religious belief + processes

base of faith

• Religion is based on the subjective belief or faith in a creator 

• There are two broad approaches to the question of how we can be sure that our beliefs are true 

• Fideists - draw on personal religious experience 

• Critical rationalists - rely on rational argument 

• Whilst these two approaches are not mutually exclusive, most theologians emphasise one over the other 

critical rationalism

• Accept that, in order to be coherent, beliefs must be rational and must not go against empirical science They use both inductive and deductive reasoning to support religious belief 

• The cosmological argument and the design argument argue that, through observation if the universe and the world, we can conclude that God is the best explanation for what we see in the universe 

• The ontological argument uses deductive argument for the existence of God, although most philosophers now believe that this argument fails 

miracles + hume

• Miracles are violations of laws of nature by God 

• Hume and transgressions 

• Argues that miracles are transgressions of a law by a particular violation of the deity 

• Includes: 

• Intervention, raising from the dead 

• Objective supernatural 

• When normal processes are: overturned (e.g. risen from dead), arrested (sun stopping), sped up (recovering from illness through touch of JC) 

significance of miracles

• Miracles of JC as signs 

• Objective proof of supernatural 

• Swinburne argues that breaking laws of nature is not a good enough definition, needs deeper religious meaning 

beneficial coincidence

• Ray Holland – example of the child caught on the train tracks. 

• Interpretation – if the mother is religious, God stopped the train. If the mother is non-religious, it was just extraordinary good luck. 

•  Subjective – if the mother is religious it’s a miracle, if she’s not it’s not! 

•  Therefore for Holland, a miracle doesn’t need to break the laws of science – any event that has a ‘sign’ can be classed as a miracle (contingent miracle) 

miracles in the bible

•  Miracles in the Bible are often presented as a way to show God’s power or as a sign of the world yet to come. 

•  The miracles of Jesus point to who he is, and help believers to understand his nature 

•  Jesus’ miracles were to show that Jesus is from God and were a sign to show what God’s kingdom is like, where God’s grace and 

• majesty relieve suffering and bring peace. 

•  Examples: Moses parting the red sea in Exodus 

•  They show that Jesus had absolute power over nature. 

•  The resurrection 

•  Many believe that the whole essence of the Christian message relies on miracle. 

religious significance of miracles

• Swinburne: There must be a reason why God intervenes in the world, therefore any miracle must have a deeper religious significance. 

• John Locke: Miracles must be understood in the wider context of who has performed it and who has seen it. For Locke, proof that a miracle has occurred depends on knowing whether the person who performed has been sent by God. 

• Gareth Moore: To say that God performed a miracle is the same as saying no one performed a miracle. We talk about miracles in personal terms. We should talk about miracles in of themselves, and not look for reasons how they are caused 

WEAKNESS: hume

• There is insufficient evidence for miracles; there are not enough reliable witnesses. 

•  It is human nature to believe the unbelievable, particularly religious believers, who are predisposed to believe in miracles. 

• Hume believed that stories of miracles tend to come from what he saw as unreliable places. “ignorant and barbarous nations” 

•  There are many religions, each claiming to be correct, all with different miracles. 

COUNTER to hume

• Hume also discounts religious believers’ opinions as being less reliable than others, but why are religious people any more 

• unreliable than anyone else? -> principle of credulity 

• Swinburne states that miracles that are significant in one religion should only be discounted as miracles if they are incompatible 

• with each other. 

WEAKNESS: god of the gaps

• In pre-scientific communities, very little was known scientifically, so God was called upon to explain the gaps in knowledge 

• With advances in scientific knowledge, God has been pushed out of most of these gaps 

• For example, as we learn more about the immune system, God’s role as a worker of healing miracles is undermined Scientific development will one day explain all such gaps, and will make the idea of God completely redundant