Comparing Hume and Swinburne on Miracles

Hume

If you remember, Hume was rather against anything that coudl not be backed up empirically. He wrote an essay in his book concerning miracles which is in two parts. Part 1 attempts to show why philosophically that the evidence against the occurrence of a miracle strongly outweighs the evidence in favour of the occurrence. Part 2 attempts to show that even if the evidence against it were more probable, then it still would have been unlikely to occur.

1) He said that if an experience was constant, then it was proof. If not, then you have to weigh up the proportion of the experience happening against it not happening. However,when it came to miracles, it was difficult. A miracle, he said was a volition of a law of nature. But he said that laws of nature were unalterable and fixed. Therefore if the alternative is more probable then the miracle must have happened.

2) Hume challenged miracles by saying that no miracle has enough witnesses. There are not trustworthy enough or educated. He said that for a person's claim about miracles to be believed then they must have a lot to lose.

3) Hume also said that people look for miracles. Therefore when they come across something that is extraordinary, they call it a miracle because they want it to be one, rather than actually finding out if it is or not. In this sense, they are biased as they have a vested interest and want it to be right.

4) In addition, Hume said that claims of miracles are from uneducated people.

Lastly, Hume said that we must not believe in miracles because there are some many that contradict each other in different faiths.

Swinburne

However, Swinburne did not agree with Hume's definition of a miracle (A transgression of a law of nature by the volition of a Deity or the interposition of some invisible agent) He instead said that a miracle was an 'occurence of a non-repeatable counter instance to nature'.

He said that there are 3 observations a miracle would have to fulfill.

1) If we have a good reason to think that miracle happened going against a law of nature, such that it would not happen again.

2) If we tried to change a law of nature because we believed it was not a miracle but a misunderstanding of a law of nature that the law of nature would then given false predictions in the future.

3) If we then leave the law of nature unchanged, we then believe that the law of nature will give correct predictions in future.

Swinburne also rejected historical and scientific claims of a miracle saying that they only give limited support. They can be effected by the character, the mind of the person and the competence of the witness. He said that a wise man will say that a miracle went against a law of nature and so was a violation of it. But whether there was enough evidence to say so is another matter.

He said that for a non-repeatable ocunter instance to nature to be called a miracle, it must have been caused by a god.If the event would also be in line with the characteristics of that said god, then it must be a miracle.

He also responded to Hume's arguments.

Firstly Hume's argument that miracles were contradictory were wrong.

Swinburne said thatthis would only be valid if two miracles were in direct conflict with each other.

For example a Roman Catholic priest praying for a sign that the belief in transubstantiation was true and so the tabernacle containing the Sacrament leviated. But a protestant priest was praying for a sign that it was wrong and so lightning strikes the tabernacle.

A miracle in the context of Hinduism and one in the context of Islam will not usually show that specific details of their respective religions are true. Most miracles, Swinburne said would only show the power of God or gods and their concern for the needs of people.

On the other hand, Swinburne did acknowledge Hume's argument against miracles because of how trustworthy the witnesses were.

However, he asks what Hume actually meant about a sufficient number of witnesses. For example, St Paul claimed that Jesus was seen by 500 people

He does not deny Hume's claim that all believers seem to want to look for signs, but says that to say that all believers are deceivers is completely wrong. Also, why would certain believers be prepared to die for something that they now is not true? Likewise, it is wrong to say that all ideas of miracles just comes from a barbarous nation.

Swinburne gave 3 principles for how to weight up if claims of miracles are correct:

1) Different evidence shoudl be given different evidence. Our own memory would be better than another witness unless we are known for being forgetful, or not the most reliable perosn.

2) They should also be given different weight depending on if there is empirical evidence.

3) Multiple testimonies that are similar should be given more weight that other testimonies that go against each other.