Miracles Flashcards
What is realism
True descriptions of the world
The world is as it is regardless of how I think/feel about it.
What is a realists view on miracles
Telling you something that has happened in the world.
Often implies a supernatural cause that is God.
Natural law as descriptive
It is is descriptive not prescriptive - it describes what has happened so far, not what will always happen.
Hume says a miracle is something that breaks laws of science - and is therefore impossible as nothing can do so.
For example, Jesus walking in water, either; we were wrong about the law, there is an unknown factor, the natural law needs to be adapted.
Hick also said scientific laws cannot be violated, only revised.
Violation miracles are impossible
“It is logically impossible that truly anomalous events could occur”
Example of realist miracles
West Side Baptist Church
- explosion demolished the church
- choir was supposed to be practicing there
- all of them were late for completely separate reasons and so didn’t die.
What is anti-realism
We cannot have knowledge of an entirely objective world, we experience everything through our own interpretation.
What is a miracle to an anti-realist
Something that lifts the spirit or transforms how you seem the world around you
Tillichs view on miracles
God is ‘being itelf’
A miracle must not break the structure of reality and point to the mystery of a being.
They allow the self to re-establish their inner relations with themselves
What is RF Holland’s view on miracles
There is nothing miraculous about coincidences, except the way they are interpreted.
Example:
- boy is playing in a railways
- train is coming and it’s impossible for it to stop in time when it sees
- the train breaks and stops before hitting the boy
- the driver fainted and applied to breaks, nothing supernatural.
- the mother interprets this religiously and thanks god
- she interprets what happened as a response to human needs.
Explain Hume and testimony
He said the only possible evidence for miracles is testimony and this is unlikely to be true.
- Testimony has to be more reliable in proportion to what is being claimed - the more improbable the claim, they more reliable they need to be.
- The most improbable event possible would be a violation of laws of nature, this is maximally improbable
“No human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle”
He gives reasons for testimony being flawed:
- Lack of sane and educated witnesses
- False, with good intention (religious person)
- Past nations were ‘ignorant and barbarous’, that’s why there’s less now
- Contradiction among and between religions
Evaluation of Humes inductive argument
+ there has never been enough proof from someone to convince us of a miracle
+ science didn’t exist in the last so people turned did turn to religion as reasons for the answers
- there are many people who are educated and religious
- doesn’t even allow for the possibility of a miracle
- by Humes definition, miracles cannot happen so he set them up to fail (Ward)
What is Wiles view on miracles
They’re damaging to faith.
“It is especially important to emphasise the symbolic character of miracles…they are often understood literally”
They are ways of teaching us to be better people and examples of how to live our lives.
It is not about evidence to prove if a miracle happened, it instead what an even reveals about the nature of God.
What is wiles’ view on god and miracles
A realist view leads to a partisan view of God (supporting only one person/group over another)
A god that chooses to help some and not others would not be morally good.
The one miracle he accepts is the creation of the world and god doesn’t need to intervene anymore.
The problem of evil happens if we take miracles literally.
Evaluation of wiles
+ seemingly solves problem of evil
+ allows people to uphold scientific laws along with their beliefs
+ a very personal view of how miracles work
- to suggest miracles show gods love means nothing if he is saying god is not intervening in the world - doesn’t make it his miracles.
- doesn’t conform with traditional teachings of god
