Hume on Miracles

I am going to attempt to clarify what I find objectionable about the miracle argument, because in class I got the “you’re crazy” look from a few people.

Imagine: you are at a bar, sitting next to a rather uninteresting-looking 35-year old man that you have never met. You share a few Belmont-appropriate non-alcoholic drinks, conversing about a variety of topics until he relates one of the two following stories:

1. One day, I was walking home from work and a stray dog approached me. It opened its mouth and, to my amazement, recited a short poem by Sylvia Plath. Then it ran away, and I haven’t seen it since.

2. As I was walking home from work one day, I was approached by a stray dog. It opened its mouth and, to my amazement, spoke to me in English. It told me: “I am Allah, the one true God, and it has pleased me to use this dog to tell you to convert to Islam.” The dog then disappeared.

Both examples are extraordinary, and we have good reason to be wary of the man. That said, the first example is much less believable than the second. In the first example, we have a talking dog, and there is no explanation why that dog could talk. It is purported to have happened within the bounds of ordinary experience, and that there was some connection of events that led to this dog talking that was in principle experienceable by anyone. It implies that the world is the kind of place that, left to itself, could generate a talking dog. If true, it would invalidate “the firm and unalterable experience [that] has established [the] laws of nature” (X.i.12).

In the second, an explanation is offered. The implied connection of events is that something operating outside and above the bounds of ordinary experience caused an ordinarily impossible event to happen for some end. It does not require us to invalidate our firm and unalterable experience. The laws of nature and our sanity are still left intact.

I am not saying that the second account is believable. I am merely pointing out that the second account is less contrary to experience than the first, because the inclusion of an omnipotent being changes the relationship that account has to experience. Because it is less contrary, such accounts can be subjected to slightly less strict scrutiny. How much leeway does this allow? I'm not sure, nor do I have room to develop a guess here. I am merely pointing out that Hume is ignoring an important distinction that makes some miracle accounts much more plausible than others.