Miracles Flashcards
Realist views on miracles?
-They come about through the activity if God or if someone empowered by him.
-They are signs of the kingdom of God
-They are objectively true even though they are not fully understood
Miracle as an extraordinary coincidence of a beneficial nature (+ criticism) (Realist)
E.g explosion demolished the chapel in Nebraska:
- All 15 members were late for choir practice for different reasons
-they certainly would have died if they were on time
- this was seen as God at work
Criticism:
-Thousands of explosions take place every year and many people are killed and have major mental or physical injury, so why does God not save them?
Miracle as an event brought about by a spiritual power working through people (Realist)
- Jesus’ miracles as recorded in the Gospel.
-When shod worked through Moses to deliver the Israelites from slavery.
Miracles as a violation of natural law (Realist)
What most people think miracles are 3 aspects of it:
• It is something that happens when God’s intervention interferes with the normal workings of the laws of nature.
• It is an intentional act of God’s will.
• It has religious significance.
There are four issues with this approach:
• It encourages a ‘god of the gaps’ approach.
• Today’s science does not accept this concept of violation, since it sees the laws of nature as:
• descriptive, i.e. based on experience through observation
O probabilistic, i.c. showing what is likely to happen as opposed to
what will definitely happen.
O John Hick addresses this issue.
• If the concept of violation is accepted, then is it likely that the evidence to support the miracle will outweigh the mass of evidence supporting the natural law that is said to be breached?
O David Hume addresses this issue.
• If such intervention is an act of God’s will, why is there so much suffering?
o Maurice Wiles addresses this issue.
Anti-Realist Views
• Anti-realist views interpret everything supposedly supernatural as mental attitudes.
• They reject the concept of miracles as an activity by a supernatural being, whether that be within nature or a violation of its laws.
• A miracle is something that transforms people or creates positive feelings.
Miracles as sign events (Tillich) (Anti-Realist)
- A miracle is a subjective experience, cantering on the individual experiencing it and his/her reaction to it. Others may observe the same thing but not see it as a miracle
•It is something that is amazing though it does not breach natural laws
•It points to the mystery of being that is at heart of individual experience
•It is a symbol within a religious experience
Miracles are ‘experiencing as’ (Hick) (Anti-Realist)
-Miracles are natural events that have religious significance e.g the 10 plagues.
•If an event seems to breach a law of nature then it is not because of supernatural intervention.
•Natural laws are simply our retrospective generalisations that encompass human observation and experience.
•If an event seems inexplicable, that is because our scientific knowledge is limited: there will be natural explanation
Miracles are remarkable (Holland) (Anti-Realist)
• The classic example of this is that of the child who runs his toy car onto the railway track, where it gets stuck, at the same time as a train is coming along the line.
• The fact that the driver faints, thus activating the ‘dead man’s handle’ and causing an emergency stop, is seen by the mother as a miracle, even though she knows that there is a natural cause.
O She sees it as God responding to human need.
• For Holland, miracles have three aspects:
O They are natural occurrences.
O They are beneficial in nature.
O They have religious significance.
Two of the issues with Holland’s view, as with all anti-realist understandings of a miracle, are:
• It is very subjective.
• Whether or not an event is a miracle is dependent on how an individual interprets it.
O A negative interpretation, such as an atheist would give, is as likely to be the right one as a positive interpretation.
• There is no question of saying that one view is right and the other wrong.
It reduces God to the interpretation and understanding of human minds.
Humes views on Miracles
Hume’s thoughts have their basis in empiricism: human knowledge is derived from sense experience.
• We cannot know if an event was due to a deity because any deity is
‘hidden’ and unobservable.
• Hume accepted the possibility of new and extraordinary events, but they are not miraculous.
• Hume followed the inductive approach.
• Whereas effects can be verified, causes cannot.
O Everything therefore is about probability, not certainty.
• Hume’s argument is based on the consistency of human sense experience.
O Although unusual, it is not a miracle if an apparently healthy man
dies suddenly.
• If a dead man actually came back to life, that would be a miracle as it runs counter to universal sense experience.
• In thinking about the term ‘miracle’, Hume adopts a realist standpoint.
He assumes that religious believers’ claims are regarded as factual and literally true.
• There are three aspects to Hume’s definition of the term ‘miracle:
O It violates the laws of nature.
O It is willed by God.
• It may be performed by some other spiritual agent.
Key quotation of Hume on miracles
‘A wise man proportions his belief to evidence’
Hines arguments against miracles:
Hume’s main argument arises out of his definition of miracle and is rooted in empiricism.
• The validity of witness evidence about anything is dependent on evidence.
• The more unlikely the claim, the more reliable the evidence needs to be.
• An event that violates the laws of nature is maximally improbable.
• Therefore, the likelihood that the witnesses are lying or mistaken is always greater than the likelihood that a miracle has happened.
Hume then gives four supporting arguments:
• There has never been one single miracle supported by witnesses possessing the attributes required for their claims to be taken seriously.
• People (even normally sensible ones) are taken in by claims of miracles because humans are credulous by nature.
• Miracle stories are the products of primitive superstitions. They come from ‘ignorant and barbarous peoples’.
• The different religions all lay claim to miracles.
In Hume’s view, it is a miracle that anyone can believe that miracles happen!
The significance of Humes views in relation to religious belief
• It is an inductive argument, so can neither definitively prove nor disprove the existence of miracles.
• Ir is possible to construct a theistic argument along the lines of Hume’s and conclude logically that miracles probably do happen.
• Hume’s four arguments supporting his main argument are not particularly strong and can all be challenged with supporting evidence.
• Hume’s concluding statement that Christianity is founded on faith and not reason makes an important point: the pre-scientific nature of biblical as well as of early and mediaeval writing needs to be taken into account.
Wiles views on miracles
• Wiles takes an anti-realist approach to miracles: they are to be interpreted as symbols.
• The only miracle was that of creation.
O God’s creation was good so there was no need for further intervention.
O God put the laws of nature into place, which meant that miraculous events would have to be rare as otherwise humans could not rely on those laws.
• The interventionist understanding of God is unacceptable.
o It implies a selective God who chooses to help some and not others.
• This issue is intensified by the fact that so many reported miracles seem trivial (e.g. the one recorded at the wedding in Cana) yet there was no miraculous deliverance from the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
O That would not be a God worthy of worship.
• It makes the problem of evil unsolvable.
• It is impossible to know what actually happened in relation to the miracles recorded of Jesus.
• The strength of the tradition suggests that he was a powerful exorcist and healer.
O His refusal to perform signs to prove his Messianic status suggests that whatever he did was in the nature of a sign of the coming of God’s Kingdom and the victory over Satan.
• The biblical accounts are to be taken as myths to point to the nature of God and the importance of obedience.
The significance of Wiles’ views in relation to religious belief
• Wiles’ views make the challenges of Hume irrelevant.
• In his writings. Wiles gives a more holistic view of God’s activity as opposed to a view that limits him to occasional intervention. This is closer to the view of Aquinas, who saw miracles as part of Gods continual work in mature, sustaining the world.
• Wiles’ claim that the act of creation was the sole miracle has led to claims that he was deist rather than a theist.
• Against this, Wiles claimed that God was at work in the world, actively sustaining it (though not through miraculous interventions).
Humes and Wiles: A comparison
