Miracles and testimony: can human witness establish a miracle against Hume's rule, and does the apostles' suffering count as evidence?

William Paley, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

The question is not whether miracles are antecedently improbable but whether the testimony can be accounted for otherwise. Men do not voluntarily undergo a life of danger and a violent death in attestation of what they know to be false and for no worldly benefit.¹²³⁴

Sources

1. Is it incredible that God should interpose for such a purpose? Suppose him to design for mankind a future state; is it unlikely that he should acquaint him with it? Now in what way can a revelation be made, but by miracles? In none which we are able to conceive.

   A View of the Evidences of Christianity

2. They are merely signs to connect the miracle with its end. The effect we ascribe simply to the volition of Deity; of whose existence and power, not to say of whose Presence and agency, we have previous and independent proof. We have, therefore, all we seek for in the works of rational agents--a sufficient power and an adequate motive. In a word, once believe that there is a God, and miracles are not incredible. Mr.

   A View of the Evidences of Christianity

3. " Produce the papers. " Seeming contradictions, but real arguments, be- tween the different Evangelists. " The Morality of the Gospel. " Produce the papers. " The originality of Christ's character. " Produce the papers. " Suitableness of the four Gospels to the situation of their reputed Authors. " Produce the papers. " An adequate occasion for the miracles. " Produce the papers. " Produce the papers.

   Works with Additional Sermons

4. D. 150 j Porphyry, 240; Julian, 300; Hierocles, 300; have none of them denied the mira- cles of Christ, but ascribed them to magic. The Jewish Talmud, also composed about 300, allows his miracles, and mentions some instances." He then takes the remaining propositions in their course, viz. that these authors could not be deceived in what they relate. " 3. 1st Part.

   Works with Additional Sermons

Where the argument is made

• A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794), Part I (the direct historical evidence, and the proposition that the original witnesses passed their lives in labours, dangers and sufferings), Part III (the auxiliary evidences)
• Horae Paulinae (1790) on undesigned coincidences

How the argument was received

Regarded in his lifetime as the decisive answer to Hume, and since as an argument that never engages Hume's actual principle.