Miracle Criticisms of the Enlightenment Age
Hume and Spinoza
Keywords:
Enlightenment, Mind, Miracles, SuperstitionAbstract
One of the characteristics of the Enlightenment Age is the miracle criticisms. Hume defines the concept of miracle, which is an important part of the Christian faith, as “the violation of the laws of nature”. As an empiricist, he sees the miracle cases as a violation of natural laws; however, he thinks the laws of nature are unchangeable and permanent. Besides, the miracles transmitted through traditions in religions are occurrences confirmed by witnesses, which however, never provides, Hume claims, a reliable ground for confirmation. According to Hume, testimony by men is reliable only if it is based on observers’ sense experiences themselves and/or deductions from those sense experiences. As a rationalist, Spinoza also deals with the concept of “miracle”. God/Nature is a central concept that expresses all the eternal reality in Spinoza’s philosophy. This reality indicates a boundless interaction network. In God, everything is connected to one another without interruption. All goings-on spring by necessity from His nature. Everything must be thought to have been designed by God and via divine laws. These are the laws of mathematics, logic, and motion. All claims of miracles in the face of God’s universal laws are a way of thinking contrary to the laws of nature. Spinoza and Hume’s miracle criticisms have similarities in many ways. As an empiricist, Hume asserts impossibility of miracles mostly on grounds of considerations based on experience, whereas Spinoza, as a rationalist, asserts impossibility of miracles as departing from the concept of God.
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