Miracles – Do They Exist?

Hume’s Skeptical Challenge

Which – if any - of these are miracles?

Someone who has been pronounced dead comes back to life.

A person correctly predicts a future earthquake.

A large tiger suddenly disappears from a cage in front of a large audience.

Water is changed into wine.

Brief Review of Empiricist Epistemology

Empiricism is the view that all claims to knowledge must be based on: sense experience (evidence or “matters of

fact” truths of reason (conceptual relations or

“relations of ideas”)

Knowledge developed from these bases must follow all the rules of careful reasoning.

Empiricism and belief-formation

Because the strength of evidence can vary, “wise men” will “proportion” their beliefs to the evidence.

Frank was caught having sex with Joan multiple times.

Frank’s credit card bills show charges for a local motel, and he has been spotted leaving the hotel once with Joan.

Frank brought flowers home to his wife. He must be having an affair.

Empiricist Principles

Beliefs should only be as strong as the evidence supporting them.

Claims with prima facia implausibility should not be accepted without strongly supportive evidence and argument.

The authority of witnesses derives from witness reliability and “conformity” with other facts and other witnesses

Empiricism and Miracles

Definition: “A miracle is a violation of a law of nature.” p. 513. Thus:

the “argument” against miracles from the start is as powerful and compelling as natural law itself.

only equally powerful and compelling argument/evidence can override this presumption of falsity.

Hume’s Basic Position

“…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…” p. 513

In other words – the miraculous claim should be so obviously true that the conditions under which we would question it are not apparent.

Argument for Skepticism - 1

No miracle is affirmed by enough of the right kind of witness, to dispel our doubt of their testimony. p. 514

No self-delusion

Complete integrity/reliability

Possessing a good reputation they would not want to lose

Attesting to facts that are/were widely public and known

Argument for Skepticism - 2 Certain human emotions tend to override

our normal skeptical tendencies with respect to that which is called “miraculous.”

Our thinking is naturally and usefully conservative: we tend to give credit to thinking/observations supported by past experience.

In contrast, our fascination and wonder at the unusual and exotic tend us to believe in the apparently miraculous.

Argument for Skepticism - 2

People respond as much to eloquence as to evidence and reasoning.

There are many instances of forged miracles or supernatural events.

Argument for Skepticism – 3 & 4

Testaments to miracles tend to occur more frequently in “ignorant and barbarous nations,” or as handed down from such primitive origins.

Every miracle confirming the beliefs of one religion counts, eo ipso, against those of every other religion, in a mutually destructive pattern. p. 515

Miracles – Definitions Revisited

Swinburne and the Philosophical Issues Connected to Miracles

A New Definition of “Miracle”

An event of an extraordinary kind – but what counts as “extraordinary”?

An event caused by a God – or perhaps by any rational agent with unusual powers?

An event of religious significance – but what counts as religiously significant?

Extraordinary Events These are events that do conflict with

natural law, in the strong sense, as Hume argued.

A miracle is a “non-repeatable counter-instance” of a law of nature (it would not happen again under similar instances), no matter how laws of nature are interpreted.

Natural Law - 1

Universal laws – those which state what must happen. Example: All material objects are subject to the law of

gravity.

Universal laws by definition do not allow for natural exceptions or extraordinary but still actual events.

Natural Law - 2

Statistical laws – those which state what is likely to happen in a particular population of things or eventsExample: in a large sample of coin tosses,

half will result in “heads” and half in “tails”

Statistical laws allow for individually unpredictable or highly improbable, but still actually possible events.

How Can the Extraordinary Happen?

All natural laws apply, only given certain initial conditions.

It’s not the case that “all objects fall.”

It is the case that, given an object’s being in a certain state under certain conditions, it will fall.

A “miracle” could be the result of extraordinary initial conditions which still follow natural law given those conditions.

God’s Hand in Miracles

Unusual events are not “miraculous,” in the common-sense understanding of the term.

Miracles, then, are also considered the work of a unique power – be it God, or gods or even some rational agent acting intentionally

Correctly predicting an event in the future is unusual but not necessarily miraculous, in the sense that the prediction could have been correct for purely natural or coincidental reasons.

Religious Significance

“… an event must contribute significantly toward a holy divine purpose for the world.” p. 520

Unusual, and purposive – but this could be the activity of a malevolent being. To retain the common-sense understanding of a miracle, Swinburne adds this condition.

Summary of Swinburne’s Definition of Miracle Statistical natural laws may allow of

extraordinary but not miraculous events Universal natural laws are consistent with

“non-repeatable counter-instances”

Miracles - or

Demonstrations of the limits of our current understanding of natural law

Response to Hume

Are there sufficient numbers of witnesses whose testimony does agree?

Is there historical but non-testamentary forms of evidence (confirmation of prophecy)?

Miracles aren’t necessarily offered as “proof” of specific theological doctrines (answers to prayers, v. resurrection of Christ)