[Cross-posted at Parableman]
Trent Dougherty linked to an entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy by Michael Ruse called Creationism. The SEP is usually very good, and I have to say that Ruse is much more reasonable on these issues than many in the anti-ID movement. He understands the positions he's criticizing a little more accurately and usually represents them a little more fairly. Any philosopher knows a lot more philosophy than Richard Dawkins, but Ruse stands out as someone willing to discuss the philosophical issues as philosophy, while many in the debate are dismissing them as other things (usually as religion or as bad science).
But this piece reveals that in some ways he does display a number of symptoms that I find throughout the anti-ID movement. Trent calls the article deplorable, and I do wonder how this got published in the SEP. It's not as bad as anything you'd find in Daniel Dennett or Richard Dawkins, but it's actually worse in some ways than the Wikipedia entries on these issues, which I don't have a very high opinion of.
Devin Carpenter asks in a comment why Trent finds the piece deplorable, and I decided to type up my reasons, which quickly got long enough that I didn't want to leave it as a comment. So here are some of why I consider this to be a fairly bad Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy entry. This is only after a quick skim and then once through with a closer read, so I may have misunderstood him in some places (although a couple times I think he may be at fault if I did). But I'd be very surprised to have gotten him that wrong on all these issues. Some of these are more minor and may well just be pet peeves of mine, but I think a number are much more serious. I'm listing them in the order they occurred to me as I was reading through the article more carefully.
1. He claims that six-day creationists are enthusiastic about Intelligent Design, which is simply false if he's referring to the arguments of Dembski, Behe, and Johnson (which his later section on ID makes likely). Most creationists in the narrow sense do not support ID arguments of that sort, since they think such arguments concede too much to evolutionist and to old-earth creationism. The ID leaders want to include six-day creationists, but they've had a hard time winning them over.
2. He confuses deism with a view some deists happened to hold. Deism was the denial of divine revelation while retaining much of the philosophical core of theism. Some deists such as Thomas Jefferson held that God has moral standards for us to follow, just not all the ones the Bible gives. They tended to deny miracles as breaking the laws of nature, but deism is not the same view as the view that God does not intervene (and that very notion assumes a clear notion of which metaphysical picture of God's interaction with the universe counts as intervention, something I find very unclear; one can view God's interaction with creation as identical with God's setting up the laws of nature, all without being a deist, particularly if one accepts divine atemporality, but I don't think that's required).
3. His third paragraph begins by saying, "All are adamantly opposed to evolutionary beliefs". All of who? He's just defined two senses of creationism, one very broad and the other very narrow (with no sense of a middle ground, I should note). One might expect that he's saying this about all creationists then, meaning all from both groups. I suspect not, since he had just said that often narrow creationists are enthusiastic about ID, and maybe he's then saying that all narrow creationists are opposed to evolution. That's the charitable reading. But it's not the most obvious way to take it.
4. He presents the evolution that (presumably narrow) creationists deny. The first sentence of that description doesn't in any way go beyond the micro-evolution that narrow creationists endorse. He doesn't mention that where they disagree is about common descent. This does make it seem as if they are taking an even more radical position than they actually take.
5. He confuses philosophy and religion by calling the view that humans have souls a religious claim. Plato and Descartes would beg to differ. Aquinas would say that it might be known by philosophy and by religion, but that doesn't make it a religious claim. It just means that many hold it because their religion teaches it.
6. He treats theistic realism as contrary to metaphysical realism. This may be just a typo, but it infects the entire rest of that paragraph and is at best very confusing.
7. He seems critical of the view that genuine Christianity actually believes in God (i.e. is theistically realist).
8. Johnson's main target is naturalism. That's what he's trying to argue against. It's a little strange to present Johnson as trying to put theism and naturalism on par. He doesn't think that at all. He does rightly think they are two philosophical attitudes that go beyond the mere statement of evolution in biology, and he does think they stand or fall together in terms of whether they should be allowed in the classroom. But it's very strange to present him as seeing them on par as if Johnson is a metaphysical relativist.
9. He claims that methodological naturalism and evolution are a package deal. You can't have one without the other. But surely there are plenty of people who accept natural selection, random chance, and common descent with animals as the main factors of explaining human origins but who do not insist on metholodical naturalism.
10. His discussion of miracles leaves out a fairly obvious view, i.e. that miracles are a result of natural laws but not laws of physics. There are larger laws than that. This would still, then, be law-governed behavior, but methodological naturalism restricts us so we can't consider such possible laws. This means that the laws as a whole are not violated by miracles, because more fundamental laws that explain the laws of physics also explain the miracles. So one need not think of miracles as violations of the laws of nature just because one accepts miracles as not explained by the laws of physics. One would not appeal to these laws in science if one were a methodological naturalist, but he's limiting the theist's options too much by presenting just the views he includes.
11. He seems to have little room for a view in between literalistic six-day views and theistic evolution.
12. He claims that Behe is arguing for the impossibility of natural selection and unbroken law as the only explanations. But he confuses two kinds of explanation in making this claim. On the level of efficient causes, Behe says nothing against those being the only explanations. What he insists is that there must be some final cause, some intent, some purpose behind those efficient causes. That doesn't mean that the natural laws are broken by some violation of them or insertion of an act from without. It doesn't mean that natural selection isn't the guiding force used by the intelligent designer. His general argument does not rule out natural selection as a tool of the designer. What he thinks irreducible complexity shows is not that evolution is false or that miracles as breaking the laws of nature have ocurred. What he thinks it shows is purposes in nature, which would be consistent with theistic evolution. Ruse even mentions this not too much later when he admits that Behe thinks it could have all been built into the laws.
13. He dismisses the idea of front-loading the purpose of evolution into the laws by rejecting a very simplistic way of how that might be done. ID is silent on what the designer must be like other than that it's a being who could somehow arrange for things to develop in a way that leads to life as we know it (or at least life with the irreducibly complex features), but one plausible such designer is the tradition theistic God, who is omnipotent and omniscience and could guarantee from the laws and initial conditions that life would arise in exactly the way it did. It need not be encoded in genes for that to happen. All that needs to happen is the right unlikely occurrences of events, but if God arranges all things to work out so those occur then life will come about in exactly the way we see it to have done
14. He brings up the problem of evil as if it undermines ID. He even verges into the old problem of attributing good to God but not evil, a problem that has long been discussed by theistic philosophers, who have had lots to say that he pretty much ignores. If he's going to discuss these problems, he ought to discuss them or at least acknowledge that theists have had lots of responses to them for a very long time.
More to the point, if there are satisfactory answers to the problem of evil, then it's no problem for ID. If there aren't, then it's a problem for theism whether ID arguments are good or not. So I don't see why it's worth mentioning if he isn't going to present other objections to the existence of God such as divine hiddenness.
15. This essay is a diatribe. It does not have the tone of an encyclopedia article. It does not represent a consensus among philosophers, given that many philosophers who know any philosophy of religion would recognize at least some of what I've pointed out. It misrepresents some of the main figures it discusses. It appeals to emotion. It has a conclusion that's strikingly political in focus and intent. So what is it doing in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy? Perhaps there are other things Trent had in mind. Maybe I haven't even gotten to his major objections. But some of these seemed to me to be good reasons not to think very highly of the article.
His discussion of miracles leaves out a fairly obvious view, i.e. that miracles are a result of natural laws but not laws of physics. There are larger laws than that.
I admit to being unfamiliar with these larger laws. I take it you mean by 'larger laws' laws that are more basic than the allegedly basic physical laws. So, what are the larger laws and who discovered them? I'm setting aside for the moment how miracles might be "the result of" these larger laws.
If dualism is true, these laws would govern mental events and the interaction between the mental and physical. I can't think of a good reason why there couldn't be laws to govern such things, but I also don't think they'd be the kind of laws we could discover with science. If Leibniz is right, then these would be parallel to the laws of physics. If Berkeley is right, they would be the laws of physics. If naturalism is right, there would be no such things. But on any robust interactionism, there seems to be a place for such laws.
I can't think of a good reason why there couldn't be laws to govern such things, but I also don't think they'd be the kind of laws we could discover with science.
I suppose there could be such laws, I don't know. But let's suppose there are. How would they help in the problem presented by miracles? The philosophical problem seems to be the same. Any miracle worthy of the name is going to involve the violation of a law L of a world w. Of course, there can be no violations of L in w. As the saying goes, whatever else laws are, they are exceptionless regularities. So, the violation of the laws of w will have to occur in another world w'. That is, in the closest worlds w' (to w) in which L (the law of w) is violated, L is (at most) an almost law. Let it be a law (or governed by law) that no one rises from the dead. John reports a formerly very dead man cooking him breakfast on shore. In the closest world w' to w in which John's report is true, it is not a law of nature that people do not rise from the dead. It is rather a law of nature in w that people do not rise from the dead. We're going to have to say something like this, it seems, whether or not there are these additional laws you mention. So I don't see how adding (as yet unknown)laws helps much.
The point is to explain how miracles might be law-governed even if they aren't governed by the laws we can detect. That seems to accomplish something.
As for the problem you present, I don't see why that's a problem. Shouldn't someone who thinks miracles are violations of laws of nature just say that laws are not exceptionless regularities but rather generalities that are true unless some higher power intervenes?
"In the closest world w' to w in which John's report is true, it is not a law of nature that people do not rise from the dead."
The problem with making these kinds of claims into a "law of nature" is that you end up having quite a lot of explaining to do. More than you'd think at first glance.
Start with death. In a grimly amusing way, the definition of "legally dead" hasn't been crystal clear due to improvements in resuscitation, and various other medical advances. What used to be "dead" no longer qualifies as such in this modern age.
But as for death itself - put aside biblical.. heck, put aside any and all past supposed claims of the dead rising, alive once again. Ask yourself, given how many times humanity has done what was previously considered either impossible or the near exclusive domain of supernatural beings (Flying, entering space, etc.), just how strong the "law" that the dead do not come back to life will be. How much further will this "law" slip?
Which, to me, is parallel to the point that's being discussed here: We do not know all the "laws" our universe operates by, or how far the ones we're certain of will eventually slide as a result of investigation, experimentation, inspiration, etc. If we want to be accurate, the law would be "People do not come back from the dead, yet."
"Yet" doesn't mean they certainly will. It just highlights the fact that we can't say they certainly won't.
Shouldn't someone who thinks miracles are violations of laws of nature just say that laws are not exceptionless regularities but rather generalities that are true unless some higher power intervenes?
I guess you can just say that, but it certainly wouldn't show much imagination. There are ways of understanding miracles that don't involve abandoning such conceptually central features. Laws are (at the very least) exceptionless regularities. So how can a miracle happen? Lewis offered the analysis of divergence miracles that I briefly mentioned above. It manages the problem nicely, I think, without mangling the concept of a law. It does allow that God can intervene, but it tells us just what must occur if God does so. Among the things that must occur is that the world in which the miracle occurs is not the world in which the violated law obtains. The simple idea exploits the fact that the set of broadly possible worlds is wider than the set of causally possible worlds. When a miracle happens, a broadly but non-causally possible world is actualized. Since these broad & non-causally possible worlds are, indeed, possible, God can actualize them. I'm setting aside worries (if there are genuine worries) about possible, but non-feasible worlds. Such a worry is, I think, a bit far afield.
Why not think that laws are conditional in the following way. Each has an antecedent (or a conjunct in the antecedent) that says "provided that the system is closed" or "provided that nothing outside the system interferes"? Many laws are already put in such formulations (I'm thinking the laws of thermodynamics, for instance)
Here's an example for illustration:
(G): Provided that the system is closed, then the "Gravitational force between two objects equals the gravitational constant times the product of the masses divided by the distance between them squared." [quotation from wikipedia]
If we understand laws in the way I'm describing, miracles in which God messes with the gravitational force between two objects are still instances when (G) is true. (G) is vacuously true in such cases--since the antecedent is false--but that's fine.
If what I've said above works, then it is a mistake to point at only the consequent of a law of nature as if it alone were the whole law. For instance, wikipedia presents the above quotation as if it were the entire general law of gravitation. If it were, then we would have problems when it is false because of God's actions. However, if we include the antecedent into the law of nature as I do above, then, provided the antecedent is false, the whole law is true, and we get exceptionless laws of nature--which appears to be what we want.
I like your idea here, Tim. It is, in fact, the most common account of the relationship between laws of nature and miracles. You can still endorse the idea that laws imply exceptionless regularities, you just have to be careful not to strip the ceteris paribus clause from the regularity.
It's also worth noting that every law in the special sciences has laws involving ceteris paribus clauses anyway. The only place one could hope they'd disappear is with the fundamental laws. A humean metaphysic, where laws (and nonprobabilistic causal claims themselves) are just code for whatever mosaic of local fact exists, gives one a reason to hold otherwise, but humeanism here isn't exactly compelling.
In the essays I noted earlier, I talk about these issues quite a bit, especially in the last 3 (one on open theism, one on molinism and deliberation, and the one about two cronies).
If we understand laws in the way I'm describing, miracles in which God messes with the gravitational force between two objects are still instances when (G) is true. (G) is vacuously true in such cases--since the antecedent is false--but that's fine.
Interesting Tim, but this sort of solution accounts for miracles by denying that there are any. So called miracles are themselves not genuine exceptions to laws since they are accomodated by CP clauses. But we could have been told that there are no miracles to begin with without all the hoopla about CP clauses. Miracles in any interesting sense of the term have to be, in some sense, violations of laws.
I think Lewis does this nicely, as I noted above. Lewis does believe that laws are nothing more than exceptionless regularities, but I have no quarrel with that. I haven't the slightest evidence that laws are something more than exceptionless regularities.
In general I'm unimpressed with the move to CP clauses to account for miracles. Here's why. Take any case where, say, gravitational laws and electical laws (say Coulomb's law) mix. Neither one describes what bodies actually do in these circumstances. According to one law, two bodies will exert a force between each other equivalent to Gmm'/r2, according to the other law the force is equivalent to qq'/r2. In fact, given the CP clauses in each law, the force between the bodies is equivalent to neither of these. There is an exception to both laws in such cases. But we are obviously not tempted to say that, given these exceptions, God must have interferred and a miracle must have occurred. It is pretty clear that we do not invoke God to explain such events. Miracles are something other than exceptions to laws in this sense. Theses sorts of exceptions happen all the time, every day, and are not considered even mildly miraculous. If the CP analysis of miracles were right, there would be miracles galore! But alas there aren't.
Thanks for this, Jeremy! Much appreciated.
Jon,
Thanks for the comment. I didn't know I was endorsing the most common view! I've been really wanting to read those chapters you put up, but I've been knee-deep in my dissertation and packing for our move to South Bend. I'm on a fellowship at the center for phil rel there next year.
Mike,
I'm not denying that there are miracles. I suppose if you define a miracle as an instance where a law of nature is falsified, then I'm denying them. But, I don't think that that's what a miracle is. Also, I don't think that's the traditional understanding of what miracles are.
As for the case you give with the gravitational law and Coulumb's law, I'm not clear on what it shows. I don't see why there are exceptions to both laws in that case, and I don't see why I'd be enticed to think that God interfered. As far as I can see, the case you describe is one where there aren't forces outside the system acting on the system. If that's so, then the antecedent I mentioned in my post is true. So I don't see why both laws have exceptions in this case, and how that negatively affects the suggestion I gave in my previous post.
Hi Mike,
I think I'm with Tim here. If a law is defined as an "exceptionless regularity" then miracles will be defined as impossible. So a believer in miracles will deny that there are laws, at least they will defined that there are "some" laws in that sense.
On the other hand, I think I'm with Mike in thinking that "what we mean" by laws is that they are at least exceptionless regularities. And from this I conclude that purported violations of laws are not violations of laws. A violation of a law is, strictly speaking, a violation of a regularity that would be a law if it weren't violated. But, this isn't a miracle, strictly speaking. So, miracles are impossible if we hold fixed what we mean by "law" and "miracle". However, miracles would be possible if we changed the meaning of one of these terms.
Though, how to go about doing this baffles me.
Sorry, that should have read:
"So a believer in miracles will deny that there are laws, at least they will deny that there are "some" laws in that sense."
I think I'm with Tim here. If a law is defined as an "exceptionless regularity" then miracles will be defined as impossible.
If you defined tham as unexceptionable (i.e. unable to have exceptions), then it might follow that miracles are impossible. If you define them as merely exceptionless, then it could at most follow that there aren't any, not the stronger modal claim that they're impossible.
But either point assumes a definition of miracles as violating the laws of nature. If a miracle is just something unexpected rather than nomically impossible or if it's something with a final cause but consistent with the laws, then even defining laws as unexceptionable doesn't conflict with the existence of miracles.
Mike, your criticism of the CP account of miracles assumes that a violation of such a law is sufficient for being a miracle. Remember, though, that it would be an unfair criticism of your view to says that every event in history has been the violation of some near law or other. That's because you don't claim that being a violation of a near law is sufficient for being a miracle. But neither do defenders of the CP account claim that being an exception to a CP law is sufficient. It's of course controversial what else is needed, but as your examples show, something is.
Christian,
you say:
I think I'm with Tim here. If a law is defined as an "exceptionless regularity" then miracles will be defined as impossible.
I'm not with Tim here. :) That's because I don't think that a miracle must go contrary to an exceptionless regularity. I think that laws are exceptionless regularities of the form of (G) above. I think miracles are cases in which the consequent of the law is false. Since the consequent is falsified and the law itself is never falsified, then antecedent must be false as well. That means that there must be something outside the system acting upon the system (though I'd be easily swayed to thinking that this is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a miracle). So, as far as I see, I get everything I want.
there are no exceptions to natural laws.
there are cases in which the consequent of the natural law are false. In those cases something (say, God), has acted on the system from the outside. Those are miracles.
So, I don't agree with you when you say: "So, miracles are impossible if we hold fixed what we mean by "law" and "miracle""
Christian, you write,
I think I'm with Tim here. If a law is defined as an "exceptionless regularity" then miracles will be defined as impossible.
No, they are not impossible. Laws are exceptionless regularities, yes. This entails at most that, if L is a law and E a violation of L, then there are no causally possible worlds in E occurs.
But, as I said above, there are worlds that are both broadly logically possible and not causally possible. Let w' be one of those. And it is possible that E occurs in w'. What I am claiming is that a miracle is an event E that is causally impossible in w, but not impossible simpliciter in w. And, as I said above, the violation of the law L of world w is not a violation of L in w. It is a violation of the law L of w in w', where L does not obtain in w'. So we have (i) the violation of L, (ii) L as an exceptionless regularity and (iii) miracles as violations of laws.
Tim, you write,
As far as I can see, the case you describe is one where there aren't forces outside the system acting on the system.
Either the system is a closed one or it isn't. You want the system to be closed and, on occasion, not closed. I can't follow that.
The point about electrical laws and gravitational laws is that their effects are constantly mixed. The vector result of their interaction is predicted by neither law individually. So we have, in your sense of the term 'law violation', a violation of a law. As I understand your view of a law violation, it occurs when the CP conditions for the law are not satisfied. Now there can be all sorts of reasons for why the CP conditions are not satisfied: maybe God does it, maybe a lesser deity, maybe a darker one... Or maybe, as in this case, we have mixing laws. Indeed, here we have a violation of two laws! But violations of this sort do not have the kind of improbablity that miracles have. Indeed, violations of the kind you are discussing happen every day. There are no surprises in such violations.
Now I suppose you'd want to add to your definition of a miracle that it be brought about by some divine being. But that too gives us no reason to believe miracles are improbable. Just as there is no improbablity in a CP clause being violated, there is no improbability in a CP clause being violated by God. What makes miracles improbable is the fact that they are violations of exceptionless regularities. It is this exceptionless character that makes conformity to laws much more likely than non-conformity. But for the reasons I outlined in response to Christian, non-conformity is still possible.
Mike, why think that miracles need to be improbable or surprising? Moreover, when miracles are thought of as violations of near laws, that doesn't imply any improbability for miracles that isn't generalizable to non-miraculous events as well. So if it is needed (which I think is a mistake), just add it to whichever preferred necessary condition concerning laws one prefers. No?
Mike,
you say: Either the system is a closed one or it isn't. You want the system to be closed and, on occasion, not closed. I can't follow that.
I don't see why that's so hard to follow, unless you think that I must mean that a system's being closed is like a Calvinist's being saved: once closed always closed. But, I don't mean that. There's another reasonable way of understanding my claim about a system being closed. Systems are closed or non-closed for intervals of time (so are sub-systems). God's parting the Red Sea doesn't make it such that the system isn't closed now. It is closed when there are no outside forces acting upon it. When outside forces act on it, it is not closed.
Now, I grant that there are some hard problems in this area. If God interacts in one part of the system does that make all laws vacuously true for the duration of his interaction? How does one quarantine divine interaction to maintain non-vacuous laws? and so on. I don't have thought out answers to these questions. But, that said, I see those problems as further work to be done, and not reasons to think that systems can't go from being closed to open, and back again.
You write: "So we have, in your sense of the term 'law violation', a violation of a law. As I understand your view of a law violation, it occurs when the CP conditions for the law are not satisfied. "
As I've said, I don't think there are violations to the laws of nature, and I haven't used the term "law violation." If by "the CP conditions" you mean the part of the law that says "provided that the system is closed", the law isn't violated when that part is not satisfied. The law is still true, though vacuously.
Concerning your point about the law violations that occur when two laws are mixed. Here's the two laws:
(G): Provided that the system is closed, then the "Gravitational force between two objects equals the gravitational constant times the product of the masses divided by the distance between them squared."
(C): Provided that the system is closed, then the "Force between any two charges is equal to the absolute value of the multiple of the charges divided by 4 pi times the vacuum permittivity times the distance squared between the two charges."
Suppose the system is closed. Then the consequents of (G) and (C) must be true if they are laws of this world. it looks to me like you are saying that the consequents of (G) and (C) aren't true in the situation you describe. If that's the case, then neither (G) nor (C) nor the consequent of (G) nor the consequent of (C) are exceptionless regularities. As such, they aren't laws, as we've been using the term. Since they aren't laws (if you are right that they are violated), we don't here have violations of laws.
Then the consequents of (G) and (C) must be true if they are laws of this world. it looks to me like you are saying that the consequents of (G) and (C) aren't true in the situation you describe.
It is true that the consequents are both false in the case I describe. Yes, they are nonetheless laws.
I'm still not following the closed system talk. Aren't you claiming that God can and does interfere from outside the allegedly closed "system". If God can and does do that, then it is not a closed system. You have a system with energy being added once in a while from outside. How is that in any sense closed? Is the energy subtracted when God stops interfereing?
On miracles, what I call a miracle that violates gravitational laws, you call "messing with gravitational laws" under the assumption that some CP clause is not satisfied. Maybe you don't want to call that violating gravitational laws. That's fine with me. My point in the last post is the same, as far as I can see. Your account of miracles provides no reason to believe they're improbable (where I say 'surprising' I should have said 'improbable'). The phenomenon that you call miraculous is, in fact, a daily occurrence.
Mike,
Consider this analogy. There's a room full of bouncy balls with a single door that allows something outside the room into the room. That's the only way something else could get in. The bouncy balls all bounce around governed by the laws of nature (or, if you will, in violationless regularity). One such regularity is:
(B) provided that there is no outside influence on the room, the number of balls in the foom doesn't increase or decrease.
Here's another:
(W) provided that there is no outside influence on the room, balls only change direction when contacted with a wall or another ball (let "wall" include the ceiling and floor).
Suppose I open the door and throw in more bouncy balls or hit some with a stick, changing their direction, or something like this. I haven't broken any of the laws governing the room (since in these cases the antecedent is false). Once I stop interfering, the stuff in the room goes right back to behaving how it always does when there are no interventions. Provided there are no more interactions without things outside the system (that is, with me), the number of balls won't increase or decrease, and the direction of the balls will only change when in contact with a wall or another ball.
I'm sure you see how the analogy is relevant. God opens the door and interacts with the world. after he stops interfering the system is closed again and obeys the same rules. But, just as I can open and close the door at will, throwing in more balls whenever I want -- and without violating (B) or (W)-- so God can interact with the world in any way he pleases without violating any laws of nature.
I think miracles are daily occurrences, so I'm not too bothered by my account having them be so.
Mike, why think that miracles need to be improbable or surprising?
There are countless arguments against the credibility of miracles. Those arguments--especially Hume here--maintain that it is at least difficult to believe that a miracle occurred. Most maintain that it's beyond credibility that a miracle occurred. The reason the occurrence of a miracle is difficult to believe is the improbability of miracles. I'm prepared to change my view on this, if it can be shown that miracles are more run of the mill.
Moreover, when miracles are thought of as violations of near laws, that doesn't imply any improbability for miracles that isn't generalizable to non-miraculous events as well.
I'm less sure that I'm tracking you here. For a miracle to happen in w, it must be the case that there is an inviolable law L in w and an event E that nonetheless violates L. Lewis does not express it this way, but asserting that a miracle occurred entails that a certain backtracking counterfactual is true. There is a counterfactual, true in w where L obtains, that says, were E to occur, it would (have to have been) the case that L was not a law of nature. If E does occur, then we have a violation of L (the law of w) in world w' (in which L is not a law). I understand law violations as four-place relations: E violates law L of w in w', (E, L, w, w'). So we do not have a violation of a near-law, we have a violation of a law. David Johnson (who is about as careful as Lewis on this point) makes miracles instead 'violations' of near laws. Doing so, as you suggest, might make miraculous events no less probable than some non-miraculous events.
One concluding point. I don't think that any miraculous event is less probable than every non-miraculous event. But I do think that miraculous events must be extremely improbable. This is where the worry for CP analyses occurs. I agree that miracles needn't be surprising, since lots of extremely improbable events are not surprising at all.
I'm not sure why the foregoing is entirely in italics. I assume that, nonetheless, it's clear who said what.
Mike,
Sorry for the delayed response. I wish I could follow the dialectic here a bit better. Keep in mind too that I haven't followed at all the literature on miracles.
"But, as I said above, there are worlds that are both broadly logically possible and not causally possible."
I agree with this.
"Let w' be one of those. And it is possible that E occurs in w'. What I am claiming is that a miracle is an event E that is causally impossible in w, but not impossible simpliciter in w."
Naively, how exactly can there be a miacle in the actual world if miracles only occur at worlds with different causal laws? I'm confused.
"And, as I said above, the violation of the law L of world w is not a violation of L in w."
I don't follow the 'of' and 'in' distinction. I recall that 'at' and 'of' have been used to make sense of negative existentials, but your distinction wrt miracles is foreign to me.
"It is a violation of the law L of w in w', where L does not obtain in w'. So we have (i) the violation of L, (ii) L as an exceptionless regularity and (iii) miracles as violations of laws."
But we don't have a violation of a law in the actual world. I take it that people who claim miracles have occurred also claim that 'in' the actual world, miracles have occurred. They don't mean to claim that miracles could occur if the laws had been different. Anyway, I'm probably missing something here.
Tim,
Oops, I didn't mean to attribute to you a stance you don't take. But I'm not buying the view you're outlining. Perhaps this is because I think conditionals with false antecedents don't have truth-values. I like a suppositional view of conditionals.
Assuming that's wrong though, I don't think laws are hypothetical. Laws ground categorical facts and hypotheticals can't do that. Laws aren't material conditionals with universals expressed by their clauses, they are nomic relations between universals we use conditionals to express.
Jeremy,
"If you define them as merely exceptionless, then it could at most follow that there aren't any, not the stronger modal claim that they're impossible."
That's right. I should have said "not actual" not impossible. I meant to raise a problem for views according to which miracles have occurred.
Everybody,
I'm confused about the claim that a miracle must be improbable. Don't Christians, for example, think they are very likely? Perhaps, we mean objectively improbable. But given this understanding and given cardinal facts about worlds, is it even true that miracles are objectively improbable? I don't see why. Moreover, I'm still unconvinced that miracles are metaphysically possible. That is, even if miracles occur in worlds with different causal laws, it seems to me that this is a deviant sense of 'miracle' since it seems to me that a miraculous event must be such that it could occur given the actual laws, not that if could occur given some non-actual laws. A miracle is a violation of an actual law, if it's a violation of anything.
Christian,
It is true that if L is an exceptionless regularity that there occur no events E that are exceptions to L. I hope this is not controversial. You might be someone who objects to miracles on the basis of (1).
1. Since L is an exceptionless regularity, miracles such as E that are exceptions to L do not occur.
If (1) is the anti-miracle claim, I agree. I agree that there are no exceptions exceptionless regularities. I think I know that a priori. I also agree with the stronger claim in (2), where the impossiblity is broad logical impossibility.
2. It is impossible that L is an exceptionless regularity and a miracle such as E that is an exception to L occurs.
Here we have the wide scope impossiblity that something is both exceptionless and not exceptionless. I agree, this is impossible.
But those who agree with (1) and (2) are not agreeing that miracles are impossible. (1) and (2) are consistent with (3).
3. L is an exceptionless regularity and it is possible that an event E that is an exception to L occurs.
In this case, we have the narrow scope possiblity of a law violating event E. No doubt, that's possible. So here we are in the actual world. You ask me whether it is possible that there be an exception to the exceptionless laws guaranteeing that dead people do not return to life. I say, yes, there are such exceptionless law, but it is nonetheless possible that the dead return to life in the sense specified in (3). But were God to actualize the state of affairs that, say, Lazarus returns to life, then it would not be the case that the laws guaranteeing the non-occurrence of such events obtain.
So to sum up. No one, I hope, thinks that (1) or (2) is false. I know (1) and (2) are true a priori. But it is not as though everyone who thinks miracles happen believe something that is a priori false! On the other hand, (3) is also true. It is (3) that explains how miracles are possible. It is on the basis of (3) that you and I can agree that L is exceptionless and it is possible that E, and exception to L, occurs.
Thanks Mike,
Very clearly put. And I absolutely agree. By the way, I'm inclined to think that people who believe miracles can happen are accepting an analytic falsehood knowable a priori. It is for this reason that I claimed above that miracles are metaphysically impossible (or more accurately, I can't see how they are possible).
As to your (3), I see that reading and no doubt that's all you were claiming, i.e. miracles can happen. What I still don't see is how (3), even though true, helps to establish the possibility of miracles. Yes, I know that sounds inconsistent. Similarly, there are worlds in which the past is different. But, it's not at all clear to me that this is sufficient to make it true that it's possible that the past is different. This doesn't sound inconsistent.
Here is another way to state my worry. Suppose there is actually a violation of a law. If so, then the "law" violated isn't a law because, actually, laws are not violated. So, there was no violation of a law, instead, the laws changed orf instead, what we thought was a miracle turned out to be consistent with the laws, and hence, not a miracle.
Right. The analysis of miracles does make the violation of laws a cross-world, 4-place relation. The occurrence of E in w'is inconsistent with law L of w. I agree that this is not the most intuitive notion of a law violation. But recall what we wanted to establish. We wanted to establish that all of the following can be true in a world w. (i) L is a law of nature in w (ii) E is an event that violates L of w and (iii) it is possible that E occurs. And (i)-(iii) are indeed consistent.
As Jon K. mentioned a few posts back, the occurrence of E in w' is at most a "violation" of an almost-law of w'. In short, L in w' is exceedingly well-established relative to a body of inductive evidence as being a law of w', but nonetheless, it is not a law of w'. And I think this is where the interesting question about miracles arises. The question is not whether miracles are possible (even Hume concedes in various places that they are possible). The interesting question is whether anyone could rationally believe a miracle occurred. Putting it in terms of the worlds we have been talking about: Hume claims that, given the evidence we have in favor of L as a law and (therefore) against E as a miracle, it is never rational to believe we are in world w' (where E occurred and L is not a law) rather than in w (where E did not occur and L is a genuine law). Briefly, we have much more evidence that L is a law of nature than we have that E occurred. If so, then we should believe that we are in w and not in w'. It's another story entirely, but I don't think much of Hume's argument.
Mike,
"Right. The analysis of miracles does make the violation of laws a cross-world, 4-place relation."
That seems right to me. And I suppose what I'm wonder is: Is that really a miracle? I'm inclined to think: No, that's not a miracle. Perhaps this is the reason why: You said,
"We wanted to establish that all of the following can be true in a world w. (i) L is a law of nature in w (ii) E is an event that violates L of w and (iii) it is possible that E occurs. And (i)-(iii) are indeed consistent."
I don't know what 'of' in condition (ii) means. Intuitively, there could be a miracle in w only if E is an event that violates a law in w. As far as I can tell, this condition cannot be satisfied a priori.
However, I do think the best way to capture the claim that there could be a miracle is by describing miracles as violations of almost-laws. I don't know how to do this though sicne I think back-tracking counterfactuals don't make sense.
I'd like to hear your view on Hume's criticism. In most cases, it seems right to me. For example, I don't think testimony can ever give us justification for believing a miracle has occurred. Perhaps perception can, but then again, physics (apparently) entails that miracle-like events are consistent with our laws. So, it would seem the best explanation of some strange event one might perceive will be that some improbale events, consistent with our laws, has occurred.
I don't know what 'of' in condition (ii) means. Intuitively, there could be a miracle in w only if E is an event that violates a law in w. As far as I can tell, this condition cannot be satisfied a priori.
Obviously, if you think that a miracle requires the truth of (1) or (2) as described here
July 14, 2007 10:39 AM then you'll think that miracles are impossible. I see no reason for those who think miracles are possible to think twice about that. They have everything they need to show that it is possible for people to rise from the dead, it is possible for someone to walk on water, it is possible for water to turn to wine, etc. In short, they have shown how all of the alleged miracles could happen.
But wait! It could be that (1) and (2) are meaning constitutive for 'miracle'. Matti Eklund has written about this phenomena in, I think, "Inconsistent Languages".
So, I don't think we can dismiss the criticism and assuming (1) and (2) are not meaning constitutive. Moreover, I think your (3) is what people who claim miralces are possible are claiming. And I think your (i) - (iii) is one initially plausible way to give an account for how (3) could be true.
My worry, and sorry if this is unclear, is that I don't understand (ii) as it occurs in the explanation of (3) such that (3) is supposed to show how miracles are possible. Clause (ii) contains a stipulated technical term, 'of', and it's unclear to me what this term means. This is because your account of (3) says that a miracle could occur without violating a law in w, though it violates a law of w. In what sense we should count this possibility as a possibility of a miracle is beyond me.
In what sense we should count this possibility as a possibility of a miracle is beyond me.
As I've been trying to say, Christian, don't call it a miracle if its beyond you to call it that. In my view, this misses the point. But if in your view it just is the point, that's fine, too. You see a miracle as something that is a priori impossible. Therefore those who are arguing for what they think is a substantive metaphysical position (viz. that miracles are possible) must be badly confused or incompetent in English or worse. I don't see anywhere for the discussion to go from here.
You may be right. But there are two different points I'm making. The first is about what miracles are. It's plausible to me that the inferences that partially constititue the meaning of 'miracle' in English entail that a miracle is analytically impossible. This isn't my main point though, this is very controversial. And even if it was correct, Christians could say "Fine! Have your word. We believe in schmiricals qua Mike's description of them."
My main point is about the "possibility" claim in (3). You haven't responded to this point yet, I don't think. That is, you give an account of this possibility in (i) - (iii). But, it doesn't seem at all objectionable to me to ask you to clarify the terms that occur in it. Without such a clarification, forgetting about what a miracle is for the moment, I don't understand the claim that miracles are possible.
For example, I could have been taller than I actually am is true iff I have a counterpart in some world w with some height h in w and h is greater than the height I have in the actual world. Moreover, this world could have the same laws, many of the same matters of particular facts, etc. But the claim that there could have been a miracle that making me taller than I actually am recieves no such transparent treatment. We most go to a world in which the laws are different and in that world I'm taller than I actually am. But, by hypothesis, the laws are different in that world. So, what is true is that had the laws been different I could have been taller than I actually am. But this would be true for non-miracles as well. I guess I'm not convinced that E can be a miracle unless E occurs in a nomologically accessible world, otherwise, I just don't see how E would be violating a law in the world in which it occurs.
Anyways, if I'm just not getting it, do you have any references for the 'of' and 'in' distinction?