Atheist Bart Ehrman gets the historicity of miracles wrong.

[Paul of Tarsus]

I've watched the Ehrman vs Craig: Evidence for Resurrection debate video on YouTube several times, and as usual I am less than impressed with the polemics of Bart Ehrman. This time his fallacy involves the historicity of miracles and in particular the miracle of Christ's resurrection. His reasoning goes something like the following:

1. Miracles are the least likely correct explanation for any supposed historical event.
2. The story of the resurrection of Christ is a narrative of an event that if true requires a miraculous explanation.
Conclusion: Any naturalistic explanation of the story of Christ's being raised from the dead is more likely correct than an explanation that allows for the supernatural.

Is it true that miracles are so unlikely that any non-supernatural explanation for a claimed event is more likely true? I'm not sure why Ehrman seems to think miracles are so unlikely. While it's true that miracles are evidently rare, how probable they may be depends on the evidence for them. Ehrman seems to maintain a naturalistic view of miracles based more on an atheistic assumption than on any kind of evidence for them. That's not good reasoning.

I'd like to conclude this OP by pointing out that since I've been debating atheists, I can see that their reasoning is often as bad if not worse than the arguments made by apologists. It seems to me that there would be more atheists in the world if people stopped trying to disprove God.

[Mithrae]

At times both have been imaginative of course, but in the better cases neither is something we've just imagined. Both are inferred from observational evidence based on their respective explanatory merits; often excellent explanatory strength in the case of consistent/repeatable physical causes, with generally less conclusive results in cases involving human or other agency and non-repeatable phenomena.

You seem to be using the phrase "demonstrated to exist" in a manner intended to distinguish between 'physical' and 'divine' causes as if to imply that anything below, say, ~98% confidence cannot be presumed to "exist outside our imaginations":

I use the phrase "demonstrated to exist" in a manner intended to distinguish imaginary things from things that are also observed to exist outside our imaginations. I'm not sure what it means to suggest an imaginary thing has been demonstrated to exist outside our imaginations with 98% confidence. An imagined thing can either be demonstrated to exist outside our imaginations or it cannot.

According to numerous reports, the likes of ghosts and aliens have been observed to exist outside our imaginations. Personally I don't place much confidence in those reports, but it seems that you have chosen to go with binary thinking and would have to conclude that they can be "demonstrated to exist." Divine intervention likewise has been demonstrated to exist by this criterion, obviously with considerably more confidence than ghosts and aliens.

[nobspeople]

Problem with miracles is that they're based on ignorance. Knowledge replaces ignorance.
If we could travel back to 1400-ish (a miracle in of itself or an understanding of space time?) to a village with a mobile device that's charged and play the villagers a saved video clip of some science fiction program, that, to them, would be miraculous. Today, it's called technology.

Perhaps God or gods and their miracles have a similar relationship to what you just described. Gods are simply highly advanced, and their capabilities surpasses what we could ever do just as our modern day capabilities surpasses what ancient man could've ever done. But I would imagine that the differences between the gods (creators, designers, etc??) and mankind would have to be more than just a matter of technology. They also would have some inherent advancement that surpasses the inherent limitations of man and Universe.

Probably, though the difference may not be 'positive' ones. Meaning, just because they're more advanced doesn't mean they're more moral, just, etc.
That said, technology and its usage does make up for a lot within society. I suspect this holds true for any society, not just humanity.

[bluegreenearth]

According to numerous reports, the likes of ghosts and aliens have been observed to exist outside our imaginations. Personally I don't place much confidence in those reports, but it seems that you have chosen to go with binary thinking and would have to conclude that they can be "demonstrated to exist." Divine intervention likewise has been demonstrated to exist by this criterion, obviously with considerably more confidence than ghosts and aliens.

The term, "demonstrated to exist," was intended to imply the thing or cause can be objectively observed to exist upon request by anyone or when the proposed set of necessary conditions have been replicated. Ghosts and aliens have not been demonstrated to exist upon request by anyone or when the proposed set of necessary conditions have been replicated. Therefore, we cannot rule-out the possibility that reports of ghosts and aliens are cases of people mistaking other things or causes for ghosts or aliens. The same applies to miracles. I apologize for not clarifying this criteria earlier but though it would be understood without having to specify it.

[Mithrae]

According to numerous reports, the likes of ghosts and aliens have been observed to exist outside our imaginations. Personally I don't place much confidence in those reports, but it seems that you have chosen to go with binary thinking and would have to conclude that they can be "demonstrated to exist." Divine intervention likewise has been demonstrated to exist by this criterion, obviously with considerably more confidence than ghosts and aliens.

The term, "demonstrated to exist," was intended to imply the thing or cause can be objectively observed to exist upon request by anyone or when the proposed set of necessary conditions have been replicated. Ghosts and aliens have not been demonstrated to exist upon request by anyone or when the proposed set of necessary conditions have been replicated. Therefore, we cannot rule-out the possibility that reports of ghosts and aliens are cases of people mistaking other things or causes for ghosts or aliens. The same applies to miracles. I apologize for not clarifying this criteria earlier but though it would be understood without having to specify it.

When the proposed set of necessary conditions have been replicated, anyone can objectively observe the same non-imaginary phenomena as those who report observation of ghosts and aliens. Unless of course you have first begun with the assumptions that those things do not exist? The problem and relevant distinction - as I already pointed out - is that some things including historical events and the like are non-repeatable and/or agent-driven, meaning that the set of necessary conditions for their observation is much harder to satisfy than for easily-repeatable phenomena. A binary pass/fail criterion such as you're arguing for is obviously problematic in those cases, especially when in the case of historical and future events you've subverted your own binary criterion by adopting what amounts to 'near enough is good enough,' that in these cases if we can observe one philosopher that's enough to establish the viability of the Plato hypothesis even though Plato obviously cannot be "demonstrated to exist" outside our imaginations.

While your choice of wording is a little more nuanced, it seems the distinction you're trying to make was essentially covered back in post #20:

As for the distinction between 'natural' and 'supernatural' events being arbitrary, their definitions describe mutually exclusive phenomena.

Natural events are those readily perceived to exist or established to exist by scientific understanding or the laws of nature.
Supernatural events are those not readily perceived to exist, and attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

So for example, Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon is an event not readily perceived to exist nor established to exist by scientific understanding or the laws of nature and therefore is not a 'natural' event? And to Paul's point, this would imply that there are no natural explanations for the origins of Christianity? Similarly it would suggest that protons, neutrons and so on were not natural phenomena for most of human history, but suddenly became natural once their existence could be established by scientists. Obviously we can correct this problem by supposing that "'natural' events are those readily perceived to exist by those positioned to do so"; but in that case most purported miracles and magic would be 'readily perceived to exist' by those positioned to do so also, and therefore 'natural' events.

I don't disagree that 'natural' vs. 'supernatural' can be a useful semantic distinction at times, but trying to suggest that it is a significant ontological or epistemic distinction is a (positive) claim which I've never seen substantiated.

Fifty-four posts later I still haven't seen anything to suggest that there is a significant ontological or epistemic distinction to be made here beyond what I've already pointed out, the decidedly non-binary levels of relative confidence with which consistent/repeatable phenomena can be established vs. agent-driven/non-repeatable phenomena.

[Stelar_7]

[Replying to Mithrae in post #56]

You are of course right I didn't bother to look up the miracles you offered. I've no doubt it's unsubstantiated garbage. Nor am I interested in "proving" anything. Such claims are universally disingenuous outside of mathematics. The problem of induction is well defined. However we still live in an empirically understood world and we're using the internet to communicate. So hazzah for empiricism. Proven or not the mere fact of you reading this message demonstrates it's reliability in a way no religion has ever manifested.

Casting doubt on reality is the only move left to theists, and I pity you for it. Have fun believing in magic.

[Mithrae]

[Replying to Mithrae in post #56]

You are of course right I didn't bother to look up the miracles you offered. I've no doubt it's unsubstantiated garbage. Nor am I interested in "proving" anything. Such claims are universally disingenuous outside of mathematics. The problem of induction is well defined. However we still live in an empirically understood world and we're using the internet to communicate. So hazzah for empiricism. Proven or not the mere fact of you reading this message demonstrates it's reliability in a way no religion has ever manifested.

Casting doubt on reality is the only move left to theists, and I pity you for it. Have fun believing in magic.

I wasn't going to respond to this. I was pretty confident that folk who are worth responding to would recognize that this post... isn't. It seems that I was wrong

You openly admit that you're unwilling to even glance at the available evidence, but still insist you have "no doubt" that it's garbage and, worse, in your prior post had falsely accused me offering none.

You continue your comments on the theme of "casting doubt on reality" - an aversion to doubt seems to be a recurring motif here - perhaps because I recognize the varying levels of uncertainty in most human knowledge. On the other hand it is those arguing the contrary position whose suggestions (if applied consistently) would essentially wipe out the majority of our knowledge as "can't be demonstrated to exist" but in practice amount to the special pleading of complete and utter dismissal of the conclusions of the ~55% of medical experts who've observed medical outcomes so contrary to the expected natural course of events as to be deemed miraculous.

You stoop to obvious ad hominem and strawman attacks in the absence of any rational argumentation. There's really nothing there to respond to - no coherent critique of my position or positive argument of your own - even if it seemed to be coming from a perspective interested in genuine discussion. I figured that all of this was obvious enough for others to spot it as well. But I guess at least someone likes your efforts; perhaps, in the end, this turns out to be as good as it gets for an anti-miracle stance

[brunumb]

On the other hand it is those arguing the contrary position whose suggestions (if applied consistently) would essentially wipe out the majority of our knowledge as "can't be demonstrated to exist" but in practice amount to the special pleading of complete and utter dismissal of the conclusions of the ~55% of medical experts who've observed medical outcomes so contrary to the expected natural course of events as to be deemed miraculous.

Argument from incredulity, also known as argument from personal incredulity or appeal to common sense, is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition must be false because it contradicts one's personal expectations or beliefs, or is difficult to imagine.

An argument from authority (argumentum ab auctoritate), also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument.

When your so-called medical experts support their opinions with facts that irrefutably demonstrate that no natural cause was possible, we might have a case for miracles. I doubt very much that the depth of investigation involved in all those alleged miraculous cures would really warrant such a determination.

[Mithrae]

On the other hand it is those arguing the contrary position whose suggestions (if applied consistently) would essentially wipe out the majority of our knowledge as "can't be demonstrated to exist" but in practice amount to the special pleading of complete and utter dismissal of the conclusions of the ~55% of medical experts who've observed medical outcomes so contrary to the expected natural course of events as to be deemed miraculous.

Argument from incredulity, also known as argument from personal incredulity or appeal to common sense, is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition must be false because it contradicts one's personal expectations or beliefs, or is difficult to imagine.

An argument from authority (argumentum ab auctoritate), also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument.

When your so-called medical experts support their opinions with facts that irrefutably demonstrate that no natural cause was possible, we might have a case for miracles. I doubt very much that the depth of investigation involved in all those alleged miraculous cures would really warrant such a determination.

Okay, so you are incredulous towards the prospect that miracles occur and thus demand an exceptional standard, an authoritative proof of impossibility that any 'natural' cause was involved (still without delineating the precise extents of what constitutes a 'natural' cause, of course). As I noted, if this standard were applied consistently anything below say ~99% confidence - the majority of what we know as individuals in other words - would be subject to the same dismissive attitude as miracles.

Instead it's simply a case of special pleading. Even the weirdest genetic anomalies, diseases and recoveries are accepted on the basis of just a few documented cases, if they are 'natural.' But as soon as medical experts stray too far beyond the realm of 'natural' expectations it seems that some of us will happily dismiss hundreds of thousands of reports, from roughly half of medical experts (a rate of observation well above the less educated, more credulous general population)... and dismiss them not only as individually quite fallible*, not only as collectively retaining some measure of uncertainty**, but utterly and completely dismiss them as having any evidentiary value at all!



* As outlined in earlier posts, even given the irrationally hyper-sceptical assumption that each individual report is 99% likely to be a case of misdiagnosis, inadequate understanding of 'natural' processes or the like - baselessly going from "it seems contrary to the natural course of events but we're not completely sure" to "almost certainly a natural explanation" - across hundreds and even thousands of individual reports we'd still be left with virtual certainty that many are indeed genuine miracles.

** While the above would imply ~100% confidence that genuine miracles do occur, some kind of sweeping collective source of error, despite being unknown, could perhaps be theorized. For comparison in the field of climate science, known biases such as ideology and funding seemingly cause ~1% of experts to radically contradict known facts and perhaps as many as 5% to overstate uncertainties and understate attribution and risks: So while still a little arbitrary, I'd suggest somewhere in that range as a ballpark figure for potential uncertainties introduced by unknown error sources in medical experts' collective observations and conclusions, implying perhaps as little as ~95% confidence that genuine miracles occur.

[bluegreenearth]

When the proposed set of necessary conditions have been replicated, anyone can objectively observe the same non-imaginary phenomena as those who report observation of ghosts and aliens. Unless of course you have first begun with the assumptions that those things do not exist?

I've been in numerous "claimed" haunted houses where the necessary conditions for ghosts to exist were reportedly available, but I never observed anything that would resemble the description of a ghost or other "paranormal" event. Would the assumption that ghosts do or don't exist have changed the outcome of my experiences in those situations? If I had observed an unexplainable thing or event, would it be justifiable for me to conclude that a ghost was the cause of the phenomenon as opposed to an infinite number of other unfalsifiable claims? How would I rule-out the infinite number of other unfalsifiable claims to leave a ghost as the only justifiable abductive inference? What about untested falsifiable claims? Could there be an unknown natural explanation I haven't yet considered?

The problem and relevant distinction - as I already pointed out - is that some things including historical events and the like are non-repeatable and/or agent-driven, meaning that the set of necessary conditions for their observation is much harder to satisfy than for easily-repeatable phenomena. A binary pass/fail criterion such as you're arguing for is obviously problematic in those cases, especially when in the case of historical and future events you've subverted your own binary criterion by adopting what amounts to 'near enough is good enough,' that in these cases if we can observe one philosopher that's enough to establish the viability of the Plato hypothesis even though Plato obviously cannot be "demonstrated to exist" outside our imaginations.

While your choice of wording is a little more nuanced, it seems the distinction you're trying to make was essentially covered back in post #20:

If a historical claim describes an event that could be caused by something demonstrable today, then the necessary conditions for such an event to have occurred in the past are repeatable. For instance, if a historical claim is that an ancient village located in a particular geographic area was destroyed by a Tsunami at some point in the distant past, observing a Tsunami destroy a modern village located in a nearly identical geographic location or situated in a similar tectonically active environment would demonstrate the historical claim was not only possible but highly plausible. In other words, while I would only be able to imagine the specific Tsunami that destroyed an ancient village, Tsunamis have been demonstrated to occur outside my imagination for me to abductively infer that one was possibly and probably responsible for the destruction of an ancient village. Nevertheless, you will likely object to the Tsunami analogy because it does not describe a cause that is not reproducible given a set of equivalent conditioned. Well, the fact that miracles are not reproducible given a set of equivalent conditions is precisely why miracles cannot be considered as anything more than imaginary causes.

As for the claim that there was a person named Plato who practiced philosophy, it does not describe a type of thing or event that couldn't be demonstrated to exist outside my imagination. The claim describes the existence of a person who thought deeply about the fundamental nature of the universe. The fact that I regularly observe and interact with people who think deeply about the fundamental nature of the universe today serves as an implicit empirical basis for the historical claim about Plato's existence. Therefore, while I cannot be absolutely certain that Plato specifically existed outside my imagination, the implicit empirical basis of the claim functions to justify the abductive inference that such a person probably existed outside my imagination.

At the same time, I've never observed or interacted with anyone who could fly without the aid of technology. As such, I have no implicit empirical basis from which to justify the claim that Plato could fly like Superman because the claim describes a type of event I've never observed outside my imagination. Now, if my family and I leave our house in the morning to find my neighbor flying over his front yard like Superman, that demonstration would function as an implicit empirical basis for claiming Plato could fly without the aid of technology. At that point, knowing this type of event can occur outside my imagination, I would be compelled to consider the possibility of Plato having flown like Superman at some point in the past.

Obviously, I'm not suggesting an unreasonable pass/fail criterion here. Therefore, you are either unintentionally or intentionally arguing against a straw-man.

[Mithrae]

Obviously, I'm not suggesting an unreasonable pass/fail criterion here. Therefore, you are either unintentionally or intentionally arguing against a straw-man.

In post #70 we read:

At times both ['physical' and 'divine' causes] have been imaginative of course, but in the better cases neither is something we've just imagined. Both are inferred from observational evidence based on their respective explanatory merits; often excellent explanatory strength in the case of consistent/repeatable physical causes, with generally less conclusive results in cases involving human or other agency and non-repeatable phenomena.

You seem to be using the phrase "demonstrated to exist" in a manner intended to distinguish between 'physical' and 'divine' causes as if to imply that anything below, say, ~98% confidence cannot be presumed to "exist outside our imaginations":

I use the phrase "demonstrated to exist" in a manner intended to distinguish imaginary things from things that are also observed to exist outside our imaginations. I'm not sure what it means to suggest an imaginary thing has been demonstrated to exist outside our imaginations with 98% confidence. An imagined thing can either be demonstrated to exist outside our imaginations or it cannot.

This seems to be rejection of a continuum of different confidence levels and affirmation of a pass or fail approach. Can you help clarify where our misunderstanding has occurred here? It isn't as obvious to me as you're trying to portray.