Miracles

Miracles

1. For religious people, miracles are used to prove that God intervenes in our daily lives and his existence

   • What is a miracle?
     • An interruption to the process of nature that cannot be explained by natural laws
       • Bears a deeper/religious significance than just breaking laws of nature
         • When an 'invisible agent' affects the working days of the universe
           • Swinburne's examples:Levitation, resurrection, water into wine etc

2. Aquinas: Miracles as interventions

   • 'Those things must properly be called miraculous which are done by divine power apart from the order generally followed in things'
     • Three definitions of miracles: 1.Events done by God that cannot be done by nature
       • 2.Events which God does something nature can do but not in this order
         • 3..Events that occur when God does what is usually done by the working of nature, but without the operation of the principles of nature
           • E.g. When someone ill recovers miraculously
             • Hume: A law of nature tells us how bodies must behave when uninterfered with but a miracle occurs when the world is not left to itself
         • E.g.Jesus' resurrection; people can die and come back to life but not 24 hours later
       • E.g.If gravity stopped working

3. Ray Holland: Miracles as interpretations

   • A religious person will interpret an event as a gift from God/miracle
     • A non-religious would say it was a piece of luck/coincidence
       • Even if an event is explainable by laws of nature, it can still be interpreted as a miracle if it is taken as a religious sign
         • A.K.A:The 'contingency miracle' - the presence of religious significance is sufficient

4. Richard Swinburne: Miracles as having religious significance

   • There are objective events which are miracles whether interpreted as such or not
   • Sort of agrees with Holland

5. David Hume

   • A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature
     • Hume's method was sceptical and critical
       • The accounts/testimony of others allow us to form beliefs and may contribute to our knowledge
         • testimony can be unreliable and falser so we must be critical...
           • Is there a contrary testimony?
             • What is the character of the witness?
               • How many witnesses were there?
                 • How they delivered their testimony
                   • Does the witness have an interest in what they claim?
                     • We like to tell and hear remarkable stories
                       • Testimonies often come from those less enlightened
         • We shouldn't disregard things as miracles however to accept them as miracles is challenging
           • The Indian Prince; our experience will always be limited so we might draw false conclusions
   • 'Wise men proportion their belief to their evidence'
     • We should believe in that which has happened the most often or has the greatest weight of evidence
       • Laws of nature were extremely strong evidence form experience
         • Needs to be infallible evidence to proceed with confidence
   • Catch 22..
     • 'A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle...is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.'
       • To identify a miracle, we must compare it to the uniform laws it breaks and in doing so we highlight the evidence against the miracle which is more substantial and therefore overthrows the proposed miracle
   • Always reject the greater miracle..
     • In doing so, one is following the greatest weight of evidence and rejecting the most unlikely scenario
       • '...no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless...its falsehood would be more miraculous (than it's truth).'
   • Possibility...
     • '...no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a foundation for any such system of religion'
       • Many Christians use Jesus' miracles to support their religion as Jesus used miracles to prove his divinity; his oneness with his heavenly father
       • Hume accepts the possibility of miracles but not that there is any evidence for them

6. Cause - dunamis

7. Effect - teras

8. Purpose - semeion

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