How does Hume attack the belief in miracles in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding?

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rrteacher | College Teacher | (Level 2) Educator Emeritus

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Hume's most famous attack on miracles came in a chapter of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding entitled "Of Miracles." Overall, the Enquiry is a work of skepticism, with Hume even voicing skepticism about reason itself. His treatment of miracles, however, is his most iconoclastic and striden chapter in the book. Essentially, he argues that events have to be observed firsthand to be believeable. However, if one receives a report of an event, then that person must determine its plausibility by weighing it against their own experience and observable natural law, which is itself the product of experience. (The credibility of the person reporting the incident is obviously another factor, though not necessarily the decisive one.) 

Because miracles, even when reported by honest people, are contrary to natural law, they cannot be confirmed by reason:


To cite an example, the fact that people die, and that they stay dead, is a constantly observable fact of life, in other words, a natural law. So if someone says that a person who was observed to be dead was brought back to life, then their statement is contradicting not only one's personal experience, but the collective experience of men in general, i.e. natural laws. Reason consists in asking oneself if it is more likely that the miraculous event occurred, or that the person reporting the event was deceived, mistaken, or lying:


Since natural law dictates that people do not come back to life, Hume says, there is really only one conclusion to be reached. A miracle is a violation of natural law, which makes it, on its face, impossible.


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