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There are no slippery prior probabilities

For the present let it suffice to bear in mind that there is no limit to the strength of working, as distinguished from abstract, certainty, to which probable evidence may not lead us along its gently ascending paths.

W.E. Gladstone, Studies Subsidiary to the Works of Joseph Butler, 1896, p. 349.

In our article on the resurrection in this volume from Blackwell, my husband and I discuss a confusion that has dogged historical apologetics for hundreds of years: The idea that a person who has "too low" of a prior probability for the miraculous is justified in dismissing evidence for a specific miracle out of hand and accepting any other explanation instead.

David Hume made famous capital out of this confusion in his claim to have delivered an "everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion." Atheists run back to the prior probabilities as a rabbit runs to its hole. Never mind the concrete evidence! If I don't already believe that God exists, why should I even listen to your concrete evidence? There must be some other explanation for it, and that's all!

One of the reasons that an understanding of probability is valuable is that it can dispel persistent errors--the intellectual equivalent of urban legends that crop up again and again.

This is such an error. And it is a case where, unfortunately, some Christian writers agree with David Hume. In the relevant section of our article we instance a quotation from the Protestant writers R.C. Sproul, Arthur Lindsley, and John Gerstner, in which they say that "only on the prior evidence that God exists is a miracle even possible" and that therefore "miracles cannot prove God."

This idea of a prior probability that is "too low" gives impetus to an extremely rigid form of classical apologetics that asserts not merely that it is a strategically good idea but that it is an absolute epistemic necessity to convince a person first that God exists, using the arguments of natural theology, before he can be reasonably expected to receive the specific evidence for a miracle such as the resurrection.

The contemporary probability theorist John Earman has done much, building on the work of 19th century thinker Charles Babbage, to demonstrate the falsity of this view. (Earman, to be clear, is not a Christian nor even, as far as I know, a theist.) Briefly, the problem with the Humean view is this: It fails to recognize that any non-zero probability, however low, can be overcome by sufficiently strong probabilistic evidence. This is simply a fact of probability theory. There is no such thing as a prior probability that is "slippery," such that one could never rationally overcome it. Therefore, it is simply false to say that, if one doesn't already believe that God exists, one should "understandably" dismiss the evidence for any miracle. For, if that evidence were sufficiently strong, it would show that, contrary to what one had previously thought, God does indeed exist!

It's important to distinguish strategy from epistemology. For sociological and psychological reasons, it may be quite reasonable in talking with a particular person to present one's arguments in stages--arguing first that God exists on the basis of natural theology and then moving on from there. The arch-probabilist among philosophers of religion, Richard Swinburne, proceeds in exactly this way. It is also probabilistically tidy to do so, because Jesus didn't walk on earth in Palestine unless life exists, and life doesn't exist unless the universe is life-permitting, so it is perfectly reasonable to present these other items as evidence for the existence of God first if one has such arguments.

But those considerations are a far cry from insisting that the evidence for a miracle such as the resurrection literally does not count as evidence or literally cannot be assimilated as evidence unless one already believes in the existence of God. That strong position is simply and flatly false and can be shown to be false by even a rudimentary understanding of how probabilistic arguments work.

In layman's terms, we can isolate the impact of an item of evidence upon an hypothesis from the prior probability of that hypothesis. We can then look at that evidential impact and at least estimate how low of a prior probability could be overcome by that evidential force. That is the strategy that Tim and I employ in our article about the resurrection.

Here is an important point: The strength of the evidence can often be seen by looking at the lengths to which the skeptic must go to explain away that evidence rather than taking seriously the hypothesis that springs to mind. Hence, rather than take seriously the possibility of the resurrection, the skeptic must hypothesize that the women went to the wrong tomb and the persecutor Paul had some inexplicable fit on the road to Damascus that just happened to make him think Jesus was talking to him and that the Christians were right and the eleven disciples all just happened to have a coordinated mass hallucination of Jesus eating, being tangible, and talking to all of them at once, repeatedly, over a forty day period and James just happened to have a similar hallucination and...You get the picture.

A major problem with saying that it is reasonable or understandable for the skeptic (who doesn't already accept the arguments of natural theology) to dismiss the evidence for a miracle is that one is in that case endorsing massively ad hoc hypothesizing on the part of the skeptic. And that is not reasonable.

One could perhaps respond that the skeptic might might simply not know about the details of the evidence for the resurrection. Perhaps he is simply ignorant. In that case he wouldn't be making such ad hoc arguments because he would just vaguely think that "scholars have shown" that the gospels are a bunch of legends made up long after the fact. But in that case, why should the only trigger, the one absolutely necessary trigger, for his finding out more be his coming to believe that God exists by being taken through a prolegomenon of natural theology? Surely we can think of other things that might make him think again--meeting a smart, respected friend or colleague who is a Christian, for example, and wondering why in the world so-and-so believes such a cockamamie tale.

It is important for Christians wanting to think clearly not to become tied to a particular, rigid order for apologetic arguments. This is important first of all because such a rigid order requirement is not defensible. We should want to know the truth, including the truth at the metalevel about how apologetics "has to" go.

Relatedly, it is important not to become tied to such a rigid order because we shouldn't be encouraging people to throw out or ignore strong evidence. We shouldn't even be encouraging them to ignore evidence until and unless they believe some umbrella hypothesis, such as theism, on independent grounds. That is poor philosophical practice. It is one thing to say that it may be helpful to show them first, on other grounds, that God exists. It is quite another to tell them that they needn't bother about the evidence for the resurrection right now, unless they already believe that God exists, because, if they do not have the proper theistic beliefs already in place, it's perfectly understandable that that evidence looks weak to them. No, it shouldn't look weak to them, and no, that isn't understandable.

There are also concerns about eternity involved here; these are matters of ultimate moment. If an unbeliever is simply ignorant of the strength of the available evidence for a miracle, the important thing is to inform him about the evidence, which speaks for itself. To say instead that it is understandable for him to dismiss any miracle claim if he doesn't already believe in the existence of God is to give him an excuse for not looking through the telescope.

We shouldn't be handing out such "get out of jail free" cards readily, because I can tell you one thing: They won't get anybody out of hell.

Comments (33)

A superb post. I'm also really enjoying reading many of your other articles on you blog as well. Thank you Lydia!

"Atheists run back to the prior probabilities as a rabbit runs to its hole."

And it's that simple--although they're much nastier now while making their retreat.

If an unbeliever is simply ignorant of the strength of the available evidence for a miracle, the important thing is to inform him about the evidence, which speaks for itself. To say instead that it is understandable for him to dismiss any miracle claim if he doesn't already believe in the existence of God is to give him an excuse for not looking through the telescope.

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That is an excellent text!

But it leads us to the question - "Which miracles are under discussion?"

The last major miracle-worker I'm aware of was Padre Pio. Some will claim that Sai Baba was genuine, others dispute that.

If there were a newswire that specialized in claims of miracles, I would definitely subscribe.

Let me clarify that my statement meant that it is not epistemically responsible for an atheist to dismiss any and every miracle claim solely in virtue of its being a miracle claim. I did not mean to imply that all miracle claims are, either prima facie or upon further investigation, even approximately equally worthy of acceptance. One that I do think worthy of acceptance is that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.

An excellent article. While I consider myself a classical apologist, I also think it's important to begin with people where they are and if that means the question of Jesus, well we start there, and I'll deal with any misconceptions of God along the way.

I believe (not an exact quote) that C.S. Lewis said that no one ever went to hell for believing that God really has a beard. I strongly agree that a somewhat crude or overly anthropomorphic concept of God can be refined as one goes along, as a person grows in philosophical and theological insight, and so forth. This as opposed to having to get it all right before empirical evidence can be presented or appreciated. If a person raises an objection, there is often more than one way to answer it. For example, the Flying Spaghetti Monster notion would be said, I assume, by a classical theist to assume wrongly that "God is a being among other beings." That's fine as far as it goes, but it seems to me at least an equally relevant point (and to my mind, more to the point epistemically) that we have evidence for the existence of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and none for the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Problem of evil objections may require more of a promissory note type of response, something like: "If you come to believe that the true God exists, you will have reason to believe in a being who has a good reason for all that He allows. Here are some examples of the kinds of reasons that Christian theology teaches are explanations for the existence of evil in the world. So let's get back to finding out if Christianity is true."

I suppose it could be possible that someone would be stubborn. For example, someone might just stick stubbornly to regarding God as necessarily, if He exists, the Big Policeman In the Sky and therefore considering the POE as unsolvable. But not only would that evidence an epistemological fault, it would presumably be just as likely to block, psychologically, the person's willingness to see classical natural theology arguments as the person's willingness to look at empirical arguments fairly.

So I think that Nick's practical approach makes sense.

Briefly, the problem with the Humean view is this: It fails to recognize that any non-zero probability, however low, can be overcome by sufficiently strong probabilistic evidence. This is simply a fact of probability theory. There is no such thing as a prior probability that is "slippery," such that one could never rationally overcome it.

Or, to put it another way, it is fundamentally impossible within the order of empirical evidence and conclusions drawn from that to have a non-zero prior probability of a claim X for which no possible new evidence can increase the posterior probability. That's an important logical constraint on SCIENTIFIC (i.e. evidentiary) reasoning.

In order for a so-called scientist to declare up front that no new evidence can possibly increase the probability of there being a God, he has to mean that the prior probability that there is a God is zero, and since there is no empirical way to establish this claim, he must be making a NON-EMPIRICAL, non-scientific claim about the proposition. That is to say, he is engaging in the same sort of philosophical / metaphysical reasoning that is used in the philosophers' arguments FOR there being a God, such as Aquinas' 5 ways, not science properly speaking, and he is employing as premises claims that philosophers say they have logically defeated already. And no scientific argumentation can get him out of having to answer those philosophical objections to his premises, since those premises are not driven by empirical evidence.

To a careful and fair _scientist_ who is not a theist, his prior position on X = "God exists" should be never more firmly held than "I haven't seen evidence that implies it." Or, at any event, a position in which X has a non-zero probability, (however he might express that probability) because it is impossible to empirically prove ~X. (Indeed, scientists often note the extreme difficulty of proving ~Y about any entity Y. Such extreme difficulty is set beyond the reach of empirical science when the entity is non-material and empirical evidence is limited to matter and agent causality.) Thus, such a careful scientific position is inherently open to the possibility that new evidence does imply X, or at the least makes it more probable.

It is important for Christians wanting to think clearly not to become tied to a particular, rigid order for apologetic arguments. This is important first of all because such a rigid order requirement is not defensible. We should want to know the truth, including the truth at the metalevel about how apologetics "has to" go.

Lydia, you wouldn't by any chance be taking pot-shots at one of our favorite current philosophy professors, would you?

Can one propose the following? Apologetics is capable of a systematic formulation and presentation. As a result, a true mastery of apologetics would entail understanding the roots of the discipline and the full development of arguments from those roots - which would entail using natural theology together with evidentiary analysis of wonders. At the same time, in trying to reach any specific persons who are not yet Christian, they have their own particular shortcomings in access to the totality of reasons to believe in Christianity, and arguing with them need not start at the beginning of formal apologetics and go straight through to the end, it is sufficient to pick up where their defects run them astray and defeat their particular errors. In doing so, one should never make use of inherently false or defective arguments that ultimately deny more fundamental parts of the apologetics 'trade' merely because it would be easier at the moment - one should never resort to tricks of rhetoric that besmirch Truth even if such tricks would 'win' in the moment. And this means that we should employ apologetics as *informed by* the entirety of the discipline, even if we don't use the whole field on any one person.

Lydia, you wouldn't by any chance be taking pot-shots at one of our favorite current philosophy professors, would you?

I'm taking pot-shots at anyone who insists on a rigid order as a necessity of epistemology. It's actually a surprisingly long-standing confusion. I think of it as a kind of zombie confusion that keeps getting stakes in the heart and won't die. Sproul, Lindsley, and Gerstner's book is called Classical Apologetics, and this position is often thought of as the classical apologetics position--it must be done in this order. In general, a rambunctious and insistent classical apologist evidences in whatever attempted arguments are given pretty much no knowledge whatsoever of probability theory, if not an actual hostility to it.

To me, one of the great historical ironies here is the way in which that kind of dogmatic classical apologetics position actually agrees with David Hume! Hume, of course, also believed that the arguments of natural theology are poor, and there the classical apologist would disagree with him forcibly. But Hume insisted, from his own perspective (unpersuaded by natural theology), that one shouldn't bother to take seriously any miracle claim--a point on which the dogmatic classical apologist is tacitly agreeing with him. After all, there _are_ atheists out there, and even some theists and Christians, who have doubts about some of the most crucial arguments of natural theology and/or outright reject them.

I think Tony makes a good point: If someone is actually going to claim that he has a zero probability for the existence of God, he's going to have to be willing to enter the realm of purely metaphysical argument, where the classical apologist is happy to meet him and go toe-to-toe. As long as the probability is non-zero, the atheist should be open to empirical evidence that he is wrong.

Tony's concept of doing apologetics as informed by the whole discipline is an interesting one particularly as regards what might be considered anthropomorphism. For example, suppose that I am talking with someone who is not a Christian, and I say, "God loves you" or "God hates sin." It seems completely reasonable to expect that that person will, in trying to understand what I mean, think of God as having emotions. Strictly speaking, on a classical theist view, that is not accurate. But I don't think that this means that I have done anything illicit in making these statements, even if I don't make any special effort to correct the possible misimpression.

In general, I regard any strongly trans-personal view of God as optional to man's salvation, as a refinement given to us by philosophy, and as something that, to the extent that it is a true view, can be developed by a more mature believer later on.

But I don't think that this means that I have done anything illicit in making these statements, even if I don't make any special effort to correct the possible misimpression.

Quite right, Lydia. Apologetics as practiced must deal with real people in the real world, and it is impossible in the real world to deal with ALL errors at the same time. You cannot right the wrongs in metaphysics AND epistemology AND history AND biology etc all at once, you do it bit by bit. Which means that some errors are left till later. Sometimes MUCH later.

All I was saying, and I am sure you agree, is that you don't intentionally mis-represent God as anthopomorphic in ways that your listener could sort through (if you gave him the tools to do so) in order to make some other point more palatable. Apologetics is not the art of disguising unpalatable truths to make them appear less distasteful, it is not Madison Avenue marketing for religion. There is a relatively noticeable gulf between intentionally skewing the truth to convince someone of a point, and not correcting someone's error.

I definitely agree with what you say there, Tony. I am probably too hard on pastors and evangelists, but I tend to think that they are more likely than self-styled apologists actually to "market" God in a cheapening way. An obvious example is televangelists promising that God will make you rich, but there are other, slightly more subtle, examples of the "God is wildly in love with you and wants you to be happier than you have ever dreamed" sort. Those who think of themselves as apologists tend to be geeky, thinky types of people who, if they make mistakes in theology, at least make them in all sincerity rather than as part of a desire to sell a product.

Good post, Lydia. When I've made similar comments in discussions about miracles, I've often linked people to your (and your husband's) article on the resurrection to illustrate what I'm saying. Your work is appreciated.

Thank you, Jason.

By the way, to all: I have just tracked down an excellent quotation from C.S. Lewis about concepts of God that I had to put here (and have also put on my personal blog):

This talk of "meeting" is, no doubt, anthropomorphic; as if God and I could be face to face, like two fellow-creatures, when in reality He is above me and within me and below me and all about me. That is why it must be balanced by all manner of metaphysical and theological abstractions. But never, here or anywhere else, let us think that while anthropomorphic images are a concession to our weakness, the abstractions are the literal truth. Both are equally concessions; each singly misleading, and the two together mutually corrective. Unless you sit to it very tightly, continually murmuring "Not thus, not thus, neither is this Thou," the abstraction is fatal. It will make the life of lives inanimate and the love of loves impersonal. The naif image is mischievous chiefly in so far as it holds unbelievers back from conversion. It does believers, even at its crudest, no harm. What soul ever perished for believing that God the Father really has a beard?

Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer, pp. 21-22

To me, one of the great historical ironies here is the way in which that kind of dogmatic classical apologetics position actually agrees with David Hume! Hume, of course, also believed that the arguments of natural theology are poor, and there the classical apologist would disagree with him forcibly. But Hume insisted, from his own perspective (unpersuaded by natural theology), that one shouldn't bother to take seriously any miracle claim--a point on which the dogmatic classical apologist is tacitly agreeing with him. After all, there _are_ atheists out there, and even some theists and Christians, who have doubts about some of the most crucial arguments of natural theology and/or outright reject them.

Well, in the Dialogues, it is was not only Philo facing off against Cleanthes. People often forget that Demea was also present as the expositor of classical theology and disagreed with Cleanthes. It is apparent Hume did not think highly of classical theology too; he mostly used Cleanthes as a means to assail classic theology. I believe the only arguments worth presenting to atheists and agnostics are those from natural theology, particularly the Kalam argument using modern cosmology and the fine-tuning argument.

Still, I think natural theology can have an impact on a Christian, even though it would be a small impact. Certainly, anthropocentric teleology is quite compatible with modern science, and in the Anthropic Cosmological Principle Barrow and Tipler introduce the term "eutaxiology" as a basis for the new, scientifically informed teleology as opposed to the more vulgar, anthropocentric teleology, which was confuted by Darwinian evolution. Roughly, eutaxiology makes far weaker claims, but its positive claim is that the laws and parameters of the universe exhibit order (hence its etymology of "good order") that bespeaks of an intelligent agent influence in the origin of the fabric of the universe. They also say that this argument relies on knowledge not on ignorance (that is intelligent design advocates often ascribe gaps the evolution history or the failure of the human imagination to discover an evolutionary plausible mechanism for the origin of some trait to God's creative power).

The subjective impressions that "eutaxiology" made on me prevented me from being a complete fideist, but they are indeed, to reiterate, subjective impressions and not a rigorous proof for the agency of a deity in the universe. Even if one yields a concession from an atheist/agnostic, this would, at best, only indicate a rather aloof and distant god who influenced the laws of the universe to be conducive for the generation of sentient beings for some unknown reason. Certainly, I do not see God when I pray as the one who made the cosmological constant a very minute, non-zero value 120 orders of magnitude below the theoretically expected (although anthropically hostile) value of the energy of the vacuum.

However, the greatest practical disadvantage of the fine-tuning/eutaxiological argument is that few people possess the requisite knowledge of physics and other sciences or interest in order to present or understand such arguments. While the argument itself may not be convincing, it would at least leave a forceful impression of scientific competence and intellectual rigor if it is presented well.

I also find Hume quite refreshing to read due to his contempt for "common superstition"; he is something who I can empathize with and admire.

I am not hostile to the fine-tuning argument but am on record (in a rather highbrow philosophical journal, so it's not like it can be hidden) as having some questions about its probabilistic construction. I would like to see it work, however.

As a rampaging evidentialist, I think _all_ of the good arguments should be taken into account wherever possible. I am more temperamentally capable of grasping empirical arguments than purely philosophical arguments, though I'm pretty solid in my understanding of the kalam cosmological argument and the argument from mind. It all plays its role, which is by no means a purely subjective one.

God has not left Himself without witness. He pursues the atheist through multiple paths--through the visible universe, the existence and rationality of the atheist's own mind, through the moral law and the voice of conscience. and through the glorious resurrection of His Son. It behooves us to attune both ourselves and others to all of these voices in which God says, "If with all your heart you truly seek me, you shall ever surely find me."

C.S. Lewis again, "A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading."

I remember being a "rampaging evidentialist". And a "probability theorist" like Joseph Butler.

Then I read the above mentioned Classical Apologetics. And read Frames review of Classical Apologetics in a book named Cornelius Van Til. Then read I read Van Til.
And then Augustine started to make a whole lot more sense to me- "Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand."

But to be more direct-

"And of course, Van Til is also right to suggest that when the subject of probability comes up, the Christian has the opportunity to show that the very idea of probability only makes sense on the basis of Christian theism"- John Frame


In order for a so-called scientist to declare up front that no new evidence can possibly increase the probability of there being a God, he has to mean that the prior probability that there is a God is zero, and since there is no empirical way to establish this claim, he must be making a NON-EMPIRICAL, non-scientific claim about the proposition.
I think Tony makes a good point: If someone is actually going to claim that he has a zero probability for the existence of God, he's going to have to be willing to enter the realm of purely metaphysical argument, where the classical apologist is happy to meet him and go toe-to-toe. As long as the probability is non-zero, the atheist should be open to empirical evidence that he is wrong.

Those are the the sort of statements that sound like a reasonable and logical thing to say. Yes, in theory, a scientist or an atheist, in eschewing supernatural claims, should be open to the idea that future evidence may establish the existence of a god, or else they should admit they are making a non-scientific claim.

But in practice, the logic you are discussing here would apply to anything that a scientist or atheist doesn't believe to exist: God, Santa Claus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, ghosts, Icelandic elves, centaurs, or Bengals fans.

There's nothing about this argument that is specific to Christianity, and it isn't a new argument to an atheist. Penn Jillette had a video on Youtube years ago where he took to task people who called themselves "agnostic;" he said that if one did not actively believe, or choose to believe, in a god, then one should call oneself an atheist. Under his definitions, there's really no such thing as an agnostic. Under your thinking above, there's really no such thing as an atheist.

If your apologetics revelation is to put God on an even playing field with Santa Claus and elves, then you haven't really gotten very far past square one, have you?

Phil, you are confusing being open in principle to the possibility of evidence and having an actually "decent" prior probability. I could *in principle* be convinced of the existence of elves, but I'm not holding my breath waiting.

The thing is, people on both sides of this are often very uncomfortable with the fact that probability is a sliding scale. They want to use words like "impossibility" or "certainty" or "zero probability" or what-not when those aren't really the words they should be using because they are, technically speaking, overstatements.

I'm not saying there is no such a thing as an atheist. An atheist is a person who believes that God doesn't exist. Well and good. So of course there are atheists. To be an atheist you don't have to have a strictly zero probability for the existence of God! Why would you think that I think such a thing?

Don't think that I believe that, by writing this post, I have _given_ you the evidence that God exists. On the contrary. I am chiefly writing this post to my fellow Christians who insist that the evidence that God exists must come in a certain _order_.

Don't think that I believe that, by writing this post, I have _given_ you the evidence that God exists.

That's fair, and I don't want to derail your discussion by implying that you're leaving out evidence when you're really discussing a process.

I could *in principle* be convinced of the existence of elves, but I'm not holding my breath waiting.

I think you've rebutted both of the statements I quoted above (from you and from Tony) pretty effectively.

If an unbeliever is simply ignorant of the strength of the available evidence for a miracle, the important thing is to inform him about the evidence, which speaks for itself.

Without going into too much detail, I am sort of curious what you consider to be "strong evidence." It seems like you're talking about ancient texts, and not personal experience witnessing verifiable, repeatable events. I'm guessing that the pool of skeptics who have personally witnessed miracles (for which there is no other plausible explanation besides the supernatural) is a fairly small group.

I like Andy Dalton.

I think you've rebutted both of the statements I quoted above (from you and from Tony) pretty effectively.

I can't imagine why you think that, Phil. By saying that I could in principle be convinced of the existence of elves (despite not holding my breath), I am saying that it is not the case that the probability of the existence of elves is zero. Hence, it is not the case that "no new evidence can possibly increase the probability of there being" elves. So everything I have said is consistent throughout.

Without going into too much detail, I am sort of curious what you consider to be "strong evidence." It seems like you're talking about ancient texts, and not personal experience witnessing verifiable, repeatable events. I'm guessing that the pool of skeptics who have personally witnessed miracles (for which there is no other plausible explanation besides the supernatural) is a fairly small group.

I do indeed consider that witness reports can constitute strong evidence for a miracle. A miracle, if it happens, happens in history. If it is intended by God as a sign, it will happen where it is accessible to witnesses. Historical events that are attested by witnesses are in principle open to investigation by later people other than the original witnesses. Otherwise all of history, including non-miraculous history, would be impossible. But for the justification of a miracle conclusion _much_ depends upon the details. For example, how plausible is it that the witnesses were deceived or deceivers? How plausible is it that they reported accurately what occurred but that the occurrence was actually a result of entirely natural processes? (This second will be especially relevant in the case of putatively miraculous recovery from illness.)

By answering your question in that way, though, I don't intend to "diss" natural theology arguments for the existence of God. As you doubtless know, there are several such, having conclusions of varying strengths--the conclusion that there must be a self-existence personal First Cause, for example. The conclusion that there must be a _good_ God. And so forth. Those arguments are less my area of specialty than historical arguments, but that by no means indicates that they are of no value, and if they work, they establish their conclusions from far more minimal premises (e.g., the fact that I exist or the fact that the physical world exists). Some philosophers also consider those arguments to be best construed as _deductive_. The combination of deductive form with overwhelmingly well-justified premises (such as that something exists, for example) leads to a very well-supported conclusion. Obviously, those kinds of arguments can constitute "strong evidence" as well.

Hence, it is not the case that "no new evidence can possibly increase the probability of there being" elves. So everything I have said is consistent throughout.

Sure, I'm not saying you're wrong. I just meant that "Fine, you're right, I should be open to new evidence, but I'm not holding my breath" is a pretty reasonable response to the argument "You can't say for sure that there is no such thing as Santa Claus/God/elves/centaurs." So I'm not saying that it negates the argument; I'm saying it is an effective response that points out the silliness of the argument.

It's like if Allison says, "I'm 30 years old," and you say, "No, you're not!" and Allison says, "Yes, I am!"...and then you point out, "Actually, you are 30 years old and two months and three days..." Allison would be correct to acknowledge, well, yes, you are correct. But the reality is that Allison was simply engaging in a well-understood type of rounding that millions of people implicitly understand.

In theory, sure, a true scientist should not be 100% certain that no new evidence could convince them of the existence of leprechauns, god, angels, or "DNA activation." But in practice and in conversation, few people really lose sleep when they round up a 99.999% certainty to 100%.

You understand this implicitly, since you are probably not losing any sleep over your (I presume) functional disbelief in werewolves, vampires, and banshees.

That's all I wanted to point out about that line of reasoning. It is correct but also a little bit silly. I won't add more to this thread unless I'm asked to.

Phil, let me try to explain the in-house debate you are to some extent stumbling into: There is what's known as a "classical apologetics" approach that always does the arguments of natural theology first before going to historical apologetics. Some who advocate that approach say that a person _cannot possibly_ see the force of historical apologetic or probabilistic arguments until he _first_ believes that God exists for a priori or metaphysical reasons such as, e.g., knowing that God must exist because there must be sustaining cause of all that exists. Hence, those arguments must be given first or else it is _epistemically pointless_ to give historical or probabilistic arguments, since the atheist doesn't already believe that God exists and is capable of doing miracles.

My point is that this is not true, because probabilistic arguments can overcome even an extremely low prior probability. Hence it is at most a strategic decision to give the a priori-style arguments for the mere existence of God first rather than going straight for historical apologetics.

Whether you are or aren't losing sleep about the existence of God, there is _in fact_ plenty of good reason (both metaphysical and historical) to think that God exists and that you are responsible to Him. Maybe you should be losing a little more sleep. In your particular case, maybe the "metaphysical arguments first" approach would end up being the most sensible. Not so for other people.

Therefore, even though I haven't *laid out* arguments here for the existence of God here and now, that doesn't make my point "silly" or pointless or any of these other things in the context of this debate over the order in which allegedly theistic arguments must be given.

Those are the the sort of statements that sound like a reasonable and logical thing to say. Yes, in theory, a scientist or an atheist, in eschewing supernatural claims, should be open to the idea that future evidence may establish the existence of a god, or else they should admit they are making a non-scientific claim.

Another interesting thing about this, Phil, (in addition to what Lydia has already said) is that some of the reasons we now reject some things as "unscientific" and implausible is that people have gone through the scientific process on them, but perfectly reasonable scientists earlier thought they were believable. Many earlier astronomers were also astrologers. Quite a few of the early chemists were also alchemists. The possibility of causal properties between things was allowed for, that we no longer give much room for, precisely because these people were open to the possibility and pursued it until it became relatively clear that there was no causal connection discernible.

A friend of mine is much into fairies (don't ask). She said mentioned once how the Catholic Church says there are no fairies, and I had to pull her up short: nothing in Catholic doctrine says fairies don't exist. (For instance, nothing in Catholic doctrine says aliens don't exist. Fairies (if they are real) could simply be aliens. No contradiction to Catholic teaching at all.) Likewise, the Bible and Christian teaching is mostly silent about all sorts of other possibles, including elves and centaurs. And while science is pretty confident that elves and centaurs do not (natively) inhabit continents on Earth, she is pretty silent on whether they might be natives of other planets - though it seems rather unlikely.

Lydia's point about history is important too. It is necessary, though, to recognize in history a different model of plausibility than that of science, history proceeds along different models of evidence and confirmation. Part of what history relies on, for example, is an understanding of human motivations. For example, when a person tells a story about a miracle, after you eliminate the motives of profit, honor & glory, pleasure, and protection of friends, you establish that the person is not insane, and then subject the person to torture unto death on account of repeating the story, you establish a pretty strong evidence according to human actions that the person is telling the truth so far as they see it. This is not the same thing as a strict scientific process, because humans in history cannot be put to repeatable experiments. But we do in fact accept comparable types of evidence for historical methodology in all sorts of other parts of history - it's just a different model of plausibility than that of experimental science.

Therefore, even though I haven't *laid out* arguments here for the existence of God here and now, that doesn't make my point "silly" or pointless

I just want to clarify, Lydia. When I said "that line of reasoning" was correct but also silly, I was not talking about either the contention that there is a god, nor your OP thesis that historical apologetics need not always be presented after natural theology. I was just talking about your claim and Tony's claim that someone who states that there is zero probability of there being a god is making a non-scientific, non-empirical claim. Technically, yes, they are making a non-scientific, non-empirical claim, in the same way that someone who says, "There is zero probability of there being flying reindeer" is making a nonscientific, non-empirical claim.

To be a good scientist, one should be open to the possibility that there are flying reindeer, and that Santa lives in the north pole and monitors the behavior of children worldwide. But one can probably be a pretty good scientist without being open to that possibility, too.

I will merely submit, Phil, that you have quite a few meta-reasons for thinking that there is "more to" the existence of God than the existence of Santa Claus and for putting yourself to some trouble to find out what the reasons might be that have moved others. You scarcely should need me to tell you that, though.

What you state seems indisputable (regarding there not needing to be the order of operation that is typically used). This article should motivate others to not feel the burden to lay out a case for God first when the case for the resurrection should be compelling to so many more atheists given the empirical support in its favor. It seems the atheist is just left with one less excuse. I actually used a similar approach to what Feser discussed as it seemed like the intuitive way to go about persuading people I would run into. However, it would take so long to work through issues with different folks that they would typically lose interest before I got to the resurrection part. However, after reading your article I see where I was in error and am grateful that I can (to a greater extent) cut to the chase. Thank you.

One problem that I have faced while evangelising is the plenitude of miracles in the past, and their relative absence today. It is as though (as has been argued to me) miracles seem to have disappeared as people have become "less superstitious". Is there a site dedicated to documenting modern miracles? Such as the miraculous regrowth of an amputated limb, which I have heard of, but been unable to track down.

Dan, I think Scripture itself gives us reason to expect times of more miracles and times of fewer miracles. Consider the relatively few miracles in, say, the time of the Judges. Not absolutely none, but relatively few. The book of Esther contains no miracles at all; God saves His people providentially through what can only be called political means in that book.

I don't think that Christianity should lead us to expect any kind of constant rate of miracles. There were reasons for the high number of miracles during the time of Jesus and the Apostles--verifying a new message from God.

Another point is that in modern Western society, specifically, people don't face death for their statement of faith, so this creates in a sense "informational noise" surrounding a person's statement that he has witnessed a miracle. The worst thing that will happen to him is that he will be branded a kook, which makes it less unlikely that he is lying or is not being careful about checking out what has happened.

We should remember too that miracles of healing have as a rule of thumb been more difficult to establish, because in many cases it is difficult to be sure that the event did not happen naturally.

I admit, though, that I am here reflecting a sort of "soft cessationist" mindset. I have never read it, but I understand that Craig Keener has a big book out about modern miracles. He's a big-time continuationist.

Cool, thought-provoking article!

Here is an important point: The strength of the evidence can often be seen by looking at the lengths to which the skeptic must go to explain away that evidence rather than taking seriously the hypothesis that springs to mind. Hence, rather than take seriously the possibility of the resurrection, the skeptic must hypothesize that the women went to the wrong tomb and the persecutor Paul had some inexplicable fit on the road to Damascus that just happened to make him think Jesus was talking to him and that the Christians were right and the eleven disciples all just happened to have a coordinated mass hallucination of Jesus eating, being tangible, and talking to all of them at once, repeatedly, over a forty day period and James just happened to have a similar hallucination and...You get the picture.

I think you're trying to make an argument here from combined probability. A single event may be very probable, for example a man having a delusional fit on a road isn't isn't amazingly unlikely. A mass hullucination is probably a bit less likely but hardly unprecedented. A woman, possibly under the influence of intense grief, goes to the wrong tomb and seeing it's empty assumes her loved one isn't really dead. But you're saying the chance that all of those things would happen in just the right order to found a major new world religion is slim. That I agree with you, but this argument has less force than it seems.


1. The odds of lots of things we see is very slim. Example, let's say there's 20 different colors of cars. You sit on your front poarch one morning and note 20 cars go by in 20 minutes writing down their colors (black, white, red, silver etc.). The odds of that combination of colors is something like 1 in 104,857,600,000,000,000,000,000,000. That's a pretty insanely low probability. Yet that doesn't tell us much of anything, 20 cars of different colors will drive by so some sequence will be generated by that exercise. Lots of history has hinged upon very strange, low probability events happening. (example, if a microbe didn't strike down a young 20-something leader, Alexander the Great might have had a long life, what we think of as European history might have played out in the Middle East and India rather than Europe).


2. You're assumming the narrative structure of the Gospels is accurate and reliable yet premised on false conclusions. But narratives are often not reliable. Suppose the eleven disciples never had any mass hullucination but just one did. In his hullucination he thought the other 10 were also with him so he spends his life convincing a group of followers who weren't there themselves that all 11 saw him. They start writing down his stories and the stories circulate. Of course the other 10 are not able to come forward and testify that the 11th was a loon. There's no mass media or internet so they probably never hear of the stories and if it they aren't written for decades many or all of them will be dead leaving the truth of what happened lost to history. But your statement begins with the assumption that the text itself is sacred and then asks what's the possibility that this text is totally accurate, but the events it describes is not supernatural but simply a set of natural but quirky things that happened in a particular order to give the impression that it was supernatural. But the real question is what is the probability that a series of totally 'normal' (but possibly quirky) things happened and over time the narrative was selectively edited and 'enhanced' to produce a better 'story' but not one that would be recognized by anyone who was actually there. In other words, the world would seem like a much more dramatic and miracle prone place if you all you had to go on was the stories people told around the neighborhood pub.

2.1 In fact we know this is probable, if you believe Christianity then you must believe that the many other world religions were in fact built on such errors erupting and then getting carried on until they grew into major faiths. In order for that to happen, you either require sets of amazingly low probability events happening or narratives were rearranged and enhanced either intentionally or unintentionally to produce memes that caught fire and expanded as history unfolded.

3. Most people aren't going to like this last point but both entropy and quantum theory imply that over time anything that can happen will happen either somewhere in the Universe or at some time. For example, amongst all the random jostling of atoms at some point someone who has died a day or two ago will 'rearrange' so that he is healed and alive again....just like sooner or later you're going to encounter someone whose won the lottery twice, and if you wait long enough there'll be someone who won it twice two days in a row, and so on. If the universe is infinite, then sooner or later such a low probability event will happen somewhere. What this means is that even if you could rule out #2 you can't quite rule out #3.


Where does this lead? Well I think it says you can't say anything for sure using probabilities. If I told you some guy in India rose from the dead amazes people in the village square by levitating, you can say it's a hoax and 999,999 times out of a million you'll be right. But the 1 time out of a million your are not, what that means,though, is still not certain. If I say it's because he is a diety and we should follow him, you can reply that it's also possible he is just a regular guy who was subject to a very rare quantum event (but one that has happened an infinite number of times in an infinite universe) who has let it go to his head thinking he is a diety.


To use a less silly sounding example consider a guy who wins the lottery twice and then starts holding 'classes' for people on how to pick winning lottery numbers....most mathematically literate people will say he has no more skill in picking numbers than anyone else, he was just lucky. His class would be worthless to take. YET strictly speaking that's only a probability. There's a nonzero chance that maybe he really does have a brain that is somehow able to reliably predict how the lottery balls will land. If that's the case you would profit by taking his class. If the universe is infinite and all possibilities are realized, then there are indeed worlds where the confident mathematician 'demonstrates' that the two time lottery winner has no secrets to offer and then has pie thrown in his face as those who take the class start winning the lottery.

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