,ASSESS HUME’S REASONS FOR REJECTING MIRACLES
Hume’s rejection of miracles comes from his theory that there are laws of nature which are based on past experience, a posteriori, and appear to be unvarying and universal. During this essay I will put forward Hume’s approach before assessing his reasons for the rejections of miracles and what other philosophers have said about his rejection.
According to the dictionary definition, a miracle is defined as: ‘a highly improbable or extraordinary event that is not explicable by natural laws and is considered to be divine’. Hume’s definition of a miracle is not that different from the dictionary definition, defining them as: ‘a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent.’ He puts forward two separate arguments against miracles; one being a priori and the other being a posteriori.
The first of his arguments is based on the lack of probability and is a priori. Hume argues that miracles are violations of the laws of nature and a ‘firm and unalterable experience’ has established these laws of nature. He did not deny that these events, miracles, would not happen; but instead said that they are the least likely event possible, and improbable events need witnesses of higher credibility than witnesses required for more probable events. Hume argued that even the most impressive testimony will at most counterbalance the unlikeliness of the event. Clearly, a serious weakness in Hume’s argument is that his line of thinking, empirical, is fundamentally flawed due to an inclination not to believe anything which is unlikely; he implies that it is always more reasonable to believe the more probable event.
The second part of Hume’s rejection of miracles is a posteriori, and shows the criteria that Hume laid down for a miracle to occur. Firstly, there must be substantial witnesses; however Hume did not specify how many this was to be. The main criticism with Hume’s criteria is that it is so stringent it is very near impossible for a miracle to take place.
Secondly, the witnesses should be of high intellect. Hume based his approach on the idea that intellectuals have too much to lose by making such a claim as having witnessed a miracle, however, the Roman Catholic Church maintains a ‘hit Squad’ of Doctors and Scientists who are called in to verify the claims. Also, Hume does not clarify how high of intellect the individuals have to be, if empiricist Richard Dawkins were to experience a miracle would he been classed as of high intellect?
Thirdly, Hume said that miracles are suspect, this is because humans are already predisposed to believe in the unnatural; fourthly, he argued that miracles take place amongst the ignorant and barbarous and finally, miracles form the basis of many religions, and therefore, Hume argues, that if all religions report individual miracles then these reports are self-cancelling. Swinburne argues this by saying that the role of miracles within religion is rarely to prove the correctness of their set of religious beliefs.
The only time Hume considers that a miracle may of occurred is if the person recounting the story had no invested interest in the event being true, for example if they were not trying to prove their faith or gain fame from the event. However, Swinburne’s contradicts Hume’s argument by suggesting that a person would have more to lose than they would to gain over claiming that they witnessed a miracle.
As has been discussed, Hume’s rejection of miracles is based around the laws of nature- which are based on human experience. However, Hume’s empiricist interpretation faces some serious criticisms; just because you do not experience something then that does not make it untrue. For example, in the Bible it talks about Jesus’ resurrection, Hume would reject this on the grounds that from our own experience we know dead bodies not to rise from the dead. Philosopher Sherlock put forward the example of a man living in a desolate hot country and having not experience of a river freezing up- just because he has never seen a river freeze does not mean to say that it never happens. Hume answers this claim by saying that there is clearly a gap in the man’s knowledge and argues that when it comes to issues such as people rising from the dead, there is no obvious gap in our knowledge. However, who is to say that future scientific developments will not find evidence for miracles?
Hick would also agree with this claim; arguing that we do not know the laws of nature, and that they appear to have been broken before. He argues that we should merely widen the laws of nature when new things are observed, unlike Hume who suggests that the laws of nature cannot be changed.
Richard Dawkins agreed with Hume, arguing that people often have strange and disturbing experiences, believing that we should simply say ‘miraculous’ events to be down to coincidences until we can prove otherwise. For example, places such as Lourdes could be explained by the placebo effect- people often go to Lourdes expecting to be cured and if they find out that they are in actual fact cured, then they classify this as a miracle rather than a coincidence which is what Dawkins argues it to be. This can be seen to link in with the philosophical principle of Ockham’s razor, which suggests that usually the simplest explanation of any occurrence is the correct one, and calling an event a coincidence is much more straight forward than suggesting that it goes against the laws of nature.
However, Tillich’s argument for miracles suggests that such events do not have to violate the laws of nature. He claims that miracles are astonishing events, but are ‘without contradicting the rational structure of reality’. Therefore arguing against Hume’s definition of a miracle. Tillich points to miracles coming from a ‘mystic being’, and argues that they are a revelation of God’s nature.
Wiles also agreed with Hume rejection to miracles to some extent. Wiles rejected the idea of God acting in the world and, like Hume, violating the laws of nature, suggesting that the sole activity of God is to create and sustain the world and not interfere with individuals’ lives.
Flew can also be seen to agree with Hume’s rejection of miracles in the sense that he agrees that miracles cannot be proved, and uses a historian approach to attempt to strengthen Hume’s argument. Flew argues that we have to make a comparison to what we know about how the world works now. So, for example, in relation to the miracle in the bible of Jesus turning water into wine, historically we have to reject this as our repeatedly tested experience tells us that we cannot do this.
To conclude, I think that Hume does but forward a sound argument for the rejection of miracles; however, due to his empiricist line of thinking he does not have the inclination to believe anything which seems to be unlikely. He implies that it is always more reasonable to believe the more probable event. However, in actuality, there are occasions where the improbable has to be believed.