Miracles and Hume's Reasoning about Testimonial Evidence

On his blog Dr. Bart D. Ehrman posted Michael Shermer's Foreword to my new anthology The Case Against Miracles. You can see teasers on his Facebook page (Dec. 22nd and 23rd). He has made contributor Darren Slade and myself temporary administrators, which is cool. Ehrman has three more selections to post about the book.

In the first one on his blog (not the one on Facebook) I got into a discussion with a believer, brenmcg. I think it went rather well, and helps clarify and expand on why we need objective evidence before we should believe any miracle tales. Enjoy.

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"Send a copy of 'The Case Against Miracles' to your favorite Christian apologist!!!"

"Send a copy of 'The Case Against Miracles' to your favorite Christian apologist!!!" So challenges Gary M, a former conservative Lutheran, who is now a counter-apologist. He writes for his blog Escaping Christian Fundamentalism, which I highly recommend everyone visit.

On Amazon Gary wrote a 5-Star review of my anthology The Case Against Miracles (CaM), saying:

I am a counter-apologist and have read a long list of books by Christian scholars, apologists, and fellow skeptic counter-apologists. This book, The Case Against Miracles, is absolutely devastating to the theistic belief in miracles, and more specifically, absolutely devastating for the greatest alleged miracle of all, the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The convoluted arguments made by Christian apologists for their belief in the supernatural are disassembled. Order this book for yourself and send a second copy to a Christian friend or family member! Help to facilitate the demise of fear-based, superstitious thinking.

To see the books he's read, just check out his current top post! It's pretty impressive. He likes CaM so much he sent copies to several top Christian apologists whom he names:

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There Aren’t Any Winners in the Miracle Contest

The on-going erosion of Christianity

“When was the last time you offered your condolences to a neighbor whose son is demon-possessed? Demons are just not encountered in everyday life, contrary to what one would expect if the New Testament worldview still held good.” So says Robert M. Price in his new book, Jesus Christ Superstition (p. 123).

Hold that thought: “…if the New Testament worldview still held good.” We know that many Christians have moved on, and not reading the Bible has probably helped with that. In the fifth chapter of Mark’s gospel, Jesus transferred demons from a man into a herd of pigs. How many Christians would admit that this story doesn’t reflect how they view the world, much less enhance their faith? But demons transporting into pigs reflects the New Testament worldview. Again, Robert Price:

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My Interview With Freethought Radio About "The Case Against Miracles"

Here's the LINK to my Freethought Radio interview with hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor. I talk about my new book being released tomorrow, The Case Against Miracles.

Was David Hume's Argument "Of Miracles" Original? The Role of Ridicule.

[Edited on 7/20/21] If you're here from following a link in my anthology, "The Case against Miracles", thanks so much! You now have an edition of the book that's been thoroughly checked for typographical errors. As of 7/20/21 the book is probably error free. To read updates and further discussions about the book click on the following tag: Case against Miracles.

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Previously I have justified compiling an anthology on miracles, and described Hume's towering influence over us right here. Some would say there's nothing let to say after David Hume's chapter "Of Miracles". If so, we might as well throw up our hands and complain that the ancients have stolen all of our ideas. There hasn't been a book length treatment of miracles like this written by atheists in forever, so it's long overdue. It's also a major defense of David Hume.

In the dedication to The Case against Miracles I wrote: "This volume is dedicated to the legacy of David Hume, considered to be the greatest English-speaking philosopher who ever lived." Then readers will find this quote from Hume:

I flatter myself, that I have discovered an argument...which, if just, will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion, and consequently, will be useful as long as the world endures. – “Of Miracles” by David Hume (1711-1776).

No one likes an arrogant person. No one likes to be ridiculed for what they think either. What if Hume didn't say this? What if he played nice with believers? What if he had toned down his rhetoric? What we know is that no one likes to be taunted, belittled, or called ignorant, or delusional. Yet this is what Hume did. Doing so brings believers out of their caves to debate, and debate Hume they have. It's as if what Hume said had a self-fulfilling effect to it.

John Earman viciously criticized Hume in his anthology Hume's Abject Failure, The Argument Against Miracles (2000). One of his claims is that "Hume's famous essay on miracles is set in the context of the larger debate that was taking place in the eighteenth century about the nature of miracles and the ability of eyewitness testimony to establish the credibility of such events. Hume's argument against miracles is largely unoriginal..." He says, "'Of Miracles' is often treated as if it were a genuinely original piece of philosophy. But although it does contain some original insights and is cast in Hume's characteristically forceful prose, it is in fact a largely derivative work." [Chapter 1, Section 7].

While some of the arguments Hume made were, loosely speaking, floating around in his day, it hardly goes to say that his particular argument in "Of Miracles" was made by anyone else. Earman shows where John Locke had some influence on Hume, but merely suggests some others may also have influenced him, without providing any direct evidence. Hume doesn't really say he came up with his argument, anyway. He says he "discovered" it, even though it's clear he's taking ownership of it. The way a particular argument is expressed can make that argument more powerful. Sometimes it matters who makes that argument. People were forced to pay attention to Hume, known to "the wise and learned" as a great philosopher and a great historian. For he had became widely known for his massive 6 volumes series on The History of England, published from 1754 to 1762. When readers of Hume's history learned he ridiculed believers for believing in the impossible, it was his arrogance and his ridicule that most likely thrust what he argued into the spotlight like nothing else, and it still does.

Hume knew the effect of taunting believers who disagreed. At the end of his chapter on miracles he wrote:

So our over-all conclusion should be that the Christian religion not only was at first accompanied by miracles, but even now cannot be believed by any reasonable person without a miracle. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its truth; and anyone who is moved by faith to assent to it is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person—one that subverts all the principles of his understanding and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

Then at the end of Hume's Enquiry itself, he concluded:

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

Whew. Them's fighting words! And believers have been fighting with Hume ever since. Now I've written a lot to justify the use of ridicule. Hume used it brilliantly. He was also arrogant. He knew the effect that arrogance, inflammatory rhetoric and ridicule would have on believers, when most everyone else thought it was better to engage them with respect. Bravo to Hume!

Dialoguing with Catholic Apologist Trent Horn On Miracles

Trent Horn earned three master’s degrees in the fields of theology, philosophy, and bioethics. He runs the apologetic podcast "The Counsel of Trent." He's also the author of nine books, including Answering Atheism. We recently dialogued on the rationality of miracles based on my upcoming anthology, The Case against Miracles. It's only $20.99 and contains 644 pages, so I'm told --a whopper of a deal if I've ever seen it! Trent wrote this blurb for it:

"While some entries are stronger than others, The Case against Miracles represents a powerful critique of the miraculous. Its central arguments demand the attention of any serious defender of the Christian faith."

Parts 1 & 2 of our dialogue can be found right here. It's really good I think.

Why Do We Need A Book Against Miracles After Hume?

I received a recent comment about my forthcoming anthology against miracles: "I’m eagerly looking forward to this book even though, after Hume, I’m not sure what more needs to be said."

This is nice to hear! I think it's my best anthology yet, but then I've thought that about each one as they were published. Probably no one is more eager to see this book published than me, as I've put so many many hours into it. Still, it's a legitimate issue as to why such a book is needed at all, especially after Hume's arguments.

I agree with you about David Hume. He's regarded as the most important English speaking philosopher, except that there are some powerful objections against what he wrote against miracles, even coming from atheists themselves. Since Christians keep writing books in defense of miracles as if Hume never wrote a thing, they need answered. This is a book that defends Hume and responds to specific miracle claims in the bible and in today's world. There hasn't been a book length treatment of miracles like this written by atheists in, I don't know, forever, and it's long overdue. Actually, it's Hume plus Strauss plus Darwin equals the destruction of Christianity and religions in general.

David Hume's influence over others is towering, and rightly so. In 1748 he wrote a pioneering chapter of objections against miracles in his book, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (chapter 10). This changed the course of theology, since he had a great influence on Friedrich Schleiermacher, considered to be the father of modern theology.

David Friedrich Strauss in turn was greatly influenced by Friedrich Schleiermacher at the University of Tübingen (1825-1831), who regularly attended his life of Jesus lectures. In 1835–36, at the age of 27, Strauss published his magnum opus--a mammoth of a work--titled The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, 2 vols. In it he denied the historical value of the Gospels and rejected their supernatural claims, describing them as historical myths.

Then in 1859 Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species was published which destroyed the Christianity believed at that time, along with others that were built on the rubble afterward. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on "David Hume" says, "Charles Darwin regarded his work as a central influence on the theory of evolution." Bet you didn't know that!

Introducing My Next Anthology "The Case against Miracles"

[Update on 11/18/19: This Introduction has been significantly lengthened].

I finally submitted the digital book files to my publisher Hypatia Press, an imprint of Ockham Publishing out of the UK. David G. McAffe is the editor. It has been seven months since I started working on it. Getting authors, working with them, and writing my own chapters while on the road for the last two months has wore me out. I'm glad that hard phase is over. I'm told it should be published by September or October, just in time for year end holiday shopping. How good is it? Well, I consider it the best anthology yet, and they've all been good! You can see the chapter contents right here. To whet your appetites my Introduction is below:

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In Defense of David Hume Part 6, William L. Vanderburgh On "Hume’s 'Abject Failure' Vindicated"

William L. Vanderburgh defended Hume against John Earman in a very thorough article published in 2005 in Hume Studies, titled, Of Miracles and Evidential Probability: Hume’s “Abject Failure” Vindicated [You can read the PDF right here.]. In it Vanderburgh shows David Hume probably knew of Bayes Theorem and never mentioned it for good reasons. I'm including a few of the important highlights below. I consider it an important contribution on Hume and Earman and even Bayes.

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In Defense of David Hume, Part 4: Hume's Arguments are Not "Mathematically Fallacious" Nor An "Abject Failure"

Critics are saying Hume's arguments against miracles are "mathematically fallacious" per William Lane Craig, Timothy McGrew, Lydia McGrew, John Earman and some others. The point of their criticism is that Hume didn't factor God's existence into the evidence for or against miracles. But when apologists do so the low probabilities of miracles (by definition) can be brought up to being probable after all, because with God all things are possible. Okay. But this isn't a fair criticism. At all!

Let's back up. What is mathematically fallacious about saying we must proportion our beliefs according to the strength of the evidence? Hume said that. Where the evidence isn't decisive we must suspend judgment. Hume said that too. In other words, we should think exclusively according to the probabilities. How can that be fallacious, mathematically or otherwise? It's just good sound sense. The reason apologists attack Hume is because he was right and they are wrong, and that's it. For if there was good strong objective evidence that supported their miracle beliefs they would tout Hume's praises. You know it. I know it. They should know it.

Now let's go deeper. Whatever inconsistencies you might think are in Hume's essay on miracles, his main contention is this concluding maxim: "Therefore we may establish it as a maxim, that no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any such system of religion." (#98)

What Hume is aiming at throughout chapter 10 of his Enquiries is his twofold contention, not only that testimonial evidence for miracles is never sufficient enough to accept a miracle claim, but also that miracles cannot be the foundation of a religion. [Hume's targeted religion is Christianity, which requires a creator, revealer and sustainer god.] In other words, the testimonial evidence for miracles cannot show that this god exists and his religion is the true one, and by extension, other religions as well.

So Christian, just tell us where you start, other than from birth and childhood inside a largely Christian culture. If you want us to believe in your specific god and his religion then you have to present us with sufficient objective evidence for it. Where is that evidence? If you start by arguing the case for your god's existence first, then that's one thing, and Hume debunked this in his Dialogues. But if you start by arguing the case for miracles first, then that's another thing, and Hume debunked that in chapter 10 of his Enquiries. In this later case:

If you use Bayesian math to assess biblical miracles apart from god's existence, then you must do what you say you'll do by excluding god's existence from your calculations. But if you did what you say you do, god cannot factor in them to bring the low probability of a miracle up to a probability.

If your claim is that miracles provide sufficient objective evidence that your god exists and his religion is true, you cannot use your god in calculating the probability of any miracle. Furthermore, and this is very important, you cannot subsequently call Hume's arguments "mathematically fallacious" or an "Abject Failure." For if your claim is that the evidence for miracles provides sufficient objective evidence that your god exists and his religion is true, then your Bayesian calculations cannot allow god or his religion into any calculations of whether one should believe in his miracles. For the evidence on behalf of miracles is supposed to show your god exists and his religion is the true in the first place.

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In Defense of David Hume On Miracles

I'm researching Hume's arguments against miracles in chapter ten of his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, to be read here.

Christian apologists unanimously think Hume's argument in Part I fails. See Richard Swinburne in his books, The Existence of God, and The Concept of Miracle, along with other apologetical works by C.S. Lewis, William Lane Craig, Norman Geisler, and others too many to name.

What surprised me is that some significant atheist philosophers also think Hume's argument fails, like Michael Martin (Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, pp. 194-196), Michael Levine (The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, pp. 291-308), and Graham Oppy (Arguing About Gods, pp. 376-382), who strangely says "Hume's argument against belief in miracle reports fails no less surely than do the various arguments from miracle reports to the existence of an orthodoxy conceived monotheistic god" (p. 381). Agnostic/atheist John Earman thinks Hume's argument is an Abject Failure (as seen in his book by that title). And while J.L. Mackie defends Hume against some objections, even he thinks Hume's argument needs "improvement" (p. 25) by being "tidied up and restated" (p. 17) due to "inaccuracies" (p. 27), with one part he calls "very unsatisfactory" (p. 23).

I'm finding that only four atheist philosophers think Hume's argument in Part I succeeds, Antony Flew, Evan Fales, William L. Vanderburgh (forthcoming book in 2019) and Nicholas Everitt (see his chapter 6 in The Non-Existence of God). As I study this issue out, I agree with them.

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My Inaugural Speech, On the State of the Case for Christianity

Ladies and gentlemen, dignitaries and non-dignitaries, believers and nonbelievers, I am honored to briefly speak to you tonight on the inaugural of my next year's term as president and owner of this blog. About seven years ago, almost to the day, I started this Blog. Each year you have reelected me to another term. I have posted something about 1.5 times a day ever since. I have fought many battles with both believers and nonbelievers in order to stay on track with my goal of debunking Christianity in all of its forms. It's been very time consuming but very rewarding work. You already know my goals and what I have to offer, and you also know I have critics on both sides of these debates, but you still reelected me for yet another term here at DC, for which I am very grateful.

So my heartfelt thanks goes out to the various writers who have been team members at DC over the years, most notably Hector Avalos, Harry McCall, and more recently Jonathan Pearce. Thanks also to my readers for seven years of comments and debate, especially my peeps, including the amazing and indefatigable articulett, also a team member. You have helped to make this blog one of the top places to discuss the best arguments for and against Christianity. This means a great deal to me personally. Without you I would've thrown in the towel a long time ago out of fatigue, discouragement and/or financial ruin.

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