David Hume on Miracles
Hume’s empiricist ideology clearly informed his position on
the topic of miracles. In the following, I will examine Hume’s take on
empiricism. From this it will be possible to deduce how Hume’s empiricism
played a prominent role in influencing his belief on miracles. First, what were
the principles of Hume’s empiricism? Hume claims that everyone is born with a
blank slate (tabula rasa).
The tabula rasa receives
impressions which are products of immediate experience. For example, the color
of the computer screen I am looking at represents an impression. Ideas,
similarly, are derived from these antecedent impressions; we are not born with
innate ideas, rather we achieve them from experience. There are three
principles that connect ideas: resemblances, contiguity of time or place, and
cause and effect (Hume, 321). Hume further advances that all reasoning
concerning matters of fact are “founded on the relation of cause and effect”
(Hume, 323). Hume’s empiricism also states causes and effects are not
discoverable by reason (the theories advanced by Descartes) but by experience.
We do not know the sun will rise because of reason, but we can speculate that
it will rise because of experience. Hume’s primary argument is nature teaches
us through experience, therefore we develop customs and habits through these
experiences which give us our beliefs.
