But Hume and Ehrmann are using it as I am. They are not using it to refer to mundane, merely statistically improbable events such as winning the lottery.
Actually, that’s how Hume is regarded as using it, to refer to statistic improbability, which he claims to base largely on prior experience.
More to the point, I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what it is that you and I seem to disagree and what we actually disagree on, because I read alot of what you say and it sounds fine, then I read others and it seems contradictory to what I think. This is the best sense I can make of it.
The question we are trying to figure out is “how to we know that an event, which it is extraordinarily improbable would occur, has in fact occurred?” The skeptic, with Hume and Ehrman, will say “Extraordinarily events require extraordinary evidence,” so in order to believe that an extraordinarily improbable event has occurred, you will require extraordinary evidence. More still, some events are so improbable (miracles) that no evidence can suffice to give us warrant to believe them.
So phrased this is clearly false. Even if I grant that the event in question is extraordinarily improbable, I may still believe it without extraordinary evidence. For example a lottery number, 452312224319 is drawn and reported on the news as the winning number. Now this number being drawn is a highly improbable event. Odds that it would be drawn are about 1/70 million. Yet, when the number is reported as the winning number on the evening news, I rationally believe that it is the winning number. This is because, as probability theorists like Mills have shown, you don’t only take into account the probability of the event in isolation, but the
probability that the evidence would be what it is, if the event did not occur.
Now some skeptics on this thread have tried to get around this by claiming that the lottery is not an extraordinarily improbable event because it happens every day. This is true, but not relevant. The event under consideration is not a number is general being drawn, but a specific number, 452312224319, being drawn, which is highly improbable. The mere fact that
a number is drawn, does not make it likely that this number would be drawn. So it remains true that we rationally believe in an extraordinarily improbable event, without extraordinary evidence.
To state again: the central question is “how to we
know that an event, that it is extraordinarily improbable would occur, has occurred?”
- Now reading over your posts, I think we agree that that the fact that a specific number was drawn, does not make it probable that it would be drawn. It is still highly improbable that that event would have occurred. So the question is, how can we know it, if it is an extraordinarily improbable event (I gave the answer to this above)?
- Now if there is sufficient evidence, you may say that it is probable that that number was drawn. If we understand each other at last, here is our difficulty. You are using the term “probable” to describe the our conclusion that the event did occur on the basis of the evidence. I am using the term (as the skeptic is using it) to refer to the probability of the event occurring given only our background knowledge (before considering the evidence). I am criticizing the skeptic for only taking the probability of the event in this sense into account, but he should also consider the probability that the evidence would be what it is if the event did not occur.
- replying to skeptic like that, I assumed you were using it in the same sense they were. Now, you are right, that if the evidence indicates the resurrection happened, then we speak of it as probable that it happened. But this is irrelevant to the skeptic claim that EEREE. For example, you could not refute his claim that the Ress is an extraordinary event and EEREE by saying "well the Ress. happened, so it is actually not improbable at all. This is because we are concerned with an epistemological question, “how do we know it happened”
Nobody at this point in history is trying to assess the antecedent probability of Jesus rising from the dead.
So actually, I do think you are wrong here. The skeptic, by claiming EEREE is claiming that the antecedent probability of the Ress. is so extraordinarily high, that extraordinary evidence (and according to Hume, no evidence would be enough) would be needed to establish it. So the skeptic by using EEREE is basing his refusal to believe the Ress. on the supposedly high antecedent improbability of Jesus rising.
This claim is flawed because he has no basis for it. That laws of nature show dead men don’t naturally rise, is irrelevant to the claim that God supernaturally raised Jesus. but my point is that even if the antecedent probability of the event of the resurrection is high, we can still believe it without extraordinarily evidence because we also take into account the probability that the evidence would be what it is, if the event did not occur.
I believe, however, that if you stick with it with an open mind, you will likely come to see the soundess of my refutation of your refutation. We shall see…
