The concept of miracle, including Hume's definition and critique, Aquinas's account, the contributions of Swinburne and Wiles, and the implications of miracles for the nature of God.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to define a miracle, explain David Hume's twin critique, contrast it with Aquinas's account, evaluate Swinburne's defence and Maurice Wiles's objection, and draw out what belief in miracles implies about God.

Hume's definition and critique

Hume gives two arguments. The a priori argument: a law of nature rests on the firmest possible uniform experience, so the prior probability of a violation is always vanishingly low. Set against it is the probability that a witness is mistaken or lying, which is never that low, so the balance of evidence can never favour the miracle. "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence", and here the evidence always points the other way; at best the testimony and the law cancel, leaving no rational ground for belief. The a posteriori argument lists four practical defeaters: no miracle has been attested by enough educated, reliable and disinterested witnesses; human beings have a natural appetite for wonder and the marvellous; miracle reports cluster among "ignorant and barbarous nations" in the credulous past; and the competing miracle claims of rival religions count as evidence against each other, since they cannot all be true. The first argument is the stronger, because it would still bite even if a particular report had excellent witnesses.

Aquinas's account

This wider definition does not require breaking a law, only acting beyond the usual natural order, which softens Hume's "violation" objection: an instant but natural-seeming recovery counts as a miracle for Aquinas without contradicting any law. Aquinas also stresses the purpose of a miracle, namely to reveal God and confirm faith, which connects the topic to the nature and goodness of God.

Swinburne and Wiles

Swinburne argues that the principle of credulity (we should believe things are as they seem unless there is special reason to doubt) and the principle of testimony (we should normally trust others' reports) mean we should accept miracle reports unless we have positive grounds to reject them. Crucially, he redefines a law of nature so that it can admit a non-repeatable counter-instance: if an event cannot be made to recur and is not predicted by any wider law, it is better described as a one-off exception brought about by God than as a refutation of the law, so the law stands. He adds that a genuine miracle must serve a purpose consistent with God's goodness, which rules out trivial or malicious wonders.

Maurice Wiles offers a theological objection rather than an evidential one: if God intervened to turn water into wine or heal a few individuals but did not act to prevent the Holocaust or famine, God would be arbitrary, partial and morally inconsistent. A God worth worshipping could not pick such favourites. Wiles concludes that God's single great act is creation itself (the sustaining of the whole world), not a series of selective interventions, so reported miracles are better read as expressions of faith than as divine acts.