The Case Against Miracles

by John W. Loftus

Hume's examples are quite commonsensical: All human beings must die, lead cannot remain suspended in the air, fire consumes wood and is extinguished by water.[38] So regardless, it is still true that we can only assign a negligible probability to the occurrence of a counterinstance to any of these generalizations. At times Hume sounds as though he thinks the probability of such an event is zero, given its unprecedented nature. However, regardless of Hume's original intent, this is a more extravagant claim than his argument requires. He is free to admit that some small probability may be attached to the prospect that a dense object might remain on the surface of a lake; it is sufficient for his purposes that it will always be more likely that any witness who reports such an event is attempting to deceive us, or is himself deceived. After all, there is no precedent for any human being walking on water, but there is ample precedent for the falsehood of testimony even under the best of circumstances. Accordingly, Hume says[39] that “no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.” We must always decide in favor of the lesser miracle. We must ask ourselves, which would be more of a miracle: That Jesus walked on water, or that the scriptural reports of this event are false? While we may occasionally encounter