No I dont think it is.
What you call evidence and what I call evidence are two different things. Unexplained is not evidence for the supernatural. It is just unexplained. Nothing more.
My logical reason is something unexplained, is just unexplained, it is not in any way evidence for the supernatural. Not so long ago, lunar and solar eclipses were unexplained. For some this was evidence of the gods emotions - now we know better. So it is perfectly logical to me to see the something unexplained and say, thats unexplained. Not, that is evidence for the supernatural.
Someone commented the Church has never come down one way or the other, and is rightly cautious. I agree. Imagine the credibility dent if the Church declared the Shroud a miraculous item, only for in 10 years time for us to be able to raitonally explain it and duplicate it over and over.
I think it’s perfectly rational so we shall have to charitably disagree.
Sarah x
The Catholic Church has a higher standard for saying that something is an article of faith than that is a miracle. Something can be proof of existence of the supernatural without being the work of a loving God. That would be called Occultism. In addition, there is something called “necessary and sufficient”, which means the minimum that one needs to believe something. Further evidence is superogatory. The Catholic Church has said that belief in these miracles is not necessary for faith so it doesn’t have the responsibility to rule on them.
The only logical reason that you have given so far that this evidence does not constitute proof of the existence of the supernatural is an appeal to analogy.
A is like B.
B has property P.
Therefore, A has property P.
A: Guadalupe, Kibeho, and/or Lanciano are evidence of the supernatural is like B; solar and lunar eclipses are evidence of God’s emotions
B has property P. P: Those beliefs were false.
Therefore, A has property B. someone, somewhere, sometime will explain this so that we will all agree that this miracle does not violate the laws of nature.
Appeal to analogy is a logical fallacy (and thus irrational) when the evidence that A is like B is weak.
The evidence that a is like b is weak. The beliefs that solar and lunar eclipses are evidence of God’s emotions are not like the belief that the existence of people in the eyes of a photographic image of the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe is evidence of the supernatural. There is no natural reason why identifiable people are painted in the eyes of a cloth so small with the materials that existed in the 1500s. We know enough about the laws of nature regarding the composition of paint and the materials existing in the 1500s to know that it requires a supernatural reason for this sort of painting to take place. On the other hand, it is much more difficult to know what the laws of nature are for things that take place outside of our planet such as solar and lunar eclipses since they are so far away and, most importantly, are not subject to experimental control. That’s why Einstein was considered brilliant. Given how difficult it is to know something about what happens outside our planet due to our inability to travel and to figure something out about gravity given our inability to even see it, his theory or relativity - even if now proven wrong - was amazing simply because it concerned things that are hard to understand.
So in the case of concluding that a lunar eclipse was evidence of God’s emotions, the people in question were arguing for a violation of the laws of nature on a subject matter for which they had very little knowledge of the laws of nature to begin with. In the case of Guadalupe, we are arguing for a violation of the laws of nature in a subject where we have immense knowledge of the laws of nature. So the two cases are not similar enough for reasoning by analogy to be rational.
As for Einstein, right now, there is evidence that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity has been proven to be wrong. Scientists have believed it to be true for the past 100 years and based their theories on the laws of gravity. Its what GPS are based on. Right now, evidence exists that it is not true and it is throwing the scientific world into doubt. Apparently, Einstein’s theory that nothing travels faster than the speed of light is in doubt because neutrinos have been shown to travel 60s faster than the speed of light.
economist.com/node/21531006 However, now there is evidence that this seems to be false as a general law. Generally speaking, it is easier to prove something false than true as you need one and only one counterexample to prove something false while the standards of a proof that something is true are higher. That’s why atheism is irrational and requires faith.
