Miracles and the wooden leg problem

Oderberg, D. S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9585-0515 (2025) Miracles and the wooden leg problem. Religious Studies. ISSN 1469-901X doi: 10.1017/S0034412525100899

Abstract/Summary

The famous Catholic pilgrimage site at Lourdes, France, until fairly recently displayed hundreds of discarded crutches as testament to miraculous cures. It has, though, never displayed a wooden leg. Hence the Wooden Leg Problem (WLP) for believers in miracles: if God can cure paralysis, why does He seem never to have given an amputee back their lost limb? The WLP is a severe challenge for believers in miracles and must be confronted head-on. Yet there does not appear to be any systematic analysis of the problem, at least as formulated here, in the literature on miracles or philosophy of religion generally. I discuss ten possible solutions to the WLP on behalf of the believer in miracles. Although some are stronger than others, all but the final one seem too weak to solve the problem. It is the final one – the ‘how do you know?’ solution – that I endorse and examine in some depth. This solution, I argue, shows that the WLP does not move the epistemological dial when it comes to belief or disbelief in miracles.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/123444
Identification Number/DOI	10.1017/S0034412525100899
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Humanities > Philosophy
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
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