David Hume, On Miracles

We have no reason to accept testimony that there are miracles

Hume’s empiricism
• Hume’s basic empiricism: all ideas are based on corresponding
impressions: “all our ideas, or weak perceptions, are derived from our
impressions, or strong perceptions, and that we can never think of any
thing which is not seen without us or felt in our minds.”
• If no impression can be produced, we must conclude “the term is
altogether insignificant.”
• This empiricist principle is Hume’s maxim for thinking well.
Cause and effect
• All reasonings concerning matters of fact are based on the relation
between Cause and Effect—by means of that relation we go beyond
the evidence of our memory and senses.
• Such a relation cannot be discovered a priori, by the mere operation of
reason; it is discovered by experience
• The explosion of gunpowder, the efficacy of a vaccine, for example,
could never be discovered by arguments a priori
The effect of custom
• The influence of custom and habit can easily induce us to think these
relations are discoverable by reason
• Consider his billiard ball example: could we predict with certainty that
one billiard ball will communicate motion to another without any
experience?
• We might fancy we could, so powerful is the effect of custom and
habit
• But such fancy is mistaken: any prediction independent of reason
would be arbitrary.
Cause and effect are distinct
• That it is arbitrary, that cause and effect are distinct, stems from the fact
that many effects can follow from a cause.
• Since the motion of the first Billiard ball is not contained in, and distinct
from, the second Billiard ball, a hundred different effects, says Hume,
could follow from the motion of a billiard ball striking another:
“All these suppositions are consistent and conceivable. Why, then, should
we give the preference to one, which is no more consistent or conceivable
than the rest? All reasonings a priori will never be able to show us any
foundation for this preference.”
• The upshot is thus clear: the foundation of all reasonings concerning
matters of fact is experience or, as Hume says, constant conjunction.
How strong a foundation is experience?
From the perspective of common sense:
• Experience is the “great guide of human life.”
• It induces us to “expect effects similar to those which we have found to follow
from such objects.”
• Only a “fool or madman will dispute the authority of experience or reject the
great guide of human life.”
From the perspective of the philosopher:
• The appeal to common sense is an appeal to psychology and to our practical
lives
• Such an appeal does not, however, settle the normative question: Are
conclusions reached this way justified? Is it legitimate to proceed this way?
Probability and induction
• “Though experience be our guide in reasoning concerning matters of
fact; it must be acknowledged that this guide is not altogether
infallible, but in some cases apt to lead us into errors.” (p. 101)
• All effects follow not with certainty from their supposed causes.
• Thus: “A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.”
• At best we can attain probability: “All probability supposes an
opposition of experiments and observations, where the one side is
found to overbalance the other, and to produce a degree of evidence,
proportioned to the superiority.” (p. 101)
Testimony
• The testimony of others: “No species of reasoning is more common,
more useful, than that which is derived from the testimony of men,
and the reports of eye-witnesses and spectators.” (p. 102)
• But how do we determine the veracity of testimony?
• Since testimony is based on past experience, it varies with the
experience, and is regarded as either a proof or a probability,
according as the conjunction between any particular kind of report and
any kind of object has been found to be constant or variable…Where
the experience is not entirely uniform on any side, it is attended with
an unavoidable contrariety in judgments.” (p. 102)
Factors which diminish the argument
• Contradiction of reports
• When the reports seem doubtful
• When they are biased
• Testimony is delivered with hesitation
•
Miracles
• The extraordinary vs a miracle
• A “miracle is a violation of a law of nature.”
• The question is: do we ever have a reason to believe, on the basis of
testimony, that a law of nature has been violated?
• Hume’s conclusion: we never have a reason to believe miracle reports
Law of nature
• A law of nature involves a uniform regularity of events and is thus
grounded in experience or constant conjunction
• “All men must die”
• “A dead man should come to life”
• The latter is a miracle because all experience goes against it;
consequently, insofar as “a uniform experience amounts to a proof,
there is a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the
existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the
miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is
superior.” (p. 104)
Proportion belief to evidence
• The evidence to be weighed comes from 2 sources in the case of a
miracle: 1) the credibility of the witnesses and 2) the question
regarding the credibility of the fact itself.
• It follows from this procedure that we get the maxim: “that no
testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be
of such a kind, that its falsehood would be even more miraculous than
the fact, which it endeavors to establish; and even in that case there is
a mutual destruction of arguments…(p. 104)
No testimony of a miracle amounts to a proof
• It follows, therefore, that “no testimony for any kind of miracle has
ever amounted to a probability, much less a proof; and that, even
supposing it amounted to a proof, it would be opposed by another
proof, derived from the very nature of the fact, which it would
endeavor to establish. It is experience only, which gives authority to
human testimony; and it is this same experience, which assures us of
the laws of nature.”
Religious authority
• “When, therefore, these two kinds of experience are contrary, we have
nothing to do but subtract the one from the other, and embrace an
opinion, either on one side or the other, with the assurance that arises
from the remainder. But according to the principle here explained, this
subtraction, with regard to popular religions, amounts to an entire
annihilation; and therefor we may establish it as a maxim, that no
human testimony can have such a force as to prove a miracle, and
make it a just foundation for any such system of religion.” (p. 105)
• Resurrection of Jesus Christ: to doubt this is to doubt the basis of
Christianity
Clifford, From the Ethics of Belief
• Not all beliefs can be tested by direct evidence – hence the testimony
of others.
• The question is: “under what circumstances is it lawful to believe on
the testimony of others.” (p. 106)
• To accept the testimony of another: “we must have reasonable grounds
for trusting his veracity, that he is really trying to speak the truth; his
knowledge, that he has opportunities of knowing the truth about this
matter; and his judgment, that he has made proper use of those
opportunities in coming to the conclusion that he affirms.” (p. 106)
Moral character, strong conviction, practice
—these are not enough for belief
• Prophet Mohammad: he had excellent character, says Clifford, yet that
gives us “no evidence at all that he knew what the truth was.” (p. 108)
• That he had strong convictions and was the vehicle of a supernatural
revelation, says Clifford, does not give us grounds to say with
certainty “that this strong conviction was not a mistake.”
• Says Clifford: it is “not at present even capable of verification by
man.” (p. 108)
Comfort not truth
• “The fact that believers have found joy and peace in believing gives us
the right to say that the doctrine is a comfortable doctrine, and pleasant
to the soul; but it does not give us the right to say that it is true.” (p.
109)
• Sympathy with human nature vs superhuman knowledge of theology.
• Insofar as we use the authority of a prophet, says Clifford, “as an
excuse for believing what he cannot have known, we make of his
goodness an occasion to sin.” (p. 110)
Prophet or Buddha
• Who is right?
• “Both cannot be infallibly inspired; one of the other must have been
the victim of a delusion, and thought he knew what he did not know.
Who shall dare to say which?”
• In other words: the goodness or greatness of a man does not give us
grounds to “justify us in accepting a belief upon the warrant of his
authority”
• What is needed is the further grounds for “supposing he knew the truth
of what he was saying.” (p. 111)
Ohm’s law
• Theory and practice are wedded in Ohm’s law
• “The student who begins to believe to learn about electricity is not
asked to believe Ohm’s law: he is made to understand the question, he
is placed before the apparatus, and he is taught to verify it. He learns
to do things, not to think he knows things; to use the instruments and
to ask questions, not to accept the traditional statement.” (p. 111)
Sacred tradition of humanity
• It is not propositions or statements which are to be “accepted and
believed on the authority of tradition” that matter.
• What matters is: “questions rightly asked, in conceptions which enable
us to ask further questions, and in methods of answering questions.
The value of these things depends on their being tested day by day.”
(p. 112)
Clifford’s maxim for “thinking well”
• “It is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence; and where
it is a presumption to doubt and to investigate, there it is worse than
presumption to believe.” (p. 112)