Mackie and Hick

• John Mackie speaks about a closed system idea of miracles
• Closed systems can be interupted

  • Body with a virus
  • The world with miracles
• Mackie is an atheist, so does not believe there is a God that can intervene
• "Miracle" is a part of colloquial language
• It's a real miracle if someone is talking about:

  • Something that has happened in the external world
  • The nature of the event
  • The (supernatural) cause of the event
• A violation of natural law is required for an instance to stand out as a miracle
• Miracles can be attributed to any God
• Laws of Nature cannot be violated according to science
• The laws of nature are descriptive
• Hick says that if Natural Law is broken, there are 3 possibilities:

  1. The evidence for that event is faulty
  2. There is an unknown factor that the 'law' has not taken into account
  3. The law is inadequate and needs to be adapted
• "If there appears to be an exception to a law of nature, then the law simply expands to include that exception"- John Hick
• If an event has no explanation, it does not mean that the supernatural is the explanation
• "Violations" of natural law are still natural events
• Hick studied the paranormal/parapsychological phenomena such as telepathy and psychokinesis: thought to be products of the mind
• "an answered prayer might well be explained by telepathy in a more open, but still thoroughly naturalistic, world view"- Paul Badham
• Hick suggests we use God as an explanation when we cannot explain something ourselves: The God of the Gaps