Basinger on miracles

Recently I was reading David Basinger's new monograph on Miracles (Cambridge 2018). He draws a number of useful distinctions in the course of the book. That said:

However, since I am in that camp of philosophers who maintain that God’s existence cannot be conclusively disproved... (45).

Wow, what a ringing endorsement. If only traditional Christian creeds used that formulation!

A Response To Annette Merz On The Infancy Narratives (Part 1)

As I mentioned in my Amazon review of The Star Of Bethlehem And The Magi (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2015), I want to respond to one of the chapters here at Triablogue. The second-to-last chapter in the book was written by Annette Merz, a prominent New Testament scholar. Some of you may recognize her as the co-author, with Gerd Theissen, of an influential book, The Historical Jesus (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 1998). Merz's chapter in the star of Bethlehem book provides an overview of the historicity of the infancy narratives. Her conclusions aren't just skeptical. They're radically skeptical, to the point of claiming that the infancy narratives have "totally different stories" that are "impossible" to reconcile (478), with "huge discrepancies" (487), that Nazareth is "far more" probable than Bethlehem as Jesus' birthplace, that "no one among his family or fellow villagers expected anything special from him", that we have "no historically reliable traditions of Jesus' childhood" (491), etc.

I don't know how many posts I'll be writing in response to Merz or when I'll finish them. But once they're completed, I'll put up a post linking all of them in one place.

Do miracles really violate the laws of science?

http://www.slate.com/bigideas/are-miracles-possible/essays-and-opinions/timothy-mcgrew-opinion

Hume's self-refuting argument

Hume also failed to come to grips with the fact that on the basis of the bare inductionism he advocated one could never have established the existence of laws, let alone laws that were necessarily true and therefore could not be except what they were…Insofar as he was a sensationist or empiricist philosopher he had to grant equal credibility to the recognition of any fact, usual or unusual. 

Partiality for some facts, which meant distrust of other facts, invited uncertainly about all facts. This is why when arguing against miracles Hume switched grounds. From a merely probability argument assign miracles (the trustworthy witnessing of regular recurrences far outweighing that of exceptional events) he went on dismissing entirely the credibility of witnesses (whatever their number, learnedness, and integrity) on behalf of exception or "miraculous" events.  

S. Jaki, Miracles and Physics (Christendom Press, 2nd, ed., 1999), 20-21.

Anscombe on Hume

In her essay on "Hume on Miracles," Elizabeth Anscombe offers a compact critique of Hume's celebrated attack on miracles:

A strong reason for the fame of the Essay, I should judge, is the literary skill, which is greater in the Enquiry than in the Treatise. Literary skill is independent of the soundness in argument or truthfulness in reporting. One of the most agreeable passages in Hume's chapter, for example, is that in which reports an account by Cardinal de Retz of an alleged miracle in Saragossa. 

But if one looks up the passage one has to conclude that Hume was probably relying on his memory to report it, and his memory cooked it up a bit in the interests of his argument. E.g. you would think from Hume's passage that de Retz had questioned the townspeople, whereas all he reports is what the Dean and cantors (elevated by Hume into the greater dignity of canons) told him. The comic effect, from the point of view of pious credulity, of a story of being cured by lamp oil, is taken away by making it "holy oil"; the Cardinal's own caution in committing himself as to whether the people, whom he saw at a day's journey away covering the roads on the way to Saragossa, really were going there to celebrate this miracle–which suggests that he wasn't sure it was not a leg pull on him–is transmuted into his having found that the whole company in town, by their zealous devotion, were thorough believers in the miracle. 

The accusations against Hume's arguments by his critics, which seem sound enough, can be listed quite briefly: 

1. Hume dodges about between different definitions of a miracle as (a) anything contrary to the uniform course of experience, or (ii) a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity or by the interposition of some invisible agent. 

2. The first definition is question begging, as may be seen from his remark: "It is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country." 

3. Indeed Hume carries the first definition to an extreme point of absurdity: "There must therefore be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation." This is self-defeating, as the alleged miraculous event, having possibly happened, would be enough to call its miraculous character in question–since if it had happened, there would not be uniform experience against it; and hence its miraculous character could not be adduced as an argument against it having happened. 

4. Hume's aim is to procure (what has indeed been procured) that the miraculous character of an event shall be sufficient reason to reject the story of its having occurred without investigation of any evidence. This is a strange termination of an argument which starts with the thesis that a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. 

5. Hume misdescribes the role of testimony in human knowledge. "The reason," he says," "why we place any credit in witnesses and historians, is not derived from any connexion, which we perceive a priori, between testimony and reality, but because we are accustomed to find a conformity between them. But when the fact attested is such a one as has seldom fallen under our observation, here is a context of two opposite experiences." 

Well, I have not merely not often, but never, experienced an earthquake; yet there is no conflict, no principle of experience which in this case gives me a "degree of assurance against the fact" that witnesses to earthquakes endeavor to establish. 

6. On the point of consistency with his own philosophy, there cold hardly be a defense. Hume is so clear that no amount of uniformity of experience can possibly be a rational ground, or evidence, let alone proof, that the like must happen in a similar case, that it really looks as if his tongue were in his cheek when he says that the occurrence of a miracle is disproved just by the fact of its being a violation of the laws of nature; that it is ruled out as an impossible event. In the very next chapter but one he repeats his constant position that, reasoning a priori, we must grant that anything may produce anything. "The falling of a pebble may, for aught we know, extinguish the sun." and yet in his chapter we get him saying "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 force requisite for that purpose, is as real a miracle, though not so sensible with regard to us" In short for purposes of this chapter he is adopting the mechanistic determinism–the picture of nature bound fast in fate by inviolable laws–which belong not to Hume's conceptions but to those of his century–the effect of Newtonian science (?). His own view is: 

That there is nothing in any object, considered in itself, which can afford us a reason for drawing a conclusion beyond it; and That even after the observation of a frequent or constant conjunction of objects, we have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those of which we have had experience; I say, let men be once fully convinced of these two principles, and this will throw them so loose from all common systems, that they will make no difficulty of receiving any, which may appear the most extraordinary. 

The essay is brilliant propaganda…The argument for Hume's account of causality, that this is just the avoidable way we do think, is as silly if addressed to believers in miracles as the proof of God from universal consent addressed to atheists. 

G. E. M. Anscome, Faith in a Hard Ground (Imprint Academic 2008), chap. 4.

Whose rules rule?

Mature creation rubs a lot of folks the wrong way. Not just unbelievers, but many professing believers. Why is that? Well, perhaps there's more than one reason. For one thing, it isn't a scientific explanation. Rather, it's a theological explanation. It transcends the scientific framework. It operates at a different level altogether.

Nowadays, even scientific creationists are apt to shy away from mature creation. As scientists, they prefer scientific explanations, wherever possible. 

Also, some people find it desperate. We beat you fair and square, so you changed the rules! 

Historically, there may be some truth to that allegation. As ever more ostensible evidence piled up for the antiquity of the earth, something more drastic was required to maintain the traditional dogma. 

Mind you, even if that's the case, I don't think that's a damning admission. There's a term for that: paradigm shift. Yes, that's become a cliche. Even folks who never read Kuhn use that phrase. 

When classical physicists lost, they changed the rules. Quantum physics changes the rules. Nonlocality. Schrödinger's cat. 

When Newtonian physicists lost, they changed the rules. Relativity changes the rules. Einstein had a fundamentally different concept of time and space. In science, you can't get more fundamental than that. 

So even if Christians like Gosse were guilty of changing the rules after they lost, so what? That's nothing new or shameful. 

Secularists think everyone should play by the same rules. Their rules. 

Speaking for myself, I admit that I play by a different set of rules. However, I didn't change the rules. I never agreed to their rules in the first place. And I invite them to play by my rules. 

Ironically, what many people find objectionable about mature creation is what I like about it. Yes, it's theological. And as a Christian, I naturally gravitate towards theological explanations. Explanations that require God–directly or indirectly.  

God is greater than we can possibly imagine. Do we really take that into account? Or do we piously nod, then quickly forget it. By definition, creatures tend to lead mundane lives. That's what it means to be a creature. Nature is ordinary. That's what we're used to. 

We must constantly remind ourselves of what God means. The ultimate, unfathomable reality of God. The difference he makes to anything and everything. 

Mature creation is the flip-side of methodological naturalism. The atheist exclaims, "Ah ha! That just goes to show what happens once you let a divine foot in the door!"

But from a Christian standpoint, the universe is just a snow globe in God's almighty hand. 

Original creation is a uniquely divine act. Something only God could do. God has endowed some creatures with the ability to recreate or procreate, but not originate. 

Likewise, when critics bring up genetic commonalities between humans and apes, I've responded by invoking the principle of plenitude. That's a theological explanation rather than a scientific explanation. But if we take God's existence seriously, then what's implausible about that? And if we don't take his existence seriously, then so much the worse for us! 

Howard Van Till pushed God so far into the background that one day he woke up an atheist. 

Of course, mature creation could still be wrong. But not for the usual reasons. 

Science is circular

When young-earth creationists question the constancy of nature, however, typically it is not because they have independent evidence to question it but because their belief in a young earth requires that nature behave inconstantly…Consider their response to ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, which appear to accumulate at a steady rate by forming annual layers (much as trees form annual rings). If one drills ice cores (sometimes one or two miles deep), present rates of accumulation suggest that the cores record more than one hundred thousand years of natural history (which, of course, exceeds the age of a young earth). Young-earth creationists therefore counter that as one goes down the core, compression of the ice destroys our ability to distinguish annual layers. W. Dembski, The End of Christianity (B&H 2009), 60-61. 

I'll revisit this issue shortly, but for now I'd point out that Dembski's example doesn't seem to prove his contention. If anything, it backfires. In his example, young-earth creationists aren't challenging the ages attributed to ice-core samples by denying the steady rate of deposition. To the contrary, they are challenging the inference by appeal to another natural process: compression. The sheer weight the further you go down blurs the lines between one annual layer and another. So that doesn't require young-earth creationists to question the constancy of nature. Just the opposite: they rely on the constancy of nature in reference to the cumulative force of compression to challenge the chronological inference. Now, perhaps there's a better example to illustrate Dembski's contention. 

In challenging the constancy of nature, young-earth creationists tacitly admit that the world, even if it is not actually old, appears to be old…Gosse argued that creation ex nihilo requires God to create  world that gives the appearance of age even at the instant of creation…Scientists holding to an older earth saw it as flying in the face of the scientific evidence. And theologians holding to a God of truth saw it as turning nature into a divine hoax. 
In its favor, this approach [mature creation] does not entail a flat contradiction. God in his omnipotence could presumably have done things that way. But absence of contradiction is about all that can be said in its favor. The shafts of light that God created independently of the stars (and that seemingly arise from them) project onto the earth a history of the cosmos that never in fact happen. For instance, if human astronomers see what appears to be a supernova exploding in a galaxy millions of light-years away, [Henry] Morris's approach means that no supernova ever exploded. Rather, God specifically created a beam of light six thousand years ago that has only now reached earth and that gives the appearance of a supernova exploding. In Morris's approach, astronomy is not about how actual stars looked in the distant past but about how fake stars might look in a 3-D animation made by God. It is difficult, in my view, to reconcile such a God with a God of truth (64,66-67).

i) There are several problems with Dembski's objection. One problem is that he can only lodge this objection consistently if he's a naive realist. For the moment he concedes a hiatus between appearance and reality, it's hard to see how he can draw the line. Take his own example. Due to the scale of the universe and the passage of time, the supernova we see in the telescope may no longer exist. It seems to exist. It seems to be a present-day reality. But because it took millions of years for the luminous image of the supernova to reach earth, the supernova may now be nonexistent. A thing of the past. Its present appearance is illusory. We must deny the evidence of our senses. Override our senses by making allowance for the time-lapse. 

Dembski may object that the present image of a now-nonexistent object is different from the image of a never-existent object. However, that's a difference of degree rather than kind. It still concedes an illusion. A discrepancy between appearance and reality.

Moreover, it would be deceptive to an observer who lacks the necessary background information to correct for his inference. So we can't interpret the object in isolation to a larger interpretive framework. 

Perhaps he'd say it's the difference between causal effects and causeless effects. Light from a fake supernova. The effect without the cause. But that isn't correct. For God created the light beam. At best, that would be a distinction between primary and secondary causality. 

Incidentlly, what is Dembski's position on natural camouflage? Some fauna and flora employ camouflage for offensive or defensive purposes. Isn't that inherently deceptive? 

ii) But, if anything, Dembski's objection suffers from a deeper problem. Because it conflicts with another one of his commitments. In the same book he also says:

"All things are created twice: There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things." Creation always starts with an idea and ends up with a thing. Anything achieved must first be conceived. Creation is thus a process bounded by conception at one end and realization at the other (107). 

But if we develop that principle, then it's misleading for Dembski to say:

God specifically created a beam of light six thousand years ago that has only now reached earth and that gives the appearance of a supernova exploding. In Morris's approach, astronomy is not about how actual stars looked in the distant past but about how fake stars might look in a 3-D animation made by God. It is difficult, in my view, to reconcile such a God with a God of truth.

For in God's mind, there are an infinite number of different world narratives. Various ways the world might have been. Unexemplified possibilities branching out in all directions. Narratives that extend backwards and forwards in God's imagination. Alternate futures and alternate pasts.

Creation involves God instantiating a divine preconception. God concretely exemplifies a preconceived idea in space and time. The supernova first exists in the mind of God, as a divine idea. And that supernova can belong to a number of different world scenarios. There's no particular world it has to go with. Although the supernova is part of a past that didn't take place in our world, it's a carryover from another world, representing the borderland between possible and actual worlds. The 6000-year-old light beam objectifies a timeless light beam in God's mind. A light beam in a story, a mental story, with alternate beginnings and endings. When God makes the world ex nihilo, he begins the story in media res. 

That's analogous to how humans begin stories. If a director makes a Western, the story doesn't begin with the origin of the universe. He jumps right into the 19C, as if those hills had always been there, or popped into existence a moment before. 

Suppose God creates a beach ex nihilo. Normally, beaches are the end-result of a long, gradual, cyclical process. If God made a beach ex nihilo, would that be a "divine hoax"? Does Dembski think it's unethical for God to make a beach ex nihilo? Does that involve fake erosion? 

I think the universe is to God what a snow globe is to us. Living within the snow globe, it all seems very real to us. That's our only frame of reference. The snow doesn't seem to be fake snow. The laws of the snow globe seem ultimate to someone inside the snow globe. When the snow globe is shaken by an outside force, an unseen hand, the interior fills with flakes, that slowly settle. 

And it isn't an illusion. The snow globe is real. The miniature landscape is physical. Internal events are real. Snowflakes really fall. 

Yet, if we take a God's-eye view of the snow globe, that perspective is quite limited and limiting. In his objection to mature creation, Dembski is like a fist-shaking inhabitant of the snow globe. He takes it a bit too seriously. 

iii) Finally, Dembski overlooks the fact that science is circular. Science has axiomatic givens. So the question is how or where to break into the circle. Where's the right place to break into the circle? Where do we start? How do we start?

For instance, science takes time for granted. But what is time? What's the correct theory of time? The A theory? The B theory? Likewise, is our temporal metric intrinsic or extrinsic to time? 

Science takes space for granted. But what's the correct geometry of space?

Moreover, we can't prove the existence of real space. The external world seems to be real. And that has explanatory simplicity. But we lack direct access to space. 

We depend on our perception of time and space. We can never get behind appearances. Peel back one appearance, and there's another appearance underneath. Layers of appearances all the way down. 

Yes, there's something objective that generates the appearances. But perception digs down to bedrock.  

Does our mental representation of the external world match up? How could you tell if you can never compare them directly? 

In science, there's a dialectical tension between change and continuity. Without change, you can't have natural processes. Yet you can't have too much change and still have the stability and predictability necessary for science. 

Science wants a law-like universe. But what are natural laws? There are radically different models. Take the view that natural laws have no inherent causal efficacy. God confers causal efficacy on natural laws, but because that's superimposed from the outside by the ultimate agent, God can bypass these natural agencies at will. A scientist may prefer a closed-system model, but he has no independent evidence for that preference, for his interpretation of natural evidence presupposes his model of natural laws–and other givens. 

That's why science is ultimately dependent on theology. On theological presuppositions. That supplies the key. The proper starting-point. Otherwise, anywhere you break into the circle will be arbitrary. 

Law and miracle

Debates about the scientific status of miracles have been going on for a long time, and often involve competing paradigms of natural law. For instance:

In his classic Adventures of Ideas (140-59), A. N. Whitehead describes two contrasting views of nature's laws as they obtained in much of the seventeenth and eighteen centuries:  

(1) Theological voluntarism is the metaphysical idea that an omnipotent God endowed matter and nature with principles of motion that are passive and therefore completely dependent on God's volition; that since the properties of matter (atoms) are extension, impenetrability, and inertia, the motion of matter originates in God, the prime mover; that an active principle sustains motion and activity in nature by counteracting resistance; that this active principle is the source of gravity; finally, that the causes or laws of nature are therefore superimposed from the outside and are completely dependent on an omnipotent deity, who can abrogate or suspend these natural laws at will (miracles) to modify their course. 

(2) Immanence is the view that activity and motion are inherent principles in matter and nature, that all movement in nature is governed by autonomous laws that constitute the interdependence of all activity in nature; that these immanent laws are so embedded in the structure of nature that they cannot be disrupted, that any disruption of the laws of nature (miracles) is impossible because it contradicts the principles of reason, order, and perfection–the attributes of God. Essentially voluntaristic, Newtonianism gave way in the eighteeth century to the view of immanent activity in nature that was essentially mechanistic, which is to say Cartesian. For according to Rene Decartes, the laws of nature were decreed by God and are–like his volition–immutable and universally efficient. That is why miracles contradicted God's immutable will–unless (perhaps) they were embedded in God's grand scheme from the beginning. 

Cotton Mather's Biblia Americana: America’s First Bible Commentary, A Synoptic Commentary on the Old and New Testaments. Vol. 1: Genesis. Edited with an Introduction and Annotations by Reiner Smolinski (Mohr Siebeck and Baker Academic, 2010), 85-86n22.

"God can't stop it!"

rogereolson says:

April 25, 2013 at 12:29 pm

I think our disagreement must lie in our perspectives about divine permission. I see God as sometimes (perhaps often) permitting evil because he cannot stop it–not due to any lack of power but due to what I can only call (for lack of a better term) rules that only he knows.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/04/where-was-god-when-the-fertilizer-plant-exploded/comment-page-1/#comment-41500

rogereolson says:

April 25, 2013 at 12:43 pm

But, speaking only for myself now, I agree that “all this is inexplicable” except by appeal to 1) the fallenness of the world due to sin (Romans 8), 2) rules God knows, understands and abides by, and 3) the particularities of situations that no one but God fully understands (that determine when God can and cannot intervene). Again, I’ll suggest a good book for you to read: Evil and the God of Love by Christian philosopher Michael Peterson. Philosopher Keith Ward has also written much on this subject. C. S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain is also helpful.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/04/where-was-god-when-the-fertilizer-plant-exploded/comment-page-1/#comment-41503

rogereolson says:

April 23, 2013 at 12:21 pm

Imagine a world exactly like ours except that God gives clear warnings to everyone who might be affected by evil or calamity. Then read C. S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain. Also, stop thinking of God’s foreknowledge as providentially advantageous–as if foreknowing something is going to happen makes it possible for God to change what is going to happen.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/04/where-was-god-when-the-fertilizer-plant-exploded/comment-page-1/#comment-41413

rogereolson says:

April 25, 2013 at 12:39 pm

Well, we see things differently. What else is there to say? We’ve discussed this here many times. I’m not sure you understand what is meant by a “non-whimsical world.” It’s a world where human actions have somewhat predictable consequences. Where, for example, gun don’t turn to putty every time someone aims one at an innocent person. It’s a world where moral actions, including incompetent ones, have consequences.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/04/where-was-god-when-the-fertilizer-plant-exploded/comment-page-1/#comment-41413

rogereolson says:

April 25, 2013 at 12:46 pm

Well, you already said what you think. If you ask me, the “cause of the curse” is not God but, as you imply throughout, us. It is the natural consequence of our racial disobedience (distancing ourselves) from God.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/04/where-was-god-when-the-fertilizer-plant-exploded/comment-page-1/#comment-41505

There are three fundamental problems with Olson’s theodicy of natural evil.

i) On the one hand, Olson invokes a natural law theodicy, of the sort popularized by C. S. Lewis. According to this argument, God can’t routinely interfere with the laws of nature because human existence requires a high degree of stability and predictability.

If, however, accidents and natural disasters are intrinsic to the natural-law structure of the physical world, and God can’t meddle with the uniformity of nature, then in the world to come, humans will continue to die from accidents and natural disasters. Yet that conflicts with the eschatology of Scripture, according to which the saints will not be subject to death and in the world to come. 

Perhaps Olson would postulate that the world to come may have different natural laws, but in that event, it isn’t naturally necessary for people to die from accidents and natural disasters here and now, if God can coherently change the laws of nature.

ii) On the other hand, Olson also attributes accidents and natural disasters to the fall. But if accidents and natural disasters are due to the fall, then that’s not intrinsic to the natural law structure of the physical world. If accidents and natural disasters are the result of the fall rather than creation, then God can prevent accidents or natural disasters without suspending natural laws or destabilizing the natural order.

iii) Apropos (i-ii), Olson is trying to ride two horses at once. He can’t consistently say accidents and natural disasters are built into the physical, causal structure of the world and also attribute the same phenomena to the fall. 

Taking science on faith

Paul Davies argues that "[science's] claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus."

Several well-known scientists respond critically to his article, with varying degrees of rationality (e.g. Sean Carroll, Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers, Lee Smolin, Alan Sokal).

Davies' rejoinder closes out the debate.

BTW, Vern Poythress discusses this point about universal, immutable scientific and mathematical laws (as well as more) in the first chapter of his book Redeeming Science (PDF).

Are miracles implausible?

Is there a heavy presumption against the miraculous which an abundance of evidence must overcome to justify belief in a miracle? That’s what the atheist assures us.

But what does that claim involve? According to one objection, “anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.”

This objection defines a miracle as a breach in the uniformity of nature. By the same token, it defines a miracle as an unpredictable event. If the uniformity of nature can break down at any point, then anything can happen at any time. So goes the argument.

To flesh this out a bit, what distinguishes a miracle from a natural event is that you can’t extrapolate from past conditions to the occurrence of a miracle. For it lacks causal continuity. It doesn’t belong to the chain of events.

One potential objection to this definition is that it doesn’t cover coincidental miracles. Miracles of timing. These may involve natural factors, but the timing is opportune in a way that suggests personal prevision and provision. Natural events were coordinated to yield this unexpected, but fortuitous outcome.

Yet there’s a sense in which a miraculous coincidence is both predictable and unpredictable. In principle, it would be possible to anticipate that outcome if you knew the prior conditions.

On the other hand, what makes it a miracle is not merely the event itself, but the conjunction of that event with a human need. We couldn’t anticipate being in the situation where we need that particular event, and we couldn’t anticipate that event occurring just when we need it.

Be that as it may, is there a presumption against believing that some events are unpredictable? That you can’t extrapolate some events from past conditions?

That would only be implausible if you subscribe to a closed system. So the presumption is only as good as the metaphysical claim which underwrites it. And the past doesn’t create any such presumption, for the very question at issue is whether all future events are inferable from past events. Put another way, whether any particular event is antecedently inferable from past conditions.

Undoubtedly many events are the end-result of past conditions. But that’s not something you can know in advance. That’s only something you can know after the fact. Which is also true of miracles. Subsequent validation or falsification.

Of course, there’s a sense in which miracles are predictable. But not because we can infer a miracle from past conditions. Rather, a miracle is predicable in case God predicts a miracle, or promises a miracle. Predicable because the agent who ultimately performs the miracle has advance knowledge of his future actions. (“Future” in relation to us, if not to himself.) He knows what he will do.

Carrier's Argument for Miracles

In critiquing Victor Reppert's AFR, Richard Carrier writes:

"For logical laws are just like physical laws, because physical laws describe the way the universe works, and logical laws describe the way reason works — or, to avoid begging the question, logical laws describe the way a truth-finding machine works, in the very same way that the laws of aerodynamics describe the way a flying-machine works, or the laws of ballistics describe the way guns shoot their targets. The only difference between logical laws and physical laws is the fact that physical laws describe physics and logical laws describe logic. But that is a difference both trivial and obvious."

Among the less obvious problems with this quote is this:

Logical laws are supposedly species of physical laws, just like laws of aerodynamics are.

Now, several atheists have defined miracles as violations of laws of nature. And, many atheists have scoffed at the Bible for reporting supposed violations of such laws.

Furthermore, atheists like Carrier and Richard Price find belief in miracles unwarranted, in part, because we don't see them happening today. We don't see laws of nature being violated, ever.

However, if logical laws are species of physical laws, and "the only difference" between the two is that laws of physics describe physics and laws of logic describe how logic works, then since we see hundreds of thousands of violations of logical laws during our life, what is the big deal with believing the paltry few violations of physical laws called 'miracles'?

If laws of aerodynamics describe how flying things work, then laws of logic describe how thinking things work. But does anything fly that violates laws of aerodynamics? Does anything think or argue that violates laws of logic? Sure they do. If laws of logic can be violated then why can't aerodynamic laws? Especially since "the only difference" between the two is the physical domain the describe. So for those who think Jesus' post-resurrection ascension is nonsense, since it violates laws of aerodynamics, think again. According to Carrier, we live in a strange universe where supposedly inviolable laws are actually violated.

This argument will be known in the literature as CAM (Carrier's Argument for Miracles). Atheists who want to mock talking animals and resurrected men had better deal with CAM.