Miracles Flashcards
Realist
A violation of natural law by a divine being
anti- realist
a natural event (though often an improbable one) that makes a person aware of God
Aquinas on miracles
realist who believes in miracles
God makes the natural laws but does not need to follow them.
A king makes rules for the land, but doesn’t need to follow them and can change them at any time
David Hume on miracles
Realist who does not believe miracles are real
miracles are not necessarily impossible, but there will always be evidence that outweighs over evidence for.
Only stupid people believe in miracles
Miracles are not necessarily impossible, they just cannot be justified
Wiles on miracles
he is an anti realist who does believe in miracles
God only did one miracle- creation
Wiles is a deist. he says God cannot be interventionist because he cannot be all loving- amount of suffering in the world.
John Chapter 4
Jesus says, “if you do not see signs and wonders, you will not believe”
Hume’s quote
“No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle”
Ockham’s Razor
“one should not multiply entities unnecessarily”
he is saying the simplest solution is always best
Challenges to miracles
-Hume-smart people never record miracles
-Miracles are an emotive reaction because people want to believe they are true
- religious people may lie about them if it draws non-believers closer to God
Wiles problem with an interventionist God
if God intervenes, he cannot be loving as he is picking and choosing what suffering to intervene with.
Wiles is a deist who believers the only miracle was creation
Challenge to Hume
he only speaks of recorded miracles, he completely disregards personal experiences of them
if Hume experienced a miracle, would he believe it, or say he’s uneducated?
Swinburne’s principle of credulity:
1) we normally believe our experiences
2) we normally believe other peoples experiences
there is no reason to treat miracles any differently
response to “people are inclined to believe miracles because they want to”
sceptics have a strong emotional bias to not believe them too. everyone has this-bliks
god could’ve given them the bias to give them a revelation
Swinburne says emotional bias does not invalidate testimony
Challenge to “only educated people report miracles”
this is circular, Hume has defined “educated” as “would never report a miracle”
there is no instance where someone recording a miracle would have enough education to be credible
