Examine two philosophical reasons for believing in miracles

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  1. Examine two philosophical reasons for believing in miracles (6)
  2. Outline at least two problems with believing in miracles (8)

C) Consider the claim that ‘there are no acceptable solutions to these           problems.’ (6)

Miracles cannot be proven with any evidence, so some people will and some will not believe in them. There are two main reasons for believing in them; if the laws of nature are rigid, then anything which breaks these laws must therefore be a miracle, Holland backs this up considering how different people interpret either coincidences or miracles. The second reason for believing in miracles is Swinburne’s theory, that we should believe people’s testimonies to be true.

However there are problems with believing in miracles. Hume disagrees with Swinburne and claimed that people’s testimonies should not be trusted and that people do lye. Another problem for believing in miracles comes back to the laws of nature. If we interpret them as being flexible instead of rigid, then miracles do not happen as everything classed as one can be explained. This essay will argue that a miracles would not be one, if there was a logical explanation and it is up to the individual to decide what is miraculous and what is not. However there are no solutions to these problems if the individual requires evidence, for instance scientific proof, and miracles have none.

a)        Hume defines a miracle as ‘a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity or by the interposition of some invisible agent.’ This is the most important point in arguing reasons for believing in miracles. This is because if you interpret the laws of nature to be strict and rigid, then it makes sense that if anything breaks these boundaries, then they should be classed as a miracle. Hume links the breaking of a law of nature to the ‘Deity’, so a miracle has religious meaning. An example of this would be gravity. This is a scientific law and if something happened outside this, for instance an apple started to float, and we did not re write the law of gravity, then we would have to assume it to be a miracle.

Holland offers an alternative viewpoint to this. He says there may be things that do not break the laws of nature but do reveal something to us and have some sense of divine purpose which, should the person choose to perceive it in this way, could be miraculous.  Holland said that a miracle could also be described as a coincidence, ‘A coincidence can be taken religiously as a sign and called a miracle.’ This is another important point, as it avoids the problem of scientific proof, and allows the individual to decide for themselves their interpretation of a miracle. Holland’s famous parable of the boy on the railway track explains how different people understand situations: A young child, busily disentangling his toy car from the railway lines, escaped certain death when a train came to a halt only inches away from him. His mother calls it a miracle, even though it was established afterwards that at that moment the driver had suffered a brain embolism. Holland argues that the most the mother could legitimately claim was coincidence and that to impose a religious interpretation on the event goes beyond the evidence. However, although we have not made the event religious, there is no real reason for the woman not to interpret it as an act of G-d either. It is just a question of interpretation.

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The second philosophical reason for believing in miracles is Swinburne’s theory that we should believe people’s testimonies. The most important point Swinburne

makes is that ‘we ought to believe things are as they seen unless we have good evidence that we are mistaken.’ This is important because he is also saying that without people’s testimonies, we have no evidence to rely on for proving miracles. He claimed that the principles of credulity and testimony should be applied, that is, we would normally believe what someone tells us to be the case, and therefore we should believe people’s testimonies.  He ...

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