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A New Interpretation of Hume's ‘Of Miracles’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Chris Slupik
Chris Slupik
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901
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Abstract

It has often been suggested (1) that according to Hume it is impossible in principle for testimony to prove a miracle, and (2) that an indispensable element in Hume's argument is the claim that a miracle is by definition a violation of the laws of nature. I argue that both (1) and (2) are mistaken, and that, once Hume's ‘Of Miracles’ is viewed in a proper historical context, it emerges that Hume's argument against miracles is considerably different from what is usually supposed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , December 1995 , pp. 517 - 536
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 Broad, C. D., ‘Hume's Theory of the Credibility of Miracles’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series XVII (1916–1917), 79–80.Google Scholar

2 ‘The Miraculous’, American Philosophical Quarterly, II (1965), 43–51.Google Scholar

3 Philosophers and Religious Truth (London: SCM Press, 1964), pp. 26–56.Google Scholar

4 ‘Hume on the Evidential Impossibility of Miracles’, in Studies in Epistemology: American Philosophical Quarterly Monograph 9, ed. Nicholas Rescher (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 1–31.Google Scholar

5 ‘The Logical Impossibility of Miracles in Hume’, International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion (1978), 179–87.Google Scholar

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7 ‘On Defining Away the Miraculous’, Philosophy, LVII (1982), 327–37.Google Scholar

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9 ‘What Hume Actually Said About Miracles’, Hume Studies, XVI (1990), 81–6.Google Scholar

10 Reported Miracles: A Critique of Hume (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).Google Scholar

11 The agreement is extensive but not uniform. For example, Antony Flew has argued that the first point is a misinterpretation. (See Flew, Antony, Hume's Philosophy of Belief: A Study of His First Inquiry [New York: Humanities Press, 1961]Google Scholar, Ch. VIII, ‘Miracles and Methodology’; but see also my discussion of Flew's contrary suggestion in section IV below.) C. S. Peirce has argued that the second point is a misinterpretation. Peirce writes, ‘For the purposes of his [Hume's] argument it was a matter of indifference how a miracle should be defined’ (Peirce, C. S., ‘Hume on Miracles’, in Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. Charles, Hartshorne and Paul, Weiss [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931–1935], vol. III, p. 294)Google Scholar. R. M. Burns has suggested that Hume's ‘Of Miracles’ contains ‘two contradictory strains of argument’, one arguing that testimony to prove a miracle is possible, another arguing that such testimony is impossible (Burns, R. M., The Great Debate on Miracles: From Joseph Glanvill to David Hume [London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1981] pp. 158, 142–75).Google Scholar

12 Broad, op. cit.

13 Flew, op. cit. Penelhum's remark appears in David Hume: An Introduction to His Philosophical System (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1992), pp. 200–1.Google Scholar

14 Broad, op. cit. p. 77.

15 Augustine, , The City of God, Book XXI.Google Scholar

16 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, ‘Of Miracles’, Part I, p. 115. Hereafter ‘OM, Part I, 115’. Page numbers refer to David Hume: Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals. Reprinted from the 1777 edition with Introduction and Analytical Index by L. A. Selby-Bigge, 3rd ed., with text revised and notes by P. H. Nidditch (Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1975).Google Scholar

17 OM, Part II, 127.

18 Alciphron says, ‘Admitting them for true, I shall not allow them to be miraculous, until I thoroughly know the power of what are called second causes’ (Alciphron, 6.30).

19 Alciphron, 6.32.

20 OM, Part II, 126.

21 Hume, David, ‘Letter To Rev. Blair (1761)’, in The Letters of David Hume, ed. Grieg, J. Y. T. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), vol. I, p. 350.Google Scholar

22 OM, Part II, 121–2.

23 OM, Part II, 129.

24 In the same vein Hume writes, ‘He [‘a religionist’] may know his narrative to be false, and yet persevere in it, with the best intentions in the world, for the sake of promoting so holy a cause; or even where this delusion has not place, vanity, excited by so strong a temptation, operates on him more powerfully than on the rest of mankind in any other circumstances’ (OM, Part II, 117–18).

25 OM, Part I, 117.

26 OM, Part II, 117.

27 OM, Part II, 118.

28 OM, Part II, 127–8.

29 OM, Part II, 128.

30 OM, Part II, 127.

31 OM, Part II, 126.

32 To my knowledge, no other interpreter has acknowledged that the ‘public confirmation’ criterion is important to Hume.

33 OM, Part II, 128.

34 OM, Part II, 130.

35 Ahern, op. cit. pp. 4–5.

36 Fogelin, op. cit. p. 83. The emphasis throughout the quotation is Fogelin's.

37 Ibid.

38 Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, op. cit. Section IV, ‘Sceptical Doubts concerning the Operations of the Understanding’, and Section V, ‘Sceptical Solution of these Doubts’.

39 Flew, , op. cit. pp. 200–1.Google Scholar

40 Flew, , op. cit. p. 177.Google Scholar

41 Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part II.

42 Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, op. cit. Section II, 18.

43 Butler writes, ‘There is no presumption, from analogy, against some operations which we should now call miraculous, particularly none against a revelation at the beginning of the world – nothing of such presumption against it as is supposed to be implied or expressed in the word miraculous. For a miracle, in its very notion, is relative to a course of nature, and implies somewhat different from it, considered as being so. Now, either there was no course of nature at the time which we are speaking of, or if there were, we are not acquainted with what the course of nature is upon the first peopling of worlds…’ (Butler, Joseph, The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature [New York: Frederick Ungar, 1961Google Scholar; originally published in 1736], pp. 145–6).

44 Hume, ‘Letter To Rev. Blair’, op. cit. pp. 349–50.

45 For an excellent discussion of how the concept of a violation of the laws of nature may be rendered logically consistent, see Ahern, Dennis, ‘Miracles and Physical Impossibility’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, VII (03, 1977), 71–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 A. E. Taylor, for example, analyses the eight days of darkness and the Queen's resurrection and complains, ‘I cannot see on what ground Hume makes any distinction between the two cases’ (Taylor, A. E., Philosophical Studies [London: Macmillan, 1934]Google Scholar, ‘David Hume and the Miraculous’, p. 340).

47 On pp. 525–6 above.

48 Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, op. cit. Section VIII, ‘Of Liberty and Necessity’, p. 83.

49 Hume says that an imposturous report of a miracle ‘has a much better chance of succeeding in remote countries, than if the first scene had been laid in a city renowned for arts and knowledge’ (OM, Part II, 120–1).

50 OM, Part II, 120–1. ‘Though it is much to be wished’, laments Hume, ‘it does not always happen, that every Alexander meets with a Lucian, ready to expose and detect his impostures’.

51 OM, Part II, 129.

52 Characteristically, Hume ends ‘Of Miracles’ by stating that ‘Our most holy religion is founded on Faith, not reason’ and that ‘whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience’ (OM, Part II, 130–1). It is often assumed that Hume is here speaking ironically. (See, for example, Flew, op. cit.) I shall leave it to the reader to judge whether Hume's endorsement of faith is ironic or sincere.