Chapter 16: In the Belly of a Whale

Positivism is layout as the main reason many people reject miracles today. Hume's classic argument is laid out :

1. A miracle is a violation of known laws.
2. We know these laws through repeated and constant experience.
3. The testimony of those who report miracles contradicts the operations of known scientific laws.
4. Therefore, we should reject all miracle claims.

D'Souza shows, using Hume's other writings, that this of course is a fallacious argument. For one, scientific laws can be misrepresenting reality. Scientific laws are inductively known, but can not be proved. Second, you can not know how many trials it takes to establish a law as true, you can only say it is reliable.

After dismantling this argument, D'Souza should how logical positivism is invalid, because it fails to pass its own test of being either 1) verified by evidence or 2) analytically true. It is in a different category than either of these truth claims and therefore is self-refuting.