Hume's Argument against Proving Miracles

1. John's testimony is a proof of a miracle.

2. A miracle is an event which violates a law of nature.

3. We ought to believe propositions which have a high(er) probability of being true.

4. Either we believe John's testimony is proof of a violation of a law of nature, or we don't.

5. If we believe John's testimony is proof, then we believe that a law of nature was violated.

6. But the probability that a law of nature is violated is lower than the probability that John's testimony is false.

7. Therefore, we ought to believe that John's testimony that a miracle occurred is false.

What if, instead of denying premise 1 as a result of the reductio, we deny premise 2? This seems to make more sense; for why would God set in place laws of nature that He would have to break in order to do what He wills? It seems plausible that the laws of nature are more flexible when a supernatural being is involved. For instance, maybe there is a law of nature that every human dies a bodily death; but does that mean that it is not possible that there is another natural law that if the spirit is then raised to life, the body is also raised to life? This would entail that eventually every human whose spirit is raised to life is also resurrected in body. That this has not yet happened is not conclusive proof that it will not happen. In fact, the Christian doctrine is that every human dies but is also raised to life at the second coming of Jesus. Can we not count this as a law of nature which, having not been experienced yet by us, appears implausible? Then a miracle, like the resurrection of Jesus, would be defined as "an event which occurs so rarely, though according to a law of nature, that it almost merits disbelief"?

Review of "Reasonably Vicious"

This morning I stumbled upon Henry Richardson's review of Candice Vogler's book, Reasonably Vicious, in which he concludes that Vogler's account of reasons is inextricably linked to Anscombe's notion of intention. Vogler puts forth a model of calculative reasoning in which sometimes actions of the set A are done as a means to actions of the set B, where actions of the set B are not done for calculated reasons at all, but simply because we feel like it or want to. For example, I go to the grocery store to get ice cream- this belongs to set A. I get ice cream to eat it, just because I want to- so this action belongs to set B. Richardson notes that either this easily invokes a regress of reasons (someone can ask, well what is your reason for wanting to eat ice cream? ad inf.) or there is some resource that justifies B actions that could also be used to justify A actions without reason. If it's really justifiable to eat ice cream just because I want to, then it is also justifiable to go to the store because I want to, even when I don't buy anything (and it's not a means).

Richardson points out that unless we see Vogler's project in light of Anscombe's, her differentiation between A type and B type actions doesn't make sense. Vogler, like Anscombe, focuses on actions already done and looks for reasons that the agent took to be a reason for action-- the de facto motivation for the act. My reasons for eating ice cream may be many-- I am hungry, my body needs a quick burst of energy and sugar will provide that, and ice cream has sugar, etc.-- but those do not have to link up to my consciousness in the same way that reasons to A in order to B do. Vogler, as Richardson says, is concerned with providing "intelligibility" to actions "by indicating an action's calculative form."

Yet this sort of theory of justification seems to be prey to the same problems of epistemological internalism. In the way that an internalist account of knowledge often fails to connect justified belief with external truth, so an internalist account of reasons may illuminate actual moral motivation in a descriptive way without capturing the external normative reasons for action that pertain to an agent, whether or not she takes them to be reasons for her to act.

Why: The Questions of Philosophy

I was listening to a podcast this morning and the speaker was talking about the human heart.

"Why is it that as a culture we are fascinated with certain stories: what's the truth, what happened, what didn't happen...All of those--the sort of tabloid level, the People and US Weekly level-- those are just facts. Why do these stories sell millions of copies? Because the real questions we have are not the questions of 'what.' The real questions come from the endless question of the ages,'why does the human heart do what it does?' and that's what we're compelled by."

And I thought about the first time I read Plato's Republic and realized that this was what I was looking for all along, not the how questions that were answered in my chem lab and bio class. Philosophy asked the why questions.

But many contemporary philosophers have begun asking "how" as though it answered "why." Without a notion of telos, the function of a thing just is its purpose. They seem to think we can only make the world intelligible by arid factual explanation. The materialist philosophers of mind argue that bare brain states determine our thoughts and actions. Moral philosophers look to psychologists for explanations of what makes us happy and derive from these empirical facts notions of "virtue." Political philosophers advocate non-ideal theories based on how people actually behave, rather than how they should behave or how the state ought to run.

As a result, we write like we're content with where we are; we'd simply like to understand how we got here. Metaphysics and epistemology are booming-- because these are fields that can provide us with a clearer picture of the steps we took before our arrival. What properties impress themselves on our consciousness and cause us to have these brain states of "belief" or "knowledge"? If we can just get a hold of these facts, maybe we'll be satisfied.

I wonder if we are mistaken in characterizing our restlessness as caused by a desire for "knowledge" or awareness of the infrastructure of our world. Perhaps it's our consciousness just roping us back in to the fundamental question why.

Invictus

by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Today I was thinking about what kind of obligations we have as Christians, given the call to imitate Christ and the reality of our sinfulness. Remember when we were in middle school and the trend was to wear a "WWJD" bracelet? ("What Would Jesus Do")... After a while I kind of thought it was a God-awful idea, because there are a lot of reasons why we either shouldn't or cannot respond the way Jesus does or did. For instance, if I walked into a church today and saw a market or even a Starbucks in the foyer, I would certainly not walk around turning over tables and coffee grinders. Some things Jesus does because He has authority- divine authority. And if I have a realistic self-conception I'll recognize when I actually ought not do what Jesus would.

But I also consider the whole "fallen world" thing and it creates tension, in my mind anyway, with doing what Jesus would... because, unlike Him, I am one of the fallen creatures, part of the problem. I don't just pick up the pieces, I shatter the glass. So my obligations extend into a realm that God's never do-- like asking for forgiveness, being repentant, and changing.

That spills over into what Christine Swanton calls "constraints" on virtue. Since I am not omnipotent or omnipresent, and I'm really imperfect, there are limits to what I can expect of myself. Here's an example: I have told my child I will take her to the zoo on Saturday; come Saturday morning, my in laws decide to drop in and ask that I show them around town for a bit. It looks like I have obligations as a mother to fulfill my promise and obligations as a daughter-in-law to be kind and hospitable. Swanton says that in cases like this, we must recognize our constraints and come up with creative solutions that may not "hit the target" both ways (accomplish the fulfillment of the promise or being ideally hospitable. Today I was thinking about how our fallenness and the fallenness of others can act as a constraint... If someone is a victim of abuse, it seems reasonable that that imposes a limit on the kind of love the victim can show the abuser, because she cannot just continue on in a relationship with the abuser as if nothing is wrong. In fact, how much is she actually obligated to love that person considering the emotional and maybe physical constraints on virtue in that case?

Tonight, I watched Invictus, a movie about Nelson Mandela in the 1990s. Despite the fact that he had spent 18 years in prison under the Afrikaners, after having emerged and then become president, he refused to fight his former enemies. He worked to draw them into "the new South Africa." I just kept thinking, wouldn't we all have thought it reasonable for him to throw these guys in jail or try to yank them out of high power political positions? But instead, he kept saying that greatness requires more of us than we expect of ourselves. And throughout the movie, that's exactly what happened-- in this nation virtually wartorn by the apartheid, suddenly people were working together and learning to forgive one another. It was like he helped people tap into this superpower within to rise above normal human limits and do more than seems obligatory, sui generis.

Maybe what was happening was an act of grace. Maybe we can actually expect more of ourselves than we're obligated to give if we rely on a little divine infusion of grace to do what we normally just know we can't. Maybe Henley was both right and wrong-- I am the captain of my soul, but I always need the wind in my sails and the current at my back.

Adams on Virtue for the Sinner, 10/30/09

Today I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Robert Adams of UNC Chapel Hill give a lecture entitled "Virtue for the Sinner." He responded to two objections to virtue theory, one articulated by Karl Barth questioning the value of virtue, and the other being the empirical evidence of psychology against the existence of real virtues.

It is important to understand, Adams implies, the viewpoint of Barth in rejecting the value of intrinsic goodness of virtue. Barth asserts that God the Son is concerned only with obedience to the Father and that his actions all align with this one overarching goal. So perhaps the virtues would only suffice to describe dispositions tending to produce the sort of actions which, ultimately, are valuable in that they defer to God's commands. But Adams wants to argue here that Christian ethics is not simply an account of good actions, but rather of good agents-- what kind of people we are, what kind of precursors to action our intentions and desires and thoughts are. "God cares about obedience for the sake of love, and not the other way around," he says, citing the commandments which Jesus states as of chief importance. Perhaps virtue produces obligation; perhaps being the kind of person which God would have us be, a person who "images" his Son, Adams might say, will result in our feeling a self-obligation of the Korsgaardian strand to act in accordance with certain moral laws. Just a thought. Anyway, Adams also refers to the passage in which Jesus says, "I have no longer called you slaves but I have called you friends" as one which supports that thesis that God is not concerned with our being useful, that is, producing actions which are beneficial, but rather with our relation to Him and the sort of men and women we are. I think this is a pretty biblical account of virtue.

However, a point which Dr. Pruss raised after the lecture got me thinking: Is love a virtue or an action? I am inclined to call it an action rather than a disposition, because while we certainly have dispositions that make us apt to care about people, the caring for them is a reality only when it is in action. And maybe that action can be as slight as considering their interests broadly; for instance, at this very moment I am doing nothing to love my mother, but I also am taking into account my relationship with her in a broad way by not posting examples in ethical dilemmas which draw on her personal life or even in my refraining from using foul language at which she might be embarrassed if she read this. And in a sense, because I care about her, I am doing the kind of work I think she would be proud of, and in so doing maybe caring for her in some small way. In any case, the caring for her is wrapped up in practical realms of action.

Then, in Adams' reply to the second prong of the arguments against virtue, he grants that the kind of virtue we have is clearly fragile. It falters in cases of social pressure to act in ways adverse to our virtues. So, he says, we may not have the virtue perfectly but we can still be virtuous in that way. A trait does not have to be so robust to be excellent that it never fails in any circumstance. We cannot learn to live well simply by learning to live under general ethical rules, he says, for our virtues are just not permanent. But we can try and persist in certain virtues, extend them over ourselves and our future selves (to put it in terms of Parfit's view of identity which I think is a relevant one here). So in conclusion, there is a chance of virtue even for the sinner.

P.S. I started reading a book called Intellectual Appetites by Griffiths that I highly recommend to any Christian seeking understanding and knowledge. :)

Thoughts on "Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting It Right"

I just read Frankfurt's Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting It Right, and I think he does get a lot of things right. But I have qualms with his rejection of objective realism because I think he actually sneaks in an objective value at the end. He says, "Nothing is inherently either worthy or unworthy of being loved"-- so what's the big deal with loving itself?

Thoughts on Death, Christianity, and Nietzsche

Nietzsche criticizes Christians for being magnetically drawn to suffering and death, arguing that in longing for another world, Christians are giving up the will to life and actually willing death.

I was on a plane yesterday and I couldn't help but think of this. I always get those jittery feelings in my stomach during take-off and brace myself for the possibility of a crash ending in death (this is bizarre, I know...). Anyway, I went through the usual argument I put forth for myself on airplanes-- that I cannot rationally fear death because it opens the door to life in heaven, and heaven is essentially infinitely better than life here (that's the defeater for "fomo": fear of missing out). But I stopped myself in the middle of my premises this time, because Nietzsche, who has moved in to the upstairs of my brain recently, said that I was willing death for myself. My relationship with Nietzsche is a strange one; I really appreciate his criticisms of Christians because I think they are largely right, but I'm also constantly trying to explain and defend real Christianity to him, because most of the time it doesn't really conflict with what he's saying.

So am I willing death by desiring heaven? I'm going to argue no. There are two reasons for this: first, if I believe what Jesus said about the importance of sharing the gospel, then my life on earth has a mission with high stakes, and second, there is an aspect of being human and being fallen that makes for a different knowledge of God than the angels have.

The first point refers to the great commision, when Jesus says, "Go and make disciples of all nations." We are meant to tell the millions of people who don't know God about Him. If we don't, if we really will to die, salvation terminates with this small group of Christians who believe right now, and we are essentially willing the eternal death of the rest of the world. Jesus Himself demonstrates the importance of an earthly life with His coming down into the world and spending time revealing the Father to men. Teachers spend time in the classroom not to relearn the material, but to pass it on, and they value time in the classroom because presumably they realize that they are the best medium for the transfer of vital information. If everyone who had an education went on to his or her own trade or field and no one went into teaching, we would lose the chance of education for younger generations all together, and that's absurd. So we stay on earth while we can; we will our own lives, because we realize that we are teachers and what we're teaching the whole entire world desperately needs.

Secondly, and I'm not as sure that this one holds up such that it could stand alone as a reason, we relate to God differently as fallen beings than as perfect ones. The longer I live, the more aware I become of my own wretchedness, to put it bluntly. Even if I am trying to become a better person, the harder I try, the more I realize how deeply sunk I am and how far I have to go to really "be better." It's like going to the hospital for a headache and the doctor telling you that you have a brain tumor; it doesn't preclude your chances of getting well but it definitely makes the process harder.