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Who was David Hume?• He was born on the 26th April 1711 on the north side of Lawnmarket in
Edinburgh.
• His name was originally David Home however the English had trouble pronouncing the ‘Home’ bit in the Scottish way, so he became David Hume in 1734.
• Politically he was a ‘Whig’ which means that he ultimately wanted to reduce the power of the monarchy (king and queen).
• He was a philosopher, economist and a historian in his time.
• He was one of the first key philosophers related to the matter of empiricism. Empiricism is where all human knowledge comes from our experiences.
• He was the first philosopher in the modern time to have a completely naturalistic view of things and reject the idea that we are made in the image of God.
• He also was very sceptic towards religious teachings. Meaning he was very doubtful of their validity.
• He died on the 25th August in 1776, he was 65 when he died.
What did he think about miracles?
• He thought that miracles were impossible as miracles are things that occur that break the law of nature. As a naturalist he thinks that anything would break the law of nature is not possible.
• His opinions of miracles go hand in hand with his views on induction. The argument of induction is the human reasoning that we make based on things that have happened before. Meaning that if when it rains I know I will get wet, it means if it rains again I will have reasoned that I will get wet from the rain again.
• He also thought that ‘cause and effect’ relationships were vital to understanding his views on miracles. We recognise certain actions (causes) have certain effects and from this recognition we then make predictions as to what we happen in the future.
• The more experiences we have the more sure we are that the opposite simply cannot happen, therefore step by step the idea of miracles becomes less probable.
• Hume thought that the only evidence we have of miracles are testimonies, however we should only believe them if its would be more astonishing is that they were all mistaken than if the miracle was actually true. However Hume does think that it is hard to disprove a miracle.
“No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony
be of such a kind, that its false hood would be more miraculous, than the
fact which it endeavours to establish.”
Hume gives 4 key arguments against miracles:1. Hume argues that the witnesses that experience miracles are often not sane and
educated and so do not count as valued testimonies.
“There is not to be found in all history any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves...”
2. Our human natural instinct is surprised by the unusual and Hume thought that religious people exploited this. Hume thought that people who passed on these miracle stories knew they weren’t true but continued to spread them as they were promoting a good cause. This was Hume’s psychological perspective.
3. Hume thought that the miracles often occurred in ‘ignorant and barbarous nations’ and are now not a modern occurrence.
4. All different types of religions claim to have miracles occur, Christianity for example has many miracles happen in the Bible. However if you have a religious miracle then surely it is confirming that that particular faith is the true one, as in some way they are revealing religious truths. But this would then be excepting that there is more than one true religion.
Criticisms of Hume• Hume’s view on miracles has been widely criticised by many.• His following of the laws of nature is highly inconsistent with his other various writings.• We as humans are supposed to expect and predict what is to happen, however if
our scientific laws are nothing but a psychological habit then how does this work?!
• When he talks about the witnesses to the miracles and how many are needed he is very general with how many he actually means. He also is not clear which are the ‘barbaric’ nations he speaks about. There are modern examples of miracles that are being recorded all the time, in the text book there are many. So to say they are not a modern occurrence he is wrong. However they do not seem to be as frequent.
• There are other forms of valid evidence to support miracles. For example footprints on both sides of a lake with not boat etc. and the person still has dry clothes.
