Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Some remarks on Hume on miracles

1. Let's suppose for simplicity that miracles would violate of laws of nature. Consider then a "modernized" version of Hume's argument against miracles: The laws of nature have always been scientifically observed to hold. Whatever the merits of Hume's original argument, this version is really weak. It is, in fact, not uncommon for scientists to get data that does not fit what is predicted from the laws. When this data can be reproduced, it is taken seriously. But when the data cannot be reproduced, unless it is in some way spectacular, it will, I think, be dismissed as experimental error, an artifact of the particular experimental setup, etc. If only one scientist saw something on one occasion, and repeats do not show it, and no one else sees it, then it will not be taken seriously. The one scientist who saw the effect might investigate and try to find the source of the deviation, estimate to see whether the deviation falls within experimental error. But sooner or earlier, I think, the problem will be put aside, unless the data point was spectacular. However, miracles are not supposed to follow any rule—God is not a vending machine who produces a miracle when the right coins are put in. (God does answer prayers; however, he does not always answer them in the way expected; I think when we sincerely pray in Jesus' name, we will either get what we asked for, or we will get something as good or better.) So bringing science in does not help Hume's case.

2. Much of my knowledge of the sorts of regularities that miracles would go against is in fact through testimony. For instance, take the case that interests Hume most: the observation that dead people stay dead. I have never actually seen anyone die. I am sure Hume did. But unless one is a medical professional, a soldier or a witness to tragedy, one is unlikely to have seen very many people die. Moreover, one typically personally only observes a particular dead body for a fairly short time. Observe that once a body is buried, one no longer has direct observational data for the claim that the person stays dead. It could be, for all that one has directly observed, that the person came back to life, clawed at the coffin, and then asphyxiated again. Thus, one has very little direct observational data for the claim that dead people stay dead. But the bulk of our data for the claim that dead people stay dead comes from putting together the testimony of others.

Granted, we may have some indirect observational data. I have never seen graves opening when I visited a graveyard, nor have I driven by a funeral parlor and seen staff running out and screaming, with a formerly dead person walking out after them. However, in the case of most graves in a graveyard, it is through testimony that we know that there is someone in fact buried there. The indirect observational data depends on testimony, too, then.

Our knowledge of the regularity that dead people tend to stay dead depends largely on testimony. However, we only get the universal claim which Hume needs, the claim that all dead people always stay dead, when we dismiss some of the testimony available to us, namely the testimony for cases of resurrection. But it is no surprise that if we dismiss the testimony to the deviations from a regularity, what remains is testimony to the universality of the regularity.

3. In fact, miracle reports are very common, across many cultures. This should undercut one's confidence in any kind of Humean argument that miracles are apparent violations of universally holding regularities. For the sheer volume of miracle reports is strong evidence against the claim that the regularities always hold.

4. Hume himself thought that the ubiquity of miracle reports was evidence against their truth, because he thought that miracles should be confined to the true religion, and at most one of the religions could be true. However, I think we can now have a more ecumenical view of miracles. Moreover, I think we can distinguish between miracles that bear witness to a particular proposition and miracles that do not. A healing can simply be an act of divine love for the person healed and her friends/family, and there is no reason to deny that such miracles might hold quite universally.

But some miracles very clearly bear witness to a particular proposition. Thus, in the fifth century, apparently about sixty Catholics had their right hands and tongues cut out at the roots by an Arian heretic for espousing the doctrine of Nicaea. But these Catholics continued to speak, and presumably to preach the Nicaean doctrine. This seems to be a miracle that is a witness to a particular doctrine. Bishop Victor, writing two years after the alleged event, says:

If however any one will be incredulous, let him now go to Constantinople, and there he will find one of them, a sub-deacon, by name Reparatus, speaking like an educated man without any impediment. On which account he is regarded with exceeding veneration in the court of the Emperor Zeno, and especially by the Empress.
In the case of miracles that bear witness to a particular doctrine, when the doctrines conflict, one has a harder time making the ecumenical move. However, I do not know that there really are that many cases of reliable miracle reports that bear witness to incompatible doctrines. The case of the tongueless sub-deacon is very remarkable, and I do not know of any similar miracles reported on the part of the Arians. It is an interesting bit of religious history that at the time of the Protestant Reformation, one of the arguments adduced by the Catholic side was that claims as sweeping as those of the Reformers should be backed up by miracles—but none, the Catholic apologists alleged, were offered.

So Hume cannot dismiss ubiquitous miracle reports that are not tied to a particular doctrine. He could say something about mutual cancelation in the case of miracles that bear witness to a particular doctrine, but it is not clear that there is actually all that much in the way of reports of such miracles, of equal reliability, bearing witness to incompatible doctrines. And even if there were, it seems to me that the hypothesis that both reports are unreliable is less probable on its face than the hypothesis that only one of the reports is unreliable.

10 comments:

Alexander R Pruss said...

In regard to point 2, I should have said that the knowledge of the regularities proceeds through both positive testimony and through silence. As far as I can remember, nobody has ever told me that she has not seen a dead person rise from a grave.

Normally, we infer things from silence (and maybe demeanor?). If you know that I walked by a cemetary earlier today, and I don't tell you that I have seen a dead person rise from a grave, you probably have a right to add my silence to your evidence for the regularity. However, this evidence is weaker than testimony. I have no prima facie obligation to tell you that I saw a dead person rise from a grave, while I do have a prima facie (in fact, all things considered) obligation to refrain from giving false testimony. Moreover, in ordinary cases, people who see dead people rise from graves have a reason to be quiet about it: if they speak about it, they will likely be thought liars or crazy by at least some of their interlocutors. So we have a social censorship going which weakens the argument from silence even further.

Reuben said...

“A healing can simply be an act of divine love for the person healed and her friends/family…”

Okay, suppose that such healings do take place. Now I must ask why it is that God performs these miraculous acts of benevolence so infrequently, why the occasions for demonstrating love toward us in this ecumenical and supernatural manner are so few. Presumably, one will want to chalk this up to divine inscrutability, since God is quite mysterious and at liberty to behave as God pleases, not like a love dispensing machine that operates mechanically, or whatever. But then I read a later paragraph:

“…at the time of the Protestant Reformation, one of the arguments adduced by the Catholic side was that claims as sweeping as those of the Reformers should be backed up by miracles…”

Well, here we have people claiming to know quite well what God is up to, that if God really wanted us to believe those Protestants then God would provide miracles. Seems to me that we want it both ways: God is wholly mysterious and unfathomable in dispensing mercy wherever the divine mind sees fit, and we cannot enter onto that plane, but then again, we know right well how God will act in such and such circumstances.

Also, this:

“Thus, in the fifth century, apparently about sixty Catholics had their right hands and tongues cut out at the roots by an Arian heretic for espousing the doctrine of Nicaea. But these Catholics continued to speak, and presumably to preach the Nicaean doctrine. This seems to be a miracle…”

Really? I simply cannot imagine anyone believing this story (at least the miraculous features of it) unless they were already a convinced Catholic. Or am I merely blinded by my presuppositions?

And in the same vein:

“I do not know that there really are that many cases of reliable miracle reports that bear witness to incompatible doctrines.”

I am readily willing to bet from ignorance that the Arians made claims to their own set of miracles verifying said incompatible doctrines. To suggest that such cases would be “unreliable miracle reports” seems highly suspicious.

Finally, if I am reading you correctly, you are suggesting that miracles of a merely healing type may be observed across the religious board, whereas miracles defending propositions would be performed in such a way as to indicate that they are intended to verify said propositions. I find such a distinction confusing. I can think of several Christian “cults”/other religions that lay claim to miraculous healings or exorcisms that have been performed for the sake of demonstrating God’s power, where God is carefully defined according to the doctrines of said religion. Such alleged miracles do not take place in a vacuum, but are implicitly or explicitly interpreted as validating particular propositions (many inimical to Catholicism). But they again, I suppose one may always ask, are such reports reliable?

Alexander R Pruss said...

"Now I must ask why it is that God performs these miraculous acts of benevolence so infrequently, why the occasions for demonstrating love toward us in this ecumenical and supernatural manner are so few."

How do we know that they are "so few" cases of this?

"I simply cannot imagine anyone believing this story (at least the miraculous features of it) unless they were already a convinced Catholic. Or am I merely blinded by my presuppositions?"

I, too, have an incredulity when I hear such a thing. However, I cannot intellectually justify this incredulity, and so I take it to be yet another one of those cases where some of our intellectual tendencies lead us astray (which, alas, they sometimes do).

I think being a theist and being open to the Catholic (or, more generally, Trinitarian) view helps here.

I've read a more extended analysis of this particular case, and the historical data seemed pretty good: there appeared to be two independent texts reporting this, and one of them, as per quote, was a contemporary who invited reader verification.

I don't know if the Arians claimed such miracles. I would expect that if they did, then the Trinitarians would have a discussion of "the pretended miracles of the followers of Arius". I don't know enough of the history of the period to know if there were such a discussion.

Reuben said...

“How do we know that there are "so few" cases of this?”

Of course, we do not know that there are any genuine cases whatsoever. I am granting that there are in fact instances of miraculous healing for the sake of argument, and then asking why it is that the Christian God is not much more active in demonstrating benevolence through supernatural health recovery. One may respond by suggesting that God is much more active than I assume (which is, I think, the point of your question), and that such activity goes largely unreported, or that the reports are often dismissed, or that we are simply ignorant of all the very good reports that are floating around the world.

In defense of my contention that such events must be very infrequent if occurring at all, I present my very unsophisticated methodology. To my mind, it is a matter of induction. First, I consider times in my own life where I have become ill or been injured, all of which 1) have been remedied by natural means (medication, physical therapy, surgery, etc.) 2) have yet to be resolved because I have not discovered the appropriate natural means. In no instance was I aware of supernatural means aiding (much less causing) my recovery. If anything miraculous did secretly occur, no one was spiritually edified by it.

Next, I consider my (Christian) family members, friends, and various associates who have encountered a range of illnesses and injuries, all of were either successfully treated by and sufficiently explained in terms of natural, conventional means, or unsuccessfully treated by such means, thus leaving the individuals in question partially incapacitated or dead. Of course, prayers were often offered in many circumstances, but no conspicuously supernatural interventions occurred, and I am left with the wholly reasonable assumption that certain natural explanations are sufficient.

So I have never seen any miraculous cases, despite having grown up a believer in a believing environment. Nobody remotely related to me has ever witnessed any cases to my knowledge, though many are themselves believers. There are no reports in my local newspaper, on my local news station, at my university, or among any of the people who I live with and by. All reports that I hear are from extended chains of hearsay. While I can concoct secondary elaborations as to why I do not hear any local reports, perhaps there is a simpler explanation, namely, that there are no verified cases to report. So I conclude that if such cases do occur, they are few in number. In that case, the dilemma I highlighted in my previous comment still stands.


“…I cannot intellectually justify this incredulity, and so I take it to be yet another one of those cases where some of our intellectual tendencies lead us astray…”

Well, *I* certainly can intellectually justify such incredulity. I am very frequently incredulous of many claims, and rightfully so. I am incredulous when the Yanonamo tribesmen on film in anthropology class informs me that he can cause spirits to kill people, or when the local Mormon missionaries wanted to give me literature testifying to the one true religion, or when the telemarketer who just called told me he is offering a free security system. How much more incredulous will I be when a brief story written some fifteen-hundred years ago describes something much more fantastic than I’d be willing to believe if my roommates claimed to see it in our backyard. Intellectual tendencies leading me astray! If anything, I’d sooner be *more* incredulous.

Alexander R Pruss said...

1. I was thinking of these non-doctrinal miracles as not being about any kind of demonstration, but as being simply about God being benevolent to the individual. Consequently, I think we do not have reason to think that a lot of them would actually be known by us.

For instance, if God, in his benevolence, chooses that George not die of cancer, it is much simpler to simply kill off the first cancerous cell, or even prevent the cell from going cancerous, before anybody notices anything, than to wait until George is diagnosed with cancer, and then kill off the cancerous cells. (This does depend on the claim that if God did miracles, they would tend to involve minimal interventions. I think this is plausible in light of the value of the world working according to its laws.)

Now, miracles done to support doctrine have to be observed, else they wouldn't do their job.

2. "I am incredulous when the Yanonamo tribesmen on film in anthropology class informs me that he can cause spirits to kill people." - I am curious on what grounds you are incredulous? Here, I am incredulous for something like the following reason: "There are very good apologetic arguments for Catholicism. Now, the Church Fathers insist that the powers of demons are severely limited since the time of the resurrection. It is unlikely, then, that demons would have the power to kill at this point in history."

Reuben said...

“Consequently, I think we do not have reason to think that a lot of them would actually be known by us.”

I take your point. However, the notion that God is committing extraordinary (beyond ordinary providence or upholding the laws of nature), *undetected,* benevolent acts strikes me as strange. Suppose God has miraculously preserved my own life fifteen times in the past by destroying cancerous cells in my body on fifteen separate occasions. Unless I am aware of this fact, I am in no way more moved to worship God, be more obedient to God, or filled with more love for people, or anything at all. I’m simply alive longer, and I attribute the length and quality of my lifespan to natural facts. I am searching for a motive for this particular kind of benevolent act, but do not find the accounts that I can imagine to be plausible.

“This does depend on the claim that if God did miracles, they would tend to involve minimal interventions. I think this is plausible in light of the value of the world working according to its laws.”

Again, I find this odd. That God would never intervene in the world is certainly the certainly the best way for God to insure the integrity of the natural order. Once God decides to miraculously alter affairs, the value God places upon an uninterrupted universe becomes unclear to me. Presumably, God created the universe merely by willing it into existence, and so any material manipulation would be equally effortless. Again, whatever reasons I can dream up are not persuasive.

“I am curious on what grounds you are incredulous?”

At the time the documentary was made (1970s), the Yanonamo were frequently engaging in and defending against raids of enemy villages. Shamans and other men would meet, inhale a hallucinogenic drug, and speak with or be “possessed” by spirits. They would command spirits to kill enemy children in opposing villages and try to protect against similar efforts by enemy shamans. Now, I cannot prove that when children did happen to die in villages that it was not the result of Shamans and spirits. However, we have excellent *natural* reasons for believing that Shamans and spirits were not the cause.
That is, the Yanonamo and their neighbors possessed very basic technologies, had no knowledge of modern medicine or scientific theories, and were subject to violent raids. These facts easily account for the high level of infant and child mortality, and we need not appeal to the highly speculative claims of ancient men.

Alexander R Pruss said...

1. "Unless I am aware of this fact, I am in no way more moved to worship God, be more obedient to God, or filled with more love for people, or anything at all. I’m simply alive longer, and I attribute the length and quality of my lifespan to natural facts. I am searching for a motive for this particular kind of benevolent act, but do not find the accounts that I can imagine to be plausible."

Isn't the fact that an act is benevolent a reason to do the act?

2. Keeping the number of obvious miracles small allows there to be laws that we can rely on for most practical purposes, which helps make our agency meaningful.

3. In a case where there are hallucinogenic drugs, indeed we have a pretty much complete defeater for the evidence from testimony. I would add, I guess, that if the case is as you describe it, then even if they weren't on drugs, they would at most be able to testify to the claim that they asked spirits to do the killing, not to the claim that the spirits obeyed. :-)

So, yes, there are defeaters to testimony to marvels, just as there are defeaters to testimony to ordinary things.

Reuben said...

“Isn't the fact that an act is benevolent a reason to do the act?”

Ah, yes, but clearly there are many benevolent acts that would be within the performance of divine power, and yet God clearly chooses not to intervene. If benevolence is a sufficient reason for God to miraculously heal individuals, then God is fully motivated to perform a great many more wonders than that present, undetermined number. So if the Christian God exists and is sometimes performing undisclosed miracles, benevolence does not seem to adequately capture divine motive.

“Keeping the number of obvious miracles small allows there to be laws that we can rely on for most practical purposes, which helps make our agency meaningful.”

I understand that if God is constantly and ubiquitously performing miracles that human agency *might* be threatened. However, does the value of human free will triumph over divine benevolence in the case of, say, children born with HIV or SIDS, who suffer for their parental activity or “bad luck,” without comprehending their situation, and cannot in any way redeem their situation by freely demonstrate virtue? Surely, if God feels limited in overturning natural laws, such feats would be better served in preserving infants than prolonging my life, or the lives of other adults who have had some opportunity to exercise their limited autonomy.

“…if the case is as you describe it…”

The case is as I describe it. The documentary is *Yanomamo: The Fierce People*, and the anthropologist is Napoleon Chagnon.

“So, yes, there are defeaters to testimony to marvels…”

Yes, and we have, in the end, very different notions of what those defeaters are.

I apologize if I have become the one who keeps writing so as to have the last word.

Alexander R Pruss said...

Maybe God miraculously intervenes to prevent precisely those cases of evil for which would be no theodicy available. :-)

Thanks for all your helpful comments!

Vlastimil Vohánka said...

Hi Alex, I found in a 30GB database of historical anti/apologetics handed to me last June by Tim McGrew a book-length Anglican treatment of the cut-out tongues case defended by Newman:
www.archive.org/details/tonguenotessenti00twisuoft

Enjoy.