Hugo Meynell On Miracles
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From Victor Reppert’s Miracles and the Case for Theism:
According to Hugo Meynell, if evidence for an event stands up to impartial scrutiny, if it continues to resist explanation in terms of the ordinary laws of nature, and if it coheres with a religious system’s claims about the activities and promises of God, then it can reasonable be called miraculous, and can form part of a case for theism. [p.14]
This is exactly what I see happening on multiple fronts, e.g. the growing body of literature on NDE’s, to name just one line of evidence that anybody with access to research tools can investigate for themselves. Along similar lines, while it doesn’t directly cohere with any religious claim about the activities and promises of God that I’m aware of, the Hyman-Honorton Joint Communiqué affirms phenomena that resist explanation in terms of ordinary laws of nature. The evidence is all around us–for those who haven’t closed their minds, that is.
Mike Gantt
says...Anyone who refuses to be fascinated by, or see the irony in, our standing sideways on a ball spinning a thousand mph while it circles a star at 66,000 mph which is part of a galaxy moving at almost half a million mph…without any of us even getting chapped lips, is probably going to find a way to be unimpressed by miraculous, too.
That doesn’t mean, however, that the rest of us shouldn’t celebrate the miraculous. Good post, cl!
psychnoob
says...cl,
I’m curious how you reconcile NDE’s with Christian theology. Some claim that NDE’s often coincide with the religious beliefs of the one having them. Often times, they contradict one another theologically. The podcast skeptico had an episode with Gary Habermas. Though the host agreed with Habermas about the reality of NDE’s, he took Habermas to task for his Christian exclusivism, claiming that the NDE data refutes it by revealing the validity of multiple religious views.
I actually don’t know much about this. But I was wondering about your thoughts.
cl
says...Mike Gantt,
Well said, as usual. I agree.
psychnoob,
Thanks for stopping by.
Well, before I can answer that, let’s take a step back. One of Meynell’s criteria was that the event in question must cohere with “a religious system’s claims about the activities and promises of God,” right? That said, any reasonable theist would have to grant that “near-death” experiences of spiritual beings in a spiritual realm cohere with a wide variety of religious claims. As you imply, some Hindus experience Krishna or Vishnu, some Christians experience Jesus or demons, etc. In my study of the phenomenon, I’ve yet to come across a set of genuinely contradictory experiences [keep in mind that I define a contradiction as in instance of X and ~X].
I hold that nothing in the experience of some other spiritual being is genuinely contradictory to Christianity. For example, if Christianity is true, it is possible that some or all of the other gods people experience are not who they say they are[i.e. masquerading spirits, and note this can also apply to spirit beings who take on Jesus’ likeness]. To take another angle, it might even be true that they are who they say they are. As far as I’m aware, nothing in the Bible precludes the existence of, say, Krishna or Vishnu, and the Bible is adamantly clear about the fact that other spiritual beings exist: it simply holds that they are not the one true God humans are to worship.
There’s a question you didn’t ask that I think also needs to come into play during any sensible discussion of NDE’s and Christianity. There are at least two schools of Christian thought on what happens to our consciousness at the point of death. I’ll summarize them as immediate continuation and temporary cessation. NDE’s seem to challenge the school of temporary cessation, wouldn’t you think?
At any rate, I hope I’ve clarified somewhat, and, again, thanks for stopping by. Looking forward to further discussion.
psychnoob
says...cl,
I didn’t expect to hear that Krishna and Vishnu are possible in the biblical world, but now that you’ve said it, I can’t really think of anything that precludes it in the Bible. In fact, I believe some scholars like Michael Heisner defend a kind of divine council interpretation of OT texts like Psalm 82. So I guess it’s possible, though I have no idea how that would work/make sense. I mean…would they be on the side of good or evil? It’s hard to see how they could be good, seeing how much worship they draw. But if their evil, then it’s just another form of the demon explanation. The demon explanation isn’t impossible, but I feel unfair waving away others’ experiences as demonic and Christian experiences as real. It seems like a double standard.
I would add another possible interpretation of NDE’s. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to suspect varying levels of clarity in people’s brief experiences of the hereafter. Perhaps the spiritual beings we hear about are simply their interpretations of a general spiritual reality that they experienced. There seems to be no reason to assume they experience or remember them perfectly.
As to your second comment on immediate continuation and temporary cessation (I’ve also heard the term soul sleep), I agree. It would seem that NDE’s, if genuine, lend support to continuation. It would also seem to support a more substantial dualism over the emergent dualism and non-reductive physicalism view of persons that have become more popular recently in Christian circles.
I think these views are becoming popular because many believe substance dualism to be long dead. Maybe they’re wrong. I guess there’s alot more research to be done here.
Thanks for the clarification.
cl
says...psychnoob,
Well, recall though, I also said that even the Christian experiences could be the work of demons. Getting to their epistemic bottom is one thing, but the broader point is, people are having these other-worldly experiences when all known facts of science say they should not be, and we cannot simply write them all off as “hallucination” like your average pseudoskeptic.
I agree, and this coheres with what I just described as the broader point: these experiences directly confront a standard atheist claim.
I’m convinced they’re wrong. There is such a vast body of evidence to draw upon, not just NDE’s, but also OBE’s and various psi phenomena, not to mention the whole bundle of claims typically referred to as paranormal. If you haven’t yet, check this out. And yes, I’m completely aware of the fact that the ranks of “critical thinking” are generally dominated by folks who dismiss all these things, categorically. So it is with any minority position. Science proceeds one funeral at a time.
Hey, thanks for asking.
Matt
says...Mike Flynn has an interesting post on a child missing half his brain and what he feels that implies for dualism.
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2011/02/instrumentality-of-brain.html