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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
That Christians must believe in miracles is indubitable, for their religion substantially rests upon the miracle of the resurrection. However there have been a number of criticisms of miracles as both unintelligible and unreasonable. This paper will attempt to answer these criticisms and to show that the notion of ‘miracle’ is intelligible and that to believe in miracles is reasonable.1 To do this, the following four criticisms must be answered in some way:
(1) The very concept of ‘miracle’ is a self-contradictory or in some other way incoherent notion.
(2) The empirical evidence given for miracles has always been inadequate to substantiate a rational belief.
(3) Judging from past experience, one can always rule out even the possibility of miracles.
(4) A miracle can never be shown incapable of a natural and scientific explanation, at least in principle.
page 25 note 1 Without trying to prejudge whether there is or is not a God, just exactly what the logical status of ‘law of nature’ is, whether miracles do in fact occur.
page 25 note 2 ‘ “We cannot,” as Mill has it, “admit a proposition as a law of nature and yet believe a fact in real contradiction to it. We must disbelieve the alleged fact, or believe that we are mistaken in admitting the supposed law” (Mill Bk. III Ch. xxv, no. 2)’—quoted from Flew, Hume's Philosophy of Belief, Humanities Press, New York, 1961.
page 26 note 1 Ryle.
page 26 note 2 Watson, W. H., ‘On Methods of Representation’, reprinted Danto, and Morgenbesser, (eds.), Philosophy of Science, Meridian Books, The World Publishing Company, New York, 1960, p. 238.Google Scholar
page 27 note 1 Mach, Ernst, ‘The Significance and Purpose of Natural Laws’, reprinted in Philosophy of Science, op. cit., p. 267.Google Scholar
page 27 note 2 Smart, Ninian, Philosophers and Religious Truth, S.C.M. Press Ltd., London, 1964, p. 55.Google Scholar
page 27 note 3 Philosophy of Science, op. cit., p. 177.
page 27 note 4 Toulmin, quoted in Hanson, N. R., Patterns of Discovery, Cambridge, University Press, 1958, p. 209.Google Scholar
page 27 note 5 Duhem, Pierre, ‘Physical Law’, quoted in Philosophy of Science, op. cit., p. 186.Google Scholar
page 27 note 6 Toulmin, Stephen, The Philosophy of Science, Harper Torchbooks, The Science Library, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1960, p. 99.Google Scholar
page 28 note 1 Patterns of Discovery, op. cit., p. 115. Hanson is talking about a specific law, and what has been done here is to generalise the treatment.
page 28 note 2 One may not prejudge the issue at hand by assuming a false dichotomy: either a miracle falls outside nature and hence cannot violate it or a miracle is within nature and hence natural.
page 31 note 1 King-Farlow, John, ‘Miracles: Nowell-Smith's Analysis and Tillich's Phenomenology’, International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. II, May 1962, Fordham University, New York, p. 291.Google Scholar
page 33 note 1 Flew, Antony, Hume's Philosophy of Belief, Humanities Press, New York, 1961.Google Scholar
page 33 note 2 Nowell-Smith's, argument in New Essays in Philosophical Theology, Flew, Antony and MacIntyre, Alasdair (eds.), S.C.M. Press Ltd., London, 1958.Google Scholar
page 34 note 1 Nowell-Smith's, article ‘Miracles’ in New Essays, op. cit., p. 251.Google Scholar
page 34 note 2 Philosophy of Science, op. cit., pp. 179–80.
page 34 note 3 Nowell-Smith, , ‘Miracles’, New Essays, op. cit., p. 251.Google Scholar
page 36 note 1 We use ‘reputed to have occurred’ so as not to prejudge whether or not there are miracles actually; ‘regularities of nature’, so as not to prejudge the logical status of scientific natural law; ‘thought to be explicable only by reference to the supernatural (God)’, so as not to assume the existence of gods or God.