Christine Overall has argued that miracles, if they exist, would be an evil committed by God and therefore disprove the existence of God. However, her notion of a miracle as an intervention presupposes a view about the relation between God and creation that posits God as an ‘outsider.’ Such a view has not been held by all theists. It was not held by Thomas Aquinas. I show that Aquinas ’s conception is not susceptible to Overall’s criticisms. The upshot is that (...) theists should avoid any view of God as an ‘outsider,’ if they wish to avoid Overall’s criticisms. (shrink)

Philosophers have made numerous and varied attempts to analyse the concept of a miracle. To the end, an assortment of necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth an instantiation of a miracle have been offered. In this paper we discuss one of the most common of these conditions - the violation restriction. This restriction holds that all miracles involve a violation of a law of nature.

Hume's essay on the credibility of miracle reports has always been controversial, with much debate over how it should be interpreted, let alone assessed. My aim here is to summarise what I take to be the most plausible views on these issues, both interpretative and philosophical, with references to facilitate deeper investigation if desired. The paper is divided into small sections, each headed by a question that provides a focus. Broadly speaking, §§1–3 and §20 are on Hume's general philosophical framework (...) within which the essay is situated, §§4–11 and §19 are on Part 1, §12–18 are on Part 2, and the final three sections §§18–20 sum up my assessment of his arguments. (shrink)

In this paper, a candidate necessary condition of a miracle is introduced: the direct restriction. The direct restriction holds that all miraculous effects have direct non-natural causes.