Re: Signs of Scientism

*It seems to me that the crucial missing component in detecting miraculous
aspects of creation is the presence of a human observer.*

But there was no direct observer to the central miracle of Christ's
Resurrection, as others here have correctly noted. The disciples reached a
justified belief about the Resurrection based on ex post evidence. We reach
justified beliefs about things based on ex post evidence all the time, in
science and outside science.

*But suppose we come upon the product of a miracle after it has happened.
Suppose for example we ome to the house where the wedding at Cana was held
and find some of the wine that Jesus made from water. I presume it would
look, smell and taste like any other wine -- no discernable difference from
ordinary wine. *

True, though the quality of the wine at that late stage in the feast
apparently made the miracle more remarkable. But what if you could make
observations after the fact that permitted you to know more about the
conditions surrounding the purported miracle? Say, for example, that by
measuring deposits in the pitchers used, you could determine that: there
was x amount of wine and y amount of water available at the start of the
feast; the entire x amount of wine was consumed halfway through the feast;
only 1/2y of water had been consumed by the mid-way point of the feast; and
suddenly, just after the midway point of the feast, there was 1/4y of water
and 1/4y of wine available. (I understand that such a precise method of
measuring deposits in pitchers probably doesn't exist, but bear with the
hypo). This wouldn't "prove" there had been a miracle (maybe one of the
guests brought in more wine and spilled the water), but it would make the
"miracle thesis" a potentially reasonable one.

The point is that there doesn't seem to be any principled reason why we
can't observe and measure the *effects* of a miracle after the fact, and
there also doesn't seem to be any principled reason why we can't make
reasonable judgments about whether something that happened in the past was
"natural" or "miraculous."

On 1/19/06, Bill Hamilton <williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> --- David Opderbeck < dopderbeck@gmail.com > wrote:
>
> It seems to me, then, that
> > human beings in principle are capable at least sometimes of discerning
or
> > detecting that a "supernatural" event has occurred against the backdrop
of
> > "ordinary" or "natural" events. If that is true with respect to
miracles
> > such as the resurrection, why couldn't it be true for miraculous acts of

> > creation?
> >
> It seems to me that the crucial missing component in detecting miraculous
> aspects of creation is the presence of a human observer. As Dick pointed
out,
> the miracles of the Bible were performed to convince witnesses of God's
> sovereignty or that God had ordained a given prophet's message (I think we
> should also add that some of them were performed in response to the
prayers of
> the saints -- but again witnesses were a crucial part of the action)
>
> But suppose we come upon the product of a miracle after it has happened.
> Suppose for example we ome to the house where the wedding at Cana was held
and
> find some of the wine that Jesus made from water. I presume it would look,

> smell and taste like any other wine -- no discernable difference from
ordinary
> wine.
>
> Or take the big bang. By studying the expanding universe and detecting the
> cosmic background radiation we can learn a great deal about it. But can
we
> detect (scientifically) that something miraculous was involved? Probably
not.
>
> Bill Hamilton
> William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
> 586.986.1474 (work) 248.652.4148 (home) 248.303.8651 (mobile)
> "...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31
>
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Received on Thu Jan 19 15:00:07 2006