Miracles: Confirmable, or Chimerical?

Posted by Keith Tidman

Multiplication of the Loaves, by Georges, Mount Athos.

We are often passionately told of claims to experienced miracles, in both the religious and secular worlds. The word ‘miracle’ coming from the Latin mirari, meaning to wonder. But what are these miracles that some people wonder about, and do they happen as told?

Scottish philosopher David Hume, as sceptic on this matter, defined a miracle as ‘a violation of the laws of nature’ — with much else to say on the issue in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). He proceeded to define the transgression of nature as due to a ‘particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent’. Though how much credence might one place in ‘invisible agents’?

Other philosophers, like Denmark’s Søren Kierkegaard in his pseudonymous persona Johannes Climacus, also placed themselves in Hume’s camp on the matter of miracles. Earlier, Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza wrote of miracles as events whose source and cause remain unknown to us (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 1670). Yet, countless other people around the world, of many religious persuasions, earnestly assert that the entreaty to miracles is one of the cornerstones of their faith. Indeed, some three-fourths of survey respondents indicated they believe in miracles, while nearly half said they have personally experienced or seen a miracle (Princeton Survey Research Associates, 2000; Harris poll, 2013).

One line of reasoning as to whether miracles are credible might start with the definition of miracles, such as transgressions of natural events uncontested convincingly by scientists or other specialists. The sufficiency of proof that a miracle really did occur and was not, deus ex machina, just imagined or stemming from a lack of understanding of the laws underlying nature is a very tall order, as surely it should be.

Purported proof would come from people who affirm they witnessed the event, raising questions about witnesses’ reliability and motives. In this regard, it would be required to eliminate obvious delusions, fraud, optical illusions, distortions, and the like. The testimony of witnesses in such matters is, understandably, often suspect. There are demanding conditions regarding definitions and authentication — such as of ‘natural events’, where scientific hypotheses famously, but for good reason, change to conform to new knowledge acquired through disciplined investigation. These conditions lead many people to dismiss the occurrence of miracles as pragmatically untenable, requiring by extension nothing less than a leap of faith.

But a leap of faith suggests that the alleged miracle happened through the interposition of a supernatural power, like a god or other transcendent, creative force of origin. This notion of an original source gives rise, I argue, to various problematic aspects to weigh.

One might wonder, for example, why a god would have created the cosmos to conform to what by all measures is a finely grained set of natural laws regarding cosmic reality, only later to decide, on rare occasion, to intervene. That is, where a god suspends or alters original laws in order to allow miracles. The assumption being that cosmic laws encompass all physical things, forces, and the interactions among them. So, a god choosing not to let select original laws remain in equilibrium, uninterrupted, seems selective — incongruously so, given theistic presumptions about a transcendent power’s omniscience and omnipotence and omniwisdom.

One wonders, thereby, what’s so peculiarly special about humankind to deserve to receive miracles — symbolic gestures, some say. Additionally, one might reasonably ponder why it was necessary for a god to turn to the device of miracles in order for people to extract signals regarding purported divine intent.

One might also wonder, in this theistic context, whether something was wrong with the suspended law to begin with, to necessitate suspension. That is, perhaps it is reasonable to conclude from miracles-based change that some identified law is not, as might have been supposed, inalterably good in all circumstances, for all eternity. Or, instead, maybe nothing was in fact defective in the original natural law, after all, there having been merely an erroneous read of what was really going on and why. A rationale, thereby, for alleged miracles — and the imagined compelling reasons to interfere in the cosmos — to appear disputable and nebulous.

The presumptive notion of ‘god in the gaps’ seems tenuously to pertain here, where a god is invoked to fill the gaps in human knowledge — what is not yet known at some point in history — and thus by extension allows for miracles to substitute for what reason and confirmable empirical evidence might otherwise and eventually tell us.

As Voltaire further ventured, ‘It is . . . impious to ascribe miracles to God; they would indicate a lack of forethought, or of power, or both’ (Philosophical Dictionary, 1764). Yet, unsurprisingly, contentions like Voltaire’s aren’t definitive as a closing chapter to the accounting. There’s another facet to the discussion that we need to get at — a nonreligious aspect.

In a secular setting, the list of problematic considerations regarding miracles doesn’t grow easier to resolve. The challenges remain knotty. A reasonable assumption, in this irreligious context, is that the cosmos was not created by a god, but rather was self-caused (causa sui). In this model, there were no ‘prior’ events pointing to the cosmos’s lineage. A cosmos that possesses integrally within itself a complete explanation for its existence. Or, a cosmos that has no beginning — a boundless construct having existed infinitely.

One might wonder whether a cosmos’s existence is the default, stemming from the cosmological contention that ‘nothingness’ cannot exist, implying no beginning or end. One might further ponder how such a cosmos — in the absence of a transcendent force powerful enough to tinker with it — might temporarily suspend or alter a natural law in order to accommodate the appearance of a happening identifiable as a miracle. I propose there would be no mechanism to cause such an alteration to the cosmic fabric to happen. On those bases, it may seem there’s no logical reason for (no possibility of) miracles. Indeed, the scientific method does itself call for further examining what may have been considered a natural law whenever there are repeated exceptions or contradictions to it, rather than assuming that a miracle is recurring.

Hume proclaimed that ‘no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle’; centuries earlier, Augustine of Hippo articulated a third, and broader take on the subject. He pointedly asked, ‘Is not the universe itself a miracle?’ (The City of God, 426 AD). Here, one might reasonably interpret ‘a miracle’ as synonymous for a less emotionally charged, temporal superlative like ‘remarkable’. I suspect most of us agree that our vast, roiling cosmos is indeed a marvel, though debatably not necessitating an originating spiritual framework like Augustine’s. 

No matter how supposed miracles are perceived, internalised, and retold, the critical issue of what can or cannot be confirmed dovetails to an assessment of the ‘knowledge’ in hand: what one knows, how one knows it, and with what level of certainty one knows it. So much of reality boils down to probabilities as the measuring stick; the evidence for miracles is no exception. If we’re left with only gossamer-thin substantiation, or no truly credible substantiation, or no realistically potential path to substantiation — which appears the case — claims of miracles may, I offer, be dismissed as improbable or even phantasmal.

'Evil': A Brief Search for Understanding

In medieval times, evil ws often personified in not-quite human forms

Posted by Keith Tidman

Plato may have been right in asserting that “There must always be something antagonistic to good.” Yet pause a moment, and wonder exactly why? And also what is it about ‘evil’ that means it can be understood and defined equally from both religious and secularist viewpoints? I would argue that fundamental to an exploration of both these questions is the notion that for something to be evil, there must be an essential component: moral agency. And as to this critical point, it might help to begin with a case where moral agency and evil arguably have converged.

The case in question is repeated uses of chemical weapons in Syria, made all too real recently. Graphic images of gassed children, women, and men, gasping for air and writhing in pain, have circulated globally and shocked people’s sense of humanity. The efficacy of chemical weapons against populations lies not only in the weapons’ lethality but — just as distressingly and perhaps more to the weapons’ purpose — in the resulting terror, shock, and panic, among civilians and combatants alike. Such use of chemical weapons does not take place, however, without someone, indeed many people, making a deliberate, freely made decision to engage in the practice. Here is, the intentionality of deed that infuses human moral agency and, in turn, gives rise to a shared perception that such behaviour aligns with ‘evil’.

One wonders what the calculus was among the instigators (who they are need not concern us, much as it matters from the poltiical standpoint) to begin and sustain the indiscriminate use of chemical weapons. And what were the considerations as to whom to 'sacrifice' (the question of presumed human dispensability) in the name of an ideology or quest for simple self-survival? Were the choices viewed and the decisions made on ‘utilitarian’ grounds? That is, was the intent to maim and kill in such shocking ways to demoralise and dissuade insurgency’s continuation (short-term consequences), perhaps in expectation that the conflict will end quicker (longer-term consequences)? Was it part of some larger gopolitical messaging between Russia and the United States? (Some even claim the attacks were orchestrated by the latter to discredit the former...)

Whatever the political scenario, it seems that the ‘deontological’ judgement of the act — the use of chemical weapons — has been lost. This, after all, can only make the use utterly immoral irrespective of consequences. Meanwhile, world hesitancy or confusion — fails to stop another atrocity against humanity, and the hesitancy itself has its own pernicious effects. The 19th-century British philosopher John Stuart Mill underscored this point, observing that:

“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”

Keeping the preceding scenario in Syria in mind, let’s further explore the dimensions of rational moral agency and evil. Although  the label ‘evil’ is most familiar when used to qualify the affairs of human beings it can be used more widely, for example in relation to natural phenomena. Yet, I focus here on people because although, for example, predatory animals can and do cause serious harm, even death, I would argue that the behaviour of animals more fittingly falls under the rubric of ‘natural phenomena’ and that only humans are truly capable of evil.

As one distinction, people can readily anticipate — project and understand — the potential for harm, on an existential level; other species probably cannot (with research continuing). As for differentiating between, say, wrongdoing and full-on evil, context is critical. Another instantiation of evil is history’s many impositions of colonial rule, as having been practiced in all parts of the world. It not uncommonly oppressed its victims, in all manner of scarring ways, by sowing fear, injustice, stripping away of human rights, physical and emotional pain, and destruction of indigenous traditions.

This tipping point from wrongdoing, from say, someone under-reporting taxable income or skipping out on paying a restaurant bill, into full-on evil is made evident in these additional examples. These are deeds that range the gamut: serial murder that preys on communities, terrorist attacks on subway trains, genocide aimed at helpless minority groups, massacres, enslavement of people, torture, abuses of civilians during conflicts, summary executions, and mutilation, as well as child abuse, rape, racism, and environmental destruction. Such atrocities happen because people arrive at freely made choices: deliberateness, leading to causation.

These incidences, and their perpetrators (society condemns both doer and deed) aren’t just ‘wrong’, or ‘bad’, or even ‘contemptible’, they’re evil. Even though context matters and can add valuable explanation — circumstances that mitigate or extenuate deeds, including instigators’ motives — rendering judgements about evil is still possible, even if occasionally tenuously. So, for example, mitigation might include being unaware of the harmful consequences of one's actions, well-meaning intent that unpredictably goes awry, pernicious effects of a corrupting childhood, or lack of empathy of a psychopath. Under these conditions, blame and culpability hardly seem appropriate. Extenuation, on the other hand, might be deliberate, cruel infliction of pain and the pleasure derived from it, such as might occur during the venal kidnapping of a woman or child.

As for a religious dimension to moral agency, such agency might be viewed as applying to a god, in the capacity as creator of the universe. In this model of creation, such a god is seen as serving as the moral agent behind what I referred to above as ‘natural evil’ — from hurricanes, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, tsunamis, and droughts to illnesses, famine, pain, and grief. They of course often have destructive, even deadly, consequences. Importantly, that such evil occurs in the realm of nature doesn’t award it exceptional status. This, despite occasional claims to the contrary, such as the overly reductionist, but commonplace, assertion of the ancient Roman emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius:

 “Nothing is evil which is according to nature.”

In the case of natural events, evil may be seen as stemming less from intentions and only from the consequences of such phenomena — starvation, precarious subsistence, homelessness, broken-up families, desolation, widespread chronic diseases, rampant infant mortality, breakdown of social systems, malaise, mass exoduses of desperate migrants escaping violence, and gnawing hopelessness.

Such things have prompted faith-based debates over evil in the world. Specifically, if, as commonly assumed by religious adherents, there is a god that’s all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-benevolent, then why is there evil, including our examples above of natural evil? In one familiar take on theodicy, the 4th-century philosopher Saint Augustine offered a partial explanation, averring that:

 “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” 

 Other philosophers have asserted that the absence of evil, where people could only act for the good (as well as a god’s supposed fore-knowledge of people’s choices) would a priori render free will unnecessary and, of note, choices being predetermined.

Yet, the Gordian knot remains untied: our preceding definition of a god that is all-powerful and all-benevolent would rationally include being able to, as well as wanting to, eliminate evil and the suffering stemming from it. Especially, and surely, in the framework of that god’s own moral agency and unfettered free will. Since, however, evil and suffering are present — ubiquitously and incessantly — a reasonable inquiry is whether a god therefore exists. If one were to conclude that a god does exist, then recurring natural evil might suggest that the god did not create the universe expressly, or at least not entirely, for the benefit of humankind. That is, that humankind isn’t, perhaps, central or exceptional, but rather is incidental, to the universe’s existence. Accordingly, one might presuppose an ontological demotion.

Human moral agency remains core even when it is institutions — for example, governments and organisations of various kinds — that formalise actions. Here, again, the pitiless use of chemical weapons in Syria presents us with a case in point to better understand institutional behaviour. Importantly, however, even at the institutional level, human beings inescapably remain fundamental and essential to decisions and deeds, while institutions serve as tools to leverage those decisions and deeds. National governments around the world routinely suppress and brutalise minority populations, often with little or no provocation. Put another way, it is the people, as they course through the corridors of institutions, who serve as the central actors. They make, and bear responsibility for policies.

It is through institutions that people’s decisions and deeds become externalised — ideas instantiated in the form of policies, plans, regulations, acts, and programs. In this model of individual and collective human behaviour, institutions have the capacity for evil, even in cases when bad outcomes are unintended. Which affirms, one might note in addressing institutional behaviour, that the 20th-century French novelist and philosopher, Albert Camus, was perhaps right in observing:

“Good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.”

So, to the point: an institution’s ostensibly well-intended policy — for example, freeing up corporate enterprise to create jobs and boost national productivity — may nonetheless unintentionally cause suffering — for example, increased toxins in the soil, water, and air, affecting the health of communities. Hence again is a way in which effects, not only intentions, express bad outcomes.

But at other times, the moral agency behind decisions and deeds perpetrated by institutions’ human occupants may intentionally aim toward evil. Cases range the breadth of actions: launching wars overtly with plunder or hegemonism in mind; instigating pogroms or death fields; materially disadvantaging people based on identities like race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin (harsh treatment of migrants being a recent example); ignoring the dehumanising and stunting effects of child labour; showing policy disregard as society’s poorest elderly live in squalor; allowing industries to seep toxins into the environment for monetary gain — there are myriad examples. Institutions aren’t, therefore, simply bricks and mortar. They have a pulse, comprising the vision, philosophy, and mission of the people who design and implement their policies, benign or malign.

Evil, then, involves more than what Saint Augustine saw as the ‘privation’ of good — privation of virtuousness, equality, empathy, responsible social stewardship, health, compassion, peace, and so forth. In reality, evil is far less passive than Saint Augustine’s vision. Rather, evil arises from the deliberate, freely making of life’s decisions and one's choice to act on them, in clear contravention to humanity’s well-being. Evil is distinguished from the mere absence of good, and is much more than Plato’s insight that there must always be something ‘antagonistic’ to good. In many instances, evil is flagrant, such as in our example of the use of chemical weapons in Syria; in other instances, evil is more insidious and sometimes veiled, such as in the corruption of government plutocrats invidiously dipping into national coffers at the expense of the populace's quality of life. In either case, it is evident that evil, whether in its manmade or in its natural variant, exists in its own right and thus can be parsed and understood from both the religious and the secular vantage point.