Of God & MIracles - 2nd Draft

I highly doubt that you will find this any less boring, but I did a lot of reworking of my writing, especially after I saw how repetitive my work originally was.

"No argument can prove that God exists, but the fact that miracles happen makes it likely that God exists."

That is a very powerful statement to make and whoever wrote that statement must most likely believe that there is no deductively valid argument for the existence of God, but are not openly denying the possibility at the same time in mentioning the occurrence of miracles.  Depending on how you choose to interpret it, in a sense you could argue that that statement then contradicts itself, because on one hand it says you can’t prove God exists, but on the other it says that you can – at least to a degree – prove it on the basis of miraculous events.  According to the Oxford Online Dictionary (2012), to prove something is to ‘demonstrate the truth or existence of (something) by evidence or argument’.  When reconstructed, you get a simple argument using the above that could go something like this:

P1) If there is an event that occurs outside the perceived order of nature, it is considered as the work of God.

P2) Miracles are events occurring outside the perceived order of nature.

C) God exists.

Simple and crude yes, and of course it does depend on your definition of the terms miracle as well as outside the perceived order of nature for it to be either a deductively valid or even an inductively forceful argument, as there are likely to be plenty of counter-examples.  On the subject of miracles, Hume (1746) states this:

"A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and because firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the case against a miracle is—just because it is a miracle—as complete as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined to be."

So in his view a miracle goes against the grain of natural law but without really defining either the terms natural law or violation.  I would expect that a miracle would be more than welcome to the recipient.  In what way could a miracle be considered a “violation of natural law” if nature itself is in a constant state of change?  Hume’s argument is really dependent on people’s perceptions of both the terms violation and natural law, although considering what was known in his time as far as science was concerned against religious doctrine, it could actually have been seen as a perfectly sensible explanation to either theists or an atheists alike and isn’t wrong when you look behind his terminology.  Another slightly more neutral way of describing a miracle comes from J.L. Mackie (1982: 19–20) where he states:

"The laws of nature…describe the ways in which the world — including, of course, human beings — works when left to itself, when not interfered with.  A miracle occurs when the world is not left to itself, when something distinct from the natural order as a whole intrudes into it."

This could in some ways be taken to mean that anything happening out of the ordinary would have to be considered a miracle which is inconceivable when you consider the possibilities that assumption entails.  However, for the purpose of this paper, we can discount statistical probabilities, such as winning the lottery, as not being “miraculous” as it is a mathematical certainty – albeit an extremely unlikely one – that someone will win.  There is no violation of, or disturbance to the natural course of the game, although anyone who has just won first division will likely tell you otherwise.  Despite having different perspectives on the matter, both men appear to agree on an external influence having an effect on the world as perceived by consensus.  So who or what is our influence? And why would they want to do such things?

The most widely recognised miraculous events are recorded in the Bible and are always attributed as acts of God.  Some examples you can read about are the plagues of Egypt (Exodus 5-12), the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:13-30), the global flood of Noah (Genesis 6-8), the confusion of language at the construction site of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) and more recently the miracles that Jesus Christ was reported to have performed in the name of his heavenly Father according to his disciples gospels.  Bedtime stories or not, what is evident in each are examples of aberrations in the perceived order of nature by consensus, or nature as we perceive it.  All of the above are one-off occurrences and all of the above, although at times performed by a man are supposedly initiated by a being outside of nature’s order, namely God.  In fact, now we’re discussing unverifiable historic acts and correlating them with an intangible life form, so it might be prudent to first define God as an entity.  Logically, achieving that without sounding insane could be likened to gluing your fingers together with air which is practically impossible.

Stripped back to basics, the simplest form of explanation would be an alien life form, as opposed to simply a spirit or divine deity.  A lot of people don’t realise that since God is not human, animal or reptile and with no known physicality, or even of Earth, then He must be alien by definition, irrespective of nature.  Taking that into consideration, an alien entity comprised of all or mostly pure energy is possible – if unlikely - and given that energy has an indefinite life span and is easily transferrable, could account for the bodiless and eternal God as proposed in the Bible.  One could also argue that it may even still make God a physical being that is in some way limited by His physicality and therefore not almighty, as recorded, but that is technically irrelevant in attributing a superior being to the occurrence of miracles.  And even so, such an entity with an incredibly long, if not indefinite life span would have to have such a vastly superior intellect and amassed knowledge as to be able to terra-form planets and develop DNA / RNA in order to produce biological life forms.  Admittedly that theory is far-fetched to say the least, but, on the possibility however, would it not be reasonable for such a being to be perfectly capable of bending our physical realm to their will as a show of power? Even the most die-hard sceptics would have to acknowledge that we are not the pinnacle of the evolutionary scale and assuming the events stated in the Bible are true, then science fiction aside, what we have right there is an argument for the existence of both God and miracles in one hit.  All this still does not explain the lack of physical evidence for the occurrence of miracles and it is entirely open to each individual’s interpretation.  However, we must also take into account that there is a certain limit to our knowledge, which is still largely based on our impression of and experiences within the physical realm even following the discovery of the electromagnetic spectrum as well as the atom and sub-atomic particles, so going beyond those limits walks a fine line between the ridiculous and the truly miraculous.

There would have to be other explanations though, even if they are not obvious at present, so it is entirely likely that I am incorrect or even only partially correct in my reasoning.  Because of the potential availability of counter claims, then my reasoning is inductive.  Law (2003 p154) states that we rely on inductive reasoning in arriving at beliefs about what we have not observed.  He also states on p155 that science depends on it as all scientific theorems are based on evidence which is in turn based on our current understanding of the world around us.  Just look at Einstein’s theory of special relativity as it is one such example.  It held water for nearly a century before CERN discovered that Neutrinos (subatomic particles commonly attributed to nuclear decay) do indeed move faster than light.  The Earth was also believed to be flat for hundreds, if not thousands of years up until Ferdinand Magellan made his attempt at circumnavigating the globe, and almost made it, although his crew did and it was finally proved the Earth is indeed round.  So we may never be able to know or fully understand exactly why some things happen.  Statistical probability can only explain so much and pure blind luck has no credible evidential base.  But when you look back over the course of history and how certain events could have panned out, but didn’t, the best possible line of explanation has to be that of another player in the game of life with both the abilities and knowledge far, far superior than that of mankind and who also operates outside of all known physical boundaries.  Even if you do not agree with mine, no matter how you choose describe him and no matter what his origins are, to us he can only be known as God.  At least, for now.

 

References:

"prove". Oxford Dictionaries. April 2010. Oxford Dictionaries. April 2010. Oxford University Press. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/prove (accessed June 10, 2012).

Hume, D. (1748). Of Miracles. In Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (pp. 59-69). Retrieved from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdfbits/he3.pdf

Committee, N. W. B. T. (1984). New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.

Law, S. (2003). The Philosophy Gym. New York: Thomas Dunne Books.

Mackie, J.L (1982). The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and Against the Existence of God. New York: Oxford University Press.

Of God & MIracles - draft

"No argument can prove that God exists, but the fact that miracles happen makes it likely that God exists."

That is a very powerful statement to make.  According to the Oxford Online Dictionary (2012), to prove something is to ‘demonstrate the truth or existence of (something) by evidence or argument’.  Therefore whoever wrote the above believes that there is no deductively valid argument for the existence of God but are not denying it at the same time.  They go on to say that because miracles happen, then it is likely that God exists.  If something is likely then this implies at some form of statistical probability.  So it appears there is an element of truth in saying that one cannot definitely prove the existence of something – or someone – that is intangible based solely on the supposed existence of phenomena that are unquantifiable by definition.  On the subject of miracles, Hume (1746 p58) states this:

"A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and because firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the case against a miracle is—just because it is a miracle—as complete as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined to be."

But Hume’s statement is not a deductive but rather an inductive argument based on experience – both his and humankinds - not unlike the story of the farmers Christmas/Thanksgiving turkey that he fed every single morning up until the point he had fattened it sufficiently for slaughter.  The turkey had no idea it was destined to become a roast meal at some stage, all it knew was that every morning the farmer brought out breakfast and then one fine winter morning he brought out the axe instead.  On reading it again, he hasn’t offered an explanation as to why or how it is a violation of natural laws but citing ‘firm and unadulterable experience’ having established those laws.

Well maybe now would be a good time to look at what a miracle is.  A ‘miracle’ can generally be defined as an event or occurrence with causes beyond man’s natural reason.  So, we’re essentially talking about a chance event attributable to extraordinary circumstances right? Using that logic a so-called miracle than could be rationalised isn’t really all that miraculous after all.  Law (2003 p265) concludes that while miracles are possible (albeit highly unlikely), rationalising them is difficult, if not impossible.  But would that not be where God fits in? A simple argument in that case would be as simple as ‘if miracles occur, then God exists.  Miracles do occur therefore God exists’ or vice versa, provided you aren’t tricked into either affirming the consequent or denying the antecedent, then you have a deductively valid argument.  The soundness of that argument however, is another matter altogether.  Ironically, the Bible itself speaks of ‘false prophets performing miracles’ (Matthew 24:24) which explains away psychics.  At this stage we still have no methods of reasoning for Gods existence (although the aforementioned scripture was of Jesus’ warning to his disciples about false representatives of God), or how and why that would affect occurrence of miracles, so still need to dig deeper.

To make the connection between God and miracles and thus have somewhat of a rational argument for the existence of both, it might pay to break down God as an entity, since God is very definitely not human.  The most common argument in this case is that God is a supernatural entity, with no apparent physical structure and no fathomable point of origin.  That doesn’t mean to say that (s)he has no point of origin, more likely that we simply haven’t found a way of determining it yet and since we cannot simply ask, have left it to blind faith that (s)he has always existed and always will.  That’s the theist’s argument in the briefest of nutshells, but, like science, religion also claims that everything has a point of origin which means that it would only be reasonable to assume that God also has a point of origin with the most likely candidate being the Big Bang since nothing at all (that we know of) existed before that point as time and space didn’t exist.  Energy evidently did because there was a significant enough build-up of it to cause an explosion so intense, that the debris is still in motion billions of years later.

Saying that would still make God a physical being that is limited by its physicality.  That’s not to say that such a being wouldn’t have such a vastly superior intellect as to be able to terraform planets and possibly create life, but, if that were the case, then there would also be physical evidence of such a being fossilized or on historical record somewhere.  Since there is no such record, then it would be pretty safe to assume that God is most likely to be an energy based, non-physical entity.  This still doesn’t rule out the concept of an alien race, but, could explain the lack of any physical record.  I’m aware that I’m stretching the imagination considerably now, but that is nothing that religion hasn’t been doing for a couple of thousand years already. 

On that possibility, however, would it not be in any way reasonable for such a being to be perfectly capable of bending our natural law to their will?  Surely, even if one strips back the God concept back to even something as simple as an alien being (which God would have to be anyway, considering the limits of human language), then even if we take away the immortality card from play and replace it with a ridiculously long life span, then we still have a basis to believe that such a being would have the imagination as well as the ability to amass the knowledge necessary to create and/alter life do we not?  Such a being would also have to be capable of reshaping worlds to their will.  Think about it, the idea is basically only ridiculous to our limited intellectual capability and imagination, but, even the most die-hard sceptics would have to acknowledge that we are not the pinnacle of the evolutionary scale, if indeed we evolved at all.  So then anything an alien being can do that we cannot (physical or otherwise) can therefore only be deemed miraculous, if nothing else, simply because it is beyond our capacity.  Therefore, if something or someone is capable of actions that no one in the human race is capable of, then, would it not be reasonable to label them a god?

Science fiction aside, what we have right there is an argument for the existence of both God and miracles in one hit.  It is definitely open to interpretation and I am loathe to think about what Hume would have to say about of my remarks, as I have difficulty both understanding and in believing what I am saying myself.  After all, I am also something of a sceptic.  But that does not change the fact that there is certainly a limit to our knowledge which is largely based on our impression of the physical realm (what we can touch, smell, see and hear) so going beyond those limits walks a fine line between the ridiculous and the truly miraculous.  The arguments presented here are definitely not valid though, as there are counter-examples to the premises.  One such is we are alone in the universe and that Darwin’s ‘natural selection’ theory is correct.  Another is the Bible’s take on a singular, all-powerful, all-knowing and eternal God with no origin whatsoever.  He who created the universe out of nothing (Genesis 1), pretty much for the sake of it, perhaps as some form of celestial hobby?

That makes my reasoning inductive as while there are definitely other possibilities to the scenario I presented earlier, there is still some measure of likelihood that I am correct in my hypothesis.  Law (2003 p154) states that we rely on inductive reasoning in arriving at beliefs about what we have not observed.  He also states on p155 that science depends on it as all scientific theorems are based on evidence which is in turn based on our current understanding of the world around us.  Einstein’s theory of special relativity is one such example.  It held water for nearly a century before CERN discovered that Neutrino’s (subatomic particles commonly derived from nuclear decay) do indeed move faster than light.  The point there is that while I am likely to be wrong, I am also likely to be right at the same time, but, thankfully, I don’t have to be either and am not sure if I would want to be.

Reference list pending.