Clinton Ohlers: Two Parables on Divine Action

This is helpful. I think I have a paper that is beginning to develop in mind. Thank you.

I do have some other thoughts relevant to your comments here and throughout. Let me recap what I am understanding from your notes. If we (theologians) are going to communicate with the scientists, we do not need to agree with the perceived metaphysical assumptions functionally present in MN. We also do not need to agree the extent to which ‘science’ leads us to truth. These are open areas for discussion. Certainly, there are other sources of knowledge out there (e.g., philosophy, theology), but these become disruptive to the rules of the science game when they come into the domain of science and try to tell scientists what to do.

Let me offer up another analogy. Is something like the following illustrative of what you are getting at? Consider little children playing on playground with 3 or 4 different sandboxes. Sally has her sandbox and there they only like to build two-story sand castles and she has a particular way with a set of tools for doing that (e.g., one small cup and a hand shovel). So Johnny who is playing in another sandbox is able to come in and play with Sally so long as he builds two-story sand castles and he uses the tools that Sally has approved. Alternatively, Johnny can stay in his sandbox and play with the sand with his own rules (e.g., he likes to build several story sand castles).

Philosophers have a tendency to not stay in their own sandbox, instead, they are quite happy to jump into the scientist’s sandbox as well as the theologian’s sandbox and make it their own.

If theologians are going to play with the scientists, then they need to learn the grammar of science when they are speaking to scientists. On this way of thinking, though, it seems reasonable for the theologian to draw from the scientific data in order to speak with the theologians in their sandbox. Is that acceptable? Lets take an example from someone like Plantinga. He is not a theologian, but a philosopher. Plantinga is quite happy to learn some of the scientific data of the day on a particular subject, but at some point he no longer wants to play in the scientist’s sandbox. Sometimes he veers out with the the data in hand to start another discussion, e.g., Design Discourse. So long as we recognize that he has moved outside the realm of science, operational science, then is it not acceptable for him to make this move?

What you are advancing seems to offer a fairly minimalist and narrow understanding of science. Another question: what is it that you are pushing for that is more substantive than mere ‘operational’ science?

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Thanks for the push back @rcohlers! I’m listening closely to you.

We are friends, so you already know this. I’m freewheeling here for the purpose of really understanding where I am making historical errors. I want to be corrected by experts like @jrfarris, @jongarvey, @kelvin_M, and you. I need that push back. I’m much worse than ignorant. I have just enough understanding of history, theology, and philosophy to be dangerous. So this back and forth really helpful in honing in on what I’m getting wrong.

That said, I’m going to circle back to this later, and start first with @jrfarris. Though, one point does seem important to keep hold of while I think about my response:

It seems there is a strong distinction between Mary and Martha’s experience of observing first hand Lazarus rising from the dead, and our report of her experience. It is easy to imagine people convinced by the first, but not the second. That distinction does not appear to be well attended to at the present moment.

Yes “Lazarus rising from the dead” is convincing evidence, but only if we are convinced it is true. And it seems obvious we come to know this by a different epistemological path than Mary and Martha. We access this fact by a different sort of way, that does not experientially confront us the same as did it them. That seems to be important. That distinction, if worked through these examples, I wonder, might start to clarify some important contrasts between the way we are discussing these things.

I’ll return to this later though, after a bit of though. I want to play with @jrfarris’s new parable.

Slight discursion…

Well, if the soul has mass, and if that mass (say 21 g) is released as energy upon death, we’re talking about 1.9 billion megajoules. Round it to 2x10^15 joules (2000 TJ). One would suppose that sort of energy release would show up on film, assuming any film could actually survive the blast. For comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was estimated to have released about 6x10^13 joules (63 TJ), equivalent to about 1/30th of a soul. The hydrogen bomb detonated near the Bikini Atoll released about 35 souls worth of energy (63,000 TJ).

:grin:

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The Parable of the Sandbox

Turns out that Sally’s sandbox is famous, and has a long history. Sally herself did not even make these rules. This is a grand sandcastle in the center of it, and Sally has become its custodian. She inherited to the tools and the rules from the kid that was there before, and he from the kid before him. People come from all around, amazed at what this lineage of children have been able to build from sand alone. Something very beautiful is here, and it is much bigger than Sally herself.

When she enters the sandbox, Sally understand she is merely a custodian. She does work to add to the castle, but always careful to do it in a way she knows the kids before her would respect. When she needs to tear down a wall, and rebuild it a different way, she does so with great contemplation and reflection, knowing that if she does not do it right, the onlookers may loose trust in her work. The are not there for her, after all.

So she very carefully, religiously even, follows the rules handed down to her. This is a sandbox dedicated to building the most beautiful sandcastle. This is very difficult to do, as others usually take short cuts (like using cement), but the tradition of this box is to test the limits of sand alone.

Now Johnny is allowed to do that. In fact, his sandbox has a different tradition, and has its own group of onlookers.

Johnny the Villain

So in this version of the story, Johnny goes over to Sally’s sandbox, and sees how everyone gathers around to see her work. He jumps in, as he is allowed to do, and proceeds to play in her sandbox with his rules. Sally is angry, saying “you are breaking the rules here!”

He responds, “your rules just don’t make sense any ways. I’m going to do it the way that makes sense to me.”

And then he stomps around. He is not even aware when he squashes some very treasured sand sculptures, on Sally had carefully labeled all morning. Sally, rightly, is angry. She says, “you don’t have to agree with the rules, but if you are here, you better play by them. This is an important sandbox. I didn’t even make the rules, see? Just go scratch in your own sandbox if you must” (not the Kepler reference :wink:.

Johnny, is feeling quite certain he is right. After all there is more than just one way to build a castle. Sally doesn’t have a monopoly on sandcastles. If he is just able to build castle his way in her sandbox, the whole crowd that is gathering will just see how cool his sandcastle is and how dumb Sally’s rules really are.

Sally, however, is exasperated. “These aren’t even the rules I made. I inherited them, and I do not presume to change them. This is a sandbox with a history. The reason people come to watch is because they know what to expect from us. They find beauty here, and we just don’t have the right to make large changes. We are merely custodians of an inheritance.”

Sally and Johnny remain at war. That, however, is not how it had to be…

Johnny the Mystic

Sally has self-confined herself to her Sandbox. She is allowed to leave and explore other sandboxes, but she has become convinced that there is only one way to rightly build a sandcastles, and that the only sandbox doing it right is hers.

To be sure, the sandcastle in her sandbox is amazing. Truly beautiful. She is a faithful custodian of those who came before. She understands every detail of this castle, and works carefully to improve it with her pail and shovel.

Johnny comes and visits. He takes the time to listen and learn from her. He understands the rules and aesthetics, grammar and culture of her sandbox. He respects the legacy of the sandbox alongside Sally, and even joins in explain the rules to new visitors. Then, he turns to her and says,

“Sally, I love your sandbox and the beauty you’ve shown me here. You know, though, that there are other sandbox too, right? There is more than one way to build a sand castle. There are other ways to build beautiful things from sand?”

Sally responds, “That is not right. There is only one way to build with sand. That is all I’ve known, and I see no reason to leave this sandbox.”

Johnny looks at the borders of the sandbox, made of bricks, “Did you know that the sandbox itself is made of sand worked in particular way? They used cement and mud to form sand into bricks. Those who you inherited the sandbox from, they knew of other ways to use sand. Do you know their stories? Do you know much about making bricks?”

“No, we don’t make bricks here. That is cheating. It is breaking the rules.”

“Yes, it is breaking the rules here in your sandbox. I’m not arguing with that. Your rules are just for this sandbox.
I’m just saying there are interesting and important things happening outside your sandbox. Aren’t you curious to see? Not only bricks, but did you know that sand can be turned to glass? Maybe some of things that happened here might be useful to others, and perhaps you might learning something more about what sand can do in other contexts. Aren’t you curious?”

“Sand can not be made into bricks or glass. I know. I’ve worked with sand for a very long time.”

And Johnny the Mystic, explains, “you are right, we are not allowed to turn them into bricks and sand. We cannot do that with the rules you’ve laid down here. That is why we have to leave this sandbox, play with different rules, to see how sand can do these things. Your rules are limiting our ability to explore the full potential of the sand right here. I’m fine with rules in this sand box, but come play with me over here for a bit. We won’t mess with your sand castle, but you can come play with sandbox. We have different rules, and I can show you new things beauty there.”

And at that moment Sally has a choice. She can explore beyond her sandbox, or she can choose to self-confine herself within a shadow of reality, within the dream.

Plantinga’s Divine Discourse

Yes. They have to learn the culture, and the etiquette too. They are invited to jump in, as long as they play by the rules when they are there. There is an inheritance here in science that we are stewarding, and we have stewarded it well in many ways. We largely forgot the original story of the sandbox, but we have used what we have been given to build a grand sandcastle.

Absolutely acceptable. We might call that “science-engaged” theology, and it is not only permissible, it is welcomed with open arms.

Absolutely, as long as he is 100% clear to everyone that he is following the rules in the science sandbox (which is not his), and accurately and clearly explains when he is stepping out from those rules into a new set.

I do understand the philosopher’s complaint about the arbitrariness of demarcation. You don’t have agree with how the scientist states the rules. You don’t have to agree that it is coherent (though it might be as a Creator-Creation distinction). It is not, however, difficult to just follow the rules when you are in science, or claiming science’s authority. To get the autonomy to go back and forth between sandboxes, we must be clear about what is being said “inside” and “outside” science.

That is the key point. Because the rules are clear, it also gives us clear reasons for why things we care about (like making glass and bricks) are unknown within the sandbox. So the rules have high explanatory value too. The define the “axiomatic limits” of science as we find it.

A More Proximate Example

The disagreement between me and @Ronald_Cram is not that MN necessarily implies limits to knowledge, as it does. Rather the disagreement is about whether or not science needs to get rid of the this rule. His argument is: MN limits science from pursuing all truth (I agree), therefore MN must go (I disagree). @Ronald_Cram wants science, it seems, to be the waking world.

In contrast, I would say MN limits science from pursuing all truth, therefore we must exit science to pursue engage certain types of truth. Here, I am rejecting his argument that limits are reason for rejecting the rule. That is why I like the rule. It clarifies a whole class of things that I cannot do in science, so that I can give a good account of why it is so difficult to understand many things form within science. I’m very happy to say that science is merely the dreaming world.

To think about many questions, like the limits of the natural order (yes its metaphysical), we have to engage with rules that take us well outside scientific thinking. I’m happy to let science be what it is, without changing it, as long as I can move to other sandboxes and they are given dignity too.

Now, it is possible that @Ronald_Cram agrees with me here (though that would be surprising), and is just bad at clarifying what is in and outside science. If that is the case, maybe we do agree. The bigger issue is the brute fact that MN limits science is a feature, not a bug. It gives us a way to define its axiomatic limits, among many other important things.


@jrfarris, great parable. I loved it. Are we getting closer to understanding a way forward?

I think we need a new way forward. I am a mere scientist. An opinionated one, that is clear :laughing: . But I am also humble enough to know that I’ll have to rely on non-scientist scholars to really map a way forward. I do hope you can help us find that better way.

We have an interesting test case too…

If there is a way to learn from that and replicate it, that would be exciting, right?

This is, in many ways, the sort of thing the ID movement has been after for over 25 years, and largely failed. I’ve sympathized with the high-level motivation, but find their strategy lacking. You lose from the get go if you need a rule change to win. Even if you agree with their arguments, they are totally rejected by mainstream scientists (partly because of the rules issue, and also because of scientific mistakes).

In this context, somehow, I made a plausible case for the de novo creation of Adam. It may not end up in secular textbooks, but no one can plausibly call my case pseudoscience. Would it not be great if we could find a similar way forward in other ways?

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I don’t think they knew about E =mc^2 at the time, nor were they arguing that the mass was converted to energy. I think it was merely that the soul had mass, and left the body when we died, still retaining said mass.

So having now read my long response to @jrfarris I’m going to hold off a little longer @rcohlers. I also am more convinced that @kelvin_M is on to something with his attention to “experience.” Soon you will be waking up in Hong Kong time. I’m curious this clarifies where I’ve gone wrong, or miscommunicated.

I’ll look forward to your next response, and pick it up from there.

Thank you Kelvin, very interesting. I do think that experience, and particularly religious experience, may be an avenue for thinking about science and religion or bringing them into dialogue. I have been particularly influenced by Swinburne as well as his student Kai Man Kwan. First-person epistemology, phenomenological experience, seems to be the right place to start when considering all data sets.

Maybe. I am not sure what is meant by transcending objectivity and subjectivity. I do think there is a fact of the matter to my being me, i.e., my soul is what distinguishes me from another. This is certainly consistent with Kwan’s work, and in line with Swinburne’s articulation of the soul. The soul as substance (i.e., property-bearer) is the kind of thing that experiences the world and acts in the world. How do I know this? Well, I know it better than anything else that I know in the world. It is fundamental to acquiring any other kind of knowledge.

I am not sure I know what is meant by transcending self. If what is meant is that there is a fundamental self that points necessarily to something higher as the infinite ground for the self’s existence, then I am open to that line of thinking.

It does seem to me that there is a fundamental fact about me. I imagine this is the case for others. There is a what it is like to me that is fundamentally different from others, and this actually contributes something novel to the world. But these are not truths that are capturable in science, at least not the way it has been defined here. I am not sure that science could come up with a set of data that proves my self or soul, and that is ok. There is something in the furniture of the world that is basic to it, but extends beyond the physical cause and effect in the world.

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The more version would seem to be qualitative experience. Do I or others need to prove that? I am not sure. It seems fairly basic to experiencing subjects, namely souls or immaterial substances. It seems the one trying to reduce that something extra/more has some work to do in explaining that something more is actually explicable in terms of lower level processes. Did I understand your argument correctly?

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Kelvin,

It seems that we have a lot of similar interests. I am fascinated with some of the topics you are bringing up and the kinds of research topics you seem to be working on.

Now, I want to give Swinburne’s categorization a bit more reflection. I do wonder if there is something here that might help with a direction forward. I am certainly inclined to agree that Swinburne’s categories provide fruitful directions for thinking about theology and the world more generally. I will come back to this.

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@swamidass I wonder if following your sandbox model and thinking on a bit more of a meta level, we can consider history to be the playground on which these different sandboxes (ie philosophy, theology, science) are located. If we pay attention to history we can see how the different sandboxes and their residents have been shaped and interacted over time. It allows us to start thinking about where we have come from (our intellectual inheritance for lack of a better term), and how those we’re speaking with have come to where they are. One of my professors once defined history as the act of creating empathy for people of the past in a world that does not grant them dignity. What if we took that and used it not just for people of the past, but also those we are currently engaged with.

Basically, I’m suggesting that rather than just getting parables from history, history can itself be the parable helping us to envision how to think and talk about these issues.

I guess what I’m asking is in this context what do we learn from Bacon (or any other historical figure) that we can make use of methodologically? Like there are tons of theologians/intellectuals/politicians I dislike, but I pick up stuff in their practical history that’s useful. Does that make sense?

It seems to me that Bacon recognizes the ways in which his scientist figure can say yes this is a miracle, a thing outside an expertise (natural philosophy). Therefore, I’ll approach it with a different model (prayer/theology/mysticism). What can I pull from that for thinking about interacting with and discussing these things with friends/colleagues in an academic/intellectual setting? Idk…still working on that part :slight_smile:

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Hi Josh, concur mostly with your observation.
Swinburne defines such experience as:
“ S perceives x (believing that he is so doing) if and only if an experience of its seeming (epistemically) to S that x is present is caused by x’s being present.” And to put God into this equation, “S has an experience of God if and only if its seeming to him that God is present is in fact caused by God being present.” (Swinburne, Existence, 296)

Note that in term of religious experience, Swinburne settled with a moderate precise definition which is unusual to his emphasis of clarity in other area of research. Swinburne introduces the epistemic usage of the terms, “seem”, “look like” which denotes a certain inclination towards certain belief. In other words, it is categorized as “probability” instead of a foolproof argument.

For Swinburne, there is a potential evidential value for religious experience to establish the prima facie of the existence of God, and thus, he lays out lengthily for his Principle of Credulity: “If it seems (epistemically) to S that x is present, that is good reason for S to believe that x is present, whatever x may be.” To paraphrase it, Swinburne suggests that “we ought to believe that things are as they seem to be (in the epistemic sense) unless and until we have evidence that we are mistaken.” (Swinburne, Is there a God, 115, 116).

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Hi @jrfarris,

Likewise. Looking forward to hearing more from you. I’ll be away on a family vacation soon, but will definitely seize time to reply. May be you can help us to understand the arguments for/against immaterial human soul, quantum theory of consciousness or other related topics? Thanks in advance.

Distinguishing such “wonders of nature” from “providential acts” (in early modern terms, deciding whether a time of national repentance was required or not) would seem problematic.

The kind of chance that Aquinas, for example, mostly dealt with was the rare confluence of lawful events - for example, two bodies orbiting in eccentric orbits which eventually (but predictably) collide. Rare, and not excluded from the providence of God, but not conceptually extraordinary. Would Bacon & Co have had criteria for distinguishing such a natural wonder from an extraordinary event such as a plague sent for national apostasy?

However, it might be justly considered to be an event of quite a different order for, say, human consciousness to arise from unconscious matter. Arguably, there is no conceivable coincidence of natural events that could do it even in principle. Descartes, at least, hived off the soul to “special creation,” putting it beyond science.

If we consider a modern conundrum like abiogenesis, the latest fashion is to propose a confluence of replication, membrane and metabolic properties under such an extraordinary set of conditions that it makes planetary collisions seem commonplace. So would Bacon even consider an event like that as even an extraordinary part of the natural order?

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@jongarvey Interesting question. What Bacon was distinguishing between were genuine miracles that required divine action to bring what could not occur through the powers and properties of matter alone. A “wonder of nature” was to be distinguished from an actual miracle in that a rare or uncommon conjunction of the properties of matter bought about wonders of nature. Such wonders might be mistaken for divine miracles or uncaused anomalies. However, were the material causes understood and accessible to human manipulation, then such a wonder could be repeated any number of times on demand simply by bringing together those material properties and causes.

Such control over matter was the goal of natural philosophy for Bacon as it could bring about untold benefit and well being for mankind. Therefore, careful recording of wonders of nature and investigation of past reports was of value for a better understanding of material properties and processes.

Bacon was a firm believer in divine creation of matter, its properties, and the natural order that we experience. He had a very high view of divine providence also and believed God brought about a great deal of His will through the operation of the laws of nature. Unless we were to repeatedly observe life spontaneously emerging from non-life, Bacon would not have taken abiogenesis as an extraordinary part of the natural order. The creation of life and the timing of its creation he believed were the direct result of divine will and special divine action.

@kelvin_M Thank you for the input on religious experience. I believe it is central to the question of the relationship of science to religion, and Christianity in particular. I also happen to think that there is a tension between science and religious experience that is a source of continuing conflict. (More on that later.)

It would be valuable to know more of what Swinburne believes constitutes genuine religious experience, or more precisely experience of special divine action, if he has written about it. I strongly suspect that all or most of the five of these categories of religious experience boil down to two things:

  1. Perception of transcendent intelligent agency
  2. Insufficiency of natural explanation

I would hypothesize that these two components are entailed in every miracle recorded in Christian scripture. I think these two components are also closely tied to the issue of justified belief in religious experience of special divine action, and when such experience could be considered knowledge.

This question of science and religious experience is really where I think the heart of the question lies and propose turning to next.

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Somewhat more than somewhat to do with “regularity and repeatabilty” then - although the “wonder of nature” is unusual, recording it enables comparison with other similar events, and the emerging pattern then becomes true science.

I did a piece recently comparing unusual natural events with a biblical miracle, the parting of the Jordan for Joshua. This phenomenon does occur naturally, but rarely, and so the miracle lies in the fortuitous timing rather than the nature of the event.

So Bacon could include it in a series of recorfds of “dammings of the Jordan” and discover the natural circumstances that led to it - in that sense it falls within science. However, he would still, I suppose, wish to distinguish this particular event as a miraculous act of God, not by anything about the nature of the event, but because of its timing. So in that sense it falls outside science, although it has the same causes as a series of such events, and can even be included in such a series.

So we’re dealing with some subtle, and fallible, categories here, which render the demarcation of science tricky. On the other hand, such events teach us a theology of nature in which, directly or indirectly, God appears very much in control at all times, of the whole sequence of secondary causes leading to the event.

The question of the boundaries of science, therefore, seems more to do with a convenient human classification of God’s activity than it does with absolute distinctions between the “natural” and “supernatural” or “divine.”

@swamidass, Thank you for the openness and receptivity. Let me focus on one thing about Bacon, which I think is often misinterpreted. I don’t think you are completely off base here, but rather want to make an important clarification that is counterintuitive today.

@anon46279830 comments:

Let me take this up. My main concern is the misperception that (reasonably) comes from the fact that Bacon separated natural philosophy from theology and revelation, warning against superstition as the result.

Bacon’s Divisions

Here I think we tend to read Bacon with modern eyes. For Bacon, theology and revelation were not the same thing as observations of special divine action or the study of nature demonstrating a Creator. We tend to think of those things as specifically the realm of theology today, but that was not the case for Bacon. A similar example could be when George W. Bush would reference God in a speech and was accused of violating the Constitution’s separation of church and state–it would take a very recent, post-1960s, perspective to even conceive of that as the meaning of the non-establishment clause.

I can dig the direct quotes from Bacon up, (they will appear in a coming article) but for sake of time and space, let me summarize:

Bacon, like most Protestants of the time, clearly distinguished special revelation from general revelation. The former was what was revealed in Scripture, which no one could know apart from God’s communicating it – for example that salvation comes by faith and apart from works, or the purpose of atonement in Christ’s death on the cross, etc. Interpretation and explication of these matters was the realm of theology. Natural science, however, has nothing to do with whether God is a Trinity, or Jesus atoned for human sin, or having risen is seated at the right hand of the Father.

This distinction, however, was not understood to mean that natural philosophy sheds no light on the general revelation that comes from nature itself. Rather, Bacon was famous for saying that although a little natural philosophy tended to lead toward atheism, because of its focus on natural causes, a lot led one right back to the author of nature. Bacon was so strong on this that he asserted multiple times that (I paraphrase) “God never wrought a miracle to convince an atheist” because nature was sufficient on its own to convince the atheist of the existence of the creator. Rather, miracles were performed for the purpose of human redemption and to prevent heresy by confirming genuine revelation of the true God and His purposes.

Heresy and Superstition

Bacon was concerned that natural revelation alone did not communicate enough about God to impart salvation, and those who sought to establish their religion on nature alone inevitably fell into heresy. The deists who were to come would definitely be examples of that.

On the other side of the coin, those who sought to create out of their own conjectures regarding spiritual mysteries an understanding of the natural world, fell into superstition. Here Bacon’s primary target is understood to be the followers of the medical mage Paracelsus. I think a really good example of this kind of superstition (although I would need to double-check to make sure Bacon referenced it) is the belief that because God spoke things into existence in Genesis, spoke words themselves had effectual power, hence incantations.

That said, the idea that natural philosophy could draw no conclusions about God, or that the Bible had nothing to say that might inform us regarding the natural world was foreign to Bacon. This is precisely why he deemed natural philosophers the most qualified individuals to investigate a possible miracle, since among anyone they had the greatest knowledge of natural causes and what such causes might or might not bring about.

There is also another aspect to this, which has to do with intellectual starting points. I think this aspect is particularly relevant to where our discussion seems headed. So, let me go there now:

It has to do with the domain of science and religious experience in the physical realm . . .

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The Domain of Science and Religious Experience in the Natural Universe

What I want to raise with this post is to start discussion on how we might resolve the seeming tension that the domain and purposes of science are to study the natural order, or creation, with appeal only to natural causes, and that religious experience of special divine action are events that occur within the created natural order that science lays claim to study.

@swamidass I expect you can really help us here:

How does science relate to justified belief, even knowledge of special divine action that a person might witness directly, and which commonly are understood to involve mechanisms or processes normally within the purview of science? Say for example, a healing, resurrection.

There has been a great deal of interest lately in special divine action with Craig Keener’a breathtaking two volumes on Miracles: the Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (2011), followed by Eric Metaxas’ Miracles (2014) and Lee Strobel’s, The Case for Miracles (2018)

Can you discuss what are the limitations of the domain of science and what constitutes justified belief for a person, perhaps a scientist, who has experienced a dramatic healing upon prayer, or if one were a member of the crowd observing the raising of Lazarus?

For example, earlier in our exchange, I commented and your responded:

I also appreciate your explanation that:

Therefore, @swamidass or anyone else:

What is the point of crossover for a rational person from deference to scientific explanation by natural causes to the conclusion that one has witnessed a miracle? Why is that crossover justified? Does our knowledge of science in any way enhance or justify the crossover?

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And thanks for helping me make sense of this too.

I understand that, and its exactly to what I am referring. Your examples are excellent. It would be also relevant the people who read Scripture to discriminate geocentrism versus heliocentrism, or the expected radiometric age of the earth. I’m

Hmm…I’m not disagreeing with this.

Rather is it the “improper mixture” that is a problem, and we are prone to the “improper mixture.” It is one of the Idols of the Theatre, or bias to read out of nature what we think we already know from revelation (as we might see in divination), or to replace revelation with pure natural theology (as we might see in an atheist). As you explain…

So I am not really sure what your corrective is. I think I read Bacon correctly because I am reading him just as you are explaining here.

Perhaps it is some my rhetoric that is confusing? Hmm…this will be good to debrief later…

Ok. Great. Looks like I misunderstood you, then.

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