Hume's Of Miracles

In class on Friday, we defined a miracle as a violation of the laws of nature. For a miracle to exist, it must require a supernatural power to intervene and violate some natural law. In general, miracles are associated with God as his omnipotence is the explanation for the violation of accepted and proven natural laws. So it is easy for those who believe in an all-powerful God to accept miracles as their God’s works. But for those who question or do not believe in God, miracles remain without sufficient explanation. Because the existence of miracles goes back always to the existence of God, it is one that has been and will be disputed forever.

            In “Of Miracles”, Hume writes his essay on miracles in such a way that he is able to outline each of the arguments pertaining to miracles and if or how they exist. In reading about David Hume, I was primarily informed that he was atheist and a skeptic and many of his famous works reflected those views. However, while reading this particular essay on miracles, I found it very unapparent that he so adamantly believed that God did not exist; instead he simply outlined each side of the argument of the existence of miracles.

            Hume leaves the question up to the individual to decide whether the miracle did or did not happen. He allows us each to decide which sounds more miraculous: the miracle or the falseness of the testimony of the miracle. I very much enjoyed reading his response to miracles as it provides many different trains of thought useful when personally deciding whether miracles do or do not exist. And not being much of a natural philosopher, this approach is especially useful to me.

            It was interesting to me too that he mentions how miracles that were recorded in biblical times were those coming from people who are “barbarous” and that it is no wonder that miracles such as those do not happen much in modern times; Hume says that it is not only a modern concept to lie. And when we look at miracles in this sense, it seems sort of surprising to me that such debate has been going on for so long about whether miracles exist or not because all humans know how easy and appealing it is to lie for whatever reasons. It is easy to detect his skepticism throughout his essay and especially when he discusses the credibility of the testimonies of various miracles. The first point he makes in the second section of his article is that in all of history, there is no miracle that has been witnessed and recorded by a reliable and sufficient amount of men such that all of our doubts about their credibility are retracted.

            Each of the points that Hume makes in his essay leaves the question of miracles’ existence open-ended and for the individuals to decide for themselves, making it a wonderful starting point for forming and opinion and creating an argument on the topic.