14 Revelation and miracles

thomas d. sullivan and sandra menssen

Answers to four connected questions about revelations and miracles

carry the gravest implications for both Christian and non-Christian revelatory claims. Stripped of nuances to be added later, the questions are:
(1) Can belief in a revelatory claim be appropriate if no adequate case
backs the content of the belief? (2) Can a case for a revelatory claim succeed without first establishing the existence of God? (3) Can a case for
a revelatory claim succeed if it does not include appeal to a confirming
miracle? (4) Are Christian revelatory claims vulnerable to Humean-type
arguments against the credibility of miracles?
We, of course, cannot fully engage the questions in this brief chapter.
We can, however, at least clarify the questions and the interconnections
among them. We can also gain a sense of the value of and need for exploring more fully the content of Christian revelation from a philosophical
standpoint.
However, before we take up these four questions directly, we must
discuss some terms. We aim here not only to provide some context for
our later discussion, but also to draw off some of the vapors clinging to
the issues.

key terms and concepts

Revelation and associated concepts
From the Latin revelare to remove the veil revelation has the
general sense of uncovering something hidden. The general sense allows
a wide range of candidates both for what does the revealing and for what is
revealed, including (nonexhaustively) persons, things, processes, events,
words, meanings, music, and works of art. Revelation in the narrower,
religious sense restricts the domain of revealer and revealed. In theistic
religions, a god, directly or indirectly, is either the revealer or what is
revealed (or both). Nontheistic religions can be said to view received
texts as revelation inasmuch as the sacred text discloses ultimate reality
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or offers means for overcoming the limits and sorrows of life. The sacred
text may be seen as authorless, as in the Mimamsa school of Hinduism:
It is insisted that there is no God, in an effort to elevate the intrinsic
authority of the vibrant text.1
Theistic religions often endorse a distinction between universal and special revelation.2 Universal revelation is Gods revelation
through the physical world sustained by Gods continual activity. Scripture declares: The heavens are telling the glory of God (Psalm 19).
Deist Thomas Paine, adamantly anti-Christian and scorning the authority of all religious Scripture, nonetheless agrees: There is a Word of
God; there is a revelation. The word of god is the creation we behold:
And it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or
alter, that God speaketh universally to man.3 In contrast to universal revelation, special revelation is Gods intervention into the natural
order, through (for instance) extraordinary communications to prophets,
authors of Scripture, and religious communities, and through such manifestations of the divine as the Incarnation and Resurrection. Our main
questions in this chapter bear on special, not universal, revelation.
It is by no means a straightforward matter to assign an intension
and extension to Christian. We might content ourselves with one or
another statement drawn from Scripture, declaring that a Christian is
a person who subscribes to John 3:16, say, or Hebrews 1:2. Any selection would look arbitrary to someone. Yet the problem can be avoided
if an inquirer simply contextualizes the questions concerning Christianity, and makes precise reference to the Christian claims at issue.
On occasion, however, we will find it useful to refer to strong Christian revelatory claims. These include, by stipulation, the substance of
the high doctrines Scripture expresses in I Corinthians 15:128 and in
the so-called kerygmatic sermons of Acts.4 (Although our concern is
ultimately with authentic revelations, we will focus here on revelatory
claims that a revelation has really occurred.)
Propositional revelation differs from nonpropositional. In propositional revelation, what is revealed is that something is the case. In nonpropositional revelation, what is revealed is a person, or action, or thing.
1
2

Ninian Smart, World Philosophies (London: Routledge, 1999), 45.

The more common terminology is general and special. This terminology, however,
unfortunately invites confusion given the distinction between general and special
senses of the term revelation.
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Part I, chapter 9 (New York: Barnes and Noble,
2006), 33.
Obviously, what pertains to the substance can be and is disputed, but the stipulation
hopefully is sufficient to give meaning to strong Christian revelation.

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Christians generally take nonpropositional revelation to be more fundamental: God reveals the innermost being of the divine in the person of
Jesus Christ and in all the great deeds leading up to the final disclosure.
Yet it certainly does not follow, as some standard sources seem to suggest, that revelation cannot involve Gods communicating information
expressible in propositions. It would be strange indeed for Christians
to deny that God has revealed truths listed in Council statements and
creeds or, for instance, in the early teaching found in I Corinthians 15:3
5, with its abundant that (oti) clauses: For I delivered to you as of
first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in
accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised
on the third day (emphasis added).

Miracles and wonders

The locus classicus for all modern and contemporary discussion of
miracles is Section X of Humes Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding. Estimates of the value of Humes argument vary, ranging from
John Earmans charge that Humes essay is an abject failure5 to Robert
Fogelins spirited defense.6 Experts are also at variance about what Hume
was trying to prove and how his arguments go. His definition of miracle, however, is easy enough to locate, and often quoted: A miracle may
accurately be defined, as a transgression of a law of nature by a particular
volition of the deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent.7
Despite Humes assertion, though, the definition is not accurate.
Accuracy requires encircling a target concept, and it alone. Humes definition is ambiguous. A law of nature may be understood as a universal
but contingent pattern in nature. A-type events are always, though not
necessarily, followed by B-type events. On a second understanding, a
law of nature is universal and necessary. Necessarily, A-type events
5

John Earman, Humes Abject Failure: The Argument against Miracles (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000).
Robert J. Fogelin, A Defense of Hume on Miracles (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2003).
David Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Of Miracles (Chicago, IL: Gateway, 1956), 119n. Aquinas described a miracle in somewhat
the same terms as outside the order commonly observed in things (our translation of
praeter ordinem communiter obvservatum in rebus). See his Summa Contra Gentiles
III, chapter 101. Arguably, Aquinass definition, making no mention of law, is to be
preferred because it is more general than Humes, and neutral between the view that a
miracle is a violation of a norm, and a view such as Nancy Cartwrights, which maintains that our scientific knowledge bears on natures, not laws. See Nancy Cartwright,
The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999).

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204 Thomas D. Sullivan and Sandra Menssen

give rise to B-type events (or in the case of nondeterministic laws, Atype events necessarily render probable B-type events). The first understanding is nonmodal; the second, modal. Humes general epistemology
and ontology commit him to the first, nonmodal definition, but it carries many familiar burdens, including the failure to distinguish between
nomic (lawlike) and accidental generalizations. Despite Hume, it thus
seems some kind of modal understanding is required.
All miracles are wonders, but not all wonders are miracles, not in
any proper sense. Miracles make anyone wonder, because the cause, a
supernatural being, is hidden from view. However, should something
escape the understanding of the cause, even if the cause is natural, the
event can make us wonder. If, for example, A-events and B-events are
only contingently connected, why is there an invariable move from one
to the other? If necessarily connected, why? The capacity for wonder
varies with the individual. At one end of the spectrum, Walt Whitman
wants to stop and loiter all the time to sing . . . in ecstatic songs over
the mere fact consciousness (Beginning My Studies in Leaves of
Grass). The eliminativist philosopher, on the other hand, having lost
sight of the datum, moves on.

Ontological and epistemic foundations

Miracles can be foundational to Christianity in two ways. First,
miracles are fundamental to the teaching. Everything rests on miracle
claims, such as the claim that Christ rose from the dead. Call something
fundamental to revelation in this way ontologically foundational. By
contrast, call something epistemically foundational to revelation if
without it the case for revealed religion is inadequate. The Resurrection
and the Incarnation are ontologically foundational, but not necessarily
epistemically foundational. One might believe in the Resurrection on
the testimony of the Christian Church, and believe the Church is reliable
for reasons other than that its teachings have been certified through a
miracle.

four key questions

Is a mature, informed adults belief in a revelatory claim
necessarily inappropriate if no adequate case backs the content
of the individuals belief?
Many revelatory claims collide with what is known or contradict
one another. Not all, then, can be true. It therefore might seem that
the belief of a mature, informed adult is irrational, blind, or somehow

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inappropriate unless the person has an adequate case supporting his or

her belief an argument that the revelatory claim is true that is at least
as strong as any argument the claim is false.
Perhaps it would widely be thought that this is required for certain idiosyncratic or outlandish revelatory claims. But even if an adequate case is required for some revelatory claims, is it required for all?
Opponents of Christianity, from deists to atheists, respond Yes, and
conclude that Christianity is bogus because no case is convincing.
Some Christian theologians and philosophers think that when it
comes to central Christian claims there is no need for a case, because
Christianity is not a proper object for epistemological evaluation. Faith is
one thing, reason another. Christianity is both absurd and most worthy
of acceptance. Such is the standard reading of Tertullian and Kierkegaard.
However, one neednt go anywhere near this far to hold, reasonably
enough, that a case for Christianity (a case as described earlier) can
sometimes be dispensed with. A person could have some kind of direct
experience of Christian truths, as might be thought to have happened to
Paul on the road to Damascus. Alvin Plantinga has argued that Christian
revelation might be known to be true through the instigation of the
Holy Spirit, who moves the believer to accept the Christian ideas in
appropriate circumstances.8
Yet even if Christian revelatory claims can be known to be true
without a case, many Christians do not think they know God is triune;
rather, they just believe that God is. They are never wracked with doubt
about the claim, for example, that there are trees, but they sometimes
do feel assailed by doubts about Gods providence say, particularly
in the midst of trouble. It is perhaps for this reason that the Christian
creeds begin with I believe . . . rather than I know, and that Christian
churches are willing to receive people who can attest to their believing
what the creeds profess; no one is required to know the exalted mysteries
are true.
In that case, one might look for a defense of the reasonableness
of believing without an argument. The nineteenth-century writer John
Henry Newman offers such a defense in his Oxford University Sermons
and his Grammar of Assent. Newman observes that Christ called many
who were incapable of making much of a case, if any, for following him.
Yet they rightly responded, Newman continues, because their hearts
8

Plantinga has worked out, in great detail, the theory that Christianity can be properly
basic, requiring neither evidence nor argument, though objections to it potential
defeaters can and should be rebutted. See Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian
Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

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were well disposed and they acted on antecedent reasons.9 This is not
to say they stood in no need of spiritual healing; many were dissolute, but the multitude who accepted him were well disposed insofar
as they were prepared to receive truths beyond this world, whether or
not their knowledge was clear, or their lives consistent.10 Still, Newman acknowledges a debt to reason: When the Gospel is said to require
a rational Faith, this need not mean more than that Faith is accordant to
right Reason in the abstract, not that it results from it in the particular
case.11
Newmans remark suggests an important qualification regarding the
case that backs an individuals belief. At most, there is a need for an
adequate case in the sense of a case in the abstract a case someone
could latch onto. Here, a comparison might be useful. As children, we
are taught that we cannot divide by zero. Why not? It is by no means
easy to say. But the belief in the propriety of the rule can be rational and
right only if there is a way to rationalize the rule.

Can a case for a revelatory claim be adequate without inclusion

of an argument for Gods existence which, leaving aside
revelation, renders Gods existence more probable than not?
If dramatic miracles attesting to the truth of a revelatory claim are
possible, then it is possible that a case for a revelatory claim might
be adequate without including a probable argument for Gods existence
(an argument that abstracts from Gods performance of the dramatic
miracle).
However, the dominance of what might be called standard natural
theology (SNT) suggests that despite this theoretical possibility that
the answer to the question posed in our section heading is Yes, the
actual human situation is such that the theoretical possibility is irrelevant, at least for vast numbers of people. SNT begins by attempting to
show, without any essential reliance on a putative revelation, that a god
probably exists with something like the great attributes of omniscience,
omnipotence, and infinite goodness (or at the very least, that its not
9

10

11

Newman so stresses the importance of antecedent reasoning he often sounds like a

modern Bayesian theorist.
John Henry Newman, A Reason for the Hope Within: Sermons on the Theory of
Religious Belief (Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1985), 188.
Newman, Reason for the Hope Within, p. 175. This aspect of Newmans general line
is reminiscent in many ways of the tack taken by contemporary externalist epistemologists who contend that we need not be aware of what justifies our judgments in order
for them to be, in fact, justified. By contrast, internalists insist that to be justified in
our judgments we must be aware of the evidence that justifies them.

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improbable such a god exists). Once that has been done, the idea is, an
investigator can go on to consider miracles and putative revelations in
light of available public evidence. Christian philosophers generally seem
to assume that if SNT is not successful, then there is no hope of building
a case for either miracles or revelation.
On the surface, the approach of SNT seems to make good sense.
Unless there is a God, there can be neither a revelation from God nor a
miracle the ultimate cause of which is God. First things first: Establish
that there probably is a God, and then consider whether that God has
vouchsafed a revelation, perhaps a revelation including miracles and
miracle-claims.
However, it is a mistake to think a convincing philosophical case for
a revelatory claim requires first obtaining a probable case for a good God.
Notice an analogous point: We may have no way of finding out whether
there is extraterrestrial intelligence except by listening to signals from
outer space, as is done in the SETI program (Search for Extra-Terrestrial
Intelligence). Scholars of classical literature may have no way of finding out whether Homer ever existed whether there existed a single
individual primarily responsible for the Iliad, let us say without examining the content of the alleged composition; without scrutinizing its
cohesiveness, the consistency and richness of its language, and so on. In
both these cases, it is reasonable to look at one and the same time to see
whether there has been a communication from a being of a certain sort,
and whether the being at issue exists.
To be sure, there is something to the demand first to prove there is a
God before going on to examine putative revelations, but nowhere near
as much as usually is thought. After all, if a convincing argument were
to show that the existence of a mere creator is not highly improbable, then a reasonable person could not categorically dismiss revelatory
claims without examination. Happily, such an argument can be supplied.
Here are the core premises of one such argument (it should not be conflated with the well-known kalam argument for a creators existence):
(1) It is not improbable that the physical universe came to be (that is,
had a beginning).
(2) It is not improbable that whatever comes to be has a cause distinct
outside itself.12
12

Heisenbergs uncertainty principle does nothing to overturn our claim at (2). That
principle would undercut causality only if causes had to be determining conditions, but
they need not be; instead, they can be nonlogical necessary conditions. For discussion
see Richard W. Miller, Fact and Method (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1987), especially pp. 6064.

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Hence, no one should confidently claim there is no creator or even

that it is highly improbable there is a creator. Our contention is that
if one assigns a probability to the conjunction of the propositions that
the physical universe came to be, and that whatever comes to be has a
cause distinct outside itself, the probability is not going to be anywhere
in the neighborhood of zero. Some would say that the propositions are
inscrutable, and that if probabilistic language is to be used, the best way
to represent the inscrutability is to assign to each hypothesis an interval
<0,1>. If that interval is assigned, then the probability of the conjunction
is not in the neighborhood of zero.
We suggest, then, that even when the possibility of dramatic miracles is set aside, the answer to the question that constitutes the title
of this section may still be Yes.13 If there is a place for faith, a space
within us for the movement of Gods Spirit, then it cannot be expected
that any argument for an unqualified Yes will yield knowledge that the
putative revelation is, indeed, a heavenly gift. Still, against the relentless
criticisms of Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard
Dawkins, and a host of quieter, less journalistic naysayers, due diligence
may show the content of the Christian revelatory claim is best explained
by positing a good God who has revealed. It is not true of all religion that
it poisons everything (Hitchens) or that it is a delusion (Dawkins).
The Christian philosophical theologian may reasonably hope to show
that the best explanation of the putative revelation is that a good God
has chosen to make it ours. This revelation assures us that God defeats
evil through the cross and Resurrection. Exactly how, we do not expect
to learn while in corruptible flesh, but if the line of argument so far
marked out holds promise, Christian philosophers can find new material for reflection in areas of inquiry they have, perhaps half-consciously,
left to theological students of revelation and their opponents.14

Can a case for theistic revelation be adequate without

including a certified miracle?
Various positions on a question of considerable significance
It is unclear where nontheistic writers stand on this question. They
generally require that a case be put forth for theistic revelation and argue
13

14

Indeed, it may be that the only way of acquiring an adequate case for the existence
of God is to examine putative communications, to take them as part of the relevant
database for an inference to the best explanation.
See Sandra Menssen and Thomas D. Sullivan, The Agnostic Inquirer: Revelation from
a Philosophical Standpoint (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007). We attempt in this
book to develop a line of argument demarcated in section 2.2 of the present chapter.

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that the cases coming forward are inadequate. Seldom, however, do they
speak directly to the issue of whether a certified miracle must be part of
the case.
Distinguished Christians are divided over the matter. Given recent
trends in apologetics, which emphasize the epistemic role of miracle,
one might find it surprising that earlier thinkers gave less emphasis to
that role. Although the Resurrection lies at the center of strong Christian revelatory claims, the Evangelists (most particularly Mark) portray
Jesus as drawing people to himself by a personality dazzling and stupefying, creating awe and fascination. Apologists through the centuries
have preferred to emphasize the content of the message and its power
to heal and restore. For these apologists, miracles are secondary signs of
the authenticity of the message.15 About the wonder of the man, they
never tire of speaking.
Some Christian thinkers have maintained that a case for a revelation could not be adequate unless it were accompanied by a certified
miracle. That is the position of Richard Swinburne, one of the greatest
philosophers of religion of our time, and it was the position of William
Paley (whom Swinburne cites approvingly). However, Thomas Aquinas
argued that people should have accepted Christ even if he had not performed miracles.16 Other important Christian thinkers, including John
Henry Newman, have explicitly asserted that a confirming miracle need
not ground belief in revelation. Christians also may point out that one
whose authority far exceeds that of any philosopher certainly sanctioned
acceptance of the revelation without a confirming miracle: Believe me,
that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the
sake of the works themselves.17
What would be the consequence of assuming a miracle is necessary
to complete an adequate case for a revelatory claim? Swinburne draws
the following inference: Before we ever come to look at the details of
its message and method of promulgation, there is, among the so-called
great religions of the world, only one serious candidate for having a body
of doctrine which is to be believed on the grounds that it is revealed,
and that is the Christian revelation.18 Furthermore, insisting that a
miracle is necessary to validate a revelatory claim also puts a great deal
15

16

17
18

Avery Cardinal Dulles, A History of Apologetics (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press,
1999), 25.
See Aquinass Quodlibetal Questions, Q. 2, A. 4. We thank Timothy Pawl and Faith
Pawl for this reference.
John 14:8 (RSV).
Swinburne, Revelation, 2e. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 126.

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of pressure on the case for the epistemically foundational miracle. If

a miracle is needed, then Christianity will depend much more on the
credibility of the early witnesses than it will if it is first agreed that the
Church or Scripture contains the assured revelation of God, and many
people feel unable to assess the credibility of the early witnesses. Finally,
the requirement of a confirming miracle condemns the judgment of such
early Christians as Dionysius and Damaris, who, at Athens, came to a
belief in Christianity,19 though, as Newman observed, St. Paul did no
miracle there.
Reasons to think any case on behalf of a revelatory claim
is insufficient without a confirming miracle
It is not infrequently argued that God must have provided an epistemically foundational miracle confirming his revelation, because otherwise there is too much chance of deception. In response, it might be
pointed out that God appears to be prepared to allow plenty of deception
in this world about all kinds of matters, and surely must be allowing
some, given that world religions differ on some particulars. The argument might be strong if everyone was damned who failed to believe
the right religion, but that exclusivist idea carries a heavy burden of
proof.
One would expect to find Swinburne offering a case for his contention that content-based evidence is insufficient to show the probable
truth of the Christian revelatory claim, and that a revelation must be
confirmed by a miracle. Unfortunately, however, it is hard to credit the
line of reasoning he seems to propose on behalf of the contention. He
says:
[A] revelation may be expected to contain claims that we cannot
possibly confirm by mere human reflection or ordinary historical
investigation. . . . And clearly with respect to many of the purportedly revealed claims about which we can have some a priori
or empirical evidence of the kinds described, that evidence is not
going to be nearly sufficient to make those claims probable. . . .
So satisfying the test of content fairly well would not be sufficient to show some candidate revelation to be genuine; the mere
fact that there is no very probable falsity in some purported revelation is not adequate for this purpose. We need also the second
test of the method of expression [the test of miracle].20
19
20

See Acts 17:34.

Swinburne, Revelation, 11112.

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This informal argument, with its suppressed premises, is answerable. Notice that Swinburne has drawn attention to only two types of
revelatory claims, when, in fact, there are more, at least abstractly considered. His first type call it RC-1 is the sort of claim that we cannot
possibly confirm by mere human reflection or ordinary historical investigation. The second RC-2 is the type for which there is evidence, but
the evidence is not going to be nearly sufficient to make those claims
probable. What about claims call them RC-3 that could be made
probable on the basis of some kind of evidence? Can it just be assumed
without argument that this class is empty? If not, perhaps verified claims
could serve as a springboard for certifying the entire set,21 via an argument along the following lines: This and that are true, so the Christian
Church is plausibly enough the oracle of God, and hence the rest of the
Churchs message is true.
Despite the inadequacy of this stretch of reasoning on Swinburnes
part, though, the fact that he takes the position he does with regard
to miracle suggests a meta-argument that is troubling for the Christian
philosopher who wishes to deny the need for a confirming miracle. If the
most thorough and exact philosophical defense of Christianity written
in our time (Swinburnes), a defense ranging over more than half a dozen
volumes and including detailed discussion of the content of the Christian
revelatory claim, does not constitute, in the authors own assessment,
an adequate case when the evidence for the Resurrection is deleted,
how can it reasonably be assumed that such a case might nonetheless
be constructed? Using the tools of modern probability theory and the
resources of contemporary biblical and church history, Swinburne elaborates an insight one finds in earlier writers about the power of prior
probability the antecedent assumptions made about the likelihood of
something occurring. In the words of John Henry Newman:
The Word of Life is offered to a man; and, on its being offered,
he has Faith in it. Why? On these two grounds, the word of its
human messenger, and the likelihood of the message. And why
does he feel the message to be probable? Because he has a love
for it, his love being strong, though the testimony is weak. He
has a keen sense of the intrinsic excellence of the message, of
21

What belongs to the entire set of Christian claims? Here, of course, we need to be
careful. If the set is reduced too far, so that the revelatory claim is exceedingly weak,
the strategy may not work because there is not enough to work from. If, on the other
hand, the set is expanded incautiously to include propositions not essential even to
strong versions of a revelatory claim, it will be easy to overturn the claim.

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212 Thomas D. Sullivan and Sandra Menssen

its desirableness, of its likeness to what it seems to him Divine

Goodness would vouchsafe did He vouchsafe any, of the need of
a Revelation, and its probability.22
Nevertheless, Swinburne holds that the content of Christian revelation
is insufficient, absent a confirming miracle, to establish the probable
truth of Christianity.
Reasons to think an adequate content-based case is available
without appeal to miracle
Obviously, content-based evidence for the Christian revelatory
claim, including evidence in Swinburnes multi-volume case for Christianity, Newmans Grammar of Assent, and other works, needs to be
examined on its own terms and at length. Such evidence, judiciously
weighed as part of a review that includes counter-evidence, provides the
best reason for thinking an adequate case is available without appeal to
miracle. We clearly cant undertake such a review here.
However, having just presented a meta-argument based on Swinburnes work in order to raise suspicion about the claim that a
confirming miracle is not necessary, we present a response to that metaargument grounded in positions to which Swinburne commits himself.
The response, based on an old line of thought freshened by C. S. Lewis,23
goes as follows:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)

Jesus implied he was God.

Either he was deluded about being God or not.
If the former, he was crazy.
If the latter, he was either God or wicked.
Jesus was neither crazy nor wicked.
So Jesus was God.

Swinburne accepts (1) and (5), presumably on the basis of the content
of the Christian revelatory claim. In addition, despite some quick dismissals of some of the propositions in between (by individuals such as
Graham Oppy and Peter Smith),24 it is unlikely Swinburne would reject
22

23

24

John Henry Newman, Oxford University Sermons, Sermon XI, The Nature of
Faith in Relation to Reason (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1918), 20203.
C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970),
What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?, 15661.
See Graham Oppy, Arguing about Gods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006), 40607, and Peter Smith, <logicmatters.blogspot.com> Philosophy of Religion
4: Lord, Liar, Lunatic, March 30, 2008.

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them. Perhaps Swinburnes own content-based evidence for Christianity

is stronger than even he thinks.
Despite our inability here to survey the content-based evidence for
Christian revelatory claims, we can also call attention to an important
sort of evidence that may easily be excluded by an inquirer following
along with Swinburnes argument, given his views noted earlier concerning non-Christian revelation. (His approach does not invite close
scrutiny of non-Christian revelatory claims.) If it is plausible that there
have been non-Christian revelations, that may increase the plausibility
that there have been Christian revelations. Consider a parallel. Westerners disinclined to accept the sort of mystical experience reported by
Proust might come to think of it as credible when they learn that it
has many of the features of mystical experience reported by followers
of Samkhya-Yoga who, in meditative states, experience themselves as
eternal monads outside of space and time.25
Where might non-Christian revelations be found? In at least two
places. First, in the myths. Of course no one believes in the gods of
the ancient pantheon. Still, in these and other myths, might there not
have been some divine inspiration? Both Socrates and Plato thought so.
C. S. Lewis declares, We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance
resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about parallels and
pagan Christs: they ought to be there it would be a stumbling block
if they werent.26 And again, He is here of whom the corn king was an
image.27
Second, in non-Christian theistic religions, how can anyone who
accepts Christian revelation be certain no revelation is captured in
Krishnas declaration of the unheard of secret of Gods love for
man?28 Or the Qurans acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah born of God
and the Virgin Mary?29 Or the Zoroastrian doctrine that God is purely
and utterly good, and that matter, created by God, is neither evil nor the
source of evil?

Do Humean arguments turning on miracles refute

strong Christian revelatory claims?
Earlier, we distinguished between a miracle being either ontologically or epistemologically fundamental to a revelatory claim. Therefore,
25

26
27
28
29

R. C. Zaehner, At Sundry Times: An Essay in the Comparison of Religions (London:

Faber and Faber, 1958), 4849.
Lewis, Myth Becomes Fact, in God in the Dock, 67.
Lewis, The Grand Miracle, in God in the Dock, 84.
Zaehner, At Sundry Times (referencing The Bhagavad-Gita, 18:6566), 133.
Zaehner, At Sundry Times, 157.

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214 Thomas D. Sullivan and Sandra Menssen

the credibility of a revelatory claim containing a story of a miracle need

not depend on that miracle for confirmation of the entire revelatory
claim. In some legitimate sense, baptism may be a miracle because in
the natural course of events, waters do not wash filth from souls and
initiate people into the divine life. Yet no one points to the miracle of
baptism as the stunning confirmation of the reality of the Incarnation
and all that has come with it. Rather, the apologetic starts elsewhere and
concludes to the miraculous power of baptism.
Even so, arguments against miracles obviously threaten strong revelatory claims. If it could be shown that any miracle essential to the
content of a revelatory claim is literally incredible unworthy of credence the revelatory claim would be falsified. Thus something should
be said about whether arguments have been crafted that show miracles
are unworthy of belief. The candidate arguments are almost invariably
parasitic on Humes essay On Miracles, often viewed as constituting
a decisive refutation of Christian claims. Hume argues that the testimony of witnesses of a reported miracle always is met by a contrary
proof of the miracle not having happened. He certainly sounds confident
enough about his main idea: The proof against a miracle, as it is founded
on invariable experience, is a species or kind which is full and certain
when taken alone, because it implies no doubt, as is the case with all
probabilities.30
However, this is one of the places where Hume misleadingly speaks
of proof when he means something weaker. According to careful students
of Humes aims,31 Hume was trying to show neither that miracles are
impossible, nor that they never have occurred, nor even that we could
never have reason to believe they occurred. Rather, what he was trying
to show was (as Hume himself puts it) that no human testimony can
have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for
any such system of religion.32
Now, although dangerous for faith, if this is all Hume sought to
show, then a defender of a strong Christian revelatory claim might even
agree with him, though, no doubt, with some qualms. After all, we
argued earlier that testimony on the part of miracles is not a necessary
foundation for any revelatory claim.
30

31

32

Hume presents the argument in a letter to Hugh Blair, but it is resonant of much that
is found in Humes essay Of Miracles. The letter is cited by Fogelin in A Defense of
Hume on Miracles, p. 45.
Erik J. Wielenberg, God and the Reach of Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2008), 12627.
Hume, Of Miracles, p. 132.

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Revelation and miracles 215

Still, if a reason is sought for resisting Humes arguments for being

so skeptical about the testimony offered on behalf of miracles, we might
begin by observing that Hume fails to attend to what Newman calls
antecedent reasons or what Swinburne terms prior probability insofar
as they bear on the riveting person of Christ, the profound content of
the revelatory claim, or the telos of the Resurrection event. Thus Hume
treats us to the imaginary tale of a Queen Elizabeth who rises from the
dead after three days. Her resurrection would, indeed, be unworthy of
credence: There is nothing about her person, her character, her ambitions, her self-descriptions, nothing about the telos of the event, nothing
about an anticipated teaching that preceded the event, nothing about a
teaching reverberating for centuries after the event, nothing that gives
us reason to accept as real the resurrection we are to imagine being
proclaimed.33 All the evidence for her resurrection rests on testimony
concerning the event, and that, indeed, may be too little. There is more
than such testimony to lean on in the claims concerning a risen Christ,
and whereas the testimony on behalf of Christs Resurrection held
firm under the most extraordinary affliction, it is hard to imagine witnesses stoned, racked, boiled, burned, and nailed upside down crying out
Elizabeth has risen.

33

See our discussion in The Agnostic Inquirer, p. 93.

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