Reconceiving Miracles

Religious Studies 25 (4):477 - 487 (1989)
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Abstract

I reject the Humean approach to the possibility of miracles and offer a tradition-constituted approach which argues for the possibility of miracles. The Humean tradition, I argue, is based on three false assumptions: one, that the laws of nature are prescriptive and hence inevitable; two, that consequently miracles must be conceived as violations of laws of nature and hence impossible; and three, that miracles so conceived must therefore be ascertainable by nontheists and theists alike. In contrast, I argue, one, that laws of nature explain "dispositional properties" of natural processes and allow for novelty and creativity; two, that miracles properly conceived are occurrences whose proximate, sufficient, and necessary cause is God; and three, that miracles are therefore possible and ascertainable only to those whose presuppositions include belief in God

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Citations of this work

Miracles.Michael Levine - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Miracles and violations: Timothy Pritchard.Timothy Pritchard - 2011 - Religious Studies 47 (1):41-58.
The Hume Literature, 1986-1993.William E. Morris - 1994 - Hume Studies 20 (2):299-326.

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References found in this work

Miracles and laws of nature.E. J. Lowe - 1987 - Religious Studies 23 (2):263-78.
The Impossibility of Miracles.Nicholas Everitt - 1987 - Religious Studies 23 (3):347 - 349.
Rationality and belief in God.James E. Gilman - 1988 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 24 (3):143.

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