Wiles' arguments against miracles

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A2 Religious studies Mind Map on Wiles' arguments against miracles, created by Jordan Muggleton on 28/08/2017.
Jordan Muggleton
Mind Map by Jordan Muggleton, updated more than 1 year ago
Jordan Muggleton
Created by Jordan Muggleton over 7 years ago
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Resource summary

Wiles' arguments against miracles
  1. God does not act in the world through miracles
    1. "It is especially important to emphasise the symbolic character of these symbols, because they are often understood literally...(with the result that) the whole relation of God becomes a nest of absurdities"
      1. May solve problem of evil - God doesn't intervene because he cannot or is bound to laws of nature
      2. If God did perform miracles, he would seem to act immorally
        1. "...not merely implausible and superfluous from the standpoint of human explanation, but religiously unsatisfactory in their view of their apparently occasional and highly selective character"
          1. "It would seem strange that no miraculous intervention prevented Aushwitz or Hiroshima, while the purposes apparently forwarded by some of the miracles acclaimed in the traditional Christian faith seem trivial by comparison"
            1. Swinburne: God bends the rules to benefit his children
          2. If God did intervene selectively to save some, but not others, then the problem of evil would be unsolvable, because there would be no reason why God couldn't intervene all the time
            1. "The direct intervention of God, however rare the occasions of it, would...have disastrous implications for our understanding of the problem of evil"
              1. Hebblethwaite: "It would also prevent him from appealing to the God-given structures of creation, and their necessary role in setting creatures at a distance from their creator and providing a stable environment for their lives, as an explanation for the physical ills which can afflict God’s creatures.
              2. "For the critical [bible] reader today the miracle tradition can is highly problematic"
                1. Jesus refused Satan's trap (in the desert) of using a miracle as evidence of divine power, as it would produce a miracle with no religious context
                  1. This shows that we are mistaken to try and use accounts of miracles as proof of God's power
                  2. The biblical accounts of miracles are myths presented to expess something about God
                    1. Inconsistent with certain biblical stories (e.g. Joshua 10, where God calls him to lead Israelites and conquer promised land
                  3. There is only one miracle: creation itself
                    1. Deism: God creates the universe and leaves it to work through it's natural laws
                      1. Allows belief in God without expectation of him acting through prayer, giving more personal connection
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