They should have a reputation to lose and nothing to gain from their claim. Hume also states that humans love the fantastic and want to believe in miracles, and believers desire to promote their religion.
As a result, Hume argues that many, if not all, claims of miracles in current sources are inadequate and should be dismissed. For example, many of the claims of miracles within the bible are made by poor, uneducated fishermen and peasants, which Hume argues is not an adequate source. Miracles from Hinduism or Buddhism, he argues, cancels out those from Christianity of Islam.
As such, Hume suggests that instead of picking just one to believe in, we should deny them all. Hume sets up this definition in order to counter with five main arguments. Answered by Patrick S. He is free to admit that some small probability may be attached to the prospect that a dense object might remain on the surface of a lake; it is sufficient for his purposes that it will always be more likely that any witness who reports such an event is attempting to deceive us, or is himself deceived.
After all, there is no precedent for any human being walking on water, setting this one controversial case aside, but there is ample precedent for the falsehood of testimony even under the best of circumstances. Accordingly Hume says Enquiries p. We must ask ourselves, which would be more of a miracle: That Jesus walked on water, or that the scriptural reports of this event are false?
While we may occasionally encounter testimony that is so strong that its falsehood would be very surprising indeed, we never come across any report, the falsehood of which would be downright miraculous. Accordingly, the reasonable conclusion will always be that the testimony is false.
Suppose the apologist can argue that a failure in the transmission of testimony at any of these points might be entirely without precedent in human experience. But the physical resurrection of a human being is also without precedent, so that the very best the apologist can hope for is that both alternatives—that the report is incorrect, or that Jesus returned to life—are equally unlikely, which seems only to call for a suspension of judgment.
Nevertheless such an appeal will only persuade those who are already inclined to believe in the miracle—perhaps because they are already sympathetic to a supernaturalistic worldview—and who therefore tend to downplay the unlikelihood of a dead man returning to life.
Having said all this, it may strike us as odd that Hume seems not to want to rule out the possibility, in principle, that very strong testimony might establish the occurrence of an unprecedented event. He tells us Enquiries p. Thus even if we were convinced that such an event really did take place—and the evidence in this case would be considerably stronger than the evidence for any of the miracles of the Bible—we should suppose that the event in question really had a natural cause after all.
Despite this possibility, Hume wants to say that the quality of miracle reports is never high enough to clear this hurdle, at least when they are given in the interest of establishing a religion, as they typically are.
People in such circumstances are likely to be operating under any number of passional influences, such as enthusiasm, wishful thinking, or a sense of mission driven by good intentions; these influences may be expected to undermine their critical faculties. Given the importance to religion of a sense of mystery and wonder, that very quality which would otherwise tend to make a report incredible—that it is the report of something entirely novel—becomes one that recommends it to us.
Thus in a religious context we may believe the report not so much in spite of its absurdity as because of it. The principle he cites surely resembles the one that we properly use when we discredit reports in tabloid newspapers about alien visitors to the White House or tiny mermaids being found in sardine cans.
Nevertheless the argument has prompted a great many criticisms. Earman argues that even if the prior probability of a miracle occurring is very low, if there are enough independent witnesses, and each is sufficiently reliable, its occurrence may be established as probable. Of course the number of witnesses required might be very large, and it may be that none of the miracles reported in any scripture will qualify.
It is true that some of the miracles of the Bible are reported to have occurred in the presence of a good number of witnesses; the miracle of the loaves and fishes is a good example, which according to Mark Mark was witnessed by 5, people.
But we have already noticed that the testimony of one person, or even of four, that some event was witnessed by a multitude is not nearly the same as having the testimony of the multitude itself. Consider the fact that a particular combination of lottery numbers will generally be chosen against very great odds.
If the odds of the particular combination chosen in the California Lottery last week were 40 million to 1, the probability of that combination being chosen is very low. Assuming that the likelihood of any given event being misreported in the Los Angeles Times is greater than that, we would not be able to trust the Times to determine which ticket is the winner. The unreliability objection, made out in this particular way, seems to have a fairly easy response. There is no skeptical challenge to our being justified in believing the report of a lottery drawing; that is, reports of lottery drawings are reports of ordinary events, like reports of rainstorms and presidential press conferences.
They do not require particularly strong testimony to be credible, and in fact we may be justified in believing the report of a lottery drawing even if it came from an otherwise unreliable source, such as a tabloid newspaper. This is surely because we know in advance that when the lottery is drawn, whatever particular combination of numbers may be chosen will be chosen against very great odds, so that we are guaranteed to get one highly improbable combination or another.
Despite the fact that the odds against any particular combination are very great, all of the other particular outcomes are equally unlikely, so we have no prejudice against any particular combination. We know that people are going to win the lottery from time to time; we have no comparable assurance that anyone will ever be raised from the dead.
Nevertheless if we are to be able to make progress in science, we must be prepared to revise our understanding of natural law, and there ought to be circumstances in which testimony to an unprecedented event would be credible.
For example, human beings collectively have seen countless squid, few of which have ever exceeded a length of two feet. For this reason reports of giant squid have, in the past, been sometimes dismissed as fanciful; the method employed by Hume in his Balance of Probabilities Argument would seem to rule out the possibility of our coming to the conclusion, on the basis of testimony, that such creatures exist—yet they have been found in the deep water near Antarctica.
Similarly, someone living beyond the reach of modern technology might well reject reports of electric lighting and airplanes. Surely we should be skeptical when encountering a report of something so novel. But science depends for its progress on an ability to revise even its most confident assertions about the natural world. Discussion of this particular problem in Hume tends to revolve around his example of the Indian and the ice.
Yet in this case he would come to the wrong conclusion. Hume argues that such a person would reason correctly, and that very strong testimony would properly be required to persuade him otherwise. Yet Hume refers to this not as a miracle but as a marvel; the difference would appear to lie in the fact that while water turning to ice does not conform to the experience of the Indian, since he has experienced no precedent for this, it is also not contrary to his experience, because he has never had a chance to see what will happen to water when the temperature is sufficiently low Enquiries, p.
By the same token, we ought to be cautious when it comes to deciding how large squid may grow in the Antarctic deeps, when our only experience of them has been in warm and relatively shallow water. The circumstances of an Antarctic habitat are not analogous to those in which we normally observe squid.
On the other hand, when someone reports to us that they have witnessed a miracle, such as a human being walking on water, our experience of ordinary water is analogous to this case, and therefore counts against the likelihood that the report is true.
The distinction between a miracle and a marvel is an important one for Hume; as he constructs an epistemology that he hopes will rule out belief in miracles in principle, he must be careful that it does not also hinder progress in science. Whether Hume is successful in making this distinction is a matter of some controversy. See for example Lewis , Houston Suppose I am considering whether it is possible for a human being to walk on water.
I consider my past experience with dense objects, such as human bodies, and their behavior in water; I may even conduct a series of experiments to see what will happen when a human body is placed without support on the surface of a body of water, and I always observe these bodies to sink. I now consider what is likely to occur, or likely to have occurred, in some unknown case.
Perhaps I am wondering what will happen the next time I step out into the waters of Silver Lake. Obviously I will expect, without seriously considering the matter, that I will sink rather than walk on its surface. My past experience with water gives me very good reason to think that this is what will happen.
But of course in this case, I am not asking whether nature will be following its usual course. Indeed, I am assuming that it will be, since otherwise I would not refer to my past experience to judge what was likely in this particular case; my past experience of what happens with dense bodies in water is relevant only in those cases in which the uniformity of nature is not in question. But this means that to assume that our past experience is relevant in deciding what has happened in an unknown case, as Hume would have us do, is to assume that nature was following its usual course—it is to assume that there has been no break in the uniformity of nature.
It is, in short, to assume that no miracle has occurred. In order to take seriously the possibility that a miracle has occurred, we must take seriously the possibility that there has been a breach in the uniformity of nature, which means that we cannot assume, without begging the question, that our ordinary observations are relevant.
It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that this criticism represents a victory for apologetic. While the apologist may wish to proceed by asking the skeptic to abandon his assumption that ordinary experience is relevant to assessing the truth of miracle reports, this seems to beg the question in the opposite direction.
Ordinary experience will only fail to be relevant in those cases in which there was in fact a break in the uniformity of nature, i. It is tempting to suppose that there is a middle ground; perhaps the skeptic need only admit that it is possible that ordinary experience is not relevant in this case.
However, it is difficult to determine just what sort of possibility this would be. The mere logical possibility that an exceptional event may have occurred is not something that the skeptic has ever questioned; when I infer that I will sink in the waters of Silver Lake, I do so in full recognition of the fact that it is logically possible that I will not. If the apologist is asking for any greater concession than this, the skeptic may be forgiven for demanding that he be given some justification for granting it.
He may be forgiven, too, for demanding that he be persuaded of the occurrence of a miracle on his own terms—i. Of course the most natural place to look for evidence that there may occasionally be breaks in the natural order would be to testimony, but for reasons that are now obvious, this will not do.
It would appear that the question of whether miracle reports are credible turns on a larger question, namely, whether we ought to hold the supernaturalistic worldview, or the naturalistic one. One thing seems certain, however, and that is that the apologist cannot depend on miracle reports to establish the supernaturalistic worldview if the credibility of such reports depends on our presumption that the supernaturalistic worldview is correct.
Recent criticisms of belief in miracles have focused on the concept of a miracle. In particular, it has been held that the notion of a violation of natural law is self-contradictory. No one, of course, thinks that the report of an event that might be taken as a miracle—such as a resurrection or a walking on water—is logically self-contradictory.
Nevertheless some philosophers have argued that it is paradoxical to suggest both that such an event has occurred, and that it is a violation of natural law. This argument dates back at least as far as T. Huxley , who tells us that the definition of a miracle as contravening the order of nature is self-contradictory, because all we know of the order of nature is derived from our observation of the course of events of which the so-called miracle is a part More recently this view has been defended by Antony Flew , , and Alastair McKinnon McKinnon has argued that in formulating the laws of nature, the scientist is merely trying to codify what actually happens; thus to claim that some event is a miracle, where this is taken to imply that it is a violation of natural law, is to claim at once that it actually occurred, but also, paradoxically, that it is contrary to the actual course of events.
A violation would be represented by the occurrence of an A that is not a B, or in this case, an object made of lead that does not fall when we let go of it. Thus to assert that a violation of natural law has occurred is to say at once that all As are Bs, but to say at the same time that there exists some A that is not a B; it is to say, paradoxically, that all objects made of lead will fall when left unsupported, but that this object made of lead did not fall when left unsupported.
Clearly we cannot have it both ways; should we encounter a piece of lead that does not fall, we will be forced to admit that it is not true that all objects made of lead will fall. Of course this does not mean that no one has ever parted the Red Sea, walked on water, or been raised from the dead; it only means that such events, if they occurred, cannot be violations of natural law.
Thus arguably, this criticism does not undermine the Christian belief that these events really did occur Mavrodes But if Antony Flew is correct , for the apologist to point to any of these events as providing evidence for the existence of a transcendent God or the truth of a particular religious doctrine, we must not only have good reason to believe that they occurred, but also that they represent an overriding of natural law, an overriding that originates from outside of nature.
To have any apologetic value, then, a miracle must be a violation of natural law, which means that we must per impossibile have both the law and the exception.
The conception of a violation may, however, be defended as logically coherent. Suppose we take it to be a law of nature that a human being cannot walk on water; subsequently, however, we become convinced that on one particular occasion O —say for example, April 18th, —someone was actually able to do this. Yet suppose that after the occurrence of O water goes back to behaving exactly as it normally does. In such a case our formulation of natural law would continue to have its usual predictive value, and surely we would neither abandon it nor revise it.
It gives us no better explanation of what has happened in the past, it does nothing to account for the exceptional event O , and it fares no better than the original formulation when it comes to predicting what will happen in the future. In this case O is what might be called a nonrepeatable counterinstance to natural law. Faced with such an event we would retain our old formulation of the law, which is to say that the exceptional event O does not negate that formulation.
This means that there is no contradiction implied by affirming the law together with its exception. Things would be different if we can identify some feature F of the circumstances in which O occurred which will explain why O occurred in this one case when normally it would not.
F might be some force operating to counteract the usual tendency of a dense object, such as a human body, to sink in water. In this case, on discovery of F we are in a position to reformulate the law in a fruitful way, saying that human beings cannot walk on water except when F is present. Since the exception in this case now has a generalized form i. It explains the past interaction of dense bodies with water as well as the original formulation did, and it explains why someone was able to walk on water on occasion O.
Finally, it will serve to predict what will happen in the future, both when F is absent and when it is present. We may now, following Ninian Smart and Richard Swinburne , understand a violation as a nonrepeatable counterinstance to natural law. We encounter a nonrepeatable counterinstance when someone walks on water, as in case O, and having identified all of the causally relevant factors at work in O, and reproducing these, no one is able to walk on water.
Since a statement of natural law is falsified only by the occurrence of a repeatable counterinstance, it is paradoxical to assert a particular statement of law and at the same time insist that a repeatable counterinstance to it has occurred. However there is no paradox in asserting the existence of the law together with the occurrence of a counterinstance that is not repeatable.
The force of this line of reasoning is to deny that natural laws must describe the actual course of events. Natural laws do not describe absolutely the limits of what can and cannot happen in nature. They only describe nature to the extent that it operates according to laws. To put the matter differently, we might say that natural laws only describe what can happen as a result of natural causes; they do not tell us what can happen when a supernatural cause is present.
As Michael Levine has put the point:. Suppose the laws of nature are regarded as nonuniversal or incomplete in the sense that while they cover natural events, they do not cover, and are not intended to cover, non-natural events such as supernaturally caused events if there are or could be any.
A physically impossible occurrence would not violate a law of nature because it would not be covered by i. On this understanding, a physically impossible event would be one that could not occur given only physical, or natural, causes. But what is physically impossible is not absolutely impossible, since such an event might occur as the result of a supernatural cause. If this is correct, then it turns out that strictly speaking, a miracle is not a violation of natural law after all, since it is something that occurs by means of a supernatural intervention.
Furthermore, since statements of natural law are only intended to describe what happens in the absence of supernatural intrusions, the occurrence of a miracle does not negate any formulation of natural law.
Thus there is a failure of analogy between those cases that form the basis for our statements of natural law, and the circumstances of a miracle. Probabilistic considerations, based on our ordinary experience, are only useful in determining what will happen in the ordinary case, when there are no supernatural causes at work. We have seen two ways in which the concept of a miracle, described as an event that nature cannot produce on its own, may be defended as coherent.
We may say that a miracle is a violation of natural law and appeal to the conception of a violation as a nonrepeatable counterinstance, or we may deny that miracles are violations of natural law since, having supernatural causes, they fall outside the scope of these laws.
Nevertheless, conceptual difficulties remain. Antony Flew , , has argued that if a miracle is to serve any apologetic purpose, as evidence for the truth of some revelation, then it must be possible to identify it as a miracle without appealing to criteria given by that revelation; in particular, there must be natural, or observable, criteria by which an event can be determined to be one which nature cannot produce on its own. Flew refers to this as the Problem of Identifying Miracles. Let us see how this problem arises in connection with these two conceptions of the miraculous.
Are there natural criteria by which we can distinguish a repeatable from a nonrepeatable counterinstance to some natural law? Suppose some formulation of natural law All As are Bs and some event that is a counterinstance to that formulation an A that is not a B.
The counterinstance will be repeatable just in case there is some natural force F present in the circumstances that is causally responsible for the counterinstance, such that every time F is present, a similar counterinstance will occur.
But suppose we do our best to reproduce the circumstances of the event and are unable to do so. We cannot assume that the event is nonrepeatable, for we have no way to eliminate the possibility that we have failed to identify all of the natural forces that were operating to produce the original counterinstance. The exceptional event may have been produced by a natural force that is unknown to us.
Further, miracle stories are not supported evenly as Hume assumes. Some have tremendous support, while others are questioned even by adherents to a religious following that is to be substantiated by the claim. In conclusion, the safety net is unsuccessful because it assumes if one miracle is true, then all miracles are true, and because it assumes that a miracle must objectively signify what is subjectively communicated.
His first argument—that miracles can be tout court rejected—was found to beg the question. His third argument—that claims of the miraculous, as much as they are given to establish a particular religion, serve to contradict one another and invalidate the power of each—was found to make sweeping generalizations that were unwarranted.
Further, this section will show that Hume is borrowing the Christian framework in order to attack the Christian framework. The common factor between these men was a focus on sense experience. The general rule of the group was that nothing could be accepted as true knowledge that does not come through sense experience. Here then is the major problem with empiricism; it cannot be proved experientially. That is, if everything must be based on sense experience, then empiricism itself must be based on sense experience.
Empiricism is self-defeating because it cannot be proved by its own system. No one can be a consistent empiricist, since the basis of his or her view is assumed by rather than proved through empiricism.
In order to prove empiricism, then, proponents are forced to argue in a circle. They assume the truth of empiricism even as they try to prove its truth. Unfortunately for Hume, his assumption of empiricism and naturalism is neither an analytical truth true by definition nor an empirical truth. On his own criteria, it seems that Hume has to throw his own writing to the flames, for it is nothing but mere sophistry and illusion. The failure of empiricism can be shown from another angle.
No matter how long someone experiences the world, he cannot be certain that he has discovered the uniformity of nature. Hume testifies to this in the story of the Indian prince. The Indian prince did not believe that water could have the properties of frost. In sum, no one ever experiences all that can be experienced. Therefore, uniformity remains an assumption of which empiricism cannot account. Van Til was correct when he noted that Hume had the intellectual integrity to follow empiricism to its logical end—skepticism.
However, it appears that Hume did not have the intellectual honesty to follow his skepticism to its logical end. Instead of abandoning dogmatic claims, Hume asserted them. It is intellectually dishonest to say on one hand that empiricism inevitably leads to skepticism and then on the other hand to claim that empiricism disallows the miraculous. Hume further abandoned his skeptical stance when he developed the idea of uniform natural law. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood.
Hume can allow the former, but will not allow the latter. On his own criteria, it seems that he would attempt in vain to demonstrate the falsehood of a miracle, just as he says it would be in vain to attempt to demonstrate the falsehood of the sun not rising tomorrow.
Why does Hume assert his dogmatic stance when his epistemology does not appear to allow it? The answer lies in his view of analogical knowledge. Basically, as was noted above, Hume believed that only experiences analogous to our own could be understood. Therefore, miracles are impossible since they are experiences altogether contrary to other human experiences. According to the experience-based analogical system one would never be able to understand a miraculous event even if miraculous events are possible.
Hume apparently makes a jump from knowledge to reality. He assumes that if one cannot know something, then that thing it is not possible. Thus, Hume assumes at the outset that miracles are not possible. In fact, he must if he is to get rid of miracles, for if miracles have happened, then they are analogous to other experiences and are knowable, since the miraculous would be a genuine human experience. Only if miracles were never a part of human experience could they be unknowable.
It appears that if he has experience of either, he can modify his belief structure to comply with the new material. Second, on his assumption of experience-based analogical knowledge Hume would contend that a miracle could never be known. If he is to maintain this, however, he has to assume that a miracle is not possible. For if a miracle were possible and actual, then it would enter into the experience-based analogical knowledge.
If it entered this knowledge sphere, then far from not being able to be known, miracles are known. This may explain why Hume was so fond of the a priori argument. His epistemological assumption of analogical knowledge allowed him after he made the jump from knowledge to possibility to broaden the circularity of his a priori argument and may have made him believe his argument had legitimacy. How can one prove empirically that knowledge comes through experience-based analogy?
Why, as has been shown, does Hume continually beg the question concerning the possibility of miracles? It appears that he did not want to acknowledge a personal God. The real problem is theological. As an unbeliever the scripture states that Hume sought to suppress the truth in unrighteousness Rom Hume knew God, but did not want to acknowledge God. Thus, his metaphysic of naturalism informed his epistemology of empiricism, not the other way around.
Richard Purtill arranges the argument for naturalism this way:. If one asked why Hume assumed metaphysical naturalism is true, he would respond by citing a belief in empiricism. However, empiricism depends on the uniformity of nature which naturalism supplies. If the latter is shown to be faulty, the former suffers in a similar manner.
The last section showed the faults inherent within empiricism, now this section will show the faults in naturalism. Lewis, in his work M iracles, sought to show the deficiencies of naturalism.
Lewis takes seriously the fourth point of metaphysical naturalism outlined above. If only one thing does not cohere with the system, then there must be something outside the system. If this is the case, then naturalism fails. There are at least three things that are inexplicable in terms of naturalism: reason, morality, and uniformity. Naturalism asserts that nature is all that exists. Reason, then, must be explained by nature, but nature is ultimately non-rational.
If rationality is grounded in the non-rational, then rationality is merely the way things appear, and not the way things are. Lewis stated,. All possible knowledge. But if this certainty is merely a feeling in our own minds and not a genuine insight into realities beyond them—if it merely represents the way our minds happen to work—then we can have no knowledge. Unless human reasoning is valid no science can be true. If reason is merely a product of chance, as must be the case in naturalism, then arguments do not comport with reality and are meaningless.
If reason should have its true course, as all naturalists demand, naturalists have to abandon naturalism. The argument against naturalism as it applies to morality is similar to the argument as it applies to reason. Much like the non-rational cannot give rise to the rational, so the non-moral cannot give rise to the moral. Hume appears to recognize a lack of justification for morality in his philosophy. It can be valid only if it is an offshoot of some absolute moral wisdom. Naturalism cannot explain order and uniformity.
If at the core nature is governed by chance, then order cannot exist. Hume recognized that his epistemology did not allow for uniformity, now it is seen that his metaphysic denies uniformity. Since Hume cannot, on his own presuppositions, formulate the laws of nature, then he cannot condemn miracles as being contrary to them.
Naturalism as an explanatory hypothesis for ultimate reality is fraught with problems. Three have been shown in this essay. Christian theism is the only alternative that can account for reason, morality, and uniformity. Only if there is a personal God can there be reason, morality, and uniformity. Morality, which Hume appeared to recognize was lacking in the metaphysic of naturalism, has its basis only in the God of the Scriptures.
Hume refused to recognize God. Following his desire, deeply rooted in man, to rebel against the Creator, Hume sought to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. As he attempted to smother the truth, he constructed a matrix of beliefs to give a form of legitimacy to his suppression. His complex matrix of fabricated presuppositions allowed him to deny the possibility of miracles.
The purpose of this paper has been to untangle the matrix and lay bare the presuppositions. When examined closely, the presuppositions are found wanting. They do not explain reality and cannot even explain the ability of Hume to critique miracles in the first place. The same holds true for Hume. The only reason he was able to critique the possibility of God and miracles is that God upholds all things—including Hume. The Bible maintains that the back of all reality is the will of God.
Miracles are simply a less common way that God interacts with his creation. This does not mean, however, that miracles are unnatural. From the human standpoint, miracles do appear unnatural, but whatever God does defines what is natural. This brings up a pressing question; why would God, who arranged his creation in logical operation, impede on that logical operation?
Lewis provides the best answer to the question. Lewis concluded his analogy this way:. By definition, miracles must of course interrupt the usual course of nature; but if they are real they must, in the very act of so doing, assert all the more the unity and self-consistency of total reality at some deeper level.
The problem for Hume, and all unbelievers, is that they refuse to understand. If nature is absolute, then miracles are impossible. If God is absolute, miracles are more than possible — they are expected. Rather, they are the focal point of history. Only during the great soteriological epochs of history did God allow his power to be known through the miraculous.
Hume assumed that if miracles happened in the past, then they should happen today as well. But God expects people to respond in faith to the proclamation of his Word. Jesus calls all men—including Hume—whether they experience a miracle or not to repent and believe.
Hume was given more than enough proof for the existence of both God and miracles that he will not be able to stand in the Day of Judgment. His a priori argument amounts to nothing less than begging the question, his a posterior argument relies on a probabilistic view of reality that is fundamentally flawed, and his final argument is fraught with unproved assumptions. Every person has presuppositions, which guide their thoughts allowing him to hold certain beliefs and deny others.
If a person has the wrong presuppositions, every fact he interprets will be interpreted wrongly. Pure Empiricism was found to be self-defeating, since it cannot be proved by its own hypothesis. Naturalism fails to account for mundane aspects of human reality such as reason, morality, and natural order.
To his credit, it has to be said that Hume sought to establish his world view. But once established, nothing was allowed to change it. It acquired a quasi-religious character beyond further verification and falsification, because no fact could be admitted that could conceivable count against it [i.
It has to be said that world views. Their validity and usefulness lie in their capacity to account for the world we live in.
Although Hume recognized this to an extent, he was not willing to accept the only paradigm shift that would have given meaning to life, reason, morality, and the uniformity of nature. Instead, Hume chose to sever beliefs from reality, so that he could continue with life in spite of the problems in his presuppositions. In this way, Hume is a prime example of the extent man will go to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. If Hume had abandoned his faulty presuppositions and accepted the presuppositions by which he actually operated, then his problem with miracles would have disappeared.
Hume had hoped to eliminate the possibility of miracles. He recognized that eliminating miracles effectively eliminated the possibility of a personal God. His argument ultimately failed because his hidden, suppressed presupposition, which allowed him to write the article On Miracles in the first place , was that the personal God of Scripture is real and upholds all things by his mighty hand.
He essentially tried to remove the ground he was standing on. He may have thought that he had accomplished his goal, but his article, instead of opposing the possibility of God, added to the unimaginable weight of evidence in favor of the biblical God. Though Hume never mentioned Christian miracles in his essay, nevertheless, it is obvious to any reader that he chose examples based on their similarity to Christian miracles.
The implication of this point for traditional arguments for God is obvious. For, as the cause ought only to be proportioned to the effect, and the effect, so far as it falls under our cognizance, is not infinite. Craig, Apologetics , Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas Downers Grove: InterVarsity, , Certainly one cannot easily distinguish two arguments in Hume. However, there are distinct traces of the second argument throughout the paper.
This has been the source of confusion for modern interpreters. Hume appears to fluctuate between the two arguments. It appears that he believed both were powerful and had the potential to dispel superstition.
Corner provides a slightly different example, which was the inspiration for the example used here. As noted before, however, I believe that the second argument is inherent throughout the essay. The first argument only convinces the convinced.
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