- Apr 29, 2010
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Often, when referring to events in the past, I hear people refer to "miracles" - supernatural events caused by some being outside of the reality we are able to experience. It is often shot back that "appealing to magic doesn't help in science". There are two parts to that statement - that miracles are somehow equivalent to magic, and that they are useless in a scientific discussion. Let's tackle both parts of that, shall we?
1. Miracles being equivalent to magic
Firstly, the equivalency. Miracles are, by definition, supernatural. They are events which effect the natural world, typically in ways that the currently observed laws of nature do not allow for, with a cause that lies outside of the natural world. For example, god forcing the earth to stand still in its path - the cause is a god's will (outside of nature), the effect clearly is impossible according to the observed laws of nature (just to name a few principles violated here, inertia, conservation of energy, gravity).
However, as they are supernatural, even if we can establish beyond the shadow of a doubt that something incredibly unlikely or unrealistic happened, we have no way of crediting it. You don't even have to go far into the realm of science fiction to understand this. A thousand years ago, if someone saw a carefully-staged CGI video of a man turning into a lion, they might believe it to be a miracle as well. I reckon that given today's technology, I could easily convince a man from the middle ages that he had met whatever god I felt like convincing him existed. When we extrapolate this to futuristic technology, it becomes even more extreme - the alleged Fatima Sun Miracle could have easily been replicated by aliens with advanced technology.
But when we extrapolate to supernatural causation, we suddenly hit a complete and total roadblock. If there is a supernatural cause for an event, how could we possibly examine this cause? It is, after all, outside of nature. To give an example, if we pray to Yahweh to give us a new car, and a brand new Audi poofs into existence in our garage in front of our very eyes, how do we know Yahweh was the one that gave it to us? How do we know it wasn't Satan? Or Allah? Or any number of other hypothetical supernatural beings? Or any number of hypothetical hyper-advanced non-supernatural beings? We have no way to know.
In this way, appealing to a "miracle" is essentially the same as appealing to "magic". Because that's really what it boils down to - an unattributable supernatural phenomenon. You're saying "some magical process caused this and we have no way of getting to the bottom of it". There's really not much of a difference.
2. The Uselessness of Miracles to Science
So why doesn't science accept supernatural explanations? Science is first and foremost about creating functional models of reality, which we can then use to make predictions and better understand reality. A miracle misses every single point on here. Miracles destroy functional models of reality, as they do not allow for such models to be made. What is the point of the laws of motion if, at any point, a supernatural being could completely suspend them? Miracles allow for no predictions, as they seem to be completely based on forces that we have absolutely no way of understand, let alone predicting. A miracle claim is, in science, worthless.
Beyond that, though, in epistemology, it's also a dead end. Miracle claims are, as previously explained, unattributable, but they are also unjustifiable. You are proposing an explanation which explicitly ignores what we know about reality. Why can't I then propose something which ignores reality just as much? If you're allowed to make that miracle claim, what stops me from making the miracle claim that the universe came into existence 30 seconds ago as it was right then, and that everything else is backfilled by false memories?
In essence, this means that if I ask you "how does your theory account for X" and your best answer is "a miracle happened", then you don't have an answer. You have just inserted "magic" into your formula, and magic allows for anything. Something which accounts for everything accounts for nothing.
So in conclusion, when I ask "if the story of Noah was true, where did the water come from and where did it go", and your best answer is "god put it there and removed it with a miracle", you have abandoned the realm of both science and rational debate. I am perfectly justified in rejecting your answer, and you have no ground to stand on when it comes to justifying it.
So if the topic is science, please don't try to bring miracles into the picture. You cannot justify them, they serve no purpose, and to anyone who understands science, they just get obnoxious after a while. If you cannot justify your chronology without miracles, then you cannot justify your chronology, and if you're intellectually honest, you will come up with an alternative which does not invoke supernatural causation, or admit that you don't have an answer.
1. Miracles being equivalent to magic
Firstly, the equivalency. Miracles are, by definition, supernatural. They are events which effect the natural world, typically in ways that the currently observed laws of nature do not allow for, with a cause that lies outside of the natural world. For example, god forcing the earth to stand still in its path - the cause is a god's will (outside of nature), the effect clearly is impossible according to the observed laws of nature (just to name a few principles violated here, inertia, conservation of energy, gravity).
However, as they are supernatural, even if we can establish beyond the shadow of a doubt that something incredibly unlikely or unrealistic happened, we have no way of crediting it. You don't even have to go far into the realm of science fiction to understand this. A thousand years ago, if someone saw a carefully-staged CGI video of a man turning into a lion, they might believe it to be a miracle as well. I reckon that given today's technology, I could easily convince a man from the middle ages that he had met whatever god I felt like convincing him existed. When we extrapolate this to futuristic technology, it becomes even more extreme - the alleged Fatima Sun Miracle could have easily been replicated by aliens with advanced technology.
But when we extrapolate to supernatural causation, we suddenly hit a complete and total roadblock. If there is a supernatural cause for an event, how could we possibly examine this cause? It is, after all, outside of nature. To give an example, if we pray to Yahweh to give us a new car, and a brand new Audi poofs into existence in our garage in front of our very eyes, how do we know Yahweh was the one that gave it to us? How do we know it wasn't Satan? Or Allah? Or any number of other hypothetical supernatural beings? Or any number of hypothetical hyper-advanced non-supernatural beings? We have no way to know.
In this way, appealing to a "miracle" is essentially the same as appealing to "magic". Because that's really what it boils down to - an unattributable supernatural phenomenon. You're saying "some magical process caused this and we have no way of getting to the bottom of it". There's really not much of a difference.
2. The Uselessness of Miracles to Science
So why doesn't science accept supernatural explanations? Science is first and foremost about creating functional models of reality, which we can then use to make predictions and better understand reality. A miracle misses every single point on here. Miracles destroy functional models of reality, as they do not allow for such models to be made. What is the point of the laws of motion if, at any point, a supernatural being could completely suspend them? Miracles allow for no predictions, as they seem to be completely based on forces that we have absolutely no way of understand, let alone predicting. A miracle claim is, in science, worthless.
Beyond that, though, in epistemology, it's also a dead end. Miracle claims are, as previously explained, unattributable, but they are also unjustifiable. You are proposing an explanation which explicitly ignores what we know about reality. Why can't I then propose something which ignores reality just as much? If you're allowed to make that miracle claim, what stops me from making the miracle claim that the universe came into existence 30 seconds ago as it was right then, and that everything else is backfilled by false memories?
In essence, this means that if I ask you "how does your theory account for X" and your best answer is "a miracle happened", then you don't have an answer. You have just inserted "magic" into your formula, and magic allows for anything. Something which accounts for everything accounts for nothing.
So in conclusion, when I ask "if the story of Noah was true, where did the water come from and where did it go", and your best answer is "god put it there and removed it with a miracle", you have abandoned the realm of both science and rational debate. I am perfectly justified in rejecting your answer, and you have no ground to stand on when it comes to justifying it.
So if the topic is science, please don't try to bring miracles into the picture. You cannot justify them, they serve no purpose, and to anyone who understands science, they just get obnoxious after a while. If you cannot justify your chronology without miracles, then you cannot justify your chronology, and if you're intellectually honest, you will come up with an alternative which does not invoke supernatural causation, or admit that you don't have an answer.