Last week I
gave a lecture at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA, on the theme “What
We Owe the New Atheists.” You can read
the text and/or listen to the audio of the lecture at
TAC’s website. The faculty,
students, and guests who attended were a wonderful bunch of folks and I thank
them for their very kind hospitality.
msgrx:
ReplyDeleteYou keep repeating this like it’s some sort of self-evident axiom, when really it’s not. So you can come up with a naturalistic just-so story or invent a psychological phenomenon which has conveniently only ever occurred this one time, well done you. As far as I see it, though, these explanations point to an active imagination rather than to a serious argument.
Say that there is an event E, and we are trying to account for the cause(s) of E.
In our search for an explanation of E, I come across the following natural causes: X, Y and Z. Suppose that there is a significant amount of empirical evidence for X, Y and Z in isolation, such that if I postulated X alone (or Y alone, etc.) to explain E, then you would accept such an explanation as a valid possibility. The issue is when I postulate an explanation that is based upon the combination of X & Y & Z. Now, you are absolutely correct that the laws of combinatorial probability mean that X & Y & Z is significantly less likely than X or Y or Z, perhaps to the point that X & Y & Z could only occur once in human history.
Now, say that you have come up with the following supernatural cause of E: S. S, like X & Y & Z is also unique. But S differs from X & Y & Z in that it cannot possibly be explained by natural causes, and necessarily requires a supernatural cause to account for its existence. The question is how would one calculate the probability of S? It is an unprecedented intrusion into material reality of a supernatural power that (a) operates completely independently of the laws of nature, and thus nothing about the material world can be used to calculate the probability of S, and (b) operates according to supernatural laws that we have extremely limited knowledge of (if we have any knowledge of them, at all), and thus cannot be used to calculate the probability of S.
Without any way to calculate the probability of S, how can you possibly say that S is more likely than X & Y & Z? I think that we can agree that X & Y & Z has a certain probability associated with it, and we can even agree that it is a very low probability. But we simply have no probability associated with S, and thus you are essentially comparing a low but known probability with an unknown probability. To me, I think that an explanation that is highly improbable is to be preferred to an explanation that has no probability whatsoever.
You dismiss the Gospels’ actual accounts of what the people in question saw, and instead accept some unsupported idea of your own imagining (“Hey, maybe this one disciple had a hallucination, and somehow managed to convince the others instead of being dismissed as a lunatic!”) based, it seems, on nothing more than your antipathy to miracles.
First, no need for ad hominems. I could just as easily say that you are so quick to dismiss possible natural explanations for the events in question due to your deep need to believe in that particular miracle, but I won’t, because it is irrelevant.
Second, the issue is that neither of us is in a position to arrive at definitive knowledge of what actually happened to the disciples in the month after Jesus’ death. We simply have insufficient evidence to make that determination. There are a number of possible explanations, some of which are natural, and others are supernatural. Unless the natural explanations can be ruled out, there is simply no basis to prefer the supernatural explanations, which by definition can only be postulated once all natural explanations are excluded, because a miracle is an event that cannot possibly be accounted for on the basis of natural causes.
Well, the Apostles themselves managed to travel quite a bit, and they were by no means wealthy. Long-distance travel during this period wasn’t as easy as it is now, but it was by no means impossible.
ReplyDeleteGreat. So, which Corinthians actually travelled to Palestine to find independent witnesses to confirm Paul’s claims? What did they find? If there are no such independent witnesses, then all we have is Paul’s boast of objectivity, but with nothing to support his claim other than the claim itself.
Also, how exactly do you think these people would have become devout Christians in the first place? They knew as well as you do that people don’t rise from the dead and that accounts of things are often wrong. There would have to be some evidence to make them convert.
I agree that people in the ancient world viewed the bodily resurrection of the dead as an unlikely, albeit not impossible, event. Even at Acts 23:8, it says that “[t]he Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things”.
But you should also remember that superstition was rampant in the ancient world, and belief in miracles was quite common. The majority of people lacked the tools to engage in a skeptical analysis of religious claims, and had limited understanding of the degree to which cognitive biases and distortions could impact their thinking.
Furthermore, they probably believed in their religions for the same reason that people believe in religions today, i.e. feeling compelled by a narrative that strikes a deep chord within themselves that makes them feel connected to a higher power and broader community. Any reasoning involved would be largely irrelevant, because most people aren’t argued into faith on the basis of the strongest arguments, although reasoning does play some role, but just not a primary one.
It was five hundred disciples at once, not just a couple each day. And I don’t think that somebody testifying to “Some guy in the distance, looked a bit like Jesus, you know” would be used as a witness.
First, you are correct that he appeared to the large group of people “at once”. I missed that part. Thanks for the correction.
Second, there are simply no details about (a) what each individual saw, (b) whether what each individual saw was consistent with what other individuals saw, and (c) whether what Paul was told about what those individuals saw was consistent with what the individuals themselves had described as seeing at the time. So, once again, there are too many unknowns to determine whether Paul’s claim is accurate or not. All we have is a vague claim made by Paul to support the objectivity of his claim, and yet that is itself unsubstantiated.
No, I assume that if you want someone to be alive so much that your subconscious makes you think that they’re present, you’d, y’know, think that they’re present. As opposed to mistaking them for a gardener or just some random guy on the road.
And yet it is possible to misunderstand what one is hallucinating, just as it is possible to misunderstand what one is actually seeing. I have had patients who revised their interpretation of their hallucination in response to new information. Believe me, it is not a wildly implausible claim.
Glenn:
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a good idea -- especially in light of the fact that sleep deprivation is a known precursor to stimulus-free hallucinations.
Agreed! ;)
Woah. I've certainly been gone for too long.. Sorry, I don't have much time on my hands now.
ReplyDelete@dguller
About the book by Rabbi Lapide: please do note that when discussing this point we've talked about 1st century Second Temple Judaism, which isn't the same as contemporary Orthodox Judaism. It's within the context of the former that the Resurrection is said to be novel.
One can argue for much dates for the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, along with the point about the authorship traditionally ascribed (St. Mark the aide of St. Peter, St. Matthew the Apostle, St. Luke the aide of St. Paul, St. John) and the existence of the orthodox (the concept of heresy and, consequently, means of verifying true doctrine present very early) Church as a authoritative hierarchical episcopal body along the lines of apostolic succession.
Would arguing these points (some of them?..) successfully make you modify your position, given that it rests, it would seem, at least partially, on the premise that the Gospels were written decades after the events by people other than eye-witnesses or people with access to eye-witnesses without any means of checking and insuring safe transition of reports?..
I'd like to see how the Christians here explain away the miracles of Sathya Sai Baba, without special pleading.
ReplyDeleteAnd these are contemporary accounts, not ones shrouded in the mists of thousands of years ago. One often has the name of the actual "eye-witnesses" attached to the claims. (I remember a list I saw a few years ago which was a long one of those who'd experienced the miracles, and addresses and phone numbers you could actually call to speak with them!)
Sai Baba had purportedly millions of followers, with 500,000 showing up for his funeral…handily beating Christ's first outing in that regard. His followers held him to be a manifestation of God, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, with miracle displays in support of all those characteristics.
Sathya Sai Baba's mother claimed a miraculous conception, heralded by miracles. Now who would lie about a thing like that, right?
More miracles are attributed by his followers to Sai Baba than to Jesus. Among his many miracles were: controlling the weather, controlling rivers, raising multiple people from the dead, turning water into petrol for actual use in a car, manifesting many objects out of thin air or from his mouth, assuming different forms, doing amazing healings, appearing as an apparition to multiple people, and bi-location - being in one place yet also manifesting physically in another far away place to others, at the same time. If you go looking into the miracles attributed to him, it's like they never end.
Among the multiple claims of Sai Babba resurrecting the dead, from the middle of family funerals, at death beds, to someone declared dead in a hospital it was also claimed " "The Raja of Ventagiri told me how some twenty or so years ago, he had witnessed Baba's resurrection of a man dead some six days in whom body decomposition was taking its normal course.",
Here is an account, with multiple attestations from eye-witnesses, of Sai Baba purportedly manifesting physically in two places at once, separated by 600 miles. He appeared in locked houses, was said to appear and disappear after talking with devotees, manifested objects, he made his hair uncuttable, etc.
http://www.srisathyasai.org.in/pages/devotees_experiences/Manifesting_Baba_Appeared.htm
I doubt anyone here can "explain" those appearances without appeal to some of the very type of explanations the skeptic brings to the Jesus
story. And after you've explained THAT story way, they will keep coming and coming.
How soon into your attempts to give naturalistic explanations for miracle after miracle, will the Sai Baba devotee start complaining you are piling naturalistic improbability one on top of another? "You mean the weather just 'happened' to change when Sai Baba commanded? Multiple times? You mean those people just 'happened' to look completely dead and snap out of it when Sai Baba was there? You mean all those people just happened to hallucinate the same appearance of Sai Baba? etc."
How long before he complains of your obvious naturalistic bias in explaining Sai Baba's miracles, rather than being open to the fact they were genuine?
Now, of course if you simply go with the miraculous explanation for all those Sai Baba stories, then they explain themselves. All the details are accounted for in the stories - a perfect fit! But you understand this is not compelling at all
when it's not the miracle claims of your own Godman under scrutiny.
But, again, if anyone Christian here wants to show he can present alternate, non-supernatural explanations for Baba's miracles without special pleading for the Christian miracles - here's a list there to begin with. :-)
http://www.saibaba.ws/miracles.htm
Vaal
And when you are done with Sathya Sai Baba, you can move on to Sai Baba of Shirdi, a deceased Godman of similar reputation. He too wielded all manner of miracles, not to mention the claims of his post-mortem appearances:
ReplyDelete"Testimonials come pouring in from all quarters of the tangible reappearance of Sai Baba. In many cases the Master gives darshan (appearances) in actual flesh and blood, not only to those who had been his close disciples during his life time, but also to many others who had not even seen him or heard of him."
But people don't really hallucinate or delude themselves about such things. And there hasn't been nearly the time enough for false, legendary beliefs in the divinity of these men to arise. Must be true Godmen.
Vaal
And, BTW, I've seen some Christians actually give this response:
ReplyDeleteWell, since I believe miracles are possible, I'm not outright discounting
those miracle claims, unlike you mr skeptical atheist!
Right, except you can read about all Sai Baba's very un-God-like problems (e.g accusations of money laundering, sexual abuse, fraud etc.
And you can see his "miracles" captured in many videos on youtube.
They are as impressive as the yogic flying videos. Not to mention you can see videos debunking the sleight of hand tricks that were supposed to be miracles. Slo-mo videos catch him doing standard conjuring 'palming' of objects etc.
No one here could come away saying "Yeah, maybe he was legit" with a straight face. And I presume no one will go that route anyway.
And yet, the most unimpressive shiester when you get a look at him, had all those people claiming all those miracles....
Vaal
I'm confused. Are you under some misapprehension that you have proven that those who accept miracles and the supernatural must accept all such claims? Because you haven't.
ReplyDeleteYou might as well argue that because we accept naturalistic historical claims we must accept all such claims.
You have been given responses on these issues (how one may investigate them) and have not properly responded.
Also, I looked up both those figures and Sai Baba of Shirdi doesn't seem, according to wikipedia, to have the same reputation.
I know little about this infamous figure you mention. What I do know is three things: that, one, there are lots of incidences of dubious paranormal claims; that, two, there are lots of incidences of paranormal claims that cannot easily be dismissed (even if we cannot be completely certain of them); and that, three, there are lots of professional sceptics who are really only sceptical of what seems to violate scientistic naturalism and will do absolutely anything to dismiss or debunk what they think does.
Personally, I think Charles Fort or the irreplaceable John Michell were more sceptical than most professional sceptics today.
I remember once seeing a show on t.v about a three or four year old Scottish boy who seemed to have the memories of World War Two U.S pilot. They talked to a psychologist at one point who said what amounted to, "we know his memories can't actually be someone else's because science has disproven the reality of an afterlife or consciousness surviving death".
ReplyDeleteThis is the sort of quality of scepticism of many who vaunt themselves upon their criticial and sceptical thinking today.
Jeremy,
ReplyDeleteCan you seriously be confused about the relevance of claims associated with Sai Baba to a case for skepticism regarding the claims of Jesus' followers?
Like Jesus his followers believe he was a manifestation of God on earth. He wielded miracles, and after he ascended from his body they continue to pray to him. (And continue to report manifestations and miracles from him).
The challenge is, again: given you no doubt do not believe Sai Baba was wielding divine miracles, then how would you explain the purported miracles WITHOUT being vulnerable to the very criticism you and others raise against my (and dguller's) skepticism about Jesus' miracles?
Vaal
(You've mentioned before that you think some supernatural stories may have merit, where others do not. Yet I don't see where you've shown the consistent method by with you reject some supernatural claims and think others are believable. Once you admit some can be false, then what method do you use to make sure the supernatural claim you believe has merit, isn't false?)
Vaal, were any of these alleged miracles offered by the man as proof of his supernatural authority? If so, where did he make these claims and what are the miracles with which intended to support them?
ReplyDeleteAs a Catholic, I do not think Church teaching has any problem (ceteris paribus) with preternatural phenomena occurring outside the true religion. Just putting that out there.
dguller:
ReplyDelete“Without any way to calculate the probability of S, how can you possibly say that S is more likely than X & Y & Z? I think that we can agree that X & Y & Z has a certain probability associated with it, and we can even agree that it is a very low probability. But we simply have no probability associated with S, and thus you are essentially comparing a low but known probability with an unknown probability. To me, I think that an explanation that is highly improbable is to be preferred to an explanation that has no probability whatsoever.”
OK, several thoughts on this.
First of all, you said upthread that we don’t have enough information to know how many failed Messiahs have caused mass hallucinations. So if this is the case, how can we actually know what the probability of XYZ is? Aren’t we actually comparing two unknown but low probabilities here?
Secondly, why does one of the probabilities being unknown lead us to reject it? Surely a more sensible conclusion would be to remain agnostic about the explanation?
Thirdly, whilst this sort of probability calculation might work for generalities, you seem to be neglecting the impact that evidence ought to have on our conclusions. If there are two explanations for an event, A and B, A might well the more common phenomenon, and so a priori might appear the most likely. But if the evidence in this particular case makes more sense assuming B than assuming A, surely it would be rational to conclude that this is, in fact, one of the rare cases where B happened rather than A? If the answer is “yes”, then why should we act differently if we don’t know the a priori probability of B? If the evidence suggests B, it suggests B. As long as B isn’t completely impossible, the fact that we don’t know how common or uncommon it does doesn’t change this fact.
Vaal, you seem to think that Christians will accept any pious fraud that will shore up their faith. That may be true of some Christians, but if I'm not mistaken only a very small percentage of the miracles investigated by the Vatican are approved. In other words, even most "miracles" that occur in a Catholic context are deemed by the Church to be at least dubious. What "method" does the Church use to evaluate them? I don't know. Are reason and logic a "method?"
ReplyDeleteTherefore I don't see any inconsistency in Catholics being skeptical of miracle claims made in the context of other religions. Indeed we should be skeptical of all miracle claims. But of course our metaphysical beliefs will play a major role in determining what we find plausible. If one believes that miracles are virtually impossible, then of course one will prefer almost any naturalistic explanation, no matter how improbable, over a supernatural one. But if one believes that miracles are not impossible, or perhaps not even improbable in certain circumstances, one doesn't require such "extraordinary" evidence to believe in a supernatural explanation. It merely needs to be more probable than any of the alternatives.
Msgrx:
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, you said upthread that we don’t have enough information to know how many failed Messiahs have caused mass hallucinations. So if this is the case, how can we actually know what the probability of XYZ is? Aren’t we actually comparing two unknown but low probabilities here?
The probability of XYZ is based upon the probabilities of X, Y and Z in conjunction, and so if we can determine the probabilities of X, Y and Z individually, then we can calculate XYZ. For example, if the odds of a single person accurately transmitting an oral claim is 0.95, then the odds of three people accurately transmitting an oral claim is 0.95 x 0.95 x 0.95 = 0.85. Now, we can determine the probability of the occurrence of (a) bereavement hallucinations, and (b) cognitive distortions to minimize cognitive dissonance, including source amnesia, by simply studying the phenomena in question and determining how often they occur. Assuming that human beings in the ancient world had a similar psychology as modern humans, then we can use the probability estimates that we discover to calculate XYZ.
There is no comparable method to determine the probability of S. And even if there were such a method, how could it possibly be reliable? The probability estimates for XYZ are based upon assumptions about the continuity and regularity of the natural world. Any probability estimate for S would have to presume certain supernatural regularities that (a) we simply cannot presume, and that (b) go against the very nature of miracles, which are one-off events caused by the free volition of a deity. And such events cannot have probability estimates associated with them, even if we know that there must be some probability associated with it, at least a non-zero probability, if classical theism is true.
So, we are still stuck in the situation where a probability estimate can be given for XYZ, and none can be given for S.
Secondly, why does one of the probabilities being unknown lead us to reject it? Surely a more sensible conclusion would be to remain agnostic about the explanation?
I’m okay with that, actually. I believe that there is insufficient evidence to determine what actually happened to the disciples after Jesus’ death, and that the evidence that we do have is consistent with a number of different hypotheses, some supernatural and some natural. My problem is with people who say that the natural hypotheses are much less likely than the supernatural hypothesis. As I’ve shown, you cannot compare a known to an unknown probability, and thus you cannot say that the supernatural hypothesis is more likely than the natural hypothesis.
I would go even further, though, and say that if hypothesis H1 has a probability associated with it and hypothesis H2 has no probability associated with it, then we should prefer H1 to H2. That is because H1 has a probability estimate, because it fits with our collective experience, and thus is consistent with our conceptual framework. The reason why H2 has no probability estimate is because it is so fundamentally incommensurate with our conceptual framework. Under those circumstances, it makes more sense to believe H1 is true than H2.
Thirdly, whilst this sort of probability calculation might work for generalities, you seem to be neglecting the impact that evidence ought to have on our conclusions. If there are two explanations for an event, A and B, A might well the more common phenomenon, and so a priori might appear the most likely. But if the evidence in this particular case makes more sense assuming B than assuming A, surely it would be rational to conclude that this is, in fact, one of the rare cases where B happened rather than A? If the answer is “yes”, then why should we act differently if we don’t know the a priori probability of B? If the evidence suggests B, it suggests B. As long as B isn’t completely impossible, the fact that we don’t know how common or uncommon it does doesn’t change this fact.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, except that for B to “make more sense”, B would have to be more probable than A, given the totality of evidence for E. The only evidence that we have is that some people recorded in different texts that some of Jesus’ followers claimed that he appeared to them after his death, and these texts were recorded decades after the events in question . Given that evidence, we have to attempt to infer a causal explanation that begins with an event, which is then transmitted through a chain of individuals to the written text.
My explanation assumes that every link in the chain of transmission is a natural cause, and that a sequence of natural events can be postulated that lead from a natural event to the recording of the text. Each link in the chain is perfectly plausible, and based upon well-known facts about human psychology. It is only the totality of the causal chain that appears to be highly improbable. However, since it is still possible to have occurred, it would have to be ruled out before a supernatural explanation would be preferred. And since we simply lack the evidence to rule out my natural explanation(s), then it follows that we simply cannot prefer the supernatural explanation, which would require that the only way for the story to appear in the texts as written would be with a supernatural source.
That’s what it all comes down to.
We have been through this many, many, many times. Men can lie or be mistaken about all sorts of things, natural and supernatural. You (and dguller) have, as far as I can see, though, utterly failed to give a non-question begging, compelling reason why this fact should mean we a priori rule out just about all miracles.
ReplyDeleteJeremy,
ReplyDeleteYou (and dguller) have, as far as I can see, though, utterly failed to give a non-question begging, compelling reason why this fact should mean we a priori rule out just about all miracles.
While neither has provided a non-question begging, compelling reason why miracles a priori ought to be ruled out, each has provided a plausible explanation as to why some people do just that -- they do so in order to minimize 'cognitive dissonance'.
Interestingly, not to mention ironically, the most vocal of the two re cognitive dissonance -- dguller -- has provided the clearest example of it. For despite it having been pointed out that included amongst miracles are those things which can be done by nature but are done by God without the usual and ordinary operations of nature, dguller continues to insist that only that is a miracle which is done by God and cannot be done by nature.
dguller:
ReplyDelete“I would go even further, though, and say that if hypothesis H1 has a probability associated with it and hypothesis H2 has no probability associated with it, then we should prefer H1 to H2. That is because H1 has a probability estimate, because it fits with our collective experience, and thus is consistent with our conceptual framework. The reason why H2 has no probability estimate is because it is so fundamentally incommensurate with our conceptual framework. Under those circumstances, it makes more sense to believe H1 is true than H2.”
So does this apply if H2 is a natural event, or only with regards the supernatural? If, say, what seemed like convincing proof for advanced alien life were presented – if a flying saucer crash-landed in full view of several hundred people, if the spaceship included technology way beyond what we could possibly devise ourselves, if the world’s top scientists examine the alien and conclude that it isn’t related to any life-form on Earth, if the alien appears live on national television, if you yourself met and interacted with the alien – would you say “Huh, it looks like there are advanced aliens after all,” or would you say “But we’ve no idea what the probability of life evolving on other planets is! But we do know what the probability of a massive conspiracy is. Therefore we have to conclude that this is all a gigantic conspiracy or hoax or extremely coincidental mass hallucination.”
“The only evidence that we have is that some people recorded in different texts that some of Jesus’ followers claimed that he appeared to them after his death, and these texts were recorded decades after the events in question . Given that evidence, we have to attempt to infer a causal explanation that begins with an event, which is then transmitted through a chain of individuals to the written text.”
Again, the NT was written far closer to the events than the vast, vast majority of ancient or mediaeval historical literature. The only reason they don’t get credit for this is that people might then be forced to take the possibility of the Resurrection seriously.
(Well, that and the fact that there’s a large historical sub-discipline devoted to studying the NT, and the further you can place it from the events, the more leeway you have to posit missing sources and forgeries and conspiracies and distortions and other such things, and the more prominence you can get writing books and articles presenting your new and exciting theories.)
“My explanation assumes that every link in the chain of transmission is a natural cause, and that a sequence of natural events can be postulated that lead from a natural event to the recording of the text. Each link in the chain is perfectly plausible, and based upon well-known facts about human psychology. It is only the totality of the causal chain that appears to be highly improbable. However, since it is still possible to have occurred, it would have to be ruled out before a supernatural explanation would be preferred. And since we simply lack the evidence to rule out my natural explanation(s), then it follows that we simply cannot prefer the supernatural explanation, which would require that the only way for the story to appear in the texts as written would be with a supernatural source.”
And, since you can, if worst comes to worst, always fall back on a mass hallucination or similar psychological phenomenon never recorded before or since, you can never totally rule out a naturalistic explanation. In which case you’ve come up with a perfect way to both look open-minded and to dismiss out of hand the possibility that you might be wrong.
Glenn:
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, not to mention ironically, the most vocal of the two re cognitive dissonance -- dguller -- has provided the clearest example of it. For despite it having been pointed out that included amongst miracles are those things which can be done by nature but are done by God without the usual and ordinary operations of nature, dguller continues to insist that only that is a miracle which is done by God and cannot be done by nature.
I’m saying that the clearest example of a miracle is an event that can’t possibly be explained by natural causes, i.e. the activities of the entity in question go beyond their natural powers, and require a supernatural extension of their powers outside their normal range of applicability. If you were to point to the behavior of an entity, and that behavior is completely within its natural powers, and then claim that its behavior is a sign of supernatural intervention, there is simply no reason to believe you. For example, if I point to the operation of my computer as a sign of a supernatural intervention, even though its operation is completely normal and natural, then I don’t think anyone would believe me that something miraculous is going on, even if God himself transformed the substance of my computer while retaining its accidents, as he allegedly does during the Eucharist. So, it makes more sense to me to focus upon the strongest case for miracles, i.e. those events that necessarily go beyond the natural powers of ordinary entities.
BenYachov,
ReplyDelete"God is incomprehensible otherwise he is a useless tit & I want nothing to do with him."
The switch between God being comprehensible (Prof. Feser sure seems to know a LOT about God, reading his blog), and God being incomprehensible, seems to happen at rather…convenient…times.
"God is not a moral agent. Thank God!"
Then it seems you have the problem I keep raising. Aquinas himself, from what I understand, determined reason (natural revelation) can only take us so far and that supernatural REVELATION was required to get us further knowledge of God (divine science). But if God is not a moral agent, or moral in the way we are, it appears God is not obligated by moral considerations to tell mankind truths. So you have no grounds for presuming Jesus was any truthful revelation (and no grounds, as already established, to derive from classical theism, that Jesus was ANY revelation from God).
Hence, you are still in the dark about what God might do to us, or what in store He may have pre-ordained for our natures from eternity. Or…that you have ANY new information about God from revelation at all.
"God is immutable and he has already established our nature from all eternity. He cannot change our nature because he cannot change his nature."
But that is not an answer to the problem I posed. Even if you posit God as pure actuality, immutable, clearly his creation is mutable. You may think you've gathered nature of your family dog, friendly, harmless, yet nothing stops that dog from becoming a vicious danger tomorrow upon contracting rabies.
And even if evil is privation, obviously people still can go from doing good to doing evil things for all manner of reasons. (Not to mention obviously entities change quite a bit over time - see evolution). So talking of God's immutability is no answer. How do you know it's not established from eternity that we will not change to creatures who are "immoral" by the lights of current morality? Vicious creatures who do not care for the well-being of others, or who find fulfillment in the torment of some class of other people? That these new natural ends will only be fulfilled - as ordained from eternity - by behavior we currently class as "immoral?"
(Now, in Aquinas' Summa Theologica he tries to avert this problem by doing things like arguing that we must attribute "love" to God. But he does this in a circular, uninformative way, since "love" in God's case is an intellective appetite for the good. But since the whole problem is we can not know this "incomprehensible" God's version of "good." Aquinas' attempt to dismiss the idea that God's love might
allow negative aspects like "anger." He does this by equating anger with negative appetites for things one is lacking, and since God doesn't lack, God's love wouldn't comprise anger. But so what? If God loves our suffering, so long as he has ordained us to suffer and we do, then God would not be suffering a privation. What he loves would exist, our suffering. And the further claim that love is to wish good for another sneaks in the human version of love, while in fact God's version of "good" and "love" has not been established as analogous. The whole edifice Aquinas is building seems built on epistemological quick-sand. No wonder he has to end up appealing to supernatural revelation later on).
Vaal
Brian,
ReplyDelete"Vaal, were any of these alleged miracles offered by the man as proof of his supernatural authority? If so, where did he make these claims and what are the miracles with which intended to support them?"
I'm not sure of the meaning in your question.
He apparently claimed to be a manifestation of God,
and his miracles a "calling card" representing his Omnipotence:
http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/1/Sathya_Sai_Baba_Pronouncements_on_Himself_His_Mission.htm
"As a Catholic, I do not think Church teaching has any problem (ceteris paribus) with preternatural phenomena occurring outside the true religion. Just putting that out there."
And how would Sai Baba, a man who preached love and peace, but who also
was accused of sexual abuse and who had a habit of passing off cheap conjuring tricks as miracles, fit into this exactly?
Vaal
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThanks…whoever you are :-)
But the points you make have already been the subject of debate in this thread.
"But if one believes that miracles are not impossible, or perhaps not even improbable in certain circumstances, one doesn't require such "extraordinary" evidence to believe in a supernatural explanation. It merely needs to be more probable than any of the alternatives."
And the method for raising those probabilities has been the subject of the debate here…with no such method forthcoming from the Christians as far as I can see.
Vaal
Jeremy,
ReplyDeleteMen can lie or be mistaken about all sorts of things, natural and supernatural.
You keep saying I don't deal with specifics, but I'm the one trying to get specific - let's look at THESE miracle claims to elucidate the method of vetting them. But now you are jumping away to vagaries saying "Yeah, we know people can be mistaken…so what?'
But the fact people can lie or be mistaken, including about the supernatural, is one reason WHY you can't be justified declaring something a miracle or divine intervention without showing how you've accounted for those alternate explanations (rare but possible physical explanations, lies, mistakes, exaggeration, etc). That's the whole issue, so why become vague when there's an opportunity to be specific?
"You (and dguller) have, as far as I can see, though, utterly failed to give a non-question begging, compelling reason why this fact should mean we a priori rule out just about all miracles."
Which is a straw man, since nowhere have I claimed we ought to rule out miracle a priori, and have in fact continually argued the opposite. I've simply argued that because alternate explanations often exist for a claimed miracle, it makes sense we have some criteria which can rule out those alternate explanations, AND/OR raise the probability of the supernatural cause for the thing being explained. This is hardly "question-begging" to argue this, as it follows from your own admission that alternate explanations (see your quote) might exist.
This is what you and the other Christians here have not done.
And since the alternate "natural" explanations haven't been successfully ruled out by you folks, and you haven't shown how you raise the possibilities of supernatural explanation EXCEPT by waving away natural explanations as improbable, you've provided no justification for preferring the supernatural explanation.
I'm being consistent here, and certainly the question-begging is not on this foot.
But I figured there would be no answer to the Sai Baba challenge. You keep accusing me of not addressing specifics, yet here is exactly your opportunity to address specifics: how you consistently would reject miracle claims and how in Sai Baba's case, while accepting the miracle claims of Jesus. I think it's pretty obvious how fast the special pleading will show itself when the Christian tries to dismiss the Sai Baba claims but keep his own religion's miracles. Pretty much every Christian to whom I've ever raised the Sai Baba challenge has quickly shied away from it.
Vaal
"But I figured there would be no answer to the Sai Baba challenge. You keep accusing me of not addressing specifics, yet here is exactly your opportunity to address specifics: how you consistently would reject miracle claims and how in Sai Baba's case, while accepting the miracle claims of Jesus. I think it's pretty obvious how fast the special pleading will show itself when the Christian tries to dismiss the Sai Baba claims but keep his own religion's miracles. Pretty much every Christian to whom I've ever raised the Sai Baba challenge has quickly shied away from it."
ReplyDelete- Vaal, Apr 24, 12:49
What is special pleading, and where do any of the replies below engage in it:
"Well, I would reject Sathya because he has profited immensely from his claims and also has sexually abused many people. Not quite actions becoming of a capital G God."
Prince Randoms, Apr 15, 6:05pm
"To take the example of the Indian guru, you can study the religious context of India (claims of godhood not surprising anyone due to belief in reincarnation, these types of figures being commonplace), the nature of these miracles (like conjuring up jewelry (not exactly the resurrection after being crucified, I believe), contradictory statements about fact, adherence to beliefs shown false or unwarranted by metaphysics or historical knowledge. Again, even if this analogy is not spurious, as it it prima facie is, an independent case has to be made."
Georgy Mancz, Apr 15, 8:52am
"Again, say, Sathya Sai Baba was manifestly not omniscient (made irreconcilably contradictory statements), made quite a career and gained huge wealth and was not crucified and raised from the dead. If we a to compare him to the founders of religion, a comparison with Muhammad or Joseph Smith would more apt. Again, one would actually have to compare him and his following to the Apostles. This is an extremely imprecise comparison. Here, as an example, one can note a practical application of Thomism by making an argument that reincarnational beliefs are metaphysically unjustifiable. Natural theology is very useful in vetting out supernatural claims. "
Georgy Mancz, apr 15, 5:05pm
@Vaal
ReplyDeleteMinor point: God certainly intends us to know the truth (he does move us towards it, that's human nature, final cause of the intellect), so lying to us would be to contradict Himself.
We've covered all of that before, besides, "deus deceptor" thing being self-defeating if brought in here.
An interesting question for us Catholic (and by extension all the people professing belief in Chist).
ReplyDeleteThe Bible and tradition actually say that apparent miracles would be worked by false prophets and eventually the Antichrist.
How would we diferentiate? I can think of three ways of doing that: 1)comparing the claims to what we know from metaphysics: natural theology, natural law; 2) recognising these events as prophesied before; 3) miracles shown to be false miracles.
Did I miss anything?..
Well, I suppose my response to your first two paragraphs would be that it all depends on how you are using the phrase accounted for.
ReplyDeleteWhen I said a priori, I did not mean metaphysically. I was a little unclear, sorry. But your position is that we should, for all practical purposes, make no allowances for the miraculous and paranormal. Or this is at least how I have understood your position.
I would suggest one reason that there have not been many responses to your challenge is that it rehashes issues that we have discussed many times, whilst conveniently ignoring our previous arguments against your positions. This makes it look something like a rhetorical ploy on your account.
Besides, I know little about Sai Baba, so am not that fit for comment.
Why not use the example of George Orwell in the churchyard at Walberswick, as we can all readily learn the pertinent details here and now.
On 16th August, 1931, Orwell sent this letter to his friend Dennis Collings. Here is that letter in full:
http://georgeorwellnovels.com/letters/letter-to-dennis-collings-16-august-1931/
And here is the important part (minus a diagram he drew to show how the figure could not have naturally evaded his chase):
Above is W’wick church as well as I can remember it. At about 5.20 pm on 27.7.31 I was sitting at the spot marked*, looking out in the direction of the dotted arrow. I happened to glance over my shoulder, & saw a figure pass along the line of the other arrow, disappearing behind the masonry & presumably emerging into the churchyard. I wasn’t looking directly at it & so couldn’t make out more than that it was a man’s figure, small & stooping, & dressed in lightish brown; I should have said a workman. I had the impression that it glanced towards me in passing, but I made out nothing of the features. At the moment of its passing I thought nothing, but a few seconds later it struck me that the figure had made no noise, & I followed it out into the churchyard. There was no one in the churchyard, & no one within possible distance along the road—this was about 20 seconds after I had seen it; & in any case there were only 2 people in the road, & neither at all resembled the figure. I looked into the church. The only people there were the vicar, dressed in black, & a workman who, as far as I remember, had been sawing the whole time. In any case he was too tall for the figure. The figure had therefore vanished. Presumably an hallucination.
Now, what we have here is a man apparently sane who saw what appears to have been a ghost and yet his psyche seems to have been in no other way disturbed. As far I know this was his only ghost sighting.
On the one hand, he was a convinced materialist and wrote off the sighting as a hallucination. On the other hand, the churchyard was reputed to have been haunted and Orwell was not without a somewhat paradoxical interest in the paranormal.
All in all, leaving aside metaphysics, I would say that, at the very least, we cannot come to a conclusion about this incident and certainly cannot easily dismiss it as a paranormal event. Indeed, I would go so far as to say, when we weigh up all the details Orwell himself and I bring up, it seems to me more likely than not to have been a genuine sighting. Intuitively this is how I would weigh the evidence - this is how my sense of fitness (see what I mentioned earlier to dguller) would conclude, if I withheld any overt metaphysical baggage from its proceses. Of course, such a conclusion must still be provisional, but I think the correct conclusion is still quite a way from your strident dismissals of any allowance for supernatural explanations. I would also suggest this conclusion, and the process behind it, is a more cautious and careful (and in a sense sceptical) reasoning process than the one you offer.
Now, what is wrong with my approach and conclusion here.
Did someone mention probabilities?
ReplyDelete"The probability of XYZ is based upon the probabilities of X, Y and Z in conjunction, and so if we can determine the probabilities of X, Y and Z individually, then we can calculate XYZ."
Paging the McGrews, clean up in comments 400-425:
http://www.lydiamcgrew.com/Resurrectionarticlesinglefile.pdf
Really people, all the arguments that have been made here are made better and responded to in this paper. dguller, go do some homework!
P.S.
ReplyDelete+ obviously, known truths about the world, history etc., as well as validated revelation.
Msgrx:
ReplyDeleteIf, say, what seemed like convincing proof for advanced alien life were presented – if a flying saucer crash-landed in full view of several hundred people, if the spaceship included technology way beyond what we could possibly devise ourselves, if the world’s top scientists examine the alien and conclude that it isn’t related to any life-form on Earth, if the alien appears live on national television, if you yourself met and interacted with the alien – would you say “Huh, it looks like there are advanced aliens after all,” or would you say “But we’ve no idea what the probability of life evolving on other planets is! But we do know what the probability of a massive conspiracy is. Therefore we have to conclude that this is all a gigantic conspiracy or hoax or extremely coincidental mass hallucination.”
First, that would be an unreasonable conclusion, given that scenario, especially if proper safeguards were taken to decrease the risk of bias and distortion. For example, if independent researchers studying the aliens and their spaceship come to identical conclusions, and if the witnesses involved are interviewed independently as soon as possible after the event, and their testimony found to be consistent within a margin of error, and so on, then the validity of the phenomenon would adequately be demonstrated.
Second, the possibility of alien life forms is something that we can put a probability estimate to. After all, we know the following:
(a) Sentient and intelligent material beings do exist in the universe, at least in our solar system, and thus their existence elsewhere in the universe, given the proper conditions, is not impossible
(b) As scientific knowledge increases, technological power increases, including the point of space travel, and thus a sufficiently sophisticated level of technology could allow long distance space travel, even though that is beyond our capability at this time
(c) Evolutionary processes have the power to develop a wide variety of life forms on this planet, and if the same processes are operative on other planets where there is life, then highly intelligent alien life forms would clearly be possible
(d) There are billions and billions of planets in the universe, which makes it possible for alien life to exist somewhere in the universe
So, given the above information, one could calculate a probability estimate on the basis of what we already know about intelligent life in the universe, and the universe itself. And this puts it in a different category than a supernatural intervention, which by definition, at least in the strongest case, occurs outside of the natural capacities of created entities altogether.
Again, the NT was written far closer to the events than the vast, vast majority of ancient or mediaeval historical literature. The only reason they don’t get credit for this is that people might then be forced to take the possibility of the Resurrection seriously.
That is irrelevant. The issue is that the written record was made decades after the events in question, which provides an extensive amount of time for well-attested psychological mechanisms to distort a natural event into a supernatural one. And like I said, if that means that we have to look upon all ancient texts with skepticism, then so be it. So, a guilty by association strategy doesn’t really work with me.
And, since you can, if worst comes to worst, always fall back on a mass hallucination or similar psychological phenomenon never recorded before or since, you can never totally rule out a naturalistic explanation. In which case you’ve come up with a perfect way to both look open-minded and to dismiss out of hand the possibility that you might be wrong.
ReplyDeleteFunny what happens when you apply the scientific method to history, eh? The conclusions of historians begin to look far less uncertain and unconvincing, which is certainly a problem for using ancient history to justify the existence of miracles, because without the ability to rule out natural causes, one simply cannot establish that a miracle actually occurred.
To add to my above comment. It seems to me your position, Vaal, would necessitate we assume Orwell, a man otherwise sane, did have a startingly singular and self-contained hallucination (which to me raises more of a chance of epistemic chaos than accepting the paranormal in a cautious and careful way) or some other very unlikely naturalistic explanation must be sought - perhaps that this man who did not know Orwell randomly decided to hide from him and totally alluded his finding him or, perhaps, some sort of optical allusion hid him from Orwell's sight.
ReplyDeleteI do not see how anyone who did not have prior committments to naturalism would think these explanations more likely than it was a genuine paranormal event. Indeed, I'd think they were slightly less likely from the situation itself.
This is no proof, of course, that there wasn't a naturalistic explanation. But it does show your approach that practically rules out a paranormal explanation for such phenomena is flawed and that one can combine the possibility of accepting paranormal explanations with a measured and rational knowledge.
dguller:
ReplyDelete"First, that would be an unreasonable conclusion,"
But, but, we don't know what the probability of aliens is! We mustn't choose an unknown probability over a known one, however small! It would be unreasonable to conclude that aliens exist!
"(a) Sentient and intelligent material beings do exist in the universe, at least in our solar system, and thus their existence elsewhere in the universe, given the proper conditions, is not impossible"
We don't know how life started on Earth, let along on other planets. We've got no way of telling with any degree of reliability what the chances of life arising on an Earth-like planet are, let alone radically different life-forms that might arise on different planets. So, whilst we know that the possibility of life arising is non-zero, beyond this we have no idea how likely it is. Hmmm... reminds me of something else we've been talking about...
Vaal
ReplyDelete>The switch between God being comprehensible (Prof. Feser sure seems to know a LOT about God, reading his blog), and God being incomprehensible, seems to happen at rather…convenient…times.
Your tendency to commit the fallacy of equivocation seems as natural to you as breathing. Others here have made a distinction between discursive knowledge knowing what God is as God vs knowing something about him. Did that go in one ear and out the other? Well obviously! This renders your critiques very tedious.
>Then it seems you have the problem I keep raising. Aquinas himself, from what I understand, determined reason (natural revelation) can only take us so far and that supernatural REVELATION was required to get us further knowledge of God (divine science).
Right so far.
> But if God is not a moral agent, or moral in the way we are, it appears God is not obligated by moral considerations to tell mankind truths.
Rather being Truth Itself he cannot coherently lie but he doesn’t have to tell us anything to be sure.
>So you have no grounds for presuming Jesus was any truthful revelation (and no grounds, as already established, to derive from classical theism, that Jesus was ANY revelation from God).
What are you asking here? Gee Vaal would it kill ya to ask a straight forward question? Are you asking if God can lie threw revelation? Are you begging the question and asking how do we know Jesus is a revelation from God(that is what you have been discussing with the others)? Or are you saying because God is not obligated to tell us anything more then we can naturally know that somehow means he can’t or won’t ever reveal anything? Ask a straightforward question for once please?
>But that is not an answer to the problem I posed. Even if you posit God as pure actuality, immutable, clearly his creation is mutable. You may think you've gathered nature of your family dog, friendly, harmless, yet nothing stops that dog from becoming a vicious danger tomorrow upon contracting rabies.
????????????????????? No idea what you are saying here? If God wills from all eternity that Our nature is X and with Grace may become Y then he can’t will otherwise. If God wills X from all eternity he can’t Not-will X. It’s that simple.
>And even if evil is privation, obviously people still can go from doing good to doing evil things for all manner of reasons. (Not to mention obviously entities change quite a bit over time - see evolution). So talking of God's immutability is no answer.
Vaal would your internal organs explode if you got off your duff and picked up a copy of Brian Davies & read him? Natural evil is the consequence of God creating a material world. Moral evil is the result of creatures misusing their free will. God is not obligated to prevent either since he is not a moral agent.
Really go read Davies I have other things to do.
>How do you know it's not established from eternity that we will not change to creatures who are "immoral" by the lights of current morality? Vicious creatures who do not care for the well-being of others, or who find fulfillment in the torment of some class of other people? That these new natural ends will only be fulfilled - as ordained from eternity - by behavior we currently class as "immoral?”
ReplyDeleteThis is a child’s question on the level of “Why did God make the sky blue not green?”.
>But he does this in a circular, uninformative way, since "love" in God's case is an intellective appetite for the good.
Are you even reading Aquinas correctly? God’s Love towards us is to Will the Good for someone or something.
>But since the whole problem is we can not know this "incomprehensible" God's version of "good.”
Again with the fallacy of equivocation.
> Aquinas' attempt to dismiss the idea that God's love might allow negative aspects like "anger." He does this by equating anger with negative appetites for things one is lacking, and since God doesn't lack, God's love wouldn't comprise anger.
Your proof-texting and making silly doctrinal formulations from a light reading of Aquinas & this is tedious. God’s anger is His will to Justice God has no emotions. One gets the impression you are thinking of God in extreme anthropomorphic terms.
That “god” does not exist and we all here are strong atheists in regard to it’s existence.
>But so what? If God loves our suffering, so long as he has ordained us to suffer and we do, then God would not be suffering a privation.
Since when does God love our suffering? He permits it & is not obligated to stop it but “love it”? That makes no sense.
> What he loves would exist, our suffering. And the further claim that love is to wish good for another sneaks in the human version of love, while in fact God's version of "good" and "love" has not been established as analogous. The whole edifice Aquinas is building seems built on epistemological quick-sand. No wonder he has to end up appealing to supernatural revelation later on).
Sufering comes from privation and really has no ontological existence only an accidental one. Vaal the gaps in your knowledge on Classic Theism are beyond my ability or thin patience to address.
I must insist if you wish to discuss the problem of evil with me you need to get a copy of Brian Davies works & start reading.
dguller,
ReplyDeleteI’m saying that the clearest example of a miracle is an event that can’t possibly be explained by natural causes
My comment had not to do with what you might say after it was posted, but with what you had been saying prior to its posting.
Here are two examples of your enunciated position as it was prior to the posting of my comment:
1) To msgrx: "Unless the natural explanations can be ruled out, there is simply no basis to prefer the supernatural explanations, which by definition [your emphasis] can only be postulated once all natural explanations are excluded, because a miracle is an event that cannot possibly be accounted for on the basis of natural causes"; and,
2) To Scott -- who had said, "I don't think a suspension of natural law is necessary for a miracle (and that miracles aren't 'violations' of natural law anyway)" -- "[T]he question is whether a particular activity of a created being can be solely accounted for by its natural powers, or not. If the former, then its activity is not miraculous, and if the latter, then it is."
You are certainly entitled to alter the substance of your enunciated position, and, actually, it is a good thing that you have done so.
However, your doing so in such a way as to suggest to readers that there hasn't been a change, i.e., that the position you now put forward is the position you have been putting forward all along, might lead a reader to wonder whether you are being disingenuous.
Paging the McGrews, clean up in comments 400-425:
ReplyDeleteYou mean the Intelligent Design proponents the Mcgrews and in Lydia's case someone inclined towards biblical literalism rather than A-T classical theism. After trudging through some of their arguments when they tried to make a strong distinction between zealots and martyrs I gave up any hope they were not fundamentally biased.
Here are some links for Vaal till he gets off his butt and starts reading Brian Davies.
ReplyDeleteHe really has to stop equivocating his unconscious theistic personalist deity vs the God
we actually believe in.
http://www.aquinasonline.com/Questions/goodevil.html
http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/probevil.html
http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/boapw.html
>You mean the Intelligent Design proponents the Mcgrews and in Lydia's case someone inclined towards biblical literalism rather than A-T classical theism.
ReplyDeleteStep2 even William Lane Craig doesn't hold the Catholic view on divine simplicity or divine eternity. That doesn't mean we think all of his arguments are bad. Why not so with the Mcgrews?
>After trudging through some of their arguments when they tried to make a strong distinction between zealots and martyrs I gave up any hope they were not fundamentally biased.
I don't understand this myth of being unbiased vs biased?
Christian Theists are going to defend the resurrection(Orthodox Rabbi Pinchas Lapid being an exception.) and non-Christians are going to critique it?
What's the problem?
What's the problem?
ReplyDeleteThe assumption by Fake Herzog that their argument provides a clear and compelling conclusion about the probability of the resurrection.
>The assumption by Fake Herzog that their argument provides a clear and compelling conclusion about the probability of the resurrection.
ReplyDeleteThen why not just say that? What's with the non-sequiturs about them being "bias" or being ID supporters?
Comprendi?
What's with the non-sequiturs about them being "bias" or being ID supporters?
ReplyDelete1. It isn't a non-sequitur to accuse them of bias since people here have been making the same accusation against dguller.
2. Their support of ID is based on the same type of probability analysis they used in the resurrection paper, so it is relevant.
>1. It isn't a non-sequitur to accuse them of bias since people here have been making the same accusation against dguller.
ReplyDeleteFair play.
2. Their support of ID is based on the same type of probability analysis they used in the resurrection paper, so it is relevant.
Except I would object to ID on philosophical grounds not probability grounds.
Classic Theism doesn't render impossible God might have chosen to act as an artificer in regards to the development of life but it isn't required since God can be a transcendent cause of natural phenomena & thus via natural forces providentially cause the evolution of life on a purely natural level to nature ends.
I would accept the resurrection based on divine revelation. Probability at best might eliminate or render less probable a known naturalistic explanation.
Beside ID is often ambiguous in terms of what it means by "intelligent design". Sometimes ID proponents might equivocate between final causes in nature vs being an artificer.
ReplyDeleteBenYachov,
ReplyDeleteBen, thanks for the links. I've read them before - though I revisited them again.
I've also re-visited Aquinus' Summa Theologica, and I have read various different explications of the relevant passages (to make sure I'm getting things right). I've also
read some of Prof. Feser's explications of some relevant ideas..not to mention having engaged various Thomists in conversation/debate, including some back and forth with Prof. Feser.
It all indicates to me (including the links you gave) that my general critique has been on the right track.
Though I'm no scholar on classical theism, usually when you've wished to correct my assumptions you've repeated something I already knew about the classical theist position, and usually had already indicated this in what I wrote. Some of this may be due to a poor communication on my end, but I am also certain some of it is due to an easy-road assumption of atheist naiveté on your reading of my posts.
I'm giving a reply to your last post, but it seems you aren't that interested in producing arguments in your replies, and have already indicated no real interest. Instead of going point by point in reply to your last posts to me, I'll just leave the next post up for others to dissect.
TO OTHERS: I'll try to get back to the Sai Baba stuff next time I get to my computer.
Vaal
I'm not committed to any idea the following is some extensive "knock-down" argument, and if anyone wants to take some portion and argue "here's where you got this wrong," be my guest. Using Ben's quote as a jumping off point…
ReplyDeleteOn the proposition that God could be deceiving us with Jesus' Revelation, you imply this is impossible on pain of contradiction:
"Rather being Truth Itself he cannot coherently lie but he doesn’t have to tell us anything to be sure."
Aquinas argues that God is equivalent to the truth, but not in a way that rules out divine deception. Aquinas identifies truth with existence, and since God is the cause of everything that exists, God "is truth." But "God deceived someone" is in no contradiction with the claim "God is the cause of everything that exists."
He also holds that truth is found in the accordance of the intellect with a thing as it is. That too, does not necessitate that God can not deceive others, or tell an untruth. Aquinas holds that God's Omnipotence essentially entails God can do anything logically possible (without contradiction). So is it a contradiction for a God to utter, say, "the bachelor was married" or "President Obama is 30 feet tall?" I don't see how. If we were positing that God BELIEVED those propositions, then it could be a contradiction with his Omniscience. But, belief is not required in uttering them (and in fact, not believing your statement is a feature of intending to deceive).
Do they contradict God being the cause of all things that exist? No. One statement (married bachelor) is not a truth God can not bring into the world (contradiction), the other statement (Obama 30 feet tall) does not have the truth quality of matching God's apprehending to a being matching that apprehension. But, so what? That would only be relevant if I was suggesting God were trying to bring those claims into existence. But I'm not. To utter a statement does not logically entail trying to bring what you describe into existence. (And if you already accept Jesus as being God, one can see that every parable he uttered did not cause the parables to spring to life). In fact, God would recognize the thing as it is: a false statement. (An intellect that can not recognize a falsehood, given how many falsehoods are propagated in the world, isn't much of an intellect). So God would be able to utter contradictions or untruths, without contradicting his intellectual apprehension of truth, or his status of "Cause of all things that exist."
Does God have anything against causing falsehoods or deception? Apparently not.
For one thing, nature is FULL of His having created creatures that deceive in all manner of ways, camouflage being one. The camouflage of many creatures is clearly integral for their attaining their natural ends (a leaf insect would be lacking if it did not look like a leaf), which God causes. And yet camouflage by it's nature is deception, and humans are often deceived just like the rest of the creatures in the camouflaged animals environment.
(We are caused to have the false belief: "That is a leaf" when in fact it's a leaf insect, or "that leaf has no bug" when in fact a stink-bug, a pest we often want to get rid of in our gardens, is camouflaged on the leaf).
That entails that God has some ends (e.g. the end of the camouflaged creatures) against which he will sacrifice some truth of our beliefs. So you can not in principle rule out other instances of God's deception, should he have some other end that entails our taking on false beliefs.
Cont'd...
Cont'd...
ReplyDeleteAnd if you want to talk about a God contradicting himself, then lets talk about our cognitive faculties. Do they actually operate as you'd expect on the proposition "God desires us to apprehend the truth?" Are you kidding? Our nature, our intellect, the very way we REASON, is rife with bias. Here's one list of the number of truth-distorting biases that operate in our thinking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
One may as well say "I'd like to make sure this car gets you from New York to Kansas" while simultaneously poking holes in the gas tank!
So God has already caused us to have an intellect which, by it's very nature, often leads us to belief untruths.
And you can't blame it on some degradation of our intellect due to The Fall - that would be begging the question as I'm talking about what you can derive from classical theistic metaphysics, and it's very problem for believing revelation in the first place.
Further, God is the sustaining cause for all manner of people who lie (otherwise, they wouldn't exist). So God's nature is consistent with His sustaining lying people. God could always unleash some lying person - e.g. in the form of Jesus, and accompany Jesus with miracles - in order to deceive us.
So it is not logically contradictory for God to deceive us. And since "good" in metaphysical-God terms is so utterly vague and unknowable - since he is the cause of so many varied natural ends, many of which end up conflicting with each other - we can't assume God's "good" safeguards us in anyway. We can't assume that God doesn't have some other end, some other good, for which he will subvert our beliefs deceiving us, either in the short or long term.
Hence, classical theism gives you no firm ground on which to trust the purported revelation offered by Jesus (and the rest of scripture). No way to ensure truth has been revealed to us.
If there is anything wrong in the above, anyone can go at it.
Cheers,
Vaal
@Vaal
ReplyDeleteIf you wish to start (rather poorly) arguing against Classical Theism as a whole, don't do introduce it as a new discussion at the end of a combox thread over 400 comments long.
If you wait til there is another discussion on this subject, then you'll find people willing to engage and give you the shellacking your ignorance deserves.
>Aquinas argues that God is equivalent to the truth...
ReplyDelete100% wrong! I am skeptical you read any of the links very closely since you made a fundamental mistake.
God's Being is identical to his
Essence thus God is not a being with the property of Truthfulness to the maximal degree rather he is Truth Itself. God is in effect identical to his Attributes because their is no distinction between his being and essence.
Thus to speak of Truth being deceiving is a logical contradiction.
Thus God cannot logically even in principle directly impart or communicate what is not true.
Merely imagining something you call "god" that you then imagine uttering lies or contradictions is not a rational philosophical argument or a coherent answer to Aquinas.
God can create rational beings which might choose to lie but that is a consequence of creating beings with free will.
God is not the direct cause of their lying. At best he is the formal cause but that is taken as a given that God is the formal cause of evil since he chooses to create a material world of natural evils & being with free will.
Non-rational creatures who use their natural abilities to hide from predators are not lying to them. That is absurd and another example of your many fallacies of equivocation.
Dude go back to the drawing board.
You are not getting any of this I am afraid.
God is not equivalent to Truth his is in fact Truth Itself.
ReplyDeleteThe only way to get a lying god" is to get a powerful being whose essence and existence are distinct & thus is not identical to it's attributes who in principle could willfully tell what he knows is a falsehood.
But that is at best a type of Theistic Personalist "god" like Zeus or Thor.
That is not the Classic conception of God.
Jeremy Taylor,
ReplyDeleteTaking an internet break but... in for this response that I owed you.
Sai Baba would have been more instructive I think :-)
Broadly speaking, as I have argued before, just compare the type of evidence in that anecdote for some as yet undocumented parallel aspect of reality (spirit-world) with what is demanded for establishing claims in any area of science. Again…someone posits the possibility of one type of sub-atomic particle and scientists take 40 careful years of study before saying "ok, we can provisionally say we've got good evidence." But then, why would one drop the bar down so low for establishing the existence of a parallel realm of reality, a spirit world, by simply accepting anecdote "he thought he saw a figure out of the corner of his eye" type thing (or, even more direct, but otherwise unverifiable, purported experiences)?
As to your Orwell example, as a personal reaction it doesn't strike me as compelling in the least in terms of suggesting some spiritual reality. As I understand the account, Orwell glanced over his shoulder and saw something "indirectly" that he interpreted as
a man's figure passing by. In terms of what he "saw" that's it.
I've had have smiler experiences, haven't you? For one thing, I work at my computer and there is a wood/glass door in the periphery of my vision. I often am SURE that I am indirectly spotting someone standing at the door and half the time I get up to answer it. Several times I saw someone standing at the door, got up quickly to answer it, only to find no one there and no one at all within sight outside my house. I'd told my neighbour about this at one point and she, being heavily "spiritual" told me she "knew" it was a ghost.
This had me baffled for the longest time, literally years. Until I finally figured out what was happening. I wear glasses and when I turn my head to *just* the right angle, looking at my computer, there is a sort of refraction effect of the window corner on the door with the corner of my glasses lens, that forms a shape much like a person's head and shoulders looking through the window at me, though in the typical "kind of ghost-like" look of having no face. If I turn to see it directly the illusion falls away but indirectly it's a freaky illusion and also gives me the "someone's watching me" sensation. It is precisely what I'd been seeing over the years.
Now, had I the view of my neighbor "more open to the possibility of the spiritual world" as ghost-lovers would no doubt put it, I would have like my neighbor concluded it was supernatural and stopped inquiry right there. But I didn't, and found a perfectly natural explanation. Which approach would have been best, and which would you have taken?
Vaal
Speaking of my neighbor, she used to help me out with voice work and sound effects on a show I used to work on for years. It was a show documenting people who believed they'd experienced ghosts. (One perk of working on the show, seeing claim after claim, was watching just how readily these people morphed their stories into something more spooky and impressive than the facts actually suggested). My neighbour was, herself, a Ghost Buster. She very seriously told me that she literally saw and felt ghosts, everywhere. She said that the empty street I see, for her, will have a plain as day man (ghost) walking across it, for instance. Like the kid in the Sixth Sense seeing people, but who were ghosts.
ReplyDeleteAnd this woman was not at all "disordered." She was the most wonderful, otherwise functional, rational person. When I asked how she got rid of ghosts for people, she said her own inquiry into possibilities led her to her own theory of the spirit world, a combination of her reading about the spirit world, and…of course!…quantum mechanics. She "realized" that her theory would entail she could "clear" houses of ghosts even over the phone (and, voila, she had such a service as part of her business). And she could test her theory. It worked! She'd go in, see ghosts in a house, try clearing via phone, go back…no ghosts!
Now, I ask myself: should I think that perhaps this woman, of no formal training in physics or practically anything else, had somehow hit upon a
true physical/spiritual theory, where, for instance, the greatest physicists in their fields had somehow missed these implications? Or…more prosaically, that she like many others, has an active imagination that she takes a bit too seriously? I think you know on which side I fall.
And, unless you are willing to say "I think this lady was legit, she was seeing ghosts everywhere, and clearing them just as she claimed" then she certainly is an example of how people certainly can hallucinate/imagine, with total conviction, that they see the dead standing right in front of them. (Again…consequences that one has to be able to rule out in resurrection stories).
Cheers,
Vaal
Msgrx:
ReplyDeleteSorry about the lateness of my reply.
But, but, we don't know what the probability of aliens is! We mustn't choose an unknown probability over a known one, however small! It would be unreasonable to conclude that aliens exist!
But the case for the existence of aliens is built from natural phenomena that we do have some evidence for. The case for miracles is, by definition, not built from natural phenomena, except in the negative sense that they are possible when natural accounts of them are ruled out.
We don't know how life started on Earth, let along on other planets. We've got no way of telling with any degree of reliability what the chances of life arising on an Earth-like planet are, let alone radically different life-forms that might arise on different planets. So, whilst we know that the possibility of life arising is non-zero, beyond this we have no idea how likely it is. Hmmm... reminds me of something else we've been talking about...
Fair enough. I don’t know enough about the probability of alien life to comment. From what I’ve read, there is an estimated 100 billion planets in the universe that would be hospitable to life. I find it hard to believe that out of 100 billion planets, we are the only one with life, but beyond that I simply cannot comment, other than that a probability calculation for the possibility of alien life could be calculated solely on the basis of natural causes, which was my main point, making it a different category from supernatural miracles.
Also, the point I wanted to make was that the possibility of alien life can be accounted for on the basis of natural causes, and does not necessarily require any supernatural intervention. And I would certainly endorse the reality of alien life in the scenario that you described, which would be far better studied and supported than the resurrection narrative.
BenYachov
ReplyDelete100% wrong! I am skeptical you read any of the links very closely since you made a fundamental mistake.
It seems to me you've again incorrectly inferred ignorance that was not in what I wrote (see below).
rather he is Truth Itself
Yes…that's what I said. "God is equivalent to the truth" meant "God = truth itself."
I don't see how you would have misread it as saying anything else, let alone being in contradiction to what you yourself just wrote above. But you should also know that Aquinas characterized (or argued towards) "God is truth" in several different ways, so I was quite surprised to see you, a self-professed Thomist, make this statement:
"God's Being is identical to his
Essence thus God is not a being with the property of Truthfulness to the maximal degree….,
I wonder if you had forgotten that Aquinas did indeed include an argument from "degree" in his "Fourth Way" argument for God, in which all perfections (logically including being/truth) are found their maximal degree in God. In his Summa section on "truth" Aquinas re-iterates a maximal degree characterization:
Aquinas: "As said above (A[1]), truth is found in the intellect according as it apprehends a thing as it is; and in things according as they have being conformable to an intellect. This is to the greatest degree found in God."
Not that it affects my argument either way, but perhaps a brush up on the Aquinas might be in order before chiding others? (Sorry, couldn't resist). :-)
"Thus to speak of Truth being deceiving is a logical contradiction."
No, because of the reasons I already gave, which you actually haven't shown to be incorrect. You can't make arguments derived from slogans - "God is truth, therefore God can't deceive." We have to account for *in what sense and in what way* Aquinas argues that "God is truth." It seems to me that the arguments Aquinas uses do not, in fact, rule out the possibility of Divine deception, for reasons I've already been giving. The God of metaphysics is outside our moral ken, and may have ends that entail our being deceived at some point, and that God has the power to deceive without contradiction to His being "all that really exists" ("being/truth").
"Non-rational creatures who use their natural abilities to hide from predators are not lying to them. That is absurd and another example of your many fallacies of equivocation."
I'm afraid that simply doesn't account for the actual details I've raised and their implications for divine deception.
The creatures don't just "hide" themselves as you characterize it. Creatures use all types of deception as part of their trade. See this discussion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deception_in_animals
Some animals, as you know, have body parts whose "final cause" is to fool prey into thinking it is food, e.g. Angler Fish and many such variants.
A leaf insect isn't "just hiding" it is DECEIVING the viewer that it is a leaf. Insofar as you look at a leaf insect and it's deception "works," convinces you it is a leaf, that entails producing a false belief in your intellect. The natural end of such designs is deception, and it is part of their goodness/being insofar as a loss of those functions would be a privation, and hence all such nature ends would have their final cause in God.
Which entails that God can have ends that entail causing false beliefs. Combined with the previous arguments for why deception is not in principle a contradiction for the metaphysical God, you can not rule out God causing some deception in the form of "revelation," for ends we do not know.
Or, at least, despite your protests thus far, you have not shown how this is impossible.
Vaal
BTW, could it be a coincidence that the CAPTCHA I had to enter for that previous post was "mimicking?"
ReplyDeleteSign from God I'm on the right path..c'mon...
Vaal
Finally,
ReplyDeleteNotice in the Summa Aquinas says this: "Not-being and privation have no truth of themselves, but only in the apprehension of the intellect. Now all apprehension of the intellect is from God. Hence all the truth that exists in the statement---"that a person commits fornication is true"---is entirely from God."
And this is one sense, in which I have argued, deception can come from God without contradiction.
As per Aquinas' logic above: "all the truth that exists in the statement---"that a person commits deception is true""---is entirely from God."
So cases of deception, that exist or come into existence, can come from God.
God does not have to hold in mind that the false propositions are true in themselves; only that it is true that someone is speaking false propositions, hence as per Aquinas above, no contradiction. God could send a person who commits deception - in the form of Jesus or any others responsible for scriptural revelation, whose deception serves some end for God, without contradiction to God's perfect apprehension of the truth, or His being the cause of all being. After all, Aquinas ultimately holds pre-destination is not a contradiction with either God or free will, and people deceive and lie quite a lot. It may simply be a truth, in the mind of God, that He wishes us to be deceived at some point, for a reason beyond our ken.
This is why arguing from slogans like "God is truth" to "God can't deceive" does not actually address the details of this argument.
Vaal
(I don't know when/if I'll be back at this point, btw).
@Vaal:
ReplyDeleteI don't plan to pick through your posts in detail, but I'll comment on the point where you "couldn't resist":
"Not that it affects my argument either way, but perhaps a brush up on the Aquinas might be in order before chiding others?"
Actually what Ben wrote was that "God is not a being with the property of Truthfulness to the maximal degree" (my emphasis). According to Thomism, that's entirely correct: truthfulness is not a property of God. (Nor is Aquinas speaking of "truthfulness" in the passage you quote. "Truth" is another matter.)
Perhaps a brush-up on the Aquinas might be in order before chiding . . . oh, you get the idea.
Vaal,
ReplyDeleteYour first paragraph is scientism.
I am not suggesting that this anecdote proves anything with certainty. You keep missing this out. All I'm saying is it cannot be dismissed as a supernatural incident. My sense of fitness would suggest, perhaps, it is more likely a genuine supernatural incident than not - though only in the most provisional sense - but really I'm just saying we cannot dismiss it.
Certainly, natural science can set high standards for the accepting of unknown things as realities. But, firstly, natural science is not our only form of knowledge, as we have been through before. And you are going to have to give a better explanation of why it should be treated as the archetype of our knowledge than you have done before. Natural science is concerned with the measurable and testable areas of quantitative reality - so why we must be beholden to it even in those areas, like the paranormal, which are partly outside its fields of investigation will have to be part of your explanation.
And you seem to want to rule out us giving any room to supernatural explanations in this specific incidence based upon the fact we cannot conclude such to the certainty of natural science. You are really going to have to explain yourself better. Are you saying all our knowledge must have the certainty of natural science? Or are you making some distinction between the supernatural and the natural? If the latter you are going to have to provide an explanation, because at the moment you are just question begging.
And no, if you read Orwell's account it is quite different to what you describe. It is clear from his account that he was looking in the direction for a few seconds and the figure moved a reasonable distance, so we cannot compare it to a momentary shape we sometimes see if, or really as, we glance over our shoulder. And he was in a country churchyard in 1931. There was no glass between him and the figure. So your analogy (which is, by the way, a form of induction different to the scientific method) fails. This is, presumably, why Orwell thought it was an hallucination and went to the trouble to map it and investigate it. He would hardly have done that if it was just the momentary shapes you seem to be referring to. Indeed, your explanation seems to me quite tendentious. This is rather ironic, because if you are happy with such an ill-fitting explanation, and one with what is quite obviously a desperate attitude to explain the incident away, one might ask if you are not preventing us from coming to the best conclusion - even if that is suspending judgment - whether naturalistic or not.
@Vaal
ReplyDelete>Yes…that's what I said. "God is equivalent to the truth" meant "God = truth itself.”
I don't see how you would have misread it as saying anything else, let alone being in contradiction to what you yourself just wrote above.
I was confused because Aquinas speaks of Equivocal comparisions with Analogous and unequivocal. Equivalent & Equivocal are not the same my bad. Also it was early when I responded and I didn’t have my coffee. Also in the past you don’t always write plainly so that just adds to it.
>I wonder if you had forgotten that Aquinas did indeed include an argument from "degree" in his "Fourth Way" argument for God, in which all perfections (logically including being/truth) are found their maximal degree in God.
God is not a being with the property of Truthfulness to the maximal degree….,
My emphasis is on the brute fact God’s essence and existence are only notionally distinct. Thus God is His attributes thus God is Truth and how can Truth be Truth and a Lie at the same time without contradiction? It’s like claiming X is both a Positive & Negative number at the same time and in the same sense. The contradiction is intrinsic. Like I said you need to read Aquinas more carefully.
Truth Itself is the maximal degree of Truth in essence by definition.
>Not that it affects my argument either way, but perhaps a brush up on the Aquinas might be in order before chiding others? (Sorry, couldn't resist). :-)
Your “argument” is on the surface a blatant violation of the Principle of Contradiction. A cannot both equal A and Not Equal A at the same time in the same relation. Truth by definition cannot be Falsehood. It is that simple.
>No, because of the reasons I already gave, which you actually haven't shown to be incorrect. You can't make arguments derived from slogans - "God is truth, therefore God can't deceive.”
If something is by definition Truth how logically can it be Not Truth? These are First Principles of Logic. As Aquinas says "dispute not with one who rejects them" because how then can you have a rational conversation?
>We have to account for *in what sense and in what way* Aquinas argues that "God is truth." It seems to me that the arguments Aquinas uses do not, in fact, rule out the possibility of Divine deception, for reasons I've already been giving.
Rather your missing definition of “divine deception” is the problem. God by nature simply cannot directly lie to you or lie at all. God can create someone he knows will break the moral law and lie to you and God can and might sit back and let it happen. God can let you misunderstand something and come to the wrong conclusion. But if He is communicating directly with you He cannot lie.
>The God of metaphysics is outside our moral ken, and may have ends that entail our being deceived at some point, and that God has the power to deceive without contradiction to His being "all that really exists" ("being/truth").
This is the Mishigoss of Rene Descartes I bashed dozens of Posts ago. Morally has nothing to do with it. Rather Nature and Being. Math like God cannot coherently be called a moral agent or moral in anyway yet logically 1+1=2 always by mathematical nature. There is no moral compultion making that proposition true. There is no such thing as a power for Truth Itself to be Not Truth at the same time in the same sense. I cannot tell you a truth and a lie at the same time in the same sense. I am either doing one or the other. God has no power to lie.
Truth Itself cannot lie that is be Not Truth.
>I'm afraid that simply doesn't account for the actual details I've raised and their implications for divine deception.
ReplyDeleteI am still afraid you are again committing fallacies of equivocation. Animals are not moral and using their natural trickery to avoid getting eaten by another animal or evolving traits that make it harder for predators to eat them is not the same as intellective moral beings who willfully make intellective statements stated as truth that are known by them to be false.
>The creatures don't just "hide" themselves as you characterize it. Creatures use all types of deception as part of their trade.
Sorry but Animals cannot Lie. The issue is lying not trickery. Animals cannot make intellective statements they know to be false presented by them as truth. Animals cannot make intellective statements at all. Men, Angels and God can. Even for a human camouflage used during war is not lying.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-counts-as-lie.html
QUOTE"One can lie without deceiving someone, and one can deceive someone without lying.”-Edward Feser.
So I think you shouldn’t presume you to have done enough reading as you claim. My presumptions that you haven’t so far seem vindicated. Thought I have made a few mistakes myself.
>Notice in the Summa Aquinas says this: "Not-being and privation have no truth of themselves, but only in the apprehension of the intellect. Now all apprehension of the intellect is from God. Hence all the truth that exists in the statement---"that a person commits fornication is true"---is entirely from God."
>And this is one sense, in which I have argued, deception can come from God without contradiction.
I thought you where arguing before that God can give deceptive revelation thus we might not be able to Trust Jesus? Thus you are arguing that God is lying? That God can create a world full of things that mislead us & or beings that lie to us is unremarkable to me. But if God is communicating to us in divine revelation he cannot lie.
Your words:"So you have no grounds for presuming Jesus was any truthful revelation (and no grounds, as already established, to derive from classical theism, that Jesus was ANY revelation from God).”
I asked what you meant by this & never got an answer BTW but you commented on a short sentence of mine “God is Truth Itself and cannot coherently Lie”.
You then began to equivocate between lying and deception.
Go do more reading then come back. We would love to have you. Listen to Scott.
Peace to you & my personal good will.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletedguller:
ReplyDelete"But the case for the existence of aliens is built from natural phenomena that we do have some evidence for."
So? You said that we should always reject miracles because we don't know the probability of them. Here's an example of another phenomenon we don't know the probability of. Why should we accept the second, merely because it's natural? Aren't you just begging the question against miracles?
"a probability calculation for the possibility of alien life could be calculated solely on the basis of natural causes, which was my main point, making it a different category from supernatural miracles."
How could we do a probability calculation? We don't even really know how life arose on our own planet, so how can we calculate the probability of this? And that's before we get onto the question of whether non-carbon-based life-forms could arise.
So given that we know so little about how life arises, how can we know anything about the probability that it actually will arise in any given situation? Or, if your argument is that we can discover more about life and then come up with a probability, that may well be true, but how does the fact that we might possibly know more in future cancel out our ignorance today?
Tl;dr: if you reject the existence of miracles because we don't know their prior probability, you must also reject extra-terrestrial life for the same reason. If not knowing the prior probability of extra-terrestrial life doesn't stop you from accepting it if offered enough evidence, neither should not knowing the prior probability of miracles.
Msgrx:
ReplyDeleteSo? You said that we should always reject miracles because we don't know the probability of them. Here's an example of another phenomenon we don't know the probability of. Why should we accept the second, merely because it's natural? Aren't you just begging the question against miracles?
No, because we have experience of sentient and intelligent life, i.e. our own, and can infer the possibility of other sentient and intelligent life elsewhere. However, we have no experience of miracles, and thus cannot infer from our experience that such miracles exist.
Furthermore, I argued that when evaluating a historical claim for which all we have as evidence is a text recorded decades after an event, then we should prefer an account that has some probability associated with it rather than an account that we cannot calculate any probabilities for. Therefore, in that case, we should avoid accounts that involve miracles and aliens, unless there are compelling reasons to include them. Since there are no such compelling reasons involving the resurrection claim, then we should prefer natural explanations to supernatural explanations.
But if you compare the above scenario to the alien scenario that you described earlier in the thread, then I would say that there certainly is compelling reasons to believe in the aliens. After all, the following all occurred:
(1) A flying saucer crash landed in full view of several hundred people
(2) The spaceship included technology beyond our wildest capabilities
(3) The world’s top scientists investigate the matter and conclude that the alien could not possibly be related to any terrestrial life form
(4) The alien appeared live on natural television
(5) I personally met and interacted with the alien
In that scenario, I would be a fool not to believe in the reality of aliens, even if the prior probability of such an event could not be calculated. However, since that has nothing to do with the situation regarding the resurrection, we must conclude that there is an utter lack of compelling reasons to prefer the supernatural account to the natural account, and since we cannot calculate the probability of the former, but can calculate the probability of the latter, then we should prefer the latter to the former.
dguller,
ReplyDeleteThere isn't anything natural about television. Freudian slip?
@Step2:
ReplyDelete"There isn't anything natural about television. Freudian slip?"
I think that's a national inference. ;-)
No a Freudian slip is what Freud's Mother had on underneath her dress.
ReplyDeletedguller:
ReplyDelete"No, because we have experience of sentient and intelligent life, i.e. our own, and can infer the possibility of other sentient and intelligent life elsewhere. However, we have no experience of miracles, and thus cannot infer from our experience that such miracles exist."
Why this sudden epistemic privileging of experience? You said yourself that miracles aren't inherently impossible, so why are meant to treat them as impossible just because "we" (ignoring for the moment all those people who claim to have experienced miracles) have no first-hand experience with them?
"Furthermore, I argued that when evaluating a historical claim for which all we have as evidence is a text recorded decades after an event,"
First of all, have you read the McGrews' article linked to above? If not, you really should, it's quite good.
Secondly, what does the fact that the text was recorded decades later have to do with anything? If we should reject miracles because we don't know their prior probability, we should reject them because we don't know their prior probability. If we should reject the Resurrection because the evidence isn't good enough, we should reject the Resurrection because the evidence isn't good enough. You're just conflating the two arguments, which means that your views are immune to refutation because whenever one argument comes under attack you can always just take refuge in the other, before going back to the first one when the second one is called into question.
"then we should prefer an account that has some probability associated with it rather than an account that we cannot calculate any probabilities for."
I presume you mean prior probabilities? If so, see the alien example above.
"However, since that has nothing to do with the situation regarding the resurrection, we must conclude that there is an utter lack of compelling reasons to prefer the supernatural account to the natural account, and since we cannot calculate the probability of the former, but can calculate the probability of the latter, then we should prefer the latter to the former."
If you say so. Personally I find the fact that you've been reduced to positing some sort of unique and otherwise totally unknown mass hallucination to be a pretty good reductio ad absurdum of your naturalist position.
Msgrx:
ReplyDeleteWhy this sudden epistemic privileging of experience? You said yourself that miracles aren't inherently impossible, so why are meant to treat them as impossible just because "we" (ignoring for the moment all those people who claim to have experienced miracles) have no first-hand experience with them?
First, the more a claim diverges from our everyday experience, the more evidence is required to justify that claim. That is what extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence means. In other words, if X is beyond our ordinary experience, then justifying the reality of X requires evidence beyond our ordinary experience.
Second, since a miracle necessarily diverges from our everyday experience, we cannot appeal to our everyday experience to justify the existence of miracles.
Third, I never said that a miracle was impossible, but only that demonstrating the reality of a miracle requires the exclusion of possible natural explanations. If a number of possible natural explanations cannot be ruled out, then the miracle hasn’t been demonstrated. It may have happened, but we simply lack the evidence for it.
what does the fact that the text was recorded decades later have to do with anything?
It has to do with the reliability of the transmission of information from the original event to the recorded text, and that transmission also includes one person recollecting and telling the information to themselves and/or others. The longer the period between the event and the written text, the more opportunity exists for the transmitted information to have been distorted or altered by well-known psychological mechanisms. That is why the decades long lack of textual evidence for the resurrection is important.
For example, just look at the Challenger study where a psychologist at Emery University asked his students to record their memories of the Challenger disaster the day after the event. He then followed up with them three years later, and asked them the same questions. It turned out that 25% of them had significant changes to their accounts, that over 50% of them had minor changes, and only 10% had all the details correct. Even more amazingly, the students often continued to believe their later account to the earlier account, because it was more vivid in their minds, even though there was documentary evidence of their earlier accounts.
If we should reject miracles because we don't know their prior probability, we should reject them because we don't know their prior probability.
I was specifically talking about a situation where we are trying to understand a historical event E for which the only record is a text dated decades after E. In that scenario, if we are trying to understand E, then we should prioritize accounts that we can assign a probability estimate to, and exclude those explanations that are such that it is impossible to assign a probability estimate at all, due to a multitude of unknown factors. After all, you cannot say that account A1 is more likely than account A2 when only A1 has a probability assigned to it. That means that we should exclude any explanation that requires the postulation of aliens or miracles, because both of them lack a probability estimate.
I presume you mean prior probabilities? If so, see the alien example above.
ReplyDeleteExcept that the alien example involves a contemporary event with hard evidence that has been examined by reputable experts and has a huge number of witnesses, including myself. That isn’t nearly comparable for our evidence for the resurrection, which is why I would be happy to accept the existence of aliens in your example, but still remain highly skeptical of the existence of the resurrection.
Personally I find the fact that you've been reduced to positing some sort of unique and otherwise totally unknown mass hallucination to be a pretty good reductio ad absurdum of your naturalist position.
Except that I’ve cited examples of mass hallucinations. I mentioned the accusers at the Salem witch trials who all witnessed the spectral persona of the accused tormenting them in the courtroom.
Furthermore, there is the ghost epidemic of Thailand since the tsunami in which there have been a large number of people who claim to have seen the ghosts of people who died in the tsunami. And yes, there are groups of people who hallucinate en masse. For example: “In Khao Lak, a local family say their telephone constantly rings through the day and night. When answered, the voices of friends and relatives cry out to be rescued from the flames of the crematorium.”
And regardless, the account that I have been defending does not require that a number of people have the same hallucination, but only have a similar one. Subsequent communication and subtle social influences upon one another could have resulted in an agreed-upon narrative that was subsequently transmitted.
dguller:
ReplyDelete“First, the more a claim diverges from our everyday experience, the more evidence is required to justify that claim.”
Oh, sorry, didn’t realise you had everyday experience of UFOs.
“Third, I never said that a miracle was impossible, but only that demonstrating the reality of a miracle requires the exclusion of possible natural explanations.”
That’s like the gnu atheist who says that he’ll believe in theism when somebody can show something which can’t be explained naturalistically. Of course, since he can always pull some naturalistic just-so story out of his ass, his challenge is designed, consciously or not, to save him from ever having to change his mind. Your attitude in this thread has been much the same.
“I was specifically talking about a situation where we are trying to understand a historical event E for which the only record is a text dated decades after E. In that scenario, if we are trying to understand E, then we should prioritize accounts that we can assign a probability estimate to, and exclude those explanations that are such that it is impossible to assign a probability estimate at all, due to a multitude of unknown factors. After all, you cannot say that account A1 is more likely than account A2 when only A1 has a probability assigned to it. That means that we should exclude any explanation that requires the postulation of aliens or miracles, because both of them lack a probability estimate.”
Wow, the sophistry here would make Hume blush. WHO CARES IF E IS A HISTORICAL EVENT? If we should reject miracles because we can’t assign prior probabilities to them, we should reject EVERYTHING that we can’t assign a prior probability to, NO MATTER WHEN THEY TAKE PLACE. If, on the other hand, we CAN accept things we can’t assign a prior probability to – such as an alien spaceship crash-landing on Earth – EVEN THOUGH we can’t 100% rule out other explanations (“Hey, maybe it’s just a mass conspiracy! Or a hallucination! Or I’m in a coma and I’m dreaming!”), THE SAME APPLIES TO HISTORICAL EVENTS AND TO MIRACLES. Good heavens, this really isn’t hard.
“Except that I’ve cited examples of mass hallucinations.”
None of which have been similar to the account contained in the Gospels.
Incidentally, you really should read the article Fake Herzog linked to. Here’s the link again, to save you the trouble of having to scroll up:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lydiamcgrew.com/Resurrectionarticlesinglefile.pdf
A few quotations to whet your appetite:
“In law, it has long been recognized that minor discrepancies among witnesses do not
invalidate their testimony – indeed, that they provide an argument against collusion. The eminentlegal scholar Thomas Starkie stresses this point in his discussion of testimonial evidence:
It is here to be observed, that partial variances in the testimony of different
witnesses, on minute and collateral points, although they frequently afford the adverse
advocate a topic for copious observation, are of little importance, unless they be of too
prominent and striking a nature to be ascribed to mere inadvertence, inattention, or defect
of memory.
It has been well remarked by a great observer, that “the usual character of human
testimony is substantial truth under circumstantial variety.” It so rarely happens that
witnesses of the same transaction perfectly and entirely agree in all points connected with
it, that an entire and complete coincidence in every particular, so far from strengthening
their credit, not unfrequently engenders a suspicion of practice and concert.
The real question must always be, whether the points of variance and of
discrepancy be of so strong and decisive a nature as to render it impossible, or at least
difficult, to attribute them to the ordinary sources of such varieties, inattention or want of memory (Starkie, 1833, pp. 488-89).” (pp. 6 f.)
“In the most natural and common meaning of the word, a hallucination is a private
ReplyDeleteexperience. (See Slade and Bentall, 1988, p. 16.) Some examples given in popular authors, e.g. Rawcliffe (1959, pp. 114-15), are of misidentification rather than a hallucination properly
speaking. See, e.g., the tale of the walking cook in Henry Ellis’s abridged edition of John Brand (1842, p. 44). In cases of collective hallucination, expectation, emotional excitement, and suggestion are the primary factors. In particular, “all participants in the hallucination must be informed beforehand, at least concerning the broad outlines of the phenomenon that will constitute the collective hallucination” (Zusne and Jones, 1982, p. 135).” (pp. 33 f.)
“First, the disciples were not in a psychological state that rendered them
susceptible to a hallucination. Unlike the eager pilgrims who flock to holy sites hoping to see
visions and prodigies, the disciples were not anticipating a miracle of any sort, let alone a
resurrection; the gospels make it plain that the disciples, to their embarrassment, did not
understand Jesus’ somewhat enigmatic predictions of his own death and return to life to indicate an imminent bodily resurrection until after the fact. Their primary emotion was not exalted expectation but a combination of grief and simple fear (Matthew 26:56; John 19:38, 20:19). Messianic expectations in Judaism at the time did not include the resurrection of the messiah except in the general resurrection at the final judgment.25 As we have pointed out, they –collectively at first and individually in the case of Thomas – were understandably skeptical of others’ accounts of the empty tomb or of encounters with Jesus. When Jesus did appear to them, they sometimes failed to recognize him (John 21:4-7). These were not men who were likely to suffer a hallucination of any sort, much less one of their risen master.” (p. 34).
“And then, abruptly, they stopped. Christ no longer appeared on earth. Whatever their
causes, the visions of Peter and Cornelius in Acts and even of Paul on the road to Damascus are qualitatively distinct from these appearances. Paul never claimed that Jesus broke bread with him or ate a meal with him. Theodore Keim’s argument on this point is inexorable:
Not one of the five hundred repeats the ecstasy, and all the cases of ecstasy irrevocably
end with the fifth vision. What a contradiction of high-swollen enthusiasm and of sudden
ebb even to the point of disappearance! Just when fervid minds are beginning to grow
fanatical, the fanaticism absolutely and entirely ceases. It might be possible that a few less
ardent natures, though perhaps not Peter, rather James, would quickly recover their
mental equilibrium; but in the greater number of the twelve and of the five hundred a
movement which had burst the dams would certainly not be stayed in an instant; and yet
the narrative says nothing of a third vision to the twelve and nothing of a second to the
five hundred (Keim, 1883, p. 356)” (p. 35)
Also, the article makes the point -- which I'll admit I hadn't really considered before -- that the Apostles started preaching about the Resurrection right after Pentecost. So unless you want to dismiss this as a hallucination as well, you don't actually have "decades" for delusions of seeing Christ to spread, but a period of about fifty-three days.
ReplyDeleteMsgrx:
ReplyDeleteOh, sorry, didn’t realise you had everyday experience of UFOs.
I don’t. The fact that alien life is so foreign to ordinary experience demands that extraordinary evidence would be required to justify the claim. Certainly, the scenario that you described above would count as extraordinary evidence, and thus would justify the reality of alien life.
That’s like the gnu atheist who says that he’ll believe in theism when somebody can show something which can’t be explained naturalistically. Of course, since he can always pull some naturalistic just-so story out of his ass, his challenge is designed, consciously or not, to save him from ever having to change his mind. Your attitude in this thread has been much the same.
Not at all. I’m relying upon well-known psychological phenomena that would have to be ruled out before a miracle could be established. If the only evidence that we have of a miracle is a written text that was written decades after the alleged miraculous event, then that is simply insufficient to establish the reality of the miracle, because too many alternative possibilities could account for the existence of that written text, many of which involve the very psychological phenomena that I have been appealing to. And since none of them can be ruled out, given the scarcity of historical evidence available, it follows that the matter remains an open question, to say the least.
If we should reject miracles because we can’t assign prior probabilities to them, we should reject EVERYTHING that we can’t assign a prior probability to, NO MATTER WHEN THEY TAKE PLACE.
That’s ridiculous. Assume that the reality of alien life is highly unlikely. Even if we do not know what that prior probability estimate is, if your alien scenario arose, then the subsequent probability would be incredibly high, given all the different lines of evidence that independently converges to the same conclusion, i.e. that alien life exists. In that case, a high subsequent probability would trump a low prior probability, even if we don’t know what the precise number of the latter is.
None of which have been similar to the account contained in the Gospels.
And since the account in the Gospels is a written account that dates decades after the events in question, it is precisely the Gospel account that is suspect, especially if that account includes miracles and other supernatural phenomena.
“In law, it has long been recognized that minor discrepancies among witnesses do not invalidate their testimony – indeed, that they provide an argument against collusion.
I never argued that the disciples conspired to invent a false narrative.
In the most natural and common meaning of the word, a hallucination is a private experience.
Agreed.
First, the disciples were not in a psychological state that rendered them susceptible to a hallucination.
ReplyDeleteThey were grieving the loss of their messiah. As McGrew writes: “Their primary emotion was not exalted expectation but a combination of grief and simple fear”, and we know that being in a state of grief makes one susceptible to a bereavement hallucination, which is a fairly common experience.
Also, the article makes the point -- which I'll admit I hadn't really considered before -- that the Apostles started preaching about the Resurrection right after Pentecost. So unless you want to dismiss this as a hallucination as well, you don't actually have "decades" for delusions of seeing Christ to spread, but a period of about fifty-three days.
What record to you have that dates from the time of the Pentecost that supports your claim?
dguller:
ReplyDelete“Not at all. I’m relying upon well-known psychological phenomena that would have to be ruled out before a miracle could be established.”
It’s not being based upon well-known phenomena that makes an explanation likely or not, but the probability of these phenomena’s coinciding in such a way as to produce the evidence we have. For example, people lying, politicians covering things up and governments fabricating casus belli are all well-known and –documented, and are far more common than terrorists flying planes into skyscrapers. Nevertheless we do not accept the various 9/11 conspiracy theories, because the sheer number of people who would have to be in the know without telling anyone is far too great to be credible.
Now with your hallucination theory, we’d have to assume that large numbers of people either had the same hallucinations (or sufficiently similar hallucinations to convince themselves that they were the same) or somehow bought the idea that their deceased Messiah had come back bodily from the dead, rather than the far more likely explanations that (a) Jesus was actually a ghost or (b) the person reporting the story was a madman spouting lunacy. Oh, and not one of them thought to check the tomb and see if the body was still there. Also, their hallucinations all stopped at the same time, about forty days after Jesus was executed. Now, none of these things is particularly likely on its own, but taken together they are so improbable that they’d be laughed out of literally any other situation than somebody trying to explain away a miracle. In fact, about the only thing this theory has going for it is that it avoids all reference to the dreaded M-word.
Speaking of which—
“That’s ridiculous. Assume that the reality of alien life is highly unlikely. Even if we do not know what that prior probability estimate is, if your alien scenario arose, then the subsequent probability would be incredibly high, given all the different lines of evidence that independently converges to the same conclusion, i.e. that alien life exists. In that case, a high subsequent probability would trump a low prior probability, even if we don’t know what the precise number of the latter is.”
So why doesn’t the same apply to miracles? I mean, you’ve said multiple times on this thread that we have to completely rule out a naturalistic explanation, “no matter how improbable” that explanation might be – indeed, that even if the naturalistic explanation were so improbable it might only have happened once in all of human history, we’d still have to rule it out before we could say “Yup, this looks a miracle, alright.” The reason you give is that we don’t know the probability of miracles, but we do know the probability of highly improbable naturalistic events. But here, you seem to be saying that we can choose to believe in alien life – something for which, again, we have no idea of the probability – without first ruling out every possible non-extraterrestrial cause. (I mean, it *could* theoretically be a massive and highly successful government conspiracy, right? You can’t completely rule it out.) So why the epistemic double standard?
“What record to you have that dates from the time of the Pentecost that supports your claim?”
Why do I need one? Surely you aren’t going to claim that “The Apostles started preaching on such-and-such a date” is an “extraordinary claim”?
Msgrx:
ReplyDeleteIt’s not being based upon well-known phenomena that makes an explanation likely or not, but the probability of these phenomena’s coinciding in such a way as to produce the evidence we have.
True.
For example, people lying, politicians covering things up and governments fabricating casus belli are all well-known and –documented, and are far more common than terrorists flying planes into skyscrapers. Nevertheless we do not accept the various 9/11 conspiracy theories, because the sheer number of people who would have to be in the know without telling anyone is far too great to be credible.
True. And yet history is littered with religious and spiritual leaders who are claimed by their followers to have performed miracles, and whose followers continue to believe, even in the face of false predictions, often even more fervently. I doubt that you believe that all of these groups are correct in their beliefs, and you would probably utilize the psychological phenomena that I have applied to the resurrection to them, and concluded that their followers are victims of subconscious biases and cognitive distortions. You and I only differ in that I apply the same possibilities to the early Christians, who were human beings, and also prone to the very psychological phenomena that we have been discussing.
Now with your hallucination theory, we’d have to assume that large numbers of people either had the same hallucinations (or sufficiently similar hallucinations to convince themselves that they were the same) or somehow bought the idea that their deceased Messiah had come back bodily from the dead, rather than the far more likely explanations that (a) Jesus was actually a ghost or (b) the person reporting the story was a madman spouting lunacy.
Again, look at the Seekers whose followers continued to believe in their cult even after its main prediction failed miserably. They managed to convince themselves that their actions had averted the apocalypse rather than accept that their leader was conning them. You assume a level of impartial rationality in people that is rarely present, and you continuously underestimate the power of our subconscious to bias and distort our perceptions, interpretations and memories in the service of reducing cognitive dissonance. You keep talking about what the followers of Jesus would reasonably believe, as if they were not human beings that were prone to the same cognitive mechanisms that we are all vulnerable to, especially in times of high emotional distress, such as grief.
Oh, and not one of them thought to check the tomb and see if the body was still there.
Even if they checked and found no body, that could have meant that someone had removed it and buried it in an undisclosed location, as often happened to criminals.
Also, their hallucinations all stopped at the same time, about forty days after Jesus was executed.
As most bereavement hallucinations do.
Now, none of these things is particularly likely on its own, but taken together they are so improbable that they’d be laughed out of literally any other situation than somebody trying to explain away a miracle. In fact, about the only thing this theory has going for it is that it avoids all reference to the dreaded M-word.
ReplyDeleteLook, the bottom line is that there simply is insufficient evidence for the resurrection, given the historical texts that we have available. There are simply too many gaps to trust the narrative as reliable. Perhaps if there were records of the disciples individual testimonies soon after Jesus appeared to them, and a way to compare the testimonies for consistency, and to do the same for all the other witnesses, especially the 500 witnesses that you mentioned above. That would be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to establishing the reality of the resurrection, and yet we simply lack this essential piece of evidence. Without it, we do not know what happened to the disciples in the month after the death of their messiah, and the only records that we have were recorded decades later, which leaves more than enough time for their memories to have been revised and edited outside of their awareness.
The reason you give is that we don’t know the probability of miracles, but we do know the probability of highly improbable naturalistic events. But here, you seem to be saying that we can choose to believe in alien life – something for which, again, we have no idea of the probability – without first ruling out every possible non-extraterrestrial cause. (I mean, it *could* theoretically be a massive and highly successful government conspiracy, right? You can’t completely rule it out.) So why the epistemic double standard?
There is no double standard. You are comparing an event that occurred 2,000 years ago and has sparse historical evidence to an event that hypothetically occurred at this time with a wealth of observational and scientific evidence. I would say that the likelihood of thousands of witnesses, and hundreds of scientific experts, engaging in a massive conspiracy would be more unlikely than a dozen or so grieving religious followers subconsciously convincing themselves that their messiah had risen from the dead to reduce the cognitive dissonance of their messiah having been a failure. And given the vagaries of human memory, I see nothing remarkable in the fact that their memories grew more exaggerated and inaccurate in the decades that followed.
Why do I need one? Surely you aren’t going to claim that “The Apostles started preaching on such-and-such a date” is an “extraordinary claim”?
No, but you are using it as evidence of a miracle, and so that piece of evidence had better be remarkably well supported. Again, every piece of evidence for the miracle must be well-established, because the conjunction is supposed to support an extraordinary event. Look at the level of precision and control that went into proving the Higgs boson. Every possible confounding factor was controlled for and ruled out. A massive effort was performed to get at the truth of the matter. I think something similar must be performed to demonstrate that a miracle occurred. If that standard of evidence cannot be met, then I’m afraid that it will remain an open question whether the miracle, in fact, occurred.
dguller:
ReplyDelete“True. And yet history is littered with religious and spiritual leaders who are claimed by their followers to have performed miracles, and whose followers continue to believe, even in the face of false predictions, often even more fervently. I doubt that you believe that all of these groups are correct in their beliefs, and you would probably utilize the psychological phenomena that I have applied to the resurrection to them, and concluded that their followers are victims of subconscious biases and cognitive distortions. You and I only differ in that I apply the same possibilities to the early Christians, who were human beings, and also prone to the very psychological phenomena that we have been discussing.”
First up, I’m not totally opposed to the idea that some of those miracles could be genuine. There’s no inherent reason why God couldn’t choose to miraculously heal somebody in a non-Christian country, for example. And of course there’s the possibility of demons granting people supernatural powers to lead others astray, etc.
Secondly, there’s also the possibility of hoaxes, e.g., finding somebody who claims to be crippled and then miraculously “healing” them. Such instances wouldn’t be genuine miracles, but also wouldn’t be comparable to the Disciples hallucinating Jesus out of whole cloth, as it were. So the mere fact that I reject lots of miracles claims doesn’t ipso facto mean that I should reject the Resurrection, because the circumstances are often different.
Thirdly, as mentioned up-thread, there’s also the wider situation to take into account. A lot of these claimed miracle-workers ended up doing quite well out of their religion (Muhammad, Joseph Smith, etc.), unlike Jesus or the Disciples. Since they have clear motive to fake/lie about miracles, then, it’s perfectly justified to treat their accounts more sceptically.
“Again, look at the Seekers whose followers continued to believe in their cult even after its main prediction failed miserably. They managed to convince themselves that their actions had averted the apocalypse rather than accept that their leader was conning them.”
And again, the world would look much the same if “Our actions averted the apocalypse!” were true to if “There was never going to be an apocalypse in the first place” were true. The world where “Our Messiah is risen and walking among us” is true would be noticeably different to that where “Our Messiah’s dead and decomposing in a tomb somewhere” is true. So the two situations aren’t really comparable.
“You assume a level of impartial rationality in people that is rarely present, and you continuously underestimate the power of our subconscious to bias and distort our perceptions, interpretations and memories in the service of reducing cognitive dissonance. You keep talking about what the followers of Jesus would reasonably believe, as if they were not human beings that were prone to the same cognitive mechanisms that we are all vulnerable to, especially in times of high emotional distress, such as grief.”
No, I just assume that even when people are dejected and grief-stricken, you don’t find several hundred of them all convincing themselves that a dead man has risen and spoken and interacted with them. Given that you haven’t been able to find a single other case of this happening, I don’t really think you’re in a good position to criticise others for not taking account of how normal humans behave.
“Even if they checked and found no body, that could have meant that someone had removed it and buried it in an undisclosed location, as often happened to criminals.”
ReplyDeleteWho would have a motive to do this? Especially given that the tomb belonged to a member of the Jewish ruling council – that is, quite an influential person whom you probably wouldn’t want to cross. Why risk arousing his anger by stealing from his tomb, all for the sake of moving some dead guy whose claims to Messiahship had proved to be empty?
“There is no double standard. You are comparing an event that occurred 2,000 years ago and has sparse historical evidence to an event that hypothetically occurred at this time with a wealth of observational and scientific evidence. I would say that the likelihood of thousands of witnesses, and hundreds of scientific experts, engaging in a massive conspiracy would be more unlikely than a dozen or so grieving religious followers subconsciously convincing themselves that their messiah had risen from the dead to reduce the cognitive dissonance of their messiah having been a failure. And given the vagaries of human memory, I see nothing remarkable in the fact that their memories grew more exaggerated and inaccurate in the decades that followed.”
Of course there is. You’d be quite happy to accept alien claims on the basis of probabilities, but refuse to consider miracles before totally ruling out any other explanation. That’s a double standard right there.
“No, but you are using it as evidence of a miracle, and so that piece of evidence had better be remarkably well supported. Again, every piece of evidence for the miracle must be well-established, because the conjunction is supposed to support an extraordinary event. Look at the level of precision and control that went into proving the Higgs boson. Every possible confounding factor was controlled for and ruled out. A massive effort was performed to get at the truth of the matter. I think something similar must be performed to demonstrate that a miracle occurred. If that standard of evidence cannot be met, then I’m afraid that it will remain an open question whether the miracle, in fact, occurred.”
Not every piece of evidence used for an extraordinary claim has to be extraordinarily well-supported. Say, to adapt Jeremy’s ghost example, Orwell claims to have seen a figure walking out of a church and across its graveyard. Now, I say that I was in the church at the time, and hence I would have had a clear view of anybody leaving the church. Nevertheless I saw nobody. Now, if Orwell then uses this as a piece of evidence to claim that the figure must have appeared out of nowhere, this would be quite an extraordinary claim. Nevertheless the claim that I happened to be in church at that time isn’t at all extraordinary, and it would be unreasonable not to believe me when I say I was there.
Msgrx:
ReplyDeleteFirst up, I’m not totally opposed to the idea that some of those miracles could be genuine. There’s no inherent reason why God couldn’t choose to miraculously heal somebody in a non-Christian country, for example. And of course there’s the possibility of demons granting people supernatural powers to lead others astray, etc.
But you wouldn’t accept that all of them were genuine. And that means that you must have some account of the false claims themselves. I think that there are ultimately two broad categories of such explanations: fraud and/or self-deception.
So the mere fact that I reject lots of miracles claims doesn’t ipso facto mean that I should reject the Resurrection, because the circumstances are often different.
That is true.
A lot of these claimed miracle-workers ended up doing quite well out of their religion (Muhammad, Joseph Smith, etc.), unlike Jesus or the Disciples. Since they have clear motive to fake/lie about miracles, then, it’s perfectly justified to treat their accounts more sceptically.
Fervent belief is neither necessary nor sufficient for the reality of a miracle. There were people who observed Jesus’ miracles, and did not follow him at all. There are people who fervently believe in their delusions, and yet their delusions remain false. That only leaves the claim that fervent belief is present more often in the presence of a miracle than in its absence, and that claim requires evidence to justify it. How many people became fervent believers after observing a miracle? How many people did not? And note that you cannot rely upon the degree of fervent belief in this case to determine the reality of the miracle without begging the question, and so how do you establish that the miracles in question were genuine at all?
And again, the world would look much the same if “Our actions averted the apocalypse!” were true to if “There was never going to be an apocalypse in the first place” were true. The world where “Our Messiah is risen and walking among us” is true would be noticeably different to that where “Our Messiah’s dead and decomposing in a tomb somewhere” is true. So the two situations aren’t really comparable.
First, the world does look different in the Seekers case. A world in which the Seekers have the power to avert an apocalypse is different from a world in which the Seekers lack that power.
Second, the world where Jesus is resurrected and interacting with his disciples looks the same to the disciples as it would if they were having a bereavement hallucination of him.
No, I just assume that even when people are dejected and grief-stricken, you don’t find several hundred of them all convincing themselves that a dead man has risen and spoken and interacted with them. Given that you haven’t been able to find a single other case of this happening, I don’t really think you’re in a good position to criticise others for not taking account of how normal humans behave.
Who exactly are these “several hundred of them”? What are their names? Where did they come from? Where did this interaction with Jesus happen? What did they see and hear? Who actually went out to speak to them to determine whether their stories were accurate and consistent with one another? All you have is a claim made decades later after the event in question, and absolutely nothing to substantiate it.
And note that this is the central issue between us. You take the stories at face value and utterly dismiss the very possibility that the narratives that are preserved in the texts that you possess could have been distorted or altered in any way. Without any independent evidence closer to the event in question, we simply cannot rely upon your texts as inherently reliable, especially when they describe such extraordinary circumstances. And given that the texts in question are consistent with a number of possible events, and a number of possible chains of natural causes from the events to the texts, and there is simply no non-question begging way to independently determine which possibilities are accurate, the matter is simply an open question.
ReplyDeleteAll we know with a fair degree of certainty is that Jesus’ disciples were transformed by an experience that made them fervent believers to the point of martyrdom, and that recorded texts dating decades after the transformative event in question describe their interaction with what they believed was a risen Jesus. That’s it. We do not have the testimony of the disciples themselves soon after the event in question, which means that we lack the ability to determine whether their testimonies were consistent with one another. We simply do not know what happened to them, and taking the New Testament texts as inherently reliable -- given all that we know about human psychology and its tendency towards revision and distortion of memories, especially when powerful emotions and motivations are involved -- just begs the question altogether.
Who would have a motive to do this? Especially given that the tomb belonged to a member of the Jewish ruling council – that is, quite an influential person whom you probably wouldn’t want to cross. Why risk arousing his anger by stealing from his tomb, all for the sake of moving some dead guy whose claims to Messiahship had proved to be empty?
Maybe to play a prank on Jesus’ followers? Maybe these same people spread the rumors about his resurrection to mock them? Much like the very term “Christian” was originally a term of derision. Or maybe the influential person themselves changed their mind about burying a criminal there, and had his body moved elsewhere? Influential people do change their minds. Or maybe the Romans removed it to prevent his tomb from becoming a shrine of martyrdom for his followers? I’m pretty sure that Roman officials would not be afraid to cross Joseph of Arimathea. I mean, there are a number of possibilities here, and all are more likely than Jesus rose from the dead and walked through the stone blocking the entrance.
Of course there is. You’d be quite happy to accept alien claims on the basis of probabilities, but refuse to consider miracles before totally ruling out any other explanation. That’s a double standard right there.
I would reject both aliens and miracles in the context of evaluating an ancient historical claim. However, your scenario was a contemporary event with a plentitude of empirical evidence involving thousands of people, all of whom could be reached for confirmation of their testimony, as well as independent and skeptical investigators. The resurrection in ancient history and the alien crash landing in today’s world are not even remotely comparable. We would both agree that the likelihood of aliens and miracles are low, even if incalculable, but if one actually presented itself to thousands of people who independently confirm their observations, and skeptical investigators have ruled out all plausible natural explanations, then I’d say we must believe in a miracle and/or alien life.
Not every piece of evidence used for an extraordinary claim has to be extraordinarily well-supported
ReplyDeleteSure, it does, especially if someone is using that evidence to support an extraordinary claim. The case for the extraordinary claim must itself by extraordinarily well supported, and that means that all the pieces of evidence must themselves be extraordinarily well-supported, because any piece of evidence that is flimsy would undermine the extraordinary claim itself.
dguller:
ReplyDelete“But you wouldn’t accept that all of them were genuine. And that means that you must have some account of the false claims themselves. I think that there are ultimately two broad categories of such explanations: fraud and/or self-deception.”
For heaven’s sake, are you pretending to be David Hume or something? If you want to actually refute the Resurrection, just actually refute the Resurrection. Don’t just talk in vague generalities about how there are lots of miracles claims I’d presumably reject if I’d heard of them. What does that have to do with anything?
“Fervent belief is neither necessary nor sufficient for the reality of a miracle. There were people who observed Jesus’ miracles, and did not follow him at all. There are people who fervently believe in their delusions, and yet their delusions remain false. That only leaves the claim that fervent belief is present more often in the presence of a miracle than in its absence, and that claim requires evidence to justify it. How many people became fervent believers after observing a miracle? How many people did not? And note that you cannot rely upon the degree of fervent belief in this case to determine the reality of the miracle without begging the question, and so how do you establish that the miracles in question were genuine at all?
How is this supposed to follow on from what I’ve written? I said that if somebody has a motive for faking a miracle – if, say, his reputation as a miracle-worker nets him a large amount of earthly wealth and status – the chances are more likely that he, y’know, actually is faking a miracle. What on earth are you objecting to here? Are we not allowed to take into account people’s motives when considering whether they’re telling the truth?
“First, the world does look different in the Seekers case. A world in which the Seekers have the power to avert an apocalypse is different from a world in which the Seekers lack that power.”
In the Seekers’ case, there are three possible worlds:
1 – The apocalypse was going to happen, and the Seekers lacked the power to avert it. Goodbye, world.
2 – The apocalypse was going to happen, but the Seekers managed to avert it somehow.
3 – The Seekers do lack the power to avert the apocalypse, but luckily it was never going to happen anyway.
So how exactly does world 2 look different to world 3?
“Second, the world where Jesus is resurrected and interacting with his disciples looks the same to the disciples as it would if they were having a bereavement hallucination of him.”
If they all happened to have the same hallucinations, sure. But if one of them had a hallucination and tried to convince the others that Jesus was risen – which, remember, was one of your proposed scenarios – the others’ world is going to look different, since if Jesus rose they’d be talking to him themselves, whereas if he didn’t, they’d be listening to somebody going on about how he totally saw this dead man.
“Who exactly are these “several hundred of them”? What are their names? Where did they come from? Where did this interaction with Jesus happen? What did they see and hear? Who actually went out to speak to them to determine whether their stories were accurate and consistent with one another? All you have is a claim made decades later after the event in question, and absolutely nothing to substantiate it.”
ReplyDeleteAgain, common sense suggests that you don’t point to witnesses who don’t exist, since that only damages your credibility.
But even leaving aside the several hundred claim – can you find any parallel instances of twelve people who all say that they had a conversation with somebody at the same time, that this somebody interacted with the world around him in such a way as to be noticeable – and then it was later proved that they were all actually suffering a hallucination? And I don’t just want some vague “All these people started getting disease-like symptoms” or “A couple of people had a fit when someone else walked into the room”. Nor do I want “Well, *individually* all these things happened, so…” Wild speculation isn’t the same as an explanation.
“And note that this is the central issue between us. You take the stories at face value and utterly dismiss the very possibility that the narratives that are preserved in the texts that you possess could have been distorted or altered in any way. Without any independent evidence closer to the event in question, we simply cannot rely upon your texts as inherently reliable, especially when they describe such extraordinary circumstances. And given that the texts in question are consistent with a number of possible events, and a number of possible chains of natural causes from the events to the texts, and there is simply no non-question begging way to independently determine which possibilities are accurate, the matter is simply an open question.”
No, the central issue is that I don’t take your evidence-free speculations seriously. I mean, sure, maybe it *could* have happened like you say. Maybe one day we *will* be able to explain consciousness naturalistically. Maybe one day we *will* subsume all fields of enquiry into the natural sciences. But just gesturing at the idea isn’t enough. You need to give some reason for us to take that idea seriously, and so far you haven’t done that at all.
Also, “without any independent evidence”? The letters of Paul are independent of Acts, which is independent of the Synoptics, which are independent of John. That’s four independent sources right there.
“We simply do not know what happened to them, and taking the New Testament texts as inherently reliable -- given all that we know about human psychology and its tendency towards revision and distortion of memories, especially when powerful emotions and motivations are involved -- just begs the question altogether.”
Actually there’s some evidence to suggest that being emotionally involved makes people remember events better, not worse. Also, there’s evidence that unusual events, important and life-changing events, and events which we frequently have reason to recount are remembered better. The inclusion of vivid imagery and irrelevant detail is also associated with more accurate remembering. All of these, of course, are present in the Gospel narratives, so there’s good reason to suppose prima facie that they’re more likely to be accurate than the average memory.
“Maybe to play a prank on Jesus’ followers? Maybe these same people spread the rumors about his resurrection to mock them? Much like the very term “Christian” was originally a term of derision.”
ReplyDeleteSo who were these people? What reason did they have to play a prank on Jesus’ followers? And why would (a) these people think that spreading rumours of Jesus’ resurrection be a good way to mock his followers, as opposed to getting themselves labelled as nutcases, and (b) the disciples believe them? I mean, come on, if some bully said “Hey, I hear your dead relative has come back from the dead,” would you believe him? No. That’s just a ridiculous idea.
“Or maybe the influential person themselves changed their mind about burying a criminal there, and had his body moved elsewhere? Influential people do change their minds.”
And didn’t tell anybody else that he’d changed his mind, even when they started founding a new religion based on the idea that he’d come back?
“Or maybe the Romans removed it to prevent his tomb from becoming a shrine of martyrdom for his followers? I’m pretty sure that Roman officials would not be afraid to cross Joseph of Arimathea.”
So what, when Jesus’ followers instead started proclaiming his glorious resurrection, the Romans didn’t think to dig up the body again and show it to the disciples? Wow, what a convenient attack of incompetence.
“I would reject both aliens and miracles in the context of evaluating an ancient historical claim.”
So why is the age of the claim relevant? Surely it’s the amount of evidence that’s important?
“However, your scenario was a contemporary event with a plentitude of empirical evidence involving thousands of people, all of whom could be reached for confirmation of their testimony, as well as independent and skeptical investigators. The resurrection in ancient history and the alien crash landing in today’s world are not even remotely comparable. We would both agree that the likelihood of aliens and miracles are low, even if incalculable, but if one actually presented itself to thousands of people who independently confirm their observations, and skeptical investigators have ruled out all plausible natural explanations, then I’d say we must believe in a miracle and/or alien life.”
So basically you’re saying that we wouldn’t have to completely rule out every non-alien explanation first. So why are miracles different? Just because they all took place a long time ago?
“Sure, it does, especially if someone is using that evidence to support an extraordinary claim. The case for the extraordinary claim must itself by extraordinarily well supported, and that means that all the pieces of evidence must themselves be extraordinarily well-supported, because any piece of evidence that is flimsy would undermine the extraordinary claim itself. “
OK, name me one mainstream scholar who thinks that the Book of Acts is wrong in its dating of the apostles’ beginning to preach.
Prof. Feser, 1st I did enjoy reading the text of the talk you had as it was very informative.
ReplyDeleteI have scanned the comments and have not seen this post referenced (if it is here and I missed it please excuse me).
http://www.skepticink.com/atheistintermarried/2014/04/20/edward-fesers-imaginary-knockout-of-new-atheism/
I am not sure this is any better than many of the new philistine replies we can typically see from the internet infidels. He seems to dismiss metaphysics and does not entirely understand your position nor the scholastic position.
So I am curious, what is your response to this and also the YT link provided as it claims that Sean Carroll did a good job against WLC.
http://www.skepticink.com/atheistintermarried/2014/04/20/edward-fesers-imaginary-knockout-of-new-atheism/
ReplyDeleteI am curious as to your response to this. It seems to me to be the same internet infidel or new philistine response to your position. I did not see this link anywhere else so if it here please excuse me.
The poster does not seem to understand your views or the scholastic position in general.
As I said, I am curious as to how you would respond to this person? Thanks.