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Hume's Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles 1st Edition
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- ISBN-100195127382
- ISBN-13978-0195127386
- Edition1st
- PublisherOxford University Press
- Publication dateNovember 23, 2000
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions8.9 x 0.9 x 6.1 inches
- Print length232 pages
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"[the] argument itself is very clear, very cogent, and very apposite to present debates."―Mind
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- Publisher : Oxford University Press; 1st edition (November 23, 2000)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 232 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0195127382
- ISBN-13 : 978-0195127386
- Lexile measure : 1430L
- Item Weight : 12.9 ounces
- Dimensions : 8.9 x 0.9 x 6.1 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,972,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,742 in Philosophy History & Survey
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- #3,721 in Modern Philosophy (Books)
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For this reason, Earman, in his book Hume's Abject Failure, notes that in the binary language of probability, the probability of a miracle is zero. In other words, Hume rules out miracles a priori without allowing for any empirical investigation of testimony to miracles. Hume's own position is essentially unfalsifiable and therefore meaningless since he will not allow any evidence to contravene his position against miracles. Why is Hume against miracles? Because of his deist position of freemasonry. Hume is quite inconsistent. While asserting (in his treatise on human nature) the inability to assert personal identity, due to a radical discontinuity of experience, he writes books as if he were a cognizant reflective ego that endures through time. Hume is a mixed back of deism, Gnosticism and radical empiricism. And from a contradiction, everything flows out of Hume that he wants to flow. According to Hume's thesis on self identity, based on the radical discontinuity of experience concerning the self, how is the self able to generalize and formulate uniform experience? Hume is notoriously inconsistent.
C. S. Lewis exposed the circular reasoning in Hume in the book by Lewis entitled "Miracles." David Hume is often portrayed as a skeptic. On the contrary, he was a freemason and therefore a gnostic. He was skeptical of nongnostic positions, such as Christianity. He was an apologist for gnosticism. When looked at in that light, Christians are skeptics with respect to freemasonry. The title "skeptic" is a propaganda term much coveted by freemasons and juwes in order to assume the position of intellectual superiority.
Mr. Earman, who is nonChristian, has done a great job here in reviving criticism of Hume. Hume is worse than any god worshipped by any heathen since he demands uncompromising devotion to his position whether or not he is right or wrong.
Hume's chief argument against miracles is circular reasoning. Hume argues that miracles violate uniform experience. However, if uniform experience is against miracles, then they cannot happen. "Uniform experience" is his presupposition. And he defines "uniform experience" to exclude miracles. In other words, he begs the question. If miracles didn't happen, well, they didn't happen. This is Hume's argument in its circular entirety. This criticism came from Lewis. Although, I have a better argument than Lewis's and Mr. Earman's.
I would simply point out that pure logic cannot dispense with the empirical question of whether miracles happen. Afterall, mathematics is made up of tautologies. As such, pure logic or pure mathematics cannot have physical meaning. Pure logic, as Hume employs, cannot tell us anything about the world. Therein lies the sophistry. It boils down to the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements. Whether or not miracles happen depend not on logic, but on the existence of God who intervenes in human affairs and human life. As the former atheist Antony Flew said, it is impossible to argue against the existence of God in light of the evidence of the obvious intelligent design of the universe.
As soon as Hume "defined" a term "uniform experience," and inserted it in his argument, he entered the world of pure logic. In that world, no matter how far you search and how much you struggle and no matter how much you indulge in rationcination, you will end up where you started: with nothing. Beware of someone who makes definitions in the process of their argument with you.
If anyone went to the moon and found a green house that supplied oxygen, food and other human necessities, they wouldn't hesitate to posit an intelligent creator of that house. So why would anyone question the existence of God in light of this wonderful planet that supports our lives?
Atheism and pantheism are really the same thing. One denies God and the latter calls everything God. "Miracles" only make sense in a universe with a monotheistic God, not in a universe where nature is postulated as a god.
Earman makes reference to modern physics, which is unnecessary. Newton's physics didn't give any credibility to Hume's arguments since his arguments were pure sophistry. Anyway, Newton already embarked on relativity theory in the querys to his Optics. Query number one and number thirty already impinged on general and special relativity respectively. (Einstein, who plagarized Josiah Willard Gibb's book "statistical mechanics" in the Einstein papers on brownian movement also plagarized special relativity theory. Poincare, Fitzgerald, Larmar and Lorentz already conceived of special relativity. And the equations for general relativity divided by zero. David Hilbert noted that Einstein's equations were wrong, and Friedmann, the Russian pointed out that Einstein divided by zero three times.)
Intelligent design is all you need to establish a creator. A creator is all you need to ground miracles. Earman's book should be read. It's a welcome treatise in an age of brainwashed academics. The relation of academics to their students is well summed up in the parable of Jesus: "When one blind man leads another blind man, sooner or later they will both fall into a pit."
Unlike all other religions, Christianity offers the empirically grounded fact of Jesus's resurrection from the dead. Accept Him as your savior or be subject to Him as your judge.
Hume's contention is that given the "unique" nature of miracles no human testimony can suffice to render them credible - i.e. day-to-day experience necessarily trumps claims of the miraculous or novel. This argument has provoked interesting and occasionally heated discussion throughout the years. While containing some apparent truisms - such as the need for good reasons in an evidentiary construct and the gullibility of people- Hume's claims are generally viewed as being overstated. In criticising Hume, Earman is not arguing for the truth of any alleged miracles, rather he is contending that Hume's attempt to dismiss miracles a priori is unwarranted. It is interesting to consider the implications of Hume's assertion if it were true - much modern scientific theory such as quantum mechanics or Darwinism would be decimated. Some commentators have tried to minimize this logical extension by arguing that science deals with a different subject matter and as a consequence is immune from this criticism- this seems contrived and unconvincing.
Though not original in his assessment of Hume's failure, Earman's exposition of the issue is the most comprehensive and well articulated that I have encountered. He highlights two important factors that likely contributed to Hume's failure, an inadequate understanding of inductive argumentation and wishful thinking. With regard to former, Earman highlights many of Hume's shortcomings and in the process does a nice job in explaining Bayesian probability.
While, in regard to wishful thinking, seeing what we believe is not unique to Hume. It seems evident that reason can be skewed by belief and emotion. Arguments concerning ethics or faith issues are particularly notorious in this regard. As Earman notes, faith positions (e.g. naturalism or atheism) often seems to play a role in defences of Hume's argument against miracles. It is interesting that at the outset Earman feels compelled to state his lack of theistic belief - in an apparent effort to diffuse similar criticism.
This small book (approx. 200 pages) is divided into two parts. In the first part, Earman lays out his case, while the second part is comprised of various historic writings that pertain to the issue. These extracts include "On Miracles" and various other historic criticisms of Hume's. I find this structure very helpful - not having to go back and forth to primary sources. Aside from the lucidness of Earman's argument I was especially impressed by the quality of thought exhibited by some of Hume's early critics whom I had not previously encountered, Price is especially impressive.
Overall, this is an outstanding book. I highly recommend it to students of philosophical history and the philosophy of religion.

