I Wonder

My friend Bruce over at his blog, Three Jews, Four Opinions, has a piece called "Miracles and Modernity and Purim." I'm not sure if I get his point.

He agrees that modernity has been tough on religion, showing a lot of traditional beliefs don't comport with our objective understanding of the world. So far, so good. All religions today have to deal with this, even if they do so by ignoring the problem.

Bruce sees a way out of this dilemma which he believes still allows us to hold our head high:

Objective science explains scientific matters, but it does not explain how we experience the world. [...] Scientific reductionism explains empirical facts (and does so spectacularly), but it cannot explain our own experience of reality.

This shift of focus—from an objective description of reality to our own experience of reality—may make many religious ideas more compatible with our modern (or post-modern) sensibilities.

First, I think the best you can say is science doesn't yet fully explain our subjective feelings. I'm not sure where this gets us. Does that mean we give up trying to understand them?

In any case, this seems at best a god of the gaps argument. Bruce appears to be counseling a retreat into subjectivity, since religion (in his eyes, and mine) gets beaten badly when it takes on science over contrary objective views. But even if science can't explain something, I don't see how not understanding that thing, or for that matter, feeling that thing, brings us closer to any religion. We all have feelings, but why woudn't we say "wow, it's amazing how the natural world supplies us with these awesome emotions"?

He goes on, to talk about "miracles":

Instead, I prefer to focus on our experience of miracles, rather than the objective nature of miracles. At some point, we have all experienced something resembling a miracle: an odds-defying rescue from danger, a coincidence bring good fortune, some unexplained good news. Regardless of our objective explanation for this—coincidence, supernatural intervention, karma, whatever—we all experience it in similar ways.

This is a seriously watered down version of miracles. I think coincidence is the right word. As we go through our lives, we know statisically it is certain that, on a regular basis, we will encounter highly unlikley situations. In every round of bridge I play, the odds of getting that particular hand at that moment is minuscule. (I think the number is over 6 billion to one, but my math may be shaky.) But I'm not shocked when I look at my cards, because I understand that's how the world works.

However, we can retreat into subjectivity and choose to feel we've just been through something powerful, and then even call it a miracle. Or we may just feel we've been through something powerful (you can't argue with feelings) and then, even though it happens to billions (as Bruce admits), go on to say it's a miracle.

(By the way, for a guy who's into subjectivity, he sure is confident in saying we objectively experience it in similar ways.)

Just to clarify: I am neither affirming nor denying that the objective cause of miracles is supernatural forces. I am simply avoiding the question and focusing on something I think it more important and certainly more immediate. [...]

In short, a miracle is whatever causes the things we experience as a miracle. I do not care much for the metaphysical question of what that thing is objectively.

I don't think this will do. Bruce may feel deeply moved by something, as we are all are deeply moved by various experiences. But being moved is not a miracle, and saying it is won't make it so.

We can use the circular argument that miracles are whatever we choose to call miracles, but what good does that do us? Are we going to then order the world to our liking, and say some particular religion (or religion in general) is true because that's the way we'd like it? (Which leads to lines like "Is not the miracle of the juniper bushes enough?") Religions ultimately make objective claims--perhaps claims we can't prove or disprove, but they're not based on whether or not we feel they're true, or want them to be true.

Bruce and I agree on one thing. There's a lot we don't understand. It's mindboggling how little we know. Whether that means there are real miracles out there, I'm open to discuss. But I think Bruce wants to pull us up into his world by miraculous bootstraps.