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Epistemic theory of miracles

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The epistemic theory of miracles is the name given by the philosopher William Vallicella to the theory of
miraculous events given by St. Augustine and Baruch Spinoza. According to the theory, there are no events
contrary to nature — that is no "transgressions", in Hume's sense, of the laws of nature. An event is a miracle
only in the sense that it does not agree with our understanding of nature, or fit our picture of nature, or that it
thwarts our expectations as to how the world should behave. According to a perfect scientific understanding
there would be no miracles at all.

The name of the theory is derived from the Ancient Greek word ἐπιστήμη, episteme, meaning "well-founded
knowledge".

Contents
1 Augustine's account
2 Spinoza's account
3 John Polkinghorne
4 McLean v. Arkansas
5 Islamic view of miracles
6 Notes
7 References
8 External links

Augustine's account
In The City of God, Book XXI, Chapter 8, Augustine
quotes Marcus Varro, Of the Race of the Roman People:

There occurred a remarkable celestial portent; for


Castor records that, in the brilliant star Venus, called
Vesperugo by Plautus, and the lovely Hesperus by
Homer, there occurred so strange a prodigy, that it
changed its colour, size, form, course, which never
appeared before nor since. Adrastus of Cyzicus, and
Dion of Naples, famous mathematicians, said that
this occurred in the reign of Ogyges.

So great an author as Varro would certainly not have


called this a portent had it not seemed to be contrary
Jesus exploiting surface tension
to nature. For we say that all portents are contrary to
nature; but they are not so. For how is that contrary
to nature which happens by the will of God, since the will of so mighty a Creator is certainly the nature
of each created thing? A portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature, but contrary to what we know
as nature.[1]

Augustine argues that there can be no true transgression of the laws of nature, because everything that happens
according to God's will happens by nature, and a transgression of the laws of nature would therefore happen
contrary to God's will. A miracle therefore is not contrary to nature as it really is, but only contrary to nature as
our current understanding supposes it to be (Portentum ergo fit non contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota
natura).
For example, if we were to see a man walking on water, and the man really were walking on water, that would
not be possible given the laws of nature as we understand them. (The surface tension of water is not great
enough to support a man's weight.) But it is logically possible that our understanding of the laws of nature is
incomplete, and that there are special psychophysical laws, unknown to us, that allow certain human beings
possessing great powers of concentration to affect by force of will alone the surface tension of water. If that
were so in the case of Jesus, there would be nothing truly unnatural about his walking on water.

Spinoza's account
In Chapter Six of Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise ("Of Miracles"),
Spinoza claims that the universal laws of nature are decrees of God. Hence,
any event happening in nature which contravened nature's universal laws,
would necessarily also contravene the Divine decree, nature, and
understanding; or if anyone asserted that God acted in contravention to the
laws of nature, he, ipso facto, would be compelled to assert that God acted
against His own nature—an evident absurdity.[2]

Further, as nothing happens in nature which does not follow from her
laws, and as her laws embrace everything conceived by the Divine
intellect, and lastly, as nature preserves a fixed and immutable order;
it most clearly follows that miracles are only intelligible as in
relation to human opinions, and merely mean events of which the
natural cause cannot be explained by a reference to any ordinary
Baruch Spinoza
occurrence, either by us, or at any rate, by the writer and narrator of
the miracle.[3]

In other words, according to Spinoza, miracles are not a transgression of natural or scientific laws, but only of
natural laws as we currently understand them. A "miracle" is simply an event we cannot explain, and is
parasitic upon our ignorance. It is, in reality, a natural event that surpasses our limited human comprehension.
To a perfect understanding nothing would appear miraculous. This is the first main point that Spinoza makes in
his chapter "Of Miracles."

His second point is that neither God's nature, nor his existence can be known from miracles; they can be known
only from the fixed and immutable order of nature. If we understand miracles as actual interruptions or
contraventions of the order of nature, and so of the will of God, then not only are they impossible, but they can
provide no basis for knowledge of God. However, if understanding miracles epistemically, i.e. as events the
causes of which we do not understand, then we have no basis for knowledge of God in this case either. We
cannot base knowledge of God on ignorance, and events are miraculous only due to our ignorance of their
natural causes.

If, therefore, anything should come to pass in nature which does not follow from her laws, it would also
be in contravention to the order which God has established in nature for ever through universal natural
laws; it would, therefore, be in contravention to God's nature and laws, and, consequently, belief in it
would throw doubt upon everything, and lead to Atheism.[2]

John Polkinghorne
The view of particle physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne is somewhat similar. Polkinghorne argues that
an apparently simple event like boiling water, where a small quantity of liquid changes into a large quantity of
steam (a phase transition) would seem miraculous to someone who had not seen it every day.

I try to understand God's action that we call miraculous in the same sort of way. There is an underlying
consistency of God's relationship to the world but the existence of a new regime may mean that
consistency expresses itself in totally unprecedented, totally unexpected consequences.[4]
Polkinghorne argues that God cannot control things on the macroscopic
scale by acting microscopically on each elementary particle in the universe,
but that He can act within the framework of chaos theory as "pure spirit".
As the complex nonlinear systems of life oscillate back and forth trying to
decide which strange attractor to move towards, God intervenes gently in
the direction that moves the system where he wishes it to go.[5] See
Quantum mysticism.

McLean v. Arkansas
The epistemic conception of the miraculous does not agree with the The miracle of boiling
definition given in the famous McLean v. Arkansas case. In this case
(McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp.
1255, 1258–1264) (ED Ark. 1982), brought in Arkansas,
the judge, William Overton, gave a clear, specific definition
of science as a basis for ruling that 'creation science' is
religion and not science. His judgment defined the essential
characteristics of science as being

1. guided by natural law;


2. explanatory by reference to natural law;
3. empirically testable;
4. tentative in conclusion, i.e. not necessarily the Evolution on trial
final word;
5. falsifiable.

However, an epistemic explanation of miraculous events would satisfy at least the first two definitions.

Islamic view of miracles


The epistemic conception of the miraculous does not agree with the definition given in the work of the Muslim
scholar al-Īd̲ jī̲ Mawāḳif, historian A.J. Wensinck, who says[6] that the main purpose of miracle is to prove the
sincerity of the apostle and has to satisfy the following conditions:[6]

1. It must be performed by God


2. "It must be contrary to the usual course of things"
3. It should be impossible to contradict it
4. "It must happen at the hands of him who claims to be an apostle"
5. "It must be in conformity with his announcement of it, and the miracle itself must not be a disavowal of
his claim"
6. "It must follow on his claim"[6]

This contrasts with the epistemic theory, where a miracle is not contrary to the usual course of things (although
it may be contrary to our current understanding).

Notes
1. Modern Library, p. 776, tr. Dods, emphasis added
2. Tractatus p. 83
3. Tractatus p. 84, emphasis added
4. Polkinghorne 1990
5. Polkinghorne 1998 ch. 3
6. A.J. Wensinck, Muʿd̲ jiza,
̲ Encyclopedia of Islam
References
Augustine, The City of God, Book XXI, Chapter 8.
Polkinghorne, J., God's Action in the World, 1990 J.K.Russell Fellowship Lecture.
Polkinghorne, J., Belief in God in the Age of Science, New Haven and London: Yale University Press
1998.
Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.

External links
"Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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This page was last edited on 17 April 2017, at 21:16.


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