Miracles

Definitions of miracle#

StandardAQA 7062/1 Section A: MiraclesDfE GCE Religious Studies subject content

Definitions of miracle

Fig. 1Definitions range from Hume's demanding 'violation of natural law' to Holland's coincidence and Wiles' denial of intervention.

How one defines a miracle largely settles the debate about whether miracles occur, so the definitions must be handled carefully. David Hume gives the most influential definition: a miracle is 'a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent'. Two elements are essential here — a violation of a natural law (not merely a rare or surprising event, but one contrary to the established uniform course of nature) and a divine or supernatural cause. Hume's definition is deliberately demanding, because it sets up his argument: since a law of nature is by definition supported by the firmest and most uniform experience, any purported violation of it faces the maximum possible weight of contrary evidence.

Thomas Aquinas offers a broader, less confrontational definition: a miracle is an event done by God which is 'beyond the order commonly observed in nature' (praeter ordinem naturae). He divides miracles into three kinds: events nature could never produce (such as the sun reversing its course), events nature could produce but not in that order (such as recovering from a paralysis instantly rather than gradually), and events nature could produce but which God does without the usual natural operation (such as an instant cure of a fever). Crucially, Aquinas' definition does not require a 'violation' of natural law but only that God works beyond nature's usual course, which softens the head-on collision with science that Hume's definition creates.

R. F. Holland proposed the 'contingency' or 'coincidence' miracle, which does not require any violation of natural law at all. His famous example is a child playing on a railway line whose approaching train stops in time — not because any law is broken, but because the driver happened to faint at the controls, releasing the dead-man's handle, at exactly the right moment. Every event in the causal chain is perfectly natural, yet the mother rightly regards her child's deliverance as a miracle because of its religious significance and its providential timing. On this view a miracle is a naturally explicable but extraordinary coincidence interpreted religiously — which relocates the miraculous from the event's mechanism to its meaning for the believer.

Maurice Wiles, at the sceptical theological extreme, effectively redefines miracle by denying that God intervenes in particular events at all. For Wiles, the single great 'act of God' is the creation and sustaining of the whole universe; God does not perform occasional interventions, because a God who cured one cancer patient while leaving the death camps untouched would be unacceptably arbitrary and partisan. So 'miracle' in the interventionist sense should be abandoned. These four definitions — violation (Hume), beyond-nature (Aquinas), coincidence (Holland), and non-interventionist (Wiles) — form a spectrum from the strongest supernatural claim to its denial, and a candidate's evaluation of miracles depends heavily on which definition is in play.

Worked example

How the definition drives the verdict

Show how the plausibility of miracles depends on which definition is adopted.

Hume's definition
A violation of natural law meets the maximum weight of uniform experience, so it is maximally hard to believe — the verdict is sceptical by design.
Aquinas' definition
'Beyond nature's usual course' does not collide with science head-on; a miracle need not break a law, only exceed nature's ordinary operation.
Holland's definition
A coincidence miracle breaks no law at all, so Hume's argument does not touch it — the miraculous lies in the meaning, not the mechanism.
Wiles' definition
If God does not intervene, the interventionist miracle is ruled out from the start on theological grounds.
Result
The same events count as miracles or not depending on the definition, so the definitional choice is where much of the argument is really won or lost.

Result: Whether miracles are credible is largely decided by the definition adopted: Hume's violation-definition makes them nearly incredible, while Holland's and Aquinas' softer definitions make belief far more defensible.

Typical mistakes

Treating 'miracle' as simply 'anything amazing' — the debate turns on precise definitions involving law, cause and religious significance.
Attributing the 'violation of a law of nature' definition to Aquinas; it is Hume's — Aquinas requires only that the event is beyond nature's usual course.

Active revision

Explain the different definitions of miracle offered by Hume, Aquinas and Holland. (Structured AO1 response)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Hume's critique (a priori and a posteriori)#

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Hume's a priori argument

Fig. 2Because a law of nature has maximal evidential support and testimony is fallible, the balance of probability always favours rejecting a miracle report.

In Section X of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume argues not that miracles are impossible but that a rational person could never be justified in believing, on testimony, that one has occurred. His first, a priori argument concerns the balance of probability. A wise person 'proportions his belief to the evidence'. A law of nature is established by 'a firm and unalterable experience' — the uniform testimony of all observation. A miracle, by definition, is a violation of such a law, and so has the maximum possible weight of evidence against it. Testimony that a miracle occurred can only be believed if the falsehood of the testimony would be more miraculous than the event it reports. Since it is always more probable that the witnesses are mistaken, deceived or deceiving than that a law of nature has been violated, the balance of probability must always favour rejecting the report. As Hume puts it, the proof against a miracle is 'as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined'.

Hume's second, a posteriori argument gives four practical reasons why, in fact, the testimony for miracles has never been good enough. First, no miracle has ever been attested by a sufficient number of educated, reputable witnesses of unquestioned good sense and integrity, such as to place their honesty beyond doubt. Second, human nature loves wonder and the marvellous: people are prone to accept and spread extraordinary stories because of the surprise and delight they bring, so testimony to the miraculous is systematically unreliable. Third, miracle reports 'chiefly abound among ignorant and barbarous nations', arising in conditions of credulity and receding as education advances. Fourth, and most ingeniously, the miracles of rival religions cancel each other out: since each religion's miracles are offered as evidence for its truth, and the religions contradict one another, the miracles of one count as evidence against the others, so their testimonies mutually destroy their force.

Taken together, Hume's two arguments form a formidable case: the a priori argument sets the bar for belief impossibly high (the falsehood of the testimony would have to be more miraculous than the miracle), and the a posteriori argument claims that human testimony has never come close to clearing it. The elegance of the case is that it does not require proving any particular miracle false; it argues that the very nature of testimony and of natural law makes rational belief in a reported miracle unattainable. This is why Hume's critique remains the central text of the topic and the target of every defender of miracles.

The critique nonetheless invites powerful objections that a candidate must be ready to press. Hume's definition of a law of nature as 'firm and unalterable' arguably begs the question: if a well-attested exception occurred, that would be evidence that the 'law' was not in fact unalterable, so defining laws as exceptionless simply assumes miracles cannot happen. His treatment of probability has been challenged (notably by later Bayesian analysis, e.g. Earman's Hume's Abject Failure): strong enough or multiple independent testimony can in principle raise the probability of even a very unlikely event, so Hume's claim that testimony can never suffice is too strong. And his a posteriori points are empirical generalisations that later, better-documented cases (some investigated at Lourdes) at least contest. The debate thus turns on whether Hume's balance-of-probability principle is sound or covertly circular.

Worked example

The circularity objection to Hume

Reconstruct and assess the charge that Hume's a priori argument begs the question.

State Hume's premise
A law of nature is supported by firm and unalterable experience, so a violation has the maximum evidence against it.
Locate the assumption
Calling the experience 'unalterable' assumes no genuine exception has ever occurred — which is exactly what the miracle claim disputes.
Show the circle
If a well-attested exception did occur, it would show the regularity was not exceptionless; Hume rules this out by definition rather than by evidence.
Hume's reply
He can respond that the uniform past evidence still vastly outweighs any single report, so the probabilities favour error even without the strong definition.
Judgement
The strongest form of Hume's argument is circular, but a weaker probabilistic version survives; whether it is decisive depends on how strong testimony can get.

Result: Hume's a priori argument, in its strongest form, begs the question by defining natural laws as unalterable, but a weaker probabilistic version remains formidable — so the critique is powerful without being demonstrably conclusive.

Typical mistakes

Claiming Hume argues miracles are impossible; he argues belief in them, on testimony, is never rational — a claim about evidence, not metaphysics.
Collapsing the two arguments into one; the a priori (balance of probability) and a posteriori (four practical reasons) are distinct and both should be given.

Active revision

'Hume proves that it is never reasonable to believe a miracle has occurred.' Assess this view. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Responses to Hume#

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Swinburne's reply to Hume

Fig. 3Swinburne argues that strong testimony and physical traces can outweigh the presumption of natural law, so a miracle can be rationally believed.

Richard Swinburne, in The Concept of Miracle, mounts the leading defence. He accepts a version of Hume's definition — a miracle is a violation of a law of nature by a god, an event of religious significance — but denies that testimony can never establish one. Swinburne argues that we have four kinds of evidence about the past: our memories, the testimony of others, physical traces, and our knowledge of what is physically probable; when these conflict, we weigh them, and there is no rule that the fourth (natural probability) must always override the other three. If enough independent witnesses, plus physical traces, testify to an event, it can be rational to believe it occurred even if it is highly improbable. Hume's blanket refusal to let testimony ever outweigh the presumption of natural law is, Swinburne argues, an arbitrary and excessive scepticism.

Swinburne also challenges Hume's conception of a law of nature. Rather than defining laws as exceptionless (which begs the question), he suggests a law is a generalisation that holds in all but exceptional, non-repeatable cases; a genuine one-off violation, well attested, need not overturn the law but can be classed as a non-repeatable counter-instance brought about by God. This dissolves the head-on conflict: a miracle is not evidence that the 'law' was false, but an occasion on which God acted outside its normal operation. On this account well-attested miracles are epistemically possible, and the question becomes empirical — whether the evidence in a given case is good enough — rather than being settled a priori by Hume's principle.

Other responses target Hume's a posteriori arguments directly. Against the 'ignorant and barbarous nations' point, defenders note its cultural arrogance and its factual weakness — some modern, well-documented cases (medical cures at Lourdes examined by the international medical bureau, or the healings in C. S. Lewis's discussion) do not fit the pattern. Against the 'contradictory religions cancel out' argument, it is replied that not all religions' miracles are mutually exclusive (many could occur without contradiction, since a miracle in one tradition need not entail the falsity of another), and that even if some cancel, this does not show all testimony worthless. Against the 'love of wonder' point, it is granted that credulity is real but denied that it makes all testimony unreliable, since we do accept extraordinary testimony in other domains when it is strong enough.

There remains a deeper question about whether these responses vindicate belief in miracles or only its bare possibility. Swinburne succeeds, arguably, in showing that Hume's a priori argument is too strong — that testimony could in principle establish a miracle — which is a significant result. But showing that a miracle could be rationally believed is not the same as showing that any particular reported miracle has been established; the burden then shifts to the empirical quality of the evidence in specific cases, which remains contested. Moreover, even a well-attested violation would need to be shown to be caused by God rather than by an unknown natural force or a lesser supernatural agent — the identification of the cause is a further inductive step. The responses therefore reopen the question Hume tried to close, without by themselves settling it in favour of any actual miracle.

Worked example

Answering Hume's 'contradictory religions' argument

Assess Hume's claim that the miracles of rival religions cancel each other out.

State Hume's point
Each religion's miracles support its truth; the religions contradict; so the miracles are evidence against each other and mutually destroy their force.
First reply
Not all miracles are mutually exclusive: a healing in one tradition need not entail the falsity of another, so many could occur without contradiction.
Second reply
Even where two specific miracle claims do conflict, this at most weakens those two, not the reliability of all miracle testimony everywhere.
Concede a residue
Where miracles are explicitly offered as proofs of exclusive doctrines, Hume's point retains some force in reducing their evidential value.
Judgement
The argument shows that miracles cannot straightforwardly prove one religion true, but it does not show that all miracle testimony is worthless.

Result: Hume's 'cancelling out' argument limits the use of miracles as proofs of an exclusive religion but does not, as he claims, destroy the evidential value of all miracle testimony, since many miracles are not mutually contradictory.

Typical mistakes

Treating Swinburne as proving miracles happen; he argues they could be rationally believed, shifting the debate to the evidence in particular cases.
Ignoring the further step of identifying God (rather than an unknown cause) as the agent of a well-attested anomaly.

Active revision

'Swinburne successfully answers Hume's argument against miracles.' Discuss. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Wiles and the theological problem#

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Wiles and the problem of selective intervention

Fig. 4An intervening God who saves some but not others appears arbitrary; Wiles concludes God does not intervene in particular events.

Even if Hume's epistemological argument can be answered, a distinct theological problem remains: if God does perform occasional miraculous interventions, why these and not others? Maurice Wiles, in God's Action in the World (1986), presses this as a decisive objection to the interventionist concept of miracle. A God who parted the Red Sea, turned water into wine, and cures the occasional cancer patient, yet did nothing to prevent the Holocaust, the Lisbon earthquake, or the deaths of children in famine, would be intolerably arbitrary and partisan — rescuing the trivial while ignoring the catastrophic. Such selective intervention is, Wiles argues, incompatible with a God who is both omnipotent and perfectly good, and would make God morally worse than a bystander who could help everyone but chooses to help only a favoured few.

Wiles' own solution is to abandon the idea of particular divine interventions altogether. God's single great act, he holds, is the creation and continuous sustaining of the universe as a whole; God does not intervene in individual events, and the biblical miracle stories should be understood as expressions of faith and religious meaning rather than as reports of supernatural interventions. This preserves God's goodness (God is not culpably selective) and God's consistency (God does not violate the order he has established), at the cost of denying the literal miracles central to the biblical narrative and to much religious devotion — a cost many believers regard as too high, since it seems to empty the resurrection and the exodus of their claimed reality.

Responses to Wiles run in several directions. Some argue that we are not in a position to judge which interventions are arbitrary: God may have morally sufficient reasons, hidden from us, for acting when and where he does, so the appearance of arbitrariness is a limit of our knowledge, not a proof of divine caprice — the same move made in theodicy. Others (Vardy, Ward) argue that miracles need not be understood as arbitrary favours but as signs that point to deeper truths, occasional disclosures of God's nature and purpose rather than a comprehensive rescue service; their rarity is part of their function as signs. Still others accept that a God who intervenes at all faces the problem of evil in acute form, but reply that this is a cost the doctrine of a free, personal God must bear, not a reason to reduce God to a distant sustainer.

The theological problem connects miracles directly to the problem of evil and to the concept of God, showing how the philosophy-of-religion topics interlock. If God cannot intervene (process theology), miracles in the interventionist sense are impossible but the problem of arbitrariness dissolves; if God can and does intervene, miracles are possible but the problem of selective goodness bites hard. A candidate's view of miracles is therefore not independent of their view of God's omnipotence and goodness: the more one insists on an intervening God, the more one owes an answer to Wiles, and the more one accepts Wiles' non-interventionism, the further one drifts from traditional theism. The strongest answers make this interdependence explicit rather than treating miracles as an isolated question.

Worked example

Answering Wiles without abandoning miracles

How might a theist reply to Wiles while retaining belief in miracles?

Grant the force
Accept that selective intervention raises the problem of evil in acute form — the objection is serious.
The epistemic-limits reply
We cannot survey God's reasons; apparent arbitrariness may reflect our ignorance, not divine caprice (as in theodicy).
The sign reply
Vardy/Ward: miracles are rare signs disclosing God's nature and purpose, not a comprehensive rescue service; their rarity is intrinsic to their function.
Accept the cost
A free, personal, intervening God must bear the problem of evil; that is a burden of the doctrine, not a refutation.
Judgement
The theist can retain miracles only by shouldering the problem of evil; Wiles' solution avoids it but at the cost of traditional theism.

Result: A theist can answer Wiles by treating miracles as rare signs and appealing to hidden divine reasons, but only by accepting that an intervening God inherits the full weight of the problem of evil — so the choice is between an intervening God with the evil problem and Wiles' non-intervening God without it.

Typical mistakes

Presenting Wiles as denying God's existence; he affirms God but denies particular interventions, reinterpreting miracle stories.
Discussing miracles in isolation from the problem of evil and God's attributes, missing the interdependence the specification rewards.

Active revision

'If God performs miracles, he is unacceptably arbitrary.' Assess this view. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Can miracles be believed?#

AdvancedAQA 7062/1 Section A: MiraclesDfE GCE Religious Studies subject content

Hume and Swinburne compared

Fig. 5Hume and Swinburne share the violation-definition but divide on whether testimony can ever establish a miracle.

A final judgement should separate three questions that are often run together: can a miracle occur (the metaphysical question), can it be rational to believe one has occurred (the epistemological question, Hume's target), and should God intervene (the theological question, Wiles' target). On the metaphysical question, only a dogmatic naturalism rules miracles out in advance; if God exists and can act, miracles are possible, so the interesting debates are the other two. On the epistemological question, Swinburne arguably shows that Hume's a priori argument is too strong — testimony plus traces can in principle establish an improbable event — so it can be rational to believe a miracle, though the a posteriori worries about the actual quality of testimony retain real force.

The strongest position on the epistemological question is a case-by-case one. Hume is right that the bar should be high — extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and human testimony is genuinely prone to error, exaggeration and the love of wonder — but wrong that the bar can never be cleared. Whether any particular reported miracle clears it (a resurrection appearance, a Lourdes cure) is then a matter of weighing the specific evidence, on which reasonable people differ, and of the further inductive step from 'an unexplained event occurred' to 'God caused it'. This measured verdict avoids both credulity (believing every report) and dogmatism (dismissing all reports a priori), and matches how the specification expects candidates to reason about evidence.

On the theological question, the verdict is genuinely difficult and connects miracles to the whole system. If one holds a strongly interventionist God, Wiles' arbitrariness objection must be met, and the best available answers (hidden reasons, miracles as signs) are the same partial answers that the problem of evil receives — they blunt but do not remove the difficulty. If one is moved by Wiles to a non-interventionist God, the arbitrariness problem dissolves but so does the literal content of the biblical miracles, and one has moved a long way from classical theism. There is no cost-free position: belief in miracles buys religious richness at the price of the arbitrariness problem, and Wiles buys moral consistency at the price of the tradition.

The most defensible overall judgement is therefore differentiated and honest. Miracles are not impossible and, against Hume's strongest claim, could in principle be rationally believed on sufficient evidence; but the evidence for any particular miracle is contestable, and the theological problem of selective intervention is a real and unresolved cost of an interventionist God. Belief in a specific miracle is thus reasonable for someone who already has independent grounds for believing in an active, personal God (the arguments and experiences of the earlier topics), and who judges the evidence in the particular case to be strong; it is not something the isolated evidence of testimony could establish for a neutral enquirer. As with religious experience, miracles function best as a strand within a cumulative case rather than as a stand-alone proof, and their assessment cannot be separated from one's view of God's goodness and power. A strong essay states which of the three questions it is answering and reaches a proportioned verdict on each.

Worked example

Model evaluation plan: can miracles be believed?

Plan an essay judging whether belief in a miracle can be reasonable.

Thesis
Miracles are possible and could be rationally believed on strong evidence, but any specific case is contestable and an intervening God faces Wiles' problem.
Three questions
Separate the metaphysical (possible unless naturalism is assumed), epistemological (Hume vs Swinburne) and theological (Wiles) questions.
Epistemology
Swinburne answers Hume's a priori argument; the a posteriori worries and the case-by-case evidence keep the bar high.
Theology
An intervening God inherits the arbitrariness/evil problem; Wiles avoids it but abandons literal miracles.
Judgement
Belief in a specific miracle is reasonable within a cumulative case and a prior belief in an active God, not for a neutral enquirer on testimony alone.

Result: Belief in miracles can be reasonable — Hume's strongest claim fails — but only within a broader case for an active, personal God and a favourable reading of the particular evidence; the theological cost of intervention keeps the verdict measured.

Typical mistakes

Answering only Hume and forgetting the theological problem (Wiles), or vice versa — the best answers address both.
Reaching a flat 'miracles are/aren't real' verdict instead of distinguishing the possibility, the rational credibility, and the theological acceptability of intervention.

Active revision

'It can be reasonable to believe that a miracle has occurred.' Evaluate this claim. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Key points

How the definition drives the verdict

Key points

The circularity objection to Hume

Key points

Answering Hume's 'contradictory religions' argument

Key points

Answering Wiles without abandoning miracles

Key points

Model evaluation plan: can miracles be believed?

Sources

Miracles

Key points

How the definition drives the verdict

Key points

The circularity objection to Hume

Key points

Answering Hume's 'contradictory religions' argument

Key points

Answering Wiles without abandoning miracles

Key points

Model evaluation plan: can miracles be believed?

Sources