THE HUMEAN VIEW ON MIRACLE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

Abstract

There is no doubt that History plays a crucial role in human existence. It does take the human person back to previous events that occurred even in preceding generations, present events and as well foreshadows the future. All these work according to the natural law. Therefore, over the years, the human person consciously or unconsciously produce their social relations, social configuration or organizations and their forms of collective structuring. Though they produce this, the result is not immediate, but comes through long and complex collective experiences which they have shared together. The factors responsible for this include religion, education, science and technology, politics, culture, economy to mention but a few. Reflectively, the concept of miracle which strictly belongs to the religious worldview has been bastardized by both theistic and atheistic philosophers as a result of its epistemic challenges. With regard to this, Hume contended that the smallest and subjective evidences which backup miracles can never outweigh the widespread, objective evidences supporting the contention that they never took place as reported. This has made the objective evidences needed to prove such occurrences significant. Hence, the logical background created by Hume against the existence of miracle affected not only sense perception but also posed a serious constraint to all religious beliefs. However, for the speculative philosophers, especially those who hinge their system on Absolutism, miracle poses no problem but for the logician and empiricist does because there is no rational proof for its existence. The analytic method of research was adopted for this discourse.