Very interesting review up at Notre Dame Philosophical reviews regarding an analytic philosopher investigating the problems of belief in spirits and other such entities. The book is "God and Other Spirits: Intimations of Transcendence in Christian Experience" by Phillip Wiebe. For obvious reasons the topic is relevant to Mormons, since we take the reality of angelic visits as rather foundational to our faith. While I suspect most of us are familiar with it, the review mentions in passing the problem with Hume's argument against miracles (and miraculous visitations).
Hume argues that whenever we read or hear an account of a supposed miracle, we must always weigh the likelihood that the testimony which we have read or heard is reliable, and not based on hallucinations, exaggerations or outright dishonesty, against whatever evidence we have supporting our beliefs concerning whatever law of nature has supposedly been broken by the alleged miraculous occurrence. Hume then argues that the latter is almost surely bound to outweigh the former, so that belief in miracles is never justified. Many philosophers have weighed in either for or against Hume's position here, but it is in any case clear that many philosophers have not been dissuaded by Hume's argument from taking the possibility of miracles seriously. This might very well be because his argument applies only to those who must base their belief in miracles on testimony. It does not apply directly to those who believe that they themselves have witnessed a miracle. The latter might question their own sanity, and wonder if they might be hallucinating, but if they can satisfy themselves that neither of these hypotheses are true, they must then simply weigh the "testimony" of their own senses against their belief in the relevant law(s) of nature, which is based on inductive inference from sensory experiences that are then to be regarded as no more reliable than the experience in question.
What is the main thesis of the book?
. . . once we have eliminated the admittedly many bogus claims concerning encounters with spirits and demons, those that remain deserve to be taken seriously. In particular, he believes that belief in the existence of spirits can best be justified as an abductive inference proffered to explain these experiences, and compares this inference to the one Wilfrid Sellars uses to justify our belief in mental states. Although he does not say so explicitly, it would seem that he might think that we might be justified in postulating the existence of spirits to explain these experiences in much the same way we are justified in postulating the existence of electrons, which we cannot literally sense, to explain various physical and chemical phenomena. In other words, to oversimplify somewhat dramatically, we are justified in believing in the existence of spirits for the same reason we are justified in believing in the existence of such theoretical entities as electrons. Believing in these things enables us to understand and explain experiences which would otherwise be unexplained.
Of interest to Mormons is what the author (not the reviewer) concludes regarding materialism.
We do not need to follow Smart in defining God and other spirits as nonmaterial and incorporeal and so heighten the prospect of having to endorse dualism. Instead, we can characterize these transcendent beings by the causal roles they are assigned in explanations and tentatively advance a plurality of entities and beings whose precise characteristics we will probably never know completely.
Very, very interesting-- thanks for the cite. I've wondered myself about what it would take to shake me from my non-belief: if, for example, an angel were to appear to me, I'd be much more inclined to believe that I was hallucinating than that there was actually a spirit being. If an angel were to appear to me and several others simultaneously, I'd assume that someone was having us on, and that it was an elaborate practical joke. I have trouble imagining the kind of direct experience that would cause me to jump across the Humean gap. Or, put in the terms of this article, I can't imagine a situation where the existence of spirits would be the most parsimonious abductive inference.
How does this look from the other side, that is to say, to believers? Can you imagine some kind of evidence that could cause you to no longer believe some article of faith? What would this evidence have to look like?
That latter question is interesting. I think Mormonism, more so than other religions, is falsifiable in a Popperian sense. (Not that I agree with falsification in the fashion Popper did) Consider the claim of the Book of Mormon being translated from real plates about a real American people. Now if one were to find say fake plates that could conclusively be tied to Joseph Smith, that would invalidate things.
Of course the history of criticism against Mormons is really a debate over just such falsification. However thus far the arguments all have crucial flaws. i.e. the translation of the Book of Abraham with the original being a Book of Breathings. (A bunch of "spells" and other sayings used in funerary settings) Anti-Mormons see that as falsifying Mormon claims. Of course logically it at best would falsify a few claims and then provide an abductive argument for the rest. However apologists have counter arguments regarding the size of the text, missing documents, and so forth that keep it from being an outright falsification. (Note to critics. I'm not interested in a debate about the Book of Abraham here - the point is the principle of falsification)
Likewise with the Book of Mormon there are attempts at falsification. Claims about absent entities like horses or swords are at best arguments from silence and there are varying levels of counterarguments for these. Likewise with DNA arguments. But that at best falsifies a naive belief by some Mormons regarding the Book of Mormon - a belief most intellectual Mormons have been saying was false for decades. (The idea that all native Americans were descendent from the peoples talked of by the Book of Mormon - such a belief is impossible to line up with the text and seems a questionable belief at best)
The critic, of course, will say that Mormons simply are coming up with more and more unlikely hypothesis to avoid the strength of the argument. Sort of your point regarding coming up with alternative hypothesis were an angel to appear to you. That is, of course, one of the classic problems with Popperian falsification as I think Kuhn pointed out.
In practice though I think falsification might happen, but it can't be decided purely logically. For instance you might think were an angel to appear (or even something less dramatic) that you'd explain it away. Yet when you actually had the experience you might behave quite differently. (I tend to think that belief isn't under direct volition, so I don't think we can logically decide what to believe)
Likewise there are Mormons who've read argument that to me are amazingly weak, like the recent DNA argument, but that to them falsifies their belief.
If instead of talking about what does affect our belief to what ought affect ones belief we still have problem. After all the problem of induction and abduction usually is resolved by making the decision of justification one in terms of all ones evidence. But that would include all ones experiences and beliefs. Not only is that impossible, in practice, to determine. But it seems to make the very analysis problematic.
All of this get back to that earlier question about someone meeting God and God not fitting their "definition" of God. Now I find that problematic. But the basic idea is there. If even meeting God can't logically decide the issue, what is one left with?
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