For someone who doesn't believe in God, it's understandable that 'miracle' be defined this way. But for someone who does believe in God, the typical response to the definition is that miracles aren't 'violations', but 'suspensions'. It's sounds like a dodge, but it's actually a crucial distinction. To see this consider two examples. First, consider the moral 'law'. If lying is wrong, then not to lie would agree with the law.
In Chapter 13 of Miracles, C.S. Lewis provides a good rebuttal to David Hume for why we can't automatically disqualify reports of miracles as improbable just because they go against the uniformity of nature. To see this, let's see why we might have to formulate the idea of probability by 'eavesdropping in the Masters' common room'.
In his Treatise of Human Nature, Hume says straight up that we can't justify probability with probability. He justifies probability by appealing to our noticing that the present is pretty much like the past: in other words, the uniformity of nature (UoN). But Hume says that UoN itself can't be justified by being itself probable. The issue is much more complicated and involves many more issues than what I'm revealing for simplicity's sake, but it's good to lay my groundwork as a dignified starting point. So, before we see why UoN can't be based on probablity, let's first see how the question of miracles is actually inextricably intertwined with UoN and probability.
Some roadblocks:
1. Most reports of miracles turn out false. I admit that. But the same is true of natural reports. And since natural reports happen more than miracles, we can't without inconsistent propriety dismiss certain reports of miracles on that ground alone.
2. First guiding principle when assessing reports of miracles: since reports of miracles are historically recorded stories, accept the truth of the story only if you have good evidence; if not, dismiss it.
3. Second guiding principle when assessing reports of miracles: Lewis asks how 'intrinsically probable' is the report? This question is intimately tied to the phrase 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence', which we've all heard many times. By 'extraordinary', the critic usually just means 'miraculous'. But to equate the two means you've already established that a supernatural event is more improbable than the most improbable natural one.
What, then, is the kind of probability the historian should work with here?
1. The criterion of 'rareness' - It's known by all concerned that miraculous events are rarer than natural events. Does that mean that the miraculous event is on that score improbable? No, since all natural events were once in the same boat. The beginning of the universe, the unique conditions preparing the way for the birth of every individual, today's idiosyncratic weather pattern, the trillions of other natural events that have occurred in cosmic history, that Jones won the lottery: their novelty doesn't by that account render them improbable. And this probability of 'chances' doesn't discredit a rational belief in them: someone actually wins the lottery, you were born, the weather had it rain, the universe is here! There must be something more to historical probability than just 'rareness'.
2. The uniformity of nature's unanimous vote against the miraculous - On the face of it, this just doesn't seem right. Hume uses the uniformity of nature (UoN) as evidence excluding the miraculous, because nature's being uniform involves their exclusion. This seems too simple. We verify that UoN successfully excludes the miraculous by first establishing that the reports of them are false; and the falsity of the reports is already established by the very UoN which might have to be altered if, for whatever reason, the reports end up being true. The circular reasoning is too blatant to ignore here. To see this, remember Hume based probability itself on UoN. Also remember that unless we assume UoN, it's hopeless that we accurately predict anything even if the thing had occurred a million times in row: UoN helps because it says that not just the present will be like the past, but that the future (the realm to which predictions refer) will be like the past.
How do we know UoN? - By naked experience? It's obvious we observe regularities. But we should also keep in mind that our observations have occurred for as long as there have been humans, a minute speck of a blip on the long, 15 billion year history of our universe. Thus, the UoN helps us by saying the universe probably operated pretty much the same way as it does when we presently observe it. But this implies that UoN lends credence to our experience, not the other way around, since the history of our experiential observations cover such a small cul-de-sac of cosmic history. Even if we try to strengthen UoN by pointing out how new experiences confirm old ones, these novel confirmations have the plausibility they have because we're already assuming that the future will be like the past, which is UoN in a different guise.
Can we say that UoN is probable and go from there? - This runs into trouble because all probabilities depend on UoN, so we can't confirm the probability of UoN itself by appealing to that which lends probability to everything else. It would be like saying that because water makes all things wet, water itself is wet. Nature has got to be assumed to be uniform first, and then we get to work calling events probable or not. So, UoN as an assumption can't be itself probable if it's the measure of probability for any particular event.
Is UoN and the question of miracles the same principle under different names? - Lewis think so, and when I think about it, he seems onto something. In the big picture, it seems Hume tries to solve the problem of a miracle's probability by appealing to nature's uniformity. But if Lewis is right, and assessing a miracle's probability is essentially the same thing as assessing the uniformity of nature, it's not logical to use the latter's truth as a reason to discard the former. By analogy, Lewis compares UoN to the frame of a picture.
Hume 'complete deadlock' - Hume's philosophy of probability applies to all the events within the frame (events in Nature), but doesn't have much to do with the probability of the frame itself: the question of a miracle's probability is precisely the question of the probability of the frame! Since, as we saw, we can't establish whether UoN is probable or not, we can't establish whether miracles are probable or not. Miracles and uniformity are in a deadlock.
Why, then, do we believe in probability at all?! - Lewis pinpoints 3 causes, two are irrational, and one rational.
1. We are creatures of habit (irrational) - Based on our past experiences, we just expect the future to be like the past. Animals share this with us.
2. It makes sense of planning for the future - When I get ready in the morning, I do all the things I do 'assuming' that the universe isn't going to randomly behave in a way completely contrary to what I've been observing all my life: toothpaste will come out of the tube, water in the shower will cascade down (not up), I won't start floating around the room as I put my pants on, etc.
These two are irrational causes, according to Lewis, because they're compatible with reinforcing a true and false belief. So, to the rational cause.
3. Our 'innate sense of the fitness of things' - Lewis gets this from Sir Arthur Eddington. It appears subjective, but it does seem to be a source for our belief in uniformity. Recall, if we lived in a completely unpredictable universe in which random events disrupted all observed regularities, it would be a nightmare. This sentiment (the fitness of things) inspires the scientist to solve seeming irregularities. Hence, the glory and progress of science itself! Supposing a fictional history before the scientific temperament focused its attention on Nature, Nature appeared full of irregularity. Then, because of our annoyance at this, because of a sense of fitness, the scientist began to formulate hypotheses via the scientific method to make sense of Nature, out of which observed regularities were established, and laws of nature formulated.
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| Non-rational cause/effect relation. |
But is this 'innate sense' taken on faith or is it how our minds work? - It seems preferable to say that UoN works because it's confirmed past probabilities; but then what grounds my assurance that UoN will also apply to the probability of future events? I'll only be able to apply it to the future if I already have good grounds for UoN itself. And we already saw that if the good grounds consist of mere probability, this can't work, since all probabilities depend on it. So, does our 'innate sense' correspond to reality? It depends on your philosophy! This is why philosophy is so important. At this point, Lewis resorts back to his Argument from Reason in Chapter 3 of Miracles. Supposing this is a sound argument, Lewis considers the philosophy of Naturalism as a ground for determining whether this 'innate sense' corresponds to reality. To Lewis, it probably does not, since reasoning itself (according to Lewis' presentation of Naturalism as a cosmic philosophy) is the non-rational effect of non-rational causes, which qualitatively excludes rational 'conclusions' inferred from rational 'premises'. Thus, to Lewis, the Naturalist's dialectical conclusions are a sham, since they're groundless, since Naturalism qualitatively excludes grounds at all, since Naturalism postulates cosmic reality to be constitutive of a concatenation of events subsisting in the non-rational cause/effect relation, leaving no room for rational ground/consequent relations, and thus no room for rational inference to be a real insight into reality.
That was a mouthful, I know. But it is essential. It was also cursory, as the Argument from Reason itself is very complex, and if not done justice, it's easy to poke holes in it. For my purposes, allow it to stand for preliminary purposes.
But if Christianity is true (just supposing it to be true without first establishing the truth itself), it seems that this 'innate sense' has a reasonable ground. God, being the source of reason, and Nature's Creator, endows humans (parts of creation) with Reason (part of God's image), which lays the groundwork for our annoyance at observing the seeming irregularities in Nature mentioned before. This assumption explains (sufficiently explains, not necessarily, since, as was said, the establishment of its truth has not yet been demonstrated) Nature's uniformity, since God would have created Nature such that creatures like us could make sense of its regularities. We discover a world of order, because God would not create a word of disorder. God is not a God of disorder. We concluded this from the Bible, which is our 'eavesdropping in the Masters' Common Room', remembering that up to this point such eavesdropping garners its rationality on the supposition of its being a sufficient explanation, since at this dialectical stage, a demonstration of its necessity depends on the establishment of the purported explanation to be true. What's important for Lewis' point is that Christian Theism implants an expectation that the Nature we study will display an order from which we can derive regularities.
We arrive now at the compromise we have to make if we admit God as a possible, sufficient explanation of our 'innate sense' from which the uniformity of nature can be inferred. Allowing God into the equation also involves allowing the possibility of miracle; so paradoxically, the very thing required to reinforce our confidence in Nature's uniformity also reinforces our confidence that a miracle isn't ruled out, and may be quite probable given the circumstances.
But now that we are free from Hume's probabilistic exclusion of the miraculous from historical inquiry into purported reports of miracles, the historian can now determine the truth of such reports on whether the historical evidence is sufficient to rationally believe it probably occurred. The historian can now apply this 'innate sense' to particular purported reports of miracles. Now the cornerstone of Christianity can be investigated in light of such an 'innate sense of fitness' to determine whether the resurrection of Christ from the dead be probable or no. It is Lewis' contention that much of the miracles of the Bible display and exhibit such 'fitness', and on that score establish their probability.
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