Summary: The article contains a critical assessment of the position presented in Robert A. Larmer's work entitled “The Credibility of Miracles: Reflections on the Legitimacy of Belief in Miracles” (2022). This book is an attempt to justify belief in miracles in the modern world and intellectual context. Miracles are understood in it as God's interference in the course of events. Larmer argues that miracles understood in this way do not contradict today's scientific view of the world. He also claims that many miracles are so well documented that the most rational approach is to accept them as real. Moreover, miracles confirm the truth of theism and indirectly point to the authenticity of Christianity as a faith that has at its beginning a wealth of well-documented, justified, and previously prophesied miracles. Since the time of David Hume, the most popular objection to miracles has been that accepting them would mean that the laws of nature do not apply in certain situations. Larmer therefore devotes a lot of attention to refuting this objection. Larmer's views can be described as supernaturalism or interventionism. However, the Canadian philosopher's proposal does not seem convincing. The first part of the article will present Larmer's views as expressed in the aforementioned book, while the second part will be a polemic against his approach.
Excerpt: "Larmer's approach, it seems, is intended to help Christians experience and accept faith in miracles in the contemporary cultural context and in the face of the modern worldview. However, this attempt is doomed to failure. Supernaturalism as understood by Larmer is implausible for several reasons, both philosophical and theological. First, miracles understood as interventionist are at odds with everyday experience of the world and the scientific view of reality, regardless of whether they break the laws of nature or merely change “material conditions.” Second, accepting miracles understood in this way as actually occurring is incompatible with a scientific approach to reality, and science itself can easily discredit claims of such miraculousness. Something that was previously considered a miracle may, over time, be scientifically explained. This does not mean that this will happen in every case. A distinction must be made between the ontological level (whether a miracle really occurred) and the epistemological level (whether something was rightly considered a miracle). However, the problem remains whether anything can ultimately be considered a miracle until science has fully developed and concluded that a given phenomenon cannot really be explained naturally (and this will never happen). Thirdly, Larmer presents only healings as examples of miracles happening today, failing to note that this is a very specific type of miracle, susceptible to natural explanation" (p. 187).
Table of contents: 1. Introduction. 2. Presentation of R.A. Larmer's position on miracles. 3. Critical comments on R.A. Larmer's proposal. 4. Summary.
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English
Język Polski