In the discussion over Lawrence Krauss' op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, the new atheists, as they almost invariably do brought up The Virgin Birth of Jesus. Here's the challenge that Krauss issued, as he described it in his piece:
When I confronted my two Catholic colleagues on the panel with the apparent miracle of the virgin birth and asked how they could reconcile this with basic biology, I was ultimately told that perhaps this biblical claim merely meant to emphasize what an important event the birth was. Neither came to the explicit defense of what is undeniably one of the central tenets of Catholic theology.
Here's the claim as made by one "MadScientist:
– Krauss never suggests that science move out of its own realm; what he is saying is that claims such as the virgin birth do not conform to what we know of the world. The claim of a virgin birth is essentially hearsay. MadScientist
One of the often made boasts of scientists is that they are required by science to back up their claims with the evidence attained through sound methodology. Well, let's see them do it in this case. Here's the challenge I issued in response.
Then it’s up to any scientist claiming that they can address The Virgin Birth of Jesus, as described in the gospels attributed to Matthew and Luke and actually believed by those who believe it, and not in a modified version so science can be made ez, to show how they could do it. They have to do it with absolutely no physical evidence, through an unknown range of possible mechanisms, and without recourse to any other human birth since it is held by its believers to have happened in that way exactly once in the entire course of history.
If you accept this assignment, please have your methodology and proof in by next Tuesday. You can feel free to post it on the last comment of my blog which you can reach by clicking on my name.
If anyone can produce a method that takes in all of those aspects, I’ll gladly announce that I’ve been stumped. But only if it addresses what is actually believed by those who believe it. Which I don’t happen to for historical and literary reasons.
I'll keep you posted on the results. If there are any.
I should add that I fully believe in the allegorical truth of the story. But I'll save that for the Christmas season.
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And Krauss is a liar. Both the Catholics on the panel said they wouldn't even attempt to explain the miracle biologically because essentially that's a "contradiction in terms" (my words, not theirs).
ReplyDeleteThat is clearly a defense of the Virgin Birth. It's just one Krauss doesn't care about.
Ok, well, part of the problem is that it's not about explaining the virgin birth biologically, because that assumes it actually occurred.
ReplyDeleteResponse coming, as soon as I figure out how to copy & paste inline on your blog.
Ok, Anthony. Which tags are not allowed? I'm not used to such restrictions in the html allowed, and will need to reformat.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what tags are allowed, I only know a few. italics
ReplyDeletebold lol:
If I'm not too busy I type out everything in my extra large font word processor, select all, copy and paste. But I'm really lousy with computers.
I'm especially interested in how you'll try to get by the three restrictions I thought were a complete barrier. I hope analogy isn't going to be one of those. Remember, it's believed to be sui generis.
By the way, olvlzl is my old pseudonym. It has no pronounciation and means nothing.
ReplyDeleteAnthony McCarthy
To be honest, I think you'll be rather disappointed. In my opinion, we've been talking past one another, with you issuing a specific challenge to a claim that was never really made, and me trying to answer a question you weren't asking.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, once I figure out how I want to reformat this thing, I'll post it for your review.
Incidentally, it's been awhile since I used the blogger platform, but I think most of your settings for comments are found in the dashboard. You can allow/disallow html, moderate comments, etc.. Check it out sometime.
ReplyDeleteOk, the argument is presented below in 6 parts (the limitations of this format).
ReplyDeleteScience and Miracles: A Response, Part 1
ReplyDeleteAs promised, here is what I propose in response to the question of whether the virgin birth is "strictly a scientific question." Keep in mind that I'm going to try to stay focused on the goal of answering the question of whether the virgin birth (and perhaps any miracle) is a "scientific question," not whether science actually answers the question.
Incidentally, the comment system here is set up in such a way that I had to break this up into 6 parts. I apologize for its disjointedness as a result, as it wasn't really written with that in mind.
NOTE: Although others have expressed a similar sentiment (e.g., that miracles are scientific questions), I'll be sticking to Dawkins' statement on the subject because I think we can agree it expresses the current atheist/naturalist position in the main.
It seems to me, first of all, that you infer more (or perhaps the wrong) meaning from Dawkins' statement than is warranted. You seem to want Dawkins' meaning to be, "Science answers the question of the virgin birth," which, when the text is left intact, clearly is not what is intended. Such questions may never be answered, and Dawkins (in spite of his clearly stated opinion that he does not believe in miracles; which by the way may explain the temptation to infer greater meaning than was intended) has been consistent on this point over the course of several books, debates, and so on in which the subject of miracles was brought up, either by him or someone else.
Alternatively, you may be interpreting part of the statement too literally by placing too much emphasis on the word "question." To be sure, saying that there is a "question" implies that there is (or may be) an answer. Not an entirely unreasonable inference, I suppose, but in order to better comprehend the full meaning of a statement in the context of what a person thinks or believes, so too must the full content of the text be considered. I'm confident you'll agree on this point.
The latter leads me to wonder why you apparently haven't considered the full context of the text in which the statement you've chosen to critique appears. Indeed, you didn't even bother to keep the whole sentence intact in our previous discussions. Doing so would've been wise, considering that the statement is not nearly as aggressively dogmatic as you appear to believe it to be and seemingly would have others believe as well.
Here's the statement in question as you presented it:
"Did Jesus have a human father, or was his mother a virgin at the time of his birth? Whether or not there is enough surviving evidence to decide it, this is still a strictly scientific question."
End Part 1
Science and Miracles: A Response, Part 2
ReplyDeleteHere is the full statement Dawkins actually wrote:
"Did Jesus have a human father, or was his mother a virgin at the time of his birth? Whether or not there is enough surviving evidence to decide it, this is still a strictly scientific question with a definite answer in principle: yes or no" (Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 60 [Emphasis added]).
Your quote leaves out a key clause which just happens to maintain its (and his) scientific integrity and does not assert the truth or falsity of the claim. As the paragraph continues, we discover more statements that clarify precisely what he means, and it is decidedly not that science definitely has an answer, or even remotely suggesting that someone should start looking for one (if only someone were to offer a grant, perhaps; the Templeton Foundation might be interested, wouldn't they?). Citing a couple other miracles as questions, Dawkins writes:
"There is an answer to every such question, whether or not we can discover it in practice, and it is a strictly scientific answer. The methods we should use to settle the matter, in the unlikely event that relevant evidence ever became available, would be purely and entirely scientific methods. To dramatize the point, imagine, by some remarkable set of circumstances, that forensic archaeologists unearthed DNA evidence to show that Jesus really did lack a biological father. Can you imagine religious apologists shrugging their shoulders and saying anything remotely like the following? 'Who cares? Scientific evidence is completely irrelevant to theological questions. Wrong magisterium! We're concerned only with ultimate questions and with moral values. Neither DNA nor any other scientific evidence could ever have any bearing on the matter, one way or the other.'" (Ibid., [Emphasis added])
Clearly, Dawkins is not arguing in favor of a new field of study (perhaps to be called "Miracuology" or something, I suppose), but is offering a rebuttal to Steven Jay Gould's NOMA view of the conflict between religion and science. It is an affirmation of science as an unparalleled tool for discovery so powerful, that should someone present some physical evidence of a miracle that is then evaluated by the rigors of science, even die-hard theologians and apologists would be forced to sit up and take notice.
And so they do. We have strong indications this is true in the form of Pope John Paul II's (admittedly somewhat weak) endorsement of evolution, and in popular Christian literature, which co-opts the findings of science with impunity when it suits them and disregards others which don't happen to comport with the beliefs of their audiences. Examples include the writings of Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel, among others, who (in Strobel's case) have used medical science in an attempt to bolster an argument in favor of the resurrection story as a real, actual event. Other examples too, exist both within Christianity and without. But, regardless of many attempts to use science as a foil for religion, as you well know, religion - I use the term broadly because this isn't confined to Christianity - has been forced to reinvent itself regularly throughout the history of science as a result of steady progress among various scientific disciplines.
Multi-million dollar faith-based organizations, such as Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research, and the more moderate Templeton Foundation are predicated on the idea that science can indeed study religion and the phenomenon claimed to have occurred at least once that we find in scripture.
End Part 2
Science and Miracles: A Response, Part 3
ReplyDeleteEven you, a self-styled moderate rationalist lobbing critiques at all forms of irrationality that meet your criteria for irrationalism including - and perhaps especially - something called "new atheism," have tacitly (but maybe unwittingly) acknowledged that miracles are scientific questions. Do you not recall that according to the Christian and Jewish traditions God is alleged to have miraculously created, ex nihilo, the universe in just six days to include the stars, planets, and all species of life? As a self-confessed believer in evolution, you thereby admit that the miracle of creation is a scientific question. In principle, this should extend to other miracles.
It is strange, therefore, to read Karl Giberson (or you, in a slightly different way) state that "[Miracles] presuppose the "normal running of the natural world" studied by science, and in the "normal" world's absence they would not be miracles at all" (Giberson & Artigas, Oracles of Science, pg. 42). As a rejoinder to Dawkins' statements concerning miracles, this is deplorably anemic and circular (as many apologetics are); Miracles are miracles because they're miraculous, and wouldn't be miracles otherwise.
All of this raises the question, why? Why are some miracles amenable to study and others are not? Is it because some miracles are fundamental to belief and therefore sacrosanct? Or is there some other reason?
But we can table that, because someone already answered your demands.
Over at Mooney's blog, you've demanded that:
"If it can be done, I've challenged people here and Jason Rosenhouse, who teaches Mathematics, to show how it could be done, without altering what the belief actually consists of. If someone can show how it's done, and is willing to put their real name to it, I'll admit that it can be.
You guys do actually understand that making an assertion based on some feeling of rightness or habit or hunch or pretended findings, etc. are not actually science. Even citing the word of an eminent scientist is not science, you've got to be able to back up your claims with scientific methods of inquiry, reach the conclusion and to have it stand up to review.
You do understand that not being unable to disprove something isn't a requirment to believe it, it just means you can't disprove it. I've yet to argue an issue like this with a new atheist in which they've actually seemed to understand that." [Emphasis added]
And, as you say later, you would've been satisfied with a method:
"I'd actually have been satisfied if someone could come up with a methodology that couldn't be debunked, knowing that even that was impossible." [Emphasis added]
We can ignore one clause of the latter statement - the part about a "methodology that couldn't be debunked" - because as you should be well aware there is no such animal. Even the scientific method doesn't meet this standard, because science doesn't "do" absolutes, and everything is, in principle, subject to being "debunked." Including, say, gravity. But perhaps you've already noticed, Dawkins already answered your demands in the very text - indeed the same paragraph - from which you mined the quote.
End Part 3
Science and Miracles: A Response, Part 4
ReplyDeleteNo one - including Dawkins - is claiming that science solves the question of the virgin birth. Only that, in principle, it can. Some of us have more boldly claimed that we're on solid scientific ground when we say the virgin birth did not occur. More on that below, but what does Dawkins suggest as our method? Science. Perhaps this seems circular. Following Dawkins' lead, perhaps a dramatization is in order.
An interested scientist, observing (as we all do) that humans reproduce sexually, notices that some religions claim virgin births have occurred. Choosing (foolishly, perhaps; it's not necessary to actually perform a study to infer that virgin births fall into the category of absurd claims) to explore the question, our hypothetical scientist formulates some questions, including the question of what kind of evidence might be needed. In this case, our scientist might need some samples of DNA. Ideally, multiple samples from Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (perhaps James as well). In principle, this might all be available, even if we don't know where it might lie. Even Jesus' DNA might be available, in the form of blood or other fluids dried on the rocks in his tomb (assuming it still exists; if it ever did). But we do not need evidence in hand to start formulating answers like this one, and we do not need to answer the question of God at all.
Is the kind of direct evidence we would need to test the question available, perhaps laying hidden in some musty antechamber yet to be uncovered by archaeologists? We don't know, but science does not need direct evidence to give appropriate answers. There is no truly direct evidence of gravity (you can't take a sample of it), but it can be observed to act, and it can be measured. There is no direct evidence of dark matter or dark energy, but scientists use these concepts to explain, scientifically, why objects in the universe behave as they do. It is the behavior that serves as indirect evidence that something exists. That this might seem wishy washy to you, and perhaps to others, is beside the point.
If scientists had the same view of science that you seem to, we should never learn anything about anything that isn't directly in front of our noses.
Returning to an earlier miracle, the miracle of creation, believers still have recourse to speculations concerning a "moment of creation," but the fact remains that science - not mere reason or logic - has stuffed the miracle of creation as it is described in the Bible into a box and started squeezing. How small the box becomes before it can be compressed no more is anyone's guess, but the fact remains that science put that miracle to the test and found it wanting in most if not admittedly all of its particulars. And it did so ultimately without considering the existence of anything outside of our physical universe. That is, without having to consider God at all as a part of its equations.
The bottom line is that I think we've been talking past each other. As for you, it appears that you've misunderstood (or have not read) much of what's been said about this issue. As for me, I think I've been trying to answer a different question. If atheists - trained in science or otherwise - claimed to be able to now refute the virgin birth using existing science, that would be one thing. But that's not what I've been trying to say (though perhaps the impression you have?), and has nothing to do with whether the question is one science can, in principle, solve.
End Part 4
Science and Miracles: A Response, Part 5
ReplyDeleteI think that existing evidence - that virgin births are exclusively claims found in religious scripture and clung to merely on that basis, and that ultimately an actual virgin birth depends on a suspension of natural law which is, in principle, amenable to study if someone were to take it up - suggests that we may infer that no virgin births have ever occurred while remaining on solid scientific ground. Thus, while science does not speak directly to the question, it can, in principle, do just that. Meanwhile we stay on solid footing by saying that existing evidence does not support the virgin birth story found in any religion, much less the Christian version.
Maybe the idea that the virgin birth is a scientific question seems foolish to someone who regards it as allegory. Indeed, if it is allegorical, it need never have happened. But this isn't the mainstream view, even if it is popular in some circles. As of December 2008, 61% of Americans regard the virgin birth as an actual event, and 75% believe in miracles according to a Harris poll. These folks represent a sizable majority.
With respect to the vituperation of the "new atheists" (which perhaps has some relevance to the militancy of some gays in the '70s, or more broadly the civil rights movement earlier), all that needs to be said is that every movement has its agitators; Those whose polemical rhetoric and rabble-rousing promotes confrontation. Some of us cringe at the rhetoric, but there's no denying it gets attention, which sometimes seems to be only purpose to the outrageousness. Just look at Ann Coulter. The only thing distinquishing the "new atheists" from Coulter is the fact that many of the "new atheists" actually get their facts right, whereas she just doesn't seem to care.
More could probably be said about this. Indeed, I have my own complaints about the movement. I have a running tally of statements that bother me, and have been working to frame them into an argument critical of the movement to be posted at my blog. Good grief, even Sam Harris was critical of the movement for emphasizing atheism instead of reason (see here and here). But let's not forget that even those who choose hyperbole as a method for argumentation can be right about their facts. In this context (i.e., the virgin birth, or other miracles), I don't see that Dawkins has asserted anything unsound, even if it may be said to be controversial. But if it's controversial, it is so only because it rubs believers the wrong way.
End Part 5
Science and Miracles: A Response, Part 6
ReplyDeleteIt may be that you'll be disappointed with this. That's fine. I don't expect to change your mind. To be perfectly blunt, you're a bit hard to pin down. On the one hand you claim to believe in the story as allegory, yet strangely you've been pressing anyone that will listen and disagrees with you to explain how science could ever speak to the question, with the apparent (and mistaken) notion that claiming it is a question of science means an attempt at a disproof is in the offing.
Notably you've claimed that miracles are "inherently improbable" while nearly simultaneously criticizing atheists for committing an error by bringing up "probability" as an issue with respect to miracles (c.f., "I was talking about the error of asserting that science and probability could do what they specifically can't."). You seem to think you can have it both ways, thereby creating or maintaining some sort of advantage, but you should know this is disingenuous and confers no advantages at all.
You could possibly object that you were using "improbable" in a conversational sense without reference to mathematics. Yet you seem to imbue the word with considerably greater import when expressed by those who disagree with you. Have you considered that your opponents may have been using it the same manner as you, especially those (such as myself) lacking specialist training in mathematics? Perhaps some arguments could've been avoided thusly.
Indeed, I think this argument could've been avoided altogether.
End Part 6 / END
JCS, I will be responding to this in several weeks, as I said at Chris Mooney's blog I will be out for several weeks. Until then.
ReplyDeleteI will answer the rest of your response over the next few weeks and post a fuller response as I am going to be out on medical leave. But as you’ve taken it to give a response, which I don’t really see as an answer, you deserve something. This is very rough because I’m very pressed.
A defect that every proposal to deal with this miracle with science in any way seems to rest on the insistence on not taking the actual nature of the belief, or the other beliefs on which it rests as essential to judging the proposition. This seems entirely unreasonable since to propose dealing with it with science also requires that you jettison the specific requirements necessary for science to be done. You would need to disallow things inherent to religion while exempting science from requirements inherent to science. There is no reason for a religious person to accept that double standard, there is every reason for someone who believes that the methods and tools of science are efficacious would ever find it any more acceptable. You can't exempt yourself as a purported representative of the science side from the necessary exigencies of science any more than a purported representative of religion should from practicing their asserted morality, certainly acknowledging the whole truth strictly is a requirement of both. You also have to take into account different aims, science wants to find where the physical evidence leads, it wants to arrive as close to knowledge as possible, religion's goal in this is belief.
I think you were right about it not satisfying me as an answer. It doesn't actually deal with my challenge which is to show how science could deal with the question of the authenticity of The Virgin Birth of Jesus. While I think you have actually offered a defense of Richard Dawkins, one that I don’t actually see as answering my assertion that it isn’t a scientific question. The assertion that a question that couldn’t be answered by science can be “strictly a scientific question” seems likely to lead to pretty dodgy reasoning. If the event being questioned claims that it happened by unknown means and is held to have happened in that way exactly that one time you would be entirely dependent on physical evidence to even define the task in the physical terms science could deal with it. I think Dawkins’ assertion is a lot like the idea of studying behaviors in the remote past which we can’t even know happened. I’ve got my theory about why Evo-psy adopted the entirely absurd pracitice of making up stories about those alleged behaviors and trying to stick them in their models and it’s specifically because the transfer of observable events in the contemporary world clear across the taxonomy across species, genera, orders and, in the pop understanding derived from that, even kingdoms. I’ve had people defend carnivorism on the basis that plants too are the equivalent of red tooth and claw. I don’t think Dawkins evidence free look at the Virgin Birth would be any more science than the illogical assertion that men in aggregate have sex with more women while women have sex with fewer men.
"Did Jesus have a human father, or was his mother a virgin at the time of his birth? Whether or not there is enough surviving evidence to decide it, this is still a strictly scientific question with a definite answer in principle: yes or no" (Dawkins, The God Delusion, pg. 60 [Emphasis added]).
ReplyDeleteYour quote leaves out a key clause which just happens to maintain its (and his) scientific integrity and does not assert the truth or falsity of the claim. As the paragraph continues, we discover more statements that clarify precisely what he means, and it is decidedly not that science definitely has an answer, or even remotely suggesting that someone should start looking for one (if only someone were to offer a grant, perhaps; the Templeton Foundation might be interested, wouldn't they?). Citing a couple other miracles as questions, Dawkins writes:
"There is an answer to every such question, whether or not we can discover it in practice, and it is a strictly scientific answer. The methods we should use to settle the matter, in the unlikely event that relevant evidence ever became available, would be purely and entirely scientific methods. To dramatize the point, imagine, by some remarkable set of circumstances, that forensic archaeologists unearthed DNA evidence to show that Jesus really did lack a biological father. Can you imagine religious apologists shrugging their shoulders and saying anything remotely like the following? 'Who cares? Scientific evidence is completely irrelevant to theological questions. Wrong magisterium! We're concerned only with ultimate questions and with moral values. Neither DNA nor any other scientific evidence could ever have any bearing on the matter, one way or the other.'" (Ibid., [Emphasis added])
My point is that the absence of physical evidence is exactly what renders The Virgin Birth absolutely not a question of science because the physical evidence is the only thing that could make this particular belief a question of science of any kind. I read the entire thing and excerpted the part necessary to respond to the proposal, the part I used included the fact that there was no physical evidence, the key disability that the proposal would fail by .
Without physical evidence you could not find a human father or male family line, period. You don’t know what you possibly could find by way of other evidence. Remember we are talking specifically about a proposed miracle performed by the same God who made our bodies, right down to the DNA, RNA the constituent molecules of those and the atoms, subatomic particles, etc. Science is only capable of telling us about those, not how the omnipotent, omniscient creator of those can use the creation. This odd idea that the Dawkins-Dennett has that the same God who created the mechanism for genetic inheritance would be unable to take a miraculous intervention at the molecular level is just one disconnect of reason among many others. For all we know Jesus had some unique physical aspect which is quite unlike our genetic makeup. The people who wrote the gospels and adopted the belief didn’t know anything about that, it isn’t relevant to what they thought was important enough to write down. It’s likely that there are issues in human reproduction within evolution which are yet to be discovered which Dawkins has no way of knowing about and which will overturn all of his work. My suspicion is that their rigid and oddly isolated insistence on putting all their chips on one aspect of genetic reproduction as interpreted through natural selection will mark their work for early desuetude. Though I doubt that any future developments will be any better at clearing up the miracle in question.
The answers to any of those questions would be very interesting to science, though, alas, none of the evidence is available, it really doesn’t have anything to do with the belief in the miracle since the people who believe it also hold that it is specifically UNLIKE any other human conception which did or ever will happen in the entire range of human reproduction. In fact, since it was by action of God, it might not even scientifically classify as human reproduction, though I hadn’t thought of that until writing this paragraph. What it could be called is not relevant to the scientific analysis of The Virgin Birth.
ReplyDeleteIn your part three you ask this. “All of this raises the question, why? Why are some miracles amenable to study and others are not? Is it because some miracles are fundamental to belief and therefore sacrosanct? Or is there some other reason?”
First: If there is physical evidence to examine, as in the matter of whether or not Genesis is true, you can find out if the time frame, geological and biological evidence supports the claim of seven days and the rest of the early chapters of Genesis. Clearly, science can show that it doesn’t. In a specific claim of a miracle cure you might be able to determine if there is any evidence that the proposed disease or disability was present to begin with and if it is still there afterwards. You could determine if there is any medical explanation of some cures. Those are open to scientific investigation which might be able to tell us something specific. You do know that the Vatican does look, or at least it used to look, at claims of miraculous cures etc. using science in order to try to verify if what was claimed actually happened. I’m not sure how the canonization process was altered under JPII but they used to incorporate quite a bit of skepticism in the process which is one of the reasons it used to be so long.
Second: If there is no physical evidence and the miracle is claimed to be a unique event, such as the miracle in question, then you can’t make an analogy to it and other events you might claim as the equivalent. No other event can be analogous to a unique event. When the unique event involves supernatural agency the question of analogies which are held to be entirely due to natural causes, the impossibility of making an analogy becomes impossible and absurd.
Third: The miracle is defined in only the simplest of terms. You don’t know how the genetic material presumed to have been necessary could have originated or what it would be like. You can assume since Jesus was male that parthenogenesis couldn’t have been an explanation but since the range of possible mechanisms is unknown you don’t know how far that could narrow down your alternatives. You would, further, have to assert that anything you wanted to exclude on the basis of a natural explanation, would be something that God would be bound to by law or rule. You would have to do that to people who believe, perhaps even more strongly than that The Virgin Birth happened, that God is not bound by the very laws governing the natural universe which God made.
As to how I “style myself” I try not to do that at all. I can say if you try to classify me in that way, you might be disappointed because I don’t really think in terms of a specific philosophical system or see any one way of seeing the world as being sufficiently encompassing to do the job. While I do take logic very seriously, even that has its limits and for all we know, that limit is found at the barrier of the material universe. We have no reason to believe it applies in any proposed extra-natural entities. We’re not even certain it applies to all aspects of the material universe.