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The Evidential Force of Miracles THE EVIDENTIAL FORCE OF MIRACLES Abstract: Historically, miracles have been held in high esteem for their testimony to the Christian message. Yet, the rise of modernism has influenced a decline in the use of miracles for Christian apologetics. In fact, their evidential value is now questioned altogether. It is precisely this question that I intend to address by way of two great thinkers – David Hume and John Henry Newman. By critically analyzing Hume’s famous argument against miracles through the lens of Newman’s response, I propose an evaluation of the evidential force that miracles exercise today. 1 1. Introduction In his seminal novel, The Brothers Karamasov, Dostoevsky writes, The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognized by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also.1 As great literature so often does, this passage articulates with elegant simplicity a philosophical issue of Dostoevsky’s time. Yet it is one that remains relevant today. While miracles have historically been considered a great testimony to Christian claims, the onset of modernism, with the corresponding dominance of materialism, has largely set miracles aside as pious foolery. What is the relationship between miracles and faith? If, as Dostoevsky claims, miracles presuppose faith, why were they historically so central to Christian apologetics and can they be used as evidence today? These are the question I would like to take up through a discussion between David Hume and John Henry Newman. According to Hume, miracles are coherent within a Christian worldview, but unconvincing to an atheist or agnostic who always has two lines of defense: “one is to say that the event may have occurred, but in accordance with the laws of nature… the other is to say that this event would indeed have violated natural law, but that for this very reason there is a very strong presumption against its having happened, which it is most unlikely that any testimony will be able to outweigh.”2 Newman is certainly sympathetic to this point, for he concedes that, “a 1 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. by Constance Garnett (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1990), p. 11. Emphasis added. 2 J.L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the existence of God, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 26. 2 miracle is no argument to one who is deliberately, and on principle, an atheist.”3 Nonetheless, he retains hope that one whose mind is blunted by habituation to the regularity of nature may, by miracles, be roused to reflection and the realization of a Supreme Power is involved in his creation.4 Thus, we shall consider, following Newman’s arguments, whether reflection on miracles can penetrate these two lines of defense to arrive at consideration of God. 2. The First Line of Defense As previously stated, the first line of defense is to claim that the alleged miracle can be attributed to natural causes. Newman grants that there are plenty of cases where this is true and these, he agrees, are not authentic miracles. In fact, he goes beyond merely mentioning the point about natural causes by considering several ways of mistaking the natural for the supernatural. He even goes so far as to list reasons to be suspicious of an alleged miracle that does not yet have an identified natural cause. It certainly seems arguable and worth considering whether each of Newman’s criterion is valid and whether he has not set the standard to high, but it suffices for the current investigation to note that he has undoubtedly given a sympathetic consideration to this objection.5 For Newman, taking this objection seriously helps us throw out many alleged miracles that are not legitimate, yet he thinks that even with this higher standard there remain 3 John Henry Newman, Two Essays on Biblical and on Ecclesiastical Miracles, (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897), p. 11. 4 Ibid. 5 In Newman’s defense, he is in this essay considering what can be known from reason alone. It makes sense that there are restrictions placed on what a person can responsibly claim to know through reason that are removed by the light of faith. Considering the context of Newman’s argument, it seems plausible that he would advocate accepting a wider range of miracles with the inclusion of faith. 3 miracles that must be taken seriously due to their “publicity, clearness, number, instantaneous production, and completeness.”6 As a point of clarification it ought to be noted that Newman is not yet claiming that these miracles have been positively proven to be genuine; he is only saying that they merit further consideration because there is not yet sufficient reason to claim that they have a natural cause. For some cases, it is easy to claim a natural cause and end the debate there. Others (he uses the example of bring the dead back to life) cannot so easily be attributed to nature and must, therefore, employ the second defense. Before addressing this second defense, we must consider another aspect of the first defense. Newman’s definition of a miracle is not a causeless event. It is not enough to say that a miracle cannot be adequately accounted for through natural causality. For Newman, we must also show that there is good reason to attribute the event to God. Failure to do this, he thinks, is a mistake that Hume makes.7 J.L. Mackie, adapting the Humean argument, accepts Newman’s definition of a miracle, but finds this more of a burden rather than a problem-solving blow.8 Now we must show both that the alleged miracle is not sufficiently explained by the laws of nature 6 Newman, p. 68. 7 “It derives its force from the assumption, that a Miracle is strictly a causeless phenomenon, a self-originating violation of nature; and is solved by referring the event to divine agency, a principle which (it cannot be denied) has originated works indicative of power at least as great as any Miracle requires.” Newman, p. 15. I do not think he does justice to Hume in this regard because Hume does say in a footnote, “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” Hume, p. 77 (italics as in original). Hume is not denying God as the efficient cause of a miracle. His argument is that the nature of a miracle, as a violation of nature, regardless of how it comes about is such that “mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity” Hume, p. 90. Nonetheless, Newman proceeds to address Hume’s actual argument, so this mistake, though it oversimplifies the real objection that Hume sees, is not fatal to his overall argument. 8 “However, the full concept of a miracle requires that the intrusion should be purposive, that it should fulfill the intention of a god or other supernatural being” Mackie, p. 22. 4 and serves a divine purpose. This second part he sees as nearly impossible to prove because traceability is lost. We are claiming that an immaterial being is somehow affecting the material world. Newman addresses this objection by reframing the question. If we attribute an alleged miracle to God, it is sufficiently accounted for as far as power is concerned. Certainly, it is not a problem for He who created all things to influence them directly in whatever manner He wishes. The real question is a matter of final causality not physical causality.9 Is this the kind of thing that God would do? It is only considered in the context of his whole argument, that the significance of this statement becomes clear. If we already know that there is a God who has the power to act independently of the laws of nature and that the laws of nature are at the service of a higher moral law, it does not seem impossible or even unlikely that God might occasionally intervene in a supernatural way (that is, in a manner more direct than natural causality) for a reason of the moral order. Thus, a miracle is not, in itself, unlikely for Newman. The real question is whether an alleged miracle is an instance of this phenomenon and final causality is the evaluating criterion to answer it.10 9 “Now the Miracles of the Jewish and Christian Religions must be considered as immediate effects of Divine Power beyond the action of nature, for an important moral end; and are in consequence accounted for by producing, not a physical, but a final cause” Newman, p. 18. 10 Patrick Nowell-Smith says that, “the problem is not whether science can explain everything in current terms, but whether the explanation of miracles requires a method quite different from that of science. Unless this latter thesis is proved, it is hard to see why miracles should be called ‘supernatural’.” His argument assumes the empiricist premise. Thus, for him there is a dilemma. If miracles cannot be known under the methodology of science, we cannot really know them at all. If we do in fact know them, then they are known by science and there is no reason to call them supernatural.
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