A response to Dinesh D’Souza’s article Are Miracles Possible in an Age of Science?

Outline: in the discussion, I look at a current ‘debate between science and religion’ and find it to be a false debate; the elaborations dig further and continue the discussion in terms of a larger, ultimate view of the Universe; the epilogue focuses on the context of the debate, finding it to be peripheral to the essential concerns of science and religion and some aspects of their relevance in society and life

Discussion

The debate between D’Souza and other ‘champions of religion’ and the ‘champions of science,’ Dawkins and Dennett and others, is a curious one. And it’s not new; something like it has been going on for a while—at least since 1860 when Thomas Henry Huxley debated Bishop Samuel Wilberforce over Darwin’s Origin of the Species that had been published just a year before. It is generally but not universally accepted that Huxley, who argued in favor of Darwin’s ideas, won the debate with even the Bishop’s supporters conceding defeat. In view his new blog, D’Souza might be tempted to claim that he has turned the tables

D’Souza’s argument is that the laws of science describe observed regularities but, since there are unobserved phenomena, we do not know that all phenomena satisfy the laws. Therefore, exceptions to the laws are possible and, since miracles are exceptions to the laws of science, miracles are possible. The argument is not at all new and was known to Hume in the eighteenth century. It is interesting that even though the argument was known to him, Hume argued against miracles (as D’Souza notes)

It is interesting to ask why Hume argued against miracles, given his skepticism toward science. In the first place, Hume was a rather universal skeptic and so it would have been natural for him to apply his skepticism to both science and miracles

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, there is a distinction between Hume’s skepticism toward science and his skepticism toward miracles. My understanding is that Hume was concerned to examine what would today be called the ‘foundations of science.’ Anyone who is truly concerned with foundations does not approach the subject with the pre-judice that there is / is no foundation but is concerned to find what foundation there may be. In the time of Hume, science was usually held to be above question and this was largely the result of the enormous success in the program of Newtonian Mechanics. However, Hume was concerned to question whether science had a logical foundation and his answer was, no, it is not a logical deduction from a finite set of observations to law over an infinite set of possible data (it would not be a logical deduction from any set of data to any other set and this point has been made by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.) Hume’s conclusion, against the general thinking of the day, was that the laws of science do not have a deductive foundation. In those days logic was used in two senses, deduction which is necessary inference and induction which is the inference of general laws from particular data and is today regarded as probable rather than necessary. Today, induction is rather synonymous with ‘scientific method.’ In effect, then, Hume argued that the foundation of science is inductive which is to say that the laws of science are ‘probable.’ Said alternatively, the laws of science represent our best knowledge of nature

Regarding miracles, Hume does not say that they are logically inconsistent with what we know, e.g. science and common sense, because it is not logically impossible for there to be exceptions to the laws of science and to the expectations of common sense. He says that it is not rational to believe in miracles since science represents our best knowledge. Hume was making a distinction between what is rational and what is logical and this is a crucial distinction. If you ran off a cliff with the expectation that you wouldn’t fall toward the jagged rocks two hundred feet below, your expectation would be irrational though not illogical. If wild dogs were charging at you as you stood at the edge of the cliff you might take your chances with the rocks. Then, it wouldn’t be irrational to jump but it would still be irrational expect gravity to take a holiday. It is true, though, that truly believing in the suspension of gravity in the wild dog situation would make you feel better

Except the limitations noted in Journey in Being, it is logically possible that a God created this cosmological system in 1925 and that in the creation, everything was created as if it was part of a 10 billion year or so history (and therefore the fundamentalist has no need to think or argue that Bible and Darwin are consistent.) However, even though logically possible it is not rational to believe that the creation occurred in 1925

D’Souza’s interpretation of Hume is in error but this is not remarkable; Hume’s admirers, as has been noted in some analyses of Hume’s thought, are prone to the same error

An incidental point about miracles. If a miracle is possible or if one did occur, that might be due, simply, to incomplete physics rather than divine intervention

Where does this leave us with miracles? First, of course miracles are logically possible. Second, however, that you probably will not want to depend on a miracle to get you to work on time; if you don’t get up, get dressed and so on you might miraculously appear at work at 8:00 am all bright and shiny but the odds are not good. We do not want to base our day to day planning or even our social planning on miracles but, if we’re rational, we won’t object if one should occur

Why, then, are miracles important. We have a day to day reality. We are born, we live, and we die. Is that all there is? What lies beyond the edge of the known cosmos? Here’s the thing. In our day to day reality, the space of actual events is larger but similar to the space of experienced events. Therefore, it’s irrational to regularly expect exceptions to the familiar—the laws of science and so on. However the space of events before and after death, beyond the edges of the cosmos, is something regarding which we have no purchase whatsoever. That space may be colossally larger than everyday space so the size of experienced space may be infinitesimal in comparison to it. It is therefore a mistake to assume that we can project from everyday space to the larger space. That is one thing that religion may remind us of

Not all religions do that. Buddha argued against metaphysical / religious style speculation suggesting that it was a distraction that the work we have to do is in this world

But there is / may be this larger truth. Does it follow from the foregoing logic that the Biblical account of the world—the genesis, the coming and the death of Christ, the Day of Judgment—are true? No, not at all

This is one thing that the ‘champions of religion’ don’t say. They focus on skepticism toward the arguments of the ‘opposition’ but gloss of the foundation of their own truth

In so doing, they, the captains of faith, do not at all destroy science but instead a mistaken interpretation of science and rationality

Even more importantly, by providing or suggesting a false foundation for religion, they destroy credibility in religion itself. Surely, if the science of the here and now, of the immediate, of this cosmological system is a tentative affair, religion, which addresses the truth of the (possibly) much larger universe, must be even more tentative

For an elaboration of the foregoing thoughts, an analysis of their fuller truth and significance and some possibilities for religion, you may visit my site, http://www.horizons-2000.org andor read other articles on Myblog: http://www.horizons-2000.org/weblog/weblog.html

In conclusion, D’Souza’s analysis, is based on a confusion of the terms ‘logical’ and ‘rational;’ his intent is to rebut those who he calls the ‘atheists’ but the result is damaging to true Religion; and the debate between the extremists, the two sets of champions, is peripheral to truth but, in that it parades as truth, has potentially damaging consequences

Elaborations

The force of Hume’s critique lies in the following. Since science involves extrapolation, we know that its truth is probable rather than necessary (however there is a need to be careful about the meaning of ‘probability’ in this context—it is not as though a prediction has a certain probability of being correct—that is discussed a little further below.) Further, since the space to which we extrapolate is infinite, and we can never have more than a finite number of observations, we can never know the necessary truth of science. Is this universally true? I.e., are all the spaces to which science extrapolates infinite? Actually, we don’t know that even though it seems to be the case in physics whose domain of application would be the entire universe. For physics, the assumption of an infinite space seems not unreasonable—the size of the known universe is immensely larger than our planet. What, however, of biology? The theory of evolution pertains to a time scale of about five billion years and a spatial domain of 8,000 miles in diameter. Thus, the idea that a theory of evolution may be the only logical possibility is not unreasonable

Although the likelihood is slim, there is a way in which some laws of physics would be necessary. Those of you who have taken the introductory mechanics course in which orbits of planets are studied may remember that there are only a finite number of power laws for a central force under which the orbit can be an ellipse. By analogy, it is conceivable that there are only a finite number of laws of physics under which stable or even semi-stable cosmological systems such as ours are possible. In that case, a finite number of observations might determine the law or laws. Perhaps there is only one such but yet undiscovered law

The laws of physics could be necessary if God willed it so. It would be a miracle to end all miracles. It is logically possible for ‘divine intervention’ to be the laws of physics, even for divine intervention to make itself invisible, e.g. by being indistinguishable from the laws (while making the delusion of its visibility a frequent occurrence.) Although I do not ‘believe in’ this possibility, D’Souza might.

In his blog, D’Souza argues that if a theory, e.g. Newtonian Mechanics, is confirmed by 10,000,000 observations its ‘probability’ is not 99.9%, not even 50% because there may be 20,000,000 untried cases. This is not right. If the space of the Universe is infinite, not only in its extent but in the variety of the laws of the different cosmological systems of which ours is one, then there is no likelihood that Newton’s system has Universal application. Even in our solar system, Newton’s system is but an excellent approximation and from Einstein’s theory of gravitation, the error can be predicted but the probability that it is 100% correct is zero. Still, Newton’s system is excellent for many purposes. This may be stated in the following form: every (good) theory of science has a domain of application and, while, miracles are possible in such domains, you would not normally depend on them; the ‘probability’ of the ‘intrusion’ of a miracle is infinitesimal. Now, while the probability of the applicability of a given law might be zero with regard to the entire Universe, there is no reason to want to apply the law at large; within the domain of validity, and within appropriate approximation, the probability of correct application is essentially though not precisely 1 (100%.) The possibility of miracles, however, is beside the symbolic point of the idea of miracles which is or may be to point to the possibility of another or further truth, to remind us that while ‘this’ is important, ‘this’ is not necessarily all there is

However, there would not be any point to a ‘symbolic truth’ that had no actual significance, no significance in the larger Universe. Symbolic truth cannot have any function if it points to the truly absurd; it must point, at least, to what is possible. What is possible? The word ‘possible’ has more than one meaning. Something is physically possible if it is allowed by physical law; it is logically possible if it does not violate the laws of logic. We know that our knowledge of physical law has changed. Logic, as well, has seen major perturbations over the last 200 years. Is there not a concept of possibility that is not predicated as in physical possibility and logical possibility? Imagine there is; call it Possibility. What would it be like? What is its relation to the Universe? Consider this: the Universe is all being over all time; what could it mean that something should be Possible but never occur in the entire Universe? In this world, which is limited, and therefore allows—a consistent concept, at least—of other worlds, possibility may refer to another world, e.g., a world in which the laws of physics are the same but the conditions are different (physical possibility.) But there is no other Universe! Therefore, everything that is Possible must also be actual (that everything that is actual must be Possible is obvious.) That is the Universe and the Possible are identical

It is shown in Journey in Being that the Universe, the Possible, and Logically Possible are identical but, on account of its stability, there is an immense gap between this world and that larger universe. How does this fit with the idea that logic may evolve, with the fact that there is not one but many systems of logic. Note the upper case L in Logically Possible. The idea, which requires justification for which, see Orientation andor Journey in Being, is that what is involved is a concept of Logic which is a ‘benchmark’ for logic or the logics. Symbolic truth may point to an actual world. However, we have little purchase on that other world. The meditations of the spiritually charismatic—Jesus, Buddha and so on—may be seen better as meditations on the limits of this world in terms of some possibilities of the ‘other’ world rather than as meditations on that world. The literal interpretation of religion is not impossible but it is not rational to think that the literal religious universe is the Universe, that the former gives us any hold on the latter, or that we have any significant detailed hold on the latter

Miracles are logically possible relative to our cosmological system; relative to the Universe, they are not even Logically Possible. In other words, we may one day encounter a context in which it would be rational to ‘believe’ in what we would call a miracle from our present vantage point; however the occurrence wouldn’t then be a miracle and wouldn’t require belief

D’Souza and the other champions of religion subject science to logical scrutiny. In doing so they fail to distinguish what is logical from what is rational. In doing so, they do science, humanity and religion a disfavor. Their bias is clear. While they subject science to scrutiny they leave an implication that religion is true—not just any religion but a particular and rather literal interpretation of a particular religion. They do not however subject their own ‘faith’ to the same scrutiny to which they subject science and, while this does not make the case for their faith, perhaps they think it does. Surely, if they wanted a faith that was dependable they would subject it to equal scrutiny. There are not, rather there has not be demonstrated to be, two kinds of scrutiny—logic and rationality for science and revelation and mysticism for religion. This is where the disfavor lies

For further analysis of these and related ideas, though not especially of miracles, visit http://www.horizons-2000.org

Epilogue

I said earlier that the religion versus science debate is curious. If both science and religion are properly understood, there is a place for each of them and that place is partially but not altogether exclusive and depends on the context of application. The debate might exist if just one side had gotten its take on either science or religion wrong. In fact, both sides have got something wrong. The ‘atheists’ have understood rightly that science is rational in its own domain; however, they have mistaken that domain for the Universe—they have, in essence, confused the rational with the logical, have promoted the rational to the necessary (the reason that there is something like rationality which is not quite logical is the result of the limited rationality human cognition and applies equally to science and to literal religion.) It is interesting that some branches of science, e.g. physical cosmology, reveal some of their limits but they cannot reveal what, if anything, lies beyond those limits. The history of science may suggest that science will continue to uncover further cosmological ground but it cannot reveal the contours of any ‘final’ science for any revelation or refutation of another source of (consistent) revelation must be by extrapolation

D’Souza has been diligent in his researches and reading. Hume is indeed a major player in understanding the nature of our knowledge and of necessities or otherwise of science and the underpinnings of science such as ‘causation.’ He is of course, not the only player and D’Souza is familiar with some other players such as the great twentieth century philosopher of science Karl Popper as well. However, D’Souza has put on display in the ‘miracles’ blog any knowledge of Immanuel Kant’s answers to Hume and it is well known that Popper was a thinker in the Humean but not in the Kantian tradition which omission is one of the great weaknesses of modern empiricism (Kant’s reasoning was limited by his acceptance of the necessity of Newtonian Mechanics and Euclidean Geometry but, as it turned out, this did not negate the essence of his ideas that can be justified by other means.) In any event, had D’Souza made use of Kantian thought or had he simply seen that he has confused ‘logic’ with ‘rationality’ he would have seen that his criticism of science for the purpose of clearing the way for religion is in absolute error. What’s more, D’Souza has gotten the literal side of religion wrong and therefore, of necessity, his conception of the relation between the symbolic and the literal is at least shaky in its foundation. I do not know whether he has gotten the symbolic side ‘right’ (there need not be a single right on the symbolic side but there can be a wrong) but for his own sake and for the sake of Christians who follow his thought, and for the sake of the world, he might consider going back to the fundamentals of his faith. Along these lines it might also ‘behoove,’ as one of my professors used to say, the ‘atheists,’ i.e. the rationalists who have no place for Religion based on their mistake regarding the domain of science and a similar mistake regarding the domain of religion versus the domain of Religion, to return to fundamentals