argument from miracles

One deductive argument is proposed by William Paley broadly modeled on the version given by Richard Whately:

1. All miracles attested by persons, claiming to have witnessed them, who pass their lives in labors, dangers, and sufferings in support of their statements, and who, in consequence of their belief, submit to new rules of conduct, are worthy of credit.
2. The central Christian miracles are attested by such evidence.
3. The central Christian miracles are worthy of credit.{{Cite book |last=Paley |first=William |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/PALEOC |title=Evidences of Christianity |date=1851 |publisher=CreateSpace}}{{Cite book |last=Whately |first=Richard |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/WHAEOL |title=Elements of Logic |date=1827 |publisher=Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints |location=Delmar, N.Y.}}

Another approach to arguing for a miracle claim is to argue that it is the best explanation for a small set of widely conceded facts. A typical “minimal facts” argument for the resurrection of Jesus starts with a list of facts such as these:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. His disciples afterward reported experiences which they believed were actually appearances of the risen Jesus.
3. The disciples were transformed from fearful cowards into bold proclaimers who were willing to face persecution and death for their message.
4. Paul, who had previously been a persecutor of the Christians, had an experience that he also believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus.{{Cite journal |last=Habermas |first=Gary |date=2024 |title=On the Resurrection, Vol. 1, Evidences |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/PAROTR-5 |journal=Philosophia Christi |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages= |doi=10.5840/pc202426115|url-access=subscription }}

None of these four facts are supernatural claims in and of themselves. The argument maintains that virtually all critical scholars with the appropriate expertise accept these facts, relying on standard historical methods and reasoning. The explanatory argument begins with this broad scholarly consensus, asserting that all alternative explanations for these facts fall short when compared to the one that asserts Jesus truly rose from the dead. As a result, the conclusion is usually presented in a definitive and categorical manner, claiming that the resurrection explanation is the most compelling.

One key advantage of this approach is that it explicitly contrasts the resurrection hypothesis with other potential explanations. By doing so, the argument directly engages with alternative interpretations of the data, addressing them head-on.{{Cite book |last=Craig |first=William Lane |url=https://archive.org/details/reasonablefaithc0000crai_c2s7 |title=Reasonable faith : Christian truth and apologetics |date=1994 |publisher=Wheaton, Ill. : Crossway Books |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-89107-764-0}}

Another approach to arguing for a miracle claim involves using Bayesian probability to argue that certain facts or sets of facts make the conclusion more probable. In the case of a categorical argument, this would mean showing that the conclusion is probable given the facts in question. For a confirmatory argument, the aim would be to demonstrate that the conclusion is significantly more probable when these facts are taken into account, compared to what it would be without them. This kind of argument could be structured in a categorical manner by employing the odds form of Bayes's Theorem, which allows for a formal, quantitative comparison of probabilities in relation to the available evidence.{{Citation |last=McGrew |first=Timothy |title=The Argument From Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth |date=2009 |work=The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology |pages=593–662 |editor-last=Craig |editor-first=William Lane |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/MCGTAF |access-date=2025-02-21 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |last2=McGrew |first2=Lydia |editor2-last=Moreland |editor2-first=J. P.}}

{{reflist}}

• David Hume (ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge), An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902 ({{ISBN|978-0-19-824535-3}}).
• Richard Swinburne (ed.), Miracles, London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1989 ({{ISBN|978-0-02-418731-4}}).

• "[https://iep.utm.edu/miracles/ Miracles]". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• "[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/ Miracles]". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

{{God arguments}}

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Category:Arguments for the existence of God

Category:Christian apologetics

Category:Miracles