Seeing that we are in the Christian season of Easter, which has its focus on Jesus' resurrection from the dead, I thought I would offer some reflections on the topic of "miracles."
The commonly held belief is that miracles happen when things that would not seem to be possible become so (ie. Jesus of Nazareth raising from the dead three days after being crucified by the Romans).
However, for us to even call something a "miracle" is a tad misguided because we never have the security or comfort to know that anything is certain. For us to say that anything is certain about our role in the universe is a fallacy. And so, to say we know what is and is not a miracle is a fallacy. We are always at the mercy of our limited perspective and understanding on reality. How can anyone know exclusively what is or is not miraculous? We can't. We don't have it in us as finite beings to know what is or is not miraculous.
Moreover, we would be wise to consider the words of Saint Augustine, who said that all of life is a miracle. Everything is a miracle. Pride stars when we fall prey to the lie that says our flesh, blood, and breath are ours and are not a gift from the Creator. From this perspective, it makes no sense for us to say that "x" is a miracle and "y" is not.
No one can ever understand all the mysteries and complexities of life, which means that we all work on a level of faith. Even the most brilliant minds work from founding presuppositions and must concede faith in what is not know to them.
To embrace and to take comfort in responsible faith is to receive all of life as a miracle and is the next step in our ongoing quest to rightly seek further understanding.
Might this line of thought open the door for all of us to believe that the mighty deeds of Jesus (and even Jesus' resurrection from the dead) were actually true and real? Indeed, we might we even consider believing that "miraculous healing" still happens today?
The Creator God can at any moment work to accomplish what we regard to be a miracle. And dare I say that God can even work through our will and faith to accomplish a miraculous occurrence. He is, of course, free to do that.
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Part 1 of 2
Miracles seem to be a difficult topic for us in modern times, epically in a university setting. In the sciences, we are told to have a type of scientific skepticism to our perceptions; phenomena can be analyzed in terms of cause and effect. If you happen to think you observed something out of the ordinary, scientific explanations can be given as to why you observed something abnormal. It is as if our perceptions were an experiment; if you have faulty findings, you probably made an error somewhere in the analysis. We can give explanations to these errors, as we are kindly asked to repeat the experiment and observation, to see if the phenomenon repeats itself. If it does happen to repeat itself, then the scientific theories are changed to reflect this.
It doesn't seem that any empirical approach can escape this framework. If we observe something, it is explainable by science. If it is not explainable by scientific norms, the norms are changed. Either way, all observations are scientific observations.
This is of course a double-edged sword. We are told to have a sense of skepticism when observing things that are out of the ordinary, but are not told to have a sense of skepticism about science's ability to explain things out of the ordinary. The result, for a lot of us, is to always be skeptical; for some of us this skepticism has followed into science itself.
At least, this is how it seems to be for our observations. When this is applied to miracles, we realize that we observe what seem to be miracles, and these should be analyzed by what seem to be universal laws.
The problem however, is that scientific cannot and does not follow an infallible logical method. It is pragmatic in nature, where scientific laws conform to our observations. Things that could have seemed to be miracles in the distant past, such as magnetism, are now incorporated into the way that we understand the world. It seems that this process should continue over time to explain the things that we see.
Of course, magnetism never was a miracle, it just seemed to be a miracle.
Genuine miracles would have to be something that does not conform to this method of observation and explanation. Observing a genuine miracle would have to be an experience quite unlike anything that we are used to. It would involve something exceptional, inexplicable and strange. Genuine miracles would be what we philosophers call “metaphysically queer”, which means that they are occurrences unlike the rest of the universe.
Part 2 of 2:
The problem however, is that scientific cannot and does not follow an infallible logical method. It is pragmatic in nature, where scientific laws conform to our observations. Things that could have seemed to be miracles in the distant past, such as magnetism, are now incorporated into the way that we understand the world. It seems that this process should continue over time to explain the things that we see.
Of course, magnetism never was a miracle, it just seemed to be a miracle.
Genuine miracles would have to be something that does not conform to this method of observation and explanation. Observing a genuine miracle would have to be an experience quite unlike anything that we are used to. It would involve something exceptional, inexplicable and strange. Genuine miracles would be what we philosophers call “metaphysically queer”, which means that they are occurrences unlike the rest of the universe.
Are such things logically implausible? It would seem not, for those who believe in God. The mere fact that there exists something that is unlike the rest of the universe leaves open the possibility of other things that are unlike the rest of the universe. It is not necessary that there are no miracles. This just leaves open the question as to how we would know something is a miracle if it were to happen.
The resurrection of Christ would be an example of something that is metaphysically queer. It dennies the conventions that we are usually aware of. The question now is to whether or not we should believe the testimony of this miracle.
Do we have good reasons for believing in miracles? The philosopher David Hume thinks that we do not. He believes that when relying on testimony (as most of our “evidence” for miracles comes from) the probability of someone being ingenuine, prone to surprise, or naïve is higher than the probability of a genuine miracle happening. Important to note that this is a decent justification for skepticism about miracles, but is far from a reason for ruling them out entirely. I for one am under the impression that the people whose testimony we are relying on was probably in good faith, and that since the miracle fits the description of what it would take to be genuine, it makes sense.
Of course, if you have happened to witness a miracle, then this argument does not follow. We are back to the scientific analysis. If you happen to witness a miracle, I am sure that would be a boon to your faith in miracles.
Miracles are possible for those who believe in God. The best arguments against miracles come from the fact that we cannot seem to trust testimony. If we have reason to believe in miracles beyond testimony, then we have some justification for believing in miracles, so long as the miracles are metaphysically queer. How we would go about verifying which facts are metaphysically queer however, is an entirely different issue.
For a theist, belief in some miracles is warrented. This paves the way for Christianity.
Regardless of all this, we can conclude that miracles can happen, but are improbable. But we all knew this anyway.
Hope that helps,
-C
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