Exploring Different Perspectives on Miracles in Philosophy

1. Different ideas about Miracles David Hume (1711-1776) • Miracles are a ‘violation of law by a supernatural being’ • The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient reason to convince us of its veracity; and whosoever is moved by faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his own understanding, and gives him a determination what is most contrary to custom and experience. Hume, D. - An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding Of Miracles.

2. That is, the Christian religion is based on miracles, both when it started and today. Christianity is not reasonable, and any Christian belief flies in the face of (‘subverts’) all understanding and experience. • Therefore all religious belief is contrary to human experience and reason.

3. Mel Thompson ( in Teach Yourself Philosophy of Religion) sees this as a simplistic view of miracles, based on an 18th century view of the universe. He suggests 2 other definitions: • A natural process, but speeded up • A natural event, happening at just the right moment. • He refers to Aquinas, who stated things can be miraculous because they are thought to be impossible in nature. These events are unlikely to have happened n a particular way and at a particular time. Thompson concludes that miracles are a matter for interpretation.

4. Attitudes to religious claims about miracles. Bultmann (a Biblical scholar) All miracles are ‘mythological’. Bultmann held that the Biblical miracles were part of a story wrapped up in the ‘mythical trappings’ of the first century: demons, voices from heaven and so on. He set out to remove these trappings and to expose the historical Christ. He believed that the miracle stories were expressions relevant to the question of existence confronting everyone.

5. I. T. Ramsey - • Miracles are a ‘disclosure situation’, an unusual complex of incidents with which a new insight into truth is inextricably bound up. BUT not all miracles are disclosure situations, and not all disclosure situations are miraculous! C.S.Lewis - • The Incarnation is the central miracle for Christianity, and all other miracles are related to this event. Miracles are a type of ‘revelation’

6. A definition of ‘miracle’ depends upon a constancy in nature, since the miraculous appears to ‘go against nature’. The development of science, especially theoretical physics, now goes beyond the simply mechanistic, Newtonian view. Therefore Hume’s definition would appear simplistic or even redundant. This leads to a consideration of miracles in the context of causality – a miracle caused by events beyond our understanding. Miracles appear in the eye of the beholder – they are a way of interpreting an event in a religious, rather than a scientific, way