…. until someone walked on the moon, people were regularly observed not to walk on the moon. And people, in time, have come to do what earlier generations would rightly have taken to be impossible on the basis of their experience.
When people watched the footage of the first moon landings they did not refuse to believe what they were seeing just because it contradicted all previous knowledge, but instead accepted it as true.
Richard Swinburne also criticises Hume’s arguments by referring to what he believes to be the three types of historical (not scientific) evidence that support the existence of miracles: our apparent memories, the testimony of others and physical traces left by the events on question. Swinburne argues that the scientific laws, which apparently disprove miracles, are in fact based upon these three types of historic evidence. Therefore if such historical evidence is not sufficient to prove the occurrence of miracles (which Hume would say it is not), is it then sufficient to prove the certainty of natural laws/scientific evidence?
Hume ignores these criticisms and goes on to state four further points as to why miracles are implausible. The first reason being that there has never been a sufficient number of people, that in Hume’s opinion are reliable sources, who have testified for the occurrence of a miracle:
[there has never been] in all history any miracle attested by sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion.
(David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748)
Hume’s first point then is that those who have previously made claims concerning miracles have not been credible, as they were not of a high enough intelligence and reputation in Hume’s eyes.
Hume’s second and third reasons support his first; the second point states that those who are testifying for a miracle will have ‘a natural tendency to suspend their reason and support their claim’:
…a religionist may be an enthusiast and imagine he sees what has no reality: he may know his narratives to be false, and yet persevere in it…for the sake of promoting a holy cause.
(David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748)
So in other words those who are testifying for a miracle are so enthusiastic about the existence of the said miracle that they have forgotten all common sense and are deluding themselves about the existence of miracles.
The third reason is that he believed most miracles were said to have been observed among ‘ignorant and barbarous nations’ and therefore should be discounted, as these people are also not reliable sources.
When considering these three further points one can find further faults with Hume’s argument. Hume’s first point that there has never been a sufficient number of men to testify for a miracle is an unclear point because he does not state what a sufficient number is. Furthermore, it would be in my opinion a difficult task to try and reach a generally agreed number of people needed to testify for the occurrence of a miracle. Hume does also not explain why he considers previous claims regarding miracles as invalid. Hume’s argument therefore just seems to be his own unsubstantiated opinion, rather than an explained theory of discounting miracles. This criticism that Hume is just expressing his own opinions rather than providing a fair argument is further supported by Hume’s claims in his first three points that testimonies regarding miracles can only be taken seriously if they are made by people of a certain intelligence and stature. This point is highly questionable, particularly in today’s society where these types of opinions would be deemed as prejudice and therefore unacceptable reasoning.
Hume’s fourth and final point concerning the dismissal of miracles comes from the premise that all religious traditions are mutually exclusive. Hume then goes on to say that one of the aims of a miracle is to establish that a specific religion exists by showing its power and reality through the act of a miracle. Therefore, if each religion has mutually exclusive miracles which are used to prove that the said religion exists ,then each miracle arising from different religions cancels each other out. Hume said that:
In destroying a rival system, it [a miracle] likewise destroys the credit of these miracles, on which that system was established.
(David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748)
This fourth point can easily be questioned as the premise that all miracles are a mutually exclusive invention of their own religion is not a fact. It is true that miracles cannot be used to support a whole tradition as then all miracles would cancel each other out, but this does not mean that miracles cannot occur objectively.
Therefore, when regarding Hume’s argument as a whole, it is clear to see that to make the argument more solid Hume needs to go into further detail about his four points. However, there are some points, for example the assertion which states that for a miracle to be true, a certain type of person needs to testify for it, which do not hold up when subjected to scrutiny and therefore on a whole I do not find Hume’s dismissal a convincing argument.
Philosophy of Religion for A level for OCR, PG 176