David Hume was a philosopher at the very core of the Scottish Enlightenment in the 18th century. His views challenged the belief that religion and the existence of God are the answers to anything science can not explain, i.e. God of the Gaps. In particular he dissected the idea that miracles are the result of God’s intervention stating that a miracle is “A transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity or by the interposition of some invisible agent”. In simpler terms, Hume is defining a miracle as something that breaks a natural law because of the intervention of an exterior influence, not necessarily God.
Hume created three main arguments that challenged the existence of miracles. The first focuses on the opinion that there has never been “…in all history any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men of such unquestioned good- sense, education and earning” to be relied upon to give a valid account. In biblical terms this seems to be a fair point, for example Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead after four days in front of a crowd of people in Bethany; whilst this can not be proved or disproved the people within that crowd would have been farmers or fishermen, uneducated and illiterate and Hume’s point is that this is how miracles are accounted for in the majority of the bible, in front of a large but seemingly unreliable witness. Thus, Hume wondered why miracles never seemed to occur in the presence of well-educated men such as himself. If even the most highly respected and educated men of the time had been ignorant only a hundred years before the revolution of science does it not then seem logical to state that humble peasants thousands of years ago can not be a reliable source? However, religion does not require logic and it can be argued that intelligence does not determine reliability. It is true that in most cases in the bible miracles were performed in front of a crowd and therefore the quantity should overrule the quality of the source. The resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of Christianity, a religion that millions of people believe, regardless of their intelligence or status. How then can Hume state that the witnesses are “insufficient”, whilst it is true that Christians were not actually present at the resurrection of Jesus the fact remains that millions have the faith to believe in them and who is to say that the “invisible agent” is not God?
“The passion of surprise and wonder, arising from miracles, being an agreeable emotion, gives a sensible tendency towards the belief of those events from which it is derived”. This quote presents the idea that if people believe in miracles then whenever a wondrous thing happens they will automatically refer to it as a miracle because they want to believe it is. If a woman who has been told she can never have a baby then conceives, many would view this as a miracle, getting caught up in the emotion but forgetting the factors that may have caused it; there is an element of human error involved as well as the biological aspect that is completely unpredictable. Thus, while highly unlikely there is always still a chance. However, Hume’s statement is hypocritical as you could say that he is being unsympathetic towards miracles and by not believing in them is being biased himself. An example that disproves Hume’s idea is that of St Paul who converted to Christianity after Jesus performed a miracle. Surely this is a credible source as this miracle convinced him enough to become possibly the most prominent follower of Jesus.
Hume also believes that, much like the witnesses, the countries in which these miracles supposedly occur are “abound among ignorant and barbarous nations”. It is true that miracles tend to happen in rural areas of far humbler surroundings than the city of Edinburgh at the time. However what is to say that God intervened there as those people were in more need of a miracle than those who are privileged? The context of the time is important also in this case as Hume worked during the enlightenment, the name itself gives away the analogy that everything beforehand had been thwarted by darkness and ignorance. Within this Hume shows his own ignorance in that, compared to himself and the educated environment he is used to of course every other nation is going to be far more ignorant, the majority of people I his time were still workers and did not have the opportunities he did. Religion for many gave them something to live for and how does Hume have the right to question it? After all billions of people believe in miracles whilst few shared his view and thus he seemed the ignorant minority at the time.
His final challenge is in that of opposing religions and how that although miracles are present in all religions neither one can accept a miracle from another as it would disprove their own. “Every miracle, therefore, pretended to have been wrought in any of these religions…as its direct scope to establish the particular system to which it is attributed, so it has the same forces…to overthrow every other system. In destroying a rival system, it likewise destroys the credit of those miracles, on which that system was established”. Whilst Hume thought that as not all of these religions can be right they must all be wrong there is surely more evidence to prove miracles as each religion seems to have examples, for example Jews believe Moses led them across the Red Sea because they were the chosen ones, and so regardless of the faith miracles seem to exist.
Whilst many of Hume’s arguments are close-minded to anything other than the educated world he lives in I believe his most valid point is that of wanting miracles to be true and thus fabricating them from positive and unpredicted events. This idea can be applied to any religion and poses the question over whether miracles really are the intervention of God or just what we perceive them to be. There seems no reason however to not incorporate both Hume’s ideas and religion as there is no proof that one who prays for a miracle and then receives it has not witnessed the intervention of God as much as a person who does not believe in miracles and then is saved from death quite inexplicably has not played a part in a miracle of pure luck/chance.
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