Criticism of Hume's argument on miracles
- Created by: meganmiltonn
- Created on: 09-03-16 20:12
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- Criticisms against Hume's argument on miracles
- Hume doesn't explain why religious believers are more unreliable witnesses than other
- A religious believer would be just as likely to want to be sure their experience was miraculous and true
- They may be more likely to identify what constitutes the hand of God than someone with no familiarity with religion
- A religious believer would be just as likely to want to be sure their experience was miraculous and true
- Some miracles have been witnessed by very intelligent and well educated people, e.g. the university scientist who witnessed the Miracle of the Sun
- Hume ignores the meaning that miracles can have beyond a literal interpretation
- Swinburne argues that Hume's view on natural laws could be criticised because the basis of natural laws are not objective facts, they are descriptions of how we think the world works
- W. Pannenburg also agrees. Miracles are one-off events and if so, a natural law is broken. However, that does not mean natural laws are meaningless
- Stephen Evans disagrees with Swinburne and argues that Hume simply meant that a miracle was an exception to the normal process of nature, therefore, he does not misunderstand the nature of natural laws
- Hume doesn't explain why religious believers are more unreliable witnesses than other
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