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The argument from miracles is
r the existence of God that relies on the belief that events witnessed and described as miracles – i.e. as events not explicable by natural or scientific laws [1] – indicate the intervention of the supernatural. See God of the Gaps.
One example of this argument is the Christological argument: the claim that historical evidence proves that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and that this can be explained only if God exists. Another is the claim that many of the Qur'an's prophecies have been fulfilled and that this too can be explained only if God (Allah) exists.
Defenders of the argument include C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, William of Ockham and Hisky.
One counter-argument to the argument from miracles is the argument from inconsistent revelations, which states that multiple incompatible miracles are alleged to have occurred which provide evidence for different religions. Not all these can be correct.
Another counter-argument is Occam's razor, which can be used to argue that God is unnecessary to explain miracles for which natural explanations can be found. In his documentary The Root of All Evil? , British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins utilises this argument when examining the supposed miracles in Lourdes, France. According to Catholic theology, supernatural cures occur in the area, but Dawkins expresses doubts as to their divine nature, saying that all the recorded cures comprise diseases which may have healed by themselves without the need for divine intervention.
Modern theologians rely on the arguments by David Hume, an eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher, who is known today for his skepticism and naturalism. Before making any claims, Hume explains the principle of evidence: the only way that we can assess the credibility of two claims is by weighing evidence. According to Hume, because evidence for miracles consists of a limited set of instances, every instance of normalcy in the real world adds up to evidence that far outweighs the evidence for miracles.
The argument from morality is an argument for the existence of God. Arguments from morality tend to be based on moral normativity or moral order. Arguments from moral normativity observe some aspect of morality and argue that God is the best or only explanation for this, concluding that God must exist. Arguments from moral order are based on the asserted need for moral order to exist in the universe. They claim that, for this moral order to exist, God must exist to support it. The argument from morality is noteworthy in that one cannot evaluate the soundness of the argument without attending to almost every important philosophical issue in meta-ethics.
Faith healing is the practice of prayer and gestures that are believed by some to elicit divine intervention in spiritual and physical healing, especially the Christian practice. Believers assert that the healing of disease and disability can be brought about by religious faith through prayer or other rituals that, according to adherents, can stimulate a divine presence and power. Religious belief in divine intervention does not depend on empirical evidence of an evidence-based outcome achieved via faith healing. Virtually all scientists and philosophers dismiss faith healing as pseudoscience.
Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning philosophy. The field is related to many other branches of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.
The teleological argument is an argument for the existence of God or, more generally, that complex functionality in the natural world which looks designed is evidence of an intelligent creator.
A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific laws and accordingly gets attributed to some supernatural or praeternatural cause. Various religions often attribute a phenomenon characterized as miraculous to the actions of a supernatural being, (especially) a deity, a magician, a miracle worker, a saint, or a religious leader.
The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins, in which the author presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. He also presents arguments to refute certain criticisms made on his first book, The Selfish Gene. An unabridged audiobook edition was released in 2011, narrated by Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward.
"God of the gaps" is a theological perspective in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence.
The existence of God is a subject of debate in theology, philosophy of religion and popular culture. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God or deities can be categorized as logical, empirical, metaphysical, subjective or scientific. In philosophical terms, the question of the existence of God or deities involves the disciplines of epistemology and ontology and the theory of value.
The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument which states, by way of an analogy, that a design implies a designer, especially intelligent design by an intelligent designer, i.e. a creator deity. The watchmaker analogy was given by William Paley in his 1802 book Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity. The original analogy played a prominent role in natural theology and the "argument from design," where it was used to support arguments for the existence of God of the universe, in both Christianity and Deism. Prior to Paley, however, Sir Isaac Newton, René Descartes, and others from the time of the scientific revolution had each believed "that the physical laws he [each] had uncovered revealed the mechanical perfection of the workings of the universe to be akin to a watch, wherein the watchmaker is God."
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a philosophical work by the Scottish philosopher David Hume, first published in 1779. Through dialogue, three philosophers named Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes debate the nature of God's existence. Whether or not these names reference specific philosophers, ancient or otherwise, remains a topic of scholarly dispute. While all three agree that a god exists, they differ sharply in opinion on God's nature or attributes and how, or if, humankind can come to knowledge of a deity.
The Quinque viæ are five logical arguments for the existence of God summarized by the 13th-century Catholic philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas in his book Summa Theologica. Five ways of St. Thomas Aquinas for the existence of God managed to prove the existence of God through nature. They are:
Metaphysical naturalism is a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences. Methodological naturalism is a philosophical basis for science, for which metaphysical naturalism provides only one possible ontological foundation. Broadly, the corresponding theological perspective is religious naturalism or spiritual naturalism. More specifically, metaphysical naturalism rejects the supernatural concepts and explanations that are part of many religions.
The Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit is a counter-argument to modern versions of the argument from design for the existence of God. It was introduced by Richard Dawkins in chapter 4 of his 2006 book The God Delusion, "Why there almost certainly is no God".
"Of Miracles" is the title of Section X of David Hume's An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748).
Growing Up in the Universe was a series of lectures given by Richard Dawkins as part of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, in which he discussed the evolution of life in the universe.
The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever (2007) is an anthology of atheist and agnostic thought edited by Christopher Hitchens.
God in the Age of Science? A Critique of Religious Reason is a 2012 book by the Dutch philosopher Herman Philipse, written in English and published in the United Kingdom. Philipse found his Atheist Manifesto (1995) to be too hastily and superficially written, and decided to set up a more complete work to systematically refute all the arguments for the existence of God and adherence to any form of theism.
Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity is an 1802 work of Christian apologetics and philosophy of religion by the English clergyman William Paley (1743–1805). The book expounds his arguments from natural theology, making a teleological argument for the existence of God, notably beginning with the watchmaker analogy.
In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces operate in the universe.
Naturalism is not so much a special system as a point of view or tendency common to a number of philosophical and religious systems; not so much a well-defined set of positive and negative doctrines as an attitude or spirit pervading and influencing many doctrines. As the name implies, this tendency consists essentially in looking upon nature as the one original and fundamental source of all that exists, and in attempting to explain everything in terms of nature. Either the limits of nature are also the limits of existing reality, or at least the first cause, if its existence is found necessary, has nothing to do with the working of natural agencies. All events, therefore, find their adequate explanation within nature itself. But, as the terms nature and natural are themselves used in more than one sense, the term naturalism is also far from having one fixed meaning.
Is There a God? is a 1996 book by British philosopher of religion Richard Swinburne, claiming the existence of the Abrahamic God. The argument rests on an updated version of natural theology with biological evolution and Big Bang theory using scientific inference. In 2010, a revised version of the original book was released under the same title.
Hume on Miracles