MODULE 3 Miracles Flashcards
(22 cards)
What is the realist perspective on miracles?
They are real events in the world, brought by a transcendent being: a God who is personal, can answer prayer for the world he created.
Provide examples of realist miracles
OLD TESTAMENT - Moses parting of the sea
NEW TESTAMENT - Jesus turning water into wine
or:
Juliane Koepcke’s 1971 survival of a plane crash
Weaknesses of the realist perspective on miracles
- why would God save these people but ignore others in similar situations?
(Able to incorporate anti-realist Wiles view: God doesn’t intervene with situations as He is just and fair)
How did Hume describe his understanding of miracles?
A transgression of a law of nature.
A particular violation by the Deity or by the interposition of some invisible agent
List 2 problems with understanding miracles as a violation of natural law
1) mass of evidence supporting those laws seem to make it unreasonable to believe in miracles.
2) If God does intervene miraculously, why is there still suffering? This is the problem of evil
what is the anti-realist understandings of miracles?
We should be sceptical of the ability of the human mind to understand the true nature of objective reality.
Anti-realist views miracles as subjective events taking place within our mind.
Provide two miracles realist Aquinas has identified
- Events done by God that nature could never do e.g. creation ex nihilo
- Events when God does something nature can do but not in the order God does it in e.g. resurrection of Christ.
Who is Hume?
An empiricist, meaning he thinks our beliefs should be based on evidence and experience.
what are Hume’s critics on miracles?
- They are rare and thus belief a miracles has occurred more likely mistaken.
- Miracle stories tend to come from barbarous nations rather than people of good sense and education.
-Humans have a tendency to believe wonderous things without justification.
What is Swinburne’s response to Hume?
Hume is wrong to think that the only evidence for a miracle is personal testimony from eyewitnesses.
There could also be evidence of physical traces left by the miracle with the use of scientific experiment.
what is the Principle of Credulity?
Argues that you should believe what you experience unless you have a reason not to.
Who is Swinburne?
An empiricist who argued that an experience of a miracle should count as evidence towards belief that it occurred, although it doesn’t constitute complete proof.
Weaknesses which may provide reason to not believe any religious experience
Naturalistic explanations.
Any supposed miracles could be explained by mental illness, drugs, alcohol ect.
Provide propositions to defend Swinburne’s claims
We could check for the presence of physiological and psychological causes of people’s experience of miracles.
If none are present in a case, then we have no reason not to believe the experience.
What does anti-realist Holland claim about miracles?
Miracles are nothing more than an extraordinary coincidence that is interpreted in a religious way
Provide a quote from Holland
“A coincidence can be taken religiously as a sign and called a miracle”
What is Tillich’s anti-realist understanding of miracles? And why is this important?
He defends miracles having these components:
1: “an event which is astonishing, unusual, without contradicting the rational structure of reality”
2: “points to the mystery of being, expressing its relation to us in a definite way.
It defines miracles as part of our subjective experience, not as something occurring in objective reality.
How does Tillich’s view of God being itself, or the ‘ground of being’ fits with an anti-realist view?
If God is being itself, and God is beyond our understanding, then being is beyond our understanding; a ‘mystery’.
We should therefore not try to understand whether miracles happen objectively, since that is beyond our understanding.
What are Wiles views on miracles?
Wiles believed in God but argued that God would not cause miracles. He rejected miracles from a moral perspective.
Why does Wiles reject miracles?
Using the example of Jesus turning water into wine.
Given the immense suffering that was occurring in the world at that moment, it seems odd for Jesus to direct his supernatural interventionist powers in such a trivial manner
This leaves two options: either God is not omnibenevolent or he never does miracles.
Provide a quote from Wiles
“The world as a whole is a single act of God”
Weaknesses on Wiles view of miracles
- It’s unbiblical.
The central event of the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus, was a miracle. It seems contradictory for a Christian not to believe in miracles. - Vardy criticises Wiles.
For judging what an omnibenevolent God would and wouldn’t do, but such judgements are beyond human ability.
