St. Aquinas and Hume’s views on Miracles

1. St. Aquinas and Hume’s views on Miracles By Alicia and Katharine

2. Hume • Defined as ‘ A transgression a the law of nature by a particular volition of the deity or supernatural being.’ • This means that a miracle occurred whenever God caused a law of nature to be broken. • He is concerned with 2 things: • The probability (or improbability) of a miraculous event occurring. • The validity of any testimony from someone claiming to have witnessed a miraculous event.

3. 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. • '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.'

4. The Laws of nature • Hume argued that any claim of a miraculous event should be measured against available evidence • These laws of nature are based on human experience • It would therefore be reasonable to reject the claim of a miracle because it would be contrary to human experience

5. However, people do claim experience of miraculous events • These testimonies would have to be weighed against the reasonable doubt raised by the sum total of human (scientific) experience. • If they were to be taken seriously, accounts of miracles would need to be of such a quality that they were difficult to dismiss

6. Hume would only accept evidence from educated and intellectual sources – people who would have something to lose. So; • Violation of laws of nature + Poor quality testimony = Grounds to reject the claim

7. Hume and Religion • Hume stated that all religions claim that their founding figures performed miracles – the religions base their claims for authority on these miracles. • Yet they cannot all be right • The stories cancel out the claims of religions

8. Arguments against miracles 1.People often lie, there are insufficient witnesses of ‘good sense, education and learning’. Witnesses tend to be uneducated, ignorant peasantry 2. The witnesses tend to be more sympathetic to the idea of miracles. People by nature enjoy relating miracles they have heard without caring for their veracity. Thus miracles are easily transmitted even where false.

9. 3. Hume notes that miracles seem to occur mostly in "ignorant" and "barbarous" nations and times, and the reason they don't occur in the "civilized" societies is such societies aren't awed by what they know to be natural events. 4. The miracles of each religion argue against all other religions and their miracles. Religions base their truth claims on the miraculous – they all experience miracles, but they can’t all be right.

10. Criticisms • Many find Hume’s argument persuasive. One ground on which to criticise it, though, is in its conception of a miracle. Miracles, it has been argued, need not be violations of laws of nature. • An answered prayer, for example, may properly be described as a miracle, but it does not violate any natural law. • Miracles are simply events that point us towards God. This broader understanding of a miracle raises the possibility that there are at least some miracles that are not so improbable as Hume supposes, and so which can attract rational belief.

11. A.E. Taylor • In “David Hume and the miraculous”, Philosophical Studies, Macmillan, 1934, A.E.Taylor famously argues that Hume’s conclusion can only urge us not to believe in second hand reports of miracles – not that miracles cannot occur, or that anyone who witnesses one for himself ought to refuse to believe the evidence of his senses.

12. Support of Hume - Richard Swinburne • Reasonable to believe in miracles if all past experiences of natural law goes against an event. • Miracles are events which seem to have deeper significance than the events themselves. • “If a God intervened in the natural order to make a feather land here rather than there for no deep ultimate purpose, these events would not naturally be described as miracles.”

13. Thomas Aquinas • Thomas Aquinas had offered a similar definition of a miracle to that of Hume, defining it as, 'those things... which are done by Divine power apart from the order generally followed in things'. • However, he actually differed from the latter Humean definition as he said miracles were also: • 'Those events in which something is done by God which nature could never do.' • 'Events in which God does something which nature can do, but not in that order.' • 'When God does what is usually done by the working of nature, but without the operation of the principles of nature.'

14. Miracles and God • What is noticeable about Aquinas' understanding of miracles, is that he allowed for the possibility of miracles to occur within the 'system' of 'natural activity' (something Hume's definition would leave out). • Aquinas also allowed for the possibility that God's activity with the natural realm, may be part of the normal order of things. However, this begs the question; if God is acting within the normal order of things, how do we know when (or if) a miracle has occurred?

15. Miracles and God • For example, what if someone was to say that God cured their fever (a miracle), yet without any 'natural laws' being broken. In other words, although the fever naturally went away, it was still God who cured this person. In cases such as this, how are we to know that a miracle has occurred? • This would be like saying God cured someone of a sickness, because they took the right medicine. In this instance, was it God who cured them or the medicine, and if we say God cured them through the medicine, how different is this to simply saying that they were cured because they took the right medicine? • Although Aquinas' definition allows us to explain how God might work in the world (something Hume's does not), it begs the question as to how we can recognise those times when God might have actually done so.

16. Types of Miracles • Aquinas identified three types of miracles in his Summa contra Gentiles: • 1. Events done by God which nature could never do e.g. make the sun go backwards. • 2. Events in which God does something which nature can do but not in this order e.g. someone living after death – resurrection of Christ.

17. Types of Miracles • 3. An event which could happen naturally but God breaks the rules of nature. E.g. someone being instantly cured of a disease which doctors might have been able to cure given time.

18. Criticisms • None of the definitions that Aquinas gave seem to consider God’s purpose in carrying out the miracles – Swinburne considers these miracles to be entirely arbitrary • There appears to be little religious significance in them – nothing is revealed about God’s nature