million different names that could have appeared in that story. After all, if the reporter
was going to make a mistake about who won, there are at least 100 million different ways
he could make it. (He might even name someone who had not entered the lottery at all.)
The fact is that the news story involves two events, each of which, taken
end p.316
separately, is immensely improbable. In fact, they have the very same immense
improbability. But taken together they support each other in such a way as to generate a
substantial positive probability. If Henry is actually the winner, then it is probable that he
will be named as such in the story, and if he is not the real winner, then it is fantastically
improbable that he would be the one mistakenly identified in the paper. Therefore, his
being identified as the winner makes it probable that he is really the winner.
Of course, these probabilities might not be the last word. If we had some positive reason
to think that Henry was not the winner, then that might override the force of the
testimony, and leave us doubting Henry's claim to fame. Or we might have additional
reasons to believe that Henry was the winner, thus further strengthening his case. But
what the Lottery Surprise shows is that there is nothing incredible, or even unusual, in the
power of a single testimony to reverse an enormous initial improbability.
Perhaps, then, we should consider whether we have any positive reason for thinking that
miracles in general, or any particular alleged miracle, are improbable. Of course, almost
every aficionado of miracles will hold that they are improbable in the same sense in
which quintuplets are improbable. That is, miracles are supposed to be rare, and so it is
improbable that a randomly selected event will turn out to be a miracle. But that is just
the kind of case to which the Lottery Surprise applies, the kind of case in which a single
testimony can effect a startling reversal of probabilities. Is there any other way in which
miracles are improbable?
Well, let us try a particular case. More than once Hume mentions “a dead man restored to
life” as a clear example of a miracle. Probably he picked this example because of the
prominence in the Christian faith of the claim that Jesus Christ was resurrected a few
days after his death. So let us take that claim to be the one for which we want to make a
probability assignment.
(J) Jesus of Nazareth was restored to life within a week or less of his death.
And now, what is the probability of (J)?
No doubt, different people will give different answers to that question. I already believe
that this event actually did happen, and so I am inclined to say that the probability of (J)
is very high. Some other people may be strongly convinced that this event never
happened, and so they may well say that the probability of (J) is very low. Still other
people might be puzzled and not have a ready answer at hand.
Probably these differences reflect differences in the background information, or supposed
information, that we bring to the question. And of course, people differ widely in that
respect. Is there any way we can go beyond or beneath these differences and identify
some more fundamental basis on which to make a prob
end p.317