Thursday 6 December 2018

Some Models of Miracles

Miracles have a long history in theology, of course, but also in philosophy. Over the centuries there have been various reasons offered for discounting reports of miracles. Some say miracles cannot occur because they "violate physical laws". Many people claim that most supposed "miracles" are merely reports second or third hand, based on incomplete knowledge, ignorance, gullibility, deception, or just hearsay and fanciful imagining. Yet others claim that future scientific discoveries will somehow explain miracles naturalistically. Each of these may be partially true, but they are not the whole story.

David Hume's philosophical argument against miracles boils down to, "If they exist at all, miracles are rare. Therefore, if you hear about a miracle, your reaction should be to discount it because it is unlikely". This looks like a circular argument to me, or just begging the question. Today the argument is often presented as, "extraordinary propositions require extraordinary evidence", which is fair enough, but then, no amount of evidence would convince most people who adopt this position. Perhaps the only way they would accept a miracle would be if it happened to them personally. As an aside, the Roman Catholic church takes the above advice when it investigates supposed miracles, before judging them real or true. They demand solid evidence from multiple witnesses and then thoroughly investigate. Meanwhile, Hume's argument is just a lengthy restating of the following definition of a miracle: "an unusual occurrence that seems inexplainable by natural means, and which usually has some faith-based association".

There are various ways for addressing doubters' arguments. The most obvious one is the logical impossibility of proving a universal negative; that every supposed miracle can be disproven. If even one or two out of thousands of reports were true - had no credible naturalistic explanation after full examination - then at least some miracles must be real! Clearly it is not possible to thoroughly disprove every reported "miracle". However, this argument isn't very satisfying or fair as it puts the onus on the disprover, rather than the person reporting the miracle or extraordinary event. Clearly something unexplainable needs to be presented very clearly and thoroughly if people are going to accept it as miraculous. However, these arguments at least show that miracles are not logically impossible, even if they seem physically impossible, or just highly unlikely and inexplicable.

There are many miracles recorded in the Bible: parting of the Red Sea, turning water to wine, healing the blind and lame, and of course, the resurrection of Jesus. To merely dismiss these as fictional stories, without delving into the text, their sources, and the historical context, is simply intellectual laziness, or evidence of a closed mind. The people writing the reports clearly understood that such things are naturally impossible. Many of them were eye witnesses to the events and attested with their lives that some of these miracles were actual, true events. We cannot dismiss first century fishermen as being ignorant rubes, falling for any weird fantasy story. They deserve better than that. Various attempts to "explain" away the Biblical reports of miracles have come up against logical inconsistencies or robust counter arguments. Any book or web site on Christian apologetics will address the reality of miracles and the veracity of those recorded in the Bible.

My purpose here, however, is not to "prove" that miracles are real, notwithstanding their rarity. Rather, I would like to offer a couple of models or analogies that, I think, help explain how miracles can be real, and possibly defuse some of the naturalistic rhetoric against them. (I have recently discovered that my first scenario is very similar to one in C.S. Lewis' writings, although I was unfamiliar with it when I first penned this version.)

Consider the following situation. You and I are playing billiards. It is your shot and you have a red ball lying right in front of a corner pocket, ready to be easily sunk by the cue ball, which is just two feet away. I am standing beside that corner of the table. You take your aim and strike the cue ball toward the red ball. I quickly reach down, lift the red ball three inches off the table, allowing the cue ball to roll into the pocket, and then quickly put the red ball back in place. From the perspective or context of the game of billiards, a "miracle" has occurred; the cue ball seemed to go through the red ball's location without hitting it. Alternatively, the cue ball somehow "missed" the red ball and scratched, even though there was not enough room for it to go past and enter the pocket. How could this be?

"That's not a miracle", you say, "you cheated!" Yes, I cheated, but note that I said it was a miracle "from the perspective or context of the game". The rules of the game of billiards do not allow one to manually move a ball in that situation. But the rules of the game are man made, of course, so humans can change, waive, suspend, interrupt, or even violate them at will. It is not a fair game, of course, but no one claims that miracles are fair.

We can now see how this is a model for actual miracles. The laws of physics are apparently rules for how things behave in our universe. If God exists as the Creator of the Universe, then he made those laws. (There is good evidence of this; for instance, see the fine-tuning arguments for creation.) Then, as the creator of those same laws - the law-giver - he transcends them and can surely step in to violate them at will. Just as I am able to violate (or transcend) the "laws" of billiards, then God, who, unlike us, is not part of the Universe and therefore not subject to its laws, can waive, suspend, or violate those laws for his own purposes. His reasons usually include some sort of faith-based lesson for the people involved: to get their attention, strengthen their belief, or remind them of his presence in their lives, for example.

Another, different model or analogy for miracles is the following. A scientist running a lengthy computer simulation interrupts it to change one or more parameters, and then restarts it from the point it was stopped. From within the simulation, that event could seem to be a miracle; a sudden change that is inexplicable within the context of the simulation's reality. Analogously, within the context of our own natural reality, miracles are inexplicable naturally, whereas knowing that God is outside of nature (hence supernatural), we can surmise that a miracle may have occurred when there is no natural explanation for a strange event, especially one coming with a faith lesson.

Note that what we call the physical laws of our world merely reflect the normal lack of miracles; i.e. miracles, being rare, allow the laws of physics, chemistry and biology to exist, and to govern our natural reality. Indeed, it was the Judeo-Christian belief in a benevolent God in charge of an orderly creation that allowed scientific inquiry to proceed and find such physical laws, based on the assumption that the Universe is organized and understandable, rather than capricious and arbitrary.

I hope these two models will help readers understand that miracles, coming as supernatural events, are not logically impossible, even though they often appear that way to us. The next time you hear about a supposed miracle, by all means look for natural or human explanations, but keep an open mind; maybe that event really was miraculous, and maybe God has a message for you!

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