How Christians Distort Philosopher David Hume's thoughts on miracles
HOW CHRISTIANS UNDERSTAND HUME
Norman Geisler in his Naturalism & The Supernatural spells out what supposedly anti-miracle philosopher David Hume worked out.
(1) A miracle by definition is a violation of (or exception to) a law of nature [as in repeatable norm as in how the dead stay dead for example]
(2) But the laws of nature are built upon the highest degree of probability
(3) Hence, a miracle by definition (as an exception) is based on the lowest degree of probability.
(4) Now the wise man should always base his belief on the highest degree of probability
(5) Therefore, the wise man should never believe in miracles.
Both atheists and Christians believe in natural law as in repeatable norms. The only difference is the former think they are brute facts while Christians hold God set them up. Clearly the first even if they affirm that events against nature happen they are not miracles in the Bible sense of acts of God.
Anyway the debate is about whether Hume is right to use the incredible evidence that things have repeatable norms against a rare event, the rare event in this case being miracle. The only way to confute him is to argue that evidence is evidence and good solid evidence for a miracle is grounds for belief in a miracle.
If he is wrong then the events should be treated in a case by case manner. Hume should be weighing evidence for miracles one by one instead of making a sweeping assumption that the evidence for natural regularity rules them out.
At this point, if it is about evidence then Christians should be ready to affirm any strongly attested miracle that outweighs that for their favourite miracle, the resurrection of Jesus. It still manages to rule out the vast majority of miracles as real.
Note that Hume is not saying miracles are impossible. He is saying that the evidence is the problem for it cannot defeat the evidence that nature is regular. This is like the argument that if the dead stay dead then one exception Jesus is not likely enough to be believed.
THE MAIN POINTS:
Hume is accused of saying there is never a good reason to believe that a miracle
was a real occurrence and not a lie or a mistake. He in fact did not say that.
He was clear there could be good reasons even very good reasons but as human
nature is proven to be tricky the reasons will never be good enough. This is not
bias or an outright rejection of miracles. It is a problem with human nature not
miracles.
We assume that the sun will rise tomorrow though we do not know for sure if
it will. We assume that nature works in a consistent way. For example, cars do
not come to life. We need not say that miracles are impossible. We need only
say we reject them for we don't need them.
We need not say that miracles are not true. Even if miracles are believable that
still does not make it sensible to believe. Lots of rubbish can seem believable.
We need only say we can't and shouldn't believe.
If Hume is saying a miracle is so unlikely that it is reasonable to disbelieve
in it even if it is in fact real, then what is wrong with that? Is he defining
faith in miracles in such a way that you cannot believe? No for we all agree
that we can disbelieve in real things if we don't have the grounds to believe so
miracles should be the top of the list.
CIRCULAR REASONING?
Christians say that Hume is trying to justify a belief in the falsity or
unbelievability of miracles already presumed to be correct! In other words Hume
would write, "A miracle is impossible therefore miracles do not happen. A
miracle by definition is unbelievable therefore nobody should believe in a
miracle." As long as he is open to examining evidence and going where it leads
that is not true. The miracle according to Hume should not and cannot be
believed in even if it really does happen unless the evidence is remarkably good
so that demands research and investigation.
He has supposedly made up his mind and is trying to use logic to hide this and
to pretend to be open-minded. His argument is that no testimony as far as he
knows is enough to establish a miracle. He hints that such testimony might be
out there. Nothing biased here. But he is accused of bias by the Christians.
They slander him because he simply urged people to consider the evidence for
miracles better. If the testimony for miracles falls short of being convincing
there is nothing biased or unfair about saying so.
For Hume a miracle can be believable in itself but other things make that
believability a small thing. There is nothing wrong with something being
believable as a unit but as a part of something bigger that believability is
swallowed up. For example, it seems credible that a priest made a communion
wafer bleed but what if you check his other miracles and find he has been
faking? Thus Hume did not make a miracle unbelievable by definition.
The Christians say Hume was assuming that the evidence and testimony for
miracles is never good enough and they say that would be fair enough if he
looked at the evidence first but he didn't. But he did - he said that he had
never encountered a miracle event that if the witnesses were mistaken or wrong
that their being so would be more miraculous than the event itself. Believers
themselves say there are no such events so no contest there!
Christians say that Hume is to blame for the modern tendency to disbelieve or in
miracles against the evidence in their favour. There is nothing wrong with that
tendency if the evidence is not good enough. The Christians scholars oppose the
tendency and thus end up exaggerating how good the evidence is for say the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It is because Hume is behind our modern scepticism that Christians have to try
and destroy any serious consideration of his treatment of miracles. It is about
ideology and agenda. Religion doesn't want to be reasonable. So it attacks his
commonsense. Its preference is to misrepresent and distort Hume.
Hume challenged belief in the supernatural but not necessarily the supernatural.
Hume's view was reasonable. He said that if there is evidence for a miracle
being real, that because a miracle is so improbable we are still entitled to be
sceptical. The true sceptic neither believes or disbelieves. He was not saying
that miracles don't happen. He was only saying we cannot be criticised for not
believing. Try and feel nice about that - he was trying to be your friend!