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Assess The Possibility Of Miracles (50 Marks)

Decent Essays

Assess the possibility of miracles (50 marks)

The idea of a miracle and its context depends on the definition in which it is used; the first definition of a miracle is a “transgression of the laws of nature” such as walking on water. This was used by Hume who stated that for a miracle to occur a law of nature must be broken, with this focus on laws of nature he aimed to show that it is irrational to believe in miracles because it is irrational to believe in a violation of any natural law, as by believing in this God becomes redundant. He puts forward the method of proportioning the belief to evidence – if you weigh up the miracle against another option what is more likely? That a miracle, a transgression of a law of nature, has occurred or …show more content…

Holland argues that what is important in miracles where a law of nature hasn’t been broken is the pure religious element to the believer rather than the explained miracle itself. But this can cause what a miracle counts as to be subjective as what a religious person sees as a miracle, a non-religious person could see as luck or coincidence. An example given by Holland is a boy playing on the tracks when a high speed train is coming, it has no way to break in time but it stops just in front of him leaving him unharmed. The boy’s mother is convinced this is a miracle whereas in reality the driver of the train had actually fainted and fell onto the break causing it to stop just in time; no law of nature has been broken here but it is still seen as a miracle therefore by this definition it is empirically possible to have …show more content…

By this definition, if a certain form of life constitutes something as a miracle it is a miracle to them; Wittgenstein states that if everyone from a religious group or form of life have the same language game then that speak is meaningful to them, therefore if a miracle is in their language and understanding it is possible to them. For example, a football player has no right to tell a rugby player he can not pick up the ball as they both follow different language games, just as a non-believer can not tell a believer what they experienced was not a miracle for this same reason. This links to Hick, as he stated that something can only be seen as a miracle if the believer sees it as a miracle, making this possibility only true for themselves. A non-believer and a believer both live in the same physical environment but experience it differently, a theist will see significance in certain events that an atheist will not see, prompting the experience as an interaction with God. However GE Moore claimed that miracles are not possible by this definition as people do not discover religious truths but rather make them, the term miracle is only used when there is no other explanation so God is used to fill in the

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