Miracles-U-System.pptVIP

Hume’s “Of miracles” Thesis: You can’t establish a religion on human testimony of miracles. He has an argument similar to one used by John Tillotson (moderate Archbishop of Canterbury, 1691-1694) against transubstantiation. He’s writing in a context where Protestants are already skeptical of miracle reports coming from Roman Catholics in continental Europe. The argument is supposed to convince his Protestant audience that they should be skeptical of any miracle reports in religious contexts. Experience, evidence, and belief When it comes to matters of fact, experience is our only guide. And it is a fallible guide. So we have to proportion our belief to the evidence. Sometimes we have a perfectly consistent pattern of evidence (a proof), and sometimes we have a mixed pattern of evidence (mere probability). With proofs, we should have (something like) complete confidence. With probabilities, we should have less confidence. Testimony Testimony is one source of evidence. It works the same way: our confidence in certain testimony should be tailored to how often testimony of this kind faithfully represents the facts. If our experience has shown a certain kind of testimony to be perfectly reliable, then we should be completely confident in it. And if our experience has shown a certain kind of testimony to be less reliable, then we should be less confident in it. Two factors thatshould lower our confidence Sometimes our confidence should be lowered because of the nature of the testimony. Witnesses contradict each other Only a few witnesses Doubtful character They have an interest in what they claim They hesitate, or they “protest too much” Other times our confidence should be lowered because of the nature of the event attested to. Nature of the event Inasmuch as the event attested to “partakes of the extraordinary and marvellous”, we should lower our confidence. If someone tells you that President Bush gave a State of the Union address wearing a Speedo, you should be highl