The ultimate question in the miracles module is:

Do miracles prove the existence of God?

RecapDefinitions of what a miracle is: Aquinas: ‘Those things…which are done by divine power apart from the order generally followed in things.’ Plus his threefold understanding of miracles. 

Ray Holland: An event that has an explanation within natural laws can be considered a miracle, if it is taken religiously as a sign. He called these ‘contingency miracles’. – remember the account of the boy playing on his toy car on the train tracks!!! – In an essay I would have a paragraph explaining just this

Hume: ‘a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the deity.’  John Mackie: ‘a violation of a natural law…by divine or supernatural intervention. The laws of nature describe the ways in which the world – including of course, human beings – works when left to itself, when not interfered with. A miracle occurs when the world is not left to itself, when something distinct from the natural order as a whole intrudes into it.’ Richard Swinburne: ‘a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, that is, a non-repeatable exception to the operation of these laws, brought about by God. Laws of nature have the form of universal statements “all As are B,” and state how bodies behave of physical necessity.’

HumeDavid Hume is concerned with two things related to them:The probability (or improbability) of a miraculous event occurring.The validity of any testimony from someone claiming to have witnessed a miraculous event.Not only is Hume concerned to question the very idea of miracles occurring, but he particularly focuses on whether a miraculous event can (or should be) be the basis of a religious system of belief. Being a well-known atheist of his time, we should not be surprised when he says that they cannot:

'I beg the limitations here made may be remarked, when I say, that a miracle can never be proved, so as to be the foundation of a system of religion.'

Hume is particularly concerned to address the Christian belief that Jesus rose from the dead; an event which is said to demonstrate the truthfulness of Christianity (and therefore validate the Christian faith as being true)Hume is not so much concerned with setting out reasons as to why the resurrection of Jesus never occurred, but to assess the reliability of the evidence which provides evidence for believing that it did occur (and as such pass doubt on the resurrection-event as having actually occurred). – so this why we say he isn’t necessarily concerned with saying miracles can’t happen, it is more that we can’t prove them thus we question the basis of our evidence for belief in God.

Hume lists four reasons as to why he questions the validity of miraculous events:1. We cannot trust that those who testify to miraculous events occurring are not being deceived, deluded or even lying.2. Humans are naturally drawn towards the miraculous, and love being 'dazzled' by the mysterious, and they can often form unreasonable beliefs on the basis of these 'experiences', which should not trusted.3. Stories of miraculous occurrences abound amongst 'primitive and barbarous people', who are not yet sophisticated enough in their understanding to know what is reallygoing on.4. Miracles are 'contrary facts'! Different religions claim that miracles performed by members of their faith show that their belief-system is true, but they cannot all be true at the same time - so they cancel each other out!

In terms of miracles then, Hume believed that claims of the miraculous needed to be tested against our experience of things in the world (remember he was an Empiricist!!!). For instance, the claim that someone has been raised from the dead needs to be 'tested' against our normal experience of what dead people do.

Hume vs Sherlock (not the detective)

As we have already noted, Hume was an Empiricists and regarded experience as the basis for what we can know to be true about things in the world. Thus, it could be argued that because we do not see people regularly rising from the dead after being in a grave for three days, that we should reject the resurrection of Jesus as being true (as this does not concur with our normal experience). Sherlock's argument against this idea had been to ask whether a person who lived in a warm climate - who had never seen a river freeze up - could ever believe with no evidence, that rivers freeze in colder places (as this is improbable according to the regularity of their experience)?So is Hume taking the wrong approach as an Empiricist?

Hume's response (aka the 'Indian Prince' argument) was to suggest that although there is an obvious gap in the man's experience here, that there is no obvious gap when it comes to people rising from the dead

Hello! I am Richard Dawkins (I am introducing myself because we realised from the Teleological

Argument that none of you know who I am – this makes me sad read my

amazing book God Delusion!) Anyway, I digress I like to go out of my way to tell everyone that God doesn’t

exist because I am an atheist!

What if…..?

Year 12!!!! I have seen something amazing. I

witnessed a miracle!!!!!!My life's work to refute the

existence of God was completely the wrong path? Why have I wasted so much

time? God is REAL!!! He showed me this when he performed the

miracle I just witnessed!

What if a world-renowned atheist (such as Richard Dawkins), were to suddenly claim that they had witnessed a miracle and believed in God, could this be counted as reliable evidence that the miracle they had witnessed had occurred (and that God existed)?

Hume says that “No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish.” – so what would Hume say about Richard Dawkins changing his mind? Is this evidence suffice?

Questions

• What does Hume focus on in his concern of Miracles.• Why does Hume question the validity of miracles.• Choose one of the four main arguments Hume proposes

(when questioning the validity of a miracle) and attempt to refute it (This is great practice for those lovely, hard to get A02 marks)

• Do you think Hume is taking the wrong approach as an Empiricist? Why? (again A02) (Look at your notes on Sherlock)

• Do you think a testimony from Richard Dawkins is suffice to evidence a miracle?

On the so-called evidence for miraclesIt is Hume's belief that sufficient evidence has not, (and could not) be produced in support of a miracle. His argument is presented in the following manner:1. A weaker evidence can never destroy a stronger one.2. A wise man proportions his beliefs according to the evidence.3. Some events happen with such regularity in our experience, that 'laws of nature' may be formed (E.g. Once you are dead, you are dead!).4. Other things do not occur so regularly within our experience (such as people rising from the dead), and as such these constitute probabilities ranging from the strong (almost certainly could happen) to the weak (very unlikely to happen).5. Human testimony is normally truthful, and can be assumed to be a proof as to what has taken place.6. Sometimes human testimony is not truthful (E.g. when witnesses contradict each other, are of a dubious character, have an interest in what they affirm, hesitate in their testimony, make violent assertions etc.).