Hume and Miracles

Abstract

Hume and Miracles MATTHEW C. BAGGER THE MANY INTERPRETERS of Hume's essay "Of Miracles," section X of the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding,' have so variously represented his views that the secondary literature muddles as often as it elucidates. The best and most responsible interpretations, however, generally take either of the following two positions. Neither, incidentally, is new. Hume either meant simply to establish that the testimonial evidence for a miracle could never surmount our confidence in the laws of nature (call this the "Probability Interpretation "), or he intended to suggest that marshaling testimony for a miracleclaim involves a fairly basic level of self-referential inconsistency (following Ahern, call this the "Evidential Impossibility Interpretation"2). The difficulty arises because Hume, while manifestly arguing the first position, leaves both tantalizing and puzzling indications that he may have held the latter view. I plan to outline briefly the two interpretations and the evidence for them, consider a largely neglected filiation for the essay, and then argue that Hume's interest remained within the purview of the Probability Interpretation , although his resulting doxastic austerity makes an Evidential Impossibility account of miracles the more attractive alternative. 1. Hume's manifest argument forms the basis of the Probability Interpretation. He argues that laws of nature derive from an uncontradicted unanimity of experience. A miracle-claim contradicts one or more of these laws. This circumstance comprises a conclusive nondemonstrative "proof" against the claim. "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and Wayne Proudfoot and Amy Langenberg offered valuable suggestionson reading an earlier draft of this essay. DavidHume,EnquiriesconcerningHuman Understandingand concerningthePrinciplesofMorals, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975),lo9-3 I. 9Dennis M. Ahern, "Hume on the EvidentialImpossibilityof Miracles,"in Studiesin Epistemology ,ed. NicholasRescher (Oxford: BasilBlackweil,1975), 1-3L [237] 938 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35:9 APRIL 1997 unalterable3 experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined" (114). The testimony for the miracle, however, presents contrary evidence because experience counsels that testimony often proves true. Hume suggests that the inquirer must balance the evidence derived from the law of nature (which amounts to a proof) against the testimonial evidence. The inquirer should believe the stronger evidence, but only to the degree remaining after the subtraction of the lesser evidence. "The very same principle of experience, which gives us a certain degree of assurance in the testimony of witnesses, gives us also, in this case, another degree of assurance against the fact, which they endeavor to establish; from which contradiction there necessarily arises a counterpoize, and mutual destruction of belief and authority" (113). To prevail, the testimony supporting a miracle-claim must, therefore, amount to a proof superior to the proof deriving from the unalterable experience of nature. Hume concludes: The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), 'that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact, which it endeavors to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducing the inferior'. (115-16 ) To accept a miracle-claim one must believe the violation of the laws of nature more likely than that the testimony misleads.4 In the second part of the essay, Hume catalogues the reasons why the testimony supporting miracles could never reach the degree of assurance we repose in the laws of nature. He impugns the reliability of witnesses. The second interpretation of Hume's chapter on miracles, the Evidential Impossibility Interpretation, has had many detractors. Peirce, for instance, with his customary charm calls it "puerile."5 Mackie emphatically declares that it "is not Hume's argument" 09) and Gaskin considers issues related to it under the rubric of"incautious, possibly incorrect.., items which appear in 'Of Mira3Hume conceived natural law as the experience of constant conjunction. This conception leads one to believe that Hume...