Philosophy of Locke - Essay Example

Philosophy of Locke, SPINOZA AND HUME "Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided." (J. Locke) John Locke (1632-1704) was also called as "The Philosopher of Freedom" for his views and thoughts on Christianism. In Locke's view, unreal events (miracles), may be used only by Lord to get attention of people when his will is to show or to mark something very important. Therefore we sometimes ought to believe proofs about a miracle we have a reliable witness. The significance of the revelation and the unbelievable nature of the miracle seem to proof one another. Nicholas Wolterstorff says on this topic, that Locke "assumes that if we do as we ought and subject the testimony of the gospel writers to the same evidential tests to which we subject any other testimony . . . we will arrive at the conclusion that their testimony is reliable. In particular, Locke never doubted that the deeds of Jesus to which the gospel writers testify and which they interpreted as miracles, were in fact miracles; and further, that these miracles authenticated Jesus' prophetic status" (Chappell, 195-96). Locke believes that morals could be a seriously affectionate science. He said that some day we might to reach moral and ethical conclusions as free from hesitation as the conclusions of mathematics. However, he fears that gaining this knowledge is rather complicated than gaining mathematical knowledge. Hi states, that the absence of a true moral science is replaced by moral teachings which are given toto us by Lord through his son - Jesus. God gave to his son a great power to make miracles exactly because He wished to notice these moral teachings. AbstractLocke considers miracles to be critical in establishing the trust and reasonableness of Christian revelation and faith. He argues that the performance of miracles has a great significance in establishing the "credit of the proposer" who makes any assertion to giving a divine revelation. Locke links reason a main role in distinguishing false from sincere claims to divine revelation, including miracles. By this philosopher, sincere miracles contain the hallmark of the divine such that pretend revelations become intuitively obvious. Some argues that serious tensions are in Locke's position of miracles regarding. This is impacts on the reasonableness of the consent to Christianity which he thinks they give. Locke said that miracles are events which were "above the comprehension of the spectator, and in his opinion contrary to the established course of nature" and which are, "taken by him to be divine" (Works [London, 180110], IX, 256, my emphasis) In his book On the Reasonableness of Christianity, Locke acknowledged that the truths wich Jesus taught can be understood and discovered by the facilities of human reasoning and thinking. Locke believed that miracles that Jesus created would make people to accept Lord's truth. Locke convinced that the only intuitive knowledge that a human has is that of one's own existence. By Locke, from the knowledge of one's own existence as a "cognitive" (knowing) being, one can proof that there is a cognitive (knowing) Being called "Lord" because "something cannot come from nothing." Locke, in his works, said that in the other way than our innate or intuitive knowledge existence of our's, one's knowledge goes from senses - through sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste, and through "reflection". It means using of the mind to make and form ideas by using things we perceive. An "An Essay concerning Human Understanding", in 1690, Locke had showed his belief that truth that is beyond comprehension of people should be accepted if it comes through "revelation." But of cause it must be tested to be sure that it is not objections by reason, and that there is proofs that this truth came from God. In his book, In his Reasonableness of Christianity, Locke wrote that the "miracles" which are Jesus performed were proofs that Jesus is the Son of God anfd that he taught the truth from Lord. Arguing from a Newtonian concept of nature, Spinoza firmly sured that "nothing then, comes to pass in nature in contravention to her universal laws, nay, nothing does not agree with them and follow from them, for . . . she keeps a fixed and immutable order." In fact "a miracle, whether in contravention to, or beyond, nature, is a mere absurdity." Spinoza's views were rather dogmatic about the impossibility of miracles. He said, "We may, then, be absolutely certain that every event which is truly described in Scripture necessarily happened, like everything else, according to natural laws."[1] In support of his critical works Spinoza insisted that Nature "keeps a fixed and immutable Order." It means that mostly everything "necessarily happened . . . according to natural laws." And "nothing comes to pass in nature in contravention to her universal laws . . . "[2] I suppose we can summarized Spinoza's arguments as you see here: 1. Miracles breakes the laws of natur. 2. Natural laws are immutable. 3. It is impossible for immutable laws to be broken. 4. Therefore, miracles are impossible. It is quitly clear that the 2-ond assertion is crstscal: natural laws are immutable or universal. How it can be proofed Laying aside for the moment deductive rationalism of Spinoza, from a firmly empirical viewpoint Spinoza's answer is: we know this by universal observation. But by Newton's gravitation's law we always observe physical objects. The ting is that there are no known exceptions. But a miracle would be such exception. So, miracles are contrary to universal scientific observation. Now let's see Humes argument against the miraculous and his poin of view on this. They are: 1. "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature." 2. "Firm and unalterable experience has established these laws." 3. "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence." 4. Therefore, "the proof against miracles . . . is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined." Here we see a criticall premise is the 2-ond one. Hume explains it so: "There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event. Otherwise the event would not merit that appellation." So "nothing is esteemed a miracle if it ever happened in the common course of nature." So by Hume again the essence of the arguments depends on people's repeated observations. The Nature gives us one and unifversal experience of regularities of nature. However, we see differencies between Hume's and Spinoza' viewpoints. For Spinoza a scientific law was universal so miracles were absolutely impossible. For Hume human experience is uniform. So by Hume miracles are possible perhaps, but they cannot be proofed. So between Hume and Spinoza there was a certain softening of the basis for naturalism and because of this it is reflects on the later softening of the understanding scientific law. A scientific law is not necessarily universal because it has no possible exception. Simply it is uniform (with no credible exception). But, nevertheless, Hume's convinced in his thoughts upon the regularity of nature as opposed to the statement for miracles. Explaining critique of Hume of the belief and disbelief in miracles, firstly we need to understand what is a miracle. In the Webster Dictionary one can find that miracle is "a supernatural event regarded as to define action, one of the acts worked by Christ which revealed his divinity an extremely remarkable achievement or event, an unexpected piece of luck." So it means that any miracle is based on one's feeling of past experiences. Hume's interprets a miracle as such: "a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, an event which is not normal to most of mankind." Hume show his viewpoint brilliantly when he proclames, "Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it has ever happened in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man seemingly in good health should die on a sudden." (Hume p.888) He states that the death is rather unusual, but it is used to be naturally. It can only be defined as a real miracle if the dead man will come back to life. Then this is a real miraculous event by Hume because such an experience was never took place before anywhere yet. Hume mostly discredits the belief in a miracle because it goes against the laws of Nature. Hume defines the laws of nature universall, such as the laws of gravity. He gives to the reader four ideas, which will support his philosophical idees in defining a real miracle. These leads people to believe that were any miraculous event in our history. The first reason of Hume is that in all of our history there weren't any miracule with a enough number of witnesses. Hume is asking throughout the passage several questions to proof existing of miracles. He asks such questions: Who is qualified Who has the authority to say who qualifies With such questions one can see that there is no real answers. So it tends to breaking the ponderability of the witnesses of the miracle. The second reason is that Hume views all of people's beliefs, or what they choose to accept, or not accept through their past experience and what history says to us. Hume tends to discredit an individual by playing on a human's sense of reality. Through behavior and emotions philosopher tends to believe that there has been a lot of forged miracles, regardless if the information is somewhat valid or not. His third reason is testimony versus reality. Hume proclaims, "It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous events, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous ancestors; or if civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from these barbarous ancestors, who transmitted them with that inviolable sanction and authority, which always attend perceived opinions." (Hume p.891) In fact many of the miracles which took place in our past history noone would consider a miracle in today. The reality in which most people of that period believed now can be considered only as exaggerations. Hume says that the miracle as to the period of time in which the miracle was, the reality of individuals at that given time. He suggests that during certain times in history we are told of miraculous and unbelievable accounts of travelers. "Because we as individuals love to wonder, there is an end to common sense, and human testimony, in these circumstances, loses all pretensions to authority." (Hume p.890) Also Hume convinced that the occasion can be named as miracle only if there are a number of witnesses who can validate the miracle. "So that not only the miracle destroys the credit of testimony, but the testimony destroys itself." (Hume p.892). This generally means that all the witnesses must give only exact and same proofs of the facts of the extraordinary event. Hume finds some difficulties in the belief of any individual, and difficulties of finding false in any private or public place in history. "Where it is said to happen much more when the scene is removed to ever so small a distance." (Hume p.892) Even a court with accuracy and judgment may find himselve sometimes distinguishing between true and false. If it is trusted to society through debate it is difficult to trust the in existence of the miracle. In conclusion, I want to say that a miracle is firmly based on own sence of present and past experiences of the person. The belief in a miracles tends to have no real basis or certain evidence through hope of human, it really tends to be something rather better through our beliefs and certain expectations. I suppose I can not debate the belief of a miracle. And no one can because there is no right or wrong to belief. It is viewed through our own individual perception or faith, our sense of reality and existence. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Arlandson, James. Hume's Miracle Prison: How They Got Out Alive. 2006 2.Harrison, Peter. Newtonian Science, Miracles, and the Laws of Nature.Bond University 3. De Spinoza, Benedict. Tractatus Theologica-Pliticus. London: George Bell and Sons. 1883 4. Hume, David. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding.New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1955 Read More