Arguing For Miracles

Than Christopoulos recently hosted a video discussing miracles, with Caleb Jackson and David Pallmann. They make many good points. Caleb has done a lot of good work on the subject and has a book about it coming out soon.

Materialism and mysteries

Prof. James Anderson responds to Bart Ehrman's (I guess one could call it) mysterian materialism in his post "Materialism and Mysteries".

Is physical determinism reality?

Confusing The Author Of Nature With The Editor Of Nature

"…scientists who regard the phenomena investigated by psychical researchers as impossible seem…to confuse the Author of Nature with the Editor of the scientific periodical, Nature; or at any rate they seem to suppose that there can be no productions of the former which would not be accepted for publication by the latter!" (C.J. Ducasse, cited in Stephen Braude, The Limits Of Influence [Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc., 1997], 20)

Are naturalistic explanations the default assumption?

1. Some Christian philosophers take the position that naturalistic explanations are the default assumption, so that extra evidence is required to acknowledge a miracle. Hume and his followers take that a step further to say the presumption of a naturalistic explanation is so strong that there will never be enough evidence to overcome that presumption. But let's go back to the weaker claim. Certainly it's easy to come up with examples where Christians regard a naturalistic explanation as the first explanation to reach for. So does that concede that there is, indeed, a standing presumption against recognition of a miracle? 

2. I'll make the preliminary point that drawing a firm line between naturalistic and supernatural explanations is more important to atheists that Christians. Atheists require that dichotomy to eliminate the supernatural side of the dichotomy while Christians don't require the same distinction since they don't eliminate the natural side. So these are asymmetrical concerns. 

3. Let's take a comparison. Suppose I'm walking on a trail, and up ahead I see a fallen tree. In principle, there are basically two possible causes for the fallen tree. 

i) A natural cause made it fall. Perhaps it was blown over in a wind storm because it had a shallow root system; or rain eroded the topsoil–exposing the root system; or it was hollowed out by Ambrosia beetles or heart rot.  

ii) It was cut down. Felled by logger with a chainsaw.

In the debate over miracles, (i) illustrates a naturalistic explanation while (ii) is a nonnatural explanation–akin to a supernatural explanation. The result of intervention by an agent outside the normal lifecycle of trees using "artificial" means.  

Now, viewing the tree at a distance, where all I see is the effect, before I'm in a position to see the tree up close, is there a default explanation? Is it antecedently more likely that it was felled by natural processes rather than a logger? At that stage, we don't have enough information to justify a default explanation. Whether it was felled by natural or artificial means is a contextual question whose answer crucially relies on specific evidence one way or the other. There is no explanatory presumption in a vacuum. 

Evil is a problem for atheism

The problem of evil is usually treated as a problem for Christianity. But is it actually a greater problem for atheism?

Nagasawa gives an argument from evil against atheism -- or, more precisely, against what he calls "existentially optimistic" atheism, the sort of atheism which regards the world as a place worth being happy and grateful to be alive in. He argues that the fact that the world's evil and suffering seems embedded in basic systems (like evolution) is a problem for these existentially optimistic atheists, and so in a sense the problem of evil applies just as much to (existentially optimistic) atheism as to theism. Theists actually have an advantage in replying to the problem of evil, because of their view that there is so much more to the world than material reality that might factor into the balance of evil and good in the world.  

https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-problem-of-evil-eight-views-in-dialogue/

Worm food

Naturalism and unitarianism

There's a striking parallel between naturalism and unitarianism. Naturalism is reductionistic. Naturalism prioritizes parsimony. So, for instance, naturalism prefers monism over dualism because monism is metaphysically simpler. Everything is reducible to a single substance. Matter and energy are the same thing in different states. And that's all there is. Naturalism labors to explain away the need for abstract objects or minds distinct from brains. Likewise, bigger things are composed of smaller things. The ultimate constituents of reality are utterly simple (elementary particles). 

Sometimes naturalists grudgingly allow for platonic realism or paradox because reality forces ineluctable complexity onto naturalism. Likewise, naturalists may posit a multiverse to evade the fine-tuning argument, or because that's one interpretation of quantum mechanics. But whenever possible, naturalism seeks maximal simplicity. Eliminative materialism is a limiting case of naturalistic reductionism. 

By the same token, unitarianism is reductionistic. Impatient with complexity. The unitarian God is preferable to the Trinitarian God because the unitarian God is simpler. A merely human messiah is preferable to God Incarnate because that's simpler. 

Varieties of nihilism

There are different kinds of nihilism. Not coincidentally, these are all associated with atheism (or naturalism, to be pedantic). 

Don't imagine this is a merely academic discussion. These ideas catch on. They translate into law and public policy, when secular progressives become politically dominant. 

I'll be quoting verbatim from scholarly resources. In some cases the writer may disagree with the position he summarizes.  But these are philosophical definitions. It's not something I made up. 

Moral nihilism

A broader definition of “nihilism” would be “the view that there are no moral facts.” “Moral nihilism” is also often associated—though somewhat vaguely—with thoughts about how we should act in the more everyday sphere: as advocating a policy of “anything goes,” as holding that with the removal of the moral framework restrictions on our behavior are lifted. It is true that if the error theorist is correct then there are no moral restrictions on our behavior...Camus writes: “If one believes in nothing, if nothing makes sense, if we can assert no value whatsoever, everything is permissible and nothing is important.” And Sartre declared that “everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to” (1945/1973). Richard Joyce, “Nihilism,” International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) 

Existential nihilism

This nihilism is associated with the idea that “life has no meaning or purpose”—a realization that may sometimes lead to a loss of motivation and even depression and despair. Existential nihilism crystallized as an intellectual movement in France in the post-war period, associated especially with the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. For Camus, the absurdity of the human predicament emerges from the tension between our realization that we live in a purposeless and indifferent universe and our ceaseless propensity to continue as if our lives and decisions were meaningful. Richard Joyce, “Nihilism,” International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).

One straightforward rationale for nihilism is the combination of supernaturalism about what makes life meaningful and atheism about whether God exists. If you believe that God or a soul is necessary for meaning in life, and if you believe that neither exists, then you are a nihilist, someone who denies that life has meaning. Albert Camus is famous for expressing this kind of perspective, suggesting that the lack of an afterlife and of a rational, divinely ordered universe undercuts the possibility of meaning (Camus 1955; cf. Ecclesiastes).

We have a presumptive duty to desist from bringing into existence new members of species that cause vast amounts of harm. Extensive evidence is provided to show that human nature has a dark side that leads humans to cause vast amounts of pain, suffering, and death to other humans and to non-human animals. Some of this harm is mediated by destruction of the environment. The resultant presumptive duty we have not to create new humans is very rarely if ever defeated. Not all misanthropy is about humans’ moral failings. David Benatar, "The Misanthropic Argument for Anti-natalism," S. Hannan, S. Brennan, & R. Vernon, eds. Permissible Progeny?: The Morality of Procreation and Parenting (Oxford 2015), chap. 1. 

Another fresh argument for nihilism is forthcoming from certain defenses of anti-natalism, the view that it is immoral to bring new people into existence because doing so would be a harm to them. There are now a variety of rationales for anti-natalism, but most relevant to debates about whether life is meaningful is probably the following argument from David Benatar (2006, 18–59). 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/#Nih

As an evaluative view in the philosophy of life, nihilism maintains that no lives are, all things considered, worth living. Prominent defenders of the view hold that, even so, it can be all-things-considered better for us to continue living than for us to cease living, thus endorsing a ‘soft’ nihilism that appears more palatable than its ‘hard’ counterpart. In support of an intuitive assumption about what nihilism implies, I argue that soft nihilism is incoherent. David Matheson, "The incoherence of soft nihilism," Think 16 (47):127-135 (2017).

Epistemic nihilism

Epistemic antirealism/nihilism, as it is termed, is committed to the claim that there are no epistemic facts. Terence Cuneo, The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism (Oxford 2007), chap. 4. Cf. Allan Hazlett "Anti-Realism about Epistemic Normativity," A Luxury of the Understanding: On the Value of True Belief (Oxford 2013), chap. 9; Alvin Plantinga, "The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism," Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (Oxford 2011), chap. 10. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/#SKE

Did God Zap Ananias and Sapphira?

This is one of the stranger interpretations I've run across:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2019/01/28/did-god-zap-ananias-and-sapphira/

According to BW3, It doesn't involve God at all. God is not an actor in this story. 

To begin with, how was Peter privy to their deception? Isn't there the unstated implication that he has supernatural knowledge of their deception? Doesn't the fact that Peter knew this was coming imply supernatural prescience? 

Statistically speaking, how many people in honor/shame cultures drop dead when they are shamed? 

And what a coincidence that both the husband and wife drop dead of a heart attack when they were exposed. A synchronized heart attack!

BW3 would make an interesting homicide detective. 

Are specific claims improbable?

One atheist objection I've run across goes like this: the more specific a claim, the more antecedently improbable the claim. There's an inverse relation between specificity and probability. So, for instance, Christian theism is more antecedently improbable than mere theism. 

To which I'd respond:

i) For anything to exist, there must be a minimum threshold of complexity. So it's artificial to speak in the abstract about the prior probability of specific claims, as if something simpler is more likely to exist or occur than something more complex. Reality isn't incrementally reducible to zero. 

By that logic, it's more antecedently probable that nothing whatsoever exists. But if nonexistence is the default assumption, why does anything exist? For that matter, probability theory is quite complex. Does that make it antecedently improbable that probability theory exists? But it takes probability theory to probabilify anything. So it can't be self-referential.  

ii) Even assuming for argument's sake that the principle is true, it's misleading inasmuch as a more specific claim may have more specific evidence than a less specific claim. Christian theism may have a lot more evidence than mere theism. 

Explaining evil, part 3

Wielenberg is a secular ethicist who labors to be a moral realist. 

Part of the answer…is that for something to be evil is for there to be a reason to avoid or eliminate a thing (123).

But that's indiscriminate since what people take to be something to avoid or eliminate is so variable from one person to the next.  

Whether a person is happy depends on the attitude of someone–namely, the person himself–but it does not depend upon the attitudes of observers towards him (125).

As social creatures, our happiness is typically dependent on the attitudes of others.  

Like Chalmers, I endorse the existence of nonphysical properties (128). 

i) Isn't Chalmers a panpsychic? So that's an appeal to mental properties. But Wielenberg's position seems to be moral platonism rather than panpsychism. 

ii) Assuming he's a Platonist, he must believe basic ethical facts are abstract objects They exist even if there was no universe. 

iii) If so, what are they? They're not physical or mental properties. So they have no analogy in human experience. 

iv) How are they instantiated? What's the mechanism? His nonphysical properties aren't agents and his evolutionary physical processes aren't agents. 

v) Assuming these impersonal immaterial properties exist, how do they obligate human conduct? They didn't create us. They aren't intelligent entities. They are indifferent to human flourishing. Why are we duty-bound to conform our behavior to these impersonal properties? 

vi) If human beings are merely physical organisms, how do we gain access to nonempirical moral facts? How do unintelligent evolutionary processes tap into immaterial moral facts in order to instill them in human beings? It can't be a physical causal connection if one relatum of the cause/effect relation is immaterial. 

What if evolution bred reality out of us?

From a brief exchange I had with atheist philosopher Stephen Law on Facebook:

Law

This doesn't sound like your vision of apologetics, Jonathan - which is to follow reason wherever it leads: be it towards or away from faith.

Hays

Speaking for myself, I don't subscribe to following reason wherever it leads: be it towards or away from faith. Reason doesn't have the same status in naturalism that it has in Christianity. According to Christian theology, we're endowed with reason by a wise, benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent creator. According to naturalistic evolution, reason is a byproduct of a mindless process. So why suppose reason is trustworthy if it leads you away from the very basis for trusting in reason in the first place? That's a paradox of naturalism. If it's true, it can't be trusted–in which case it can't be trusted to be true. 

There's a problem when atheists as well as some Christian apologists both treat reason in the abstract, as if the nature of reason is independent of your worldview. But reason isn't normative in naturalism. Reason can't be normative in naturalism. According to naturalistic evolution, human intelligence is the incidental product of an unintelligent process. 

Christianity and naturalism have different backstories for reason. And that makes quite a difference for how we should regard reason. Indeed, eliminative naturalists dismiss mental states as folk psychology.

Edit or delete this

Law

No that's a poor argument run by Alvin Plantinga called the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. It doesn't work - even many theists reject it (e.g. Michael Bergmann). BTW, reason is potentially just as much a problem for theism because theism says: your reason can be trusted, but then reason the threatens to undermine theism. So that's the paradox of theism, then! Of course, you do generally follow wherever reason leads, except perhaps when it threatens your faith.

Hays

Sure about that?

https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/09/06/492779594/what-if-evolution-bred-reality-out-of-us

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/

For a more technical analysis: 

http://cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/PerceptualEvolution.pdf

Law 

Yeh, I know. I have published academic papers on this stuff, particularly the versions aimed at showing naturalism is 'self-defeating' - which is your line. You can even still hear me discussing it with Plantinga in an episode of Unbelievable, I think. As I say, IMO the argument fails. And there are leading theists who agree with me.

Hays 

And there are non-Christians who agree with me (see above).

Law 

Yes we know. But don't go away with the impression you've got some sort of killer argument that deals with any atheist suggesting reason is a threat to theism, or that allows you to discount any such argument. You'd be kidding yourself. 

Hays

I'm quite capable of dealing with atheists who allege that reason poses a threat to theism. I do that on a regular basis.

Law

BTW also don't assume atheists are naturalists - I am the former but not the latter (except on Plantinga's rather weird use of 'naturalism').

Hays 

Well, as Paul Draper points out, 

Many writers at least implicitly identify atheism with a positive metaphysical theory like naturalism or even materialism.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#DefiAthe

Likewise:

Many ontological naturalists thus adopt a physicalist attitude to mental, biological and other such “special” subject matters. They hold that there is nothing more to the mental, biological and social realms than arrangements of physical entities. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/#MakCauDif 

In the final twentieth-century phase, the acceptance of the casual closure of the physical led to full-fledged physicalism. The causal closure thesis implied that, if mental and other special causes are to produce physical effects, they must themselves be physically constituted. It thus gave rise to the strong physicalist doctrine that anything that has physical effects must itself be physical. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/#RisPhy

Law 

Less than 15% of prof philosophers even lean towards theism. Yet only 50% are 'naturalists. So that's fully a third of them that are neither. Including me. PhilPapers survey.

Hays

About that:

https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/article/does-religion-really-have-a-smart-people-problem/4610/

Reproduction machines

Had an impromptu debate with an apostate on Facebook

Michael 

What Doctrines do Atheists hold? I would prefer to describe myself as a Humanist because that does tell you something about my beliefs and values. If I called you a non-Buddhist, all that would tell you is some of the things a don't believe.

Hays 

Typically, atheists are physicalists. In addition, they believe the universe is a closed system:

Many ontological naturalists thus adopt a physicalist attitude to mental, biological and other such “special” subject matters. They hold that there is nothing more to the mental, biological and social realms than arrangements of physical entities. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/#MakCauDif 

In the final twentieth-century phase, the acceptance of the casual closure of the physical led to full-fledged physicalism. The causal closure thesis implied that, if mental and other special causes are to produce physical effects, they must themselves be physically constituted. It thus gave rise to the strong physicalist doctrine that anything that has physical effects must itself be physical. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/#RisPhy

There is no ultimate reason for why things happen, although there are causes. This life is all there is. No immortality. No immortal soul. No resurrection of the body. Humans are fleeting, fortuitous combinations of particles. What we believe and cherish is the result of blind evolutionary conditioning and social conditioning. That's pretty standard. Some atheists toy with Platonic realism. Many atheists reject moral realism.

Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309305745_Do_Extraordinary_Claims_Require_Extraordinary_Evidence

Spooky hospitals

Assuming this is reliable, it's interesting due to the strain it puts on naturalism. It's much easier for a Christian worldview to account for paranormal phenomena, including paranormal phenomena in and around death, than the standard naturalist paradigm–with its commitment to physicalism and a closed-system universe. Nowadays, because so many people die in a hospice, hospital, or nursing home, that's an expected setting for such phenomena to occur if that kind of thing happens at all. 

Existing reports of Anomalous/Paranormal Experiences (APE) by nurses (Barbato, Blunden, Reid, Irwin, & Rodriguez 1999, Fenwick, Lovelace, & Brayne 2007, O’Connor 2003) and doctors (see Osis & Haraldsson 1977, 1997) consist of apparitions, “coincidences,” deathbed visions, and other anomalous phenomena, sometimes in relation to patients. Visions involve the appearance of dead relatives who have come to help patients and residents through the dying process, providing comfort to them and their relatives. Coincidences are experienced by someone emotionally close to the dying person but physically distant, who is somehow aware of their moment of death, or says the person “visited” them at that time to say goodbye, again providing comfort. Others describe seeing a light, associated with a feeling of compassion and love. Other phenomena include a change of room temperature; clocks stopping synchronistically; accounts of vapors, mists, and shapes around the body at death… Alejandro Parra & Paola Gimenez Amarilla, “Anomalous/Paranormal Experiences Reported by Nurses in Relation to Their Patients in Hospitals,” Journal of Scientific Exploration, 31/1 (2027), 11–28.

I have not experienced such oddities as paranormal events within hospital settings personally, but I have been made aware of quite a few reports that were experienced within the hospital setting. Oddly, this relatively increased activity does seem to be commonplace within this environment. Perhaps due to the very evident link that the environment has to mortality. A few of my friends that work in elderly care, for example, have passed on some of their own experiences whilst on the night shift.

He started by mentioning the accounts from nurses where they had witnessed actual apparitions. An example of which was a nurse who possibly witnessed the ghost of the mother of a baby she was tending to. Next up were a few examples where staff moving stretchers had heard voices, some of which called out their names. There were also reports of many doors apparently opening and closing by themselves. There were also a few reports of various electrical disturbances.

Parra then continued to provide information that, for me, suggests the possible emotional tie that nurses may develop when they care for patients. One example described how a particular nurse perceived the smell that she related directly to a patient she cared for, whilst she was taking a nap at home. It is believed that, at the point this experience occurred, the patient passed away, which could be argued to be a probable crisis apparition. There were also some examples of psi dreams, which touched on links to elderly patients who had passed away and their burial locations. This also went on to draw connections between nurses and carers who attended patients until their death; which spoke of patients who would identify family and friends in close proximity to them as they approached death. Oddly, this is one of the types of events that my own friends have mentioned whilst working in the elderly care environment.

Parra then covered an area which, once again, I had heard a few reports about. Often carers and nurses had responded to buzzers only to discover that it had originated in a room where either patients were immobilised or there was no patient present. The reports my friends had told me about fell exactly into these scenarios, too, which I find quite interesting as it places what I had seen as arguably isolated incidents into the realm of documented research that spans various hospitals and also countries. Parra expanded on one anecdote where a carer had experienced responding to a buzzer only to discover that the patient’s arms were immobilised and there was no explanation as to how the buzzer could have been activated. The next day, the same patient passed away and, even though the room was now empty, the buzzer continued to ring. These are very real and common occurrences that require further study in my opinion. Especially given what seems to be an increased frequency of events in these environments, which has been observed by professionals in many cases. In addition to this, clouds, vapour, temperature changes, light anomalies were also briefly mentioned and discussed. “Ashley Knibb reports on Dr Alejandro Parra’s recent lecture for the SPR on ‘Paranormal Events in a Hospital Setting’”. Paranormal Review, 87 (Summer 2018).

Hopeless grief

http://www.dennyburk.com/a-hope-not-on-offer-in-the-gnostic-gospels/

"The Myth of an Afterlife"

I'm going to comment on two chapters from Michael Martin & Keith Augustine, eds. The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2015). Much of the book consists of "scientific" arguments against Cartesian dualism, near-death experiences, and out-of-body experiences. There's lots of empirical evidence they disregard on that front, as well as philosophical objections to physicalism. But I'll bypass that discussion and focus on the objections of Michael Martin (chap 20) and Theodore Drange (chap 12), beginning with Martin. 

I must say that for professional philosophers, I find their objections stupefyingly obtuse. They are completely lacking in philosophical imagination.

What is the God-of-the-gaps?

Atheists frequently accuse Christians of committing the God-of-the-gaps fallacy (hereafter GOG). But what is the God-of-the-gaps fallacy, and what makes it fallacious? From what I can tell, there are at least two different GOG allegations.

1. GOG short-circuits the search for natural mechanisms. For instance, prescientific people don't know about viruses and bacteria, so they explain epidemics in terms of divine displeasure. 

i) There may well be examples of that. However, Christian theism doesn't regard direct divine agency as a general substitute for natural mechanisms. Rather, the role of God is one step removed. God created the natural mechanisms. 

ii) This is not to deny that divine agency is often invoked to explain certain events within the ongoing history of the world. Miracles are a classic example. 

But that's not GOG reasoning, for atheists are the first to admit that certain kinds of events are naturally impossible. If they happened, they'd require supernatural agency. Atheists generally respond to reported miracles, not by crediting the report while attributing the cause to an undiscovered natural mechanism, but by denying the accuracy of the report. 

2. Another version goes something like this: GOG is fallacious because naturalism is the standard of comparison. To say "God did it" is unscientific because physical causes are the only admissible explanation. On that view, any appeal to supernatural agency is by definition a fallacy. It's sufficient to identify the explanation as theistic or supernatural, then slap the "fallacy" label on the explanation. Nothing more is required to refute it. 

But that's a transparent rhetorical ploy. Concoct a tendentious fallacy, then apply it to the position you oppose. 

Yet that begs the question of whether it really is a fallacy and why. That's a shortcut that endeavors to win the argument without having to even present an argument. 

To make naturalism the standard of comparison begs the question. The very issue in dispute is whether there is supernatural agency. That can't be settled at the outset by prejudicial stipulation. 

Is God a postulate?

Oppy is arguably the smartest philosophical atheist of his generation, so he's a useful foil:

Theoretical virtues:

Simplicity: If everything else is equal, we should prefer the theory that postulates fewer (and less complex) primitive entities.

It is clear that Naturalism is simpler than Theism: it postulates fewer kinds of entities…According to Theism, there are two kinds of entities–natural and supernatural-whereas according to Naturalism there is only one kind. Graham Oppy, The Best Argument Against God (Palgrave 2013), 7,19.

Several problems with that argument:

i) I'm not sure what he means by "primitive entities," but I assume he means something other things derive from, that's not derived from other things. If so, then Christian theism has just one primitive entity: God. But in that event, Christian theism meets the condition of simplicity. You can't get much simpler than only one primitive entity.

ii) What makes less complex primitive entities a theoretical virtue? A violin is simpler than a violinmaker. A toy is simpler than a toymaker. 

Perhaps Oppy is operating with the notion that complicated things are composed of parts. That complexity is reducible to simpler and ultimately simple constituents. A planetary biosphere is more complex than the early stages of the universe. A body is composed of parts, composed of molecules, composed of atoms, composed of elementary particles. That's a bottom-up model of reality. Reality constructed from the smallest or simplest building blocks.

But what about topdown models of creativity? Da Vinci's mind is more complex than his paintings. Bach's mind is more complex than his music. Dante's mind is more complex than his fiction. On that view, artifacts are simpler exemplifications of mentality. Instances of something more complex. 

Or take an abstract object like the Mandelbrot set. Infinitely complex, although it can be represented in finite instances. 

iii) I don't know what in particular he has in mind by supernatural entities. Plausible candidates include God, angels, demons, and ghosts. If so, his methodology is eccentric. The way we usually establish if something exists is not by whether that satisfies a theoretical virtue like simplicity, but whether there's any direct evidence, indirect evidence, or counterevidence. 

iv) Apropos (iii), supernatural entities aren't necessarily or even generally postulates. Although they can sometimes by invoked for their explanatory value, in many cases, people say that supernatural entities exist because they claim to experience supernatural entities. Not a postulate but a direct encounter. Not a posit but an observation. Now, Oppy can dispute the credibility of such reports, but it's a different category than a theoretical postulate. Realty is something we generally discover rather than intuit.