Are Miracles Possible in an Age of Science?

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Are Miracles Possible in an Age of Science?

Posted Oct 16th 2007 7:40AM by Dinesh D'Souza
Filed under: Christianity, Controversy, Atheism

This article, which appeared in Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times, is adapted from my new book What's So Great About Christianity.

Are miracles possible in an age of science? A host of bestselling atheist books, from Sam Harris' The End of Faith to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion to Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great, all sneer at the notion of miracles. Dawkins,for instance, writes that miracles are "flatly contradictory not just to the facts of science but also to the spirit of science." Reasonable people in his view "have to renounce miracles."

Some Christians are so intimidated by the authority of science that they do their best to explain away the miracles reported in the Bible. How did Jesus feed thousands of people with a few loaves and fishes? Perhaps he had a secret store of food, or people brought their own packed lunches. How did Jesus walk on water? Maybe there was a platform floating beneath the surface. How did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead? Lazarus might simply have been in a trance. These explanations have actually been suggested by theologians.

In getting rid of miracles, these people are getting rid of Christianity. Some religions, such as Islam, do not rely on miracles. Others, such as Judaism, report miracles but are not dependent on them. Christianity, however, is based on miracles, from the virgin birth to the resurrection. Without the resurrection, Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, "our preaching is useless and so is your faith."

I intend to show that miracles are possible by refuting the strongest argument against them, that of the philosopher David Hume. Hume'sargument is widely cited by atheists; Dawkins and Hitchens both invokeit to justify their wholesale rejection of miracles. I am not trying to defend the veracity of any particular miracle. And of course miracles are improbable-that's why we use the term "miracle." I will, however, show that the possibility of miracles is completely consistent with modern science and modern knowledge.

In his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,Hume argued: 1) A miracle is a violation of the known laws of nature,2) We know these laws through repeated and constant experience, 3) Thetestimony of those who report miracles contradicts the operation ofknown scientific laws, 4) Consequently no one can rationally believe inmiracles. My refutation will show that: 1) Amiracle is a violation of the known laws of nature, 2) Scientific lawsare on Hume's own account empirically unverifiable, 3) Thus violationsof the known laws of nature are quite possible, 4) Therefore, miraclesare possible.

Why are scientific laws unverifiable? Hume'sanswer was that no finite number of observations, however large, can beused to derive an unrestricted general conclusion that is logicallydefensible. If I say all swans are white and posit that as a scientific hypothesis, how would I go about verifying it? By checking out swans. A million swans. Or ten million. Based on this I can say confidently that all swans are white. Hume's point is that I don't really know this. Tomorrow I might see a black swan, and there goes my scientific law.

This is not a frivolous example. For thousands of years before was discovered, the only swans people in the West had seen had been white. Consequently,the entire Western world took it for granted that all swans were white,and expressions like "white as a swan" abound in Western literature. It was only when Europeans landed in that they saw, for the first time, a black swan. What was previously considered a scientifically inviolable truth had to be retired.

Atthis point one might expect today's champions of science to startpatting themselves on the back and saying, "Yes, and this is thewonderful thing about science. It is always open to correction and revision. It learns from its mistakes." Theatheist philosopher Daniel Dennett writes, "The methods of sciencearen't foolproof, but they are indefinitely perfectible....There is atradition of criticism that enforces improvement whenever and whereverflaws are discovered."

Tosay this is to miss the force of Hume's reasoning, which is thatscience was not justified in positing these rules in the first place. All scientific laws are empirically unverifiable. How do we know that light travels at the speed of 186,000 miles per second? We measure it. Butjust because we measure it at that speed one time, or ten times, or abillion times, doesn't mean that light always and everywhere travels atthat speed. We are simply assuming this, but we don't know it to be so. Tomorrow we might find a situation in which light travels at a different speed, and then we will be reminded of black swans.

But can't scientific laws be derived from the logical connection between cause and effect? No, Hume argued, because there is no logical connection between cause and effect. We may see event A and then event B, and we may assume that event A caused event B, but we cannot know this for sure. All we have observed is a correlation, and no number of observed correlations can add up to a necessary connection.

Consider a simple illustration. A child drops a ball on the ground for the first time. To his surprise it bounces. Thenthe child's uncle, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology, explains to the child that dropping a round object like aball causes it to bounce. The uncle might explain this by employing general terms like "property" and "causation." If these are not meaningless terms, they must refer to something in experience.

But now let us consider a deep question that Hume raises: what experience has the uncle had that the child has not had? The difference, Hume notes, is that the uncle has seen a lot of balls bounce. Every time he dropped a ball it has bounced. And every time he has seen someone else do it, the result was the same. This is the basis-and the sole basis-of the uncle's superior knowledge.

Hume now draws his arresting conclusion: the uncle has no experience fundamentally different from the child's. He has merely repeated the experiment more times. Soit is custom or habit that makes him think, "Because I have seen thishappen many times before, therefore it must happen again." But the uncle has not established a necessary connection, merely an expectation derived from past experience. How does he know that past experience will repeat itself every time in the future? In truth, he does not know. In this way Hume concluded that the laws of cause and effect cannot be validated.

Hume is not denying that nature has laws but he is denying that we know what those laws are. When we posit laws, Hume suggests this is simply a grandiose way of saying "here is our best guess based on previous tries."

Bythe way it is no rebuttal to Hume to say, "Admittedly scientific lawsare not 100 percent true but at least they are 99.9 percent true. They may not be certain, but they are very likely to be true." How would you go about verifying this statement? How would you establish the likelihood, for instance, of Newton 's inverse square law? Itsays that every physical object in the universe attracts every otherphysical object with a force directly proportional to their masses andinversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. This law cannot be tested except by actually measuring the relationships between all objects in the universe! Since that is impossible, no finite number of tries can generate any conclusion about how probable Newton 's statement is. Tenmillion tries cannot establish 99.9 percent probability-or even 50percent probability-because there may be twenty million cases thathaven't been tried where Newton 's law may be found inadequate.

At this point we should pause to consider astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson's exasperated outburst. Tysonbelieves it is simply ridiculous to say that scientific laws are notreliable: "Science's big-time success rests on the fact that it works." Ifscience did not accurately describe the world, then airplanes would notfly and people who undergo medical treatments would not be cured. Airplanes do fly and sick people are healed in the hospital, and on that basis science must be taken as true. Betterto fly in an airplane constructed by the laws of physics, Tysonscornfully says, than to board one "constructed by the rules of Vedicastrology."

Iagree that science works-and you won't get any argument from me aboutthe limits of Vedic astrology-but it doesn't follow that scientificlaws are known to be true in all cases. Consider this dismaying realization. Newton 's laws were for nearly two centuries regarded as absolutely true. They worked incredibly well. Indeed no body of general statements had ever been subjected to so much empirical verification. Everymachine incorporated its principles, and the entire IndustrialRevolution was based on Newtonian physics and Newtonian mechanics. Newton was vindicated millions of times a day, and his theories led to unprecedented material success.

YetEinstein's theories of relativity contradicted Newton, and despitetheir incalculable quantity of empirical verification, Newton's lawswere proven in important ways to be wrong or at least inadequate. Thisdoes not mean that Einstein's laws are absolutely true: in the futurethey too might be shown to be erroneous in certain respects.

From such examples, philosopher Karl Popper concluded that no scientific lawcan, in a positive sense, claim to prove anything at all. Science cannot verify theories, it can merely falsify them. When we have subjected a theory to expansive testing, and it has not been falsified, we can provisionally believe it to be true. This is not, however, because the theory has been proven, or even because it is likely to be true. Rather, we proceed in this way because, practically speaking, we don't have a better way to proceed. We give a theory the benefit of the doubt until we find out otherwise.

There is nothing wrong in all this, as long as we realize that scientific laws are not "laws of nature." They are human laws, and they represent a form of best-guessing about the world. What we call laws are nothing more than observed patterns and sequences. We think the world works in this way until future experience proves the contrary.

I am laying out the skeptical case here not because I want to endorse without reservations Hume's (or Popper's) philosophy. Rather, my goal is to overthrow Hume's argument against miracles using his own empirical and skeptical philosophy. Humeinsists that miracles violate the known laws of nature, but I say thatHume's own skeptical philosophy has shown that there are no known lawsof nature.

Miracles can be dismissed only if scientific laws are necessarily true-if they admit of no exceptions. But Hume has demonstrated that for no empirical proposition whatsoever do we know this to be the case. Miraclescan be deemed unscientific only if our knowledge of causation is soextensive that we can confidently dismiss supernatural causation. From Hume we learn how limited is our knowledge of causation, and thereforewe cannot write off the prospect of divine causation in exceptionalcases.

Sothe atheist case against miracles fails, and by the very standards ofreason and evidence advocated by the great skeptic, David Hume. The case against miracles in the name of reason is shown to be unreasonable. Faith is vindicated, not in any particular miracle, but at least in their possibility. Miracles can indeed happen, and nothing in modern science or modern knowledge shows they can't.

Bestselling author Dinesh D'Souza's new book What's So Great About Christianity has just been published by Regnery. Website: dineshdsouza.com.

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Reader Comments ( Page 5 of 6)

Previous 15 Comments | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Most Recent | Next 15 Comments

61. Jumping Judas Priest, Man. Haven't you pushed that sophomoric rant you call a "book" long enough? A miracle, at this point, would be that Mr. D'Souza could learn to close his mouth when silliness begins to fall out of it.

A miracle is not that a crippled plane is landed on a runway, Kent. A miracle would have meant that every person on board would have walked off of that plane uninjured and unafraid.

Religion is a good social control only if it teaches tolerance. That's really what we need, isn't it? A religion that teaches tolerance of everyone, regardless of faith, creed or color?
(and please don't waste breath telling me thats what christianity is for, because any good baptist will tell you what he thinks of catholics, and any good catholic will tell you what he thinks of episcopalians, and so forth...)

Science only has "limits" because our understanding is limited. That's the thing, isn't it... That one day, (if we don't bomb ourselves back to the stone age) our understanding will surpass all our limitations, and all of god's. And that's the human condition, really. The choices are all OURS.

Lionruby at 10:33AM on Oct 17th 2007

62. Miracles are faith based examples of the unknown. Science is a reality or at least 99.9% reality of the known.

I personally believe in a greater power, But I do not relate Jesus to God. People need a way of identifying with the unknown "the Bible" and in a lot of cases, People have "Blind Faith" - Just excepting what they really don't want to learn about, or being so brainwashed through generations of respect for the people they trusted most, that they can't be open minded any more. Any contradiction to the bible, and it had to be the Devil - Right... wrong!

What about Positivity and Negativity? Can't all things, explained or not, be labeled in this fashion. Example - Prayer Chains, Illness cures, depression. All these things could logically be the 90% of our brains we don't understand. But I guess "Faith" is easier.

If "Faith" gives someone positivity, great.
If "Science" gives someone positivity, great too.

We as Human Beings need to be positive or negative - except ALL for the good in them or the bad, thats life.

Miracles are strictly "Faith based" but if It makes people positive - fine.
Science is what we understand in this modern time and worth excepting along with faith. It's the individuals own right to choose - But NOT whether It's right or wrong - NO ONE knows for sure.

I love all your comments, we're all connected in some way that is hard to fathom, But lets keep reality reality and faith a part of the creativity of good messages and lessons that we can ALL take Laterally instead of Literally.

Scott at 6:07PM on Oct 17th 2007

63. Dinesh your argument again circles reason. Let me explain to you coming from my Physics 101 memory and the only physics course i ever had that the only common denominator you refer to as a base for your argument that science and religion equally don't have the bottom line on and that is INFINITY. If one makes a billion observations of the same thing then it is reasonable to assume that the billionth and one observation is going to be like the previous. As for Newtonian physics be certain that all were consistent with his point of observation and those physics are alive and well as we speak. Einstinian physics incorportates gravity or the lack thereof in some observations makes the observations relative to them. In Newtonian physics space and time has a one to one relationship but in Einstinian physics he shows that is only consistent relative to gravity, mass, and the speed of light. One can't quantitate infinity and therefore draw conclusions from it except if your name is Dinesh I suppose. Would your mind change if you were put on a space ship moving at light speed straight out never deviating its course to the left or right up or down and you suddenly in front of saw yourself approaching the planet earth again? It should! Infinity you see is wide open and shut closed. Try one dimension forward and stop kidding yourself. Be brave and think outside your demonic fears.

JOHN R HABIB, M.D. at 10:49AM on Oct 17th 2007

64. My response is rather long, again, so here's a link to it http://www.horizons-2000.org/weblog/dsouza/dsouza101607.html

Anil Mitra at 11:29AM on Oct 17th 2007

65. Dinesh wrote: "Miracles can indeed happen, and nothing in modern science or modern knowledge shows they can't."

Dinesh, what miracles do you think happened? I'll consider whether an alleged event occurred. But a super-being didn't poof the first two elephants to live on earth -- poof! -- directly into existence. That didn't happen. Bacteria that was on earth about 3.5 billion years ago evolved through reproduction into all the complex organisms that have lived on earth, including all the elephants. Here is a link to an article that presents some of the kinds of data that has helped some people determine that bacteria that was on earth about 3.5 billion years ago evolved through reproduction into all the complex organisms that have lived on earth, including all the elephants:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

I also recommend Ernst Mayr's book What Evolution Is.

Wes at 2:18PM on Oct 17th 2007

66. Sue Hamilton: Why in the world would the Virgin Mary leave six messages to a bunch of chldren. Why not six very intelligent adults? Why not six world leaders???

JOHN R HABIB, M.D. at 3:16PM on Oct 17th 2007

67. Sue, the situation you refer to might be a good candidate for James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge. Here is a link to Randi's website:

http://www.randi.org/

And here is some information on the Million Dollar Challenge:

http://www.randi.org/research/index.html

Wes at 4:55PM on Oct 17th 2007

68. Scott wrote:

"Miracles are faith based examples of the unknown. Science is a reality or at least 99.9% reality of the known."

Scott what do you mean by "faith based examples of the unknown?" That someone has faith that an event occurred is completely irrelevant to whether I know that it occurred. Some people have faith that the earth is a flat disk that rests on the back of a giant tortoise. I'm quite sure it's not. Some people have faith that they have been abducted by aliens. I'm quite sure they haven't been. Some people have faith that the universe is less than 10,000 years old. I'm quite sure it is much older than that. Some people have faith that a super being poofed into existence the first two elephants that lived on earth. I'm quite sure that didn't happen. So that someone has faith that Mary's egg-cell wasn't fertilized by any man's sperm-cell is irrelevant to whether I know that it happened.

Wes at 8:31PM on Oct 17th 2007

69. Paragraph #7 needs editing; some words were left out.

Paragraph #9 implies the constancy of the speed
of light, yet it varies in various mediums. A recent issue of Scientific American relates how a scientist has very appreciably slowed the speed of light.

Paragraphs #11, #12, and #13 discuss observing a falling ball in earth's gravitational field, but in an earth orbit the ball may not fall and this too can be explained by gravity.

Paragraph #15 laments the difficulty of proving the inverse square law affecting gravity yet, it can be easily demonstrated measuring light's falling intensity as it moves from a source and easily explained using high-school math.

I am reminded of Goethe. He said, "Mystery is not miracle."

Paul Soby at 11:52PM on Oct 17th 2007

70. I think it' a miracle that people still need to believe in miracles and myths to justify their existence. I would love to experience what I perceive to be a miracle, until that happens I'll keep my superstitious yap shut and hope the jesus freaks would follow suit

john connore at 11:49PM on Oct 17th 2007

71. To ask "Are miracles possible in an age of science?" indicates a "blindness" or a "naivity"
as miracles keep happening all the time. To ask such a question is akin to asking "Is existence, birth, growth and death possible in an age of science?"
The magnificient order inherent in the universe
and living organisms, in the anatomy and physiology of the human brain can not be a product
of series of coincidences. A wisdom is behind these phenomena which we call "God". Our sciences,
each time they explore a new truth or law of the nature, is simply confirming the existence of this "wisdom" - the God.
Sciences and religions are not contrary to each other and are not rivals of each other. They complement each other. To think differently requires a closer understanding of the religions or of sciences or of both.

Askin Ozcan
Author of
SMALL MIRACLES
ISBN 1598001000 Outskirts Press

askin at 5:34AM on Oct 19th 2007

72. Askin wrote:

“To ask "Are miracles possible in an age of science?" indicates a "blindness" or a "naivity"
as miracles keep happening all the time. To ask such a question is akin to asking "Is existence, birth, growth and death possible in an age of science?"

What specific events are you referring to? What events do think have occurred?

“The magnificient order inherent in the universe
and living organisms, in the anatomy and physiology of the human brain can not be a product
of series of coincidences. A wisdom is behind these phenomena which we call "God".”

What do you mean by “coincidences?” No intelligent being intervened to cause the existence of the organisms on earth or to cause human brains to be the way they are. A cell evolved through reproduction into all the complex organisms to have lived on earth, including all the humans. Here is a link:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Moreover, for the sake of argument, let’s say that the universe is orderly. That something is “orderly” does not enable you to determine that an intelligent being poofed it into existence. I’m orderly, and an intelligent being didn’t poof me into existence. A particular person gave birth to me. So if the universe is orderly, that does not enable us to determine that a super being poofed the universe into existence.

“,Our sciences,
each time they explore a new truth or law of the nature, is simply confirming the existence of this "wisdom" - the God.”

Why do you say that?

“Sciences and religions are not contrary to each other and are not rivals of each other. They complement each other. To think differently requires a closer understanding of the religions or of sciences or of both.”

Some claims that some people associate with religion are logically inconstant with what is known to be true. For example, the known universe is not less than 10,000 years old.

Wes at 2:20PM on Oct 18th 2007

73. Several people have pointed out that miracles are just things scientists haven't figured out yet. Well, that's the way GOD works, by whatever title you choose to give to GOD. That's unless you don't believe in any kind of a supreme being. As long as there is a GOD, there will always be miracles for people.

John F.C. Taylor at 4:26PM on Oct 18th 2007

74. I have admired much of D'Souza's work over the years, and have found him to be very astute and good at making distinctions in the use of language. But, as a long-time atheist, I have also disagreed with some of his work as well (naturally!)

In this article, I think he expresses himself in the usual, clear fashion, and actually makes some good points. But I have a couple of criticisms of the material as well. Briefly...

Even more basic than his premise, before it even gets started, I wonder if he ACTUALLY THINKS- as a rational, thinking human being armed with current scientific knowledge- that any of the miracles he refers to ACTUALLY occurred, or are simply fabrications/delusions of the human mind? I refer not only to the popular Biblical ones he mentions, but to any in any time that are reported to have been witnessed or experienced.

Second, I agree with his premise, i.e., that miracles are possible in an age of science, and I am sure Dawkins and other atheists wouldn't rule them out of logical possibility (as an aside, too many reviewers these days are attributing to Dawkins many things they have not literally said; this comes to light upon a careful reading of their material). However, as Dawkins might also say, similar to the God Hypothesis... "you can put a probability value on them".

Sure, miracles are possible; but so are pink elephants and teapots in orbit around Mars! (Favorite examples of Dawkins).

Also, in general I wouldn't use Hume's material in the INQUIRY against himself, as D'Souza tried to; I would simply use Hume's reasoning to support what he is arguing for in the first place. As Hume maintained, it is far more probable that men are credulous and governed by emotion than that the laws of nature have been suspended.

In closing, I would just like to quote from the philosopher John Herman Randall, Jr.; ... "Events do not come with the label 'miracle' stamped on some of them. Since 'event' is by definition 'natural event', what test could possibly establish a given one as having 'supernatural' origin? Since a natural explanation is always a possibility, the criterion would seem to be wonder or surprise or perplexity. But these are subjective criteria which depend upon and vary with education, expectation, and emotion."

I can't really say it any better. To me, the whole notion of miracles, although a possibility, pretty much turns out, on logical analysis, to be very improbable and simply more human bunk.

Bob C. at 12:23PM on Nov 24th 2007

75. It is great to have some right thinking for a change. It is said that if Darwin were alive today, with all of the modern information and the Internet, that he would have not come to the conclusions he did so many years ago. We must all look more closely to the truth, to find more hope for the possibility of a third existence as Christians believe to be Eternal. If all of nature points to threes, where are we going next? We came from birth from our Mothers body, to this one outside, then to the next "world." Where we will be and with whom? Best we look into an "insurance" plan, beyond this Earth.

Suzanne Michelli at 12:44PM on Oct 20th 2007

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Mo Rocca appears on a bunch of shows, including CBS News Sunday Morning (with the indescribably wonderful Charles Osgood), The Tonight Show on NBC, and NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! He's a sometime judge on Iron Chef and was featured on Telemundo's Amore Descarado. Last year he starred on Broadway in the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. His expose "All the President's Pets" was published by Crown in 2004.