Maverick Philosopher

Regularities of nature need not be exceptionless laws, if there is a person behind them. A person might have a habit of taking a walk before breakfast every day, but can make exceptions. God can cause nature to work in regular patterns, without restricting himself from making exceptions to the pattern from time to time.

I don't assume them to be violations of laws of nature but, rather, extraordinary, rather than ordinary, providence. That is, God goes outside of his normal governing of every detail of creation, and brings about a "wonder" to attest to his word, or prophet. Miracles always have a revelatory function. It need not even be directly caused by God. God used a "strong east wind" to part the red sea. The 'miraculous' character was the revelatory function this act played in the history of redemption.

An isolated system has “sealed boundaries”; no exchange of matter or energy is possible with anything outside the system. So to declare the system isolated in this case seems to me to beg the question.

In support of Tom:

Even atheist philosopher Michael Martin doesn't think the 'laws' are 'absolute.' Says Martin,

"Frame has argued correctly that science does not presuppose the absolute uniformity of nature, but I do not suppose that it does." SOURCE

From the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy article on laws of nature:

In the late 1970s, there emerged competition for the systems approach and all other Humean attempts to say what it is to be a law. Led by Armstrong (1978, 1983, 1991, 1993), Fred Dretske (1977), and Michael Tooley (1977, 1987), the rival approach appeals to universals to distinguish laws from nonlaws.
Focusing on Armstrong's development of the view, here is one of his concise statements of the framework characteristic of the universals approach:
Suppose it to be a law that Fs are Gs. F-ness and G-ness are taken to be universals. A certain relation, a relation of non-logical or contingent necessitation, holds between F-ness and G-ness. This state of affairs may be symbolized as ‘N(F,G)’

That such a relation of nomic necessitation holds between a pair of universals F and G does not entail that every F is a G, for nomic necessity is weaker than absolute, or metaphysical necessity.

When I used to worry about such things, I was partial to this sort of view. The Humean regularity view seemed to be beset by severe difficulties. For instance, it was not at all clear that it could distinguish between regularities that are genuine laws of nature from those that are not.

In his book Water Into Wine?, Robert Larmer argues that the concept of a miracle should not be restricted to the notion of violation of a natural law. There is an excellent historical discussion of changes in the concept of a miracle in Joseph Houston's book Reported Miracles: A Critique of Hume.

In chapter 17 of The Logic of Chance, John Venn gets himself into a bit of a muddle on this very issue. I can write more about this if anyone is interested; I've written up notes for a paper on the subject, if ever I have time to write it.

Ockham,

It is hard to understand what an order of created nature would be if it could be upset by divine interventions. It is one thing to say that there are different possible orders of created nature. I see no problem with that idea. But once an order is actual, it implies exceptionless regularity.

So my question to you is: how could there be an order of nature that is not 1-1 with a set of laws of nature?

Bill,

I've been digging through Moreland and Craig's Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Intervarsity, 2004). In particular, their chapter on Miracles. Here's an interesting portion,

If God brings about some event that a law of nature fails to predict or describe, such an event cannot be characterized as a violation of a law of nature, since the law is valid only on the assumption that no supernatural factors in addition to the natural factors come into play....then, miracles ought to be defined as naturally impossible events, that is to say, events that cannot be produced by the natural causes operative at a certain time and place(567).

What do you make of this defintion of 'miracle'?

Lordy lordy, I just lost a long reply.

In sum, it was this: to say, as you do, that a law of nature is a regularity is in fact to endorse the regularity view. Armstrong, for instance, rejects this. He holds instead that, in some way, laws of nature manifest themselves or issue in regularities. Indeed I thought that a regularity view of laws of nature consisted in precisely this: laws are nothing over and above regularities, and when you said in 2 "Every law of nature is an exceptionless regularity" I took you to endorse the regularity view.

My point is this. Regularities are propositions of the form:

(x)(Fx > Gx).

To say that laws are regularities is to say that they are propositions of this sort.

I take it that Armstrong denies this. He holds (I seem to recall) that laws entail propositions of this sort. But they are not propositions of this sort. Rather they are a certain sort of contingent state of affair "out there" in the world.

I did not take you to claim that the class of laws and the class of regularities are one and the same class. But I did take you to mean that the former is identical to a subset of the latter, and this is highly contentious (unless I'm deeply confused about something - always a possibility).

There is a point to all this. If one distinguishes regularities from laws (as I think Armstrong does), there might be reason to deny that, in all cases, laws entail exceptionaless regularities; and if they do not, laws and the breaking of laws can xo-exist at a world.

While I remain a novice in the debate over the possibility of miracles, I do think that Thomas Aquinas may have the answer if one understands what he means by a "law of nature." For Thomas, there are two ways that this can be taken: that of Platonism or that of the Aristotelians. As you well know, Thomas will side with Aristotle. The Aristotelean-Thomist sees a "law of nature" to be a universal statement that summarizes particular events. These universals will always have statistical deviation from their realization because they are not concerned with particular essences (e.g., the law of gravity is only absolute in a vacuum). One must remember that for Aristotle and Thomas there are only particular essences. If science was concerned directly with particular essences, there would be as many sciences as there are essences. I say that it is not "directly" concerned with particular essences because obviously science is concerned with particular events insofar as these serve as the empirical testing ground of the universal statements; albeit, these particular events, themselves, are only returned to after the universal law has been hypothesized. The "laws of nature," therefore, are not Platonic forms that truly exist but are universals in the mind of the human subject.

Over against this, Thomas also believes that there is "Eternal Law." The Eternal Law is God, himself, as the regulating principle of all creation. This Law is unable to be penetrated by our intellects because it exists as the divine simplicity that is God's essence.

In short, Thomas would reject premise 1 of the abovementioned argument. That a law of nature is an exceptionless regularity would be seen to border on Platonism. It remains possible for there to be miracles because God is the Eternal Law of the universe and, because of his Providence, he is able to intervene when he sees fit. This will obviously conflict with the "natural law," but Thomas' distinction has already shown why this matters little. One must keep in mind, however, that though miracles are not the object of science and (Thomas believes) philosophy can show them to be a possibility, they are ultimately answerable to the divine science rather than the human.

I know this was short, but I hope it opens up an avenue of exploration.

Bill, I can't think of any laws of nature that are exceptionless regularities. Every scientific law that I can think of is either a stipulation (like F=ma) or comes with innumerable exceptions such that the practitioner must understandd that the laws are only true if the exceptions do not arise. When exceptions do arise, you try to come up with a broader statement of the law that includes the exception, but you can't ever come up with an exceptionless law without turning it into a stipulation.

Furthermore, although I'm certainly no expert on Thomas Aquinas, it's hard to believe that he or anyone else before Newton had this idea of natural laws as exceptionless regularities. Wasn't it Netwon's theory of gravitation that inspired the mechanistic view of the universe that this proposition is based on?

Dave,

Why would you say that F=ma is a stipulation? I would say that if F=ma is in fact a law, then it was discovered rather than stipulated. The same thing would be true with E=mc^2. Einstein didn't just stipulate this to be the case; he discovered it.

Hi, Bill.

I think Ockham got it right when he pointed out:

You start of with the expression 'law of nature'. Note that Aquinas does not speak of laws, but of the 'order of created nature' [ordo naturae creatae]. If you really believe in 'laws' of nature, you don't believe in a God who can intervene in nature by breaking those laws. As you rightly reply to one of the objections, a scientific law that can be broken is not a law at all.

Aquinas's "order of created nature" is a metaphysical statement that God's creation possesses order whereas the laws of nature are epistemological constructs derived from our scientific observations of that order. In other words, the laws of nature are the means by which we mathematically describe the observable order of nature. Therefore, it is order that determines those laws and it is God who determines that order.

With this in mind, we have room for the two types of miracles that Aquinas identifies. Because the laws of nature are derivative of the created order of nature, we have no reason to believe that those laws are exhaustive in their description of that order. Nor, on that account, do we have reason to believe that order is entirely reducible to the regularity that can be captured in a mathematical description as in a law of nature. Thus, what may be perceived as a miracle because we cannot account for it by any known law of nature could be an effect of the created order of nature which we do not yet understand -- i.e., Aquinas's epistemological miracle.

As to Aquinas's ontological miracles, He who created and ordered nature can supplement His act of creation with other acts that affect that creation. These supernatural acts, miracles, therefore lie outside the scope of what the laws of nature can describe because they lie outside the scope of nature's order. On this view an absolute miracle is not a violation of a law of nature but instead an event caused by an agent superior to nature, God.

Therefore, Bill, I disagree with your first and third premises because an absolute miracle has no cause within nature and so cannot be an exception to laws that by definition only apply to that which is natural.

Regards, Bill T

Spur, I said that F=ma is a stipulation because it essentially acts as a definition of force. F=ma stipulates that the net force acting on an object is equal to mass times acceleration. If you can't account for the behavior of the mass under known forces, then you posit the existence of one or more unknown forces to account for the behavior.

Spur,

Let me see if I can put your argument is a simpler way. Suppose the following is a deterministic law of nature: If a sample of pure water at sea-level on earth is heated to 212 deg F, then it boils. We should think of this conditional as prefixed with a nomic necessity operator and a universal quantifier: it is nomically necessary that, for any x, if x is a sample of pure water at earth's sea-level heated to 212 deg F, then x boils.

Now isn't it obvious without any further ado that this law, if indeed a law, holds without exception? For if there were even one exception (a sample of pure water heated to 212 that does not boil), then the law would not be a law.

To say that a law can admit of an exception seems to make as little sense as to say that a universal generalization can be both true and have a counterexample, that a proposition of the the form All Fs are Gs can be true even though there is an F that is not a G.

I think that Earman's argument is sound, and that laws of nature, if there are any, must be exceptionless.

I think Bill V is correct, too, to generalize the claim to the order of/in nature.

I think I need to re-read Peirce's discussions of order and randomness.

I vote to reject premise 1, since it is not something we can know to be true. We cannot know that there is such a thing as a law of nature, since we cannot make universal empirical generalizations. Logically (although not pragmatically) we can never be sure that some exception to a proposed universal generalization might not occur in future or exist beyond our range of perception.

I think there should also be an information theory problem with the notion of a universe of exceptionless regularity. There is randomness in the universe, but randomness can have no theory that has less information content than the randomness itself, in which case its description can't really be called a theory or law. I would have to think about this latter suggestion some more though.

Spur, I said that F=ma is a stipulation because it essentially acts as a definition of force.

Suppose F=ma does act as a definition of force, something which I resolutely deny. (I also deny that m=F/a serves as a definition of mass, or that 'c=the square root of (E/m)' serves as a definition of the speed of light.) It doesn't thereby follow that F=ma is stipulative. Stipulative definition is only one of several kinds of definition.

Spur,

I think that the notion of supernatural intervention, included in John DePoe's disjunctive condition (ii) of his definition of miracle, is a promising way out.

M. Levine, in his SEP entry on miracles, wrote:

Suppose ... that true laws of nature do not have the form:
(1) Whenever an event of type C occurs, an event of type E occurs.
Assume instead that they are of the form:
(2) If an event of type C occurs, and there is no supernatural intervention, then an event of type E occurs.
Or, schematically:
(3) (C &N) → E

If we grant this, then we do not have to accept Earman's premise 2. Yes, Levine discusses his suggestion as not wholly unproblematic, but I think it's still promising.

Excuse the shallowness of my remarks, but I'm in press of time. I'll try to ponder and maybe post something more detailed and to the point.

Bill,

I see no problem with the definition of 'miracle' offered by Moreland and Craig.

X is a miracle =df X is an event which at certain times and places cannot be produced by the relevant natural causes.

This does not strike me as just a vain restatement of the first definition. The event is only an infringement of a natural law or regularity (or whatever) in the sense that it cannot be explained by appealing to any kind of natural intervening factors. Well, in this sense, I don't even think that it is coherent to speak of the event as violating any kind of natural law.

Bill T proposes a definition:

A miracle is:

[1] The change in form or matter of a substance
[2] by the purely mental act
[3] of an agent external to that substance.

Suppose some spiritual agent brings into existence ex nihilo a rabbit on my desk. That would count as a miracle, but it would not satisfy the right-hand side of your definition. Your defn is too narrow since it is restricted to changes in existing substances.

A second point is that it is not clear why an agent is needed at all. Suppose again that a rabbit suddenly starts existing ex nihilo on my desk but without being caused to start existing by an agent. That would count as a miracle.

Third. There is mental-physical causation. I can cause my body to execute certain motions. Now suppose I had the power to bend a spoon just be intently concentrating and willing the spoon to change shape. That would be a case of mental-physical causation in which I bring about a change in a physical object external to my body. Thus would the right-hand side of your defn be satisfied. But why should this count as a miracle ontically (as opposed to epistemically) viewed? It is not a miracle that I am able to pick up a spoon with my fingers. Why should it be a miracle that a man should work a change in a spoon without touching it? Sutrely we don't want to say that everything presently inexplicable is miraculous.

Hi, Bill.

I certainly welcome refinement of my definition of a miracle. However, I should now make clear a couple of things behind it. First, as is probably evident, it assumes that the universe is hylomorphic. Second, in a hylomorphic universe not all processes are physical but they are all ordinary (such as the exercise of human volition) -- except that which brings about a miracle. So a miracle is not merely that which has a non-physical causation, but that which is extraordinary in the universe.

With that in mind, I think expressing a miracle as a change in the form or matter of substance is useful, because if a ball resting on the floor suddenly begins to float in the air, a change in its density could account for its bouancy. Thus, its levitation would not violate a law of nature. It is what must happen to it according to those laws as a result of its new density.

But I did not include in that change the ex nihilo creation of matter, form, and substance, because those processes are necessary to the existence and functioning of the universe (e.g., the ex nihilo creation of prime matter that brought the universe into existence) or ordinary (e.g., the ensoulment of organisms -- the ex nihilo infusion of form into matter). While that rabbit popping into existence onto your desk may appear to be an ex nihilo creation of a substance, could it not be the alternation of existing substances? However, I will concede that the first part of my definition could be expanded to include ex nihilo creation with the caveat that it must be extraordinary (i.e., excludes that which is necessary to or ordinary in the universe).

An agent is necessary, because if one weren't, then the natural functioning of the universe would account for the the seemingly miraculous occurrence -- even if we do not know exactly how. Apparent miracles would be merely epistemic and not ontic.

Regarding mental-physical causation, my response to this stems from what I said at the outset. The process by which you cause your body to move is not physical. The exercise of volition is a purely mental act that causes a change in the matter of your body. It initiates a chain of electro-chemical events that results in the motion you desire. So even though it has a physical effect, the act in itself is not physical and escapes explication by science. Nevertheless it is an entirely ordinary process, as we all know from experience.

What would be extraordinary is if we could cause a change in the form or matter of a substance other than our own by a purely mental act, such as your example of bending a spoon. That would be a miracle. After all, there is no evidence that we humans can do this. However, if there were evidence, I agree that inquiry into whether the apparent miracle has an ordinary but presently unknown cause would be appropriate. As you say, we do not want to say everything that is presently inexplicable is a miracle.

So there is the practical matter of sorting out which apparent miracles count ontically and which epistemically. To this end Christians might add an additional element to the definition of a miracle: It must be a sign of God's will. But I'm not sure if this is necessary if we rule out those effects of non-physical but ordinary processes -- though I must admit I'm not sure what God might be telling you by putting a rabbit on your desk. ;)

Regards, Bill T

Bob,

If the universe exhibits exceptionless regularities, then the universe could be causally open if each event is supernaturally caused on the occasion of some other event's occurring. Think of an occasionalist like al-Ghazali. But that would not constitute the caused event a miracle since the event could be as mundane as you like, e.g., a piece of paper's catching fire. Seems a miracle must be an event that does not fit the hitherto established pattern. So it looks as if violation of causal closure, which just comes down to denial of causal closure, is not sufficient for the existence of miracles. There has to be a violation of an exceptionless pattern -- which returns us to the original difficulty.

Bill,

Your comment above does nicely capture a key part of my argument, though not all of it.