David hume miracles. David Hume's "Of Miracles": A Summary — Philosophy Bro 2022-10-21
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David Hume was a Scottish philosopher and historian who is best known for his skepticism and empiricism. One of the most controversial and influential ideas Hume proposed was his view on miracles.
In Hume's view, a miracle is an event that is caused by the direct intervention of a deity or some other supernatural power. He argued that belief in miracles is irrational and not based on evidence. Hume believed that the laws of nature are fixed and inviolable, and that it is therefore impossible for a miracle to occur.
Hume's argument against miracles can be summarized as follows: first, he argued that the probability of any given event occurring is directly related to the number of times it has occurred in the past. Since miracles are rare and unusual events, their probability of occurring is very low. Second, Hume argued that the evidence for the occurrence of a miracle is always based on testimony, but that testimony is unreliable and can be easily falsified. Therefore, Hume concluded that it is irrational to believe in miracles, as the evidence for their occurrence is weak and unconvincing.
Hume's views on miracles were highly influential and continue to be debated by philosophers today. Some have argued that Hume's position is too skeptical and that it is possible for miracles to occur, while others have defended Hume's view as a rational and skeptical approach to evaluating claims about the supernatural.
Overall, Hume's views on miracles demonstrate his commitment to empiricism and his belief that belief in the supernatural should be based on evidence and reason, rather than faith or tradition. His arguments have had a lasting impact on the way we think about the possibility of miracles and the role of testimony in establishing their occurrence.
Of Miracles
I need not mention the difficulty of detecting a falsehood in any private or even public history, at the place, where it is said to happen; much more when the scene is removed to ever so small a distance. Moral philosophy, as a branch of philosophy, is a science that investigates human nature. This definition is supported by the following explanation that seems to be logical. Ironically, the first section is very short but is exceptionally controversial and will require much attention. The gravity, solidity, age, and probity of so great an emperor, who, through the whole course of his life, conversed in a familiar manner with his friends and courtiers, and never affected those extraordinary airs of divinity assumed by Alexander and Demetrius. Videos are supported with visual material, such as slides, photos, maps, and images, which means you have the opportunity to learn in multiple ways.
If we assume miracles are impossible, then the account will, of course, be rejected. For although it might be highly improbable that just this number should have been chosen out of all the possible numbers that could have been chosen, nevertheless one must also consider the probability that the evening news would have reported just this number if that number had not been chosen. He believed that once we admit that human beings are conditioned to expect that nature will continue to follow the patterns it has followed in the past, we can begin to think more carefully about what we should or should not believe given the patterns of our past experience. A miracle occurs when the world is not left to itself, when something distinct from the natural order as a whole intrudes into it. In sum, if a book is not grounded in the non-instructive a priori truth or in illustrative human experience, it must be pure speculation. The evidence remains scattered throughout the neighborhood.
Did David Hume Prove that Miracles are Impossible?
The raising of a house or ship into the air is a visible miracle. Almighty, it does not. It therefore all stands or falls on the miracle of the resurrection. The miracles oppose each other in the same way as the testimony of witnesses at a trial may have their credit destroyed by the testimony of two others who show that the defendant was far away from the scene of the crime at the time it was committed. Hume assumes that miracles can only be testified to and not experienced. According to the New Testament, Jesus walked on water, calmed raging storms, healed diseases, exorcised demons, and brought the dead back to life! Frequently he would argue an idea that was the very opposite of his personal belief.
Or if, by the help of vanity and a heated imagination, a man has first made a convert of himself, and entered seriously into the delusion I who ever scruples to make use of pious frauds, in support of so holy and meritorious a cause? The general rule of the group was that nothing could be accepted as true knowledge that does not come through sense experience. On one hand, he presents an a priori reason to exclude the possibility of miracles. First it should be noted that, contrary to common belief, this is not an argument for the impossibility of miracles. But one could certainly question the parameters Hume mentions. You have yourself heard many such marvellous relations started, which, being treated with scorn by all the wise and judicious, have at last been abandoned even by the vulgar. If the apostles, who had been primed and prepared for a miracle such as the resurrection, doubted the authenticity of human testimony to the resurrection, then skepticism played a larger role in the lives of the original witnesses to the miracles than Hume would allow.
For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him. Because such evidence does not exist, belief in miracles is therefore irrational. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. And this is problematic. Funny how that miracle would entirely confirm the religious beliefs of all hundred of them - what a strange coincidence! I beg the limitations here made may be remarked, when I say, that a miracle can never be proved, so as to be the foundation of a system of religion.
His auditors may not have, and commonly have not, sufficient judgement to canvass his evidence: what judgement they have, they renounce by principle, in these sublime and mysterious subjects: or if they were ever so willing to employ it, passion and a heated imagination disturb the regularity of its operations. This is our natural way of thinking, even with regard to the most common and most credible events. . The perception of the information presented by the historians may also be different. And shall we, rather than have a recourse to so natural a solution, allow of a miraculous violation of the most established laws of nature? You say a hundred people witnessed the miracle? But this does not have to follow. We entertain a suspicion concerning any matter of fact, when the witnesses contradict each other; when they are but few, or of a doubtful character; when they have an interest in what they affirm; when they deliver their testimony with hesitation, or on the contrary, with too violent asseverations.
David Hume's "Of Miracles": A Summary — Philosophy Bro
What Hume seems to miss is that while those before him were not privileged to his knowledge, they certainly knew that women who were virgins did not have children Matt 1:23. Be assured, that those renowned lies, which have spread and flourished to such a monstrous height, arose from like beginnings; but being sown in a more proper soil, shot up at last into prodigies almost equal to those which they relate. Though the Being to whom the miracle is ascribed, be, in this case, Almighty, it does not, upon that account, become a whit more probable; since it is impossible for us to know the attributes or actions of such a Being, otherwise than from the experience which we have of his productions, in the usual course of nature. Our most holy religion is founded on Faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing it to put it to such a trial as it is, by no means, fitted to endure. He points out that according to the fact that any miracle ever observed by people has not much evidence and explanation as any other ordinary thing in the world around; it is supposed to be a violation of the natural laws according to which everything exists.
He considered justly, that it was not requisite, in order to reject a fact of this nature, to be able accurately to disprove the testimony, and to trace its falsehood, through all the circumstances of knavery and credulity which produced it. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior. Our confidence in the reality of biblical miracles is grounded in our conviction that the New Testament is demonstrably a credible historical document. Or perhaps we need not go that far. Their eloquence captivates the willing hearers, minimising their reason and subduing their understanding. What may be experienced by one generation, may be alien to another. Then, the reports say that, one month later, the queen arose from the dead, resumed the throne, and governed England for three more years.
No testimony for any miracle has ever amounted to probability, much less to proof. Much like the chapter on miracles, this argument is set forth to show the impossibility of knowing the Biblical God. With great vehemence are religious miracles reported. The proximity of Jerusalem to many of the other major centers of human history Rome, Corinth, etc. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.
Inadequate reception of his point of view disappointed the philosopher so much that he felt himself to be stillborn from the writing. Because every single person in history who has ever dropped a rock on Earth reports that it fell. According to this worldview, because miracles are outside the realm of cause and effect, then miracles are impossible. But how can one continue life without a belief in cause and effect? Now Hume also made an argument for why is always the least probable possibility. Maybe he absolutely killed that bitch. See Antony Flew, Introduction to On Miracles , by David Hume LaSalle, Ill: Open Court, 1985. But either way, that is a truly massive hoax.
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