Miracles: Hume's rejection of miracles

Question 1

Hume’s philosophical argument

Answer 1

• by their definition, they are beyond the realms of reasonable belief as they break LoN
• should be treated with scepticism as from our experience, water doesn’t turn into wine and man cannot walk on water
• it is always more unlikely that a miracle has occurred

Question 2

Hume’s practical argument

Answer 2

1. Barbarous people are more gullible and less informed about the scientific ways of the world
2. Psychological: we have a tendency to look for miraculous/supernatural events and this desire might distort the interpretation of events
3. Witnesses claimed no miracle had been witnessed by a suitable number of reliable, educated people => no one could possibly take faith in any of them
4. Miracle stories from different religions tend to contradict and cancel the other out (different views of Jesus within Judaism, Islam and Christianity)

Question 3

Criticisms of Hume’s rejection

Answer 3

1. Fails to see laws of nature as descriptive rather than prescriptive
   - something going against LoN is merely different than what has been observed before, rather than ‘wrong’
2. We do not have to take the Bible literally (“demythologise” the Bible (Bultmann)
   CP: is there any such thing as a miracle in the Bible then?
3. Doesn’t consider the possibility of a first-hand experienced miracle
4. Just because some religions contradict each others miracles does not mean that they both have to be wrong
   - Hick: could be apart of some wider meaning