Tag Archives: extraordinary evidence

General Apologetics, Miracles, Resurrection, Skeptics

Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence? Part 4

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In this fourth post of the series, we will examine a final reason why the maxim that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence fails as a paradigm for determining  burden of proof.  Mike Licona argues that even if we accept this maxim at face value, it still has intractable problems.

Let us suppose that I am mistaken on the above and that the maxim remains that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  We are challenged to define when the evidence may be said to be “extraordinary.”  This, of course, is a subjective endeavor, since what is extraordinary for one may not be enough for another.

Given the subjective nature of determining what constitutes extraordinary evidence, is there any way to make it more objective for historical hypotheses?  Licona thinks so: 

I would like to suggest that, given the paucity of data that often plagues many historical hypotheses, when a hypothesis fulfills all five criteria for the best explanation and outdistances competing hypotheses by a significant margin, that hypothesis may be said to have extraordinary evidence supporting it.

I would also like to call attention to the fact that the requirement for extraordinary evidence cuts both ways.  If a historian proposes a natural theory such as group hallucinations in order to account for the reports of the postresurrection appearances of Jesus to groups, he will be required to present a case for the possibility of group hallucinations.  Since modern psychology generally regards group hallucinations as highly improbable if not impossible, the assertion that group hallucinations account for the postresurrection appearances is an extraordinary claim and thus requires extraordinary evidence.

Anti-supernaturalist skeptics cannot wield the “extraordinary evidence” maxim as a weapon only against miracle claims, because to do so means abandoning historical methodology and instead, doing metaphysics.

Nontheist historians are not licensed to claim that a hypothesis that is terribly ad hoc or that strains the data beyond what it can bear should be preferred over a hypothesis with a supernatural element that meets every claim to historicity.  And those who feel compelled to do so indirectly admit the strength of the data in favor of a miracle.

The nontheist historian may reply that miracles are more unlikely than very rare natural occurrences and thus require a greater burden of proof than an unlikely hypothesis that accounts for the same data.  Accordingly any hypothesis involving an explanation, no matter how improbable or poorly evidenced, should be preferred over a hypothesis involving a miracle. . . . But how does the nontheist historian  know this?  Testimonies of God’s intervention in history occur with every claim to answered prayer.  Although many claims of God’s intervention could in reality be coincidence, many claims of coincidence could in reality be God’s intervention.  This is not to suggest that historians should assign a supernatural explanation when a natural one is available that is at least equally plausible.  I am instead challenging the notion that the historian’s default position is that we live in a world where God does not intervene.

In summary, Licona argues that even if we do require extraordinary evidence for a historical event, we should adhere to a historical methodology which follows the evidence to the best explanation.  Ruling out miracle accounts a priori is not part of historical methodology; it is just a failure to leave one’s metaphysical biases aside and conduct a truly objective investigation of the evidence.

General Apologetics, Skeptics

Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence? Part 3

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 2 of this series, we started discussing Mike Licona’s analysis of Sagan’s Saw, as he calls it.  Licona offered two examples of his wife coming home from the grocery store and telling him about people she met there.  We saw that even if she told him about the extraordinary event of meeting the president of the United States, he would not require extraordinary evidence to believe her.

But how would he react if his wife told him about meeting a person that he doubts even exists?

Now let us suppose that my wife returns from the grocery store and tells me she saw and spoke with an alien.  In this instance, I have a serious tension between the evidence, which may be good, and my understanding of reality.  Should I reject the evidence or adjust my understanding of reality?

Let us also suppose that my neighbor then telephones and provides a report similar to my wife’s.  I then turn on the television and observe a number of reports of alien sightings presently taking place around the world.  If I am satisfied that the sources are credible and I am secure in my understanding of authorial intent, I may still pause, since I presently regard the existence of aliens as dubious.  But I should then reexamine my reasons for believing in the nonexistence of aliens in light of the evidence before me that they do. Perhaps I would be less hasty to reject all of the reports of alien sightings.  I should not require extraordinary evidence but additional evidence that addresses my present understanding of reality or my horizon, which may be handicapped and in need of revision.

Licona’s worldview is such that he doubts that aliens exist, but he must look more critically at that worldview given the evidence that aliens do exist.  Perhaps his worldview is wrong and it needs to be revised.  Licona argues that

The worldview of one historian does not place a greater burden on the shoulders of others.  It is the responsibility of the historian to consider what the evidence would look like if she were not wearing her metaphysical bias like a pair of sunglasses that shade the world.  It is not the responsibility of the evidence to shine so brightly that they render such glasses ineffectual.

With regard to miracle accounts,

If the evidence for the occurrence of a particular miracle is strong—that is, the historian can establish that the authorial intent of the sources is to report what was perceived as a miracle, the event occurred in a context that was charged with religious significance, the report possesses traits that favor the historicity of the event and no plausible naturalistic theories exist—then a requirement for extraordinary evidence is unwarranted.

Some historians may require additional evidence supporting supernaturalism before believing since the event is foreign to their present [worldview], but no greater burden of proof is required for a miracle-claim.  There is a difference between demonstrating the historical superiority of a hypothesis and convincing a particular historian to give up a deeply held view.

Licona summarizes:

[Sagan’s saw] fails since only additional evidence is required and that by certain historians for whom the conclusion challenges their horizon.  We observed that the evidence is not responsible for satisfying the biases of the historian; rather, the historian is responsible for setting aside his biases and considering the evidence.

In an extended footnote, Licona also looks at why Sagan’s Saw would fail even if we accepted its truth.  We will cover that material in part 4 of the series.

General Apologetics, Skeptics

Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1 of this series, we looked at William Lane Craig’s response to the skeptical maxim, “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence.”  Now we will review Mike Licona’s response from his book The Resurrection of Jesus. 

Licona reminds us that this was a statement that atheist astronomer Carl Sagan used to frequently utter.  He calls it Sagan’s Saw.  How does Sagan’s Saw stand up as a paradigm for determining the burden of proof?  Licona first looks at landing on the moon.

Landing on the moon in July 1969 was an extraordinary event.  It was extremely difficult and had never occurred previously.  Yet most people believed the reports when they watched astronauts walking on the moon on their televisions, a medium that often distorts truths and presents untruths, legends and fictions.

The moon events were extraordinary.  The reports were believed because they were thought to be credible and the authorial intent to communicate the event as it occurred was known.  In neither case was extraordinary evidence required.

Licona continues by hypothesizing his wife coming home and telling him about people she met at the grocery store.  Should Licona believe his wife?

Let us suppose that my wife returns from the grocery store and tells me that she saw and spoke with our next-door neighbor while there.  Although it is possible she is mistaken, because I know her to be an intelligent and credible witness I have every reason to believe her report without hesitation. 

Now let us suppose that when she returns from the grocery store, she tells me instead that she saw and spoke with the president of the United  States.  I may think this far out of the ordinary.   However, if after questioning her further I can have confidence that she is not joking, or put another way, if I am confident that I understand her authorial intent as being truthful, I would accept her report—and drive to the grocery store with the hopes of having a similar experience, provided that I like the incumbent president.

Her claim that she spoke with the president of the United States in the grocery story is extraordinary in a sense, whereas her claim that she spoke with our next-door neighbor is not.  The former may give me pause.  Yet I am satisfied because of my confidence that the source is credible and that its authorial intent is to describe an actual event accurately.  I would not require extraordinary evidence or even evidence in addition to her report before believing that she spoke with the president of the United States in the grocery store.  Instead, I am interested in the credibility of the report and the authorial intent.

Even though Licona’s wife meeting the president at the grocery store is extraordinary, he does not require extraordinary evidence.  He simply believes his wife’s testimony because he understands her intention to describe the event accurately. 

Stories about the next-door neighbor and the president are one thing, but what would happen if Licona’s wife told him about speaking to a person that he doubts even exists, a meeting that, in his mind, is even more extraordinary than the president?  We’ll continue to analyze Licona’s reasoning in the next part of the series.

General Apologetics, Skeptics

Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”  I cannot count how many times skeptics of Christianity have trotted out this statement when conversing with me, usually in the context of Jesus’s miracles and resurrection.

There are many possible responses to this statement, but in this four-part series of posts, I want to present responses from William Lane Craig and Mike Licona.  First, William Lane Craig.

This sounds so commonsensical, doesn’t it?  But in fact it is demonstrably false.  Probability theorists studying what sort of evidence it would take to establish a highly improbable event came to realize that if you just weigh the improbability of the event against the reliability of the testimony, we’d have to be sceptical of many commonly accepted claims.

Rather what’s crucial is the probability that we should have the evidence we do if the extraordinary event had not occurred.  This can easily offset any improbability of the event itself.  In the case of the resurrection of Jesus, for example, this means that we must also ask, “What is the probability of the facts of the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection, if the resurrection had not occurred?”  It is highly, highly, highly, improbable that we should have that evidence if the resurrection had not occurred.

Let me restate Craig’s claim here.  He is basically saying that if we actually employed this criteria across the board, we would have to rule out all kinds of claims that we all believe are true.  Extraordinary and improbable events happen all the time, and we usually do not have extraordinary evidence for these events.

A simple example is Alexander the Great’s extraordinary conquests.  Everyone agrees it happened, but we have no documentation of it until centuries after it occurred.  Is documentation hundreds of years afterward enough to know what happened?  Most people seem to think so.  Is this level of documentation extraordinary?  It doesn’t seem particularly extraordinary.  So should we say Alexander’s conquests never happened?  Obviously not, so that means this criteria is far too restrictive, and is, therefore, not useful.

The better question to ask is this: “Given the evidence for an extraordinary event, what is the probability we would have that evidence if the event had not occurred?”

We will next look at Mike Licona’s detailed analysis of this skeptical maxim.  Stay here!