Miracles

AQA RS Alevel: detailed falshcards

Realist and Anit Realist view

Realist:

The stance that mircles are seen as real events brought about by God (Hume sees mircles in a realist view, he sets out to show mircles are faith basied fabrications)

Anit Realist:

The stance that mircles are an interpreation of the mind. They may be seen as symbols, as something that uplifts spirit. Its subjective and Individualistic, what gose on in one mind isnt the same as the next (different interpreations of a situation)

Realist understanding of the world (in scientific sense)

1. Scientific theories give us true decriptions of the world

2. Science gives us knowledge of things that we believe to exist but cannot observe. (example quark, no one has seen an isolated quark but praticle physics wouldn’t make sense without quarks)

3. World is mind-independent: it exists the way it is regardless of what we think

Realist understanding of the world (religious sense)

1. Miracles are a real part of what happens in the world.

2. They are brought about by God or somone empowered by God.

3. God exists as a transcendent unobservable being, mircles are evidence of God’s existence

Realist Examples of Mircles: Mircles as a extraordinary coincidence of a benefical nature

1) Mircles as a extraordinary coincidence of a benefical nature- There was a plane crash in 1971 during a thurderstorm, killing everyone apart from one women, she sustained injuries, and traveled 9 days in the jungle to get help. Critical analysis: why did God save the one women but not the rest of the people, raises questions on God’s omnibenevolence.

Realist Examples of Mircles: Mircles as an event brought about by the power of God, working through poeple

2) Mircles as an event brought about by the power of God, working through poeple- Catholic church has the ‘Congregation for the Causes of the Saints‘, which investigates accounts of mircles attributed to people being considered for canonisation (becoming a saint).

Bible contains many examples of God acting through people. Example is Moses, who turned the Nile red, while carrying out the 10 plagues on Egypt. Critical analysis: the red-hued waters in the Nile could have been caused by a red algae bloom, at the time people would think of this as a mircle as there was a lack of scientific understanding ‘God of Gaps‘.

Realist Examples of Mircles: Miracles as a violation of natural law

3) Miracles as a violation of natural law- A miracle is something that could not happened in nature alone, so there has to be an intervention of a supernatural power. Hume’s account of mircles: - A miracle is a transgression of a law of nature - By a particuar act of will - By a deity (God) or some invisible agent

Critical analysis: Science does not accpet that natural laws can be violated, laws of nature and laws of legislation are different- laws of nature cannot be broken, scientific laws cannot be violated only revised and perhaps disproved due to faulty evidence

Anit-Realist understanding of mircles

• Anit-realist believe we can't truly know an objective reality that exists outside our own minds. God can’t be talked about meaningfully since there is no real congitive information.

• A miracle might be seen as something that lift the spirit or transforms lives. since the idea of divine intervention is not sensible, mircles are in the mind therefore anit-realist focuses on the the state of mind, rather than the event itself

Paul Tillich

• Believes mircles are sign-events (no violations of natural law but a subjective experience that reveal divine presence within the ordinary)

• Tillich consideres a miracle as an event that frist has to be astonishing (without breaking law of nature) secondly must point to the mystery of being and third has to be a sign within a religious experience. ‘Frist of all an event which is astonishing…without contradicting the rational structure of reality‘

Roy Holland

• Believes that miracles have meaning within forms of life (miracles is not defined by the event itself, its meaning comes from the life people subscibed too, aka people preceive a miracle differently depending how they live)

• Holland argues that there is nothing miraculos about benefitical coinscidences, but that we interpret them in this way based on our beliefs.

• Wittgenstein would say however that its sensible to call them miracles because these events belong to religious form of life they subscribe too because it is consistent with the belief in a loving, caring and involved God

Critical Analysis on Anit-realist views

When theist speak of miracles are they talking about ‘interpreations‘ or real events? because of what Saint Paul said they must ‘if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is pointlss, and you are still in your sins‘ (Jesus DID raise its not just an interpreation of the mind, they must believe that, therefore they must be realist)

Hume (Realist) and Wiles (Anit-realist) Key points

David Hume

• There is no God who is able to violate natural laws.

• Realist approch to miracles.

• Hume assumes that Biblical accounts are seen as literally true.

• Focused on the evdience (or lack of)

Maurice Wiles

• God exists but chooses not to intervene

• Anit-realist approach to mircles

• Wiles argues that Biblical accounts are symbolic

• Focused on the message (symbolic meaning)

Hume: it is impossible for human testimony to prove a miracle

• Hume is an empiricist (more evidence we have the higher the probability- this belief is fundamental in science, hume apples it miracles)

• He has a realist understanding of miracles

• He reports that miracles such as Jesus walking on water, cannot be tested or repeated again, and that no human testimony can prove a miracle, therefore it cannot be the foundation of any system of religion. AKA Core of Christianity is Jesus reincarntion (it is foolish for Christianity to be founded on the belief of ressurection of Jesus)

Hume: Claims of miracles are faith-based fabrications

• “The Christian religion is founded on faith, not on reason“

• Hume writes that most accounts of miracles come from ‘ignorant nations‘ and when they are found in civilised countries, the people who found and shared them come from ‘ignorant’ ancestors.

• He says that looking in history that we can’t find a strong example of a miracle being attested by men of good education.

• Humans are naturally credulous, postive feelings of miracles is enough to make people of common sense less sensible

Wiles: Language about miracles is symbolic, not literal

• Believes that it should be seen as symbolic rather than literal and that if it does get seen as literal it opens up a ‘nest of absurdities‘ (we should avoid literal understandings)

• He says that the idea of a God who sometimes chooses to intervene with the Laws of Nature is unfair and ‘religiously unsatisfactory…and highly selective‘

• ‘The direct intervention of God, would have disastrous implications of our understanding of the problem of evil’

Wiles: Jesus and the 37 Testament miracles

• He says you need to consider the symbolic significance of miracles Jesus performed.

• He says that miracles are myths, presented in order to express something about God

• He believes the one miracle people should focus on is God’s creation of the world itself