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give the views of two key scholars on the possibility of miracles - HUME…
give the views of two key scholars on the possibility of miracles - HUME AND SWINBURNE (F)
HUME (an empiricist) - claims
a wise person proportions their belief to evidence
sceptical about miracles
defines miracles as 'a violation of a law of nature by the particular volition of a deity or by the imposition of some invisible agents'
CHALLENGES
laws of nature
well-established e.g. no one has ever defied the law of gravity
laws of nature stronger than testimonies
testimony based belief
no miracle has a sufficient number of witnesses
credibility of witnesses
gullible witnesses
Hume describes those who claim to have seen miracles 'as of such unquestioned good sense as to secure us against all delusions against them.’
differences in claims
susceptibility of belief
gullible and potentially under-educated/already a believer
'perseveres in it, with the best intentions in the world, for the sake of promoting so holy a cause' - have a vested interest
miracles contradict the huge volume of consistent experience that the whole history of humanity has of the laws of nature - none of the variable evidence given about miracles can outweigh the evidence for nature’s laws.
SWINBURNE
defines miracles as 'a non-repeatable counter-instance to a law of nature'
avoids the term violation as it is too close an analogy between the laws of nature and civil or moral laws
‘the wise man in these circumstances will surely say that he has good reason to believe that E occurred, but also that L is a true law of nature and so that E was violation of it’.
believes miracles must have been performed by God
identifies 3 principles for weighing evidence:
different evidence carries different weight e.g. own memory matters more
weigh evidence considering empirical evidence and secondary sources (other testimonies and how reliable they were)
multiple similar testimonies carry more weight
response to
conflicting claims
miracles only become contradictory if they prove a certain theological point e.g. Catholic belief in transubstantiation
miracles convey God's omnibenevolence and omnipotence - this does not conflict