Chapter 7: Given Shepherd’s Objections, Do Hume’s Views On Miracles Need Adjusting
To Be Plausible In Their Era?
In this chapter, I will explore
the question of whether, given Shepherd’s counterarguments[i],
Hume (EHU 10) still has the resources within his argument against miracles to
defend his claims as they stand or whether his concepts need re-working to remain
plausible. I shall explore the plausibility of Hume’s arguments within their
era, before examining present day examples of miracles and unusual, marvellous
events in the next chapter, in order to assess how well Hume’s arguments
function within various contexts. I would like to suggest that Hume (EHU 10) does
need to adjust his definition of miracles to defend his views more successfully
within his era. I think the criticism that Shepherd raises[ii]
about Hume’s definition of a miracle is a problem that Hume would need to
address.
This is because I agree with Shepherd[iii] that scripture does not seem to describe a miracle in terms of a violation of natural laws occurring. Her definition does fit with scripture and with common Christian views of miracles.
A scriptural problem with seeing
miracles as a break in the laws of nature is that it implies that God only acts
rarely and sporadically in the world. However, a biblical view of God’s
providence is that God is constantly acting in the world, for instance, by
causing rain to fall and grass to grow, and that miracles are simply more
extraordinary types of events which are harder to explain. Nevertheless, in
Hume’s defence, he does allow for God acting through the laws of nature (EHU
10.99 SBN 129). So he may, in this sense, cohere with the Old Testament even if
his narrow definition of a miracle doesn’t. Moreover, Shepherd [iv]states
that the etymological root of the word miracle is ‘wonder’. Catholics also take
notice of the Latin word for miracle which I think is important because, out of
the various Christian denominations, Catholicism places the greatest emphasis
on miracles. So it is helpful and efficient to have a definition and account of
miracles which can accommodate Catholicism into the debate.
Another way Shepherd’s view might
cohere with Catholicism is that, by seeing a miracle as being caused by God
acting as an additional cause, her description may be relevant to how the
Vatican has been cited as giving the definition of a miracle “as an intervention
of God that goes above and beyond the laws of nature” [v].
However, Hume may have defended his definition by arguing that (EHU 10.93; SBN 117)
he does not wish to use the word wonder in his definition because wonder is a
passion which impairs a person’s ability to give true testimony. Hume (EHU
10.93; SBN 117) is also concerned that the passion of wonder can give rise to
people assenting to beliefs, not in virtue of involving their cognitive,
critical faculties, but rather because they were under the influence of, what I
suggest he may see as a violent passion. I base this interpretation of Hume on
wonder in part two of his Enquiry where Hume writes:
“The passion of surprise and wonder, arising from miracles, being an agreeable emotion, gives a sensible
tendency towards the belief of those events, from which it is derived” and “But
if the spirit of religion join itself to the love of wonder, there is an end of
common sense; and human testimony, in these circumstances, loses all pretensions
to authority” (EHU 10.93; SBN 117).
However, he is still open to the
objection that, by leaving out the aspect of wonder and certainly in any
positive way, he is not in line with scripture or what people understand by a
miracle and may be unduly concerned about the negative effects of wonder and
ignoring any potentially positive impacts of the passion of wonder.
Furthermore, I argue that
Shepherd’s perspective is neither untraditional nor detracts from the
specialness of a miracle that Christians want to retain. St. Augustine and
Aquinas are foundational thinkers in Christian theology and also see miracles
as not going against nature. In Shepherd’s own era, her close friends concur
with the view that a miracle does not break with the laws of nature. Archbishop
Whately cited that: “Jesus himself accordingly ascribes his works, not as
violations of the laws of nature but as “works which none other man did.”[vi]
Shepherd’s statement that miracles do not break with the laws of nature also
gels with the analytic thinker, inventor and mathematician Babbage who, in his
chapter on miracles states: “Miracles, therefore, are not the breach of
established laws, but they are the very circumstances that indicate the
existence of far higher laws, which at the appointed time produce their
pre-intended results.”[vii]
All this, I think, adds further religious, philosophical and analytical weight
and support to her argument against Hume’s definition of a miracle.
So I would argue that Hume’s
definition needs adjusting in order to fit with scripture. I suggest that he
could have incorporated his aside about God acting through the laws of nature
(EHU 10.99 SBN 129) into forming part of his definition of a miracle as well as
making use of this concept to strengthen his arguments about nature and
miracles. Also, I agree with Shepherd that his wording of the laws of nature
being violated are not satisfactorily justified in terms of being in accordance
with widely held views of miracles. I have shown that there is evidence that
Shepherd is not alone in thinking that Hume’s definition is inadequate,
unsatisfactory or, at best, incomplete because it doesn’t account for a wide
enough range of categories of miracles and it also causes metaphysical,
epistemological and explanatory problems for a comprehensive account of
miracles. Hence, another way Hume (EHU 10) could have tried to protect his
account from criticisms, such as Shepherd’s counterarguments, would be to
incorporate a broader, more flexible range of possibilities concerning what a
miracle constitutes and how they might occur in the world.
In a footnote, Hume (EHU 10.90
footnote 1; SBN 115) does attempt to achieve this by providing some
eye-catching examples of events to illustrate his point and widen the scope of
his debate by including events which can be “discoverable by men or not”. He
illustrates his point with two examples, one of an invisible miracle and one of
a visible miracle (EHU 10.90 footnote 1; SBN 115). Hume claims that he would
consider a feather floating in a way that goes against the laws of nature to be
an instance of a miracle even if nobody perceives or reports this event (EHU
10.90 footnote 1; SBN 115). His examples of a “visible miracle” include the
“raising of a house or ship into the air” (EHU 10.90 footnote 1; SBN 115).
However, much as this discussion
is a thought provoking way to explore the topic of miracles, I maintain that
this short passage in his footnote (EHU 10.90 footnote 1; SBN 115) may not assist
his argument for two reasons. First, by briefly including unperceived miracles,
he could potentially be undermining the empirical, observation and
experience-based account which details at length the problem of previously
unobserved events which seem miraculous. This raises the question of how
reliable an empirical approach is for detecting the existence of miracles if
they may occur unperceived by humans. Second, Hume (EHU 10.90 footnote 1; SBN 115)
counts a house lifting up among miracles but it could be argued in retrospect
that he’s unintentionally proved Shepherd’s point about limited knowledge with
such examples. This is because houses can be lifted up by a tornado. It is a
very rare phenomenon but is in accordance with the laws of nature and would be
repeatable under similar conditions. This means that, if Hume had known about
tornados and what effects they can produce, then he would no longer count this
event as a miracle. Hence, I think this provides support for and illustrates a
valid concern of Shepherd’s that Hume’s approach may limit what people consider
worthy of full and serious investigation thereby diminishing our knowledge of
rare and apparently exceptional phenomenon which, in turn, increases our
detailed knowledge of the external world.
[i] Mary Shepherd, ‘“Essay VIII: That Human
Testimony Is Of Sufficient Force To Establish the Credibility Of Miracles.”’,
in Essays on the Perception of an External Universe and Other Subjects
Connected with the Doctrine of Causation (Piccadilly, London, United
Kingdom: John hatchard and Son., 1827), 325–45,
https://archive.org/stream/essaysonpercepti00shep/#page/n7/mode/2up.
[ii] Shepherd.
[iii] Shepherd.
[iv] Shepherd.
[v] Brown, ‘Did Mother Teresa Really Perform
Miracles’, Telegraph Newspaper Online, 2016,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/did-mother-teresa-really-perform-miracles/.
[vi] Richard Whately, ‘Lesson V. Miracles. Part
I.’, in Introductory Lessons on Christian Evidence, from the 12th London
edition (Philadelphia: H. Hooker, S. W. Cor. Eighth and Chestnut Streets,
1856), p37-8,
https://archive.org/stream/introductoryles02whatgoog#page/n42/mode/2up.
[vii] Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of
a Philosopher (London, United Kingdom: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts
& Green., 1864), p391,
https://archive.org/stream/passagesfromlife03char#page/n7/mode/2up.
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