The Limits of Science and Religious Experience in the Natural Realm
It seems to me that one of the singe most important points and common themes throughout this exchange has been to recognize the limitations of science for accessing all of reality.
Let me state something not for the purpose of seeking to alter the rules of the scientific sandbox, but as an observation relevant to the cross-disciplinary engagement between that sandbox and others and the rational human goal of a coherent, comprehensive, and cogent view of reality (aka, the waking state):
We seem forced to recognized that science in not simply limited in scope but to a certain degree it is limited in its fundamental accuracy. By this I mean that if religious experiences of divine action are real, the scientific response will also be a false one. It will be a response predetermined to arrive at falsehood due to the accepted rules in play.
Nevertheless, science maintains its cultural predominance as the single most authoritative and accurate means of knowledge about the external world, and if divine action is real, in engagement with other disciplines science risks playing a misleading role. If we agree on the reality of divine action, then we can also say that historically this has actually been the effect of engagement with science by philosophy and theology for about 150 years–or more conservatively, between about 1875 through the 1980s.
Take, for example, @jongarvey’s quite credibly confirmed medical instance of apparent special divine action that involved a patient of his. He and attributed responses to this report as,
I find this interesting, because actual cases of medically observed divine action would seem to be ideal candidates for cross-disciplinary discussion between science and theology.
The following exchange is also exemplary, initiated by @jongarvey:
@Andrew_Loke has pointed out the valuable contribution of scientific knowledge of hallucination for the study of the Resurrection. However by the same reasoning above, should it actually be accepted that Jesus was personally observed by multiple people after his bona fide death and burial, then one suspects group hallucinations would be back on the table as a possible one-off anomaly.
This is essentially what I intended to get at with my statement
That is, if one really believed something was an unexplained anomaly, as in @jongarvey’s example, sooner or later it would also be someone’s research project informed by the presupposition of natural causation.
As the above @jongarvey - @swamidass exchange seems to indicate, we speak favorably of recognizing that science has limits, but are these limits applied to any real question that concerns observable events or phenomena? So, science plays the “red team,” which is valuable for ruling out supposed miracles that are attributable to misunderstood natural causes, but science appears to have no self-correcting ability to adjudicate its own false proposals on questions of divine action.
Recognizing this difficulty and moving forward nonetheless, it is fair to ask whether there are any phenomena in the physical universe that meet the following criteria:
- their detection or apprehension of which would qualify as bona fide knowledge
- science cannot detect them
- they are genuinely perceived by other means than science
- their validity is widely, even universally, accepted
I think there are.
Agency
As I mentioned,
I think of agency detection as a corollary of our recognition of other minds, but not the same thing.
I might better have phrased the question to @swamidass as “is there a scientific test capable of detecting intelligent agency of any type, such as human agency?”
I will assume the answer to this is “no” and that science relies on the human cognitive ability to do so rather than constructs reliable tests for it (and I realize this assumption may be quite off).
Not only do we have the ability to detect agents, regardless of potential errors gaging specific intent, we are extremely good at detecting them. Put another way, most of our waking hours include the detection of the existence of real phenomena and causes, personal ones, that effect outcomes in the physical world to for which a scientific test is probably unsound. This remains true, even when such agency is expressed through a remotely controlled avatar that lacks normal properties of animate beings due to having the form of a two dimensional shape or sphere.
Therefore, we detect real agents even when their presence is known through inanimate objects that are not normally associated with agency, and from which the agents are separated by distance and not directly visible. Not only do we do so with a high degree of reliably, we do it constantly, and its fair to say that such detection is one of our most regular activities, right behind breathing and seeing.
If my assumption about scientific testing is correct, then we can say that what human beings detect regularly and with reliable accuracy, science does not detect, but relies on the human faculty as the basis for questions affected by the choices of active agents. For example, @swamidass, am I right that in scientific questions like whether a biological trait is attributable to sexual selection, agency is treated as a given, and one that does not rely on the ability of science to accurately test for agency?
Miracles as Agent Phenomena
@Jongarvey raised the useful example of the parting of the Jordan river. Here we have a providential event (since it occurred through normal natural causes) for which the indicator of divine action and is the timing of the Israelites arrival which requires intelligent planning. One might also point out the Israelites were at this time (or at least previously) recorded as being led by a cloud by day and pillar of fire at night. So, the manifestation of agency was undeniable.
What first and foremost characterizes knowledge of divine action is the detection of agency, not necessarily a spectacular display explained only by a direct manifestation of supernatural power. Rather, agency is apparent in the coordination of events that exceed the power of nature left to itself. Therefore, agency is non-natural, in the sense of “natural” taken to mean an unguided material causes, such as the type that are offered to explain reported miracles. It is also the fundamental element of what we mean by “divine action” whether general, as in providence, or special, as in miracles.
The “Zeno” Paradox of Science and Divine Action
@Jongarvey and @swamidass agree that there exists an impasse in that:
@Andrew_Loke by contrast, points out that this apparent impasse reduces to absurdity when the appeal to unknown natural law is applied to the Resurrection of Christ.
For similar reason to @Andrew_Loke’s, I selected examples that both cannot be explained in terms of general providence or by conceivable naturalistic explanations, (e.g, the raising of Lazarus), and specifically from the point of view of one directly witnessing the event so as to remove the question of historical transmission.
If we know anything about natural laws and processes, we know that natural causes do not reverse the effects of over three days of tissue decomposition in any climate and restore an individual to his former self to that he is found having dinner with friends a short time later. If we don’t know this, then we don’t know anything. Nevertheless, the “unknown natural cause” caveat always remains as an intellectual, or perhaps psychological, escape valve.
In order to move forward, then, let me suggest then that the problem information theory appears incapable of resolving is likely what I would call a Zeno paradox: that is a very compelling paradox which appears at one and the same time both irrefutable and contrary to direct experience. Zeno’s paradox on motion, which stumped so many early philosophers and budding philosophy students relies on a false assumption that simply isn’t easily uncovered. I would include Hume’s argument against cause and effect also as such a type of paradox (although I haven’t taken the time to verify that).
I suspect this conundrum of information theory relies on a similar flaw. Either there is a false assumption that we haven’t recognized, or information theory is simply trivial to this question, or another rule needs to be put into place so that scientific discourse with theology and in reference to genuine aspects of reality beyond its domain does not result in absurdity.
Let me propose one possible solution.
Properly Basic Disbelief as a Corrective to the Science-Supernatural Divide
If there is such a thing as a properly basic belief, such as that other minds exist apart from my own because I observe the actions in others that I personally experience as the result of my own mind, then there also such a thing as properly basic disbelief. The counterpart of this particular basic belief is properly basic skepticism toward the byzantine logic required to assert that it is genuinely plausible to hold that oneself alone possesses a mind and everybody else is an automaton.
I think the recognition that properly basic beliefs necessarily entail (if I am correct) properly basic disbelief could be useful in response to the “unknown natural law” caveat.
It would go something like this:
If a certain set of criteria are met, perhaps akin to some of Swinburne’s shared by @kelvin_M or developed in Keener, and the “unknown natural law” is raised such that if it were applied to other attested miracles, such as the resurrection of Christ and resuscitation of Lazarus, the result would be absurdity (e.g., that we know dead men do not spontaneously return to life due to natural causes after several days of internment, except when they do, in which case it must be by natural causes), then the proposal of natural causes be treated not as scientific sophistication but according to properly basic skepticism.
The point being appeal to potential natural causes has value, but it also has limits.
Starting Points: Revelation, the Royal Society, and Modern Science
@Swamidass has raised some very helpful and valuable observation regarding how we arrive at belief in the Resurrection of Christ, and I think there is a great deal more to explore here. For example, relationship of first-hand experience of special divine action to second-hand experience, and the context of prior revelation, as they relate to issues of science and special divine action.
@jrfarris has raise some persuasive concerns about obstacles to interdisciplinary collaboration between science, philosophy, and theology, and @Andrew_Loke has pointed out the necessity of interdisciplinary approaches to addressing these questions.
For my part, when I look at Bacon and the virtuosi of the early Royal Society, I am impressed by the importance of one’s starting point for inquiry. Bacon and his subsequent counterparts at the Royal Society shared a great deal in common with contemporary Christians outside the scientific community as well as those inside. Their starting point for inquiry was to treat the whole of biblical revelation as informing their view of reality. This was true of Bacon, Wilkins, Sprat, Boyle, even Newton. They did not relish the idea of setting up a system of natural enquiry which served to uncover natural causes remarkably well but at the expense of distorting the larger picture of reality. They did not consider as valid a form of inquiry that would appeal to hypothetic natural causes that were actually false explanations but “saved the appearances” of natural causation. As a result, I think their work has a richness and relevance today that is particularly well suited to contemporary concerns. I strongly suspect that to move forward on the questions of science and religious experience, recapturing their epistemic starting point and applying it in ways that respect but are not beholden to the developments of the last 400 years will be instrumental to genuine interdisciplinary advancement on these questions.