Stand to Reason answers this challenge in a podcast.
I think more can be said.
One
approach I might take is to start with calling out the protagonist's philosophical
position: she is clearly a naturalist and has an apriori commitment to
not only the doctrines of naturalism, but its prejudices too.
So
I could start her on defending her naturalism on naturalist grounds (JP Moreland has some good videos on this, and another)
then run to a critique of Hume's view of miracles, by asking 'what do you think a miracle is?' I might bring in Arthur Clarke's 'third law', below.
Alternatively,
I could say, 'so I guess you'd not read Caesar's Gallic Wars either.
They contain things that we know are wrong, and not just what we
prejudicially opine so'.
Not only does the
Gallic Wars contain the passage below, but often refers to pagan
practices such as checking the auspices before planning a battle. On her
grounds we wouldn't read it.
But then I could
add that there's a big difference between the unusual events in the NT
and pagan stories: in the NT they have a point, they are mentioned
without the fanfare of the pagans, and are stated in observer terms, and
so convinced those present that they sacrificed their lives to talk
about them.
From Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Book 6, paragraph 27, written about 53BC
There are also creatures called elks. These resemble goats in their shape and dappled skins, but are slightly larger and have only stumpy horns. Their legs have no joints or knuckles, and they do not lie down to rest; if they fall down by accident, they cannot get up or even raise themselves. When they want to sleep they use trees; they support themselves against these, and in this way, by leaning over just a little, they get some rest. When hunters have noticed their tracks and so discovered their usual retreats, they undermine the roots of all the trees in that area, or cut the trunks nearly through so that they only look as if they were still standing firm. When the creatures lean against them as usual, their weight is too much for the weakened trunks; the trees fall down and the elks with them.
In
1962, in his book “Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits
of the Possible”, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated his
famous Three Laws, of which the third law is the best-known and most
widely cited: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”
Thus,
I could relate this to my friend and suggest that because she cannot
understand an event's causal process, doesn't mean that it could not
happen. Clarke seems to think that any sufficiently advanced technology
looks just like 'magic' in his words, but 'miracle' in mine. So the
basis of your criticism seems to be perhaps a personal limitation rather
than an inherent problem in the facts.
If the input space included a will that was not constrained by the matter that it had initially created, there is no problem.
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