I hear a circular argument: If miracles are impossible, the report of any miraculous event must be false, and therefore, miracles are impossible.
I am defining miracles as special acts of God in the world. Since miracles are special acts of God, they can only exist where there is a God who can perform such acts. If one does not believe in God, then they cannot say miracles, as I define them, are impossible.
Hume's position was that miracles were violations of the laws of nature. He said nothing is esteemed a miracle if it happens in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly healthy, should die suddenly. But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event; otherwise the event would not merit the appellation.
Instead of weighting the evidence in favor of miracles, Hume simply plays statistical games. He adds evidence against them. Since death occurs over and over again and resurrection occurs only on rare occasions at best, Hume simply adds up all the deaths against the very few alleged Resurrection and rejects the later....But this does not involve weighing the evidence to determine whether or not a given person, say Jesus of Nazareth... has been raised from the dead. It is simply adding up the evidence of all other occasions where people have died and have not been raised and using it to overwhelm any possible evidence that some person who died was brought back to life... Second, this argument equates quantity of evidence and probability. It says, in effect, that we should always believe what is most probable) in the sense of "enjoying the highest odds". But this is silly. On the these grounds a dice player should not believe the dice show three sides on the first roll, since the odds against it are 1,635,013,559,600 to 1. What Hume seems to overlook is that wise people base their beliefs on facts, not simply on odds. Sometimes the "odds' against an event are high (based on past observations), but the evidence for the event is otherwise very good. (based on current observation or reliable testimony.) Hume's argument confuses quantity of evidence with the quality of evidence. Evidence should be weighed, not added.
Moreover, Hume confuses the probability of historical events with the way in which scientists employ probability to formulate scientific law. In science, the more times an event is observed, under similar occurrences and similar conditions, the greater the probability that scientists think their formulation of a law is correct. But historical events including miracles are different; the events of history are unique and non-repeatable. Therefore, treating historical events including miracles with the same notion of probability the scientist uses in formulating his laws ignores a fundamental difference between the two subject matters.
C.S. Lewis answers Hume’s assertion that nothing is esteemed a miracle if it ever happens in the common course of nature.” Lewis says,” Now of course we must agree with Hume that if there is absolutely ‘uniform experience’ against miracles, if in other wor4ds they have never happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately, we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all reports of them are false. And we can know all the reports of them to be false only if we know already that miracles have never occurred. In fact, we are arguing in a circle.”
I am defining miracles as special acts of God in the world. Since miracles are special acts of God, they can only exist where there is a God who can perform such acts. If one does not believe in God, then they cannot say miracles, as I define them, are impossible.
Hume's position was that miracles were violations of the laws of nature. He said nothing is esteemed a miracle if it happens in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly healthy, should die suddenly. But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event; otherwise the event would not merit the appellation.
Instead of weighting the evidence in favor of miracles, Hume simply plays statistical games. He adds evidence against them. Since death occurs over and over again and resurrection occurs only on rare occasions at best, Hume simply adds up all the deaths against the very few alleged Resurrection and rejects the later....But this does not involve weighing the evidence to determine whether or not a given person, say Jesus of Nazareth... has been raised from the dead. It is simply adding up the evidence of all other occasions where people have died and have not been raised and using it to overwhelm any possible evidence that some person who died was brought back to life... Second, this argument equates quantity of evidence and probability. It says, in effect, that we should always believe what is most probable) in the sense of "enjoying the highest odds". But this is silly. On the these grounds a dice player should not believe the dice show three sides on the first roll, since the odds against it are 1,635,013,559,600 to 1. What Hume seems to overlook is that wise people base their beliefs on facts, not simply on odds. Sometimes the "odds' against an event are high (based on past observations), but the evidence for the event is otherwise very good. (based on current observation or reliable testimony.) Hume's argument confuses quantity of evidence with the quality of evidence. Evidence should be weighed, not added.
Moreover, Hume confuses the probability of historical events with the way in which scientists employ probability to formulate scientific law. In science, the more times an event is observed, under similar occurrences and similar conditions, the greater the probability that scientists think their formulation of a law is correct. But historical events including miracles are different; the events of history are unique and non-repeatable. Therefore, treating historical events including miracles with the same notion of probability the scientist uses in formulating his laws ignores a fundamental difference between the two subject matters.
C.S. Lewis answers Hume’s assertion that nothing is esteemed a miracle if it ever happens in the common course of nature.” Lewis says,” Now of course we must agree with Hume that if there is absolutely ‘uniform experience’ against miracles, if in other wor4ds they have never happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately, we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all reports of them are false. And we can know all the reports of them to be false only if we know already that miracles have never occurred. In fact, we are arguing in a circle.”
