The following points may seem so obvious and straightforward that they are not even worth mentioning. However, in my experience, this is generally not been the case. Hume's in principle and in fact arguments against identifying the occurence of a miracle ONLY CONSIDER HUMAN TESTIMONY as a source of justification for believing in the occurence of some miracle, and it neglects the comparative probability of naturalistic explanations for the SPECIFIC EVIDENCE in a SPECIFIC case. Although it is simple to demonstrate that Hume's in principle argument against the identification of a miracle based ONLY on human testimony is fallacious, I think I agree with Hume that at best or in fact, human testimony ALONE leaves us agnostic as to the occurence of some miracle unless we saw it ourselves. However, we need not restrict ourselves to human testimony alone when considering the evidence on offer for the occurence of some miracle; to do so seems rather foolish actually. Indeed, consider the case for the resurrection defended by somebody like William Lane Craig. Does Craig take the approach that the NT is generally historically reliable, and therefore innocent until proven guilty, and that since the NT testifies to the occurence of the resurrection that we should believe it?! Of course not. Hume's in principle argument has already been shown by Earman to be demonstrably fallacious, and I want to submit that Hume's in fact argument is a straw man and/or red herring in that it UNECCESARILY and WRONGLY circumsribes what counts as evidence for the occurence of miracle to amount to the following:
'Some person or peoples claimed that a miracle occured; we should assume that their testimony is innocent until guilty; and since human testiomny counts prima facie as evidence in favor of some miracle, on the basis of such huamn testimony we are warranted in believing in the occurence of some miracle.' This dainty little premise is so easy for a 'skeptic' to dig into that it is no wonder Hume's in fact argument has survived as long as it has. Instead of getting off track and going to our graves talking only about human testimony why not assume that the testimony to the resurrection is guilty until proven innocent. Then on that basis, shoulder the burden of proof of establishing what facts we can using the Critertia of Authenticity (which William Lane Craig does with respect to the empty tomb, the post mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples belief). Then realize that the posterior probability of the resurrection hypothesis can still be well above .5 so long as we do not fallaciously and lazily ignore doing the hard work of testing competing naturalistic alternative hypotheses to the resurrection hypothesis (which Hume certainly did). What you find is that you must multiply the probabilities of the naturalistic alternatives which produces a quick and dramatic reduction of the probability of (-R/B) x (-R/B&E) which in turn means that even if the probability of the resurrection hypothesis on our background evidence and the specific evidence is very low, the posterior probability of the resurrection hypothesis can still be very high. Moreover, let us also point out the obvious but incredibly powerful point that William Lane Craig's case for the resurrection is an inference to the best explanation that involves facts which provide independent confirmation in addition to 'mere' human testimony to the occurence of the resurrection. Let me repeat that, although William Lane Craig's case for the resurrection includes human testimony, it doesn't force us, or leave us hanging by asking us to TRUST that testimony in and of itself since it presupposes that that testimony is guilty until proven innocent, and since it includes facts that allows us to TEST that human testimony (the empty tomb, the origin of the disciples belief, and post-mortem appearances) to determine whether the original claim under consideration is better than any naturalistic alternative which is very unique in human history! So, rather than being in the awful situation of arguing: the NT says it and I believe it; these facts then provide a check on 'mere human testimony' for those of us who weren't there to witness this alleged miracle. Thus, Hume's straw man in fact argument is also fallacious, and though interesting and important for those who defend the occurence of a miracle by relying ONLY on the following premise (Hume's premise): 'Some person or peoples claimed that a miracle occured; we should assume that their testimony is innocent until guilty; on the basis of such testimony we are warranted in believing in the occurence of some miracle' we need to spend to much time considering it, we need not tarry to long on it since no part of that premise is assumed in arguing for the resurrection today. Indeed, the reason we either do not believe, or withhold belief in other 'supernatural' claims is either because we can think of at least one plausible naturalisitic alternative (i.e. presence of a ghost in the room and modern neuropsychology), the evidence being offered is MERELY 'straight testimony' which presumes the above premise that Hume rightly attacks, the available evidence doesn't allow us to TEST the testimony to the 'supernatural' claim from a skeptical point of view to arrive at a conclusion for ourselves, or some combination of these. However, none of these criticisms applies to the resurrection.
'Some person or peoples claimed that a miracle occured; we should assume that their testimony is innocent until guilty; and since human testiomny counts prima facie as evidence in favor of some miracle, on the basis of such huamn testimony we are warranted in believing in the occurence of some miracle.' This dainty little premise is so easy for a 'skeptic' to dig into that it is no wonder Hume's in fact argument has survived as long as it has. Instead of getting off track and going to our graves talking only about human testimony why not assume that the testimony to the resurrection is guilty until proven innocent. Then on that basis, shoulder the burden of proof of establishing what facts we can using the Critertia of Authenticity (which William Lane Craig does with respect to the empty tomb, the post mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples belief). Then realize that the posterior probability of the resurrection hypothesis can still be well above .5 so long as we do not fallaciously and lazily ignore doing the hard work of testing competing naturalistic alternative hypotheses to the resurrection hypothesis (which Hume certainly did). What you find is that you must multiply the probabilities of the naturalistic alternatives which produces a quick and dramatic reduction of the probability of (-R/B) x (-R/B&E) which in turn means that even if the probability of the resurrection hypothesis on our background evidence and the specific evidence is very low, the posterior probability of the resurrection hypothesis can still be very high. Moreover, let us also point out the obvious but incredibly powerful point that William Lane Craig's case for the resurrection is an inference to the best explanation that involves facts which provide independent confirmation in addition to 'mere' human testimony to the occurence of the resurrection. Let me repeat that, although William Lane Craig's case for the resurrection includes human testimony, it doesn't force us, or leave us hanging by asking us to TRUST that testimony in and of itself since it presupposes that that testimony is guilty until proven innocent, and since it includes facts that allows us to TEST that human testimony (the empty tomb, the origin of the disciples belief, and post-mortem appearances) to determine whether the original claim under consideration is better than any naturalistic alternative which is very unique in human history! So, rather than being in the awful situation of arguing: the NT says it and I believe it; these facts then provide a check on 'mere human testimony' for those of us who weren't there to witness this alleged miracle. Thus, Hume's straw man in fact argument is also fallacious, and though interesting and important for those who defend the occurence of a miracle by relying ONLY on the following premise (Hume's premise): 'Some person or peoples claimed that a miracle occured; we should assume that their testimony is innocent until guilty; on the basis of such testimony we are warranted in believing in the occurence of some miracle' we need to spend to much time considering it, we need not tarry to long on it since no part of that premise is assumed in arguing for the resurrection today. Indeed, the reason we either do not believe, or withhold belief in other 'supernatural' claims is either because we can think of at least one plausible naturalisitic alternative (i.e. presence of a ghost in the room and modern neuropsychology), the evidence being offered is MERELY 'straight testimony' which presumes the above premise that Hume rightly attacks, the available evidence doesn't allow us to TEST the testimony to the 'supernatural' claim from a skeptical point of view to arrive at a conclusion for ourselves, or some combination of these. However, none of these criticisms applies to the resurrection.
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