lnt J Phil Re113:103-108 (1982) 0020-7047/82/0132 -0103 $00.90. �9 Martinus Nifhoff Publishers, The ttague. Printed in the Netherlands.

MIRACLES AND VIOLATIONS

IAN WALKER

Dulwich College, London

A part of David Hume's legacy to the philosophy of religion was the definition of a miracle as a violation o f the laws of nature, and this is now probably the most com- mon notion of what a miracle is. 1 shall argue, however, that this notion, under- stood as it often is, involves intractable difficulties that make its effective employ- ment in a Christian apology or polemic impossible.

An understanding of what is meant by the miraculous as 'violations of natural laws' is fundamental to such an enquiry. To that end I shall offer a definition that is commonly accepted for 'laws of nature ' :

L -Laws of nature are descriptions of regular events and the formulation of predictions based on the observation of such events.

Now if something is the violation of such a law, we should have to say that it is an irregular occurrence of a counter-instance of such events. Indeed, that the viola- tion is irregular only will not do. I11 order for it to be a counter-instance it will have to be non-repeatable, since its repetition would accord it (at least) some degree of regularity and thus would facilitate description as a repeatable, and possibly predictable, phenomenon. But if the violation occurs unpredictably and is non- repeatable its occurrence could only thera be indescribable in terlns of natural laws

and hence properly called a violation, If, however, it is allowed that these violations may occur does that not render false the supposed" efficacy of natural laws'? If natural laws are understood as universal and necessary then any such violation as is proposed would be impossible. If natural laws are understood as statistical, rende- ring probabil i ty, then the occurrence of a non-repeatable counter-instance will mean no more than what we have is a random inexplicable event. Should it be an experimentally repeatable exception to the natural law, we should then have a negative instance which would bring the appropriate law into question; but, being repeatable, it would not be a miracle. As Professor N. Smart notes:

Miracles are not experimental, repeatable. They are particular peculiar events occurring in idiosyncratic human situations. They are not small scale laws.

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Consequently they do not destroy large-scale laws. FormaUy, they may be seen to destroy the 'always' statements of scientific laws; but they have not the genuine deadly power of the negative instance.1

If, as A. J. Ayer suggests, it is 'characteristic of a law of nature that the proposition which expresses it is not logically true '2 , then, there is no inherent incompatibility between the workings of a l awof nature and an occurrence which may be regarded as a counter-instance of such a law. This in turn shows that the violation concept of the miraculous turns on the idea of a law of nature which is of a contingent kind rendering the high improbability rather than the logical impossibility of such a non- repeatable counter-instance. This means that, while in the great number of cases the predictions of a given law of nature (L) will be true, a counter-instance to L is pos- sible, and its occurrence is not incompatible with L in the sense that L is thereby rendered false. Furthermore, the counter-instance, because it is a counter-instance and is thus non-repeatable, cannot be an object of observation which might itself form the basis for the formulation of revisions of L. I take it that this description is not incoherent or incompatible with (the proposed definition) L for the class of L. It seems to me that this is the way in which L is usually described and, moreover, that talk of such things as 'violations of natural laws' would be a nonsense if one held the view of the logical necessity of L.

Is it possible to state the conditions under which an event may be recognized as a counter-instance of L; because it might seem that the counter-instance, by its very nature, is conceptually impossible? Professor R. F. Holland reaches this conclusion with a revised understanding of what it is for something to be 'conceptually impos- sible'. Insodoing he rejects a principle of modal logic: that whatever is the case, can be the case; ab esse ad posse valet consequen t ia 3 .

To establish his case, Holland uses three examples, one of which is that of a horse, deprived of nourishment (of which fact we can be certain) yet goes on thri- ving:

A series of thorou~a examinations reveals no abnormality in the horse's con- dition... This is utterly inconsistent with our whole conception of the needs and capacities of horses; and because it is an impossibility in the light of our prevailing conception, my objector, in the event of its happening would expect us to abandon the conception .... as though we had to have consistency at any price. Whereas the position I advocate is that the price is too high and it would be better to be left with inconsistency; and that in any event the prevailing conception has a logical status not altogether unlike that of a necessary truth and cannot be simply thrown away as a mistake -- not when it rests on the experience of generations, not when all the other horses in the world are continuing to behave as horses have always done, and especially not when one considers the way our conception of the needs and capacities of horses interlocks with conceptions of the needs and capacities of other living things and with a conception of the difference between animate and inani- mate behaviour quite generally. These conceptions form part of a common understanding that is well established and is with us to stay. '4

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Holland cannot mean what he says when he writes 'the prevailing conception has a logical status not altogether unlike that of a necessary truth ' because if this concep- tion includes natural laws, and from his example this is definitely so, then Holland must construe these laws as 'not unlike necessary truths' which would count decisively against his thesis that a possible counter-instance on violation of such laws might occur.

From this example and two others (one of levitation, and one of 'water into wine') HoUand concludes:

My thesis then in regard to the violation concept of the nfiraculous ... is that a conflict of certainties is a necessary though not a sufficient condition o f the miraculous. In other words a miracle, though it cannot only be this, must at least be something the occurrence of which can be categorized at one and the same time as empirically certain and conceptually impossible. I f it were less than conceptually impossible it would reduce to merely a very unusual occur- rence such as could be treated (because of the empirical certainty) in the manner of a decisive experiment and result in a modification to the prevailing conception of natural law; while if it were less than empirically certain nothing more would be called for in regard to it than a suspension of judg- ment. So if there is to be a type of the miraculous other than the coincidence kind it must offend against the principle ab esse adposse valet consequentia. And since the violation concept of the miraculous does seem to me to be a possible concept I therefore reject that time honoured logical principle, s

Holland is makirlg allowance for more than one kind of conceptual ilnpossibility in this passage. What we have here is a case of contradiction with our ' common understanding' and 'the experience of generations'. He is pointing to such a thing as 'making sense, and failing to make sense, of events '6 . He is arguing that it is pos- sible (conceptually? empirically?) that the conceptually impossible might occur. Now it may seem on the face of it that this is a non sequitur, but we will see that this is not the case if we realize that Holland is vacillating between two different senses of 'conceptually impossible'. It is obvious that 'conceptually impossible' in this story does not amount to self-contradiction and hence is 'weaker' than 'logical- ly impossible'. What then is this weaker sense? Is there one? If one accepts Hol- land's argument about the certainty of empirical knowledge (in this case, of horses) based on 'the experience of generations' and that this, in some way or other, limits tile possibilities of what we may or may not conceive, then his 'weaker' notion o f 'conceptually impossible' may be accorded sense. It seems that the 'experience o f generations' in this case (and those of levitation and water-into-wine) refers basical- ly to the findings of science. On Holland's view, any radical change in scientific theory which could be counted as sufficient to account for such events is impos- sible (conceptually? empirically?). While it may be maintained that such a change is possible (in whatever sense of 'possible' you like) Holland's findings will then be less than decisive and, at most, contradictory. I cannot see why such a change is either conceptually or empirically impossible and Holland provides no reasons to substantiate his claim that this is so.

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Prof. A. G. N. Flew, although taking a similar line to Holland, arrives at his con- clusions by a somewhat different method. Flew argues that a 'violation of the laws of nature' when used by Hurne, means 'a physically impossible event':

The impossibility involved is not logical but physical. This physical impos- sibility of miraculous events is a consequence of the definition of the word 'miracle'. For 'a miracle may be accurately defined' as 'a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent'. And the criterion of physical as opposed to logical impossibility simply is logical incompatibility with a law of nature, in its broadest scnse... It is an essential characteristic of all contingent nomological propositions ... that thev imply the physical impossibility of any events with the occurrence of which'they are inconsistelH.7

So for Flew an event is a miracle, in Hume's sense, if the statement of the event's occurrence is logically incompatible with the statement of the laws of nature. This is so because the laws of nature determine the limits of physical possibility, ergo 'violation' signifies that which is physically impossible.

Itowever, Flow's conception of 'violation' is not as straightforward as one might at first think. He writes:

The expression law o.f nature is sometimes taken as a prerogative of science. Whereas the notion of physical or empirical impossibility is quite untechnical, and surely antedates the emergence of science proper. It is an essential characteristic of all contingent nomological propositions, and not just mem- bers of the sub-class which scientists are prepared to dignify with the diploma title laws o f nature, that they imply' physical impossibility of any events with the occurrence of which they are inconsistent. It is only and precisely our knowledge, or presumed knowledge, of such nomological props which enables us to make the ordinary lay distinction between innnensely iln- probable and sheerly impossible. 8

It is clear that Flew does not want to regard the laws of nature as analytic truths but the extent to which the laws might hold, according to Flew, is not at all ob- vious. If the system within which his idea of 'violation' finds its place is empirical as he says it is -.. then there are logically possible worlds in which tile laws of nature are different From the laws of nature in this world. Thus, unlike a universal descrip- tion such as "All swans are white", a law entails counterfactual conditionals. "l"hus it is within the limits of the application of the nomological proposition that the behaviour of a given object in actual or possible situations will be specified. There- fbre, according to Flew, since the counterti~ctuals specify what would occur in a given situation, the nomok)gical propositions from which they are derived will determine the bounds of physical possibility.

If we take the most commonly mentioned example of a law of nature, viz., the law of gravity, we might be able to clarify,' things somewhat. In our world, in which the law of gravity applies, and given the condition that no other forces are present,

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any two objects will exert forces of attraction on eacl" other which are proportional to the product of their masses and haversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Since a condition of our law is that no other forces are present we should say that a violation of this law, in our world, would be when the two objects did not exert a tbrce Whereby tile objects were attracted, e.g., if there was ilo attraction, or, if there was repulsion. These latter possibilities depict logical- ly possible worlds, but in our world, they are physically impossible and thus, by Flew's definition, would be miraculous. What determines the bounds of physical possiNlity here is tile counterfactual conditiona! relating to the fact that the objects would be attracted with a force determined by the product of the masses and the square of the distance between them. Because it is specified that no other relevant forces are present the only physical possibility in our world is the attraction of the objects in the way specified by an equation that expresses the relations of mass, distances, etc. But at once we encounter a difficulty in regard to the nature of 'other relevant forces' that may be present in any given situation. Are these forces 'the volition of the Deity', or '...the interposition of some invisible agent' as IIurne suggests, or are they 'natural' forces? The specification of natural or supernatural forces at work in this context will be a precondition that must accompany a coun- terfactual in the case of purported violations. But this can cause distinct anabigu- ities. One is that if Hume's precondition is accepted it becomes a supporting premise for a conclusion entailing false counterfactuals about what would happen in the absence of natural tbrces. For example, suppose that in our actual world there are no other natural threes present but there is a supernatural force counter- acting the force of gravity in relation to two given objects such tllat the objects, which should be accelerating toward each other in fact do not move. The counter- factual conditional regarding the accelerated movement of objects on the precondi- tion that there are no other natural forces present is flflfilled, llence we have here an instance of a physical impossibility and hence a miracle. But this means that the law of nature is false. It is false because it supports false counterfactuals about what would happen when no other natural forces are present, i.e., given that no other natural forces were present there should have been accelerated motion of the two objects toward each other, whereas, in fact, there was not. In the case of a miracle, however, such a counterfactuaI is false. It begs the question of supernatural forces. Thus the specification o f forces present cannot be an either/or (exclusive), it must be an either/or (inclusive). The precondition nmst be that there are no other natural or supernatural forces present and not simply, as is the case in the scientific paradigm, that there are no other natural lbrccs present. In this case, the law of gravity supports a counterfactual Milch states the acceleration of bodies towards each other unless an), other force is present. Now if this is correct, Flew's concep- tion of physically impossible events becomes incoherent. Because if the presence of any (natural or supernatural) force is presupposed for any conditional entailed by a law, in what sense then can an event falling within the limits of the statement o f that htw be impossible?

The upshot of this can be put somewhat rhetorically: how can one explain

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supernatural intervention except by reference to supernatural agents? If one is going to speak of miracles as 'supernatural volitions' or ' the interposition of some invisible agent' then the idea of miracles in terms of volitions can be explained only by reference to supernatural forces rather than to what is or is not logically incon- sistent with the laws of nature.

Now while this might solve some problems it creates others. Earlier I noted that the only criterion by which a 'violation' miracle could be identified was the fact that it was a violation. But now I have demonstrated that the concept of violations, if it is to be coherent, must have a 'supernatural precondit ion' built into it. This means that 'violation' miracles can only be characterized on the precondition that they may be the result of a supernatural force at work, and that the activity of supernatural forces in relation to the violation concept of the miraculous can only

be characterized in relation to the violations themselves. This is obviously circular. Another problem has to do with how one could possibly identify a supernatural

force at work (even in a violation) as opposed to a natural force; especially if it was a natural force unknown to science.

I would like to conclude by simply stating that I think this whole concept of violation miracles is, for the most part, a confused one. If it makes sense (which 1 doubt) it can in no way form the foundation of any sort of religious polemic because, as I have argued, if it is to be at all consistent it can only be characterized in terms of the operation of supernatural forces and not by reference to logical inconsistency with the laws of nature. If this is the case then any polemic which endeavoured to demonstrate the existence of supernatural forces by means of the violation concept of the miraculous would have to assume the very existence of that which was the object of proof in order to maintain consistency in the proof

itself.

NOTES

1. Philosophers and Religious Truth, (London: SCM, 1964), Sect. 2.32. 2. 'What is a Law of Nature?' in The Conee.pt of a Person and Other Essays, (New York:

St. Martins Press, 1963), p. 218. 3. 'The Miraculous' in Religion and 01der~tanding, ed. D. Z. l~hillips (Oxford: Blackwell,

1967),pp. 155 170. 4. op. cit., pp. 165-- 166. 5. op. tit. p. 167. 6. op. tit., p. 170. 7. Hume's Philo.*ophy of BeOef, (London: R. & K.P., 1961), pp. 186-187. Flew is quoting

here from ttume's essay "Of Miracles'. 8. op. cit., p. 187.