Bill Dembski

Freedom, Technology, Education

Freedom, Technology, Education
Only the educated are free — Epictetus

The Faces of Miracles — Chapter 9

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Eric Metaxas and the face of miracles next door

British writer and Christian apologist G. K. Chesterton contrasted those who accept miracles with those who reject them: “The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them.” To Chesterton the evidence in favor of miracles was overwhelming. “There is a choking cataract of human testimony in favor of the supernatural,” he continued. “If you reject it, you can only mean one of two things. You reject the peasant’s story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story… It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence — it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence, being constrained to do so by your creed.”[1]

Chesterton’s point is one we’ve seen already in this book: For people who presuppose that there are no miracles, nothing they see or hear will convince them otherwise, however many credible reports of miracles, past and present, may confront them. But what about people whose mind is not made up one way or the other about miracles? What sort of evidence would convince someone with an open mind? Best-selling author Eric Metaxas wrote Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life with such an audience in mind. With no prejudice against miracles, the best proof of miracles is miracles themselves.

In collecting examples of miraculous events, Metaxas focused on those from people he knew personally and stories that were thoroughly documented. He writes, “The wealth of the miracle stories I was able to find within a fairly close circle of friends makes one wonder how many other stories are out there among my friends, and yours. I vetted these stories and all their details as carefully as possible. It was vital to me to get as much specificity as I could, and anything that did not seem clearly to be a miracle, I simply did not include.”[2] [Read more…] about The Faces of Miracles — Chapter 9

The Faces of Miracles — A Serialized eBook by Bill Dembski and Alex Thomas

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The Faces of Miracles is an eBook written by Bill Dembski and Alex Thomas. It will be presented on this blog, BillDembski.com, as time permits. My hope is that the full draft will be available here by the end of 2020 (Covid and a move to Texas have slowed down the pace at which chapters are released).

Table of Contents

0 Introduction [below, posted 11/4/19]
1 Christopher Gunderson: The Face of Documented Medical Miracles [posted 11/11/19]
2 Benny Hinn: The Face of High-Octane Faith Healers [posted 11/27/19]
3 Thurman Scrivner: The Face of Bible Extremism [posted 12/4/2019]
4 Eben Alexander: The Face of Near-Death Experiences [posted 12/15/2019]
5 William Nolen: The Face of Medical Scrutiny [posted 1/6/2020]
6 James Randi: The Face of Expert Skeptics [posted 1/22/2020]
7 André Kole: The Face of Professional Stage Magicians [posted 3/2/2020]
8 Danila Castelli: The Face of Healing Shrines [posted 4/7/2020]
9 Eric Metaxas: The Face of Miracles Next Door [posted 9/29/2020]
10 Matt Stanford: The Face of Faith-Science Integration
11 Hank Hanegraaff: The Face of Careful Bible Reading
12 Joni Eareckson Tada: The Face of Patient Endurance
13 John MacArthur: The Face of Cessationism
14 Craig Keener: The Face of Overwhelming Evidence
15 C.S. Lewis: The Face of Christian Apologetics
16 Epilogue
A1 Appendix 1: What People Believe
A2 Appendix 2: Miracle Survey
A3 Appendix 3: Hume and Spinoza

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Introduction

Most books on miracles reach one of three conclusions: Miracles happen. Miracles don’t happen. Miracles can’t happen.

This book takes a different tack. Rather than settle the existence or nonexistence of miracles, we ask why we’re talking about miracles in the first place. Why do we make such a big deal about them? What makes them an endless topic of debate? If miracles do indeed happen, why isn’t the evidence for them more convincing and obvious? If miracles don’t happen, why isn’t their absence equally convincing and obvious?

Miracles are neither like horses nor like unicorns. Horses have made themselves so clearly evident that no one can deny their existence. Unicorns have hidden themselves so well that no one is justified asserting their existence. Miracles occupy a middle ground that gives reasons to think that they exist but also raises doubts to question whether they exist.

Miracles cannot be dismissed as the ravings of an unhinged or uneducated or unscientific fringe. Many normal, feet-on-the-ground, well-informed people believe that they or their loved ones have personally experienced a miracle, that they have good reasons for believing in miracles, and that miracles play an important role in the world.

As just one of countless examples, take Nobel laureate writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s description of his cure from cancer while a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag:

In autumn 1953 it looked very much as though I had only a few months to live. In December the doctors—comrades in exile—confirmed that I had only three weeks left… I did not die, however. With a hopelessly neglected and acutely malignant tumor, this was a divine miracle. I could see no other explanation. Since then, all the life that has been given back to me has not been mine in the full sense: it is built around a purpose. [Solzhenitsyn 1975, pp. 3-4]

Solzhenitsyn lived another fifty-five years. [Read more…] about The Faces of Miracles — A Serialized eBook by Bill Dembski and Alex Thomas

Maxwell’s Angel — New Talk by Paul Ashby

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My friend and colleague Paul D. Ashby, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, recently gave the following talk on behalf of the C.S. Lewis Society of California:

In this new video, Dr. Ashby uses information theory to show that Darwinian materialism cannot explain the development or existence of life and that intelligent design is essential. As he notes:

“The phenomenal efficiency of molecular machines doing the work of cellular function has captured the imagination of scientists from earliest times that our most powerful microscopes could explain them. Whether they are using fuel to power the chemical reactions in the cell or making an organism move, molecular machines work more efficiently than any man-made machine. And thermodynamics is the investigation into the interplay of these different forms of energy both at the macroscale and down to molecular interactions.

“In this video, Dr. Paul D. Ashby argues that the field of thermodynamics needs to move into the information age to understand how design is essential for creating more efficient machines like those in the cell. Building from the simple analogy to steam engines, he walks the viewer through some principles of thermodynamics and uses the classic thought experiment of “Maxwell’s Demon” to show that information is as essential as energy to the creation of useful work. He continues with a description of a few of the enzymes involved in metabolism and the high levels of design required for their function. Lastly, he addresses the inability of an unguided natural process such as Darwinian evolution to generate the design found in nature.”

The Making of the Fastest Baseball Pitcher Ever: An Incremental and Integrative Hypothesis

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On September 22, 2020, Influence Publishers is releasing my biography, coauthored with Alex Thomas and Brian Vikander, of baseball pitcher Steve Dalkowski. The book is available at Amazon. There’s also a book website: DalkoBook.com. The piece below by my coauthors and me is a more video-friendly version of an “extra” on the DalkoBook.com website titled “Unraveling Steve Dalkowski’s 110 MPH Fastball.”

Steve Dalkowski (1939 — 2020), active as a professional baseball player in the late 1950s and early 1960s, is widely regarded as the fastest pitcher ever. Because of control problems, walking as many as he struck out, Dalkowski never quite made it to the majors, though he got close. Instead, Dalkowski spent his entire professional career confined to the minor leagues. Yet players who did make it to the majors batted against him and saw him pitch. Baseball players, coaches, and managers as diverse as Ted Williams, Earl Weaver, “Sudden” Sam McDowell, Harry Brecheen, Billy De Mars, and Cal Ripken Sr. all witnessed Dalko pitch, and all of them left convinced that none was faster, not even close.

The current official record for the fastest pitch, through PITCHf/x, belongs to Aroldis Chapman, who in 2010 was clocked at 105.1 mph. Previously, the official record belonged to Joel Zumaya, which stood at 104.8 mph and was reached in 2006. The fastest unofficial pitch, in the sense that it was unconfirmed by present technology, but still can be reliably attributed, belongs to Nolan Ryan. In 1974 Ryan was clocked with radar technology available at the time, placing one of his fastballs at over 101 mph at 10 feet from the plate. Extrapolating backward to the point of release, which is what current PITCHf/x technology does, it’s estimated that Ryan’s pitch was above 108 mph. Ryan’s 1974 pitch is thus the fastest unofficial, albeit reliably measured and recorded, pitch ever.

Aroldis Chapman’s fastest pitch (see 25 second mark):

Nolan Ryan’s fastest pitch (from MLB documentary FASTBALL):

So the challenge, in establishing that Dalkowski was the fastest pitcher ever, is to make a case that his pitching velocity reached at least 110 mph. To be sure, a mythology has emerged surrounding Dalkowski, suggesting that he attained speeds of 120 mph or even better. That may be, but for our present purposes, we want simply to make the case that he could have done as good or better than 110 mph. [Read more…] about The Making of the Fastest Baseball Pitcher Ever: An Incremental and Integrative Hypothesis

Thomas Reid Lectures on Natural Theology — New Edition

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An excellent new edition of Thomas Reid’s Lectures on Natural Theology has just been released, edited by my two good friends James Barham and Jake Akins. The editors draw valuable connections between Reid’s lectures and the current understanding of intelligent design. These lectures are available on Amazon. Here is the introduction:

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INTRODUCTION

Keith Lehrer begins his intellectual biography of Thomas Reid by asking “How great a philosopher is Reid?” In answer, Lehrer relates the following story concerning his doctoral supervisor Roderick Chisholm:

When Chisholm was a department chairperson at Brown [University] he received a telephone call from a man saying that he was a busy man but had time to read one serious book in philosophy and wanted to do so. He said that he was not interested in entertainment but simply wanted to read a book with a greater amount of truth than any alternative. Chisholm, wishing to reflect on the matter, said the man should call back the next day, and he would give him his advice. The next day Chidholm recommended that the caller study Reid. It was a sound judgement.[1]

The editors of this edition of Reid’s Lectures on Natural Theology not only agree but also see in these lectures a timely contribution to ongoing philosophical discussions. [Read more…] about Thomas Reid Lectures on Natural Theology — New Edition