Comparing Hume and Swinburne

Many philosophers have provided insight as to what a miracle is. Two of these were Hume and Swinburne; both of whom had different ideas about religion.

Hume was an empiricist. He produced an essay in two parts explaining why he did not think that miracles happened. In part one, he attempted to show philosophically why evidence against miracles outweighted their existence. Part 2 concerned the unlikely nature of miracles occuring even if the argument against them happennign was more probable.

Hume said that when we evaluate if something happens, we usually check to see if the experience is constant. If this is the case, then the experience is probably true. For example, we know that the supermarket has not caught fire (despite having not empirically witnessed it) because we walk past it everyday. Our experience is constant.

However, if something is not constant, we have to outweight the possibility of it having not happened against it having happened. For example, if we do not walk past the supermarket we must consider the possibility of it having not caught on fire against it having had.

However miracles are different. Hume said that miracles were a 'transgression of a law of nature by the volition of a deity or by the interposition of some invisible agent'. But despite how positive this definition appears to be, Hume said that the laws of nature were unalterable. Therefore, miracles cannot go against them. Hume concluded that only if it was more probably that a miracle did not happen then a miracle was true.

As well as this, Hume levelled criticism against the occurence of miracles. Firstly, he said that miracles do not happen due to not having a sufficient number of witnesses. Ad well as this, they would have to be trustworthy and reliable witnesses. More importantly they would have to have something to lose such as their reputation if the miracle was not correct.

Hume also said that miracles came from people with a vested interest. He said that people tend to look for miracles and signs. In this sense, they are prone to call something unusual a miracle when it in fact is not. However they do not know this because they had not looked into if this is the case but simply jumped to the conclusion.

In addition Hume said that miracles come from uneducated people who think that the law of nature has been broken when in fact it hasn't. An example of this would be stories of resurrection such as Elisha and the widow's son where 'lying across the body' was in fact CPR as we now know.

Lastly Hume said that miracles could not possibly be true because there are so many in different faiths around the world. How do we know which to believe in?

Swinburne liked Hume's definition of miracles but changed his to 'a non-repeatable counter instance to a law of nature'.

He said that if you changed your understanding of laws of nature due to a miracle having happened, then any future predictions from a law of nature would be incorrect if the counter instance only happened once.

Swinburne also said that historical and scientific claims have limitations because they can be effected by the type of person, their mind, situation etc. He said that 'a wise man will say a miracle went against a law of nature' but whether here was enough evidence to say so is enough matter.

In addition to this, Swinburne said that a miracle must be in line with God's characteristics, and therefore caused by God. For example, saving a child from dying in a terrible accident.

As well as this, Swinburne countered Hume's arguments against the occurence of miracles. He asked what exactly Hume meant by a sufficient number of witnesses. For example, Jesus is rumoured to have been seen by 500 people at one time. But Hume is vague on the matter.

Swinburne also says that for Hume to say that miracles only come from barbarous and ignorant people is completely unfair.

In the same way, Swinburne said that the only instance of miracles from faith stories being untrustworthy would be if the respective miracles were in direct conflict with each other such as the miracle of Elijah praying for fire but an opposing myth saying that in fact, Baal caused the fire and smote all unbelievers.

However, most miracles only serve to show the power of God or other gods as well as concern for others.

Lastly Swinburne identified 3 principles for identifying miracles. Firstly, different accounts should be considered more trustworthy than others. For example, a claim of a miracle would not be taken so seriously if someone was notorious for not being truthful. In this sense, it can be said that this is similar to Hume's idea that a person would have to have a lot to lose if they believed a miracle happened.

Secondly Swinburne said that accounts of miracles should also be given more weight if they can be backed up empirically. For example, if you were to witness water turning to wine.

Lastly, Swinburne said that multiple accounts backing up the occurence of the same miracle should be believed than a few going against it.

29/30-A*