Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

42 Theism and Explanation
action of an agent (4.3.3.1). It follows that the proposed explanation must
give him suffi cient reason to accept it. So, at least on a realist construal of
theistic explanations, the theist faces a double burden. In offering a theistic
explanation, she must both posit the existence of an unobservable agent
and show that the explanandum is best understood as the work of that
agent. And this means that there must be something about the event to be
explained that would be less puzzling if it were described as an intentional
action. I shall try to sharpen up what this means later (4.3.3).
This double burden certainly makes the theist’s task more diffi cult. Does
it make it impossible? In principle, no. As Richard Swinburne argues, we
can at least conceive of explanations that are parallel to that offered by the
theist, in which we posit both the existence and the activity of an agent.
Swinburne’s favoured example is that of a hypothetical poltergeist.
It is possible that we might fi nd certain otherwise inexplicable phenomena
that could be explained by the action of a non-embodied agent,
such as a ghost or poltergeist. The phenomena to be explained may be
that books, chairs, inkwells, etc. start fl ying about my room. We postulate
a poltergeist P with certain intentions, beliefs, and powers to be
responsible. Clearly we have to suppose P to be very unlike other rational
agents known to us both in his powers and in his ways of acquiring
beliefs. . . . But we can suppose P to have beliefs infl uenced as are ours
by how things are, and to have intentions of the kind that we have . . .
For example, we can suppose P to have previously been a certain embodied
person who had been greatly injured by X and who had greatly
loved Y, X and Y being still alive . . . The supposition will be rendered
probable if it has high explanatory power. It would have this, for example,
if the books, chairs, inkwells, etc. hit X, or form themselves into
words that warn Y of impending danger; and so on. We would expect
this kind of thing to happen if P is as we have supposed, far more than
we would ordinarily expect it to happen. 36
Swinburne is surely right. If the objects do not fl y around at random, but
are clearly directed towards X, and particularly if they were to spell out
a message, it might be reasonable to explain this by positing the existence
and action of an unobservable agent. There are, of course, alternative,
natural explanations, such as the existence of some kind of elaborate
hoax, using technology with which we are currently unfamiliar. But let’s
assume that we have somehow excluded this possibility. (Swinburne’s scenario
becomes less likely if we impose this condition, but it is still not
inconceivable.) We can imagine circumstances in which we are forced
to posit both the existence and the action of an (unembodied) agent to
explain such an event.
Note that Swinburne’s example illustrates another feature of proposed
theistic explanations. It is that in offering such an explanation, we do not