I’ve spent the last few days drafting a post on Craig Keener’s book Miracles. It ended up being the second-longest book review I’ve ever written, which I don’t mind, but it also ended up rather disorganized, which I do mind, so I’m going to hold off posting until I can re-write it.
Until then: anyone else read the book? Thoughts on it? Things you’d especially like me to cover? If you haven’t read it, but have read about it, are there parts you’re especially curious about based on what you’ve heard second-hand? And is there anything related to modern miracle claims, but not specifically related to Keener’s book, that you would like me to discuss?
Haven’t read it, and am not likely too. It strikes me as silly that he apparently focuses on Hume, when I don’t think anyone takes Hume very seriously (though he’s fun to discuss in an undergraduate philosophy class).
It seems rather clear that at bottom we have two rival explanations for miracle accounts:
(1) There are miraculous violations of laws of nature.
or
(2) Some mistake leads to false miracle reports.
Given what we know of the ability of con-artists (and illusionists) to deceive, the gullibility of witness, and the weakness of the evidence for miracles, hypothesis (2) comes out the clear winner.
What I wonder is whether phone cameras and YouTube will lead to the extinction of superstitious beliefs like this in a few decades.
I have written an essay about modern day miracles that you will find very interesting:
http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/01/24/modern-day-miracles/
DB Skeptic- I read your essay a while ago and loved it.
Hallq- I’m curious as to whether or not he actually talked to any of the eyewitness’. From what I’ve heard on the web, most of his stories only have anecdotal evidence. Than again, I only ever saw one miraculous claim that didn’t have anecdotal evidence.
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2010/08/has-modern-science-made-demon-possession-unnecessary/
In the second page of the comments, one blogger claimed his professor has video evidence of demonic posession, doing things they thought impossible. Pity they decided not to share ti with the class…
How seriously does Keener take Christian testimony in the Congo of child witchcraft?
As seriously as I take his claims of Christian testimony in the Congo of people rising from the dead?
Seems wrongheaded to deploy the tools of the tenured to try to prove or disprove the existence miracles, when the whole point of the miraculous is that it is outside or beyond the reach of these tools — like trying to use physics to describe what is outside physics. The only thing your closed system of thought will have proved is that Gödel was correct, but we knew that already.
Besides, the sense of the miraculous obviously lies within the subject, not in the phenomenon (and is indeed its reason for being), the latter of which may be easily explained away by anyone with a little — but not too much — logic.
Our advice, which you are commanded to ignore — not by us, of course! — would be to stay within the confines of the empirical/rational/experiential, and testify that nothing has or will ever happen to you that is outside the system of thought you have constructed for yourself. Or, at least you won’t perceive it, which is something we can all agree on.
One thing I would be interested in hearing is whether he discusses apparitions of Mary, e.g., at Medjugorje. Since I’ve been there myself and have seen the people while they’re having visions (and others who have reported miracles like the sun’s dancing and rosaries turning to gold), I’m curious whether and how this fits into his narrative.
1172 pages on miracles? Who are you to question such a tour de force Chris? What’s next, 2500 pages on the Trilemma? If you can make the book long enough, it must be true!