Describe and explain the atheistic rejection of miracles Essay Example

Describe and explain the atheistic rejection of miracles Essay Example Describe and explain the atheistic rejection of miracles Essay Describe and explain the atheistic rejection of miracles Essay The existence of miracles is much debated amongst scholars, both atheist and theist. This is largely because the term miracle’ is multifaceted, as it means different things to different people. This subjectivity makes it incredibly hard to prove or disprove. For example, St Augustine said that a miracle is, An event we cannot forecast or expect with our present understanding of nature, whereas Aquinas defines a miracle as, things which are done by divine agency beyond the order commonly observed in nature.Swinburne offers an additional definition: If he (God) has reason to interact with us, he has reason very occasionally to intervene and suspend those natural laws by which our life is controlled. These competing definitions have a common link: they all involve the divine interfering with nature. The atheist disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods. Therefore it follows that they would reject the idea of divine intervention. Nevertheless, atheists have produced many detailed critiques of theistic miracles. In examining such critiques a good place to start would be the writings of Hume.In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748, David Hume defined a miracle as, a transgression of a law of nature by a particular violation of the Deity or by the interposition of some invisible agent. Hume’s attack on miracles seems to be on the anti-realist view: the breaking into the world or breaking natural laws. He argued that breaking such laws would be illogical. Hume was an empiricist, which means that he used his experience as his guide in matters of fact. But he excluded the experiences of others who made claim to miracles.He put forward four main arguments of why this could not be possible, starting with his belief that there has never been sufficient witness. Miracles are of necessity very rare and improbable. It is much more probable that the historical testimony is false than that the miracle actually occurred; therefore a wise man will not believe the historical testimony to the miracle since no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle.Hume would only believe in a miracle if its non-occurrence was more miraculous than the occurrence. However, Hume has very high standards for what a sufficient witness would be. They must be educated and held in high regard, and there must be an unspecified large number of them. Would Hume himself even qualify as a good witness using this criteria? Here Swinburne’s principle of credulity and testimony is a relevant counter argument to Hume; Swinburne argued that if it seems to a subject that x is present, then probably x is present. Generally, says Swinburne, it is reasonable to believe that the world is probably as we experience it to be.Secondly, those testifying to the miracle will have a natural tendency to suspend their reason and support the claim. While we should normally believe that which most closely accords itself with past experience, the sensations of surprise and wonder often lead us to unreasonable beliefs. There are countless instances fictitious stories that are widely believed not for logical reasons, but because of a love for sensationalism. This ties into Hume’s third criticism, where he argues miracles are only accepted in, ignorant and barbarous nations. If a nation is not as scientifically advanced as us, then they may take events we know to be natural as miracles. An example of this would be solar and lunar eclipses. We have a scientific explanation, but in many countries around the world they are still viewed as supernatural occurrences – in other words, they believe them to be miracles.Finally, Hume’s fourth point argues that all major religions claim miracles, and that they can’t all be correct; therefore none of them are legitimate. This is probably the weakest of all of Hume’s arguments, because even the Bible has records of Jews and Gentiles witnessing the same miracles. Hume is not necessarily saying that miracles are impossible and do not happen. What he is saying is that the evidence will always be insufficient to warrant belief.Other scholars have built upon the work of Hume to criticise miracles further. Anthony Flew also challenges the conventional idea of miracles and his work can be used to supplement that of Hume. Flew claims that although the evidence for extraordinary events at places like Lourdes is good, this does not prove that the extraordinary events have been brought about by the agency of God. Perhaps, instead, we may be dealing with evidence of the remarkable power of the human mind. It may be possible that, under the right conditions, our minds can bring about changes in our bodies. Flew’s claim is that breaches of what we understand to be natural law can occur by the proper response should be to spend more money on research rather than to say God did it. However, it is worth noting that Flew renounced his atheist views only six years before his death.Another key criticism of miracles is that laws of nature’ may not even exist. John Hick defines natural laws as generalisations formulated retrospectively to cover whatever has, in fact, happened, in which case, bearing in mind that a miracle is a breech of the natural law, he argues, We can declare a priori that there ar e no miracles. Upon this basis, the occurrence of an unusual, previously unwitnessed event should make us widen our understanding of the natural law so as to incorporate the possibility of the new event.If we take every new event as a miracle we will never be able to learn and expand our knowledge about nature. Ultimately, atheists accuse theists of being ignorant when it comes to miracles. Just because you can’t explain an occurrence doesn’t mean that it is an act of God. New things are being discovered about nature and how it functions all the time. What we believe to be impossible now may be proven otherwise in the future. To quote Atkins, To believe in miracle is intellectual suicide.