Hume and Wiles on Miracles Flashcards
what is the argument from miracles
- there have been miracles
- if there have been miracles, God exists
- God exists
Humes realist understanding and rejection of miracles
- realist understanding accurately captured the theological belief in miracles held by Christians
- argued we are never justified in believing miracles happened
–> first premise of argument from m invalid
hume’s empiricist reasoning for not believing in miracles
- beliefs should be based on evidence and experience
- we understand the laws of nature through this experience
- Hume believes a miracle is ‘a violation of the law of nature’
- miracles can happen but they are unlikely as there is not enough evidence to accept miracles happen
- we can doubt the testimony of a miracle happening for three reasons
Humes three reasons for doubting the testimony of a miracle
‘A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence’
1. miracles are rare and thus belief that a miracle has occurred is more likely mistaken than not
2. miracle stories tend to come from ignorant and barborous nations rather than people from good sense and enducation
3. humans have a tendency to believe wonderous things without justification
Hume’s argument from evidence and probability
Probability of miracle
- we cannot break a law of nature
- the law of nature should be trusted more than a miracle occurring
- this is because witnesses cannot be trusted and it is unlikely/rare that a miracle happened
- it most probable that laws were broken –> ‘reject the greater miracle’
- for a miracle to be accepted, the testimony has to be more likely than an accepted law of nature
Responses to Hume’s argument on the prob of a miracle
- swinburne: Hume should consider physical traces of a miracle as proof
- miracles could be justified through evidence, like the natural laws are
- eg scientific evidence of medical miracles
- lourdes and the catholic church –> 70 known healing - Unempirical nature of the argument
- we would reject all new evidence if it contradicted natural laws, even if it might be true
- knowledge would never progress
- we also could not improve our understanding of the laws of nature if we reject any contrary new evidence
Hume on the low quality of testimony for miracles
- no miracle witnessed by people of a good sense, education, integrity and reputation
- miracle stories come from ignorant and barbarous nations
- miracles found in civilised nations are due to inheritance from ignorant and barbarous ancestors
- people are less inclined to let these go as they cling to the saftey of miracles –> they comfort them in uncertainty
- any miracles can be explained by drugs, mental illness, alcohol, lack of sleep etc
- ’ the passion of surprise and wonder, arising from miracles, being an agreebale emotion, give a sensible tendency towards the belief of those events’
- ‘if the spirit of religion join itself to the love of wonder, there is an end of common sense’
- testimony loses ‘all pretensions to authority’
Response to Humes argument on the quality of testimonies
Swinburne: argued the principle of testimony and credulity
- should not dissmiss evidence for a miracle until given a legitimate reason not to
- naturalistic explanations are included in ‘special considerations’ in which a miracle can be dismissed
Hume’s Multiple claims argument
- conflicting claims of religions makes us conclude that none are true –> Exclusivist
- full testimony of miracles is a conflicting testimony from different religions and we have no basis to decide which testimony is more accurate
- testimony is not a valid way of justifying miracle belief
- testimony for miracles ‘destroys itself’
Responses to Hume’s multiple claims argument
Pluralism:
- religions are different cultural manifestations of the divine, and are all true
- Hick and James
- Hick: world religions are blind men touching different parts of an elephant
Swinburne:
- do they really contradict
- Jesus miracles vs his role as a prophet
BUT
- Jesus as a prophet cannot be the son of God who was resurrected
- St Paul: ‘If christ is not raised, your faith is pointless’
- key points of religions contradict and cannot coexist
Can you be a christian and deny the existence of miracles
- Jesus’ incarnation is the ultimate intervention of God
- resurrection = triumph over death
- this is the crux of Christianity
- miracles demonstrate God’s nature –> omnipotence
Why does wiles say that miracles cannot occur
- They are theologically inconsistent –> invoke LPOE and EPOE
- how can an OP, OB God only intervene in an arbitrary and partisan way
- ‘the primary usage for the idea of divine action should be in relation to the world as a whole, rather than to particular occurrences within it’
wiles against miracles
- Believes god is deistic: his only act of intervention was creation
- if not god does is partisan and arbritary in his miracles
- miracles have not taken place at times of great human tragedies and miracles that have occured are trivial in comparison (eg water into wine)
- it is either God does not actually intervene or only intervenes in arbitrary situations, making him not OB (this is not the christian God)
- A god who acts so selectively is not worthy of worship –> debases the notion of God himself
God as arbitrary and partisan
not worthy of worship due to these qualities
- God chooses how to perform miracles not based on reason (arbitrary)
- God is biased and not OB (partisan)
wiles as an anti realist
- says miracles in the bible are symbolic stories
- conveying theological truths about God –> not literal truths
- creation is the only true miracle –> ‘ the world as a whole is a single act of God’
- thought of as a deist: belief in a creator that has no more interaction with the world (cause in fieri)
- he would assert that he is a theist
