The idea of a divine revelation has always been a prominent element in Christianity.
There is thought to be some communication from God to human beings. And that looks
like a special case of a miracle. If there are genuine revelations, then, in some cases at
least, those who receive that revelation come to know something, or to believe
something, that they would not otherwise have known or believed. The ordinary course
of nature—ordinary reason, ordinary events, and so on—would not have produced this
particular effect. But a divine initiative, a divine incursion, would have the epistemic
effect. And that would seem to be, according to the Humean definition, an epistemic
miracle.
NOTES
1.That is not to say, of course, that Hume accepted or believed that worldview.
2.For example, the raising of Jairus's daughter, reported in Matthew 9, is sometimes
classified as a resurrection. But that seems rather doubtful to me. That is not be
end p.321
cause I think that it did not happen, but because Jesus himself is reported as saying that
the girl was not dead but “sleeping,” that is, probably in a coma.
3.I discuss polytheism at more length in Mavrodes (1995).
4.For an example of this claim, see McKinnon (1967).
5.For some other concepts of the miraculous, see Holland (1965) and Tillich (1951).
6.For examples of appeals to the evidential value of miracles, see “Preparatory
Considerations” in Paley (1794), and Swinburne (1979, ch. 12; 1992, chs. 6 and 7).
WORKS CITED
Habermas, Gary R., and Antony G. N. Flew. 1987. Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? San
Francisco: Harper & Row.
Holland, R. F. 1965. “The Miraculous.” American Philosophical Quarterly 2: 43–51.
Reprinted in Swinburne 1989, 53–69.
Hume, David. 1777. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. From the 1777
posthumous edition, ed. L. A. Selby-Biggs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962.
Johnson, David. 1999. Hume, Holism, and Miracles. Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell University
Press.
Mavrodes, George I. 1995. “Polytheism.” In The Rationality of Belief and the Plurality of
Faith, ed. Thomas D. Senor. Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Mavrodes, George I. 1998. “David Hume and the Probability of Miracles.” International
Journal for Philosophy of Religion 43: 167–82.
McKinnon, Alastair. 1967. “ Miracle' andparadox.' ” American Philosophical
Quarterly 4: 308–14. Excerpt in Swinburne 1989, 49–52.
Paley, William. 1794. Evidences of Christianity. Excerpt in Swinburne 1989, 41–47.
Swinburne, Richard, 1979. The Existence of God. Oxford: Clarendon Press.