Miracles Flashcards
What are the ideas of realism?
-Scientific theories give us true or approximately true descriptions of the world.
-The world is mind-independent, meaning it exists the way it is regardless of what we think.
-They see miracles as real events brought about by God or someone empowered by God.
Define anti-realism
-Deny that we can have knowledge of a mind-independent world, since the phenomena observed by our senses are interpreted by the mind.
-Miracle can be something that uplifts the spirit, or transforms a community, not something that actually happens (symbolic).
-A religious person will interpret it as religious due to their psychological makeup.
Realist view on miracles
-See miracles as real events in the world, brought about by a transcendent being: a God who is personal, can answer prayer, and who acts in the world for a purpose, as part of his care for the world he created.
-Want witnesses and facts from the event but argue they are real events.
Examples of miracles for realists
Juliane Koepcke’s 1971 survival of a plane crash and free fall over the Peruvian rainforest.
1950 Nebraska church choir incident.
Problems with describing real events in the world as miracles.
Example of plane crash.
-Why does God choose when to/when not to intervene? E.g the other 91 passengers who died in the 1971 plane crash.
-Hume’s argument that miracles are violations of natural laws.
Hume’s 5 main points on miracles
1) “A wise man proportions his belief to evidence”. A wise man considers which side is supported by the most evidence (proportionality principle).
2) We must choose the lesser miracle, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. In order for a miracle to be true, denial of the miracle would have to be more miraculous than its acceptance.
3) With all claims of miracles made, there is inadequate witness testimony. Witnesses must be well-educated, intelligent, have a reputation to lose, and there must be “sufficient number”.
5) Most miracles are unreliable as they are made by poor, uneducated fishermen and peasants.
6) Miracles in other religions cancel eachother out. Instead of picking just one to belief in, we should deny them all.
What does Hume believe about miracles?
-Argued a miracle is a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition [an act of will] by the Deity (God) - or by the interposition [intervention] of some invisible agent.
-We establish cause and effect relationships based on our experience of the world which leads us to making predictions about what will happen in similar cases in the future.
Whata re Hume’s 4 practical reasons for why miracles are impossible?
- Witnesses – miracles generally do not have many sane and educated witnesses
- Psychology – we have a natural interest in the unusual and religious people exploit this. Religious people know that the stories they recount are false but continue to spread them as a good cause
- Barbarous people – miracles are usually reported by people of ‘ignorant and barbarous’ nations. Such occurrences do not seem to happen with such regularity in modern times
- Different religions – almost all religions have miracle stories however, they cannot all be right. Therefore, their different testimonies would cancel each other out.
What are objections to Hume?
-Something can’t break the laws of nature because they simply tell us what we have observed about the world, they don’t predict it.
-His practical arguments are sweeping generalisations.
-Swinburne notes that testimonies are not the only form of evidence – what about physical evidence such as dry clothes, no boat or bridge – all signs maybe pointing to someone walking on water.
How does Flew respond to Hume?
-Accepts Hume is technically correct that miracles cannot be proved and agrees the wise man should go with the evidence and reject miracles.
-Argues that we do not have direct experience of miracles – we have to rely on indirect accounts passed on from others.
How does Swinburne respond to Hume?
-Defends miracles but argues that it is important to know what the laws of nature are as he contended that they weren’t necessarily fixed truths.
-“One must distinguish between a formula being a law and a formula being (universally) true, being a law which holds without exception”
-Perhaps God can suspend laws on occasions in the way that a parent sometimes relaxes the boundaries they give to their children
-If God is benevolent, he would want to interact with his creation and may do so via occasional miracles
What is the problem with defining miracles as violating natural laws?
-Not accepted by science
-Natural laws are seen as descriptive/probalistic (don’t dictate what must happen, instead they summarise what has been found to happen).
-Hick argued that if there appears to be an acception to a law or nature, then the law simply expands to include the exception.
-If God can intervene miraculously, there should not be evil and suffering
Anti-realist view on miracles
-The concept of miracles is subjective and dependent on individual or cultural beliefs, rather than being a objective occurrence in the external world.
-Miracles are seen as interpretations shaped by personal/cultural factors.
-May be seen as something that lifts the spirit or transforms a community of people.
-Tillich, Ward and Holland
Wiles on miracles
Quote
-He argues that the Universe is part of a single, ongoing act of creation by God but denies God the ability to intervene specifically in the world.
-The laws of nature remain intact and the miracle is in the mind, because otherwise we could not lead normal lives.
-Wiles sees Biblical accounts of miracles such as resurrection as having important symbolic value as they teach believers about God’s nature.
-God would not be worthy of worship if he COULD intervene but failed to do so in cases like the Holocaust, the Rwanda and Kosovo massacres, or earthquakes.
-There has only been one miracle, the creation of the Earth.
“It would seem strange that no miraculous intervention prevented Auschwitz or Hiroshima”.
Objections to Wiles.
-We cannot make God conform to human rationality as God acts in ways beyond our human reasoning. God’s actions would never conform to human understanding.
-God cannot even be limited to what is rationally possible and his purposes remain beyond our human understanding.
-His beliefs do not accord with traditional teachings about God by stating that believers have misunderstood miracles for almost 2000 years.
Strengths of Wiles.
-It allows theists to reinterpret prayer as not something which wills God to act but which allows an individual to connect to God
-It may solve the problem of evil as God does not intervene because he cannot OR because he is bound by the laws of nature
-Appeals to educated believers as it allows believe in God and the upholding of scientific laws
Holland on miracles
-Anti-realist
-Miracles are not supernatural
-An event is a miracle if a person interprets it as being God’s doing and it belongs to a form of life to which an individual subscribes.
What is Holland’s stroty/miracle?
-Child playing in toy car and stops on a train track.
-Train is coming along the track but manages to come to a stop just before hitting the child.
-Mother believes it’s a miracle.
Tillich on miracles
-Anti-realist
-Sees God as ‘Being-itself’
-Miracles are ‘sign-events’ that cannot be divorced from their religious context
-“An even which is astonishing…an event which points to the mystery of being…a sign-event in an ecstatic experience” (Tillich)
John Polkinghorne on miracles.
-All science can tell us is that a given event is against normal experience but is cannot completely disprove its occurrence.
-The laws of nature do not change yet the consequences of these laws can change when one moves into a ‘new regime’.
-The consequences may change when God begins to deal with humans in a new way and Jesus’ resurrection is crucial as it brings a new age of God’s dealing with people.
Aquinas on miracles
Miracles are “that which has a divine cause, not that whose cause a human person fails to understand”.
Significance of miracles for religion
-Christianity is founded on a miracle (Jesus’ resurrection).
-“If Christ was not raised, then faith is futile” (Paul’s Gospel)
-God intervenes as a demonstration of power and love.
-Some argue miracles are the act of an omnibenevolent, omnipotent and transcendent God (realist).
-Others argue miracles are ‘sign-events’.
