HUME ON MIRACLES
William A. Wisdom
It is by no means clear exactly what Hume’s main contention is in his essay “Of Miracles” (Section X of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding). He is obviously skeptical
about the credibility of miracle-claims. But just what is he arguing
for? There are at least five distinctly different candidates for the
status of his main contention, which candidates I will arrange from the
strongest (and most interesting) to the weakest (and least
interesting). I shall support each with a quotation.
(1) Miracles are impossible. “…What have we to oppose to such a
cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature
of the events, which they relate?”
(2) Nothing could justify the belief that a miracle had occurred.
“…The proof against a miracle…is as entire as any argument from
experience can possibly be imagined.…There is [always]…a direct and
full proof…against the existence of any miracle….”
(3) Human testimony could not justify the belief that a miracle had occurred. “…A miracle, supported by any human testimony, [is] more properly a subject of derision than of argument.”
(4) Human testimony could not justify the belief that a religious miracle had occurred. “…No human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any…system of religion.”
(5) No miracle-claim has ever in fact been justified by human testimony. “…There
never was a miraculous event established on [sufficient] evidence.” And
again: “…No testimony for any kind of miracle has ever amounted to a probability, much less to a proof….”
Statements (1) through (4) are conceptual or methodological or philosophical
claims about what is possible. Statement (5), on the other hand, is a
(merely) factual claim about what has actually happened. (1) through
(4) are arranged in a strictly logical order: if any earlier one is
true, so are all the later ones; if any later one is false, so are all
the earlier ones. (Indeed, (5) would fit into this logical sequence if
for “miracle” in (5) we put “religious miracle”.)
It seems clear from the quotations that Hume believed all of the claims
(1) through (5). But he does not argue for all of them. Indeed, he
explicitly says that (3) is false--which, we just noted, commits him to
the falsehood of (1) and (2) as well: “…There may possibly be
miracles…of such a kind as to admit of proof from human testimony….” So
by the end of the essay he settles on (4) as the strongest
philosophical claim that he can justify--though he clearly believes the
rather uninteresting factual claim (5) as well (for which most of Part
II in "Of Miracles" is an argument). Therefore it would (alas!) seem
prudent to read the whole essay as a defense only of the relatively
weak proposition (4), supported largely by his arguments for
proposition (5) in Part II.
Copyright © 2004, William A. Wisdom