Post by knowingthomas on May 7, 2009 4:00:04 GMT
There was a discussion on miracles on Ben Witherington's blog and I think it it would be something worthwhile to discuss. First with a Humean commentator on Witherington's reply to Ehrman's new book, which was in reply to Witherington's openness to miracles (compiled into a single post):
Second was a video he supplied (where 3/4 the way in I thought Dawkins was going to pop up and start doing the charleston)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPqerbz8KDc&feature=channel
So essentially, is it warranted to have a hyperskeptical outlook on anything miraculous?
Witherington simply refuses to acknowledge that miracles are any less probable than are events consistent with the laws of nature. He blithely remarks “We should use the same criteria to evaluate all historical claims--- multiple attestation by reliable witnesses, and the like, which criteria Bart lists. A miracle, like any other historical event is a unique event.“ But by definition a miracle is unlike other historical events in that it contravenes the laws of nature. Hence, since rarely (Ehrman) or never (me) are the laws of nature contravened, it is an improbable event. Attestations, etc. have to be discounted heavily because of the antecedent improbability of a miracle, or disregarded because of its impossibility. We must then set about finding an explanation that is consistent with the laws of nature--and hence more probable than the weight of the evidence of attestations, etc. would suggest.
Any believer contends that he or she has applied the criteria of multiple attestations, etc.* Muslims--well, most Muslims--for instance, are as certain of the prophet’s flight to Jerusalem as are Christians of the resurrection--or resurrections, if one throws in Jairus’s daughter, the son of the widow at Nain, and Lazarus. But the fact is, death is a condition from which one doesn’t recover, and, as physiologists can explain, one cannot recover, involving as it does a number of processes that are irreversible. Similarly, human beings can’t fly. Given the choice between trying to explain how some of us came to believe someone flew or rose from the dead, and how some of us flew or rose from the dead, we can get far by choosing the former and nowhere by choosing the latter.
All of this was argued with piercing brilliance by David Hume centuries ago. (See www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=405647) As Hume said well, “No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish.” Hume’s leavened skepticism will take us much closer to the truth than will an unbounded credulity that allows of dead women’s placing telephone calls.
[2nd Post]
So there is “entire realm of evidence” I don’t scrutinize. Where is this realm? What is that is to found there?
Take our certitude that dead people can’t talk. Is it sufficient to justify skepticism about reports that they have talked? How high a barrier to belief does our knowledge of the nature of death erect?
If we lower the barriers, what other reports, of miracles whose occurrence we don’t accept, must then be admitted?
More to the point, what of Ehrman’s contention that “more or less by definition, historians cannot establish that miracles have ever probably happened”? Of his contention that “there can be no historical evidence for the resurrection because of the nature of historical evidence”? Aren’t miracles, as he says, “the least likely occurrence”? More or less by definition? (If they were to be expected,they wouldn’t qualify as miracles, would they?) Can historians establish that the less probable in fact occurred? Is it not true that “there are lots of explanations for what happened to Jesus [grave robbers emptying the tomb, the empty tomb story post-Pauline] that are more probable than the explanation that he was raised from the dead”?
Where is this realm of evidence that so potent that it can render it probable that the dead rise and talk?
Witherington makes an important assertion--that “inexplicable things do happen in history, things not explicable by modern science.” He also says that because there are millions of reports of miracles having occurred, “it’s quite impossible to say that miracles are the least probable of historical occurrences”--because we haven’t assessed all these occurrences (reports) and weighed their probability.
So we get to the nub of the disagreement between Witherington and Ehrman. Ehrman says that “inexplicable things”--things contrary to the laws of nature--are unlikely to occur. Therefore reports of their occurrence can be discounted--ruled improbable. Witherington says things contrary to the laws of nature may well happen all the time. We know this because there are so many reports of their occurrence and cannot investigate even a small portion of them. For Ehrman, science is great winnower of reports of miracles, enabling us to conclude they are improbable. For Witherington, science can’t winnow, and the reports must be at least provisionally credited, not burdened with undue skepticism. At any* time, God may intervene and accelerate or transcend the laws of nature--many of which we may well not know anyway. When he does so intervene, the reported events will in fact have occurred, no matter the laws of nature.
The disagreement comes down to winnowing. Witherington says reports of miracles are all of them worthy of investigation. Ehrman says we can presume miracles are improbable occurrences and therefore shouldn’t credit them (absent, possibly, reinforcements from the faith front--that is, on grounds than of evidence as understood by the historian qua historian).
Need the winnowing mechanism need be scientific? Take for instance the notion that dead people don’t rise. True, an understanding of physiology may reinforce this belief and enable us to understand WHY it is they don’t. But the brute fact THAT they don’t is fundamental to human life, and presupposed by the experience of grief and loss. However, it’s also true that survivors commonly have experiences that seem to them to be explicable only by the return of the dead to something like life. Before there was physiology, there was skepticism. Many ancients scoffed at reports of visits by the dead. But first of all, to showing the irreversibility of death, physiology is a great aid. It raises it from a brute fact to an occurrence contrary to the laws of nature. Then, beyond physiology, there is psychology--the systematic investigation of how as children we learn to ascribe purpose and animation, and of how difficulty it is for even those who say they believe that when you’re dead you’re dead to consistently appreciate the implications of annihilation--so they take it they will have post-mortem experiences. Science aids in coming to understand why credulity is the default mode of the human mind--why there are so many reports of miracles and why they are so widely believed.
So science is not the only winnower, but it is a great one. It renders it highly improbable that anyone would rise from the dead. I would say impossible. But at any rate, it provides compelling reasons why reports of resurrection must be heavily discounted by the physiologist, by the historian, by anyone who knows the first thing about how the world works.
*I leave aside Witherington’s suggestion that miracles may occur more frequently in some periods of time than others. Is there any historical or scientific basis to suppose that this is the case? (Yes, there are more reports of miracles in some times and places than others--but is that evidence of their occurrence, or instead of the reporters’ credulity?)
Second was a video he supplied (where 3/4 the way in I thought Dawkins was going to pop up and start doing the charleston)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPqerbz8KDc&feature=channel
So essentially, is it warranted to have a hyperskeptical outlook on anything miraculous?