wiles

• Wiles takes an anti-realist approach to miracles: they are to be interpreted as symbols
• Wiles believes the only miracle was that of creation

  • God's creation was good so there was no need for further intervention
  • God put the laws of nature in place, which meant that miraculous events would have to be rare as otherwise humans could not rely on those laws
• the interventionist understanding of God is unacceptable

  • it implies a selective God who chooses to help some + not others
  • intensified by the fact that so many reported miracles seem trivial (e.g. water into wine) yet there was no miraculous deliverance from the gas chambers at Auschwitz
  • this would not be a God worthy of worship + makes the problem of evil unsolvable
• the significance of Wiles' views in relation to religious belief

  • his views make the challenges of Hume irrelevant
  • Wiles gives a more holistic view of God's activity as opposed to a view that limits him to occasional intervention