David Hume and the Cancelation of Religious Dogma

But treating faith more subjectively is not the only way to come at this issue, even from a skeptical standpoint. Some persons think they have rational reasons for rejecting judgments between the world religions. One who thought so was influential Eighteenth Century Scottish philosopher David Hume, who concluded that “miracles” in one religion were capable of ruling out the “miracles” in other faiths. But when the miracles clash, the rival beliefs in both of the religious systems are destroyed, as well. Therefore, the bottom line is that “miracles” in the various religions thereby nullified each other. When that occurred, the rest of their teachings were also eliminated.1

But this is an odd critique for many reasons and it is usually rejected or at least ignored even by Hume’s skeptical supporters. To clarify, Hume clearly did not believe in the occurrence of miracles. But even if most miracle-claims in the world’s religions were bogus, perhaps just lies, how could false reports conceivably annul the possibility of true miracle claims? Or if all miracles were rejected as false, on what grounds would any of them cancel each other? Then again, miracles in different religions might actually occur because of being quite compatible with each other!

In varying circumstances regarding our alternative examples of miracle-claims, it is difficult to charge that any of these claims or actual events would cancel each other. For example, if all miracle-claims are simply false anyway, as Hume believed, then that clearly would be the bottom line—but not due to the force of Hume’s charge here, for they are not eliminating each other. They simply do not obtain. On the contrary, if there are a combination of true and false miracle-claims in the various religions, and/or particular supernatural events that are even compatible with each other, Hume’s point is just totally misplaced. In such cases, how could a non-event challenge a true occurrence? If both events are historical, what is the basis for asserting that they eliminate each other? Again, what if it turns out like that they could be compatible with each other?

As a result, the bottom line here is that claimed miraculous events need to be researched in order to ascertain whether or not they actually occurred. Otherwise, we are arguing in a vacuum. True miracles may either fail to evidence a corresponding belief system, or they may actually be quite able to bear such a burden. But mere assertions do not solve the problem; neither do they even help.

Endnotes

1 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X: “Of Miracles,” Part II, point four