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RICHARD SWINBURNE
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Hull
Palgrave Macmillan
Richard Swinburne 1970
Preface lX
1 Senses of'Miracle' 1
4 Historical Evidence 33
6 External Evidence 65
Notes 73
Bibliography 75
v
Editor's Preface
lX
1 Senses of 'Miracle'
11
2 The Humean Tradition
21
3 Violation of a Law of Nature
Laws of nature
32
4 Historical Evidence
The claim of the last chapter was that we could have good
reason to suppose that an event E, if it occurred, was a violation
of a law of nature L. But could one have good evidence that
such an event E occurred? At this point we must face the force
ofHume's own argument. This, it will be remembered, runs as
follows. The evidence, which ex hypothesi is good evidence, that
Lis a law of nature is evidence that E did not occur. We have
certain other evidence that E did occur. In such circumstances,
writes Hume, the wise man 'weighs the opposite experiments.
He considers which side is supported by the greater number of
experiments' ([11] p. 111). Since he supposes that the evidence
that E occurred would be that of testimony, Hume concludes
'that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the
testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more
miraculous, than the fact which it endeavours to establish'
([11] pp. 115 f.). Flew, it will be remembered, went further
and claimed that because of the 'nature of the propositions
concerned' ([16] p. 208) the evidence never could be that
strong. In order to assess the worth of this claim we must
digress and see in general how historical evidence is weighed.
Principles for assessing conflicts between evidence of the first three kinds
and evidence of the fourth kind
51
5 The Action of a god
Evidence from miracles for the existence of more than one god
The second point, which is connected with the first, is that there
is no reason at all to suppose that the fourth of Hume's argu-
ments of part 2 of section x (discussed on pp. 17 ff.) is correct.
There is no reason to suppose that Hume is in general right to
claim that 'every miracle ... pretended to have been wrought in
any . . . [religion] . . . as its direct scope is to establish the
particular system to which it is attributed; so has it the same
force, though more indirectly, to overthrow every other system.
In destroying a rival system it likewise destroys the credit of
those miracles on which that system was established' ([11]
pp. 121 f.). If Hume were right to claim that evidence for the
miracles of one religion was evidence against the miracles of any
other, then indeed evidence for miracles in each would be poor.
But in fact evidence for a miracle 'wrought in one religion' is
only evidence against the occurrence of a miracle 'wrought in
another religion' if the two miracles, if they occurred, would be
evidence for propositions of the two religious systems incom-
patible with each other. It is hard to think of pairs of alleged
miracles of this type. If there were evidence for a Roman
Catholic miracle which was evidence for the doctrine of tran-
substantiation and evidence for a Protestant miracle which was
evidence against it, here we would have a case of the conflict of
evidence which Hume claims occurs generally with alleged
miracles. The miracles could be evidence for their respective
doctrines in the following way. A devout Roman Catholic
priest might be publicly praying to God in church for a miracle
to demonstrate the doctrine of transubstantiation when the
tabernacle containing the Sacrament levitated. A dedicated
Protestant minister might pray publicly for lightning to strike
a tabernacle as evidence that the doctrine of transubstantiation
was idolatrous, and such lightning might strike it out of a sky
60
empty of clouds without being followed by thunder. Here
indeed we would have miracles supporting conflicting claims.
But it is enough to give this example to see that most alleged
miracles do not give rise to conflicts of this kind. Most alleged
miracles, if they occurred as reported, would show at most the
power of a god or gods and their concern for the needs of men,
and little more specific in the way of doctrine. A miracle
wrought in the context of the Hindu religion and one wrought
in the context of the Christian religion will not in general tend
to show that specific details of their systems are true, but, at
most, that there is a god concerned with the needs of those who
worship, which is a proposition accepted in both systems.
63
6 External Evidence
71
Notes
Page2
Page 34
Page 44
Page 67
74
Bibliography
76