is the links between miraculous and ‘ordinary,’ that is to say non-supernatural, events, which one should have no hesitation in accepting as historical. These links are such that if one denies the occurrence of the miracle one then has no satisfactory account of the ordinary event one has no reason to doubt. Consider the account of Jesus’ bringing Jairus’s daughter back to life (Lk. 8:4056). Suppose one wishes to accept the ‘ordinary’ details of the story, but wishes to excise the miracle. One accepts that Jairus had a very sick daughter, that he approached Jesus for help, that Jesus agreed to come but was delayed on the way, that word arrived while on the way that the daughter had died, that Jesus comes anyway, and that the daughter’s regaining consciousness coincided with Jesus’ visit to her sickbed. What one does not accept is that the girl was dead rather than in a coma and hence that a miracle really occurred. Suppose we adopt the hypothesis that the girl was not really dead, but rather in a coma. Have we really done away with the supernatural as an element of the story. It seems not, since we must still explain Jesus’ absolute assurance that he could heal the girl, even though, to the best of his knowledge she was dead? Such assurance seems inexplicable in the absence of miraculous power. Suppose that we excise this event from the report. Have we now done away with the supernatural? It seems not, since we have an extraordinary event as the cause of Jesus being delayed, namely his healing of the woman with the issue of blood. Does eliminating this presumably fantastic element from the narrative finally free us from any element of the miraculous? It seems not, since it was Jesus’ alleged ability to heal that explains both the crowds which meet him and Jairus’ approach to him in the first place. Unless there is reason to take the miraculous elements of this story as historical, there is little reason to accept the ordinary elements as historical. The point, of course, is that in many instances in the New Testament accounts, the natural and supernatural are so intertwined that there can be no question of accepting its testimony concerning ordinary events, yet rejecting its testimony concerning extraordinary events. The consequence of

174

Chapter 8

attempting to excise the supernatural from the natural in the New Testament does not take one to a historical core shorn of superstition, but rather leads one to disregard its claim to be a historical document, even in the face of strong reasons to trust its historicity. It is clear that “it is not possible to do justice to the historically verifiable material in the Gospels without seeing . . . Jesus as being as much a miracle worker as a teacher” 36 and that “any critical reconstruction of the historical of the historical Jesus must not only include but also, indeed, emphasize that he was a most powerful and prolific wonder worker.” 37 It will not do, therefore, to attempt to divorce the historical Jesus from accounts of his miracles. As Graham Twelftree observes in this respect, He [Jesus] cannot be seen only, or even primarily, as a wise sage or as a wandering cynic or as a Jewish holy man. He was first and foremost a prolific miracle worker of great power and popularity, expressing in his activity the powerful eschatological presence of God. 38

Also of note are the numerous links between supernatural events that include not only miracles, but visions and prophecies, such that in many instances the miracles occur in conjunction with a supernatural interpretation of their significance. The miracle of the virgin birth—more accurately, the virgin conception—is accompanied by visions and dreams which provide an interpretation of the event’s significance. When Jesus is baptized his special relationship to God is confirmed not only by the prophet John, but by an audible voice from heaven (Lk. 3:21-22). When Jesus performs exorcisms, he is recognized by demonic powers as Son of the Most High God (Mk. 5:6-7). Jesus is not only raised from the dead; he predicts his being raised, and, during the event of the transfiguration, is reassured and prepared for his coming ordeal (Mk. 9:2-10). When non-Jews first receive the miracle of being able to speak in languages unknown to them, this is prepared by coordinated visions given to Cornelius and Peter respectively (Acts 10:1-48). Paul Helm is thus correct in his comment that “not only does the miraculous in [Christian] Scripture cohere with its other elements of prophecy and teaching, it is also congruent with the main thrust and message of that revelation.” 39 This element of supernatural interpretation makes it difficult for Christianity’s theistic competitors to acknowledge the occurrence of the miracles accompanying Jesus’ life and ministry as historical events, yet integrate them into a different belief system. For example, Muslims accept Jesus as a prophet, who, like the prophetic messengers before him, is given evidential miracles to validate his message. They are thus inclined to accept the Virgin Birth. They cannot, however, accept the angelic announcement to Mary that her baby be the ‘Son of the Most High,’ that is to say will have an ontological status not shared by any other human (Lk. 1:26-38) or Simeon’s prophetic

Miracles and Christian Apologetics

175

recognition that the infant Jesus is the promised Messiah (Lk. 2:25-32). There is, however, no principled reason for accepting the claim that Mary, while a virgin became pregnant, but denying the reality or content of her vision or Simeon’s prophetic announcement. To do so, seems to strain at a gnat, but be willing to swallow a camel. If there is good reason to trust Luke’s report that Mary virginally conceived, there seems equally good reason to trust his report concerning the other supernatural events associated with the Virgin Birth. What this means is that there can be no question of other theistic religions simply co-opting Jesus and his miracles into their own theologies. It seems impossible in any consistent way to accord Jesus the status of a great Jewish prophet, yet hold that he was massively and fundamentally deceived in his self-understanding. No Jewish prophet would dare to forgive sins, that being the sole prerogative of God alone, yet Jesus does so, asserting that his ability to work miracles is a sign of his authority to grant forgiveness (Mk. 2:1-12). No Jewish prophet points to his own significance but rather to God, yet Jesus is prepared to say “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give your rest” (Mt. 11:28). Jesus clearly regards himself as greater than a prophet, and both explicitly and implicitly makes claims concerning his divinity. C.S. Lewis makes clear the difficulty I am describing when he writes, A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. 40

On the view that we must take seriously the reports of miracles in the New Testament, we have coinciding with Jesus’ view of his own identity, supernatural events which do not simply point to a general divine benevolence, but which explicitly serve to confirm his self-understanding. The very uniqueness of that self-understanding prevents religions other than Christianity doing justice to Jesus’ own understanding of his life and works. It bears pointing out that the analogy suggested by Earman, namely that the relation of miracles to doctrine is similar to the relation of data to competing scientific hypotheses, although useful, is too limiting in certain instances. In the case of relating experimental data to scientific hypotheses we are attempting by the best use of our faculties to make inferences. In the case of a miracle and its relation to doctrine there exists the possibility that the agent producing the event will also provide an interpretation of that event. Thus, a

176

Chapter 8

father may not only bake a batch of cookies and leave them on the counter where they will be found and enjoyed, he may also provide a note explaining why they are there, for example, he knew that his daughter would be hungry after soccer practice. The cookies unaccompanied by the note could be taken as a general indicator of the benevolent intentions of an agent—the daughter could infer that she will likely be able to enjoy eating the cookies but does not know if her father intends her to enjoy them now or later at supper—but their being accompanied by the note makes it clear what exactly the intentions of the agent are. Both the baking of the cookies and the production of the note are events that nature would not produce on its own. The note as a self-revelation of the baker, serves to make clear what exactly his specific purpose was in producing the cookies. In the same way, some miracles may serve to provide a clear understanding of the purposes of God in producing a different miracle. 41 Alternatively, a miracle may come with an accompanying supernatural interpretation in the form of a vision, the accuracy of which is open to verification by those experiencing it, and who can later report to others that accuracy. For example, Ananias in a vision is told to heal Saul of the blindness miraculously inflicted upon Saul on the Damascus road. Ananias concerned for his safety questions the instructions, but is told that Saul is God’s chosen instrument to further the message of the gospel not only to Jews, but to the Gentiles. Saul is told at the time he is struck blind to go to Damascus, where he will be shown what to do. While praying in Damascus, Saul is shown in a vision that Ananias will come to heal him of his blindness. The purpose of the interlocked miracles of Saul being struck blind, while receiving instructions to go wait in Damascus, and Ananias’ healing of Saul is revealed through the coordinated visions experienced by Saul and Ananias (Acts 9:3-18). I have argued at a general level that the comprehensive developed form of theism most capable of accommodating both New Testament and contemporary accounts of miracles is Christianity. At a much more specific level, I have argued that, in the case of the New Testament, one is presented with miracles uniquely accompanied by the self-disclosure of God. It is this element of self-disclosure, such that the significance of the miracles of the New Testament is not simply inferred from the occurrence of the events, but rather revealed by the producing agent, which makes them impossible to incorporate in any non-arbitrary way into versions of theism other than Christianity. To the degree then that they have a strong claim to be considered historical events, they serve to confirm Christianity rather than other forms of theism. Nothing in what I have said is to be taken as claiming that miracles do not occur in other religions or secular environments. As Licona notes,

Miracles and Christian Apologetics

177

if either the Jewish or Christian view is true, genuine miracles could occur among unbelievers and be entirely compatible with these beliefs. For example, God acted among a nonbeliever by healing Naaman’s leprosy . . . many accounts exist in our time of the paranormal that occur within a religious context. The Christian view allows that it might be God acting in these situations, or in some cases, that the observed phenomena are the works of demons. 42

Rather, I am arguing that the New Testament miracles, taken in conjunction with Jesus’ self-understanding, and moral character, serve as the lens by which other miracles can be best understood. More accurately, I am claiming that the New Testament miracles are an essential part of the fullest expression of divine self-disclosure, and thus help to serve as a means by which to understand the significance of ongoing miracles, whether these occur in explicitly Christian settings or not. What I am suggesting is that, although all miracles serve to some degree to reveal God’s nature and purposes, not all miracles are equally revelatory. A life-long atheist who has gone blind from macular degeneration but who allows herself to be persuaded to go to a healing service at which she receives her sight might become persuaded that there is a God, but on the basis of that single event be unconvinced of anything but God’s existence and general benevolence. 43 Such an experience may lead her to investigate further the claims of various religions, but as a single event it has limited revelatory significance. 44 It is for this reason that Christian apologists need to be careful not to claim more for the doctrinal implications of various miracles that such events reasonably warrant. Healing miracles, which by far seem to be the most common type of miracle, can reasonably be taken as a sign of God’s care and mercy, and can be taken to confirm the central aspects of Christianity inasmuch as they appear to especially occur in conjunction with Christian outreach or revival. To go further than this, however, and take them as confirming very specific points of disputed doctrines is to project onto them an interpretation that the context in which they occur does not warrant. Put differently, although miracles can include a very large and very specific element of self-disclosure from God not every miracle will necessarily contain the same degree or element of self-disclosure of God. It is vitally important, therefore, that whatever element of self-disclosure there is be distinguished from what we attempt to infer on our own concerning the significance of the event. It deserves emphasis in this regard that Jesus insists that genuine miracles are to be identified by their ‘fruits,’ that is to say can they be seen over the course of time to further human flourishing and a deeper understanding of God and His purposes. He does this in the context of warning his disciples that not all supernatural agents are friendly; just because an event is the result

178

Chapter 8

of supernatural agency it cannot be automatically taken as furthering God’s purposes. A large part of Jesus’ ministry involved exorcism, with evil spirits recognizing Jesus’ identity, but nevertheless resisting him (Mk. 1:21-28, Lk. 8:26-39). 45 Leaders of the early church such as Irenaeus and Athanasius recognized the need for a ministry of exorcism, 46 and there are numerous accounts in contemporary Christian missiology of conflict encounters with what appear to be supernatural agents. 47 As an example, Keener notes the account of John Chukwu, who, as a recent convert to Catholicism, was cursed by witch doctors and awoke blind. Physicians were unable to help him but he regained his sight when the Catholic priest prayed and sprinkled him with consecrated water. 48 Keener goes on to cite many other accounts, some even more dramatic. He rightly comments that “possession experiences are documented so widely that their appearance in ancient sources such as the Gospels and Acts should not surprise us.” 49 Similarly, it is scarcely surprising that when Christianity encounters religions which place a premium on supernatural events, but which sanction the use of such power for immoral purposes such as inflicting sickness on one’s enemies, that ‘power encounters’ of the nature described should take place. As has been argued earlier, events are not to be judged miracles simply on the basis of being the result of supernatural agency, but also on the basis of whether they are in accord with God’s nature and further His purposes. MIRACLES AND THE PYRRHONISTIC FALLACY There can be little doubt that many readers will have found the arguments of this chapter far more difficult to take seriously than the arguments of earlier chapters. Granting that the question of whether an event occurred must be distinguished from the question of whether it is a miracle, does it not nevertheless strain credulity to admit the occurrence of such events? Perhaps it is true that if one admits the occurrence of certain New Testament and contemporary accounts of miracles that a strong case can be made for Christianity as compared to its competitors, but does not the acceptance of such accounts amount to special pleading? Thus Bart Ehrman claims that if one were to admit the miracles of Jesus one must also accept “the tradition of miracles done by Apollonius of Tyana, Hanina ben Dosa, Honi the Circle-Drawer [and] Vespasian.” 50 Ehrman and many others seem guilty of the same approach found in Hume’s fourth argument of Part II of the Essay, namely the Pyrrhonistic error of a priori insisting that all miracles must be judged equally significant and equally well evidenced. As has already been noted in chapter 6, there are at least two fundamental flaws evident in such reasoning. First, there is no

Miracles and Christian Apologetics

179

reason to think that God might not perform a miracle in a religion other than Christianity. C.S. Lewis, commenting on this issue, writes I do not think that it is the duty of the Christian apologist (as many sceptics suppose) to disprove all stories of the miraculous which fall outside the Christian records. . . . I’m in no way committed to the assertion that God has never worked miracles through and for Pagans. . . . If, as Tacitus, Suetonias, and Dion Cassius relate, Vespasian performed two cures, and if modern doctors tell me that they could not have been performed without miracle, I have no objection. But I claim that the Christian miracles have a much greater intrinsic probability in virtue of their organic connection with one another and with the whole structure of the religion they exhibit. 51

Second, Ehrman is wrong to claim that all miracle traditions are on the same evidential level. Licona, commenting on Ehrman’s example of Honi the Circle Drawer, notes that Honi is first mentioned in Josephus as a devout person whose prayers for rain were answered. 52 However, around three centuries after Josephus, the story is reported in the Jerusalem Talmud, with many more details. Honi prays for rain. When it does not come, he draws a circle and stands inside of it, promising not to leave his spot until it rained. When only a few drops came, Honi said this is not what he had prayed for. Then it rained violently. But Honi said he had prayed for ‘rain of good will, blessing, and graciousness.’ Then it rained in a normal manner. 53

Further, whereas Josephus places Honi in the first century B.C., the Jerusalem Talmud places him in the sixth century B.C., five centuries earlier. 54 As regards Hanina ben Dosa, the first report of his miracles occurs one hundred and fifty years after the purported events, that is to say long after any possibility of eye witness testimony, whereas Mark’s Gospel was written twenty-five to forty-five years after Jesus’ ministry, that is to say, well within the lifetime of possible eyewitnesses to the miracles Mark reports. 55 Similar difficulties exist in any attempt to put Philostratus’s biography on the same level of historical reliability as the Gospels. 56 Ehrman’s assertion that reports of Jesus performing miracles have no claim to be taken more seriously than the reports of Apollinius, Hanina ben Dora, Honi the Circle-Drawer, or Vespasian performing miracles appears not to be based on the usual criteria by which historians evaluate the reliability of sources, but on the assumption that the occurrence of miracles is maximally improbable. 57 If miracles are maximally improbable then all reports of them can be regarded as occupying the same evidential level; the conclusion being that, to the degree that a document contains reports of miracles it is historically unreliable. As we have seen, however, this assumption is questionbegging, inasmuch as it a priori rules out the possibility of taking seriously reports of extraordinary events which, if they occur, are best understood as

180

Chapter 8

miracles. To rule out taking seriously what would usually be good grounds for thinking an event occurred, on the grounds that accepting the occurrence of the event suggests the action of a supernatural agent, is to assume that one can know in advance of ever examining the evidence that either God does not exist or if He does he would never intervene in history. The job of the historian is not to decree in advance what can or cannot happen, based on his or her metaphysical predilections, but rather to seek to ascertain what did in fact happen. The question of whether events best understood as miracles actually occur is an empirical one, not to be decided by an arbitrary fiat that refuses to countenance the possibility of supernatural causes. In what has been said, it should be clear that argument of this chapter presupposes as an essential precondition serious historical inquiry into records containing accounts of miracles. There can be no special pleading on the part of the Christian apologist that acceptance of the miracles reported in the Christian tradition requires less evidential support than reported miracles in other traditions. Faced with the hypothesis that accounts of Jesus’ virgin birth are the result of New Testament authors borrowing from pagan accounts of the birth of extraordinary figures, the apologist must be prepared to give good reasons for rejecting such a hypothesis as less than plausible. She is under no obligation, however, to accept as part of her methodology the assumption that, no matter how speculative, a natural explanation is always to be preferred to a supernatural one. She is, therefore, at liberty to point out how disanalogous the proposed similarities are, and the paucity of any kind of concrete evidence to support the idea that the New Testament accounts borrowed from pagan mythology. Indeed, she may wish to point out that, although historians can scarcely avoid making causal judgments, pride of place goes to determining what actually took place. At least theoretically, the historian might reach the conclusion that the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke provide good evidence that Jesus was indeed born of a virgin, yet remain agnostic regarding whether the event had a supernatural cause, even if to do so is to refuse to consider the question of whether a naturalistic explanation appears truly hopeless and avoid a historian’s responsibility to seek the causes of events. To insist, however, that because it would be difficult to provide any adequate account of what a natural cause might look like, the event cannot be accepted as happening, even if the sources have good claims on other grounds to be accepted is to put the cart before the horse. Similarly, it is at least possible in principle that a historian might reach the conclusion on the basis of the historical reliability of the Gospels that Jesus, being dead, did in fact return to life, even if he refuses to take a stand on what the cause of that event was. Gary Habermas is correct in his judgment that,

Miracles and Christian Apologetics

181

the charge that miracles cannot be investigated in terms of normal research methods would obtain only if we knew that such events did not occur at all, or if they happened only in some nonobjective realm. In either case, it would constitute a proper assessment to denying investigation by historical methodology. However, since it is an open question whether miracles occur in normal history, it would seem to be at least possible to investigate the historical portion of these claims with regard to their accuracy.” 58

Even if one denies the possibility of the historian accepting the event, but not making a judgment about its cause, it will not do to insist as does G. Dawes that to view an event as a miracle must be an “explanation of last resort.” 59 If there are good grounds for thinking that the authorial intent of the sources is to report what was viewed as a miracle, if the event occurred in a context in which it can plausibly be seen to have religious significance, if the sources have characteristics that favor the historicity of the event, and if no plausible naturalistic explanations exist, any insistence by a historian that the event could not have occurred is based not on historical evidence, but the historian’s insistence that supernatural causation is not to be considered. 60 Such an insistence is not based on the evidence, but rather an assumption one brings to the evidence. Historians can scarcely escape the influence of interpretive horizons based on assumptions they bring to their work, but to the degree that such assumptions cannot be challenged or overthrown by actual evidence, they cease to function as genuine historians and become merely dogmatists. CONCLUSION The argument of this chapter has been that, although all three major theistic religions provide a conceptual home for miracles, Christianity is the most accommodating of the concept. Further, if the miraculous events described in the New Testament actually occurred, they in conjunction with Jesus’ selfunderstanding and character, provide strong reason to take Christianity as the fullest revelation of God. To the degree that the latter claim is made purely hypothetically it may seem obvious. What prevents it from being purely hypothetical is the fact that, when assessed on their own merits, as opposed to being decreed unreliable on a priori philosophical grounds, the New Testament documents have strong claims to being historically accurate. Once these strong claims are granted, the Christian apologist is in a position not only to argue for supernatural agency, but for the self-disclosure of God acting as an agent in the world. The Christian apologist is thus in a position to make the case that the New Testament miracles, as an essential part of the overall life and ministry of Jesus, witness to the supreme revelation of God in Jesus. These miracles, understood in the context of Jesus’

182

Chapter 8

ministry, provide the interpretive lens by which the significance and purpose of contemporary miraculous events may be appropriated. NOTES 1. Goethe, Faust I & II, line 766. 2. Schwöbel, “Divine Agency and Providence,” 225. Schwöbel does not endorse this view. 3. Woods, “The Evidential Value of the Biblical Miracles,” 31. 4. Wykstra, “The Problem of Miracle in the Apologetic from History,” 161. Wykstra’s pessimism is based on his view that there do not exist criteria by which events best viewed as miraculous, that is to say supernaturally caused, can be distinguished from events best viewed as anomalies, that is to say events with a natural but unknown cause. As has been argued in chapter four, such pessimism is unjustified. 5. McGrath, Science and Religion: An Introduction. 6. Haught, Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation. 7. Peacocke, The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century. 8. Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age, 182-183. 9. Given Peacocke’s panentheism, it is scarcely surprising to find that he waffles on the topic of miracle. In one of the two pages he explicitly devotes to the subject in Theology for a Scientific Age, he acknowledges that if miracles occur, “they will be of inestimable significance for our understanding of god in his relation to the humanity to whom he has vouchsafed such a revelation by such a means,” but almost immediately follows this admission by claiming that “a more holistic and coherent model of God’s continuing interaction with and on the world has emerged—one consistent with our new understandings of the natural order . . . ,” 183. Earlier in the book, he seems to implicitly rule out miracles when he comments that a weighty objection to the concept of divine intervention in nature is that the very notion of God as the faithful source of rationality and regularity in the created order appears to be undermined if one simultaneously wishes to depict his action as both sustaining the ‘laws of nature’ that express his divine will for creation and at the same time intervening to act in ways abrogating these very laws— almost as if he had second thoughts about whether he can achieve his purposes in what he has created. Even if one conceives of these ‘interventions’ as rare, as made only for significant purposes . . . one still faces the question of whether it is a coherent way to think of God’s action in the world, 142. A little later, he reinforces the impression that his theology has no room for the concept of miracle when he writes that “divine causative influence would never be observed by us as a divine ‘intervention,’ that is, as an interference with the course of nature and as a setting aside of its observed relationships,” 163. 10. Bruce, The Apostolic Defence of the Gospel, 12. 11. Ignatius writes, “If any one makes light of the law or the prophets, which Christ fulfilled at His coming, let him be to thee as antichrist,” The Epistle of Ignatius to Hero, chapter 2. 12. Justin writes, there existed, long before this time, certain men more ancient than all those who are esteemed philosophers, both righteous and beloved by God, who spoke by the Divine Spirit, and foretold events which would take place, and which are now taking place. They are called prophets. These alone both saw and announced the truth to men, neither reverencing nor fearing any man, not influenced by a desire for glory, but speaking those things alone which they saw and which they heard, being filled with the Holy Spirit. Their writings are still extant, and he who has read them is very much helped in his knowledge of the beginning and end of things, and

Miracles and Christian Apologetics

183

of those matters which the philosopher ought to know, provided he has believed them. For they did not use demonstration in their treatises, seeing that they were witnesses to the truth above all demonstration, and worthy of belief; and those events which have happened, and those which are happening, compel you to assent to the utterances made by them, although, indeed, they were entitled to credit on account of the miracles which they performed, since they both glorified the Creator, the God and Father of all things, and proclaimed His Son, the Christ [sent] by Him, The Second Apology of Justin, chapter 7. 13. Origen, Against Celsus, chapters 45, 46. 14. Stephen Davis, “God’s Actions,” 175. 15. McGrew, “The Argument from Miracles,” 600. Likewise, Craig Blomberg argues that, as a historical tool, many tenets and assumptions of form criticism must be seriously questioned. There is nothing inherently improbable about each form being particularly useful for a given life-situation in the early church, but the actual data available to recover these are virtually nonexistent. The so-called tendencies of the tradition—to embellish and become increasing ‘distinct’—find some support in how later apocryphal traditions dealt with the canonical gospels. But within the canon, as one proceeds from Mark to Matthew and Luke, more often than not there is a tendency to abbreviate and streamline. [footnote omitted] Many of the other assumptions about the lack of historical interest or care with which the tradition preserved details about Jesus’ life and teaching are also questionable. Analogies from other continents and the development of oral folklore over a period of centuries are not as relevant as studies of first-century Jewish oral culture and what likely developed over only a few decades. In fact, a good case can be made that the oral tradition of Jesus’ words and deeds was extremely conservative and painstaking in preserving historical truth accurately, Jesus and the Gospels, 82-84. 16. See Keener’s excellent work Miracles. Also Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, MacNutt, The Power to Heal, White, When the Spirit Comes with Power, and Wimber and Springer, Power Healing. 17. Regarding contemporary accounts of miracles see the preceding note. Regarding the New Testament accounts, mention has already been made of Licona’s The Resurrection of Jesus. To name only a few amongst many more, the works of Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006), Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downer’s Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 1987), and N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) all make the case that if the unwarranted assumption that reports of miraculous event must a priori be deemed unhistorical is rejected, then the New Testament gospels have a strong claim, on the basis of criteria routinely used by historians, to be considered historically reliable. 18. It will not do to argue that, since there are no privileged analytic truths connecting the language of evidence with the language of theory, there can be no events which can serve as evidence for a worldview, unless the truth of that worldview is already presupposed. The links between theory and evidence can be provided by the theory to be tested. This is not questionbegging so long as such links are not used in a way that guarantees the theory will be accepted no matter the evidence. See, for example, Clark Glymour, Theory and Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 150-152. 19. Earman, Hume’s Abject Failure, 67. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. “Miracles,” A Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion, Louis Jacobs, Oxford University Press, 1999. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. U. of New Brunswick Libraries. 3 August 2012 http://www.oxfordreference.com.proxy.hil.unb.ca/views/ENTRY. html?subview=Main&entry=t96.e462> 23. Thomas, “Miracles in Islam,” 203.

184

Chapter 8

24. Ibid. 204. 25. Ibid. 204-205. 26. Clark reports having in his possession Turkish newspaper clippings to the effect “that when American (read Christian) astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, he distinctly heard a strange sound that he only later recognized as the Muslim call to prayer.” “Miracles in World Religions,” 204. 27. Thomas, “Miracles in Islam,” 205. 28. Clark, “Miracles in World Religions,” 204. 29. Keener, Miracles, 579-599. 30. Ibid. 265. 31. Ibid. 309-358. 32. Pinnock, “Fails to Grasp Ontological Basis for Problems,” 158. 33. Jesus claimed the authority to forgive sins which in Jewish culture was a prerogative only possessed by God (Mk. 2:1-12). Note how Jesus links his ability to heal the man to his authority to forgive sins. 34. Jesus, when asked by the priests and elders to explain by what authority he was teaching in the Temple, tells the parable of the evil tenant farmers (Mt. 21:33-45). In the parable the vineyard is a well-recognized symbol of Israel and the vineyard owner is God. The servants sent by the landowner are the prophets. The landowner’s heir is Jesus and has a far higher status than the servants. Commenting on this parable, Craig notes that Jesus’ self-understanding as God’s special Son also comes to expression in his parable of the wicked tenants of the vineyard. . . . The presence of a non-allegorical version of this parable in Gospel of Thomas 65 has persuaded even skeptical scholars of the authenticity of the parable. In the apocryphal version the owner of the vineyard, after sending two servants to collect the harvest, sends his son, whom the tenants recognize as the heir and so murder him. One cannot delete the figure of the son from the parable as an inauthentic, later addition, for then the parable lacks any climax and point. But Jesus’ use of such a parable discloses that he thought of himself as God’s psecial Son, distinct from previous envoys to Israel, God’s final messenger, and even the rightful heir to Israel, Reasonable Faith, 245. 35. Bowman and Komoszewski comment on the implications of Jesus’ frequent use of the introductory locution “Amen I say to you,” writing that this expression invests what Jesus is about to say with religious authority and assurance even before he says it. Jesus speaks with absolute confidence that what he says—that everything he says—is the absolute truth. “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away” (Matt. 24:35; Mark 13:31). No rabbi, no priest, no prophet would ever say “my words” here; they would confidently say that God’s words will never pass away, but no pious Jew would dare claim that his words would never pass away. Yet Jesus made such a claim. Isaiah, one of Israel’s greatest prophets, said, “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isa. 40:8). Jesus makes the equivalent claim for his own words. Putting Jesus in His Place, 215. 36. Graham Twelftree, Jesus: The Miracle Worker, 330. 37. Ibid. 358. 38. Ibid. 39. Paul Helm, “The Miraculous,” 88. 40. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 50-51. Lewis was an admirer of G.K. Chesterton and he acknowledges finding this argument in Chesterton who writes, normally speaking, the greater a man is, the less likely he is to make the very greatest claim [of being divine]. Outside the unique case [of Jesus] we are consider-

Miracles and Christian Apologetics

185

ing, the only kind of man who ever does make that kind of claim is a very small man; a secretive or self-centered monomaniac. . . . It is possible to find here and there human beings who make this supremely superhuman claim. It is possible to find them in lunatic asylums. . . . It is by rather an unlucky metaphor that we talk of a madman as cracked; for in a sense he is not cracked enough. He is cramped rather than cracked; there are not enough holes in his head to ventilate it. This impossibility of letting in daylight on a delusion does sometimes cover and conceal a delusion of divinity. It can be found, not among prophets and sages and founders of religions, but only among a low set of lunatics. But this is exactly where the argument becomes intensely interesting because the argument proves too much. For nobody supposes that Jesus of Nazareth was that sort of person. . . . Upon any possible historical criticism, he must be put higher in the scale of human beings than that. Yet by all analogy we have really to put him there or else in the highest place of all. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, 433. For a contemporary restatement of Chesterton’s and Lewis’ argument see Davis, “Was Jesus Mad, Bad, or God?” 41. For example, in the accounts of the Transfiguration (Lk. 9:28-36, Mt. 17:1-9, Mk. 9:210), Jesus is portrayed as speaking with Moses and Elijah concerning his coming Passion. The disciples, overcome and not knowing what to make of their miraculous experience, are spoken to by God, the message being that Jesus is God’s Son and that they are to listen to him, that is to say, be obedient to him. 42. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 147-148. 43. There is, of course, no guarantee that the woman will abandon her atheism; she might simply accept the event, but not inquire too closely whether it can be accommodated by her worldview. 44. To say that a specific miracle’s revelatory significance is limited is not to deny that its significance can be tremendously important in the existential sense of coming to realize that at the heart of reality there is a personal God who cares for oneself. 45. To take the reality of demonic possession or oppression seriously, is not to deny that a great deal of nonsense can also accompany the subject. The fact that someone can be ‘misdiagnosed’ as possessed does not, however, demonstrate that there are not genuine cases of possession or criteria by which such cases can be identified. See for example, Keener, Miracles, 837843. 46. R.J.S. Barret-Lennard, Christian Healing after the New Testament: Some Approaches to Illness in the Second, Third, and Fourth Centuries, 197-225. 47. Keener, Miracles, 845. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 856. 50. Ehrman made this claim in a debate with William Lane Craig at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, March 28, 2006. It is found in his first rebuttal to Craig. http:/ /academics.holycross.edu/files/crec/resurrection-debate-transcript.pdf Accessed August 12, 2012. 51. Lewis, Miracles, 159-160. Lewis may well have been being too charitable as regards the credibility of Vespasian’s miracles. J.P. Meier writes that, as regards Suetonius and Tacitus, their most famous narrative of miracle-workings is the half-humorous account of Vespasian in Alexandria, as he is journeying back to Rome to assume the role of emperor. Vespasian is asked by a blind man and a man with a maimed foot (or hand) to heal them both. At first Vespasian refuses, but after consultation with his entourage and with doctors, who hold out some hope for a cure in both cases, Vespasian finally decides to give it ‘the old college try. . . . He cannot lose anything by the attempt, and he might gain something. The two men are healed. Suetonius and Tacitus seem to tell the whole story with a twinkle in their eye and smiles on their lips, an attitude probably shared by Vespasian. The whole event looks like a 1st-century equivalent of a ‘photo opportunity’ staged by Vespasian’s P.R. team to give the new emperor divine legitimacy—courtesy of god Serapion, who supposed-

186

Chapter 8 ly commanded the two men to go to Vespasian. Again, both in content and in form, we are far from the miracle traditions of the four Gospels—to say nothing of the overall pattern of Jesus’ ministry into which his miracles fit,” A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2, 625.

52. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 178. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. 179 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid. 146-147. 57. “Historians can only establish what probably happened in the past, and by definition a miracle is the least probable occurrence. And so, by the very nature of the canons of historical research, we can’t claim historically that a miracle probably happened.” Ehrman made this claim in a debate with William Lane Craig at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, March 28, 2006. http://academics.holycross.edu/files/crec/resurrection-debatetranscript.pdf Accessed August 12, 2012. 58. Habermas, The Resurrection of Jesus and Recent Agnosticism, 288. 59. Dawes, “A Degree of Objectivity: Christian Faith and the Limits of History,” 35. 60. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 196.

Epilogue

The basic contention of this book is that a priori in-principle dismissals of the possibility or probability of justified belief in miracles fail. Whether or not events best understood as miracles actually occur is not to be decided on the basis of armchair theorizing, but rather on the basis of meticulous examination of the evidence. Such examination, however, needs to be set free from unwarranted assumptions that miracles are “impossible, improbable, or improper.” 1 Put paradoxically, the proper role of philosophy in this matter is to provide an in-principle rejection of in-principle arguments either for or against miracles. 2 Any rigorous development of the ‘argument from miracle’ must, therefore, be an interdisciplinary enterprise. Philosophy can play an important role in clearing away conceptual underbrush and unexamined assumptions, but detailed consideration of historical and contemporary evidence will of necessity require expertise from a multitude of disciplines. The ‘argument from miracle’ can best be seen as an example of what is coming to be known as ramified natural theology. Traditionally, it has been assumed that natural theology must eschew consideration of special revelation from God and consider only data that is available to unaided reason. This, however, is to ignore the fact that a purported revelation may include content that is empirically verifiable and thus within the purview of natural theology. Indeed, such content may provide a means by which the claim of special revelation may be tested. 3 The fact that a woman in the last stages of multiple sclerosis very vividly experiences what she takes to be a special revelation from God that she will be healed, when coupled with the fact that in short order she received a complete and instantaneous recovery, seems to support taking very seriously the hypothesis that this was an instance of special revelation with public content. 4 Hugh Gauch is, therefore, on the mark when he comments that 187

188

Epilogue one might plausibly think that what natural theology rightly foregoes from revealed theology is presupposed authority, not empirical evidence. Hence, wholesale dismissal of revelation as a potential source of theistic evidence might needlessly shrink and weaken natural theology. 5

Miracles, if they occur, are publicly observable events that cry out for an explanation. One need not come to such events already accepting the interpretation placed on them by religious believers—the Bible can be read as historical evidence rather than authoritative Scripture—but neither is one prohibited from considering whether that interpretation does indeed provide the best understanding of the events and the context in which they occur. This opens up the possibility that someone who initially does not accept theism might at once accept both the claim of God’s existence and the claim of God’s self-disclosure. It thus seems that the strict contrast drawn between natural theology and revealed theology is not as hard and fast as it is routinely presented. This, of course, should come as no surprise. Few people acknowledging the facticity of the event of the bodily resurrection of Jesus find it possible to dispute Christianity’s understanding of that event. We have thus come as far as philosophy, qua conceptual analysis, can take us in considering the legitimacy of belief in miracles. I make no secret of the fact that I consider the evidence for the occurrence of miracles overwhelming. Readers who have come this far are, of course, free to disagree. I ask only that their disagreement be on the basis of a detailed investigation of the evidence, rather than an uncritical acceptance of fallacious in-principle arguments put forward by armchair theorists, loathe to go into the world and actually look and listen. NOTES 1. C.S. Lewis, Miracles, 198. 2. Hugh Gauch, “Recent Transitions in Natural Theology: The Emergence of a Bolder Paradigm,” Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, Report #58. 2006, http://www.ibri. org/RRs/RR058/58NatTheo.html (Accessed February 18, 2013). 3. See, for example, Isaiah 44:25-28. 4. See the account of the healing of Irene MacDonald included in the appendix. 5. Gauch, Transitions in Natural Theology.

Bibliography

Allison, Dale. Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters. New York: T&T Clark, 2005. Alston, William. “Can We Speak Literally of God?.” Chap. 2 in Divine Nature and Human Language: Essays in Philosophical Theology. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1989. Alston, William. “Divine and Human Action.” Chap. 4 in Divine Nature and Human Language: Essays in Philosophical Theology. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1989. Alston, William. “Functionalism and Theological Language.” Chap. 3 in Divine Nature and Human Language: Essays in Philosophical Theology. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1989. Alston, William. “The Place of the Explanation of Particular Facts in Science.” Philosophy of Science 38 (1971): 17-24. Annet, Peter. Supernaturals Examined in Four Dissertations on Three Treatises. London: F. Page, 1747. Annet, Peter. The Resurrection of Jesus Considered in Answer to the Tryal of the Witnesses. 2nd ed. London: 1744. Aquinas. Summa Theologica. In Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Edited by Anton C. Pegis. Vol. 1. New York: Random House, 1944. Aquinas. Summa Contra Gentiles. In Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Edited by Anton C. Pegis. Vol. 2. New York: Random House, 1944. Augustine. The Literal Meaning of Genesis in On Genesis. Translated Edmund Hill. Edited John E. Rotell. The Works of Saint Augustine. New York: New Press, 2002. Augustine. The City of God. Trans. Gerald G. Walsh, Demetrius B. Zema, Grace Monahan, Daniel J. Honan. Intro. Etienne Gilson. New York: Image, 1958. Augustine. Of True Religion. Intro. Louis O. Mink. Trans. J.H.S. Burleigh. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1953. Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006. Barret-Lennard, R.J.S. Christian Healing after the New Testament: Some Approaches to Illness in the Second, Third, and Fourth Centuries. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1994. Basinger, David, and Randall Basinger. Philosophy and Miracle. Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1986. Basinger, David. “Miracles as Evidence for Theism.” Sophia 29, no. 1 (1990): 56-59. Beckwith, Francis. “Theism, Miracles, and the Modern Mind.” in The Rationality of Theism. Ed. Paul Copan and Paul K. Moser, 221-236. New York: Routledge, 2003.

189

190

Bibliography

Berkouwer, G.C. The Providence of God. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1952. Berry, R.J. “A Response to Addinall.” Science and Christian Belief 9, no. 1 (1997): 73-78. Berry, R.J. “The Virgin Birth of Christ.” Science and Christian Belief 8, no. 2 (1996): 101-110. Bilynskyj, Stephen S. “God, Nature and the Concept of Miracle.” PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, 1982. Bishop, John. Natural Agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Blomberg, Craig. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. Downer’s Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 1987. Blomberg, Craig. Jesus and the Gospels. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman and Holman, 1997. Bowman, Robert M. and Komoszewski, J. Ed. Putting Jesus in His Place. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel, 2007. Boyer, Steven and Hall, Christopher. The Mystery of God. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2012. Broad, C.D. “Hume’s Theory of the Credibility of Miracles.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 17 (1916-1917): 77-94. Brown, Colin. Miracles and the Critical Mind. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1984. Bruce, F.F. The Apostolic Defence of the Gospel. 2nd ed. 1967. Reprint, London: InterVarsity Press, 1970. Bruce, F.F. The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960. Bube, Richard. Putting It All Together. New York: University Press of America, 1995. Bube, Richard. “In Defense of Edward Kessel.” Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 36, no. 1 (March 1984): 64. Burns, R.M. The Great Debate on Miracles: From Joseph Glanvill to David Hume. London: Associated University Presses, 1981. Burtt, E.A. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science. 2nd Revised ed. New York: Doubleday, 1954. Campbell, George. Dissertation on Miracles. 1762. Third, enlarged and corrected edition. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1797. Chesterton, G.K. The Everlasting Man. In The Everyman Chesterton. Ed. Ian Ker. New York: Knopf, 2011. Chryssides, George D. “Miracles and Agents.” Religious Studies 11, no. 3 (1975): 319-327. Clark, David. “Miracles in World Religions.” In Defense of Miracles, ed. Douglas Geivett and Gary Habermas, 199-213. Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1997. Clarke, Steve. “Response to Mumford and Another Definition of Miracles.” Religious Studies 39 (2003): 459-463. Clarke, Steve. “Luck and Miracles.” Religious Studies 39, no. 4 (2003): 471-474. Clayton, Philip. The Problem of God in Modern Thought. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2000. Collier, John. “Against Miracles.” In Questions of Miracle, ed. Robert Larmer. 50-53. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1996. Collins, John C. The God of Miracles: An Exegetical Examination of God’s Action in the World. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2000. Colwell, Gary. “On Defining Away the Miraculous.” Philosophy 57, no. 221 (1982): 327-337. Cooper, John. Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2006. Copan, Paul and William Lane Craig. Creation Out of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical, and Scientific Exploration. Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academic, 2004. Copi, Irving. Introduction to Logic. 7th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1986. Corner, David. The Philosophy of Miracles. London: Continuum, 2007. Corner, Mark. Signs of God. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005. Coulson, C.A. Science and Christian Belief. Great Britain: Fontana, 1958. Cover, Jan. “Miracles and Christian Theism.” In Reason for the Hope Within. Ed. Michael Murray. 345-373. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1999.

Bibliography

191

Craig, William Lane. “Creation, Providence and Miracles.” In Philosophy of Religion: A Guide to the Subject, edited by Brian Davies, 136-162. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1998. Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1994. Craig, William Lane and James D. Sinclair. “The Kalam Cosmological Argument.” In The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, 125-196. Chichester, West Sussex: Blackwell Publishing, 2009. Craig, William Lane and Quentin Smith. Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Crick, Francis. What Mad Pursuit. New York: Basic Books, 1988. Curd, Martin. “Miracles as Violations of Laws of Nature.” In Faith, Freedom, and Rationality: Philosophy of Religion Today, edited by Jeff Jordon, 171-183. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996. David, Johnson. Hume, Holism and Miracles. London: Cornell University Press. Davies, Brian. “Miracles.” New Blackfriars 73, no. 857 (1992): 102-120. Davis, Stephen. “God’s Actions.” In Defense of Miracles, edited by Douglas Geivett and Gary Habermas, 163-177. Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1997. Davis, Stephen. “Was Jesus Mad, Bad, or God?” In The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God. Ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins, 221-245. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Dawes, G. “A Degree of Objectivity: Christian Faith and the Limits of History.” Stimulus 6 (1998): 32-37. Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker. New York: Norton, 1987. Deere, Jack. Surprised by the Power of the Spirit. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1993. Dembski, William. The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2004. Dilley, Stephen. “Philosophical Naturalism and Methodological Naturalism.” Philosophia Christi 12, no. 1 (2010): 118-141. Ducasse, Curt. Nature, Mind, and Death. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Publishing 1951. Earman, John. Hume’s Abject Failure. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Edwards, Denis. How God Acts. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. 2010. Ehrman, Bart D. Debate with William Lane Craig at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, March 28, 2006. http://academics.holycross.edu/files/crec/resurrectiondebate-transcript.pdf Accessed August 12, 2012. Ellis, Brian. Scientific Essentialism. Cambridge: CUP, 2001. Ellis, Brian. The Philosophy of Nature. Montreal: McGill-Queens, 2002. Everitt, Nicholas. “The Impossibility of Miracles.” Religious Studies 23, no. 3 (1987): 347-349. Fales, Evan. Divine Intervention: Metaphysical and Epistemological Puzzles. New York: Routledge, 2010. Farrer, Austin. Finite and Infinite. 2nd ed. Naperville, Illinois: Alec R. Allenson, 1959. Flew, Antony. God and Philosophy. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1966. Flew, Antony. Hume’s Philosophy of Belief. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961. Fogelin, Robert J. A Defense of Hume on Miracles. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003. Fogelin, Robert, J. “What Hume Actually Said about Miracles.” Hume Studies 16, no. 1 (1990): 81-86. Freeman, James. Thinking Logically. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1988. Gaskin, J.C.A. Hume’s Philosophy of Religion. London: Macmillan, 1978. Gauch, Hugh. “Recent Transitions in Natural Theology: The Emergence of a Bolder Paradigm.” Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute (Report #58, 2006). Geisler, Norman. Miracles and the Modern Mind. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1992. Geisler, Norman. Philosophy of Religion. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1974.

192

Bibliography

Geivett, Douglas. “The Evidential Value of Miracles.” In Defense of Miracles, edited by Douglas Geivett and Gary Habermas, 178-195. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 1997. Glymour, Clark. Theory and Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.

“God, Nature and Design,” Conference, Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion, St. Anne’s College, Oxford, Great Britain, July 10-13, 2008. Goethe. Faust I & II. Ed. & trans. Stuart Atkins. Cambridge, MA: Suhrkamp/Insel, 1984. Gordon, Bruce, L. Postscript to Part One: Inflationary Cosmology and the String Multiverse in Robert Spitzer. New Proofs for the Existence of God, 75-103. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2010. Gruenler, Royce. “Reflections on a Journey in Process.” In Process Theology, edited by Ronald H. Nash, 333-356. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1987. Gruenler, Royce. The Inexhaustible God. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1983. Gwynne, Paul. Special Divine Action: Key Issues in the Contemporary Debate. Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1996. Habermas, Gary. “The Resurrection of Jesus and Recent Agnosticism.” In Reasons for Faith, edited by N.V. Geisler and C.V. Meister, 281-295. Wheaton: Crossway, 2007.

Hanson, Robert. “Extraordinary Claims ARE Extraordinary Evidence.” http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/01/extraordinary_c.html (Retrieved June 27, 2011). Hasker, William. The Emergent Self. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1999. Haught, John F. Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation. New York: Paulist Press, 1995. Helm, Paul. “The Miraculous.” Science and Christian Belief 3, no. 1 (1991): 83-95. Hodge, Charles. Systematic Theology. Vol. 1 (Scribner 1871) rpt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1940. Holland, R.F. “The Miraculous.” American Philosophical Quarterly 2, no. 1 (1965): 43-51. Holmes, Arthur. “Why God Cannot Act.” In Process Theology, edited by Ronald H. Nash, 181195. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1987. Houston, J. Reported Miracles: A Critique of Hume. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Hughes, Christopher. “Miracles, Laws of Nature and Causation.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. Supplementary Volume 66, 1992, 179-205. Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge, 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975. Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Ed. David and Mary Norton. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. Hume, David. Letters of David Hume. Ed. J.Y.T. Greig. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954. Hume, David. New Letters of David Hume. Ed. R. Klibansky and E. Mossner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954. Hunter, Graeme. “Arnauld’s Defence of Miracles and Its Context.” In Interpreting Arnauld. Ed. Elmar J. Kremer, 111-126. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. Ignatius. The Epistle of Ignatius to Hero. In The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1989. Jaki, Stanley L. Miracles and Physics. Front Royal, Virgina: Christendom Press, 1989. Jantzen, Grace M. “Hume on Miracles, History, and Apologetics.” Christian Scholar’s Review 8 (1979): 318-325. Jenkins, David. God, Miracle, and the Church of England. London: SCM, 1987. Joad, C.E.M. “The World of Physics and of Plato.” The Hibbert Journal 49 (1951): 159-164. Joad, C.E.M. God and Evil. London: Faber and Faber, 1942. Johnson, David. Hume, Holism and Miracles. London: Cornell University Press, 1999. Judge, Stuart. “How Not to Think about Miracles.” Science and Christian Belief 3, no. 1 (1991): 97-102.

Bibliography

193

Justin. The Second Apology of Justin. In The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1989. Kasper, Walter. Jesus the Christ. New York: Paulist Press, 1976. Kaufman, Gordon. “On the Meaning of ‘Act of God.’” Harvard Theological Review 61 (1968): 175-201. Keener, Craig. Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 2011. Keller, James. “A Moral Argument against Miracles.” Faith and Philosophy 12 (1995): 54-78. Kessel, Edward L. “A Proposed Biological Interpretation of the Virgin Birth.” Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 35, no. 3 (1983): 129-136. Kim, Jaegwon. Philosophy of Mind. 2nd ed. USA: Westview Press, 2006. Kim, Jaegwon. Philosophy of Mind. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1998. Koperski, Jeffrey. “God, Chaos, and the Quantum Dice.” Zygon 35, no. 3 (2000): 545-559. Kuyper, Abraham. E Voto, I, 240, quoted in G.C. Berkouwer, The Providence of God. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1952. Larmer, Robert. “Divine Agency and the Conservation of Energy.” Zygon 44, no. 3 (2009): 543-557. Larmer, Robert. “Free Will, Hegemony and Neurophysiological Indeterminism.” Philosophia 16 (August 1986): 177-189. Larmer, Robert. “Against ‘Against Miracles.’” In Questions of Miracle, ed. Robert Larmer, 5459. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996. Laudan, Larry. “The Demise of the Demarcation Problem.” In The Demise of the Demarcation Problem, edited by Michael Ruse, 337-350. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Press, 1996. Lennox, John. God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? Oxford: Lion, 2007. Levine, Michael. “Pantheism.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/pantheism/ (Retrieved June 30, 2011). Levine, Michael P. “Philosophers on Miracles.” In Cambridge Companion to Miracles, edited by Graham Twelftree, 291-308. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. In The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. New York: HarperOne, 2002. Lewis, C.S. Miracles: A Preliminary Study. New York: Macmillan, 1947. Lewis, C.S. The Four Loves. London: Fontana, 1963. Lewis, C.S. “The Laws of Nature.” God in the Dock. Ed. Walter Cooper. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1970. Lewontin, Richard. “Billions and Billions of Demons.” Review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan. The New York Review, 9 (1997): 31. Licona, Michael. The Resurrection of Jesus. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2010. Luck, Morgan. “In Defence of Mumford’s Definition of a Miracle” Religious Studies 39 (2003): 465-469. Luck, Morgan. “Aquinas’ Miracles and the Luciferous Defence.” Sophia 48 (2009): 167-177. Mackay, Donald. The Clockwork Image. Leister: InterVarsity Press, 1974. Mackie, J.L. The Miracle of Theism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982. Macnutt, Francis. The Power to Heal. Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 1977. Macquarrie, John. Christology Revisited. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1998. Malebranche, Nicolas. Dialogues on Metphysics and on Religion. Ed. Nicholas Jolley. Trans. David Scott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Malebranche, Nicolas. The Search after Truth and Elucidations of the Search after Truth, translated by T.M. Lennon and P.J. Oscamp. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980. Martin, Michael. Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. McDermid, Kirk. “Miracles: Metaphysics, Physics and Physicalism.” Religious Studies 44, no. 2 (2008): 125-147. McGrath, Alister E. Science and Religion: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.

194

Bibliography

McGrew, Timothy and Lydia. “The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.” In The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Ed. William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, 593-662. Chichester, West Sussex: Blackwell, 2009. Mckenzie, David. “Miracles Are Not Immoral: A Response to James Keller’s Moral Argument against Miracles.” Religious Studies 35, no. 1 (1999): 73-88. McKinnon, Alastair. “Miracle and ‘Paradox.’” American Philosophical Quarterly 4 (1967): 308-314. Meier, J.P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Vol. 2, Mentor, Message, and Miracles. New York: Doubleday, 1994. Meyer, Stephen, C. Signature in the Cell. New York: HarperOne, 2009. Mill, John Stuart. A System of Logic. In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Vol. 7, edited by John M. Robson. Introduction by R.F. McRae. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974. Monton, Bradley. Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design. Peterborough: Broadview, 2009. Moreland, J.P. Consciousness and the Existence of God. New York: Routledge, 2008. Moser, Paul. The Elusive God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Mossner, E.A. The Life of David Hume. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. Mumford, Stephen. “Miracles: Metaphysics and Modality.” Religious Studies 37 (2001): 191202. Newman, John Henry. Two Essays on Biblical and on Ecclesiastical Miracles. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1890. Nowell-Smith, Patrick. “Miracles—The Philosophical Approach.” In Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, edited by William L. Rowe and William J. Wainwright, 392-400. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973. Numbers, Ronald L. “Science without God: Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs.” In When Science and Christianity Meet, edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, 265286. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2003. Odegard, Douglas. “Miracles and Good Evidence.” Religious Studies 18 (1982): 37-46. Origen. Against Celsus. In The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Vol. 4. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1989. Otte, Richard. “Mackie’s Treatment of Miracles.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 39 (June 1996): 151-158. Overall, Christine. “Miracles and God.” Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical review 36 (1997): 741-52. Overall, Christine. “Miracles and Larmer.” Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review 42, no. 1 (2003): 123-136. Overall, Christine. “Miracles as Evidence against the Existence of God.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 23, no. 3 (1985): 347-353. Paley, William. A View of the Evidences of Christianity. Vol. 1. Edinburgh, 1818.

Parsons, Keith. Science, Confirmation, and the Theistic Hypothesis. 1986. Available at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_parsons/theistic/ Peacocke, A.R. Creation and the World of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Peacocke, Arthur, ed. The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oriel Press, 1981. Peacocke, Arthur. Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming—Natural and Divine. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. Pearl, Leon. “Miracles and Theism.” Religious Studies 24, no. 4 (1988): 483-495. Pennock, Robert. “Naturalism, Evidence, and Creationism: The Case of Phillip Johnson.” In Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives. Ed. Robert T. Pennock, 77-98. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001. Peters, Eugene H. “A Framework for Christian Thought.” Journal of Religion 46, no. 3 (1966): 374-385. Pinnock, Clark. “Between Classical and Process Theism.” In Process Theology, edited by Ronald H. Nash, 313-327. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1987.

Bibliography

195

Pinnock, Clark. “Fails to Grasp Ontological Basis for Problems.” Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 30 (1978): 158-159. Pinnock, Clark. Most Moved Mover. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 2001. Plantinga, Alvin. Where the Conflict Really Lies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Powell, William Samuel. Discourses on Various Subjects. London: Thomas Balguy, 1776. Price, Richard. Four Dissertations. 3rd edition, 1772. Rahner, Karl. Foundations of Christian Faith. Translated by W.V. Dych. New York: Seabury Press, 1978. Ramm, Bernard. Protestant Christian Evidences. 1953. Reprint, Chicago: Moody Press, 1976. Ratzsch, Del. Nature, Design, and Science: The Status of Design in Natural Science. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001. Ratzsch, Del. Science and Its Limits: The Natural Sciences in Christian Perspective. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000. Reppert, Victor. “Miracles and the Case for Theism.” Philosophy of Religion 25 (1989): 35-51. Rescher, Nicholas. Metaphysics. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2006. Reynolds, John Mark. “God of the Gaps.” In Mere Creation, edited by William Dembski, 313331. Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1998. Robinson, Guy. “Miracles.” Ratio 9 (1967): 155-166. Ruse, Michael. “Methodological Naturalism under Attack.” In Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives, edited by Robert T. Pennock, 363-385. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2001.

Sagan, Carl. “Carl Sagan on Alien Abduction” Nova. Posted February 27, 1996. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/sagan-alien-abduction Accessed June 27, 2011. Saunders, Nicholas. Divine Action and Modern Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Schwöbel, C. “Divine Agency and Providence.” Modern Theology 3 (1987): 225-244. Searle, John. Minds, Brains and Science. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. Sharp, John. “Miracles and the ‘Laws of Nature.’” The Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 6 (1998): 1-19. Sherlock, Thomas. The Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus. 8th Edition. London: 1763. Sherwin-White, A.N. Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963. Simpson, James Young. Landmarks in the Struggle between Science and Religion. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1925. Skelton, Philip. Opiomaches or Deism Revealed. Vol. 2. 1749. Smart, Ninian. Philosophers and Religious Truth. New York: Macmillan, 1964. Sobel, Jordan Howard. Logic and Theism: Arguments for and against Beliefs in God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Spinoza, Benedict. Ethics, Part 4, Corollary of Proposition 64. In Spinoza Complete Works. Edited by Michael L. Morgan. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002. Spitzer, Robert J. New Proofs for the Existence of God. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2010. Stoeger, William. “Describing God’s Action in the World in Light of Scientific Knowledge of Reality.” In Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, edited by Robert Russell, Nancey Murphy, and Arthur Peacocke, 239-261. Vatican Observatory, 1995. Swinburne, Richard. The Concept of Miracle. London: Macmillan, 1970. Taliaferro, Charles. Consciousness and the Mind of God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Taliaferro, Charles and Andrik Hendrickson. “Hume’s Racism and His Case against the Miraculous.” Philosophia Christi 4, no. 2 (2002): 427-441. Taylor, A.E. “David Hume and the Miraculous.” In Philosophical Studies, 330-365, edited by A.E. Taylor. London: Macmillan, 1934.

196

Bibliography

Taylor, Richard. Metaphysics. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1974. Tennant, F.R. Miracle and Its Philosophical Presuppositions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925. Thomas, David. “Miracles in Islam.” In The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, edited by Graham Twelftree, 199-215. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Tillich, Paul. Systematic Theology. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951. Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952. Tracy, Thomas. “Scientific Vetos and the Hands-Off God: Can We Say That God Acts in History? Theology and Science 10, no. 1 (2012): 55-80. Troeltsch, Ernst. “Historical and Dogmatic Method in Theology.” In Religion in History, translated by James Luther Adams and Walter E. Bense, introduction by James Luther Adams, 11-32. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991. Twelftree, Graham. Jesus: The Miracle Worker. Downer’s Grove, Illinois: IVP, 1999. van der Breggen, Hendrik. “Miracle Reports, Moral Philosophy and Contemporary Science.” PhD diss., University of Waterloo, 2004. Van Till, Howard. “Science and Christian Theology as Partners in Theorizing.” In Science and Christianity: Four Views, edited by Richard F. Carson, 195-254. Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000. Van Till, Howard. “Is the Creation’s Formational Economy Incomplete?: A Response to Jay Wesley Richards.” Philosophia Christi 4, no. 1 (2002): 113-118. Walton, Douglas. Arguments from Ignorance. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 1996. Ward, Keith. “Believing in Miracles.” Zygon 37, no. 3 (2002): 741-750. Ward, Keith. Divine Action. London: Flame Press, 1990. Westermann, Claus. Elements of Old Testament Theology. Translated by Douglas W. Stott. English translation & copyright Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982. Whately, Richard. Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte. Draper, 1874. White, John. When the Spirit Comes With Power. Downers’ Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity, 1988. Wieteska, Michael and Lorna. Bill Drost: The Pentecost. Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press, 2000. Wiles, Maurice. Faith and the Mystery of God. London: Fortress Press, 1982. Wiles, Maurice. God’s Action in the World. London: SCM Press, 1986. Wilson, Fred. “The Logic of Probabilities in Hume’s Argument against Miracles.” Hume Studies 15:2 (1989): 255-275. Wilson, Fred. Hume’s Defence of Causal Inference. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Wimber, John. Power Healing. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Wollaston, William. Religion of Nature Delineated. 8th ed. London, 1759. Woods, G. F. “The Evidential Value of the Biblical Miracles.” Miracles: Cambridge Studies in their Philosophy and History, edited by C.F.D. Moule, 19-32. London: Mowbray, 1965. Woolston, Thomas. “A Third Discourse on the Miracles of Our Saviour.” In Six Discourses on the Miracles of Our Saviour and Defences of His Discourses, 1727-1730. Reprint, New York: Garland Publishing, 1979. Wright, N.T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. Wykstra, Stephen. “The Problem of Miracle in the Apologetic from History.” Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, 30 (1978): 154-163. Young, Robert. “Miracles and Physical Impossibility.” Sophia 11, no. 3 (1972): 29-35.

Appendix Four Instances of Healing

CASE #1: KATHERINE HIGGINS [This is the account of the healing of the mother of one of my students. It is written in her own words. She has graciously allowed its publication in this book.] It was winter 1994 and I was working in the Intensive Care Unit in a hospital in Spokane, Washington. It was late in the evening and we were busy as usual. I was standing at the Nurse’s Station charting when a patient called for me across the room. I hurried to help and as I turned to go I felt a painful popping sensation in my left calf. Such a minor event began a long almost eighteen-month journey of a life in pain as a patient. I was misdiagnosed initially with a blood clot in the leg, and placed on strict bed rest for several days. Not an easy task with a family. Friends came to help in many ways. Then I saw an orthopedic specialist who thought it wasn’t a blood clot at all, and I had just sprained the muscle in the calf. It would get better. But the pain intensified. My foot was cold and pale looking and something didn’t seem right to me. I began a regime of physical therapy to seek relief, and it was after about two months that I was diagnosed with reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD). I’d never even heard of it before. The more I researched this, the more I realized this was not good. People rarely got better from RSD. If they did improve they needed to be treated before three months of onset. Basically the sympathetic nervous system decided after the muscle injury to my leg, that I didn’t have a leg anymore and so there was no need to supply nourishment to that limb anymore. No circulation, no enervation of muscles to keep working. My leg was getting smaller, 197

198

Appendix

pale and colorless and cold. By the end of the eighteen months I had lost twoand-a-half inches in the circumference of my calf. I saw twenty-four doctors during this time, spent a week at University Hospital in Seattle, plus another few days in Oregon with an RSD specialist. Went through all kinds of experimental treatments, from lumbar sympathetic blocks where twelve-inch long needles were inserted into my back then injected with medications to try to reverse the disease process. I had lidocaine infusions, and phentalamine infusions, all of which were a risk to my heart and were difficult to endure. Lastly I had a permanent epidural implanted into my spine tunneling out the abdominal wall and hooked to an epidural pump, constantly dripping a pain medication and an anesthetic agent into my spine to affect the left leg. This left me numb from the waist down through my left leg with the hopes that daily physical therapy would break the destructive cycle. For three months I lived with this device and its side effects of being unable to empty my bladder or bowels. Many times I’d had to be catheterized to take care of what should be natural. It was difficult. Nothing helped. By Christmas of 1994 it was decided that the epidural was putting me at risk for kidney damage and needed to be removed. I’ll never forget that day. I asked the doctor who put it in, a pain management doctor if I could drive myself for this procedure, and would I be ok. His response to me was “I don’t know. I’ve never taken one out of someone still alive.” They were used for end of life care. This was not helpful. Our oldest son drove me to the appointment. Now this catheter had embedded itself nicely into the tissue between my skin and ribs, and basically all he did was pull the catheter right on out. It felt like searing fire across my whole abdomen, oh how that hurt. But it was out and I was going home to celebrate Christmas with my family. Well sometime that evening the unexpected happened. All those muscles in my back that had been put in a sleepy state woke up and went into the most severe muscle spasms I have ever experienced. Now I had four children all naturally and never felt pain like this. I became quite delirious thrashing in bed like a crazy person. Charley called the visiting nurses, they came and took one look and said I needed to get to a hospital right away. I don’t remember that trip. I was given musclerelaxers and morphine I/V, and was told if they gave me anymore I’d have to stay the night. That was out of the question, it was Christmas almost and I was going home. Somehow I managed to make it home, but I remember sleep was impossible because my back hurt so badly. I finally crawled into our walk-in closet and lay on the floor, quietly crying so I wouldn’t disturb my wonderful husband who was exhausted as well. There I was all night. Over the days it slowly improved, and Christmas was so hard to move, but I pushed through it somehow.

Appendix

199

Pain was my life now. Every day I was living on narcotics and sleep aides to calm the nerve pain in my leg. This was pure misery. I was thirty-eight years old, had a wonderful loving husband and four beautiful children and I was unable to do anything with them. No more fun bike rides, no peaceful walks. No more working. I was actually told I would never nurse again so just get used to it. My life was a nightmare; perfect one minute then one small event changed everything. By April 1995 I was getting so bad physically we were getting ready for a wheelchair. The RSD was spreading into my other limbs. My doctor was sympathetic but there wasn’t anything more that they could do to help me. RSD in the 4th stage begins to deteriorate the bones, and my doctor said I was starting stage 4. A friend called and invited Charley and I to a healing service in Spokane. It was in the evening, and usually by then I was useless. Plus finding a babysitter was a problem. So I wasn’t planning on going. Besides I’d had so much false hopes over the last months I didn’t have any hope left of getting well. Nothing helped. I grew worse. At the last minute everything worked out and before I knew it we were on our way to this healing service with Mahesh Chavda. Well the worship music was lovely, and then Mahesh Chavda spoke. I was touched by his gentle humble spirit that gave all the Glory to God for any healings he had witnessed. It was truly sweet. So after this he called for anyone who needed prayers for healing to come and stand on this grey line. So up I went with my cane. Next thing I saw he walked along the line touching people on their heads or shoulders and down they would fall. I had already told Charley I wasn’t going to do that, and he whispered that we would be the only two left standing in the room. We laughed together. Well the line sort of shifted as Mahesh was getting closer, and I got pushed backwards, next thing I knew he reached for me and pulled me forward and talked to me. I had not seen him talking to anyone so I was quite surprised. He asked me what was wrong with my leg. I told him I had a condition where my body was no longer nourishing my leg. He wanted to know what it was called. I told him reflex sympathetic dystrophy. Then he wanted to know what my maiden name was. I thought that was odd, but I told him, Koch. He then put his hand on my head, and prayed, Lord God please break the evil spirit in the Koch family and generation and heal this leg. All of a sudden it was like a thousand pounds fell upon me, my cane went up and so did my legs, next thing I knew I was flat on my back. I felt like I wasn’t in the room somehow, like sort of there and not there all at the same time, and all I could remember praying was oh God please heal my leg and take away the pain. It seemed like I had been there for a long time, but later my husband said only about fifteen minutes. I sat up feeling embarrassed sort

200

Appendix

of and looked around. Many were still lying down, so I didn’t need to worry. I felt peaceful and a strange thing had happened. I had a tingling sensation in my left leg from my hip to my toes, up and down, and no pain. Having had my hopes up many times in the past I wanted to stay calm, so we hugged our friends and headed for home. On the drive home, I felt different. I told Charley I felt I was supposed to stop all my medications that night. No more. I knew being a registered nurse that these kinds of medications were to be weaned off slowly but I felt an urgency like God wanted me to stop them now. I stopped them indeed. All night long my leg tingled, it was lovely. No pain, just this gentle tingling up and down, down and up. I was awake all night. I saw the sunrise for the first time in a year. It was beautiful. When I got out of bed I looked down at my leg and what did I see but my atrophied leg that had lost two-and-a-half inches was plump and full and looked bigger and pinker then my good leg. And I had no pain, just this lovely tingling. Now I was getting excited. I showed my husband. He was amazed. He had to go to work, but every chance he got, he called me at home to see how I was, and I was doing well. We were trying to stay calm. We wanted to be sure this was real and would continue. And it did continue. I had no pain anymore. Jesus took my pain away and healed my leg. I called my doctor because I wanted him to see what I was seeing. When he walked in the exam room I got up out of my chair, and twirled in a circle. No cane, just me. He couldn’t believe it was me. I asked him if he ever had seen a miracle and he said no but he believed in them. Then he said to me “Katherine no one gets into stage 4 of RSD and suddenly comes out of it with no reason. This is a miracle.” I was healed. God restored my leg, made me whole again. I spent the next few months swimming building up strength in my entire body, and six months later I returned to nursing in the intensive care unit. I was known as the angel of the ICU. My life was blessed beyond measure so I could go back to being a blessing to my patients. Do I believe in miracles? Yes, I do. God changed my life and made me whole again. Forever I belong to Him. CASE #2: IRENE MACDONALD [I have written the following account on the basis of an interview I conducted with Irene MacDonald and her husband, Norman MacDonald on October 4, 2007. Her healing was personally observed by a number of people in the church which I attend. She has granted me permission to publish this account of her healing.] Irene MacDonald of Fredericton, New Brunswick, a young wife and mother, began in her early twenties to suffer severe back pain and spells of

Appendix

201

weakness. She had numerous exploratory surgeries by doctors seeking to find the cause of her condition and had a disc removed from her back on the basis of their advice. None of these procedures seemed to help much, but in her late twenties and early thirties her ailment largely went into remission and she was able to function comparatively normally. By her midthirties, however, the earlier symptoms recurred with much greater severity. She was sent by her local doctors in Fredericton and St. John to a specialist in Montreal, where, after a series of tests, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). She remained in the hospital several months before being discharged and allowed to go home. After a short time at home, her condition further deteriorated and she was sent back to Montreal. Weakened to the point where it was often impossible for her to turn over in bed, she underwent further examination by numerous doctors. She was subsequently told by the specialist treating her that her MS would progress very quickly to the point where she would take pneumonia and die. Upon release from the hospital, she came home to Fredericton. At first she was sometimes able to walk a very little in the mornings, being confined to a wheelchair the rest of the day. Soon, however, her condition worsened to the point where she was bedridden. Eventually, she had to sleep on the floor with her husband having to turn her every hour because of her muscle spasms and her inability to turn herself. She was at this time receiving spinal injections every ten days in order to cope with the pain. Irene remembers that when she was first told by the doctor that she had only a short time to live, the fact that she was going to die soon did not really ‘sink in.’ After several months at home, with her condition steadily worsening the closeness of her death became a reality. Although she believed in divine healing and had been prayed for numerous times, she began to sense that death was near. Irene had been urged by her doctors to go into the hospital so that her final days could be easier, but she stayed at home, with her husband, Norm, and friends and neighbors providing care. One early Friday afternoon, a friend phoned to tell Irene that she felt God had told her that Irene was going to be healed shortly. Irene thanked her, but told her friend that she was not sure that she would be healed. That afternoon, however, Irene recounts feeling that she met God in a special way. She had been very concerned about what would happen to her daughter in the event of her death, but, in prayer, felt reassured that God would look after her daughter. Irene further prayed that, by morning, God would either have left her in her weakened state, in which case she would enter the hospital or that He would give her a little strength, in which case she would take her increased strength as a sign that she could trust her friend’s message that God intended to heal her. At the time, she told nobody of this prayer.

202

Appendix

That night, Irene had a dream in which she experienced herself as walking. She felt instructed to pray and wait, and that God was going to heal her. When she awoke in the morning, she felt marginally stronger and took this as confirmation of her prayer the day before. She told Norm that she felt that she was going to be healed and that she should go to church the next day. She spent Saturday confined to her bed and praying. Norm phoned their minister and indicated that Irene, who had not been able to go to church for a number of months, hoped to attend the next day. The next day Irene’s daughter came down with a bad case of the flu. Irene, feeling that she needed to go to church, phoned a neighbor who, at the last moment, cancelled her plans to attend church, in order to look after Irene’s daughter. Irene and Norm got to the church part way through the service. Irene was too weak to walk and had to sit in a chair and be carried into the service. She remembers feeling embarrassed that people in the church would see her in such a weakened and frail state. As she was being carried up the aisle to be prayed for by the minister, she very vividly experienced an inner voice saying “You will know my power in a minute of time.” When the minister, who had no previous experience of having healed someone through prayer, laid hands on her and prayed she immediately regained feeling in her arms and legs, along with complete control of her body and fully regained muscular strength. Many people were audibly praying, but only one voice stood out in her consciousness, and that was a woman saying “Just as He made the birds to fly you will walk out of here.” Irene walked out the church and took up all the activities she had formerly been too weak to do. In the over twenty-five years since her healing there has been no return of any of her symptoms. The experience of the inner voice Irene heard as she was being carried up the aisle is very special to her. She says that she has never experienced God so closely before or after. She states that if she had a choice of being healed twenty years earlier, but without what she experienced going up the aisle, she would choose to wait to be healed, in order to experience God’s voice as intimately as she did that day. CASE #3: BILL DROST [I have written this account on the basis of an interview on October 19, 2007, with Ruth Drost, the widow of Bill Drost, conversations with Verner Drost, his son, and the description of Bill Drost’s healing found in the book, Bill Drost: The Pentecost, 195-207. I am grateful for their permission to publish it.] William (Bill) Drost had spent many years as a missionary in various South American countries. While in Uruguay, his health began to fail. He

Appendix

203

was losing weight and having frequent fainting spells. When he consulted a physician in Uruguay, the doctor told him that he was very ill and that he needed to return to Canada as soon as possible for complete rest and further examination by Canadian doctors. The Drost family decided to return to Canada for a time. They flew first to Miami. In the time between arriving in Miami and catching their connecting flight to Canada, Bill, while praying, felt that he heard an inner voice that said “This furlough is going to be a great time for you, and you shall glorify me such as never before.” Upon return to Canada, the Drosts stayed several days in the London area with the family of Bill’s wife, Ruth. Bill ignored the Uruguay physician’s advice and neither rested nor sought medical advice. Instead, he and his family entered into a heavy schedule of church meetings throughout Southern Ontario. It soon became evident that Bill’s health was continuing to deteriorate. By this time he had lost thirty-five pounds and was continuing to lose weight. He was eventually persuaded to see a physician who, realizing the seriousness of Bill’s condition, immediately referred him to a specialist in Montreal. The specialist proved to be a friend from Bill’s childhood in Midlands, New Brunswick. He informed Bill that Bill had stomach cancer and recommended an immediate operation. Bill, however, resolved to go home to New Brunswick before taking further action. In New Brunswick, Bill was examined by Dr. Everett Chalmers who recommended an immediate operation and informed him that even if the operation were successful Bill would need a tube in his side the rest of his life and would not be able to return to the mission field. Bill very much wanted to attend a religious conference being held in Plaster Rock, New Brunswick, and, against the advice of Dr. Chalmers, deferred scheduling the operation until the day after the conference. Bill grew steadily weaker. He suffered bleeding spells, anal leakage, and his bowel movements were so painful that he sometimes fainted. While at Plaster Rock, he had a particularly bad bleeding episode and collapsed. Bill had been prayed for many times regarding the cancer with no results, so when Ruth and others gathered to pray for him he acquiesced, but with no hope that he would experience healing. During the time of prayer, Bill noticed nothing. As people left after praying, Bill fell asleep. In the morning he awoke and realized he had slept the night through without pain. For the first time in months he was hungry. After eating a substantial breakfast, he had his first normal bowel movement in months. Bill felt that he had been healed, but kept his appointment on the day he was scheduled to be operated on. When the doctors examined him they could find no trace of cancer. They kept him in the hospital for nine days of

204

Appendix

examinations and tests, finally releasing him with a clean bill of health. Bill experienced no recurrence of the cancer for the rest of his life, dying many years later of an unrelated health problem. CASE #4: ELAINE KALEY [This is the account of the healing of a friend and fellow member of my congregation, told in her own words. I am grateful for her permission to publish it.] When I regained consciousness, chaos reigned. The combination of high speed, a narrow road, and a young inexperienced driver had resulted in loss of control. The result was that our small car careened across the road and crashed through a travel trailer pulled by a car travelling in the opposite direction. A beautiful September evening in Peterhead, Scotland, filled with the promise of fun and excitement, had turned into a loud crash, sirens, the feeling of warm blood running down my face, and excruciating pain in my right arm. As I began to take in the situation, I realized I had smashed through the windshield and Philip, a friend, who had been a passenger in the back seat was trying to untangle my crushed arm from the windshield wiper. Growing up I had struggled with my appearance. My perfectionist nature combined with parents who did not affirm or compliment me a great deal were, I believe, contributing factors to me feeling dissatisfied with my physical appearance. Glossy magazine covers and TV constantly bombarded my young mind painting a picture of beauty that seemed impossible to attain. As I gazed in the mirror a few days after the accident, I barely recognized myself. My face was stitched in several places with cuts and bruises everywhere. I felt numb, discouraged, and shocked, but in spite of my greatly changed physical appearance that I saw in the small mirror, I felt a peace that went beyond understanding. While lying by the road that evening, waiting for the ambulance shaking and in pain, a song we had sung in the praise convention just that week kept going through my mind. “I am in HIS hands, so what have I to fear, I am in His hands, I feel Him ever near, He guides my way, He is in COMPLETE control, I am in His hands.” This song became a strong source of strength for me throughout this experience. Upon my return journey to my home in Fredericton, New Brunswick, I felt deep empathy for those suffering with a physical deformity. With a huge cast on my arm and my battered face, I was acutely aware of the stares and second glances that came from those passing by me on my journey back to Canada. It seemed like God had allowed me to have a brief glimpse into the life of someone living with physical deformity day after day. It somehow began to put my insecurity for what I felt was less than perfect about myself into perspective.

Appendix

205

One week after the accident, I was booked for surgery in the Fredericton hospital the next day. That evening, I picked up my bible on my night table and randomly opened it to seek some assurance that all would be well. I read the account in Mark 3:1-6 where Jesus healed the man with the withered hand. This gave me comfort. The next day when I sleepily opened my eyes, the large hospital clock in our local hospital said 1:30 pm. Had only thirty minutes passed since I had been given anaesthetics to have a bone taken from my hip and placed into my elbow? This, the surgeon had said, would enable me to bend my arm again. As I looked at the clock again I gently touched my leg. There was no indication that my hip had been touched. I started to realize something had gone terribly wrong. Upon arriving back to my room I was met by family, friends, and the surgeon. He explained in a very matter of fact way that he was unable to repair my arm. The elbow was badly crushed and he described it as looking like rice krispies—there was nothing to attach the bone from my hip to. He continued to explain that I would have a “withered arm and hand.” He suggested I should have pockets put in my clothing to support my arm. He would book me for physiotherapy to strengthen what muscles I still had. This should have been devastating news for me at the young age of eighteen, but something within me began to stir. I felt it was God. I remembered that I had just read the night before how Jesus had healed a man with a withered hand. Faith rose in my heart and at that moment I had a deep conviction that God would heal me. Many thought I was in denial and over the next few days I had social workers and others visit me to help me “accept” my diagnosis. Five weeks later I was back to work typing and working full time. Amazingly, an elbow had grown in. When, during physiotherapy, I showed much more progress than would have been expected, the therapist questioned me concerning what the surgeon had said. She checked my original X-rays, which confirmed that I had correctly understood the surgeon. Having looked at the X-rays, she then said to me, “I don’t know where it came from, but, you do have an elbow.” When I saw the surgeon after six weeks, he had me do several rotations and movements with my arm and just shook his head, still with his very bland expression. He said very little to me. I finally broke the silence and quietly stated, “I told you God would heal me!” He just walked out of the room and said nothing! During the whole process, I felt God had been speaking to me. Psalm 139 states, you are fearfully and wonderfully made, Wonderful are Thy works and how well my soul knows it. Through this experience, I began to realize that God had made me just the way that I was. Despite having accepted Him as my Lord and Saviour at a very young age, I had always struggled with accepting myself. I had constantly compared myself to others and felt so

206

Appendix

imperfect. He not only healed me physically but He healed me emotionally. He really loved me just the way I was and He wanted me to love myself, just as I was! I gained a thankful heart and the knowledge that He is indeed in control.

Index

Abraham, Sarah and, 18, 21 Abrahamic religions, 5n1, 138, 170–172 absolute divine determinism, 29 abusus non tollit usum, 128 ad hominem criticism, 66 agent causality, 30, 110, 119n40, 127, 155, 158 agnosticism, 165n55, 180 alligators, in sewer, 81 Allison, Dale, 163n10 alphabet cereal, message in, 110 Alston, William, 158–159, 161, 166n59 “Amen I say to you”, 184n35 Ananias, 87, 115, 176 angels, 8, 15, 21, 33, 48n24, 87, 152, 163n17, 171, 174 Annet, Peter, 111, 125 anthropomorphism, 46n1, 160, 165n55 antichrist, 182n11 Aphrodite, 151 Apollonius of Tyana, 178 Apostles. See specific apostles Aquinas, Thomas, 15, 33, 84, 85, 125, 163n18 arbitrariness, of miracles, 113, 115 ‘argument from miracles’, 4, 5, 148, 148–150, 152, 162, 187, 187–188 argumentum ad ignorantiam, 80–82, 97n12 ark, Philistines and, 21, 26n69 arm, crushed, 205

arm movement, human agency and, 30, 47n15 armchair theorists, 117, 128, 187, 188 Armstrong, Neil, 184n26 Athanasius, 178 Augustine, 15, 84, 85, 136 ‘balance of probabilities’ argument, 2, 38, 43, 71, 72, 126 Basinger, David, 35 Basinger, Randall, 35 Bauckham, Richard, 183n17 Beckwith, Francis, 97n17 Being-itself, 159 Berkouwer, G. C., 9, 10, 24n17 Berry, R. J., 12 biblical authors: causal powers and, 18, 20; divine agency and, 17, 18, 22, 23; miracles and, 23; supernaturalist model and, 3, 22, 23 biblical data: Collins on, 26n59; deism and, 20–22; occasionalism and, 18–20; supernaturalism and, 17, 22 Big-Bang theory, 43, 44, 51n58, 94, 95 Bill Drost case, 202–203 billiard balls, 39 Bishop, John, 127 blindness: Ananias’ healing of Saul, 87, 115, 176; Chukwu and, 178; Jansenist miracles and, 134; Jesus’ healing of, 103; Vespasian and, 185n51 207

208

Index

Blomberg, Craig, 183n15, 183n17 blood clot, 197 Bowman, Robert M., 184n35 Boyer, Steven, 112 break in space-time causal sequence, miracles as, 31 Broad, C. D., 54, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 75n55 Brown, Colin, 135 Bruce, F. F., 120n54 Bube, Richard, 12, 25n22 Buddhism, 138 bumbler, God as, 111–112 Burns, R. M., 58, 74n18, 75n38, 75n39, 75n41, 75n44, 76n70, 134, 142n38 Burtt, E. L., 95 Butler, Joseph, 66 calming of storm, Jesus, 22 Calvinist tradition, 9, 24n17 Campbell, George, 54, 60, 61, 136 cancer, stomach, 203 Catholic tradition: Aquinas, 15, 33, 84, 85, 125, 163n18; Augustine, 15, 84, 85, 136; Protestant-Catholic polemical arguments, 138 causal disposition theories, 37, 49n42, 103, 119n39, 119n40 causal powers: biblical authors and, 18, 20; New Testament and, 19–20; Old Testament and, 18; supervenience and, 5n6 causal relations, science and, 105–106, 118n23 causation. See primary causation; secondary causation; supernatural causation cessationalism, 136 Chalmers, Everett, 203 chaos theory, 5n6, 51n54 Charley, 198, 199, 200 Chavda, Mahesh, 199 Chesterson, G. K., 184n40 child, train and, 28 Christ. See Jesus Christian apologetics and miracles: conclusion, 181; overview, 4, 167–170; Pyrrhonistic fallacy, 178–181 Christianity: Abrahamic religions and, 138, 170; early, miracles and, 119n50;

methodological naturalism and, 99n32 Chryssides, George, 109–110, 117 Chukwu, John, 178 Circle-Drawer, Honi, 178, 179 circular reasoning, 69–70, 71, 145 Clarke, Steve, 48n22, 163n20 Clayton, Philip, 1, 154, 160, 164n27 closed universe, energetically, 3, 6n7, 154 coincidences, 28, 29, 109 coincident lines of evidence, 123–124 Collier, John, 45 Collins, John C., 17, 19, 21, 26n59 Colwell, Gary, 45 compatibilism, 128, 155 conditio sine qua non, 36, 89, 90, 96 conflicting arguments, Hume’s a priori epistemological argument, 71 Confucianism, 138 Conservation of Energy principle, 41–45; “Divine Agency and the Conservation of Energy”, 6n7, 51n54; Plantinga and, 51n56; strong form, 52n59; weak form, 42, 52n59 constant conjunction, 63, 75n58 contrary miracles argument, 139, 143n74 cookies and father example, 175 Cooper, John, 154, 164n28 cooperation, miracles and, 115, 116 Copan, Paul, 163n22 Copi, Irving, 80 Cornelius, 87, 174 Corner, David, 29–31, 47n15, 47n16, 48n19, 105 Corner, Mark, 9, 13, 29, 68 cosmological argument, 151–152 counterflow, 34 Cover, Jan, 40 Craig, William Lane, 37, 51n58, 163n22, 184n34, 185n50, 186n57 creatio ex nihilo, 164n28 creation doctrine, Lewis and, 50n49 Crick, Francis, 148 crippled man, healing of, 22 crushed elbow, healing, 205 Curd, Martin, 103 cursed fig trees, Jesus and, 113, 120n54 customary divine behaviour, 9 Danto, Arthur, 29

Index Davies, Brian, 18 Davies, Paul, 111 Davis, Stephen, 168 Dawes, G., 181 Dawkins, Richard, 148, 163n9 de Vries, Paul, 98n28 ‘dead man comes to life’ example, 59, 65, 69, 70, 143n62 Deere, Jack, 136 A Defense of Hume on Miracles (Fogelin), 53, 72n1, 73n16 deism, 11–13; biblical data and, 20–22; miracles and, 11, 24n21; occasionalism compared to, 11; robust formational economy principle and, 13, 25n29; supernaturalism compared to, 14; theistic complementarianism and, 12, 13; theistic naturalism and, 12, 13; Van Till and, 13, 25n29; Wollaston and, 11, 24n21 demarcation problem, 89–90 Dembski, William, 93 determinism: absolute divine, 29; compatibilism, 128, 155; indeterminism in physics, 5n6, 158; quantum mechanics, 5n6, 48n17, 51n54 diamonds example, 86 Dilley, Stephen, 89, 99n35 divine action: Abrahamic religions and, 5n1; hard literal core of, 161; Saunders on, 1 divine action, special: chaos theory and, 5n6, 51n54; libertarian free will and, 47n16; as miracles, 79; miracles as signs and, 47n3; New Testament and, 21–22; non-interventionist accounts, 3, 5n6; quantum, 5n6, 48n17, 51n54; Rahner and, 24n17; Saunders on, 2, 5n6; supervenience and, 5n6 divine agency: biblical authors and, 17, 18, 22, 23; bodily movement and, 159; human agency compared to, 30–31, 68, 107, 157; laws of nature as, 9; miracles and, 1–2; overview, 3; primary causation compared to, 29–31; Resurrection and, 23 “Divine Agency and the Conservation of Energy” (Larmer), 6n7, 51n54 divine determinism, absolute, 29

209

divine intervention: deism and, 11; Kaufmann and, 13; occasionalism and, 9; supernaturalism and, 26n43; Wiles and, 13, 25n33 division, fallacy of, 45 dogmatic obscurantism, 72, 73n17, 75n48 Drost case, 202–203 Ducasse, Curt, 52n59 dynamical laws, 45, 52n62, 52n63 dysteleological surds, 32 Earman, John, 54, 71, 77n86, 77n88, 133, 136, 139, 140, 142n51, 143n72, 143n74, 169–170, 175 Edwards, Denis, 79–80 Ehrman, Bart, 178, 179, 185n50, 186n57 Eiffel Tower, 147 eight days of darkness example, 57, 59, 67, 68 Elaine Kaley case, 204–205 elbow, crushed, 205 Elements of Old Testament Theology (Westermann), 9–10 Elijah, 36, 185n41 Ellis, Brian, 105 emergent properties, 156, 164n38 energetically closed universe, 3, 6n7, 154 epiphenomenalism, 30–31 epistemological challenges: conclusion, 96; ‘God of the gaps’ arguments, 79–87, 96, 97n5; methodological naturalism and miracles, 88–96, 98n28, 99n32, 99n35, 127–128, 131; overview, 4, 79; ‘science stopping’ objection and miracles, 87–88, 92, 93. See also Hume’s a priori epistemological argument eternal objects, 153 Eucharist, 14 Eve, creation of, 15 event causation, 30, 47n12, 47n15, 119n40 event-event causation, 127 Everitt, Nicholas, 50n45, 101, 118n9 evidence for miracles: assessment principles, 122–124; coincident lines of evidence, 123–124; extraordinary evidence requirement, 4, 125–126, 129, 132, 141n8; narrowing of evidence class, 123, 140; overview, 4;

210

Index

overwhelming, 188; personal experience, 121, 140; physical traces, 121, 123, 124, 140; plain witnessing, 130; types, 121–122, 140; world-views, 122, 130–131. See also Hume’s a posteriori arguments evil: ‘argument from miracles’ and, 152; ‘God is unjust’ position and, 113–116, 120n57, 152; pantheism and, 127, 128; theism and, 126–127, 128, 152 ‘evil tenants of the vineyard’ parable, 184n34 ex nihilo, 14, 39, 41, 45, 46, 154, 164n28 ex silentio arguments, 81 exceptionless laws of nature, 4, 38, 70–71, 101–104, 118n9 exorcisms, 174, 177 extraordinary evidence requirement, 4, 125–126, 129, 132, 141n8

Geivett, Douglas, 148, 162n2 Genesis 31:29, 18 Genocide, Rwandan, 127 ghosts, argumentum ad ignorantiam, 81 Glymour, Clark, 183n18 ‘God above God’, 159 ‘God of the gaps’ arguments, 79–87, 96, 97n5 God’s perfection and miraclesinconsistency: God as bumbler, 111–112; God as unjust, 113–116; God’s transcendence, 116, 117, 160; Pearl and, 119n50 God’s self-disclosure, 176, 177, 181 Goethe, 167 Gregory of Nyssa, 84 Ground of Being, 159 Gruenler, Royce, 163n22 Gwynne, Paul, 25n33, 25n35, 47n3, 116

faith healing services, 133 “faith’s favorite children”, 167 Fales, Evan, 45–46, 93, 95, 99n32, 99n41, 103 false miracles, 35 father and cookies example, 175 fig tree, Jesus and, 113, 120n54 ‘firm and unalterable experience’, 55, 64, 69, 70, 71 fishes-loaves multiplication, 14, 113, 150, 151 Flew, Antony, 38, 53, 54, 55, 61, 73n17, 74n32, 75n44, 124, 134, 135, 142n46 Fogelin, Robert, 53, 57, 58, 59, 61, 70, 72n1, 73n16, 74n33 formational economy principle, robust, 13, 25n29 fractal attractors, 5n6 free will. See libertarian free will Friedman-Lemaître model, 51n58 fulfilling nature, miracles as, 34 fully gifted universe, 13

Habermas, Gary, 180–181 Hall, Christopher, 112 hand, withered, 205 Hanina ben Dosa, 178, 179 Hanson, Robin, 141n10 hard literal core, of divine action, 159 Hasker, William, 106, 119n40 Haught, John, 168 healing instances: Bill Drost case, 202–203; Elaine Kaley case, 204–205; Irene MacDonald case, 200–202; Katherine Higgins case, 197–200. See also specific healings “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away”, 184n35 Hebrew language, nature concept and, 17, 26n60 Hegel, 155 Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, 5n6 helicopters, 83, 84, 98n19 Helm, Paul, 174 Hexaemeron, 84 hidden seeds (semina seminum), 15 Higgins case, 197–200 Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte (Whately), 66 Hodge, Charles, 16 Holland, R. F., 28, 29 Holocaust, 127

Gabriel, angel, 21, 87, 174 gases, kinetic theory of, 106 Gaskin, J. C. A., 56, 72, 73n17, 75n48, 76n64 Gauch, Hugh, 6n8, 187–188 Geisler, Norman, 110

Index Honi the Circle-Drawer, 178, 179 Houston, Joseph, 70, 106, 138, 139, 140 Hughes, Christopher, 28 human agency: arm movement and, 30, 47n15; bodily movement and, 158–159; counterflow, 34; divine agency compared to, 30–31, 68, 107, 157; miracles and, 115; naturalism and, 98n19, 103, 118n29; panentheism and, 156, 157; theism and, 158 Hume, David: contrary miracles argument, 139, 143n74; on occasionalism, 10 Hume’s a posteriori arguments (Of Miracles Part II), 133–140; Burns and, 75n41; first argument, 56–57, 133–134; fourth argument, 137–140; intention of, 53, 53–56, 56, 60, 74n18, 74n35, 75n41; Jansenist miracles, 53–57, 60, 76n72, 134, 137, 142n44; originality of, 60, 133, 142n38; second argument, 135–136; third argument, 136–137; unreliable testimony, 128, 133, 141n20 Hume’s a priori epistemological argument (Of Miracles Part I): ‘balance of probabilities’ arguments, 2, 38, 43, 71, 72, 126; Broad and, 54, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 75n55; Burns and, 58, 74n18, 75n38, 75n39, 75n41, 75n44, 76n70; Campbell and, 54, 60, 61; circular reasoning and, 69–70, 71; conflicting arguments in, 71; criticisms of, 61–71; ‘dead man comes to life’ example, 59, 65, 69, 70, 143n62; disagreement over, 53; dogmatic obscurantism and, 72, 73n17, 75n48; Earman and, 54, 71, 77n86, 77n88, 133, 136, 139, 140, 169–170, 175; eight days of darkness example, 57, 59, 67, 68; ‘firm and unalterable experience’ and, 55, 64, 69, 70, 71; as flawed, 72; Flew and, 38, 53, 54, 55, 61, 73n17, 74n32, 75n44, 124, 134, 135; Fogelin and, 53, 57, 58, 59, 61, 70, 72n1, 73n16, 74n33; Gaskin and, 56, 72, 73n17, 75n48, 76n64; Indian prince example, 58, 66–67, 67, 68, 75n45; induction and causality position, 61–63, 65; intention of, 53, 53–56, 60, 74n18, 74n35; interpretations of, 53–61; marvel/

211

miracle distinction, 58–59, 64, 67, 68–69, 74n29, 74n32, 74n35, 76n64; overview, 3–4; as proving too much, 66–69, 71, 75n47; quote from, 54–55; second edition, 57, 58, 66, 75n47, 134; Skelton and, 61, 66; violation of laws of nature concept, 36; Wilson and, 62, 63–65, 75n55. See also epistemological challenges Hume’s Philosophy of Belief (Flew), 53 Hutu extremists, Tutsi deaths, 128 hypotheses, Ramm and, 98n26 Ignatius, 168, 182n11 inconsistencies. See God’s perfection and miracles; induction and causality position; laws of nature, violation Indian prince example, 58, 66–67, 67, 68, 75n45 induction and causality position, 61–63, 65 “innate sense of the fitness of things”, 130 inner voice, 202, 203 in-principle rejection, of in-principle arguments, 187 intelligent design, 93, 148–149 Introduction to Logic (Copi), 80 Irenaeus, 178 Irene MacDonald case, 200–202 iron’s atomic number, omnipotence and, 118n17 Isaac, Abraham/Sarah and, 18, 21 Isaiah, 173, 184n35 Islam, 138, 167, 170, 170–171, 171, 172 isolated system, universe as, 44 Israelites, 18, 21, 26n69 Jacob, Laban and, 18 Jairus’s daughter, 173 Jaki, Stanley L., 130 Jansenist miracles, 53–57, 60, 76n72, 134, 137, 142n44 Jantzen, Grace M., 147 Jenkins, David, 111 Jeremiah, 20 Jesus: blindness healed by, 103; calming of storm, 22; Eucharist, 14; false miracles and, 35; fig trees cursed by, 113, 120n54; “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass

212

Index

away”, 184n35; Ignatius and, 168, 182n11; Justin and, 168, 182n12; Lazarus resurrection, 69, 96, 131, 137, 151; loaves-fishes multiplication, 14, 113, 150, 151; as Messiah, 36, 168, 170, 171, 174; Nicodemus and, 22; Old Testament prophecies and, 168; parables of, 19, 120n54, 184n34; Transfiguration, 174, 185n41; walking on water, 14, 21; water into wine, 30, 31, 40, 46, 85, 86. See also Resurrection Jesus’ miracles and self-understanding, 172–177; ‘evil tenants of the vineyard’ parable, 184n34; Jairus’s daughter, 173 Jewish Holocaust, 127 Joad, C. E. M., 38, 127 Johnson, David, 71, 139 Joseph, Mary and, 21, 98n23, 137 Judaism: as Abrahamic religion, 170; methodological naturalism and, 99n32; miracles and, 138, 170, 172 Judge, Stuart, 12 Justin, 168, 182n12 Kaley case, 204–205 Kasper, Walter, 116, 117 Katherine Higgins case, 197–200 Kaufmann, Gordon, 13 Keener, Craig, 107, 136, 141n3, 149, 150, 171–172, 178 Keller, James, 113, 114, 120n55 Kim, Jaegwon, 6n7, 105, 106, 164n39 kinetic theory, of gases, 106 Komoszewski, J., 184n35 Kuyper, Abraham, 10, 24n17

70, 71; Lewis on, 39, 39–40; miracles and, 37–46; nomic necessity theories, 37, 38, 49n37; occasionalist’s view, 9 laws of nature, violation: miracles and, 1, 2, 3, 36, 37–45; Of Miracles Part I, 36; Swinburne and, 102–103 Lazarus resurrection, 69, 96, 131, 137, 151 Lennox, John, 96 Levine, Michael P., 128, 149, 155 Lewis, C. S.: creation doctrine and, 50n49; “innate sense of the fitness of things”, 130; on language, 31; on laws of nature, 39, 39–40; on miracle claims, 138; on Resurrection, 129–130; on uniformity of nature, 62, 63, 69 Lewonton, Richard, 163n14 libertarian free will: compatibilism and, 128, 155; methodological naturalism and, 94, 127–128; monism and, 156–157; moral responsibility and, 128, 141n17; panentheism and, 155, 156–157, 157; pantheism and, 155; physicalism and, 155, 157; Searle and, 156, 157, 158; special divine action and, 47n16 Licona, Michael, 126, 176–177, 179, 183n17 literalism, 165n55 loaves-fishes multiplication, 14, 113, 150, 151 Locke, John, 66, 75n47 logically impossible, miracles as, 38, 42, 49n38, 71, 101, 103, 142n47 Lourdes healings, 103, 115, 133 Luck, Morgan, 163n18 Luke, Apostle, 175, 180, 183n15

Laban, Jacob and, 18 ‘lack of knowledge’ inferences, 81 language: Lewis on, 31; speak in unknown languages, 171, 174 Laplace, Pierre-Simon, 130, 131 Larmer, Robert, 6n7, 51n54 Laudan, Larry, 89, 90 laws of nature: causal disposition theories, 37, 49n42, 103, 119n39, 119n40; as divine agency, 9; exceptionless, 4, 38, 70–71, 101–104, 118n9; ‘firm and unalterable experience’ and, 55, 64, 69,

MacDonald, Norman, 200 MacDonald case, 200–202 Mackie, J. L., 47n2 Macquarrie, John, 14 Mahesh Chavda healing service, 199 Malebranche, Nicolas, 8 Martin, Michael, 97n17 marvel/miracle distinction, 58–59, 64, 67, 68–69, 74n29, 74n32, 74n35, 76n64 Mary, 21, 87, 98n23, 137, 174. See also Virgin Birth materialism, 157, 158, 163n14

Index Matthew, Apostle, 180, 183n15 Maximos, 84 McDermid, Kirk, 52n62, 52n63 McGrath, Alister E., 168 McGrew, Lydia, 142n44, 169 McGrew, Timothy, 142n44, 169 McKenzie, David, 114 McKinnon, Alastair, 101, 101–102, 104, 117, 118n9 Meier, J. P., 185n51 message, in alphabet cereal, 110 Messiah, 36, 168, 170, 171, 174 metaphors, 14, 20, 165n55 metaphysical naturalism, 98n28, 99n35 meteorites, 130, 131 methodological naturalism, 46, 52n59, 88–96, 98n28, 99n32, 99n35, 127–128, 131 Meyer, Stephen C., 97n13 Mill, John Stuart, 50n51, 118n9, 146, 147, 148 mind-body problem, 105, 157 “Miracle and Paradox” (Mckinnon), 101–102 miracle as pseudo-concept: conclusion, 117; miracles as exceptions to exceptionless laws of nature, 4, 38, 70–71, 101–104, 118n9; miracles as incapable of predictive expansion, 108; overview, 4; supernatural causation as unintelligible, 105–107. See also God’s perfection and miracles miracles: Aquinas and, 15; arbitrariness of, 113, 115; Augustine and, 15; Berkouwer and, 10; biblical authors and, 23; as break in space-time causal sequence, 31; coincidences and, 28, 29, 109; cooperation and, 115, 116; deism and, 11, 24n21; divine agency and, 1–2, 7; as dysteleological surds, 32; eight days of darkness example, 57, 59, 67, 68; as events that fulfill nature, 34; false, 35; ‘God of the gaps’ arguments and, 79–87, 96, 97n5; Hodge and, 16; human agency and, 115; Jansenist, 53–57, 60, 76n72, 134, 137, 142n44; laws of nature and, 37–46; as logically impossible, 38, 42, 49n38, 71, 101, 103, 142n47; Macquarrie and, 14; marvel/

213

miracle distinction, 58–59, 64, 67, 68–69, 74n29, 74n32, 74n35, 76n64; methodological naturalism and, 88–96, 98n28, 99n32, 99n35, 127–128, 131; occasionalism and, 9, 10, 11; Old Testament and, 9–10; panentheism and, 153–154; philosophical definition, 3, 32–36; predictive expansion and, 108; The Problem of God in Modern Thought and, 1, 154; prohibition, regularity of nature, 25n35; Pyrrhonistic fallacy and, 178–181; Queen Elizabeth’s resurrection, 58, 59, 65; Rahner and, 24n17; as rare events, 34; Repeatability Requirement and, 109–110; ‘science stopping’ objection and, 87–88, 92, 93; as signs, 27–32, 47n3; as special divine acts, 79; theistic complementarian view on, 12; as unusual and religiously significant events, 3, 28, 32, 36, 46, 151; violation of laws of nature concept and, 1, 2, 3, 36, 37–45; Ward and, 16; Wollaston and, 11; as wonders, 27–32. See also Christian apologetics and miracles; evidence for miracles miraculum, 27 Mishnaic period, 26n60 missing diamonds example, 86 modus tollens argument, 81, 82, 97n12 monism, 153, 156, 156–157, 157, 163n19 moral responsibility, free will and, 128, 141n17 Moreland, J. P., 164n38, 165n43, 165n44 Moser, Paul, 114 motion laws, Newton’s, 39, 45 ‘mountain cast into sea’ example, 109 Muhammad, 170–171 multiple sclerosis, 187, 201 multiplying loaves-fishes, 14, 113, 150, 151 Mumford, Stephen, 48n22 Murphy, Nancey, 51n54 Muslims, 138, 171, 174, 184n26 Napoleon, 66 narrowing of evidence class, 123, 140 natural theology, ramified, 5, 187–188

214

Index

naturalism: human agency and, 98n19, 103, 118n29; metaphysical, 98n28, 99n35; methodological, 88–96, 98n28, 99n32, 99n35, 127–128, 131; theistic, 12, 13 nature concept, Hebrew language and, 17, 26n60 Nazi atrocities, 128 necessitarian approach, 50n47 negation, via negativa, 160–161, 165n51 negative evidence, 81, 121 New Testament: causal powers and, 19–20; special divine action and, 21–22. See also biblical authors Newman, John Henry, 34–35, 35, 49n33, 98n24, 129, 130–131, 141n34 Newton, Isaac, 39, 45, 119n50 Newton’s laws of motion, 39, 45 Nicodemus, 22 nomic necessity theories, 37, 38, 49n37 non-interventionist accounts, of SDA, 3, 5n6 non-physical repository of energy, 44, 52n62 nonreligious miracles. See eight days of darkness example; Queen Elizabeth’s resurrection ‘no-see-um’ inferences, 81, 82 Nowell-Smith, Patrick, 108, 117 Numbers, Ronald L., 98n28 obscurantism, dogmatic, 72, 73n17, 75n48 Occam’s Razor, 93, 125 occasionalism, 8–10; Berkouwer and, 9, 10, 24n17; biblical data and, 18–20; Bube and, 25n22; deism compared to, 11; Hume on, 10; Kuyper and, 10, 24n17; Malebranche and, 8; supernaturalism compared to, 14; Westermann and, 9–10 Odegard, Douglas, 50n44 Of Miracles. See Hume’s a posteriori arguments; Hume’s a priori epistemological argument Old Testament: ark and Philistines, 21, 26n69; causal powers and, 18; deism and, 21; Elements of Old Testament Theology, 9–10; prophecies, Jesus and, 168; Sarah and Abraham, 18, 21. See

also biblical authors olive trees, Paul and, 19–20 omnipotence, triangle’s sides or iron’s atomic number, 118n17 Opiomaches or Deism Revealed (Skelton), 61 Origen, 168 Otte, Richard, 51n53 Overall, Christine, 31, 32, 46n1, 113, 115, 117, 162n1 Paley, William, 69, 76n78 panentheism: free will and, 155, 156–157, 157; miracles and, 153–154; monistic view of humans, 156–157; Peacocke and, 13, 168, 182n9; physicalism compared to, 156; supervenience and, 156 pantheism: evil and, 127, 128; free will and, 155; miracles and, 153, 155; monism and, 153, 156, 156–157, 157, 163n19; polytheism and, 151 Papuan tribesmen, 83, 84 parables, 19, 120n54, 184n34 Parsons, Keith, 83, 85, 98n19 Pascal, Blaise, 134, 142n44 Paul, Apostle, 19–20, 87, 115 Peacocke, Arthur, 13, 51n54, 168, 182n9 Pearl, Leon, 119n50 Pennock, Robert, 94 Perrier, Mauguerite, 134, 142n44 personal experience, evidence and, 121, 140 Peter, Apostle, 22, 87, 171, 174 Peters, Eugene, 153–154 Philistines, ark and, 21, 26n69 Philosophy of Mind (Kim), 106 Philostratus, 179 physical traces, 121, 123, 124, 140 physicalism: agent causation and, 155; Conservation of Energy principle and, 43; dilemma of, 106; libertarianism and, 157; materialism, 157, 158, 163n14; mind-body problem, 105, 157; miracles and, 153, 155; monism and, 153, 156, 156–157, 157, 163n19; panentheism compared to, 156; reductionism, 106 physicalist necessitarian approach, 50n47

Index physics, 5n6, 92, 156, 158 ping-pong balls, gas molecules as, 106 Pinnock, Clark, 155, 165n55, 172 plain witnessing, 130 Plantinga, Alvin, 51n56, 162n5 Polkinghorne, John, 51n54 polytheism, 151 Powell, William Samuel, 69 predictive expansion, miracles and, 108 Price, Richard, 165n40 primary causation: Aquinas and, 85; Augustine and, 85; Berkouwer and, 10; deism and, 11; divine agency compared to, 29–31; God’s transcendence and, 116; supernaturalism and, 14. See also supernatural causation The Problem of God in Modern Thought (Clayton), 1, 154 process theism, 154, 163n22 Protestant tradition: Catholic-Protestant polemical arguments, 138; Hodge, 16 The Providence of God (Berkouwer), 10 pseudo-concept. See miracle as pseudoconcept Putting It All Together (Bube), 25n22 Pyrrhonistic fallacy, 178–181 quantum mechanics, 5n6, 48n17, 51n54 quantum SDA, 5n6, 48n17, 51n54 Queen Elizabeth’s resurrection, 58, 59, 65 Qur’an, 170–171 Rahner, Karl, 24n17 ramified natural theology, 5, 187–188 Ramm, Bernard, 34, 98n26 rare events, miracles as, 34 Ratzsch, Del, 34, 51n53, 82, 90, 91 reductionism, 106 reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), 197–198, 199, 200 regularity of nature: miracle prohibition and, 25n35; theories, 37; uniformity of nature, 62, 63, 65, 69, 75n55 The Religion of Nature Delineated (Wollaston), 11 religiously significant event, unusual and, 3, 28, 32, 36, 46, 151 Repeatability Requirement, 109–110 Reppert, Victor, 146

215

Rescher, Nicholas, 118n18 resurrection: of Lazarus, 69, 96, 131, 137, 151; of Queen Elizabeth, 58, 59, 65 Resurrection, of Jesus: divine agency and, 23; Lewis on, 129–130; as miracle, 31; prediction of, 87 revealed theology, 188 Reynolds, John Mark, 84 Robinson, Guy, 87–88 robust formational economy principle, 13, 25n29 RSD. See reflex sympathetic dystrophy Ruse, Michael, 88 Rwandan Genocide, 127 Sagan, Carl, 125, 141n8 Sarah, Abraham and, 18, 21 Saul, healing of, 87, 115, 176 Saunders, Nicholas, 1, 2, 5n6, 42, 44, 50n47, 51n54 Schwöbel, C., 164n31, 167, 182n2 science: causal relations and, 105–106, 118n23; demarcation problem, 89–90; ‘God of the gaps’ arguments and, 79–87, 96, 97n5; kinetic theory, of gases, 106; methodological naturalism, 88–96, 98n28, 99n32, 99n35, 127–128, 131; miracles-’science stopping’ objection, 87–88, 92, 93; Newton’s laws of motion, 39, 45; physics, 5n6, 92, 156, 158; predictive expansion and, 108; Repeatability Requirement and, 109–110. See also Conservation of Energy principle; laws of nature; physicalism; regularity of nature Science and Religion: An Introduction (McGrath), 168 Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation (Haught), 168 ‘science stopping’ objection, 87–88, 92, 93 The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century (Peacocke), 168 scientia, 90 “Scientific Vetos and the Hands-Off God: Can We Say That God Acts in History?” (Tracy), 5n1, 120n57 SDA. See divine action Searle, John, 107, 156, 157, 158

216

Index

second edition, Of Miracles, 57, 58, 66, 75n47, 134 secondary causation: Aquinas and, 85; Augustine and, 85; Berkouwer and, 10; deism and, 11; God’s transcendence and, 116; occasionalism and, 8–10, 11; supernaturalism and, 14; Virgin Birth and, 12, 25n22 self-disclosure, of God, 176, 177, 181 self-understanding, of Jesus. See Jesus’ miracles and self-understanding semina seminum. See hidden seeds Serapion, 185n51 sewer, alligators in, 81 Sherlock, Thomas, 60, 66, 125, 134 Sherwin-White, A. N., 163n10 signs, miracles as, 27–32, 47n3 Simpson, James Young, 84 Skelton, Philip, 61, 66 Smart, Ninian, 102 Smith, Quentin, 51n58 Sobel, Jordon, 113, 120n57 speak in unknown languages, 171, 174 special divine action. See divine action, special Spinoza, Benedict, 128, 155 Stoeger, William, 41 stomach cancer, 203 strong form, Conservation of Energy principle, 52n59 Suetonias, 179, 185n51 supernatural causation: methodological naturalism and, 88–96, 98n28, 99n32, 99n35, 127–128, 131; as unintelligible, 105–107 supernaturalism, 14–16; Aquinas and, 15, 33, 84, 85, 125, 163n18; Augustine and, 15, 84, 85, 136; biblical authors and, 3, 22, 23; biblical data and, 17, 22; divine intervention and, 26n43; Hodge and, 16; Ward and, 16 supervenience, 5n6, 155, 156, 164n39 Swinburne, Richard, 34, 49n38, 102–103, 121, 122–123, 128 symmetries, dynamical laws and, 52n63 Tacitus, 179, 185n51 Taliaferro, Charles, 165n42 Taylor, A. E., 75n49, 76n67, 77n87, 145

Taylor, Richard, 105 teleological argument, 148, 150–152. See also ‘argument from miracles’ Tennant, F. R., 112, 119n51 testimonial evidence, 121, 124–129 testimony, unreliable, 128, 133, 141n20. See also Hume’s a posteriori arguments theism: epistemological incapability of miracles as evidence, 146–148; evil and, 126–127, 128, 152; human agency and, 158; logical incapability of miracles as evidence, 145–146; miracles as evidence, 148–152, 161; panentheism compared to, 153; process theism, 154, 163n22. See also Christian apologetics and miracles theistic complementarianism, 12, 13 theistic naturalism, 12, 13 Theology for a Scientific Age (Peacocke), 168, 182n9 thimble example, 130 Third Law of Motion, 39, 45 Thomas, David, 171 Thomism, transcendental, 24n17 Tillich, Paul, 119n51, 159–160, 164n31, 165n51 top-down causation, 51n54, 156 traces, physical, 121, 123, 124, 140 Tracy, Thomas, 5n1, 120n57 train, child and, 28 transcendence, of God, 116, 117, 160 transcendental Thomism, 24n17 Transfiguration, 174, 185n41 triangle’s sides, omnipotence and, 118n17 Troeltsch, Ernst, 107, 118n32 Tutsi deaths, Hutu extremists, 128 Twelftree, Graham, 174 uncustomary divine behaviour, 9 uniformity of nature. See regularity of nature universe: Big-Bang theory, 43, 44, 51n58, 94, 95; energetically closed, 3, 6n7, 153; ex nihilo, 14, 41, 154, 164n28; Friedman-Lemaître model, 51n58; fully gifted, 13; as isolated system, 44; robust formational economy principle, 13, 25n29 unjust, God as, 113–116

Index unreliable testimony, 128, 133, 141n20. See also Hume’s a posteriori arguments unusual and religiously significant event, 3, 28, 32, 36, 46, 151 Uranus, 151 Van Till, Howard, 13, 25n29 Vespasian, 178, 179, 185n51 via affirmativa, 160–161 via negativa, 160–161, 165n51 vineyard, evil tenants of, 184n34 violation of laws of nature. See laws of nature, violation virgin, hypothetical, 39, 40, 41, 122 Virgin Birth: announcement to Mary, 21, 87, 174; Berry and, 12; Bube and, 12, 25n22; hypothetical virgin compared to, 41; Muslims and, 174; natural processes and, 39; pagan accounts and, 180; theistic naturalism and, 13; visions and, 174 visions, dreams and, 174 voice, inner, 202, 203 walking, on water, 14, 21 Walton, Douglas, 81, 97n12 Ward, Keith, 16, 119n51 water: Indian prince example, 58, 66–67, 67, 68, 75n45; ‘mountain cast into sea’

217

example, 109; walking on water, 14, 21; water changed to wine, 30, 31, 40, 46, 85, 86 weak form, Conservation of Energy principle, 42, 52n59 Westermann, Claus, 9–10 Whately, Richard, 66 White, John, 183n16 Whitehead, Alfred North, 153 ‘wicked tenants of the vineyard’ parable, 184n34 Wiles, Maurice, 13, 25n33 Wilson, Fred, 62, 63–65, 75n55 Wimber, John, 183n16 wine, from water, 30, 31, 40, 46, 85, 86 withered hand, healing, 205 witnessing, plain, 130 Wollaston, William, 11, 24n21 wonders, miracles as, 27–32 Woods, G. F., 167 Woolston, Thomas, 113, 120n54 world-views, evidence for miracles and, 122, 130–131 Wright, N. T., 163n10, 183n17 Wykstra, Stephen, 167–168, 182n4 Young, Robert, 51n52 Zeus, 151