The Legitimacy of Miracle defends the view that miracles, in the strong sense of being events produced by a supernatural agent overriding the usual course of nature, can take place without violating any laws of nature. This means that the evidence for miracles cannot be judged to be in conflict with the evidence for the laws of nature; the result being that Humean objections to the rationality of belief in miracles fail.

This vital study offers a new interpretation of Hume's famous "Of Miracles," which notoriously argues against the possibility of miracles. By situating Hume's popular argument in the context of the 18th century debate on miracles, Earman shows Hume's argument to be largely unoriginal and chiefly without merit where it is original. Yet Earman constructively conceives how progress can be made on the issues that Hume's essay so provocatively posed about the ability of eyewitness testimony to establish the credibility of marvelous (...) and miraculous events. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

It is typically thought that miracles, if they occur, can provide evidence for the truth of religious doctrine. But what if different miracles occur attesting to the truth of different and incompatible religions? How is one to decide between the truth of the supposed revelations? Much of Locke’s short work, A Discourse of Miracles, is concerned with this question. Here I summarize and evaluate Locke’s answer.

Suppose that one is presented with a report of a miracle as an exception to nature's usual course. Should one believe the report and so come to favour the idea that a god has acted miraculously? Hume argued that no reasonable person should do anything of the kind. Many religiously sceptical philosophers agree with him, and have both defended and developed his reasoning. Some theologians concur or offer other reasons why those who are believers in God should also refuse to (...) accept accounts of miracles as accurate reportage. This book argues to the contrary. For Houston, miracle stories may contribute towards the reasonableness of belief in God, and, appropriately attested, may be accepted by believers in God. To bolster his case he examines historically and intellectually significant writings about the miraculous. And having argued for the rejection of Hume, he explores the implications of this rejection for science, history and theology. (shrink)

Locke considers miracles to be crucial in establishing the credibility and reasonableness of Christian faith and revelation. The performance of miracles, he argues, is vital in establishing the "credit of the proposer" who makes any claim to providing a divine revelation. He accords reason a pivotal role in distinguishing spurious from genuine claims to divine revelation, including miracles. According to Locke, genuine miracles contain the hallmark of the divine such that pretend revelations become intuitively obvious. This paper argues that serious (...) tensions exist in Locke's position regarding miracles, which impact on the reasonableness of the assent to Christianity which he presumes they provide. (shrink)

John Locke's religious interests and concerns permeate his philosophical production and are best expressed in his later writings on religion, which represent the culmination of his studies. In this volume, Diego Lucci offers a thorough analysis and reassessment of Locke's unique, heterodox, internally coherent version of Protestant Christianity, which emerges from The Reasonableness of Christianity and other public as well as private texts. In order to clarify Locke's views on morality, salvation, and the afterlife, Lucci critically examines Locke's theistic ethics, (...) biblical hermeneutics, reflection on natural and revealed law, mortalism, theory of personal identity, Christology, and tolerationism. While emphasizing the originality of Locke's scripture-based religion, this book calls attention to his influences and explores the reception of his unorthodox theological ideas. Moreover, the book highlights the impact of Locke's natural and biblical theology on other areas of his thought, thus enabling a better understanding of the unity of his work. (shrink)

John Locke (29 August 1632 - 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as (...) well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as David Hume, Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception. This is now known as empiricism. An example of Locke's belief in Empiricism can be seen in his quote, "whatever I write, as soon as I discover it not to be true, my hand shall be the forwardest to throw it into the fire." This shows the ideology of science in his observations in that something must be capable of being tested repeatedly and that nothing is exempt from being disproven. Challenging the work of others, Locke is said to have established the method of introspection, or observing the emotions and behaviors of one's self.Locke's concept of man started with the belief in creation. We have been "sent into the World by order, and about his business, are his Property, whose Workmanship are, made to last during his, not one anothers Pleasure." Like the two other very influential natural-law philosophers, Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf, Locke equated natural law with the biblical revelation, since in their view both had originated in God and could therefore not contradict each other. "As a philosopher, Locke was intensely interested in Christian doctrine, and in the Reasonableness he insisted that most men could not hope to understand the detailed requirements of the law of nature without the assistance of the teachings and example of Jesus.". (shrink)