  Bringing the concept of natural laws into the definition of “miracle” is, however, problematic, and for a variety of reasons many writers have found it untenable (Brown 1822: 219–33; Beard 1845: 35; Lias 1890: 5–7; Huxley 1894:154–58; Joyce 1914: 17; Hesse 1965; Montgomery 1978; but see Wardlaw 1852: 27–41). First, the concept of a miracle predates any modern concept of a natural law by many centuries. While this does not necessarily preclude Hume’s concept, it does raise the question of what concept or concepts earlier thinkers had in mind and of why the Humean concept should be thought preferable (Tucker 2005). One benefit of defining miracles in terms of violations of natural law is that this definition entails that a miracle is beyond the productive power of nature. But if that is the key idea, then it is hard to see why we should not simply use that as the definition and leave out the problematic talk of laws.