Miracles Mock Cards Flashcards
(Key concept) Some believe that miracles have 3 common attributes
- They go against regular experience/break a Law of Nature (arguable)
- The event has a purpose or significance
- It’s possible to ascribe religious significance to the event
(Key concept) There are competing views of miracles
- INTERVENTIONIST ‘divine intervention’ e.g. Hume, Locke, Ward
- NON-INTERVENTIONIST ???
- NON-BELIEVERS Peter Atkins believed everything in the universe can eventually be explained by science
(Key concept) competing definitions for miracles- HUME
(18th Century Empiricist, Scottish Philosopher) interventionist view
- “a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of a Deity or invisible agent”
- Hume emphasises a common KEY CONCEPT on miracles… natural laws
- Some people argue miracles have to break a law of nature
- Hume therefore defines miracles out of existence because he claims the Laws of Nature are “known, uniform and fixed” therefore they cannot be broken
HUME CRITICISMS:
- dismisses possibility of miracles occurring by defining miracles out of existence
miracle=breaking of Law of Nature… = ‘known, uniform, fixed’ = category error
- Arguably everything can be explained by science (Atkins) and science is incompatible with belief in miracles (science based on repeated observation, a posteriori evidence)…to believe in miracles is to completely reject what we think we already know about science
- CRITIC OF THIS ARGUMENT: Leibniz “Ex nihilo, nihil fit”
- And Big Bang one off type event (BUT: what then caused that?…)
- Conflicting truth claims Not all religions can claim one miraculous event only is significant/holds truth in their religion
(Key concept) competing definitions for miracles- AQUINAS
- (13th Century) INTERVENTIONIST
Proposed 3 categories of miracle done by God that…
1. …nature could never do (e.g. stop the Sun) logically/physically/naturally impossible
2. …nature could do, but not in that order (e.g. exorcisms) not impossible but unexpected
3. …nature could do, but God does without natural laws (e.g. healing by the forgiveness of sins) take place in the natural order by the way God brings event about mean it’s a miracle - HE SUGGESTS AN INTERVENTIONIST GOD: who acts on certain/random occasions
AQUINAS CRITICS:
- BRIAN DAVIES: an ‘intervening’ God suggests God is an idle spectator the rest of the time while we suffer = against classical theistic view of a constantly interacting, omnibenevolent God
- Aquinas implies a miracle is the ‘breaking of natural laws’ but we don’t know [all of] the natural laws or how they operate
so we can’t tell if one is broken or not (we classify natural laws based on a posteriori reasoning (e.g. rising of the Sun)
but we must allow for the possibility that it won’t always happen)
(Key concept) competing definitions for miracles- SWINBURNE
- (INTERVENTIONIST) “If he (God) has reason to interact with us , he has reason very occasionally to intervene and suspend those natural laws by which our life is controlled”
(Key concept) competing definitions for miracles- HOLLAND
- (NON INTERVENTIONIST)
- Miracles are: “a remarkable and beneficial coincidence that is interpreted in a religious fashion.”
- Holland sees miracles not as violations of Laws of nature, but rather as coincidences. He takes on board a lot of what Hume argues and agrees that if there were several reasonable witnesses then the Law of nature would have to be revised or falsified as non-existent. However he agrees that this would not be a simple thing to do so it is better to see miracles as coincidences.
- He quotes a famous example where a child is stuck on a railway line…..There is no violation of nature, however for a religious person this may have religious significance and be thought of as a miracle. This is more a case of seeing an event as a miracle. There is no hand of God; rather the onus is clearly on the interpretation of person.
HOLLAND CRITICISMS (Religious, noninterventionist believers i.e. above, Hume, Aquinas)
