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On Defining Away the Miraculous

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Gary Colwell
Gary Colwell
Affiliation:
Medicine Hat College
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Extract

It has been argued that even if miracles such as those recorded in the Bible do occur, it does not follow necessarily that God is the author of them. One alternative to the theistic interpretation, so the argument goes, is that a candidate miracle is really an undisclosed extension of natural law. If, on the other hand, it can be shown either that miracles cannot occur or that the evidence for them can never be strong enough to warrant their rational acceptance, then the question of God's authorship becomes superfluous. Here I shall not be concerned with the question of theistic interpretation but with the logically more fundamental question of whether or not miracles can have occurred. Hume and some of his philosophic children in our day have tried unsuccessfully to establish the impossibility of miracles on the sole basis of an appeal to the concepts of miracle and natural law. If my argument is correct, their failure illustrates graphically the pitfalls in trying to solve an empirical problem by definition.

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Articles
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Philosophy , Volume 57 , Issue 221 , January 1982, pp. 327 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1982

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References

1 D. Hume, Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, 2nd edn, L. A. Selby-Bigge (ed.) (London: Oxford University Press, 1902), 115–116.

2 Op. cit., 116.

3 It is a key element in Hume's strategy to trade upon that part of the common conception of miracles which describes them as rare events, and to keep that part inconspicuous by not including it in his formal definition. Cf. ibid., note 1, 115.

4 Ibid., 116. I have added the letters and italics.

5 For evidence that Hume's rejection of miracles is absolute, see op. cit, 125. After describing a number of supposedly well-substantiated miracles, Hume's almost oblivious response is, ‘And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events, which they relate?’

6 Professor Penelhum also argues that ‘the reaction that Hume recommends is only initially rational’, though his line of argument is not precisely the same as mine. T. Penelhum, Religion and Rationality (New York: Random House, 1971), 274.

7 Hume, op. cit., 127. On pp. 113 and 129 he repeats essentially the same procedure.

8 The programme for consistently applying such a criterion would be shocking. To begin with, imagine the hue and cry against a proposal to discontinue The Guinness Book of World Records.

9 The rarity of miracles is relative not only to non-miraculous events but also to the historical time in which they are said to have occurred, for in some periods of the history of Judaeo-Christianity more miracles are recorded to have occurred than in others.

10 Hume, op. cit., 113.

11 L. L. Blackman, ‘The Logical Impossibility of Miracles’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9, No. 3 ( 1978), 185.

12 Hume, op. cit., note 1, 115.

13 This is not to say that logically there could never be, for example, as many instances of water-walking as there are instances of sinking in water. Though if there were, who would then doubt that water-walking could occur? (Moreover, water-walking would then not be likely to retain the status of miracle.) The inprinciple argument against miracles proffered by Hume would then be ludicrous. It is only because of the great rarity of miracles that Hume can employ, with the appearance of success, the in-principle argument. Cf. G. Landrum, ‘What a Miracle Really Is’, Religious Studies 12, No. 1 (March 1976), 52ff.

14 R. Swinburne, The Concept of Miracle (London: Macmillan, 1970), 23–32.

15 Op. cit., 26.

16 Genesis 1:3.

17 John 11:43–44.

18 Cf. C. D. Broad, ‘Hume's Theory of the Credibility of Miracles’, Human Understanding: Studies in the Philosophy of David Hume, A. Sesonske and N. Fleming (eds) (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1965), 96.

19 Blackman, op. cit., 187.

20 Ibid., 187. I have added the numbers.

21 Cf. C. S. Lewis, Miracles (London: Collins, 1947), 106.

22 If I have got it right, (a) and (b) will answer a similar a priori argument by A. Flew in God and Philosophy (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1966), 149–150.