The ordinary, the extraordinary and God
If you consider ALL religions that have existed and still exist you'll notice a common thread that ties them all together - the idea of MIRACLES. Miracles are, thought of as broadly as possible, suspensions of or violations of known natural laws. They're, by definition, extraordinary events that are supposed to evoke in us the sensation of a higher power. From Zeus to Muhammad, all Gods, have a legend (or two) about miraculous events that are associated with them. I understand that this is in keeping with the general conception of such matters, well expressed in what Carl Sagan said: ''Extrardinary claims require extraordinary evidence''.
However, quite oddly (at least to me), we find another group of people, among whom are quite a number of scientists, who think, well, quite the opposite. These guys think that the laws of nature themselves are evidence of a higher, divine agency. The ordinary workings of the laws of nature are ascribed to God(s).
So, here we have, to say the least, a bizarre situation. One group of people looking for miracles as evidence of God(s) and another group who're looking for non-miraculous laws of nature which are proferred as evidence of God(s).
Surely, we can't have it both ways. It'd be a hollow argument to say both miracles and ordinary events are evidence of God. Your comments please.
However, quite oddly (at least to me), we find another group of people, among whom are quite a number of scientists, who think, well, quite the opposite. These guys think that the laws of nature themselves are evidence of a higher, divine agency. The ordinary workings of the laws of nature are ascribed to God(s).
So, here we have, to say the least, a bizarre situation. One group of people looking for miracles as evidence of God(s) and another group who're looking for non-miraculous laws of nature which are proferred as evidence of God(s).
Surely, we can't have it both ways. It'd be a hollow argument to say both miracles and ordinary events are evidence of God. Your comments please.
Comments (39)
The teleological argument says that the high amount of order in the universe (i.e. scientific laws) implies an intelligence designed the universe. The argument from miracles states that there are known events that violate the known natural laws to such a degree that the only plausible explanation is supernatural. I am not seeing why these are mutually exclusive.
Why then are people unbelievers - waiting for, well, a miracle to happen? Why aren't people satisfied, so to speak, with the ''evidence'' provided in the Teleological argument? And why do prophets have to perform miracles to gain credibility? I'm quite certain that if tomorrow a miracle were to occur people would begin to believe in the supernatural. Yet they completely ignore the ''ordinary'' evidence.
"Evidence" is a word which needs to be properly understood. It refers to facts which support a belief. So to refer to any facts as "evidence" requires that one apprehends the support which the facts provide. Therefore, what some call "evidence", others will deny as evidence, depending on how the supposed support is understood.
The relationship being referred to here is the relationship between the laws of nature, and God, the former being evidence of the latter. That the laws of nature are said to be evidence of God implies that belief in the laws of nature supports belief in God. Many people do not understand this "support", and some will argue that it is a misunderstanding. Some may require miracles to help them to understand the support. A miracle demonstrates that it is not necessary for existence to be according to the laws of nature.
You seem to be saying it's a subjective thing - some see the connection and others do not. Why?
However, Christians required Jesus to turn wine into water, heal the blind and resurrect after death.
To put it in simple terms:
1) If order (laws of nature) exists then God exists
2) If a suspension of order (miracles) exists thenGod exists
That's like saying If heads I win, tails you lose.
Something's not right.
What is it?
Your reasoning. A god creates order. The teological argument states that this order indicates an intelligent being created it (often it is argued this being to be a god. Isaac Newton sees this order and finds it so special that it makes him believe the divine did it.
Isaac Newton also believes in Christianity. Christianity has miracles written into its scriptures. Miracles suspend the natural order. In order to completely overcome the laws of the universe, one would need to be above them. This goes against the face of modern materialism. If one claims that this ability comes from a god and the only miracles are those related to this god, it lends credance to the idea that these miracles come from this god, who is above the natural order.
I don't see why Isaac Newton cannot hold both ideas at the same time. They are seperate lines of reasoning.
I think that's pretty obvious. If there is a God, and there are laws which govern the way that natural things behave, then it is God who makes things behave according to the laws. If this is the case, then wouldn't God be capable of producing exceptions at will?
So, the fact that we can produce laws which describe the way that natural things behave is see by some as evidence that there is a God which makes things behave in that way. Miracles are evidence that things do not, necessarily, by their own nature, behave in that way. The two are both evidence that things behave the way that they do, by the will of God.
That's a different issue than whether the two approaches are compatible or not.
Re the issue you're bringing up in what I quoted above, it's simply a subjective matter of what sorts of things an individual finds persuasive, relative to what they're naturally disposed to believe.
If you take me, for example, I can't even imagine what sort of event--supposedly miraculous--I would take as being evidence of a God. There probably isn't anything. I'd always default to an alternate explanation.
Why would you be looking at it as a proposed game that someone is asking you to play?
It should be clear that I do not think the analogy holds and that the situation of teleogical arguments and arguments from miracles are not mutally exclusive.
I don't see the analogy. If God is real, then all things are evidence of God. If God is not real, then all things are evidence of not-God. You cannot choose X is evidence of God, and Y is evidence of not-God, as if heads means God, and tails means not-God. We have no choice in the matter.
I don't think this is how religious people define them. You seem to have assumed the Humean line on the subject, perhaps unconsciously.
Exactly.
We could also say that if he's not real, nothing is really evidence for him.
Then it would alternatively be possible to say:
1. If order (laws of nature) do not exist, then God does not exist and anything is possible: that is, miracles are possible.
2. If there is no order then there is no suspension of order. A miracle would not really be a miracle but an example of an event that is simply extremely improbable.
If you believe that order exists because God created it, then what would be so surprising about Him being able to contravene the Laws of His own Creation from time to time even if the order He created were rigidly deterministic? Nowadays the order of nature is thought to be probabilistic rather than deterministic, so in theory anything at all, however unlikely, is possible.
If God created a probabilistic order, how much easier it would be for Him to bring about what would seem to us to be a miracle. For all we know the fundamental events of a probabilistic order which are thought of as absolutely random ( because they are not determined by what we, due to our habits of thought, understand to be a closed causal system, could turn out to be not random at all, but determined by God and even by the human spirit..
Either way, it is heads I win, tails you lose. A game where the outcome is already set before it is played.
Are the words of God as expressed in the Christian Bible evidence for the existence of God and the truth of Christian doctrine? Are they not evidence at all? Are they valid or invalid evidence? Are they good or bad evidence? Are they convincing or unconvincing evidence? Are they admissible or inadmissible evidence?
Who gets to decide?
I agree.
You do.
Yeah I see your point. We make the choice first, then the evidence supports whichever belief one chooses. Whichever choice we make, we can use the same facts to support that choice.
Quoting T Clark It's all evidence, but each one of us may decide what it is evidence of.
It's a fair question. I think the answer is that they are different levels of evidence.
To see the laws of nature as evidence of divine design requires a great deal of interpretation. That will usually only be interpreted as evidence by a scientist that is already religious, like Kepler or Newton.
Miracles on the other hand are prima facie much stronger evidence for a god. In the stories they are used to convince unbelievers. They are not needed for those who already believe.
There is also a difference in time. The only miracles that modern scientists would accept as miracles are those related in ancient texts, such as the resurrection of the dead, multiplying loaves and fishes, turning water into wine, making the Sun stand still in the sky for hours on end. At the time those were reported to have been done there was no such thing as a scientist, so there was no 'look at this amazing set of natural laws' viewpoint to contradict.
There are events that occur in modern days that are claimed as miracles - eg an unexpected remission from cancer. But they are lame compared to those mentioned above, and do not require acceptance of the existence of a deity.
The modern-day religious scientist who sees natural laws as evidence for God can take the following approaches to reported ancient miracles:
- They are just stories, included in the scriptures for metaphorical reasons; or
- they were just God exercising his divine prerogative to break his own laws when he wishes;
- they didn't break any natural laws but are explicable by some more complex natural law that we have not yet been clever enough to discover.
Well it seems I have to go into much more detail into the logic of the issue.
By natural order I mean the laws of nature, which is currently the domain of science. By miracle I mean the violation of natural order. Note that natural order and miracles are contradictory with respect to each other.
We have two arguments as follows:
Argument (A) from people like Isaac Newton:
1. If natural order exists then God exists (N > G)
2. Natural order exists (N )
So,
3. God exists (G)
Argument (B) from most religious folks:
1. If miracles exist then God exists (~N > G)
2. Miracles exist (~N)
So,
3. God exists (G)
Combining the two arguments above, as you all seem to be doing (by criticizing my objection) we get the argument (C) below:
1. (N & ~N) > G
2. N & ~N
So,
3. G
Logically speaking the argument (C) is valid - anything follows a contradiction. But it is unsound because contradictions (N & ~N) are always false.
What say you?
As other members have also pointed out. It appears to solve the problem as expressed in the OP. However, natural order and miracle are contradictory terms raising doubts about the soundness of the argument for God (see my reply to Chany, MU, and TS.)
I don't see it that way.
One could believe that God had created a set of laws that are the universe's Autopilot, but that very rarely he switches the Autopilot off in order to make a manual intervention. If ordinary mortal pilots can do that, why not an omnipotent being?
In terms of the above symbolism, the argument that Miracles-> God is not that
~N->G. That would be claiming that there is no Autopilot. Rather they are saying the Autopilot appears to have been overriden, so somebody must have done the overriding - and who better to do that than the person that constructed the Autopilot?
While I don't find any arguments for or against the existence of a non-specific God sound, I don't see anything wrong with that argument.
Ok. I get the autopilot analogy (other posters have more or less said the same thing). However you said:
Quoting andrewk
Why is it that miracles are considered ''stronger'' evidence? Isn't there a hidden assumption in such an outlook. It appears to me that natural order has an alternate non-divine explanation. Otherwise why is it ''weaker'' than miracles as evidence for god. Extending this train of thought, but not exaggerating it beyond relevance, it looks like people in general don't consider it necessary that natural order implies existence of the divine. Isn't that why miracles are ''stronger'' evidence? So, my objection about the issue still stands.
In terms of your analogy, the autopilot is evidence of an automated non-conscious manufacturer but disengaging the autopilot requires a conscious, thinking pilot (god).
So, I still think (like most people) that the two approaches to the issue cannot be so easily reconciled.
Miracles presuppose a natural order to violate though. You can't ignore big differences between statements; you can only apply a negation in logic if the statement is effectively the same, but with "not" in front of it. Both arguments start from the same first premise:
1) Natural order exists.
The teleological argument goes:
2) Natural order indicates intelligence to make it.
3) Intelligence indicates a creator.
Therefore,
4) Natural order indicates a creator.
The argument from miracles goes:
2) There exist events (miracles) that clearly violate the natural order.
3) The best explanation of these events is to appeal to supernatural origin.
Therfore,
4) Miracles indicate a supernatural realm.
The argument will usually go on to tie this supernatural realm with a god, for, by example, pointing to miracles in their religion. Also note that miracles do not wipe out natural order, but only violate it temporarily. They are nonrandom events credited to a divine being. If miracles were random, they would violate the first premise.
None of the premises after the first one are shared in any way, so the arguments do not put forth a premise that contradict each other. You have to argue that the argument from miracles is internally invalid and contradictory, making it a bad argument.
Why is it that most people need miracles to believe in God? Why do I say this? Just to make my case, I don't think there would be any Christians if Jesus hadn't done anything miraculous e.g. resurrect after death, etc. Nor would there be any Moslems or Jews without miracles. What we can infer from this fact is that the natural order is not sufficient evidence for God.
[B]Andrewk[/b] mentions in his post about the relative worth of the two evidences, stating that miracles are ''stronger'' evidence.
So, why is it that way? In such a way of thinking (most everybody) isn't there the implicit assumption that natural order is NOT evidence of God and that its contradictory - miracles - is evidence?
There is nothing illogical about an object having a property at one time, and not having that same property at another time. So we may observe, at one time, natural order, and at another time, a miracle. There is nothing contradictory here, N at one time, not-N at another.
From the observation of natural order, we cannot conclude that natural order is necessary, that is the problem with inductive logic. So even if we conclude from observation, "there is natural order", this natural order is not necessary, it is still possible that at another time or place, there may not be natural order.
Therefore there is no contradiction between arguments A and B, they refer to the world at different times, or different aspects of the world.
It's would only be contradictory if one were to say both (A) "There is only the natural order. Nothing aside from the natural order is possible" and (B) "Miracles are possible."
Religious believers are not saying that though. In their view--and this would obviously follow from the beliefs--God is both the creator of the natural order and God is transcendent to the natural order, which enables Him to circumvent the natural order within the context of His creation, including the natural order.
There are two mistakes you're making in your formal arguments that follow:
(1) No one who is arguing that miracles occur is arguing that there is no natural order. They're saying that there's a natural order, but miracles occur, too. It's fine saying that miracles violate the natural order insofar as they occur, but no one is saying that they violate the natural order wholesale. Or in other words, they're not making the claim (A) that I specified above. You're committing the fallacy of equivocation in that argument. N and ~N are not being claimed in the same respect, the same context, etc. Miracles occur because God transcends the natural order and is able to circumvent it in the context of the natural order. Again, this doesn't happen wholesale. That doesn't negate N in the sense that N is asserted, because N still exists in the sense in which N was asserted.
(2) Unless we're specifying that we're doing another species of logic than traditional bivalent logic, "God exists" follows from the argument just as well as "God doesn't exist" does, because everything follows from contradictory premises. (This is due to the definition of validity, which is this: "An argument is valid just in case it's impossible for it's premises to be true and/or its conclusion false." An argument with contradictory premises is an argument where necessarily, it's impossible for it's premises to be true, therefore the argument is valid regardless of what the conclusion is. Many people had a problem with this, hence the development of relevance logics.)
I don't believe that we know this, and I'm skeptical that we could know it.
We could attempt a survey of religious believers, but the problem with that would be that they'd have to make guesses about what their beliefs would be in a counterfactual situation.
Unless that's a bit of anthropology, where you're making a statement about what's sufficient evidence for individuals statistically, you're implicitly making a claim that what counts as sufficient evidence for something hinges on what the mob happens to believe relative to evidence. Is that really a claim you want to make?
Al least we're in agreement that contradictions are logically bad.
What is natural order? Rules and laws that govern all phenomena in the universe (every time and every place). I thought the bracketed clause was understood and needed not explicit clarification. Who in the world would think that natural order didn't implicitly include both temporal and spatial universality? Without these elements natural order would be meaningless.
What is a miracle? A suspension or violation of natural order. A miracle is an aberration of natural order and wherever and whenever it occurs, natural order collapses.
So, there is a contradiction since both natural order and miracles are mutually exclusive. They're not sufficiently separated, neither temporally nor spatially as you imply, to NOT constitute a contradiction.
A lot of religious believers--probably most of them--don't believe in a natural order in that sense. They believe that there are rules that govern most phenomena that occur (which is what they often call the "natural order"), but they also believe that God created and transcends that natural order, and that He can change aspects of it to perform miracles and the like. Some might even say that the natural order does indeed govern all phenomena in the universe--but then they'd say that God created and transcends the universe. (They'd not agree that "the universe" refers to "everything there is, including God." And that "the universe" doesn't cover all that exists is a more popular view than ever, with all of the "multiverse" talk in the sciences.)
If you wanted to, you could say that "they don't really believe in a natural order," but it would be important to realize that a lot of people use terms like "natural order" in a way that you think is misconceived or wrong or whatever you'd say. And I wouldn't say that anyone is saying anything contradictory re saying that both the natural order and miracles are evidence of God, unless they explicitly agree with your take on what "natural order" refers to (and they explicitly agree that "universe" covers everything there is, including God).
I had to chuckle at this. "Counterfactual" refers here to a world in which there are not miracles. That's meta, dude.
I say you merely repeated yourself, and didn't address anything I (and probably the others) wrote. :-}
Do you understand the difference between descriptive laws and prescriptive laws? Descriptive laws such as the laws of physics describe the world as we know it. Prescriptive laws tell us how we must behave. To say that phenomena is "governed" by laws is to equivocate between these two uses of "laws". The laws of physics describe the physical universe, they do not govern it.
Clearly the descriptive laws of physics which are produced by human beings cannot govern the universe. Nor can the prescriptive laws of the various legal systems in the world, which are also produced by human beings, govern all the phenomena in the universe. If you are assuming that there are some prescriptive laws, laid down by God, which govern all the phenomena in the universe, how do you think that God would enforce these laws? Suppose some phenomenon refused to obey the laws, like human beings sometimes refuse to obey the laws. Do you think God would punish that phenomenon? Do you think God rewards phenomena for good behaviour (acting according to His laws)?
I think your conception of "natural order" is more than a little bit confused.