Definitions of miracles: David Hume

By the time of David Hume, it was thought that natural laws were universal and governed all events

• Hume defined a miracle as a 'violation of natural law'
• He then developed a fuller definition: 'a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent'
• For Hume, a miracle not only had to be an event that broke the laws of nature, but also had to express a divine cause
  • For example, raising a person from the dead breaks our regular experience of the law of nature and demands an intervention by God or…