Applying Hume On Miracles To The Design Argument

Trust Not Any Miracle!

This post was another spontaneous border-line-shower-thought (it popped into my head Friday night before bed). My initial reaction to this thought was that I was misapplying probabilistic reasoning (don’t worry, there’s no math here!), but the more I think about it, I don’t think this is true. I’m 80% sure this is a good post. Typical caveats about not being an expert apply.

David Hume is one of my favorite philosophers. A month or so ago, I wanted to write a post about Hume and miracles and how most people get him wrong. I ultimately decided to not write that post because it came off as kind of ranty, and I like to be somewhat dignified in my longform posts.¹

The crux of that scrapped article was this: Hume never said miracles were impossible. Many people in pop philosophy say that he did, but they’re wrong.

There are some philosophers who plausibly say that he probably didn’t believe in miracles or the supernatural, but couldn’t advocate those views out loud, as he could face professional, legal, and physical consequences. If you read his non-modern-English writing closely, he seems to be arguing for a stronger conclusion than he ultimately takes. I think that analysis is likely true.

However, the explicit, stated positions of historical figures (who cannot defend themselves on the internet today) are important. We should not rebut strawman arguments, nor say someone is wrong for saying something they did not, in fact, say.

With that in mind, the historical Hume’s position on miracles is a better position than the speculative Hume. Let’s get into that.

What Did Hume Say About Miracles?

To start, I’m not going to quote Hume directly for various reasons: his language is hard to read and I don’t want this post to be a book report (it’s about fine-tuning - stay tuned!). If you don’t believe me when I say that Hume didn’t say miracles couldn’t happen or that they never happen, I recommend going to the primary source, Of Miracles, and CTRL+ F “never” or “can’t.” You’ll find that he never says that miracles don't or never happen.

So what is Hume’s point on miracles? His point is not about metaphysics, but epistemology. Namely, what we call the laws of the universe aren’t these rules written on some cosmic stone tablet somewhere and “enforced” by God or some other force. Rather, the laws of nature are patterns that we observe, are repeatable, and predictable.

For Hume, miracles aren’t impossible, but extremely unexpected. So unexpected that our previous experience with human fallibility is a much more likely explanation of a miracle than the miracle itself. It’s more likely that the person reporting the miracle is mistaken, deceived, or a deceiver than it is that the established and reliable patterns of the universe have been suspended and defied.

From Water to Bud Light

Let’s say I come to you and say that my spiritual guru once turned water into Bud Light. I saw this happen, and even recorded it on my phone. The Bud Light Guru shows a red solo cup filled with what looks like water, he places his hand over it, and then suddenly it’s the crisp American Light Champagne of Beers. In the video, I sip it, and confirm to the camera that it’s Bud Light.

We investigate the video footage and it’s clearly not doctored. Unfortunately, this guru died tragically of alcohol poisoning, and so we can’t challenge him directly; we can’t replicate the miracle.

What happened? What are we to make of this? Should you believe that I witnessed a miracle?

Hume would say no. Now, he doesn’t say that it’s impossible that a miracle happened. Maybe it did! In Of Miracles he even lists some parameters of whether a miracle is likely or worth investigating as valid (He uses an example of a random darkness independently attested across the world.).

Instead, Hume would say you’re well within your reason to deny that what happened is a miracle.

Why? Because we have thousands of years worth of experience that says that water does not turn into Bud light instantaneously. In the time that Bud Light and other alcoholic beverages owned by the Anheuser Busch beverage company have existed, we know of no instances of water being turned into one of those alcoholic beverages instantaneously in the manner shown in the video.²

Is it possible that the guru had magical powers or access to an advanced technology that can turn water into Bud Light? Certainly! But is it likely?

Hume would again say no. We have more evidence for human fallibility and deception than magic powers and futuristic technology available now. Even if you believe that I honestly believe that I witnessed someone turning water to Bud Light, we have abundant examples of humans believing false things, misremembering experiences, and deceiving themselves into thinking they perceived things that they didn’t. We also have abundant examples of supernatural hoaxers and religious con men. This is much better evidenced than the Bud Light Miracle.

Hume’s key insight on miracles is this: If you believe you perceived a miracle, no matter how convincing it is, it’s more probable that you’re being deceived (by yourself or the purported miracle worker). The reason why is because miracles are, by definition, extremely improbable, or else they wouldn’t be miracles. Human fallibility, on the other hand, is reasonably probable and perceptual error happens every day. What’s more, when it comes to supernatural experiences, especially to the extent such experiences have ever been investigated, those perceptual errors have been shown to be likely explanations for the perceived miracle.

The Miracle of Straw Naturalism

So what does this have to do with the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA)?

FTA proponents such as Robin Collins, Luke Barnes, and substack wunderkind Matthew Adelstein really like to hammer home how improbable it is that the universe could have happened by chance. I’m not going to repeat the specific arguments here because you’ve likely heard them before if you’ve read this far or have heard of the FTA.

The probability of the universe arising by chance on naturalism, on their account, is something like 1 in 10^120 or some ungodly number (pun 100% intended). They assert that this is based on the best physics and probability. So, even if you think that theism is an unlikely hypothesis, it’s a much better hypothesis than naturalism, and therefore, you should be a theist.

I think these arguments are wrong for various reasons, and I will talk about them in future posts. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the best science of probability and physics says that their argument is correct. I will call this position “straw naturalism” to avoid confusion.

If it is the case, as the straw naturalist position takes, that the universe came to be by chance on the magnitude of 1 in 10^120, that’s likely more improbable than any miracle ever purported in human history. I don’t think we have a sample size of any event occurring that many times to sample it. Throwing abstract concepts of infinity aside, the scale of the improbability of straw naturalism is probably more improbable than any hypothesis that isn’t conceptually impossible.

If there is any miracle, it is straw naturalism.

Rejecting A False Dichotomy

Because of this, FTA proponents assert that, in the spirit of rational decision-making, we should deny the straw naturalist position, and instead adopt the theistic hypothesis. Is this the correct course of action?

The Humean answer is no.³

Before we even consider the theist hypothesis, we have to ask ourselves the Humean question about the naturalist explanation: Is it more likely that the thing we perceive to have happened (the universe is existing) is the product of a miracle, or that our explanation is inadequate (that we are mistaken or deceived)?

The theist is jumping up and down now probably screaming Yes, that’s why you should accept theism! But again, this is wrong because it is a false dichotomy.

The FTA position is that we must accept the theist hypothesis by the sheer improbability of the naturalistic explanation, as informed by our best science. The problem with this is the likelihood that current scientific explanations are wrong in some way are much higher than a miracle on the order of straw naturalism.

It would be like going to the Bud Light Guru footage and proposing that the guru dropped the beer into the cup when he put his hand over it. Sure, that seems much more likely than a miracle, but upon examining the evidence, it doesn’t look like there’s anything that could do that in the guru’s hand.⁴ It was likely not a miracle, but the proposed candidate explanation doesn’t make much sense either. Just because it’s a better possible answer, doesn’t mean it’s the correct answer.

Put simply: We don’t need to accept the theistic candidate explanation just because the straw naturalist one is bad. In the specific case of the FTA, we are more likely to be mistaken about the scientific explanation than the miracle of it actually occurring.⁵

Objection: The Bud Light Guru Doesn’t Work

An objector would agree that there are better explanations to the Bud Light Miracle, but the problem is that, when it comes to Fine-Tuning, it is the naturalist who is proposing the miracle, not the theist. Therefore, the theist assumes the skeptical role in the Bud Light Guru thought experiment, and it is the atheist proposing the miracle as a candidate explanation.

On this point, I would half-agree! If the naturalist proposed luck as an explanation, they are basically proposing a miracle. But most naturalists don’t think the best explanation is luck either. I’ll elaborate more on this with my next post, but there’s an interesting poll of philosophers of physics. Most of them support the idea that universe is either a brute fact, the product of a multiverse, or not fine-tuned at all.⁶

This is why I’m calling this luck explanation “straw naturalism” - it doesn’t seem to be supported by anyone other than atheist content creators misunderstanding the anthropic argument and apologists trying to make a point about atheist stubbornness.⁷

The point of the Bud Light Guru thought experiment is that you’re better off assuming a better naturalistic explanation of a set of evidence than a naturalistic miracle.⁸ It’s not stubbornness, but humility in the face of human fallibility.

At the same time, the existence of a theory does not make it a better explanation than a miracle. On the surface, that explanation may be more probable, but upon further examination, it could also be miraculous or conceptually confused. Just because it’s more probable at first glance does not mean it’s true or a good theory, by any common definition of “good theory.”

Are The Goal Posts Moving?

I imagine if you’re a theist, you could say I’m being dense right now. It seems a little unfair to invoke skepticism just as it appears I’m about to lose. It’s like a kid playing tag and declaring a landmark right next to them as “base” just as they’re about to be tagged, or moving the goalposts, or playing tennis without the net, or whatever sports metaphor you want to use to express that I am changing the rules of the game, mid-game, to win.

My response is that I’m not doing that. I just reject that we only have two candidate explanations: straw naturalism and the vaguely-defined theism of the FTA proponents.

What’s more, rejecting straw naturalism is completely consistent with the naturalistic (or Humean) worldview. You don’t need to be extremely confident that our best scientific explanation is wrong. If there’s a 1% chance that another model may be developed where the plausibility of the universe only goes up 100 times (so still near miraculous), you’re justified in thinking straw naturalism is not a viable answer.⁹

That’s not a very high bar to clear, as I don’t think any good scientists are 100% certain that we won’t find some alternative, more plausible explanation for many things on the edge of our understanding. Mistaken theories are disproven throughout history.

What’s important to realize here is that the fine-tuned nature of our universe is more mysterious than most things in science. It’s not a cop out to say that our understanding is bad, and so we shouldn’t trust it at this juncture in time. There are very few things that are as inexplicable as our cosmic origins.

In this regard, I’m not rejecting the scientific method, but the adequacy of a “chance” explanation.¹⁰

The Humean Doesn’t Play The Theist’s Rigged Game

As I said before, the warrant of the FTA is that naturalistic explanations are miraculous, and so we should accept a specific alternative hypothesis, theism. There are many problems with this, that I won’t get into here (future post upcoming!), but I want to focus on one specific problem: Intention will always seem more likely than randomness if you allow it to be a possibility in your model

This was drawn to my attention at the controversial Adelstein-Dillahunty debate.¹¹ If you were to stumble upon an empty casino, look at the craps tables, and see two dice displaying 6 and 6, that has a 1/36 chance of happening by chance if someone rolled them, but close to 100% chance of happening if someone came over and set them that way intentionally. Put another way, if you roll the dice, that outcome has less than 3% chance of happening, but if you intentionally set the dice at that outcome, the chance is closer to 100%.

So which should you think happened? Per FTA proponents, intention must be everywhere, and so 100% is the better model. But a more measured response says that, with the data we have, we don’t know which explanation is better. The fact that intentionality makes one outcome close to 100% does not mean intentionality happened, just that postulating intentionality destroys probabilistic models as we’re using them in this context.

When explaining past events, intention-laced theistic hypotheses are unfalsifiable because you can make them fit the data at high probability. In this way, the Humean/naturalist is not rigging the game mid-game, so much as they are refusing to play a rigged game.

This conclusion may not be satisfactory for people who disagree with me. Perhaps it’s dogmatically naturalistic. I’ll talk about naturalistic dogma in my next post.

1. If you want to see me shoot from the hip, ranty, and unhinged, follow my notes!

2. Originally this example was about water to wine, but there obviously stories throughout history of this happening, and I wanted to steer away from that controversy for folks who may believe in that miracle to make this point.

3. I feel like you could make a meme of Hume that’s just his traditional portrait and “No.” I was too lazy to make this the feature photo of this post.

4. There’s a joke about Bud Light being watered down here, I’ll leave it to the reader

5. And indeed, this is part of the reason I’m skeptical of FTA proponents’ characterization of the science and probability.

6. Only 9% of respondents believe in a designer. Chance or luck isn’t even an option on the survey, but “other” was, and only 7% of respondents answered there. What’s interesting is that you can make a case that the design-accepters seem to self-select for being conservative Christians, as respondents have correlating beliefs on conservative social questions in this survey.

7. I’ll admit I’m not at the point where I can say I fully understand it yet, so much as I am pretty certain it’s misunderstood in pop-philosophy and pop-science.

8. Some would say that you should also have that assumption with supernatural miracles; I typically agree, but for the sake of conversation, I’m not going to assert that here.

9. I’m more than one percent confident that a future hypothesis or theory will show naturalistic explanations for our universe to be expected, even if unlikely.

10. As we’ll see in my next post, so do many scientists and philosophers of physics.

11. Controversial in the sense that both sides thought they “won” and overstate how well they did.