Breaking the laws of nature

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.”

This is Hume’s primary objection to miracles. But it suffers from a number of fatal flaws:

i) Hume invokes the uniformity of nature to exclude miracles. But that’s an appeal to experience–as he himself admits. Yet he wouldn’t be writing this essay in the first place were it not for reported miracles. Therefore, reported miracles are a part of human experience as well.

ii) Hume might try to salvage his original objection by drawing a distinction between prima facie experience and veridical experience. While there’s prima facie evidence for the miraculous, the uniformity of nature tells against the veridicality of these reports.

But the problem with that move is that a Christian could make the same move in reverse: while there’s prima facie evidence for the uniformity of nature, reported miracles tell against the veridicality of this experience.

So Hume’s appeal to experience is a double-edged sword. And if he tries to qualify his appeal, it still cuts both ways.

iii) It’s also rather anthropomorphic to speak of natural “laws” in the first place. Given that Hume is trying to depersonalize nature, it’s ironic that he’s take recourse in such an anthropomorphic metaphor.

iv) But even if we accept his definition for the sake of argument, is it true that all miracles violate the laws of nature?

Let’s consider a couple of examples. Take the flood. That’s a paradigmatic miracle in Scripture. In Gen 7:11, Scripture posits two flood mechanisms, which I take to be rainwater and seawater respectively.

Rainwater is natural. Torrential rain naturally cases flooding.

Likewise, the “deep” seems to be a poetic word for the sea. If so, then that would allude to coastal flooding–which is also a natural phenomenon.

Now, you might say the timing of the flood is miraculous. It happened right on cue. But the flood itself seems to exploit natural mechanisms.

Let’s take an extrabiblical miracle:

“It does not seem necessary to insist that every miracle must entail a strict violation of a natural law. This is illustrated by R F. Holland’s story of the mother who cries to God for a miracle when she sees her child stuck on the level crossing and hears the train approaching round the corner. The train shudders to a halt within inches of the child, not because the driver has seen him on the line, but because he was taken ill a quarter of a mile back and the train’s automatic emergency braking system came into play. The mother rightly thanks God for a miracle, even though there is a perfectly ‘natural’ explanation for the train stopping,” “Miracles, extra-biblical,” New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics, 432.

Mind you, I myself have no particular problem with the idea that God is free to “break” the laws of nature. I’m just responding to Hume on his own terms.