Prophecy, Early Modern Apologetics, and Hume's Argument Against Miracles

“What we have said of miracles may be applied, without any variation, to prophecies; and indeed, all prophecies are real miracles, and as such only, can be admitted as proofs of any revelation.” ¹ David Hume’s celebrated account of miracles concludes with an elegant symmetry: the argument against miracles applies equally to prophecies, and thus the twin supports of revealed religion are demolished. For the most part commentators have taken Hume at his word, focusing their attentions on his probabilistic argument against belief in breaches of natural laws and assuming that if this argument is effective against miracles, it will apply equally to prophecies. Treatments of the arguments of section ten of the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding thus concentrate almost exclusively on the miraculous.

In this paper I shall argue that both Hume and his commentators have tended to overlook the distinctive features of prophecy. Hume’s chief objection to miracles—that one is never justified in crediting second-hand testimony to miraculous events—does not necessarily apply to the argument from fulfilled prophecies as it was understood in the eighteenth century. I shall further argue that at least some of the apologists for Christian revelation against whom Hume directed his arguments were aware of the kind of reasoning which Hume was to mount against the miraculous, and of the immunity of prophecies to this kind of attack. If we consider Hume’s arguments in their historical context, then, we shall discover that not only do they fail to counter the argument from prophecies but that they were known to have failed.

I. Miracles, Prophecy, and Testimony

The chief argument of section ten of the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, “Of Miracles,” rests upon two conditions: that miracles are violations of laws of nature and that the miraculous events which are to be considered as evidence for the Christian revelation have not been directly observed. Hume points out that the “wise man” who “proportions his belief to the evidence” ought never accept a second-hand report of a miracle, for the testimony which established the laws of nature must of necessity outweigh testimony to the violation of those laws. ² When this argument is applied to prophecies, however, two differences between the miraculous and the prophetic immediately present themselves: prophecies, in functioning as evidence for the Christian religion, need not rely upon second-hand testimony, nor need their fulfillment entail a violation of the laws of nature. The accomplishment of a prophecy, unlike past miracles, might be observed first hand in the present and may take the form of an historical event which is universally acknowledged to have taken place. In such a case the occurrence of the event itself would not in fact constitute a breach of the laws ofnature.

That belief in the fulfillment of prophecies and occurrence of miracles rely respectively on different kinds of evidence was already clear to those some of those orthodox apologists to whom Hume’s arguments were addressed. Christian virtuoso Robert Boyle (1627–91) had written in the previous century that prophecies “have a peculiar advantage above most other miracles, on the force of their duration; since the manifest proofs of the prediction continue still, and are as visible as the extent of the Christian religion.” ³ Ralph Cudworth (1617–88), one of the leading Cambridge Platonists, agreed:

Scripture Prophecies, Of Christ in the Old Testament; and From him in the New, are of equal if not greater force to us in this present Age for the Confirmation of the our Faith, than the miracles themselves recorded in Scripture, we having now certain knowledge our selves, of many of these events. ⁴

Eighteenth-century writers were equally aware that the proof from prophecies was not founded upon fallible human traditions. Robert Clayton (1695–1758) referred to prophecy as “a strong and very extraordinary Proof, which offers itself daily before our Eyes.” ⁵ Samuel Clarke (1675–1729), the most gifted theologian of his time, also pointed to the distinctive advantages of prophecies over miracles. In a sermon entitled “Scripture Evidence Sufficient to Make Men Religious...