2: Hume 1: The Argument against Miracles

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Hume 1: The Argument against Miracles

Without much doubt, David Hume (1711–1776) has exercised more influence on subsequent discussions of the question of miracles than any other thinker, placing his weight on the negative side of these considerations. Hume’s essay “Of Miracles” (1748) has been so influential that one can hardly even deal with this question in a scholarly manner at all without at least mentioning his work, if not discussing and evaluating it in detail.

Some Background

The importance of Hume’s relatively short essay has been reflected by its enormous effect on contemporary theology and philosophy, as noted by influential critics. For example, prominent nineteenth-century German liberal scholar David Strauss cited Hume’s essay as the reason for considering the miracle question to be settled. Such supernatural events could not be understood as transgressing the laws of nature.

Columbia University philosopher John Herman Randall attested that critical thought ever since the appearance of the essay “Of Miracles” had largely followed “the great philosopher Hume,” who “demolished” arguments from miracles. Hume devastated the miracles argument so thoroughly “that intelligent men have rarely questioned it since.” Since that time, liberals as a whole have also rejected the existence of events that interfere with the laws of nature. Natural explanations such as human error, imagination, and legend make much better sense, leaving only faith or mysticism as the bases for religious belief.

Even conservative theologian Wilbur M. Smith admitted that Hume’s treatise, while actually being quite brief, comprised the strongest retort ever presented against the belief in miracles. As a result, it “soon took its place as the most powerful argument ever raised against belief in the miracles of Christ, and for that matter, in all miracles.” By common consent, it would certainly appear that Hume is an excellent example of the scholarly rejection of the belief in any sort of miracle, including the resurrection of Jesus. The popularity and repute of his essay among still other scholars further reflects this choice.

Hume’s contribution to the question of miracles came just after the heyday of English deism, a notoriously difficult movement to date specifically. According to the late prominent historian from Columbia University, Peter Gay, deism may be described as reaching from the 1690s with John Toland’s Christianity Not Mysterious, which began the debate, to Conyers Middleton’s Free Inquiry published at the end of the 1740s.

Deistic trends were intrinsically in agreement with similar proclivities across the water in French and German circles, though the continental representatives were more sophisticated due to the presence of greater scholarship among their numbers. The chief method was rationalistic in nature. Nonetheless, a lack of known or accomplished scholars did not slow the deists from attacking traditional Christian dogmas as being unreasonable. Quite radical for their times, the deists expressed chiefly rational doubts regarding traditional views of revelation and religious authority, opposing especially any ideas of miracles and the supernatural.

Most overviews today treat the deists (and others of their ilk) as being out of their intellectual depths and ill prepared for serious scholarly debate, yet still having influence, especially among lay Christians tired of various aspects of the professional church, such as its perceived failures. The result, as Gay notes, is “Deism, then, produced a great debate, and a debate the deists were bound to lose: the opposing side engrossed most of the talent.” Gay then lists among some of the prominent adversaries of deism the likes of true intellectuals such as Joseph Butler, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Edwards, and even another skeptic, David Hume.

It may seem strange to some that Hume should be numbered among these prominent scholars who critiqued ideas such as those of the deists, since their mutual dislike of supernatural revelatory claims, as with prophecy and miracles, would contribute to their being more united. However, Hume’s ideas opposed those of the deists at more than one juncture. Epistemically, Hume thought that experience, not reason, was the chief criterion by which to obtain knowledge. Although experience was definitely not infallible, ideas were still judged according to its standards. The crux of Hume’s polemic against miracles, then, would come from a different angle than from the more rational approaches of the deists. Finally, Hume disliked sloppy thinking wherever he came across it, and as we have said, the deists were not exactly known for their philosophical rigor!

David Hume’s Argument against Miracles

Several pages into his essay “Of Miracles,” Hume reaches a crucial stretch in his thinking. He argues:

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. . . . Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen [sic] in the common course of nature. . . . But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle.

At the close of this paragraph, a footnote tidies up Hume’s definition of miracles. It reads: “A miracle may be accurately defined, a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent” (211). Some clarifications then follow.

Following directly in the very next and last paragraph of this same section, Hume continues:

The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), “That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish. . . . When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. (211–12)

Few paragraphs in the philosophy of religion have engendered more dispute, clarification, and various sorts of explanations than have these last two from Hume’s pen. Hume is convinced that “uniform” human experiences somehow stand against all miraculous events (defined as events that violate or transgress nature’s laws) and that these uniform experiences in some sense comprise a proof against miracles’ occurrence.

Moreover, Hume thinks that human testimony seemingly cannot reverse this conclusion since the likelihood of some species of deceit will always be more proba­ble. The lone exception here occurs when the only other option is when all the availa­ble possibilities are miraculous, in which case he states that he will still always opt for the lesser miracle. Hume adds that the definition of a miracle also requires that such events be brought about by the will of God or another invisible agent, so the event must be caused by some supernatural power or other such agency.

For Hume, then, part 1 of his essay ends by arguing that the experience of the laws of nature and their uniform quality favor miracles being rejected alongside the more likely possibility of human deception or error. This may be Hume’s central assertion: “When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened” (212).

Hume begins part 2 of his essay by adding four additional supportive considerations against the belief in miracles, which are often taken to be a posteriori observations. First, there are no historical accounts of miracles that are attested by “a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good-sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves” (212).

This is a rather incredible constraint to achieve. Hume requires witnesses with such “unquestioned” integrity and other qualities that they are proficient and capable enough to “secure us against all delusion.” Is that even possible? How literally should these requirements be applied? Apparently, no one should be able to raise any questions about these witnesses with regard to their character, sense, education, and observational abilities. Further, how is it to be absolutely guaranteed that any witnesses will be able to ensure against all possible error? Then, would all skeptical evaluators have to agree across the board that every one of these qualities had been fulfilled? Have these characteristics ever been true of anyone (212)?

Hume’s second assertion is more varied and is composed of several related thoughts. Trustworthy and probable data tend to be the “most usual” or normal reports and “we ought to give the preference to such as are founded on the greatest number of past observations.” These sorts of cautions should help us guard against “forged miracles, and prophecies, and supernatural events” that come especially from those who exhibit a “strong propensity” for extraordinary and marvelous reports. There is simply too much passion where people are inclined to speak of extraordinary experiences of one sort or another, even to the point of fabricating the miraculous when it is known to be false in order to spread strange, wonderful, and attention-getting religious truths.

Actually, if not indiscriminately overapplied, this second caution offers some decent comments on the reporting of supernatural tales. It would be difficult to deny that most events are the usual, normal, and most common sorts that follow similar occurrences from the past. Further, it is troublesome to come across these examples of religious enthusiasm or exaggerated reports, most especially when the embellishment can readily be detected. When the report comes close to or includes actual fabrication, this is the most troublesome aspect of all, particularly if it is known that some of these reports are false while still being propagated. Hume even allows for the possibility of “greater evidence” potentially coming into play in the confirmation process (212–15).

Third, miraculous events are often “observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations.” Hume makes the further point, “It is strange . . . that such prodigious events never happen in our days. But it is nothing strange, I hope, that men should lie in all ages” (215). Two of the prominent thoughts here are that miracles tend to happen almost totally, or at least predominantly, among unschooled peoples, plus the further idea that “lies” figure more commonly into the regular course of events. The observation regarding the seeming absence of many supernatural reports in the present day and in the most advanced countries is a common one and is worth contemplating. But to what extent does it question the existence of miracles altogether?

In fact, as a number of specific studies have pointed out in detail, thousands of claimed healing events have reportedly also taken place in the modern world in answer to prayer, and in other religious contexts, and in the most modern, civilized, and educated parts of the world as well. Moreover, it is only in these advanced societies where confirmatory empirical testing is potentially available, such as is the case with pre- and post-CT scans, MRIs, and X-rays. These procedures are certainly capable of verifying or disproving many of these claims. Furthermore, it has been claimed regularly that these events have occurred exceptionally often. But that is a matter for the next chapter. If nothing substantive shows up from such tests, then Hume may be thought to be vindicated. But what is to be concluded if, after close studies, such confirmation actually does exist? It might appear then as if Hume simply repeating this third point may fail to rule out this testimony.

Fourth, Hume postulates that the miraculous events from one religion destroy the probability that those of another faith are also true, and vice versa. Further, this loss of the miracle claims also destroys the “rival systems” of belief in each religion too. As a result, supernatural accounts in different religions nullify each other as well as the remainder of their claims and teachings. Once the dust clears, the apparent idea is that all such occurrences and belief systems are effectively eliminated in the process (217–21).

This fourth critique may quite likely be the most dubious of Hume’s four additional arguments against the occurrence of miracles, for it does not take account of an entire host of other options. In short, too many other possibilities exist. Hume maintains “that it is impossible the religions of ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China should, all of them, be established on any solid foundation” (217). But if the vast majority of religious miracle claims are “pretended,” as Hume states in this context—or if they are indeed “lies” as he states a couple of times earlier—how could it be the case that such false reports could even come close to nullifying the existence of confirmed data such as documented healings, for example, if such were discovered? Or what if miracles in more than one religious system were actually quite compatible with other faiths? Or what if all miracles were compatible with each other? Or yet again, what if only one religious system was superior or true? It does not appear that Hume’s critique comes close to nullifying different miracle claims or the religious systems themselves, as he claims.

In circumstances such as these last examples illustrate, the canceling of claims, events, and doctrines by others of a similar nature need not apply at all, hence the unconvincing nature of Hume’s last challenge. If all “miracles” are simply false anyway, as Hume would like to believe, then that is the bottom line, but not because he simply states this. On the other hand, if there are a combination of true and false miracle claims, or ones that are compatible with others, this point is simply wrongheaded for more than one reason.

Hume argues that it is more probable that when considered alongside realities such as human delusion, pretense, and lies, perhaps among others, the experience favoring the uniformity of nature’s laws is more reliable than human miracle claims. Therefore, miracle claims that are contrary to the laws of nature ought to be rejected. Since each case of miracle comes against a greater species of experiential data on the other side from the laws of nature, these occurrences are rejected as a whole (222–26).

Hume concludes the matter: “Upon the whole, then, it appears, that no testi­mony for any kind of miracle has ever amounted to a probability, much less to a proof.” Then he continues, “Therefore we may establish it as a maxim, that no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any such system of religion” (222–23). An important note here, however, is that Hume does not really speak disparagingly of God or any deity and was not trying to disprove the existence of God with such an argument (211n3, 224). It will be mentioned below that a number of scholars today argue that Hume was actually a deist of sorts.

Though there are other interpretations that will be examined, Hume’s general argument appears at least to be fairly clear. Hume often repeats these major arguments as well as some of the additional points, and they seem to be the crux of his influential essay. Nonetheless, scholars have differed in opinion on how he constructed his argument, his overall theme, how the parts fit together, and how the whole should be interpreted. The resulting difference has grown more intense during the past few decades in particular. But these ideas may be fashioned variously, in more than one manner, even by careful scholars.

Other Recent Humean Nuances

Gregory Bock has summarized five different interpretations of Hume’s essay, which he thinks includes the possible four interpretations:

(1) No miracle has ever happened.

(2) There is never enough justification for our believing that a miracle has occurred.

(3) Point 2 plus the addition of believing such a notion based on human testimony.

(4) Point 3 plus the addition of there being no sufficient argument that could then allow the miracle to serve as a basis for the truth of additional religious beliefs.

There could also be a combination of the four responses listed here.

While such a list may helpfully assist in organizing some of the Hume interpretations, the views of what specifics this major philosopher actually taught on this subject may remain quite complicated, often where the differences between the choices exhibit only slight nuances. A few of the possibilities here, especially considering what could fall into option 5 above, may provide helpful insight into this matter. For Bock, following R. M. Burns, the classical view of Hume’s argument held the dominant position for the first 200 years after its appearance. This view postulated that no amount of evidence would ever be sufficient to establish a reasonable belief in miracles. This interpretation was standard and favored by skeptical philosophers like John Stuart Mill and T. H. Huxley.

However, prominent Hume interpreter and philosophical skeptic Antony Flew challenged this traditional inclination in a 1959 journal article, arguing that Hume had not attempted a head-on challenge with the purpose of absolutely ruling out the belief in miracles a priori or to otherwise treat them as impossible events. Rather, Hume was somewhat more nuanced and did not provide some “insuperable bulwark” against the belief in miracles, as held by the traditional view, but was rather just “checking” the growth of arguments that favored miracles by pointing out that to contend for such events was more difficult than that and that it invoked “a conflict in the evidence.”

Another recognized Hume scholar, Robert J. Fogelin, argued against these views as being Hume’s position. Explaining that “Antony Flew stands virtually alone in challenging the traditional interpretation” of Hume, Fogelin contended against the other views here, supporting the idea that “Hume does present an a priori argument against the existence of miracles.”

While Bock favors his option 4 listed above, philosopher and miracles specialist Robert A. Larmer challenged this selection, asserting that Bock’s understanding of Hume’s essay “has little to recommend it” from Hume’s own text. For Larmer, Hume’s main point “is to demonstrate that one could never have epistemological justification for accepting the testimonial evidence for a miracle, and this remains the dominant line of argument throughout.” However, Hume still intermixed some additional ideas too. Bock responded that Larmer’s option fit well into his delineation of option 3, but that it didn’t account well for the strongest emphasis that Hume employed near the close of the essay. Bock still favored what he considered to be a charitable reading of Hume that involved a unified argument.

The issue of Hume’s exact argumentative structure in “Of Miracles” of course will not be solved here, especially in the sense of discovering an exact and proper interpretation of Hume’s essay that pleases almost everyone. That remains an issue for doctoral dissertations. Hume specialists have argued the finer nuances for a few decades. But we have hopefully laid enough groundwork and strategic principles alike to have at least a fair idea of what Hume was attempting to accomplish. With so many ideas in the offing, it is necessary to respond to the overall family of Humean views, mentioning nuances where they may be helpful. Along the way, specific points may be directed more to one interpretation than to another, but these certainly remain scholarly options nonetheless. Even if Hume ultimately did not hold certain of these perspectives, some of his many commentators no doubt did so, still making this a useful study.

Many of the preliminary responses so far point in the same direction: sooner or later, to determine if supernatural events have actually occurred, all the available data must be investigated. Mere speculation, faith alone, quoting texts from holy books, references to skeptical platitudes, and a priori dismissals will not indicate the answers for which we are searching. There is simply no substitute for viewing the claimed evidence for miracle claims on the one hand, along with responsible alternative explanations on the other, in order to ascertain which are more strongly attested.

This approach is therefore largely based, once again, on the subject of experiential testimony. After all, this support is claimed for both sides of the argument here. The various lines of data that favor miracle claims must be pitted against considerations that argue against them, such as the uniformity of nature, alternative nonmiraculous scenarios, and so forth. But before moving forward with the investigation in this study, we must ascertain in both this chapter as well as the next one whether there are other issues with either Hume’s argument or the other scholars who have more or less followed him.

Some General Critiques of Hume’s Essay

In his groundbreaking 1748 essay, Hume hit a number of topics that resounded with at least some of his readers, perhaps especially regarding the four a poste­riori accusations against the belief in miracles that he recounts in part 2. For example, the assumption of proclaimed falsehoods and lies concerning miracle claims, exaggerations and bragging, the desire for attention, less-than-stellar witnesses with little education (“ignorant and barbarous nations” as Hume referred to them), such events always being reported in countries or locations other than that of the person ­speaking—all seem to have engendered some votes in his favor, especially with the religious skeptics such as those who may have appreciated the English deistic critiques.

However, major problems with Hume’s approach to miracles also began to come to light after only a short interval, similar to what occurred in answer to several theological writings during the heyday of the nineteenth-century German criticism of miracles. Stanley Tweyman asserts that “few essays in the history of philosophy have attracted so much attention and criticism. Scholars and clerics have, ever since the essay first appeared, sought to understand what precisely Hume holds on the topic of the credibility and reality of miracles, and, at least as many, have attempted to show that his argument (which they think they understand) is defective.”

However, from the mid-eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries, “Hume had few supporters.” One of Hume’s only enthusiasts, Joseph Mazzini Wheeler, mentioned a host of his detractors by name in 1882. Then Wheeler humorously quipped after completing the list of names: “and a shoal of ministerial minnows sailing in the wake of these theological Tritons, have felt it incumbent upon them to refute the ‘sophisms’ of the sceptic Hume.”

Were the first impressions and critiques of David Hume’s essay correct in their own return accusations? Was he understood properly? Were there similarities between these initial critiques and later ones? The answers to these questions will depend largely on how Hume was interpreted, as already noted. Here we will mention several major criticisms aimed at Hume’s polemic.

Initially, Hume was probably blamed most frequently for committing a myriad of logical fallacies in his essay, often in different combinations. He was charged with improperly defining both the nature of miracles as well as ignoring the evidence for and against them, or with displaying an entire host of logical errors in the process. As Bock remarks of the more traditional interpretations, they typically charge “that Hume is either begging the question or being ‘obscure.’”

To repeat, Hume stated, “A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a mira­cle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly by imagined.” So miracles are defined as violating nature’s laws, and the totality of “firm and unalterable,” not to mention “uniform experience” (just a few lines later), indicates that these laws cannot be interfered with or broken (210–11).

As per Bock’s statement above regarding the most common varieties of critique, many commentators thought that they gained a further insight into Hume’s reasoning process from this same paragraph. Perhaps thinking of the claims regarding Jesus, which would of course be well known in his society, Hume spoke generally of the resurrection of a dead individual, then promptly informed his readers, “But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country.” In the next sentence, he continued full speed ahead, still without producing any evidence to the contrary: “There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation.” Not slowing down for even a moment, Hume next informed his readers that, “as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle” (210–11).

Almost immediately after the publication of Hume’s essay, many researchers began raising several key questions. Since Hume’s position is apparently taken both before, and in spite of, any potential testimony to the contrary, if this is not an a priori dismissal of the claimed data, then what is it? Where’s the necessary examination of the facts? Though making a clear comment against a resurrection, Hume did not produce a speck of evidence specifically against the resurrection of Jesus occurring. Nor did he examine what, even in his own time, were arguments for Jesus’s resurrection.

Thus, Hume’s critics questioned what they interpreted as reasoning fallacies, objecting to the way he set up the problem from the outset. The complaints were numerous. Hume appeared to be allowing his definition and other straightforward assertions to do the heavy lifting for him. Then significantly, he failed to entertain any historical or other investigations featuring an impartial look at the facts. Rather, his very definition ruled out miracles a priori because of what seemed to be arbitrary and unproven assumptions on his part. His definition even asserted that the totality of human experience rested against the miracle when such a statement was anything but proven. There definitely were miracle claims that included experiential testimony, some perhaps with attending medical witnesses, but these were brushed aside by Hume due to the assumed superiority of alternate varieties of experience of nature’s laws. But how could Hume know if the assertions made by supernaturalists were true apart from an investigation of the facts?

Therefore, it is often claimed that Hume’s approach served as a textbook example of circular reasoning or begging the question. Dead men are assumed never to rise because that’s just the way nature is; thus, all experience must stand against such as an event. This is a mere assumption against any experience to the contrary that may be produced in favor of miracle claims. The evidence for miracles is simply and conveniently eliminated. But such moves in inductive matters can only properly be made after an investigation of the evidence. Thus, Hume assumes that which he must demonstrate, though he clearly has not done so.

C. S. Lewis agreed on the nature of these problems, recognizing this weakness and developing them into a trenchant criticism of Hume’s position. Lewis relates, “Now of course we must agree with Hume that if there is absolutely ‘uniform experience’ against miracles, if in other words they have never happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately, we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all reports of them are false. And we can know all the reports to be false only if we know already that miracles have never occurred. In fact, we are arguing in a circle.” Lewis has clearly noted these problems here, some of the same ones that bothered other thinkers as well. Hume can only claim that all experience affirms his view if he has first ascertained that all other experience is false. But since he has not investigated the evidence potentially favoring other positions, he can only state that they are false by assuming that miracles cannot occur. As Lewis seems to conclude fairly, Hume is reasoning circularly.

Again, it is C. S. Lewis who points out yet another example of circular reasoning in “Of Miracles.” For Hume, the two questions, “Do miracles occur” and “Is the course of nature absolutely uniform?” are one and the same but simply asked from a different angle. But “by sleight of hand” Hume answers yes to the second question and then utilizes that response in answering no to the first question of whether miracles occur. The real issue that he endeavors to address is never really dealt with at all. So we still cannot be sure whether or not miracles have occurred. Thus, Hume “gets the answer to one form of the question by assuming the answer to another form of the same question.” Once again Lewis appears to have uncovered an example of circular reasoning in Hume.

The point is that it should go without saying that one cannot disallow miracles simply by defining them so that they cannot occur. Circular definitions are clearly unsatisfactory. But Hume does appear to define miracles as impossible in light of the experience that testifies to the existence of laws in nature. This is done without any real investigation to determine if the purported experience on behalf of miracle claims can establish their validity. As Lewis explains, Hume must somehow know this latter experience to be false, and he can only know that is so by assuming that miracles cannot occur in the first place.

It may be that one agrees with Hume’s conclusions that nature does rule out miracles. But the point here is that one cannot simply define or assume this to be the case, or arrange the “facts” in an arbitrary way, in order to proclaim that this assumption has been supported. As prominent philosopher Richard Swinburne points out, questions concerning whether or not an event occurred are a matter of historical rather than philosophical debate.

But we have seen Bock’s disagreement that this is the case. This strict interpretation of Hume “is based on a literal reading.” But it must be asked in return: is there something antecedently mistaken about such a way to read a text? Bock opts for taking a “weaker empirical sense” for some of Hume’s language. But does this also not sound a bit like special pleading in light of the text?

Perhaps this is why David Johnson argues that “Hume apparently begs the question.” Then, just a few pages later, he states similarly, “Hume’s own argument either obviously begs the question or becomes obscure.” Johnson goes on to ask in the same context, What are we supposed to do with witnesses who claim otherwise? This is an inductive issue for us to solve. As he ends his book, Johnson states his own conclusion: “Thus it has always seemed to me that the most persuasive argument for theism is the historical argument—the argument from miracles.”

Early Critiques of Hume’s Essay

Most of the various issues mentioned so far in this initial critique were actually raised fairly soon after the appearance of Hume’s essay. Stanley Tweyman’s volume mentioned above is an invaluable collection of more than a dozen essays written concerning Hume’s argument (chiefly in opposition against it), beginning just three years following its initial publication through 1882. These authors tended to take the more traditional interpretation of Hume’s argument as outlined above.

The most common complaints centered on the need for evidence to back up Hume’s claims. These authors charged that Hume failed to produce actual evidential arguments in favor of his position, but rather simply stated his points while leaving them as seemingly based on his own authority. Also, he failed to answer any specific contrary evidence that had been put forward against his approach, including evidential suggestions regarding data that stood against his presentation. In spite of needing evidence against others in order to make his critiques, he produced none.

For instance, William Adams stated straightforwardly that “tho’ the author is pleased to pronounce [miracles] impossible, he hath offered no argument (and, indeed, none can possible [sic] be offered): against the credibility of it, the experience which he pleads is no argument at all.” Adams concluded the matter quite powerfully: “The surest way not to believe [miracles] is not to examine them.”

Moreover, it was also charged frequently that Hume committed many logical errors in his essay, invalidating his entire approach. Further, the question was posed concerning what Hume would do if evidence were actually produced in favor of miracles. Then, as if to help Hume compose an even stronger argument, Rutherford attempted to recast Hume’s argument in a couple of other forms, just to ascertain “whether your conclusion will succeed better,” but then followed his own alternate suggestions with further refutations!

The similarity of these complaints from over 200 years ago to the present is rather instructive. It seems that, regarding the traditional interpretations of Hume’s essay, this initial critique regarding the need for evidence both in favor of his position as well as addressing concerns raised by others was quite widespread. As mentioned already, even Hume himself did not object to this viewpoint, though it appears to have devastated his efforts.

Seven Critiques of Hume’s Miracles Essay

This first set of problems with regard to Hume’s essay is certainly a major one. Initially, Hume’s logical blunders from the outset, consisting of several circular and a priori moves, limit severely the value of his essay in terms of the possibility of dismissing miracles by these means. As mentioned above, Hume can only know that there is uniform experience against all miracles if he has investigated all of the serious claims in their favor. Apart from that, which he has neglected completely and even ignored, he can only know that all experience opposes miracles by ruling that they cannot happen in the first place—clearly a circular move.

A second issue may be equally problematic for Hume. This concerns the evidential place that should be given to experience for the laws of nature. Hume is no doubt correct that nature behaves according to certain laws. After all, how can abnormalities like miracles be identified apart from recognizing that nature has a normal pattern? But Hume asserts that the existence of these laws is absolutely confirmed by experience, and that is sufficient to disprove all experience of miracles (210–12, 221, 223).

At this point there are many scholars who would disagree with Hume, and the outcry has only grown louder in the past few decades. Even if nature behaves according to laws, this does not for a moment dictate that occasional exceptions or even abnormalities cannot occur. If these laws regulate the daily workings of nature, then they describe what will happen if the system is left to itself. But these laws cannot dictate the possible results of more powerful interferences from the outside, whether natural or supernatural. We are not addressing in this chapter whether supernatural influence has actually occurred—after all, that is the subject of this entire study. Rather, the concern here is that Hume is simply begging the question once again when he assumes that the experience for the laws of nature is superior to experience (if established) for the miraculous.

Here is why: the very experience of possible miracles, which Hume dismisses as nonexistent or as inferior, if established, would actually overrule the supposedly stronger experience for the laws of nature! This is because a true miracle, even according to Hume, would involve a supernatural intervention into nature, and if such intervention occurred, it would show that the laws of nature could be temporarily suspended. Thus, accredited experience for a miracle would actually be shown to be superior at the precise intersection of that particular convergence point. If the laws of nature were in effect “overpowered” at that moment, these laws could not stop it from occurring. After all, the laws of nature describe rather than prescribe what can occur.

It must be noted very carefully, once again, that we are not in this chapter somehow investigating to see if a miraculous event happened. Neither are we attempting to somehow smuggle such occurrences in through the back door or anything of the sort. Similarly, it is unnecessary to prove the existence of God or a supernatural agent of any sort. Only the possibility of such interaction need be postulated here. We are raising a more basic point that if it is even possible that God or a supernatural world existed, Hume would have to be open to such events, since the laws of nature would not be the ultimate authority.

So, here’s the chief point we are making: by failing to investigate sufficiently any even potentially credible experience in favor of miraculous events, Hume cannot employ the laws of nature as an absolute rule that cannot ever be broken. In other words, how does Hume possibly know, apart from detailed checking, whether one or more laws already have been temporarily set aside by a superior force? Therefore, to simply keep asserting the strength or uniform experience of nature’s laws simply exacerbates the empty, a priori ring of Hume’s declarations.

C. S. Lewis aims a similar, potent criticism at Hume: “Probabilities of the kind that Hume is concerned with hold inside the framework of an assumed Uniformity of Nature. When the question of miracles is raised we are asking about the validity or perfection of the frame itself. No study of probabilities inside a given frame can ever tell us how probable it is that the frame itself can be violated.” In other words, Lewis charged that Hume was simply answering a question from within the framework of his own assumed view of a completely uniform nature, when in reality we should be asking whether the entire framework itself could potentially be temporarily suspended by a stronger force. Thus, Hume is concerned exclusively with things that might or might not obtain within a system when he should rather be concerned with what may transpire from outside this restricted area by a superior power. Is it possible that this current system of nature, as trustworthy as it might be in and of itself, could be interrupted from the outside (as with a miracle)?

A couple of decades before Lewis, Cornell University philosopher Edwin Burtt leveled a similar criticism at Hume. Burtt contended that Hume failed to account for the position that God might not only exist, but that he could act in nature anytime he chose to do so, simply because these laws were part of his own creation. Nonetheless, this possibility would not upset the system—rather, the same law would remain in place both before and after the event.

Hence, the question of possible experience for miracles at this point is indispensable. If such were discovered to be the case, it would indicate that any applicable laws of nature indeed could be temporarily suspended or superseded, thus making the empirical claims in favor of the miracle dominant over the empirical claims for nature’s laws at that precise moment. Even though on other occasions the law would still apply, both before and after, it would clearly outweigh the laws at that particular juncture.

Hence the charges immediately after his essay were correct. By refusing to investigate such miracle claims, Hume thereby rejected virtually out of hand the exact evidence that would be needed to disrupt his assumptions and indicate that a miracle had probably happened. But he insisted on working only within the presumed framework of the laws of nature, without taking any account whatsoever of possible interferences from the outside due to the exertion of yet more powerful forces.

This criticism also provides an additional window on Hume’s informal logical errors that were mentioned initially, such as formulating a circular definition and begging the question with regard to the presumed importance of natural laws. Unfortunately for Hume, his errors are not only improperly lodged at the very heart of his polemic as the foundation of his position, but they constitute his chief reasons for disallowing any such events or even the need to study the data. The repetition of these informal fallacies may have served as potential impediments to another path which, if Hume had taken it, could have unraveled his entire thesis.

A number of these previous details as well as similar aspects regarding miracles potentially being able to supersede nature’s laws were also made frequently in several of the very earliest essays in Tweyman’s work. This critique actually figured quite prominently in this volume of philosophical analyses of Hume’s essay on miracles. For instance, after referring to Hume’s argument, Rutherford brilliantly asserted: “But such an experience will never prove, that no events . . . can be brought about by the interposition of him, who established these laws, and can over-rule them.” He continued, “The force of an argument, deduced from experience, can extend no farther.” Thus, Hume’s argument “can be no proof at all, in respect of a power superior to nature.”

Referring to Hume’s example of iron floating in the air, Adams commented that even a man can cause iron or lead objects to fly through the air or to be suspended in water by his own human power exerted against nature. Likewise, Adams asserted that Hume had never answered the question or provided an argument against the potential ability of some invisible agent to perform an event of this sort in nature by exerting a greater power on particular occasions. Adams later concluded the matter rather nicely and succinctly: “Against the interposition of such superior power, experience, as we have seen, can determine nothing.”

Somerville concluded his essay like this: “The Supreme Being is the author of the laws of nature; that as it is by his power that these laws operate, so he must have the power of suspending or altering them when he sees meet . . . it might have been expected that the Supreme Being would have interfered, and suspended or altered the laws of nature, to prove that it came from him.” Then Somerville continues with this last point, also against Hume’s case, that these miracles were “wrought in support of revelation, particularly of the gospel.” From the context, this may have been a reference to Hume’s additional argument that miracles could not support matters of doctrine.

Three of the anonymous authors in Tweyman also made remarks along similar lines. One unidentified writer stated concisely, “Miracles, if at all, are effects of an extraordinary power upon extraordinary occasions: consequently, common experience can determine nothing concerning them.” Another commented that the events in nature were “established by an intelligent Being in the constitution of nature.” Discussing the idea of Hume’s use of the “firm and invariable experience” against miracles as derived from the laws of nature, yet another author summarized Rutherford’s argument that such an approach is incapable of ever proving “that no events . . . can be brought about by the immediate interposition of him who established these laws, and can over-rule them.”

This second critique is actually quite straightforward and absolutely devastating because it actually bypasses the chief argument being made in Hume’s essay. The argument there was offered from inside of nature and concerned either the strength of nature’s laws—Hume referred to them as “the most established laws of nature” (221) and “the usual course of nature” (223), or to the “firm and unalterable experience” or “uniform experience” that in turn confirms these laws (210–11). Hume’s assertion is that these were sufficient to offset actions by a more powerful force. However, it really does not matter how complete or how powerful either the laws or the experience behind them are since it makes no practical difference! The force of these twin considerations holds only if they are the most powerful entities in existence, where no other more powerful forces are operating. What if we arbitrarily projected that these laws plus the experience of them were ten times greater than they actually are, but yet the force that birthed the miraculous event was infinite?

A crucial idea here is the understanding that sufficiently powerful historical evidence could, perhaps only for a precise moment at a very brief time, indicate that the laws of nature were either abrogated, superseded, nullified, overruled, set aside, or some other arrangement that allowed an occurrence due to a superior power. Afterward, these laws then returned to their normal operation. But continuing to talk about how strong, powerful, verified, inviolable, or impregnable these laws are and how incredi­ble amounts of experience confirm them just plain misses the boat.

Thus, one of the chief arguments repeated throughout this study is that such potential evidence in favor of the historical portion of credible miracle claims (just the part that can be examined with historical tools) must be investigated in order to ascertain whether or not any such qualifying events may ever have happened. Since Hume failed to do so, he would be unable to declare that these laws could never be abrogated. Therefore, there is no substitute for research here—such an examination cannot be avoided in spite of Hume’s oft-repeated protestations to the contrary.

However, many skeptics will pose an obvious question at this juncture. An editorial remark in Tweyman’s volume noted that atheists might be unaffected by this move, perhaps with their rejoinder being to prove God or the supernatural realm first. Initially, it will be mentioned simply that these questions will be introduced and treated in much detail later in this study. But the middle of a chapter is not the place to begin such a book-length hiatus. Further, it has been mentioned that Hume himself is often thought to be some variety of deist. If so, he would have to answer if this Being could perform a miracle, even if that is not his view.

But a more relevant response here is more straightforward. The earlier point was that if it is even possible that such a being or force exists that is capable of producing events in nature, especially if these occurrences appear to be manifestations that nature probably cannot perform on its own, Hume would still have to check out this possibility before issuing such a universal challenge. In other words, if miracles are even possible, Hume should not stand aloof and declare that such a scenario cannot obtain under any circumstance. That would sound like an a priori dismissal. Thus, just shouting concerning how strong the laws of nature are and how human experience confirms them just does not answer the question of the possible action of a stronger power.

Asserting as Hume does that nature’s laws as backed by experience can nullify all supernatural claims, he needs to back up that claim by showing that no such events have ever occurred. He does say regularly and repeatedly that miracle claims most likely are due to false reporting and fakery, one’s imagination, exaggeration, lies, and so on (206–8, 212–17, esp. 212). But skeptics assert regularly that believers must be prepared to answer alternative theses contrary to their own views, so why doesn’t this apply to Hume? Or what if Hume attempted to counter a particular counterevent (or events) with all the natural avenues at his disposal and still did not produce the best counterargument?

Once again we have established the need for solid, experiential research into the available documents and information. Whether it is the theist who is arguing for miracles or other supernatural events, or naturalists who are arguing against these, there is just no substitute for checking out the claimed data potentially against one’s position. Overarchingly, more static “umbrella” laws and principles of various sorts may have been helpful in Sir Isaac Newton’s time (just a couple of decades before Hume’s writing), or even still at some junctures today. But when it comes right down to the heart of the issue, we must ascertain the actual nature of these events. In keeping with Hume’s own proclamations, the best data must rule here! As Hume famously pronounced, “A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence” (206).

The third major criticism of Hume’s essay “Of Miracles” pertains to his four supportive, largely a posteriori arguments in part 2, which extend his case against mira­cles. While at least some of the thoughts there are certainly helpful cautions, none prohibits miracles singly or as a whole. Moreover, Hume then appears to mishandle an entire series of miracles that even he admits fulfills all four of these “conditions,” thereby leaving the way open to the possibility that miracles may also fulfill them. The latter case in question concerns a series of reputed miracles performed among the Jansenist believers in eighteenth-century France. Hume’s own investigation of these events engendered a very interesting final response indeed in light of his own four criteria.

Reviewing Hume’s four subpoints briefly that functioned as backup considerations against the belief in miracles, the first one asserted that the witnesses to the miraculous events need to be “a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good-sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves” (212). It can be agreed that we need good witnesses, but requiring that they be virtually impervious to any sort of character flaw whatsoever is a rather incredi­ble, self-defeating requirement, essentially cutting against any job on either side of the issue before us that requires good witnesses! Can anyone ever be absolutely sure that they are capable of insuring against all possible error? When has this ever applied to any witness? Hume’s general idea is helpful, apart from the obvious exaggeration.

Hume’s second assertion includes a number of somewhat-related requirements. He maintains that in the evaluation process, we ought to prefer details that are based on what might be called “normal” observations. Such a requirement would help us to guard against false claims of bogus miracles and prophecies, especially reported by those who exhibit a “strong propensity” for extraordinary and marvelous reports. The possibility of an extraordinary account is too alluring for some folks, raising the likelihood of fabrication of one sort or another, even when the account is known to be false. There can be little doubt that many eccentric, strange, and attention-getting religious truths often make headlines and talk shows apart from being characterized by solid credentials (212–15).

This second criterion is actually helpful as a generalized warning regarding supernatural accounts. As Hume notes, normal, everyday sorts of occurrences are the most common kinds, and these are the ones that are confirmed by the majority of good data. Further, it is troublesome when we are exposed to instances of religious exaggeration, most especially when we were also present, observed the event for ourselves, and can clearly recognize the embellishment. The most troublesome of all are those that seem to include actual fabrication.

Third, Hume asserts that miraculous events are often “observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations.” Further, Hume asserts, “It is strange . . . that such prodigious events never happen in our days. But it is nothing strange, I hope, that men should lie in all ages” (215–17). So besides being poorly attested as a whole, miracles are claimed most of all to be reported in other societies where education is not strong to say the least. Once again, we also note the mention of lies here.

But Hume is correct in certain circumstances. Many have claimed that very few credible supernatural reports seem to be made in the present day and age, and when they are, they seem to appear in another location far away from us. We are simply never around when these reports occurred. To one degree or another, it is easy to identify with at least some of these complaints. They can indeed help with evaluations of miracle claims.

However, the major question before us is the extent to which these first three standards apply to all miracle claims. Are they of sufficient magnitude to cause us to doubt even a majority of these claims? For the most part, they serve more as cautionary warnings than as some sort of roadblock. So they may play the role of assisting us in making sure that we look before we leap, but there is no way that they simply rule out these seeming miraculous events.

However, taking these three criteria at face value, they simply cannot bear the weight of eliminating all miracle claims and relegating them to the trash heaps. To be straightforward, they simply lack that sort of rigor and insight, perhaps not because of Hume’s lack of reasoning power but because the tools with which Hume had to work were just too dull. Further, this has become an even more daunting task, not a lesser one, in the twenty-first century. Actually, it could even be said in one respect that these three criteria may actually help to hone an even stronger case for supernatural events, in that they may assist in enhancing and sharpening the researcher’s focus so that the weaker cases can hopefully be culled out and avoided. Thus, when truly impressive contemporary cases of miracle claims come to light, as we will mention below, they may arise with even more force.

It has already been pointed out above that Hume’s fourth criterion was unlike the others. It was quite likely the most unconvincing, doubtful, and least helpful of his subpoints against the occurrence of miracles. Hume proposed that if the “pretended” miracles from one religion went “head-to-head” with those of other faiths, they would nullify or even destroy each other, along with the likelihood that any miracles were true. All told, the contrary teachings from each “rival system” of belief would also be destroyed and eliminated. As a result, supernatural accounts in the various religions nullify each other’s occurrences, as do their claims and teachings. Once the dust settled, then, no religious systems would be left standing. Each was thought to be eradicated by the other (217–21).

But several misleading statements and inferences should be noticed here. Since Hume referred to these religions as being false anyway, perhaps just built on lies, how could false reports even come close to nullifying the possibility of true data? Or if Hume’s point is that all miracle claims were false, has he at least attempted to show that (or how) this is the case? If he has not done so, then we are precisely back to the previous critique: how does Hume know that the various supernatural claims and reputedly miraculous events are untrue, unless he has checked them out first?

Or again, what if miracles in one religious system or in another region of the world are actually quite compatible with different beliefs? Incidentally, this need not only apply to different groups within a particular religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, or various Protestant groups. It could likewise apply between various systems of thought. For example, C. S. Lewis commented, “I do not think that it is the duty of a Christian apologist (as many sceptics suppose) to disprove all stories of the miraculous which fall outside the Christian records, nor of a Christian man to disbelieve them. I am in no way committed to the assertion that God has never worked miracles through and for Pagans or never permitted created supernatural beings to do so.” In the circumstances like the ones just mentioned, no canceling of religious teachings or events is necessitated or can be shown to be the case, hence indicating the unconvincing nature of Hume’s fourth challenge. Even if all miracle claims were simply false anyway, as Hume would presumably prefer, then that is the bottom line—but not because of this last criterion. Further, how would Hume know that these claims were false? On the other hand, if there is a combination of true and false miracle claims, or ones that are compatible with others, or simply one true religion, then his fourth point is simply wrongheaded anyway.

Before moving on from this present critique, an additional issue concerns Hume’s own response to a series of reputed miracles that happened among the French Jansenists in the eighteenth century. Hume described the miraculous events in question as the “curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, and sight to the blind” (220). How does Hume respond when even he admits that these events appear to have fulfilled his own requirements for at least his first three more experiential tests for such occurrences? Though fairly brief, Hume’s own investigation of these events is the closest he comes in this essay to checking out the available historical evidence in favor of miracle claims. In fact, it seems that he is answering his own four questions by supplying the available data. Surprisingly, given his own criteria, Hume reached some seemingly strange and intriguing conclusions, as will be seen below. Many commentators have been left scratching their heads on this particular subject.

Hume’s first criterion required reports from the most compelling witnesses with an “unquestioned” number of traits that would “secure us against all delusion” (212). But Hume actually admitted that the Jansenist events were “proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction” (220). In a lengthy endnote, Hume provided quite a long account of many very reputable persons from different walks of life who reportedly either witnessed the relevant evidence personally or examined some cases later. These witnesses included several physicians, twenty-two rectors, a well-known and respected police lieutenant, a duke, and even 120 other witnesses who were quite influential in Paris. Hume even listed several famous scholars, like Pascal and Racine, who were apparently convinced of the miracles as well (226–29). It certainly appears that Hume went out of his way to make the point that there were an acceptable number of reputable witnesses here for the Jansenist events.

Hume’s second criterion required witnesses that do not falsify, imagine, or even lie about potentially miraculous events. Yet, he allows that these Jansenist miracle reports had been investigated by the Jesuits and others who were enemies of these teachings. The group of antagonists included the same police lieutenant whose job was to expose or suppress the events in question, but he was unsuccessful. The Molinist party also attempted to discredit these occurrences but only ended up attributing the miracles to “witchcraft and the devil,” thereby admitting that they had actually happened. Moreover, the Molinists were reminded that this was the same response the Jews made to Jesus.

In another instance, the “queen-regent of France” wished to expose these miracles as well. So, she dispatched her personal physician to examine the claims, only to have him return as a Jansenist convert! An archbishop who “was an enemy to the Jansenists” would not get involved. However, none of those whose job it was to disprove these miraculous claims were able to uncover any “cheat” whatsoever (220, 226–29).

Concerning Hume’s third criterion of miracles being reported “chiefly” from “among ignorant and barbarous nations,” this likewise was not true in this case, as Hume admitted himself. In the Jansenist case, these events occurred not long before Hume’s own day, “in a learned age, and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the world” (215, 220). This seems to cover his testimonial concerns regarding witnesses who did not understand science or the laws of nature. Once again, Hume recognized that the conditions stated in his own cautions did not pertain to these specific miracles in present-day France.

Hume’s fourth criterion also fails to pose an adequate challenge here. Even if purported miracles in some religions were somehow capable of canceling, nullifying, or destroying those in other faiths (which is, once again, an exceptionally dubious assertion), the proper research procedure would be to first investigate instances of the relevant reports. If there were some examples better documented than others, perhaps like those in the French cases cited here, the stronger instances could hardly be abrogated just because “lesser” miracle claims were reported elsewhere, perhaps even hundreds of years after the events in question.

Thus, it would be far more reasonable to uphold those occurrences best evidenced by the historical facts. Quite curiously, Hume seemed to adopt a similar procedure himself. Just before his discussion of the Jansenist reports, he investigated what he considered to be a much “lesser” miracle claim, agreeing that it was a falsehood. Then, immediately afterward, Hume recognized that the Jansenist reports were far better attested. Yet he apparently had no immediate interest in attempting to rule out the Jansenist claims because of the lesser instance (219–20).

It was countered above that Hume’s fourth challenge could have been more plausible if it were assumed that all miracle accounts were true, even equally so. This would make it more straightforward to locate some possible ideological conflicts. But since all such claims are plainly not factual, this situation produces a potential mix-and-match situation. How else can a solution be found apart from the research principle of investigating each case on its own merits? Certain well-attested events, should there be any, simply cannot be ruled out due to some other accounts that look very much like falsehoods. How else can the research be moved forward except by determining if any such occurrences obtained? Hume’s fourth point is simply not applicable as a critique of miracle claims.

For reasons such as these, all four of Hume’s additional criteria in part 2 of his essay do not succeed as valid critiques of any miracle claims, but especially not those in the Jansenist reports. None of these cautions have disproved the French testimonies. Actually, these four “prerequisites” for miracles have all been fulfilled in these cases, as Hume himself seems willing to admit. The following statement could be construed as Hume’s acknowledgment of this concession. Speaking of the Jansenist claims, he summarizes, “What is more extraordinary; many of the miracles were immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned age, and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the world” (220).

So, Hume plainly allowed that there were actually a surplus of reputable witnesses of these Jansenist occurrences, including persons of sufficient integrity and unquestioned character (criterion one). That many of these witnesses were outright enemies of the Jansenist reports militates against their having lied to make the mira­cles appear plausible. Neither did they attempt to gossip and spread false reports, for it was their own desire to expose these facts. Many of those who checked out the data had a private interest in disproving these events. Even Hume admitted that the witnesses were reliable. All of this would seem to militate directly against charges like those of lying, forgery, overwrought imaginations, or the unscrupulous spreading of tales in order to entertain others (criterion two).

Additionally, these Jansenist reports were proclaimed to have occurred not in a distant land far away or decades after the events, but rather in an intellectual age in France, one of the clearly most educated and advanced countries of the world at that time (criterion three). The fourth criterion likewise cannot be employed here because we cannot rule out that well-attested events such as these may have been in an a priori manner, simply because the testimony favoring other similar wondrous events could perhaps have been documented very poorly. Judgment can only be made on the evidence at hand. Neither does Hume specifically assert that the fourth point applied to the Jansenist accounts.

It should be noted that the purpose here was definitely not to determine if any of the Jansenist miracles actually occurred or not. For our purposes, that is a totally moot point. Rather, our goal was to determine how Hume reacted himself, when he even admitted that these miracle claims fulfilled his criteria. This conclusion would help further in determining the overall strength and internal consistency of his argument.

So, it appears to be quite clear that Hume thought the Jansenist miracles were well-attested cases. The human testimony favoring these occurrences was impressive, especially in view of the fact that the evidence apparently concerned supernatural claims. Thus it would be quite instructive to learn how Hume responded to the question of whether or not he considered that these were legitimate miraculous claims. But Hume could only conclude the following concerning these events: “Where shall we find such a number of circumstances, agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And what have we to oppose such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events, which they relate? And this surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as a sufficient refutation” (220, emphasis added).

It appears that Hume’s abrupt dismissal of the miraculous occurrences here was quite arbitrary. Even though he recognized and admitted that all of the availa­ble information added up to support a particular conclusion, it must all simply be dismissed because there are supernatural implications involved. Even if these were among the most corroborated facts in all of human history, testimony, and experience, Hume apparently thought they must be rejected because miracles are impossible.

Especially if the traditional interpretation of Hume’s essay is accepted, it may be difficult to discover a more blatant case from a well-established philosopher of what appears to be due to circular reasoning. When historical evidence on behalf of a miracle claim is believed to have been confirmed, why was the conclusion rejected anyway? Was it due to Hume’s a priori conclusion that such events simply do not occur? This could have been the precise evidence Hume needed to be capable of demonstrating that miracles do in fact occur.

Other philosophers have agreed with these basic problems in Hume’s essay and elsewhere, perhaps stemming from his treatment of the Jansenist accounts. Larmer asserted rather strongly, “Miracles seem ruled out by fiat. Either the event would have been a miracle, in which case it could not have occurred, or it occurred, in which case it could not be a miracle.” After citing the Jansenist example, Swinburne added: “Here the credibility of the witnesses in terms of their number, integrity, and education is dismissed, not as inadequate, but as irrelevant.”

One would just naturally assume that Hume was genuinely interested in exploring the possibility of miracles in an essay written on this topic. Rather, what emerges is the firmness of his belief that miracles never occur no matter what. No examination of the experience in their favor can ever establish that they probably do occur. Thus, it seems that Hume may have initially assumed from the outset that miracles could never occur, which was then followed by his subsequent disregard for any possible evidence on their behalf.

Even if Hume did have reasons to distrust these Jansenist miracle reports, the charge that he apparently dismissed them arbitrarily even in the presence of this much evidence is disheartening. However, he made similar statements earlier in the essay unrelated to the Jansenist issue. After his apparently question-begging definition of miracles mentioned above, he again observed that “no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish . . . always reject the greater miracle” (211–12). This is one of the strong points supporting the traditional interpretation of Hume’s essay, which seems to assert that no amount of testimony is ever sufficient to establish an actual miracle. Even in cases where Hume’s additional criteria were satisfied or inapplicable, he still held that miracles were impossible, or at least that they could never be established or believed. These statements have all the appearance of being unsupported assumptions. Miracles are rejected because they would be supernatural events, regardless of whatever amount of experience may support their historicity.

Even if Hume continued to rely on other conclusions (like miracle reports in other religions) to oppose miraculous events such as the Jansenist claims, that would seem to require some evidence from those other religious traditions. Further, he discredited the fact that the available evidence might be sufficient to establish Christian miracles even if no other miracles had over occurred. In fact, the latter cases might have been sufficient even to serve as the supreme examples of supernatural action, whatever the status of other such claims. After all, if an event has occurred, it is made no less real because there may exist other claims to similar occurrences.

One other matter should be added here as well. Hume’s four additional criteria are objectionable in the first place quite apart from the miracles question. How much of our currently recognized knowledge of history could stand the same amount of scrutiny? That is, were the discipline of history to be viewed through the lens of Hume’s glasses, how would it fare? For example, how much of our accepted world history is composed of events that were not attested by a goodly number of unquestionably intelligent and educated persons who were so trustworthy that the data they shared should be regarded as sufficient to rule out all kinds of honest mistakes, delusion, or even exaggeration? Some significant amounts of history may not conform to this rule.

Or again, how much history is prejudiced by the reporter standing to gain much by the acceptance of these events, such as Julius Caesar narrating his victories over the barbarians in Gaul? Surely many other events took place among “ignorant,” “barbarous,” and other backward nations (215)? Since Hume included at least portions of the Greek and Roman civilizations in this category, because they are some of the examples that he used in this section (212–15), should the historical accounts be doubted (or worse) during these periods? What about ancient Nineveh and Babylon, about which ancient historians seem not to have these sorts of issues?

One begins to note several potential problems involved in such an application of these four criteria to history. Yet, history is treated as a reputable and reliable tradition. As Richard Whately once so aptly wrote, the same methods that Hume employed to dismiss the miracles from the life of Jesus could also be employed to remove the unique elements from the life of Napoleon. As such, much of the past would be lost. Such reconstructing of history is correctly viewed as being highly problematic.

But few scholars of his time should have known about historiography better than Hume himself. Later in his career he turned to the study of history, writing his successful multivolume work, The History of England. Hume knew better than to attempt to apply his four subpoints to the composing of these volumes. Who could write history if they first had to ascertain that every witness must be “of such unquestioned good-sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves” (212)? True, Hume was discussing the issue of testimony on behalf of miracles, where there may be more deception than with normal historical events. But there is still enough prejudice in historical matters, where the historian would have to be quite careful, such as the cause of wars and strife or political causes. Also, as mentioned, Hume’s point about ignorant and uncivilized peoples could have an even more tremendous effect on his writing of history. But there is no ruling out or total distrust of ancient events in his works, hence the issue of inconsistency appears again in Hume, whose skepticism did not show in his ­historical recording.

For reasons like these, this third major criticism of Hume’s essay also appears to have hit its mark. Hume failed to do justice to potentially miraculous occurrences, even if they had attained credibility due to the weight of the experiential testimony in their favor. Therefore, it appears that we might be compelled to consider granting probable status to certain miracle claims if they best account for the available evidence.

The fourth major criticism of Hume’s essay is brief but hard hitting and aimed at the sort of experience that might be encountered either for or against miracles. Philosopher George Mavrodes argues concerning the nature of the inductive method that “Hume’s sample is just too small. . . . And so is your sample and mine.” Granted, a miracle may occur only rarely, so if one did, then the likelihood that Hume and his friends would have experienced it is still small. The chief issue here is that Hume’s sample size is simply far from large enough to be statistically significant. Here is Mavrodes’s conclusion: “So Hume’s own negative experience is irrelevant.”

One way to correct this need for further research would be to expand the search for additional testimony both for and against miracle claims. However, among other issues, Mavrodes charges that from Hume’s perspective there is a very serious problem with such a move. Once the inquiry is extended to a statistically significant experiential group, reports of miracle claims will definitely result, even as seen in recent surveys. These claims, of course, cannot be ignored simply because they do not fit Hume’s prior purposes or even if he thinks the accounts are simply false. But at any rate, neither the results of Hume’s argument that “uniform experience” is opposed to all miracles nor what will occur when the testimony sample size grows to sufficient numbers will confirm Hume’s argument against miracles. Such conclusions will now inevitably draw the discussion into the nitty-gritty of the evidence itself, and the historical data favoring Jesus’s resurrection will need to be viewed head-on.

So, there is a choice to be made in this matter. Mavrodes maintains that we must choose between either utilizing a very small sampling of testimonies, which is much too miniscule for any significant purposes, or expanding our sample size and thereby encountering miracle claims. Where does this leave us, then? Mavrodes concludes: “In any case, however, the project . . . provides no basis for assigning a low antecedent probability to singular miracle claims, such as that of Jesus’s resurrection.”

If Mavrodes is correct, Hume has violated the principles of inductive research and sampling. The result is that Hume is not even close to establishing the nature of his “uniform experience” claim in this matter. Of course, asking a few of his friends concerning their views on the subject does not do the job adequately. But to obtain an acceptably large sample size, miraculous testimonies will result.

The initial four critiques presented thus far with regard to Hume’s essay “Of Miracles” have been on more substantial areas that, if they obtain, would arguably apply to crucial enough concepts that they would seriously disrupt if not disprove Hume’s entire efforts even by themselves. The remaining three critiques below concern more or less subsidiary portions of his essay that may not be as well known. As such, even though these last contributions make both true and worthwhile points, the results will chiefly add to the overall force that should invalidate Hume’s efforts altogether.

Fifth, Hume’s repeated notion was that a miracle, by definition, necessarily involved the principle that these occurrences needed to violate, transgress, or other­wise break the laws of nature (210–11, 221, 223). Many scholars have objected to this notion for a number of reasons. Larmer makes the intriguing assertion that this is hardly a necessary feature of miraculous events. Rather, Larmer holds that God “thereby produces an event that nature would not have produced on its own but breaks no laws of nature.” As Larmer adds later: “Miracles, as events at least partially caused by the direct intervention of a supernatural agent in no way imply that the laws of nature are violated, since they describe not the operation of natural causes, but the operation of a supernatural cause.”

Lewis argues similarly here. He states: “It is therefore inaccurate to define a miracle as something that breaks the laws of Nature. It doesn’t.” So a miracle is caused by God, but once it occurs, “its results follow according to Natural Law.” After God inserts the event into the environment, “it is interlocked with all of Nature just like any other event.” So it is intertwined with nature in its forward position, but with God in its past. However, as Lewis helpfully states elsewhere, “in the whole history of the universe the laws of Nature have never produced a single event. . . . The laws are the pattern to which events conform: the source of events must be sought elsewhere.”

By way of illustration, Larmer points out that a woman who is a virgin may have a fertilized egg implanted in her via a modern medical procedure. Even though she remains a virgin, she may still give birth to a healthy baby. Of course, no laws of nature have been broken in this instance. But is this case a miracle? Now consider, though by quite different means, that God could arguably create ex nihilo the condi­tions under which another virgin would also bear a child, but do so likewise in a manner that does not break the laws of nature. This case would involve a miracle due to God’s interaction into the events.

To sustain the argument that miracles do not break the laws of nature would be a very helpful step forward in this dialogue, providing more options for the theist. Larmer calls it “an even more fundamental objection than the ones we have mentioned.” The consequence is that it “reveals that not only is Hume’s argument of Part I deeply flawed, it is irrelevant to the issue.” If miracles do not break nature’s laws, then the result is that the “argument in Part I . . . cannot get started.”

The sixth critique of Hume’s essay revolves around another matter of internal consistency. Hume is famous in the history of philosophy for his rejection of an assumed uniformity in nature. Yet in spite of his well-known positions on these matters, Hume still insisted on rejecting miracles because of the uniform human experience that presumed that the course of nature would continue exactly as it was currently perceived, not to mention the assumption that it had always continued in this manner at least back to biblical times. However, according to Hume, the truth is that we know only a rather trivial portion of nature and cannot even be sure that what we do know will continue to be the same in the future or that it has continued this way throughout the past.

Making this inconsistency all the more noticeable is that Hume himself recognized that we cannot accept cause and effect as a reliable concept, at least not in the sense of being demonstrably true. This is especially evident in Hume’s small follow-up volume, An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature, where he attempts to explain carefully why these notions cannot reasonably be accepted as being verified. Though humans customarily expect an effect to follow what they take to be the cause, there are no reasonable, logical, or necessary grounds for this custom.

But if Hume was truly convinced that there were no compelling reasons to accept the interaction of cause and effect, how did he know that uniform experience confirmed the laws of nature? Or what about the knowledge that the laws of nature were themselves uniform? How is it to be known that these laws were capable of providing insurance against the miraculous? Hume could not be so adamant that nature’s laws in biblical times, for instance, ruled out miracles the same way he thought they did in the present. After all, the knowledge of this uniformity, which is so necessary for such assertions, cannot be determined.

In other words, Hume could not know that human experience of nature’s laws ruled out miracles because he could not know from his vantage point and way of thinking that nature was truly uniform. This leaves out the additional problem that, all this time, he was inconsistent with his own statements and theses to the contrary. Strange indeed, but this never kept Hume the historian from pontificating historically on the lives and teachings of Alexander, Lucian, Vespasian, Livy, Tacitus, Plutarch, and Marcus Aurelius, among a host of other persons and events. What about all the information on the Jansenists that he recounted in ”Of Miracles”?

This argument against Hume’s consistency challenges his thesis against miracles, unless he wishes to retract his skeptical concepts regarding cause and effect, past human experience in particular, and nature’s uniformity in the present. But if he will not relent on these matters, how could he have gained such dogmatic knowledge regarding the laws of nature? This purported interaction between uniform experience and the reliability of nature’s laws forms the very center of his polemic against miracles, as has been noted many times already.

That Hume felt free, given his earlier philosophical arguments, to use the same principles that he had rejected and chided others for using in order to rule out the occurrence of miracles is simply amazing. Hume argued that even if one could garner good evidence for a miracle, it would then be confronted by the greater “proof” drawn from this uniform conception of nature, meaning that the evidence for a miracle claim could never gain the upper ground here, due to the “superior” evidence with which it is confronted (211–12). Yet, given Hume’s own critique, the imagined wall that supposedly confronts all miracle claims and stops them dead in their tracks seems like nothing but a Humean inconsistency.

Therefore, for Hume himself and anyone else who may hold his view of cause and effect, there is no wall of opposition to miracles based on a uniform, causal notion of nature’s laws as backed by human experience. Thus, Hume’s own objections to miracles at this point are themselves inconsistent as well as quite defective.

C. S. Lewis pointed out a similar problem with Hume’s argument against miracles:

The whole idea of Probability (as Hume understands it) depends on the principle of the Uniformity of Nature. . . . We observe many regularities in Nature. But of course all the observations that men have made or will make while the race lasts cover only a minute fraction of the events that actually go on. Our observations would therefore be of no use unless we felt sure that Nature when we are not watching her behaves in the same way as when we are: in other words, unless we believed in the Uniformity of Nature. Experience therefore cannot prove uniformity, because uniformity has to be assumed before experience proves anything. . . . The odd thing is that no man knew this better than Hume. His Essay on Miracles is quite inconsistent with the more radical, and honourable, scepticism of his main work.

Lewis clearly recognized some of the same things that were just mentioned. Hume’s entire argument depends on the uniformity of nature; yet, Hume elsewhere in his writings accepted similar arguments against the causality of nature.

Yet another problem here is that nature is observed and incorporated into human experience. But the whole of human experience accounts for only a small part of nature. To assert that nature acts completely uniformly with no interruptions from the outside (as Hume asserts) would be to know all of nature. This is once again a circular argument because, as Lewis points out well, one must assume uniformity in all of nature in order to say that we experience the same when the whole is unknown. It must be believed that the portion of nature that cannot be observed directly works precisely the same way as what is observed. In other words, one must already have assumed that nature is completely uniform and acting in a causal way even if the evidence indicates otherwise.

Lewis was not the only scholar to have recognized these same problems in Hume. Larmer agrees as well, naming both C. D. Broad and A. E. Taylor as raising similar criticisms, while Fred Wilson defended Hume’s consistency. For his part, Larmer concluded the matter: “It appears, therefore, that Hume should have either repudiated his explicitly stated position concerning induction and causality or else admitted that his conception of what is meant by a law of nature prohibited him from pressing his objection to belief in miracles.”

A seventh critique of Hume must be mentioned ever so briefly here and expanded later. Actually, as was remarked earlier in this chapter, there are perhaps even hundreds of well-evidenced cases of claimed supernatural events that have been reported in the modern world during the last few decades alone. In a number of these accounts, MRIs, X-rays, and CT and PET scans along with other means of measurable corroboration have been provided for comparison. It is a strange role reversal of Hume’s third subpoint concerning “ignorant and barbarous nations” that in the advanced, scientific world of today is where these sorts of empirical confirmation are in fact available!

The sophisticated medical procedures and tests just mentioned are sometimes able either to verify or falsify many of these incredible medical claims. What happens to Hume’s thesis if such confirmation in the modern world is a reality, actually many times over, and is unexplainable in medical terms? Is the situation enhanced if the eyewitness circumstances occurred during the presence of religious practices such as prayer, worship, or Scripture reading? Simply reiterating the old mantra of the strength of nature’s laws as backed by human experience may grow stagnant when faced with a long list of documented cases often confirmed by very different types of evidence. In fact, regarding Craig Keener’s two volumes of healing testimonies, Richard Bauckham appropriately quipped in terms of our present chapter: “So who’s afraid of David Hume now?”

These conclusions therefore stand in light of this knowledge. Hume’s foundation for rejecting miracles is flawed in many places. One cannot reject a potential miraculous claim if it best fits the evidence simply because of an assumed uniformity in nature, especially if such uniformity has not been shown to exist first. Cause and effect of some variety seemingly would have to be in operation before Hume’s arguments could even begin to be asserted, even though Hume appeared to think that this view of nature was mistaken. Thus, nothing is left but to abandon the very basis of his reasoning.

As before, the question once again concerns which data best fit the available evidence, indicating once again the need for an investigation of the facts. If a miracle claim in past history is found to offer the best explanation of the evidence, it can no longer be opposed in an a priori manner just because of the belief that these sorts of occurrences simply do not happen or because nature opposes such an event. On the other hand, neither can decisions be made in favor of a miracle without solid reasons for doing so. The bottom line is to at least be open to the occurrence of well-evidenced events.

A Brief Summary and Conclusion

Additional criticisms have also been leveled at Hume’s essay “Of Miracles.” Many objections have been lodged against this work, and it has certainly been rejected for a variety of reasons. The trend in more recent philosophical studies appears to be against Hume’s effort as a means of ruling out miracles. But these criticisms will have to suffice for now in our current treatment. If the critiques here are anywhere close to accurate, it certainly appears that Hume’s effort is vulnerable in many places.

It appears that all seven of these major criticisms of Hume hit their mark in various respects, some in more crucial places than others. A brief summary may be helpful in closing. First, the dominant interpretations of his essay maintain that Hume is guilty of committing a series of informal logical errors, chiefly concerning his several circular and question-begging assertions regarding especially his definition of miracles and his unsupported assumptions concerning the negligible value of any experience of miracles, as well as the “uniform experience” against them. He also fails by refusing to investigate any of these events when this very investigation could reveal an exception to his case.

Second, Hume never pauses to ascertain whether a superior supernatural force (as per his own definition involving God’s action) could just temporarily have overridden, superseded, or otherwise bypassed nature’s laws (without breaking them) in order to cause such an event in space and time. Further, an occurrence of this sort would have been due to just such superior power because it would indicate that, at that very moment, an exception to these laws may have occurred. Pinpointing the data, time, and place may even produce the evidence of the superior force. If the evidence indicated that such an event did occur, then of course the question regarding whether it could occur has apparently been answered! But without an investigation, how would this ever be known? Hence it must be emphasized that even the possibility of such an event should provoke an examination in order to know whether or not an exception most likely happened. If Hume believed in God’s existence, this could simply make the critique more forceful.

Third, Hume’s four subpoints raised some thoughtful considerations and worthwhile cautions, yet they are insufficient in themselves to rule out miraculous events. These cautions serve more like warnings and pitfalls to be avoided. Moreover, even when Hume admitted that the miracle claims such as those of the ­eighteenth-century Jansenists were very well attested by human experience, Hume still rejected them for what appeared to be rather arbitrary reasons even after he admitted the high credi­bility of their attestation due simply to the impossibility of miraculous events. This should serve as an indication that while the four subpoints provide some restraint, even Hume did not consider them to be rock-solid edifices, for he seemed to base his rejection not on the possible cautions that could be made but on his prior circular argument in part 1 of his essay.

Fourth, the portion of Hume’s essay “Of Miracles” that dealt with human testimony and his claim that “uniform experience” opposed all miracle claims (211) was clearly falsified on inductive grounds. His human sample size was far too small to draw conclusions regarding all human experience, as he did.

But the problem here was that if Hume expanded his sample size to anything even approximately large enough to make such assertions, then he would definitely have encountered many miracle claims as well. So his dilemma was this: keep his own sample size small and be able to draw virtually no conclusions of the sort that he drew, or increase his sample size and then be prepared to treat the influx of miracle claims. But what he surely could not do was keep his current strategy and still pontificate on what “uniform experience” is available.

Fifth, some theists like Lewis and Larmer have argued that miracles would not necessarily have to break the laws of nature. This argument will not be repeated here, except to say that if such an argument follows, as Larmer states often, Hume’s argument could never even get started.

Sixth, Hume revealed further specific inconsistencies in that some of his most important reasons for rejecting miracles revolved around the principle that nature was uniform, as well as his rejection of the human ability to demonstrate with certainty the nature of cause and effect. Elsewhere Hume had also rejected that these ideas could be known. But if he was correct in abandoning the knowledge of nature’s uniformity as well as cause and effect, then he may have forfeited some of the themes in his polemic against miracles. If so, the apex of his polemic against miracles might also fall.

Seventh, there is a growing case to be made today that hundreds of seeming miracle claims have been documented in medical literature and elsewhere. A number of these examples are accompanied by intriguing and extensive pre- and post-healing medical documentation from MRIs, CT and PET scans, and X-rays. We cannot develop this critique any further here. But suffice it to say that if any of these cases obtain, as well as the ensuing conclusions about supernatural involvement, especially in any significant numbers and variety, then Hume’s thesis would appear to be in quite serious trouble from this critique alone.

These are not all the critiques that have been leveled against Hume’s attack on the credibility of miraculous testimony. But this effort has attempted to highlight some of the more crucial ones which, if they were warranted, would probably disprove Hume’s treatment of miracle claims. It was also argued above that several of these errors and improper conclusions in Hume’s work were published and challenged almost immediately after the publication of his essay in 1748. Alexander Campbell even reported hearing from an eyewitness who told him that some of Hume’s friends were teasing him about losing the miracles argument to George Campbell in the latter’s essay entitled “Essay upon Miracles,” to which Hume responded to those present that “the Scotch theologue had beaten him.”

However, it has been mentioned by scholars that the growing view in the Enlightenment was often to reject miracles, and under such conditions Hume’s essay provided the needed authority for such a venture, even if a number of serious problems were present. On this view, Hume’s essay fit the already-established critical conviction of the time.

But Hume’s polemic against miracles, while appearing to many to be a strong argument at the outset, failed when it was investigated more closely. Hume’s essay simply had too many serious issues to serve as the model refutation of miracles, even though it often has that reputation. Today the prevailing view seems to be that Hume was unsuccessful overall in his efforts in this essay and cannot therefore be cited in order to rule out miracle claims. As Larmer concludes regarding Hume’s case: “His argument is deeply flawed, being vulnerable to charges that it reduces to absurdity by proving too much and begs the question of whether miracles actually occur by defining them out of existence.”

A more proper approach would have been to define miracles without any inherent statement as to the a priori possibility of their occurring, or without attempting to pile up the imagined case against them. Then it would have been possible to investi­gate the available claims in order to determine the strength of the argument.

So once again, the challenge is to investigate the evidence, wherever it leads, in order to better ascertain what may have occurred. Such an investigation of the data that makes such miracle claims is therefore among the chief needs, as has been concluded repeatedly in this chapter. In the specific case of Jesus’s resurrection, evidential claims have been made since the beginning of church history, claiming testimony for the appearances of the risen Lord. These are among the major accounts that must be examined to ascertain if this event is the best explanation for the facts.

Notes

“Of Miracles” is section 10 of David Hume’s famous work An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. It has also been published many times as a stand-alone essay, such as in anthologies.

David Friedrich Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London: Williams & Norgate, 1879), 1:199–201.

John Herman Randall Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind: A Survey of the Intellectual Background of the Present Age, rev. ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1940), 292–93.

Randall, 294, 553–54.

Wilbur M. Smith, The Supernaturalness of Christ: Can We Still Believe in It? (Boston: Wilde, 1940), 142.

For a brief overview and overall discussion of Hume and his essay, as well as a critique and a survey of some of the critical scholars who followed Hume and similar approaches in rejecting miracles, see chaps. 5–6 of the published dissertation of Gary R. Habermas, Risen Indeed: A Historical Investigation into the Resurrection of Jesus (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2021), esp. 112–15 on Hume’s influence on other scholars.

Peter Gay, “Toward an Interpretation,” in Deism: An Anthology, ed. Peter Gay (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1968), 9. For more on the interplay between deism and Hume, see the dated but still excellent treatment by Gay, The Enlightenment, An Interpretation: The Rise of Modern Paganism (New York: Knopf, 1966), 374–419. According to Owen C. Thomas and many others, deism began with the views of Herbert of Cherbury (De Veritate, 1624) more than a half century before Toland’s work; see Owen Thomas, ed., Attitudes toward the Other Religions: Some Christian Interpretations (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 30. Gay labels Herbert of Cherbury as a precursor to deism instead of its founder; see Deism, 30.

Gay, “Toward an Interpretation,” 10. For other examples, compare Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, trans. W. Montgomery (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 38–39; Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 5, Modern Philosophy: The British Philosophers, part 1, Hobbes to Paley (Garden City, NY: Image, 1964), 174–77; Colin Brown, Philosophy and the Christian Faith: A Historical Sketch from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1968), 76–81.

Some may treat as a parallel the historical Jesus studies of today, where even very critical scholars rarely give even an ounce of credence to those more radical writers who are usually not trained in relevant fields and who often even deny Jesus’s existence. The point is that, for a variety of potential reasons, not all critics operate on the same page with each other. By comparison, Bart D. Ehrman’s trenchant critique of the “Jesus Mythicists” may provide somewhat of a parallel here; see Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 2–3, 16–34, for examples.

This occurs in the well-known last two paragraphs, just before the end of part 1.

See part 1 of Hume, “Of Miracles,” 210–12. The quotations and other references to Hume’s essay in this chapter are taken from the edition in Hume on Religion, ed. Richard Wollheim (London: Collins, 1963), 205–29. Hereafter in this chapter, page numbers for “Of Miracles” will appear in-text.

Rather than specifying aspects of his previous definition, some commentators think that Hume is actually offering two definitions here.

This initial accusation appears to clearly commit the informal genetic fallacy as well, but that is another matter for later comments.

Gregory L. Bock, “Understanding David Hume’s Argument against Miracles: Establishing a Religion on the Testimony of a Miracle,” Philosophia Christi 12 (2010): 372–91.

R. M. Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles: From Joseph Glanville to David Hume (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1981), 142–43.

Bock, “Understanding David Hume’s Argument,” 378.

Antony Flew first published this interpretation of Hume’s essay in his journal article, “Hume’s Check,” Philosophical Quarterly 9 (1959): esp. 3–4. Flew developed the argument further in his chapter “Miracles and Methodology,” in Antony Flew, Hume’s Philosophy of Belief: A Study of His First Inquiry (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961). Flew’s quotations above were taken from 174, 176–77 of this volume. In our many discussions as well as three friendly debates on the question of miracles and the resurrection of Jesus, Tony Flew frequently made this point that Hume only held that miracles were quite unlikely events, not that they were absolutely ruled out or otherwise impossible. Tony also held that view himself.

Robert J. Fogelin, “What Hume Actually Said about Miracles,” Hume Studies 16 (1990): 81–87, esp. 81–82. Later, Fogelin followed up these thoughts with his volume A Defense of Hume on Miracles (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).

Bock, “Understanding David Hume’s Argument,” 374, 385–86, 391.

The quotations are from Robert Larmer, “Misunderstanding Hume’s Argument against Miracles: A Response to Gregory L. Bock,” Philosophia Christi 13 (2011): 161 and 163, respectively. Quite intriguingly, Larmer further clarifies that Hume was quite well aware of efforts by two of his early antagonists, Philip Shelton and George Campbell, who challenged his thesis against miracles. In spite of this, Hume had actually recommended Shelton’s work to the publisher and accepted an opportunity to respond to Campbell. Yet, though Shelton and Campbell each argued basically for what has been identified above as the traditional view, like Larmer, Hume never corrected their impressions of his argument or retorted that they were mistaken in how they characterized his work. While this may hint a bit of an argument from silence, it must be remembered that Hume was responding to both these critiques of his own essay, and it might be expected that he should have commented regarding something as serious as an opponent misunderstanding the nature of his own treatment, should that have been the case. For this additional thought, see also chaps. 2–3 in Robert A. Larmer, The Legitimacy of Miracle (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2014), specifically 60–61.

One other matter might be noted here just briefly. Fogelin intriguingly makes it sound as if Flew basically was almost by himself in holding his counterview of Hume’s essay over against the traditional interpretation, though that is not the only possible meaning. See Fogelin, “What Hume Actually Said,” 81. Yet Larmer states that since Flew’s challenge to the traditional view, “commentators have increasingly tended to argue” in favor of Flew’s position; see Larmer, Legitimacy of Miracle, 53. However, it must be acknowledged that the different perspectives between Fogelin and Larmer may have something to do with the intervening years between their two publications.

Larmer, “Misunderstanding Hume’s Argument,” 155–63, emphasizing 155, 161–63. As an aside, Larmer makes the intriguing though minority move of arguing that since there is no necessity for miracles to break the laws of nature, this thereby renders Hume’s argument in part 1 of his essay not only “deeply flawed” but also “irrelevant to the issue” (72).

Gregory L. Bock, “Hume and Religious Miracles: A Reply to Robert Larmer,” Philosophia Christi 13 (2011): 165–68, particularly 165, 167–68.

The next chapter unpacks at least a few of the many additional positions.

Stanley Tweyman, “Introduction,” in Hume on Miracles, ed. Stanley Tweyman (Bristol, UK: Thoemmes, 1996), ix–x.

Tweyman “Introduction,” x. For a discussion on a contemporary collapse of Hume’s arguments, see Timothy J. McGrew, “Of Miracles,” in The Nature Miracles of Jesus: Problems, Perspectives, and Prospects, ed. Graham H. Twelftree (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2017), 152–73.

Joseph Mazzini Wheeler, “Introduction to Hume’s Essay on Miracles,” in Tweyman, Hume on Miracles, 155.

Bock, “Understanding David Hume’s Argument,” 391, cf. also 378, 380–82 for further details.

Further, given the recent empirical data favoring perhaps hundreds of extraordinary miracle-like events occurring today (as discussed later), this cannot provide much hope that Hume’s eighteenth-century denials and assertions held much weight on the evidential front.

C. S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study (New York: Macmillan, 1960), 102.

Lewis, 103.

Richard Swinburne, The Concept of Miracle (London: Macmillan, 1970), esp. 15, 17. Most of this volume was republished in Richard Swinburne, Miracles (New York: Macmillan, 1981), see chaps. 1, 8, and 13.

Bock, “Understanding David Hume’s Argument,” 380.

Bock, 382–83.

David Johnson, Hume, Holism, and Miracles (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 18, 21.

Johnson, 99–100.

Several of these examples from Tweyman are among the earliest of the replies to Hume’s essay (some of which are extracted from the original publications). For these responses, see Thomas Rutherford, “The Credibility of Miracles Defended against the Author of Philosophical Essays” (1751), in Tweyman, Hume on Miracles, 26–28, 33; Anthony Ellys, “Remarks on Mr. Hume’s Essay concerning Miracles” (1753), in Tweyman, Hume on Miracles, 85; Samuel Vince, “Remarks on Mr. Hume’s Principles and Reasoning, in his ‘Essay on Miracles’” (1809), in Tweyman, Hume on Miracles, 99, 106–7; plus several anonymous review essays: “The Credibility of Miracles Defended against the Author of Philosophical Essays, in a Discourse Delivered at the Primary Visitation of the Bishop of Ely, in St. Michael’s, Cambridge,” The Monthly Review 5 (1751): 37; “An Essay on Mr. Hume’s Essay on Miracles,” The Monthly Review 6 (1752): 65; “A Review of George Campbell’s Dissertation on Miracles: Containing an Examination of the Principles Advanced by David Hume, Esq; in an Essay on Miracles,” The Monthly Review 26 (1762): 88. Regarding some of these authors’ names, see James Fieser’s reviews “Hume on Miracles,” and “Hume on Natural Religion (Review),” Hume Studies 24 (1998): 195–200.

William Adams, “An Essay on Mr. Hume’s Essay on Miracles” (1752), in Tweyman, Hume on Miracles, 47.

Adams, 63.

Anonymous, “Conclusion of the Account of Price’s Dissertations on Providence,” Monthly Review 36 (1767): 91, 97; Vince, “Remarks on Mr. Hume’s Principles,” 99, 104; Rutherford, “Credibility of Miracles,” 28.

Adams, “Hume’s Essay on Miracles,” 46–47.

Rutherford, “Credibility of Miracles,” 28–30.

In particular, taking the traditional interpretation of Hume’s essay “Of Miracles,” this philosopher’s logical problems usually consist of both defining and arguing circularly (especially while defining a miracle) and begging the question by using unproved and unsupported assumptions (particularly in reference to the assumed absolute authority of the laws of nature and the negligible value of any experience of miracles). True, in Hume’s long, entire series of fallacious comments (usually located in part 1 of the essay), many of his assertions are repeated in different words, causing them to appear to be more numerous than they are by a strict count. The sheer volume of Hume’s unsupported assertions is just amazing. Lining up a couple of these statements by fiat, Hume asserts that human experience is allied uniformly against all miraculous events, and as such, these events cannot occur. Therefore, all reliable experience on their behalf will indeed coincide with these conditions since the opposite has already been defined forcefully as an impossibility.

Continuing, Hume even defines this “uniform experience” so that, if all of this is not the case, then the miraculous event “would not merit that appellation.” So then, unless all human experience automatically stands against miraculous testimony, the event cannot even be referred to as a miracle! Then Hume insists next that the sum of these statements constitutes “a direct and full proof ” (his emphasis) against any brand of miraculous event. Then the term “proof” is repeated three more times in the exact same sentence in order to make the point entirely clear. From this he states next that, “no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle.” Incredibly, a condition follows here—the only exception to the previous rule is if the denial or falsehood of the miracle would turn out to be more miraculous than the original event itself! But in that case Hume still imposes another rule: we are “always to reject the greater miracle.” Where did this statement come from? And why is this the case other than, once again, by the authority of the statement alone? These are some of the chief prohibitions imposed against miracles from the very beginning.

Talk about piling up a contrived list of problems! All of this is done without stating any contrary evidence against or conducting a factual investigation of some miracle claims, as called for by his critics. The burden of the second (uniformity of experience) rests upon the solidity of the first (experience of nature), which has not at all been evidenced, let alone “proven.” The moment an event becomes designated as a miracle, Hume determines that it was to be snuffed out of existence arbitrarily. But one can “demonstrate” anything if definitions are allowed to be all-inclusive and contain the conclusion to be proven as a given. Therefore, it certainly appears that Hume’s “proof” against miracles fails, and for several reasons here. It indeed relies on the previously given circular definition of a miracle and constitutes a solid example of circular reasoning throughout. It is easier now to see why so many scholars have objected to various aspects of Hume’s rejection of miracles. This even applies to some who agree with him on the general issue of miracles. He assumes here that which he wishes to prove, but which he has not investigated.

These arguments alone, if accurate, are enough to invalidate Hume’s entire thesis against miracles. We could also “prove” that miraculous events do occur by definition and by accepting all experience in favor of miracles, while rejecting any experience for the laws of nature in these specific instances. Then it could be concluded that all other experience must agree with this. To do so would of course prove nothing. But it could be couched in a logical form that is very similar to Hume’s argument. However, many more points of critique still remain to be made with regard to Hume’s work on miracles.

Lewis, Miracles, 103.

Rather incredibly, it has become fairly popular of late to recognize that Hume was most likely a deist of some sort (see the mention of this below). If Hume held that God exists or if he was even open to that idea, this potential critique should make his position even more open to this critique, not less so.

Edwin A. Burtt, Types of Religious Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row, 1939), 213n5.

As noted by Rutherford in “Credibility of Miracles,” 26–27.

Like Adams’s iron example, it may be added today along these same lines of thought that humans can, by their own power, even send spacecraft through and far beyond earth’s gravity and out into the far reaches of our solar system. While the spacecraft did not, strictly speaking, “break” a law of nature at all, they overcame or superseded what in Hume’s day would never have been thought possible. Furthermore, such spacecraft were powered by a stronger force than nature’s laws, though these were not supernatural forces at all. What’s more, the laws were still firmly in place both before as well as after the spacecraft passed through, with absolutely no ill effects. If there were a God with certain attributes who chose to act in nature by a still stronger power, why should this be deemed an impossibility, with the laws of nature returning to their normal course immediately afterward? How could Hume disallow this argument?

Adams, “Hume’s Essay on Miracles,” 46–47, where Adams also used the word “frame,” just as Lewis did in talking about the same problem (Lewis, Miracles, 103).

Adams, 53.

James Somerville, “Remarks on an Article in the Edinburgh Review, in which the Doctrine of Hume on Miracles Is Maintained,” in Tweyman, Hume on Miracles, 128–29.

Once again, see Fieser’s reviews “Hume on Miracles” and “Hume on Natural Religion (Review)” mentioned above.

Anonymous, “An Essay on Mr. Hume’s Essay on Miracles,” in Tweyman, Hume on Miracles, 66.

Anonymous, “Conclusion of the Account of Price’s Dissertations on Providence,” in Tweyman, Hume on Miracles, 95, in a continuation of note 3 on page 94.

Anonymous, “Credibility of Miracles,” 35.

Tweyman, Hume on Miracles, 128n7.

Perhaps a sports illustration serves as a very simple example here. A proud head coach may announce that his team is the very best in the world, perhaps mentioning this or that player and asserting that they are simply unstoppable. But the team is probably not thereby challenging the world champions. To carry out this notion, Hume does not appear to be challenging Little League teams here. He’s making as wide a proclamation as possible, offering the challenge to anyone. As such, he must be prepared to take on any challenge.

To carry the sports analogy one step further, what if the head coach continued to proclaim loudly that no one anywhere could beat his team, but when challenged, he simply dodged the challenge every time?

Lewis, Miracles, 132. A few examples from the Gospels may be helpful. We are told that as Jesus traveled from town to town, he frequently healed all the sick who came to him (as in Luke 6:19). These numbers included non-Jews from other nations (Mark 7:25–30; Luke 6:17–18; cf. Matt 8:5–13). We never read that Jesus refused to help any of the needy ones simply because they had not believed in him before this time! All alike were healed without discrimination. Further, it appears that the Pharisees were likewise casting out demons (Matt 12:27), so the practice was not reserved for Jesus or his disciples alone.

This number appears to be a rather obvious reference to the 120 witnesses in the early church who gathered in Jerusalem after Jesus ascended to heaven (Acts 1:15), perhaps signifying a similar new beginning for this Jansenist group in France.

Tim and Lydia McGrew reported an admirable piece of sleuthing (in the section of their essay listed below that is aptly entitled “Knavery, Folly, and the Love of Wonder”), where they present the findings of several major researchers from Hume’s own time who uncovered a large number of falsehoods in the Jansenist claims and literature. These charges included actual confessions regarding fabricated testimonies, the “healing” of people who were previously well, notarized documents that were later tampered with, and so on. But as McGrew and McGrew noted, it does not follow that all the claimed Jansenist healings were faked, just that the documented problems raised significant questions for a number of the accounts. Most incredibly, Hume was aware of these criticisms of the Jansenists published by those who critiqued his own work, though he never acknowledged the problems in successive editions of his essay “Of Miracles.” These works included the writings of William Adams (1767), John Douglas (1757), and George Campbell (1762). The Tweyman-edited volume above includes a critique of Hume by Adams and an essay on Campbell’s work. For further details, see Timothy McGrew and Lydia McGrew, “The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, ed. William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 593–662.

Larmer, Legitimacy of Miracle, 76n72.

Swinburne, Concept of Miracle, 16.

Of course, based on our comments above from the insightful essay by Tim and Lydia McGrew (see note 60), it could be postulated that Hume disregarded the Jansenist miracles without stating this because he had grown to distrust the details himself, perhaps based on the investigative reports that had been circulated in his time. If Hume knew of these doubts ahead of time, that may have removed some of the sting from his response. But this scenario still raises an additional conundrum. If Hume did in fact know that they were highly questionable events, why did he defend the Jansenist miracle claims in the first place? After all, he could have pointed out to his glee that these sorts of questions were exactly what is found when miracles are investigated! But without that knowledge, perhaps having to change his prior views and make the sort of appropriate changes in his beliefs that such evidence might require would be difficult indeed and may have led to the published response. This entire situation in his essay does in fact raise many questions.

Richard Whately, Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Bonaparte (London: Hatchard, Piccadilly, 1819), 69–70. The 1819 edition was originally published anonymously, but later editions ascribe the work to Whately.

David Hume, The History of England, 6 vols. (London: Gilbert and Revington, 1848).

George I. Mavrodes, “David Hume and the Probability of Miracles,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 43 (1998): 176–77. For some other pertinent thoughts on these issues by philosophers who generally oppose Hume’s reasoning in these matters, compare Benjamin F. Armstrong Jr., “Hume on Miracles: Begging-the-Question against Believers,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 9 (1992): 319, 327; John Earman, “Bayes, Hume, and Miracles,” Faith and Philosophy 10 (1993): esp. 293, 305–6; Roy A. Sorensen, “Hume’s Scepticism concerning Reports of Miracles,” Analysis 43 (1983): 60.

Mavrodes, “Probability of Miracles,” 179–81.

Larmer, Legitimacy of Miracle, 39.

Larmer, 40.

Lewis, Miracles, 59, cf. also 5, 46.

Lewis, 59–60.

C. S. Lewis, “The Laws of Nature,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 77–78.

For a variety of other helpful considerations on the relationship between miracles and the laws of nature, see Larmer, Legitimacy of Miracle, 37–46, in particular. These ­illustrations above are found on 40 and 39 respectively and are similar to Lewis’s examples from Miracles, 59–60.

Larmer, Legitimacy of Miracle, 72.

For David Hume’s rejection of cause and effect, see the treatment in his work, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964), 73–78, esp. 76.

David Hume, An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature, ed. J. M. Keyes and P. Spaffa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938). This brief volume was published anonymously and has often in the past been attributed to Hume’s friend Adam Smith. However, editors Keyes and Spaffa in their 1938 introduction to this text presented convincing reasons for regarding the author as Hume himself. Since their argument, this has been the most widely held conclusion. On this discussion, see Mark G. Spencer, “Another ‘Curious Legend’ about Hume’s An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature,” Hume Studies 29 (2003): 89–99, particularly 89–90. In spite of Hume’s contemporaries not being terribly impressed with his lack of assurance concerning cause and effect, Hume’s challenge was taken up by Kant and others; see J. Bronowski and Bruce Mazlish, The Western Intellectual Tradition from Leonardo to Hegel (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 474–75, primarily note 3.

Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, 16.

Lewis, Miracles, 102–3.

For Larmer’s view, see Legitimacy of Miracle, 61–66. Cf. also C. D. Broad, “Hume’s Theory of the Credibility of Miracles,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 17 (1916–1917): 77–94; A. E. Taylor, “David Hume and the Miraculous,” Philosophical Studies, ed. A. E. Taylor (London: Macmillan, 1934), 330–65. For Fred Wilson’s defense of Hume, see Wilson, Hume’s Defense of Causal Inference (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997); Wilson, “The Logic of Probabilities in Hume’s Argument against Miracles,” Hume Studies 15 (1989): 255–75. Larmer’s response to Wilson is found on 62–65 of Legitimacy of Miracle.

Larmer, Legitimacy of Miracle, 65.

Perhaps the best resource currently available is the two-volume work by Craig S. Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), including almost 1,500 total pages of testimony. Other resources include two by medical doctors: H. Richard Casdorph, Real Miracles: Indisputable Evidence That God Heals (Gainesville, FL: Bridge-Logos, 2003); Rex Gardner, Healing Miracles: A Doctor Investigates (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1986). Larmer investigated and included a few examples of his own in Legitimacy of Miracle, 197–206. Another simply remarkable volume both in terms of actually testing miracle claims and with the publisher involved is Candy Gunther Brown, Testing Prayer: Science and Healing (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012).

Bauckham’s comment is found on the back of Keener’s second volume. Ben Witherington also remarks in the same location that Keener “shows that whatever the merits of Hume’s claim in his own day, it can hardly be maintained today. . . . We have here perhaps the best book ever written on miracles in this or any age. Highly recommended.”

A more positive aspect of Hume’s philosophy is his heavy reliance on probabilistic reasoning in inductive matters, which is one of the chief convictions of modern thought but was not as common an emphasis in Hume’s day. Hume’s emphasis on probabilities can be seen in his volume Essays, Literary, Moral, and Political (London: Ward, Lock, and Bowden, n.d.), 341–43, as well as in “Of Miracles,” 206–7, 213. In this sense, at least, Hume may even be seen as a forerunner to some more modern theses that also postulate the importance of probabilities in inductive matters. However, it was just mentioned above that Hume rejected the popular notions regarding cause and effect. In an age when it was popular to accept a more Newtonian view of the universe, including more mechanistic aspects, Hume insisted otherwise.

Another problem arises when trying to reconcile Hume’s belief in a more open universe with his rejection of miracles. Hume does not allow the evidence to speak for itself, since any potential inductive evidence for miracles should not be ruled out a priori, especially while favoring problematic views of nature and its laws, as might be expected when one holds the above positions. Instead, Hume transgresses his own position in order to rule out miracles. He neither allows nor engages in the serious investigation of data that seem to indicate positive experience in favor of miraculous occurrences. Even in the cases when he appears to think that the evidence may be impressive (as with the Jansenist events), he tends to deviate from his own views elsewhere by retreating to positions that he had already dismissed.

So, the problem here continues to involve Hume’s movement toward a more modern view of the universe in several senses, while remaining rather premodern and even inconsistent in his treatment of miracles. Hence, his treatment of miracle claims is one of the avenues that shows more signs of his premodern critical consciousness by resorting to what may be termed as more of a closed view of cause and effect with nature’s workings. Thus there may be a reliance on probabilities, only to veer backwards in some of these less helpful areas. These internal inconsistencies as well as reverting to a more premodern consciousness are other areas to note. The chief question is not whether or not nature’s laws exist, for of course they do. But what are these laws, and can they be temporarily suspended? Then again, as some like Lewis and Larmer have also suggested, perhaps some miracles do not transgress the laws of nature at all.

For some thoughtful examples, see Rodney D. Holder, “Hume on Miracles: Bayesian Interpretation, Multiple Testimony, and the Existence of God,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (1998): esp. 60–62; George N. Schlesinger, “Miracles and Probabilities,” Nous 21 (1987): esp. 219, 230–32; Schlesinger, “The Credibility of Extraordinary Events,” Analysis 51 (1991): 125; Armstrong, “Hume on Miracles,” 319, 327; John Earman, Hume’s Abject Failure: The Argument against Miracles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), especially the entire host of critiques found in part 1; Earman, “Bayes, Hume, and Miracles,” esp. 293, 305–6; Sorensen, “Hume’s Scepticism,” 60; Stanley L. Jaki, Physics and Miracles (Front Royal, VA: Christendom, 1989), esp. 19–25, 32–33, 78–79, 92–93; Mavrodes, “Probability of Miracles,” 176–77; Larmer, Legitimacy of Miracle, particularly chaps. 3–4. For rejoinders on behalf of Hume’s basic ideas, see Antony Flew, Hume’s Philosophy of Belief, esp. Flew’s chapter, “Miracles and Methodology”; Fogelin, Defense of Hume on Miracles; and also Fogelin, “What Hume Actually Said,” 81–87; Wilson, Hume’s Defense of Causal Inference; Richard Otte, “Schlesinger and Miracles,” Faith and Philosophy 10 (1993): esp. 93, 97.

The full title of Armstrong’s previously cited article states it well: “Hume on Miracles: Begging-the-Question against Believers.” Even some scholars who did not take this strong of a position still thought that Hume had argued incorrectly, overemphasized the strength of his case, and made overly easy criticisms against miracles. An example was theologian William Hordern, A Layman’s Guide to Protestant Theology (New York: Macmillan, 1956), 37.

Once again, it needs to be emphasized clearly that there is no sense in which “proving” God’s existence or some such endeavor comes into play here. The chief point here is to raise the prior question that, if it is even possible that God or a supernatural reality existed, Hume would have to be open to such events transcending nature. But he has not really left this door open.

As to the question of whether Hume was an atheist or some species of theist, there are different views. Earman suggests that Hume may have been a theist, “albeit of a vague and weak-kneed sort. He seems to have been convinced by the argument from design.” If so, “Hume’s inconsequential theism was combined with an abhorrence of organized religion.” See Earman, Hume’s Abject Failure, 4–5. Two other scholars who agree that Hume was a theist of some stripe are Jordan Howard Sobel, Logic and Theism: Arguments for and against Beliefs in God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), see sec. 7.5; and William Lad Sessions, Hume’s Dialogues: A Veneration for True Religion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002). Gay takes what might be thought of as a more conventional view and identifies Hume with the skeptic Philo of his Dialogues on Natural Religion; see Gay, Enlightenment, 414–15. However, Gay also recounted the story told in a letter written by French philosopher Denis Diderot, who was present when Hume once asserted before a number of French scholars that he doubted that there were any real atheists in the world (400–401)! These comments by Earman and Gay are not necessarily exclusive.

As pointed out in the collections of hundreds if not more than a thousand such claims above.

Another related issue here is whether Hume’s essay, especially in part 1, was meant to be an a priori or an a posteriori claim. If the former, was it intended to be an a priori objection, or an a priori rejection? (There is more than one view on this subject, and the issue will not be solved here, but these options are discussed in depth in the next chapter.) But if Hume was making an a priori claim, then this still brings up the question of how such a prior rejection of experience would fare against real evidence, a subject on which many theists have challenged him for over two centuries. If Hume is making an a posteriori claim, then he would be charged with producing alternative scenarios that would better explain the data on behalf of these miracle claims.

Larmer, Legitimacy of Miracle, 4, 39–41, 46, 72.

This topic was discussed in more detail in volume 1 of this study, especially in concert with the well-established idea in recent historical Jesus studies that Jesus also produced healings.

This incident is reported in Alexander Campbell, Debate on the Evidences of Christianity, Containing an Examination of the Social System and All the Systems of Scepticism of Ancient and Modern Times, between Robert Owen and Alexander Campbell (London: Groombridge, 1839), 246. (My thanks to Tim McGrew, who first alerted me to these developments along with sending me Campbell’s volume.) Not to be confusing here, note that Alexander Campbell coauthored this debate with Robert Owen and that Campbell was speaking about George Campbell, who wrote the “Essay upon Miracles,” which was credited with having beaten David Hume on this subject.

Cf. Earman, Hume’s Abject Failure, 71; Hordern, Layman’s Guide to Protestant Theology, 37.

Larmer, Legitimacy of Miracle, 71.

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