The philosopher Dave Hume offers several arguments against miracles in his Enquiry. But I do not think these arguments refute the existence of miracles. After mentioning two of them last week, I want to talk about the last two of them here. Hume’s third argument for why he thinks that miracle stories are fabricated is that they always arise from among barbarous and ignorant people, in far-away lands. Such persons lack education and sophistication, and Hume thinks that they gravitate... Read more

In his famous Enquiry, the philosopher Dave Hume offers 4 supplementary arguments against miracles (or ‘prodigies,’ as he calls them). He thinks that these arguments refute the existence of miracles. I want to talk briefly about two of them here.   Hume’s first reason is centered on the idea of testimony. In short, Hume thinks that there has never been a sufficient body of evidence for a miracles occurrence because no miracle has ever been supported by the testimony of... Read more

In my ‘Introduction to Philosophy’ classes I often teach David Hume’s famous ‘Enquiry,’ from the 1700s. One of the most important parts of the Enquiry is Hume’s critique of miracles. In truth, Hume is not just critiquing miracles. He is trying to critique all supernatural phenomena (i.e. dreams, healings, visions, answers to prayer, interactions with God, etc.). The critique of miracles in section 10 of the Enquiry is a reason for thinking that Hume was probably an atheist.   First... Read more

Should we just throw it all aside and say that it is no longer of any importance for our day-to-day lives? Read more

Last week I shared a way of modeling Pascal’s Wager, which Pascal offers as an argument for God’s existence. This week I want to share three common critiques of Pascal’s Wager. 1st Critique: the Wager does not work as a demonstration of the advantages of Christianity, over other religions. I agree with this critique. Think about it for a second. You could run the Pascal Wager for a variety of different religious perspectives that teach the existence of an afterlife. You could run... Read more

Blaise Pascal perhaps is best known for his ‘Wager’ argument for God’s existence. I regularly teach the ‘Wager’ in my classes, and it goes as follows. Pascal says that every human being faces a choice. Everyone must choose whether to believe in God or not. You cannot not make this decision. You must choose, and if you try not to choose (say, by being an agnostic about God’s existence – someone who says we just cannot know one way or... Read more

Speaking personally, my intent is to share my Christian faith with large numbers of my neighbors in the course of my life. I see doing so as being the natural outflowing of the spiritual exercises that I undertake in my devotional life. I plan also to train up my children in the Christian faith. My children will be raised as Christians because the Christian faith is the best I can give them as a parent. There is a cartoon out... Read more