This post may be more confusing than some of my previous posts. Since I have more pressing matters to attend to, I'm going to blaze through this to get my ideas down in a way that makes sense to me. In the future I hope to come back and phrase this in a way that is more reader friendly.
Perhaps one of the closer to home applications of Willmsian Possibility (see http://honestsearchfortruth.blogspot.com/2011/12/is-it-possible-for-universe-to-not.html and http://honestsearchfortruth.blogspot.com/2012/01/everything-is-possible-almost.html for an explanation of Willmsian Possibility) has to do with the possibility of miracles.
Many atheist thinkers over the centuries have contended that miracles are impossible, and therefore the New Testament accounts cannot be historical. Possibly the most stalwart supporter of this belief was the philosopher David Hume.
In this post I will demonstrate that based upon Willmsian Possibility that miracles are possible, and then refocus the question of 'are miracles possible' to the more accurate question of 'miracles are possible, but how likely are they and under what circumstances might they occur?'
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If you have read the previous two posts on this subject, this may seem a bit redundant, but I will restate the essential portions of this philosophy anyway.
Premise: If God exists, miracles are possible.
Conclusion: Since it is possible for God to exist, it is possible for miracles to happen.
So, since it is possible for God to exist, it is possible that it is possible for miracles to happen.
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Consider a few examples that are a bit less confusing.
Premise: If the Los Alamos Honey Badgers are a NFL football team, it is possible for them to win the superbowl.
Conclusion: Since it is possible for the Honey Badgers to be an NFL football team, it is possible for them to win the super bowl.
Notice that I'm not saying that the Honey Badgers actually are a football team- I'm just saying that it is possible for them to be one. Therefore, it is possible that it is possible for the Honey Badgers to win the superbowl.
What we would need to do next to find out if the Honey Badgers could win the superbowl is find some evidence to see whether or not they are a football team. In this case, there is no evidence that such a team exists, and so we would conclude that they are not a team and therefore will not win the superbowl.
And now to apply the analogy to miracles and rephrase the age old question of whether or not miracles are possible. Hume would say "miracles are impossible, therefore the New Testament accounts cannot possibly be accurate." This is entirely the wrong way of going about things. Miracles are possible if God exists, and the probability of God existing is not 0%. Since we have already thrown out the proposition that miracles are impossible, we come into the real issue- probabilities, and the real question- 'does God exist?'
Keep in mind that even though something is possible, it may not be probable, and it may never actually take place. For example, it is possible for me to become a quarterback on an NFL football team, but is that likely? No. In addition, let's just go ahead and say that it will never happen. But even though it never happens, it is still possible for me to become an NFL quarterback.
So to refocus: miracles are dependent on God's existence, not the other way around. In order to find out what the probability of miracles occurring is, we have to know what the probability of God existing is. In order to find out if God exists, we have to spend a lot of time examining lots of evidence.
Looks likes its time to go look at some evidence for/against God's existence.
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