Can Logic Prove the Supernatural?

Overview: Our brains and all its reasoning are confined to the limits of nature; so how can it go out of its own box to prove the supernatural, such as the existence of God?

It is often said that logic itself proves that supernatural is pretty much impossible. All things observed in the past have always been naturally explained and all fit within that nature’s physical framework. This would make the chances of explaining an observation such as the Mass Revelation at Sinai and the abnormal survival and existence of the Jewish people throughout their exile as supernatural occurrences to be statistically improbable. If everything fitted within the specific framework of physical nature, making an exception wouldn’t be logical. How, then, can we claim that logic tells us that the only explanation for the Sinai Revelation and the phenomena of Jewish history is that it was supernatural?

However, this claim is easily refuted. It is the customary practice in the scientific community to replace previous theories based on a new observation. However, if the previous logic was to be employed, how then can one single observation replace a previously-thought theory that all the previous observations fit into it? So obviously this claim holds no credibility. But why not?

Arguing with the new observation is stupid. It was vividly observed and we are sure it exists. Now that we know that it exists, we realize that it is clearly different than the previous observations and is clearly an exception or out of the norm. It is an undeniable fact. So, this observation that we clearly saw knocks out any previous theory that was based on previous observations and the modified or new theory takes hold. That is because seeing is more convincing than logic. For example, logic may tell us that it should be impossible for there to be a world with life and people because all other planets in the trillions of galaxies have not been found with life or humans. But we obviously do believe that earth is a major exception to this rule. Why? Because it is seen.

Sometimes we replace the previously-existing theory with an updated modified or new one. And sometimes we find an explanation that suits just this observation and categorizes it as an exception. In our case of the Revelation at Sinai and the phenomena of Jewish history, we had to categorize it as an exception due to the lack of any other possibility or explanation put forward.

Some skeptics will now modify their claim in result of the answer just given. Yes, science often does change their previous theories based on a single new observation, but that is only done to a new theory that is also within a specific framework—nature’s physicality. All modifications and replacement-theories have been within a specific framework (i.e. nature), so explaining the Revelation at Sinai and the Jewish history phenomena that goes way beyond this framework (i.e. supernatural) is statistically improbable. In other words, the rule of modifications seems to be that it as well must be within the natural physical framework. So how can we claim that supernatural exists?

In this modified claim of theirs, the skeptics were compelled to succeed that indeed changes to our previous understanding may be done, yet for some reason they set a limit for how novel the new explanation may be. That limit was nature’s box. That’s where they go wrong. We have just finished proving how we cannot set boundaries and limits to new possibilities based on previous understandings bur rather we allow for changes that are novel to our previous understandings. So too here, just because all previous occurrences, including modifications, were done within a specific framework, that doesn’t make this an inherit boundary that may not be crossed.

In fact, because the Covenant phenomenon (one of the reasons for belief in Judaism, discussed here) is so rare and clearly exceptional to previous observations, including novel observations (which required revolutionary changes in a specific science filed), therefore it is absolutely allowed to be an exception to other explanations that are always within nature. For example, the observations of Dark Matter and Quantum Mechanics were clearly distinctive and different than all previous observations, yet no one will delegitimize its existence based on this logic. We will merely broaden our understanding of nature.^[1]

So now, after the observation of Jewish history and the Covenant phenomenon, we are compelled to expand our understanding of nature even further. This framework of nature is going to allow the possibility for the outside force, the Creator of this nature, to do a miracle once in a while. Although it is novel to the usual flow of nature, so is Dark Matter and Quantum Mechanics. It was seen, so no logic will undermine it, as explained earlier. Yes of course an extraordinary claim (such as the existence of supernatural) requires extraordinary evidence, but that evidence is there—it was seen.