comparing hume & wiles

Question 1

HUME
knowledge is based on experience

Answer 1

• Hume takes empiricist view that knowledge derives from sense experience
• more evidence we have for any event the higher the probability -> fundamental to science
• Hume assumes religion based on factual claims and doctrines that for believers are literally true

Question 2

HUME
definition/understanding of miracle

Answer 2

• Hume points out that people who went against what people normally expect are miracles - hence why he defines miracles as ‘a violation of LON’
• more evidence, higher certainty

Question 3

“a transgression of a LON”

Answer 3

• a miracle is a transgression (violation) of a law of nature - would not be appropriate to call a psychological experience a miracle whilst may be ‘marvellous’ can’t be miraculous
• a miracle has been willed by the deity (God) : only a God would have power to bring such an event

Question 4

HUME
his inductive argument against miracles

Answer 4

1) witness testimony has to become more reliable in direct proportion to improbability of what witness claims to have observed, more improbable the claim, more reliable the witness needs to be
2) most improbable event would be violating LON as evidence on which law is based must contradict claim that miracle has happened
3) by definition, reported event is maximally improbable
4) probability witness is lying greater than probability of miracle

Question 5

HUME
supporting argument from Psychology

Answer 5

• humans are naturally credulous, feeling of surprise from miracles is enough to make those of common sense less than sensible , a religious person may know the story of the miracle they’re telling is false but will persevere with it as believe it to be holy (more he magnifies, more they believe)
• miracle stories debunked by conflicting miracle claims among diff religions with each claiming ‘their’ miracles were performed by their God so each claim cancels out another

Question 6

HUME
evaluation

Answer 6

:( account of miracles is inductive : suggested his argument as close to ‘proof’ as we can get but inductive arguments aren’t ‘proofs’ as deal with probabilities. Science can’t say things will never happen but are just highly improbable
:( psychological argument isn’t strong : his claim that there’s no properly attested miracles by menof sufficient good sense seems to be contradicted by his own comments about Roman historian Tacitus who reported on miracles done by Emperor Vespasian so surely he meets all of Hume’s requirements for reliable testimony
:) critique on miracles : impossible to ignore Hume’s definition even when rejected and at end of argument says “[the Christian] religions founded on faith not on reason” perhaps making it ill-equipped to deal with a reasoned challenge. when reading miracles in bible, paints portrait of world very diff to present and written in a way that contradicts each other and reason suggests Hume’s overall judgement on miracles are closer to truth

Question 7

WILES
wiles critique

Answer 7

• if god worked like this it would be immoral : if we think of God as sometimes using miracles to help people whole idea of miracles becomes ‘not merely implausible… but religiously unsatisfactory in view of their apparently occasional & highly selective character’ by this, Wiles means that miracles happen very infrequently so God would appear to carefully select whose healed and ignored
• problem of evil : Wiles refers with approval to writings of Hebblethwaite who says “the direct intervention of God… have disastrous implications for our understanding of POE’, not just a q of why God doesn’t intervene to save people more often it’s much more important for us to insist God doesn’t intervene this way at all
• there is one divine action, creation : rather than seeing miracles IN the world, we should see creation of world itself is the one & only miracle

Question 8

hume & wiles comparison

Answer 8

HUME : athiest (assumes no God able to violate natural laws)
WILES : Christian (assumes there’s a God choosing not to intervene)
HUME : realist (assumes accounts of miracles are literal descriptions of [false] facts)
WILES : anti-realist (uses biblical criticism to point out much of text isn’t scientific/literal but symbolic)
HUME : unless miracle is at least event so unexpected/unexplained it appears to violate LON seems little point calling it miracle
WILES : what counts as miracle is matter of personal interpretations as is a symbol not matter of physical fact