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.