Hume and Christianity (was Re: [asa] Miracle healing?)

Hi RC,

I largely agree with your remarks re Hume and miracle - his "miracle is
a violation of the laws of nature" definition is certainly taken as the
"received view" regardless of the extent to which it originated with him
(my curiosity is now piqued on this historical question, though).

But I would like to pick up on your remark re Hume and Christianity;

It seems to me that Hume's position vis-a-vis Christianity is anything
but clear cut. Although he certainly wasn't, by the standards of his
day, a "good Scots Presbyterian", it's a bit harder to then say what he
WAS.

Whilst it's largely agreed that Hume intended to demonstrate the
irrationality of many things (even many CHRISTIAN things) normally taken
for granted, it's a bit more questionable what this implies.

Conventionally, it's taken that Hume intended us to understand that
UNLESS one could rationally argue for a belief THEN that belief must be
discarded.

But there's also a school of thought that suggests that Hume was really
attempting to demonstrate the LIMITATIONS of rationality. That is, if we
generally accept X to be the case, yet can construct no rational
argument to demonstrate the truth of X, then (it can be argued) this
merely demonstrates that not all truth is rationally demonstrable.

See, for instance, Ronald H. Nash, The Word of God and the Mind of Man
(Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1982, particularly chapter 1) for an explication
of this later view.

Whether the later approach is to be adjudged a "revisionist" or
"recovered" interpretation of Hume's meaning is, however, not really all
that important. For regardless on which position one takes on Hume, it
remains true that it's quite valid to draw from the argument "you can't
prove X" the conclusion that the problem lies with the method of proof,
not with the belief X in question.

Just though you might find the alternate perspective interesting...

Blessings,
Murray Hogg
Pastor, East Camberwell Baptist Church, Victoria, Australia
Post-Grad Student (MTh), Australian College of Theology

RC Metcalf wrote:
>
> Murray Hogg said:
>>
>> (1) It seems that even if the above can be ascribed to the category
>> "miracle" then it doesn't seem necessary to deny that there were
>> recognizable physical processes going on. I simply DON'T adhere to the
>> idea that a miracle is a violation of a law of nature - so I don't
>> find particularly compelling what is probably the most obvious
>> critique of the above, namely that we only call such events "miracles"
>> because of our lack of natural explanation.
>>
> As far as I've been able to determine, the idea that a miracle is a
> violation of natural law arose with David Hume, who was certainly not a
> Christian. C.S. Lewis clarified what I believe should be the proper
> Christian view of "miracles" in his book of the same name. That being
> that God works through his natural laws to orchestrate events that to us
> appear miraculous. However, it seems that every time atheists like
> Dawkins attack the concept of miracle they attack Hume's version,
> effectively building a strawman. So, once again we have semantic
> disagreement between theists and atheists. I've yet to see an atheist
> acknowledge this problem. Has anyone else?
>
> RC

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Received on Fri May 23 23:33:14 2008