Miracles and Revelation

Abstract

The stimulating and confusing thing about Hume’s chapter on miracles in the Enquiry is that it brings together, interrelates and applies to the biblical miracles two items which for the sake of the clarity should perhaps be kept apart, namely, the credibility of witnesses and the intrinsic probability or improbability of the event allegedly witnessed. The result is a piece of argument which has provoked more comment, criticism and abuse than anything else in Hume’s philosophical writing. To the philosopher ‘Of Miracles’ offers, at the very least, an almost irresistible opportunity to try to distinguish between a miracle, a very unusual event, and an event which provides a falsifying instance of a natural law; to the historian or jurist it offers a fascinating discussion of the credibility of witnesses; to the believing Christian it threatens to demonstrate that no wise man would give any credit to the New Testament miracles; and, which is not now so readily perceived, to an eighteenth-century reader (or to a twentieth-century reader asking questions of the ‘Who moved the stone?’ type) it offers a direct confutation of the crucial argument upon which the rational credibility of the Christian Revelation had been and is still sometimes made to depend, namely, the historical truth of the Resurrection.

We know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

John, III, ii

It often happens, such is our natural love for the marvellous, that we willingly contribute our own efforts to beguile our better judgements.

Scott, Guy Mannering, chapter IV