Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

A reader friend pointed me to a post over at An Examined Life. The post is largely in response to Mike Liccione, of Sacramentum Vitae, who responded to one of Scott’s previous posts on the value of investigating miracles. I did not read Scott’s earlier post so I am not sure if he is going so far as to claim that the investigation of miracles is a waste of time or not. However, this would seem to be the implication.

Scott points out that that he is making some quite subtle distinctions and he is right. In doing so, he makes many valid, and I dare say, important points. Among the important distinctions he makes is the distinction (but not separation I trust) between the ontological and the epistemic orders. In order to discuss this issue with clarity one must distinguish between whether one is talking about whether a miracle really happens or whether we are talking about how we might come to know this. Another important point he makes is about the inaccessibility of empirical methods to the supernatural, which is the domain of the miraculous. One simply cannot empirically verify a miracle. However, this is not the same as saying that empirical evidence has no place in the verification of a miracle which appears to be his main assertion. More on my thesis later.

Scott also points out that miracles are for the strengthening of faith rather than for giving, much less compelling, faith. This is true and the reason for it can be seen by understanding what faith really is. A short phenomenology of faith might be helpful here. Faith begins with an openness to the truth and supernatural faith begins with God’s invitation. What I mean by openness is one must not precommit his will against a proposition, or faith. This is what I call skepticism. For supernatural faith, in response to God’s invitation, one must exercise trust and acceptance of a Person (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) through the mediation of a proposition (the content of faith) by means of an act of the will (I choose to believe that: God exists, Jesus is God and Savior, that He offers me eternal life, etc.). Only the human person, in all of visible creation, has the intellect necessary to understand any such proposition. This unique faculty of reason means that to respond in a human manner, one must first have a reasonable proposition in which to trust.  In other words, an fundamental component of faith is a human act which demands use of reason and free will.

Faith requires some cognitive act of reason before one can make an act of the will in order to trust. This trust and acceptance of the truth is then supernaturalized through a gift from God which we call grace. A person is in a state of grace receives this grace as a theological virtue. When one is a skeptic, he is not open to the truth. He makes an act of the will against belief as a precommitment.  I is usually a precommitment against the supernatural for a variety of reasons.  This precommitment however, is not limited to the case of belief in miracles or faith in God. It is oftentimes invoked as a defense against potential attacks against one’s worldview, which can be anything from atheism to belief or something in between.  Thus, Scott’s treatment of Mike Liccione’s assertion that those who do not believe just don’t get it appears to me to be accurate and fair.

However, if it is the case that Scott is going so far as to say that the process of verifying miracles is a waste of time, then I certainly disagree as I indicated above. In making this disagreement, I will again say that I agree with most of his substantive assertions.  However, it appears to me the disagreement comes in the subtle understanding of the phenomenology of faith and its relationship to reason.

Here I would quibble Scott’s assertion that if empirical observations were rationally compelling in the case of miracles then non-believers would be manifestly irrational.  Here seems to be the core of where I believe that he goes wrong.  If it is his claim that empirical evidence must be rationally compelling before it is worthwhile, then I would claim that this is in error and it is so in this case because of the interrelationship between faith and reason.

First we should realize that it is the very nature of empirical methodology that they can never be, per se, rationally compelling. That is why findings of science are understood to always be provisional. Empirical methods are never rationally compelling because one bases his theory on samples of available data. Decision making is, therefore, limited by what one has observed and the rest must be filled in with theorizing (an argument about the support of philosophical tools, such as mathematics, which are not empirical and so more certain, would take us too far afield here). Thus, one who has made a precommitment to a world view (belief in a miracle, or belief in a favorite physical theory) can always argue that there are unknowns yet to be discovered and more data yet to be amassed that could negate the competing claim.

This lack of rational compulsion is especially true in the case of trying to affirm a negative; which is the case when one is trying to affirm that there are no natural explanations when investigating a miracle. However, it is also the case in many other areas of empirical science.  While this is an aside and not important to my argument, I might point out that one can refer to a plethora of events in the history of modern science in which a majority of “experts” rejected a new theory, even in the face of weighty empirical support and which later became accepted, because of attachment to a current theory.

In a sense those who do so are motivated by the non-rational (emotional commitments to their world view usually) but they can sill make the case rationally that they are not compelled by reason to accept the competing world view.  Does this rule out the use of empirical evidence in supporting theories in modern science because the evidence is not rationally compelling? Of course not, modern science is about understanding the way that nature works and even when provisional, often time partially correct theories are sufficient to successfully manipulate the world to improve man’s quality of life.

Neither can faith ever be compelled. If it is, it is not faith. But that is no reason to reject the use of empirical methods to rule out the possibility of a natural explanation. But why does one need to rule out a natural explanation in coming to accept that something is miraculous?

The miraculous is by definition a suspension of physical laws. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that God does this for the strengthening of faith, as we discussed above. Faith is strengthened if one is given a reason to believe that it is miraculous. Remember, faith and reason are mutually supportive. Faith is not an act of reason, but faith begins with reason (in varying degrees with different people).  Empirical evidence is the universally available method (God rarely confirms miracles through infused knowledge) God has given us to provide the intellect a reason for affirming the miraculous.

I  completely agree with Scott’s statement in his last paragraph that the willingness to believe has nothing to do with empirical verification. Mike, Scott and I are in agreement that openness is a prerequisite. However, one must begin with a proposition to consider. In this case, someone makes the claim of a miracle. In other words, he has proposed that God has suspended physical laws in order to make His will manifestly known. Rarely does anyone come about this claim through a private revelation. He has come about it through empirical evidence, or lack thereof. He believes it is a miracle because he sees no natural explanation, sometimes this is after having made a request for a miracle. The issue is epistemological—how do we know that this is proposition is true?

We must investigate and verify that all known natural explanations fail. With respect to epistemology, we remain in the same domain as the one making the proposition, the empirical.  When we have verified that there is no natural explanation, there is now reason for the believer to be convinced that the proposition is true. Reason supports and nourishes the faith that is already there; the faith in God and His providence in general, and now that God has acted in this concrete event, this miracle.

I think that if Scott’s last paragraph is support for why one would not need empirical verification for a miracle it is possible that he is not distinguishing between God’s Providence, which is always active, and an authentic miracle, which is when His Providence is active through the suspension of physical laws.

I completely agree therefore, that God is always Provident and that when He actively wills someone to recover, even when He uses the secondary efficient causes described by physical laws, it is still God acting as Primary cause.  However, if we say that everything that God actively wills is to be called a miracle then the term has no more meaning and there is no way for reason to be used to nourish faith via miracles.  If this were so, the Church’s long teaching that God affirms the faith through miracles becomes meaningless.

In the end, I think that if Scott is in fact dismissing the importance of empirical verification of miracles, then even though he is right on the majority of what he says, it is likely because he does not take sufficient account of the definition of a miracle, or the phenomenology of faith and its relationship to reason.