Summary of reply: redefining “miracle” is not helpful, “consciousness” is no more miraculous than a thousand other abstract nouns, and David Hume’s recommendation for critiquing miracles is still valid.

(These Bite-Size Replies are responses to “Quick Shots,” brief Christian responses to atheist challenges. The introduction to this series is here.)

Challenge to the Christian: There are no good reasons to believe in miracles.

Christian response #1: Don’t be hasty—maybe you already believe in them! Let’s define a miracle as an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws. Big Bang cosmology says the universe came into existence from nothing. Since space, time, and matter didn’t exist, the cause couldn’t have been spatial, temporal, or material. Therefore, that cause is “not explicable by natural or scientific laws,” and the universe was a miracle.

BSR: No, let’s not define a miracle that way, since “inexplicable by (known) scientific laws” describes many unanswered questions within science. Surely “miracle” must mean more than “a thing we can’t yet explain with science.” And shouldn’t the supernatural appear somewhere in the definition?

Let’s also discard a couple of false claims. No, Big Bang theory doesn’t say that the universe came from nothing. That’s possible, but the jury’s out. Genesis doesn’t even say that God created the universe from nothing.

Second, the universe may have had no cause. Some quantum events, like the decay of a radioactive nucleus, are thought to have no cause. The Big Bang might have likewise come from a causeless quantum event.

Christians, you’ll look less ridiculous if you get your science from scientists, not apologists.

Christians, you’ll look less ridiculous if you get your science from scientists, not apologists. [Click to tweet]

Christian response #2: We already know about non-physical, non-material things like consciousness or mind. These can’t be explained physically or materially. Why then reject the existence of other realities not governed by laws of nature?

BSR: We need to start with a quick English lesson. There are two kinds of nouns, concrete and abstract. Concrete nouns are physical things, like glass, Boston, dog, or grimace. All the rest are abstract nouns, like permission, happiness, charity, or courage. Abstract nouns don’t have physical properties like color, height, or weight. This Christian response highlights certain nouns—in particular, consciousness and mind—which aren’t particularly special. They’re just abstract nouns like thousands of others, like permission and courage.

What’s difficult about a word like courage? While it doesn’t have the properties a concrete noun has, it is brought into existence through matter. We can understand it at different levels such as brain chemistry, neurophysiology, psychology, or sociology. There’s more to learn, but we have no reason to expect that we will need to invoke the supernatural to explain it.

The same is true for mind. Mind is what the brain does. We can also understand the mind at different levels. We continue to learn about the brain, but why imagine that we’ll need to rely on the supernatural to explain the mind any more than we need it to explain happiness, frustration, or courage? The supernatural explains nothing because we have no useful evidence of the supernatural.

As an aside, note that we know of no minds without brains. What does that tell us about where God’s mind must reside?

Why are “mind” or “consciousness” so special? They’re just abstract nouns like thousands of others. We don’t need to invoke the supernatural to explain “courage” or “hunger,” so why expect that for the mind? [Click to tweet]

Christian response #3: When categorizing phenomena, Philosopher David Hume said that we should give priority to things that occur repeatedly or regularly over those that occur rarely. While rarely is part of the definition of a miracle, remember that it’s also part of the definition of the Big Bang. If Big Bangs are rare or even unique, and we’re very familiar with the non-physical (such as consciousness and free will), what’s surprising about a rare miracle with a non-physical cause?

BSR: What’s surprising would be anything with a supernatural cause. Science has shown us countless instances of phenomena (lightning, plagues, floods, etc.) incorrectly thought to have supernatural causes. We’ve seen zero instances of the reverse—something with a supposed natural cause that was actually caused by the supernatural. As for non-physical things such as consciousness and free will, these are just our old friends, abstract nouns.

David Hume’s observation has been called the Law of Least Astonishment: don’t put forward a body of evidence to argue for a miracle unless that evidence being false would be even more miraculous than the miracle. So we should reject the crazier: either Jesus raised people from the dead or that ancient story was just the result of history and legend. Either a miracle healing happened at Lourdes or that miracle claim was incorrect somehow.

Drop the God presupposition, and the choice is easy.

Did Jesus raise someone from the dead or was that ancient story the result of oral history and legend? We should reject the crazier. [Click to tweet]

(The Quick Shot I’m replying to is here.)

This post series is concluded at: BSR 28: There Is No Such Thing as Sin (28 of 28) 

For further reading:

• God Created the Universe From Nothing—Or Did He?
• A Crazy Natural Explanation Or a Supernatural One: Which One Wins?

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Image from Eduardo Mallmann, (free-use license)
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In an interview on the “Christian Meets World” podcast, Dr. Gary Habermas talked excitedly about the evidence for miracles. He claimed that eight million Americans have had near-death experiences. And if you’re open to this evidence, why not that for the resurrection of Jesus? They’re the same afterlife, after all.

Habermas cited Dr. Craig Keener’s Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (2011), in which are documented hundreds of recent miracle claims. Some miracles have MRI evidence documenting the before and after medical conditions. In one instance a spleen was surgically removed but then reappeared after prayer. Habermas guesses that there are 100 million miracle reports from around the world.

When Habermas debates atheists and brings up this evidence, famous atheists have no comebacks. They’ll handwave but have nothing better than, “Well, people report crazy things.”

These are bold statements that Habermas is making. Provocative statements. In fact, I feel a challenge coming on.

I publicly challenge Drs. Keener or Habermas to pick their favorite miracle claim and submit it for public analysis.

Gentlemen: out of the hundreds of claims in this book or the millions of claims worldwide, take your best-evidenced claim for a miracle. This wouldn’t be something that’s a known puzzle for modern science (cancer that went away for no obvious reason, for example) but something that science says can’t happen—maybe an amputated limb that grows back. Forget the hundreds of claims; bring the evidence for just your best one.

I see four possible outcomes of such a public critique.

1. The evidence is not researchable. Not all of the evidence exists or it’s impossible to access, or for some other reason a complete story can’t be put together. Maybe records have been destroyed, red tape prevents them from being accessed, the documentation is written in Turkmen or Quechua or some other difficult foreign language, or witnesses are inaccessible or deceased.

2. The evidence crumbles. In this case, we have a complete story, but the evidence isn’t sufficiently reliable. We can’t be sure that records weren’t deliberately tampered with or memories haven’t faded. Maybe we have the statement of just one person without corroboration or a claim from someone without the relevant qualifications (a layman making a medical diagnosis, for example). Maybe human error can’t be ruled out (inadvertently putting the x-ray from patient X into the folder for patient Y, for example).

3. We find a plausible natural explanation. That story about the spleen that was removed and then reappeared? Spleens can grow back. Amputated limbs that regrow? There have been such claims—the 1640 “Miracle of Calanda” is one example—but, as Skeptoid has shown, natural explanations are sufficient to explain the evidence for this claim. Or the “Miracle of Lanciano,” another with a natural explanation. Near-death experience? Science understands much of what happens as the brain becomes starved of oxygen (see Scientific American, Popular Science). Prayer that stopped an epidemic? I reported on one such claim (“Claims that Prayer Cures Disease”), but the epidemic had run its course by the time prayer started.

Any plausible natural explanation defeats the miracle claim.

4. We have a complete case, and natural explanations are less plausible than a miraculous explanation. This is the happy outcome that Habermas expects.

After public analysis of the Best Claim, I predict that we would see outcome 1, 2, or 3. And once we do, my next prediction is that Messrs. K. and H. will drop that claim like a used tissue and burrow through their files for another one.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Over and over. “Oh, you don’t like that claim? Not a problem—I got plenty more.”

As with UFO sightings, lots of crappy evidence doesn’t equal a little good evidence. It’s just a big pile of crappy evidence.

Gentlemen, I encourage you to respond to my challenge. You know how to reach me. That you spend your time writing books and giving interviews aimed at fellow believers convinces me that you know the evidence won’t stand up to scrutiny. Science hasn’t been convinced in the past, so why imagine it will now? No, the miracle claims are just superstition with a brittle coating of science.

Messrs. K. and H. assure the public 
their production will be second to none.
— The Beatles, “Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite”

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 9/26/12.)

Image credit: JOPHIELsmiles, flickr, CC