Can a miracle ever prove God exists — or does the very idea of divine intervention fail as an explanation? Bede Rundle argues that no matter how extraordinary an event, you can never legitimately infer a supernatural cause — and that revelation faces the same problem. A bracingly sceptical take from one of Oxford’s sharpest analytic philosophers.
Bede Rundle is an Emeritus Fellow in Philosophy at Trinity College, Oxford. Educated in New Zealand at the Victoria University of Wellington and at Oxford, he has been a Junior Research Fellow at the Queen’s College, Oxford, and has held visiting appointments in North America.
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Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
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0:00 Can miracles prove God exists?
0:37 What counts as a real miracle?
1:05 The evidence problem – witnesses, photos, records
1:49 Houdini’s challenge to the supernatural
2:53 Telepathy and staying in the physical world
3:29 Three levels of analysing any miracle claim
4:14 Can God ever be a valid explanation?
5:50 What about revelation?
6:36 Revelation vs. philosophical argument for God
7:19 Can past revelations have probative value?
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