This paper is a brief overview and not an exhaustive treatise on the topic of miracles, or theism versus atheism.
Non-theists generally adopt a metaphysical position that entails the impossibility of miracles. The fundamental principle is that whatever happens is natural, and what is not natural does not happen. The arguments against miracles beg the question. They presuppose that miracles are impossible either in principle or in practice. Rather than looking at the evidence for or against miracles, they end up legislating in advance the impossibility of the miraculous. They assume: "whatever happens in the natural world is a natural event."
In the final analysis, the battle over miracles must be fought at the level of competing world-views and the basic presuppositions of those world-views. On the question of miracles, the critical world-view distinction is between Naturalism and Supernaturalism. The usual theistic view of the world is one that presumes the existence of an omnipotent God who, while transcending nature, is nevertheless able to act, or to express his will, within the natural world.
Supernaturalism, is the view that entities (such as God) exist which transcend nature, being in some sense beyond or outside of it, where by "nature" is meant the totality of things that can be known by means of observation and experiment, or more generally, through the methods proper to the natural sciences. The super-naturalist is therefore committed to the view that the natural sciences are incapable of revealing the totality of all that there is.
Naturalism, on the other hand, denies the existence of anything beyond or transcending nature, and thus holds that observation and experiment-or generally speaking, the methods of the empirical sciences-are sufficient to provide us with all of the knowledge that it is possible for us to have. Naturalism is sometimes characterized as holding that nature is uniform, which is to say that all events in nature conform to laws which can be verified by means of observation. The naturalist is committed to denying the legitimacy of any attempt to explain a natural phenomenon by appeal to the supernatural. Any person under the control of naturalistic presuppositions could not consistently believe in the miraculous.
The Universe: Closed or Open?
In Christian theism, God is a personal Being who can act in the natural order of the world. And in addition to his general providence over the world, He sometimes acts in a way and in a context and for a purpose that is rightly called a miracle. There is no reason to think that the universe is closed off from God. In fact, since an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God created the universe and the natural laws that order it he can act in and upon the world whenever he chooses to do so.
Most people who are opposed to miracles adopt the philosophically untenable position that the universe is a self-existent, closed system or that the laws of nature are immutable. However, it is universally recognized among philosophers of science that we are only warranted in claiming that the laws of nature are statistical regularities.
Is Belief in Miracles Compatible With Science?
Many atheists such as Dawkins promote arbitrary naturalism and focus on belief in miracles as “contradictory not just to the facts of science but to the spirit of science.” This kind of objection has a long history, reaching its apex in the writings of David Hume. However, Hume’s contentions have been soundly refuted by many philosophers and I will not elaborate here. Contemporary objections to miracles are often just restatements of Hume's arguments. Whether a belief in miracles is inimical to the facts or spirit of science depends on how a miracle is defined and on how scientific methodology and scientific laws are defined. The Wikipedia defines methodological and ontological naturalism as follows:
“Many modern philosophers of science use the terms methodological naturalism or scientific naturalism to refer to the long standing convention in science of the scientific method, which makes the methodological assumption that observable effects in nature are best explainable only by natural causes, without reference to, or an assumption of, the existence or non-existence of supernatural notions. They contrast this with the approach known as ontological naturalism or metaphysical naturalism, which refers to the metaphysical belief that the natural world (including the universe) is all that exists, and therefore nothing supernatural exists.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)]
The general scientific guidelines of empirical, testability, and repeatability limit the purview of science to natural entities and natural events. Scientists thus typically employ methodological naturalism—i.e., they seek for natural causes and natural explanations of all phenomena. When scientists make pronouncements about the nature of ultimate reality and ultimate causes, they set their scientific hat aside and don the hat of the philosopher. But methodological naturalism does not entail or support ontological naturalism and a leap from the former to the latter is entirely unjustified. Unfortunately even brilliant scientists are sometimes philosophically naïve and unwittingly slip into the error of illicitly inferring ontological naturalism on the basis of methodological naturalism. But no one is in a position to rule out the possibility of a supernatural cause behind natural causes, and looking for natural causes does not entail that they are the only kind of causes there can be.
Indeed there may be a cause transcendent to mere physicality even as it impinges on the physical. God can act in ways that appear out of the ordinary (from our perspective), but such an extraordinary action should not be regarded as a violation of any law of nature. Laws of nature are not rules that prescribe how God must act; they are simply expressions of how God has willed to act.
Science tells us what agencies operate in nature, not what agencies, if any, operate outside it. Natural laws only describe what can happen as a result of natural causes; they do not tell us what can happen when a supernatural cause is present. Some things that happen in the natural world may have a supernatural origin. In point of fact, if there is a God who can act (viz., a theistic God), then acts of God (i.e., miracles) are automatically possible. The argument takes the following shape:
· An omnipotent, omniscient, and Omni-benevolent theistic God exists.
· An omnipotent intelligence can do anything that is possible.
· Miracles are not impossibilities.
· Therefore, miracles can occur.
A Couple of Contemporary Objections to Miracles
1) Miracles Are Contrary to the Scientific Method (Norman Geisler, Miracles & the Modern Mind, pp. 48-49)
One proponent of this view, Alastair McKinnon, puts the argument this way:
· A scientific law is a generalization based on past observation.
· Any exception to a scientific law invalidates that law as such and calls for a revision of it.
· A miracle is an exception to a scientific law.
· Therefore, any so-called miracle would call for a revision of the present scientific law.
That is, a miracle would be assumed to be a natural event under a new law that incorporates it into its natural explanation. This means laws are like maps, and maps are never violated; they are only revised when they are found to be incorrect.
Even naturalists have admitted that this argument is easily refuted. As one put it, "This a priori argument can be refuted by noting that a supernaturally caused exception to a scientific law would not invalidate it, because scientific laws are designed to express regularities"; in the case of a miracle we have "a special and non-repeatable" exception. [1] That is to say, one nonrepeatable exception does not call for the revision of a natural law. More likely it would be credited to faulty observation. From a strictly scientific point of view a nonrepeatable exception remains just that—an exception to known scientific laws. If, under specified conditions, the anomaly recurs, then and only then does a scientist have the right to call it a natural event. In this case, anomalies would be pointers to the development of a more general natural law.
Miracles, however, are not the result of natural laws. They are occurrences that were caused to happen by the willful actions of rational agents (God or his representatives). That action of will is what cannot be repeated and therefore places miracles outside the realm of scientific observation. In other words, when a miracle takes place, it is because God wants it to. We cannot arrange for God to “want to" cause one again simply so that we can watch. Miracles do not change our view of scientific laws, as progress in science does; miracles simply, step outside of those laws.
As has been observed, scientists and philosophers are really interested only in repeatable exceptions to known laws. Miracles leave natural laws intact and therefore are not unscientific: "Miracles arc not experimental, repeatable. They are particular, peculiar events…. They are not small-scale laws. Consequently they do not destroy large-scale laws,…they have not the genuine deadly power of the negative instance."[2]
2) RICHARD PURTILL’S ARGUMENT (Ronald Nash, Faith & Reason, pp. 258-259):
The American philosopher Richard Purtill understands Naturalism in a way that allows naturalists the option of explaining occurrences as the result of either pure chance or determinism. But on either ground, Naturalism ,
“gives us no reason at all to suppose that our reasoning is valid. Only conscious minds can have plans or purposes, so there is no plan or purpose that will ensure that our reasoning will attain truth. Forces that are without our mind might happen to give us powers of valid reasoning, but they equally might happen to give us defective or invalid reasoning powers. And there is no reason to suppose that they would give us powers of valid reasoning rather than defective powers. Thus the views we have been considering are self-defeating in the sense that even if they were true we could never have any good reason to think that they were true.”[3]
Whether the naturalist explains some event as the result of chance or of deterministic causes, he leaves us (and himself) without grounds to believe that our reasoning is valid or that our thinking puts us in touch with truth.
“If I pose a mathematical problem and throw some dice, the dice may happen to fall into a pattern which gives the answer to my problem. But there is no reason to suppose that they will. Now in the Chance view, all our thoughts are the result of processes as random as a throw of dice. In the Determinist view, all our thoughts result from processes that have as little relation to our minds as the growth of a tree.”[4]
The result of all this is the destruction of "our confidence in the validity of any reasoning—including the reasoning that may have led us to adopt these theories! Thus the naturalistic theories are self-destructive, rather like the man who saws off the branch he is sitting on. The only cold comfort they hold out is that some of our thought might happen to agree with reality.[5] Every naturalist wants others to think that his Naturalism is a consequence of his sound reasoning. But Naturalism's major problem, is explaining mindless forces giving rise to minds, knowledge, and sound reasoning.
New Testament Miracles
Miracles do not exist in a vacuum. Their full significance can only be understood in terms of the broader theistic perspective. Without such a perspective, the evidential value of miracles is problematic. Nevertheless, an exceptional event that is purported to be a miracle within a particular theistic context and that defies plausible explanation in terms of natural laws or natural causes has the potential of challenging the rational tenability of naturalism and other metaphysical views, including deism and some other versions of theism. The efficacy of a potential challenge depends primarily upon four factors:
the overall case for the theistic context in which the purportedly miraculous event is embedded, the extent to which its role is integrated into the specific theistic framework, the immediate circumstances in which the purported miracle occurred, and the competence and credibility of those witnessing or reporting the purported miracle.
A critic might say that “Belief in miracles contradicts the laws of science, which tell us that things like virgin births simply do not happen.” But Science does not tell us what always happens. It certainly does not tell us what can or cannot happen. The Laws of science are only generalizations from our observations of how nature usually works. They do not forbid exceptions. Natural laws do not describe absolutely the limits of what can and cannot happen in nature. The refusal to believe in anything supernatural is not the sign of a clear head but of a mind thoroughly made up. If all the evidence points in the direction of something supernatural, the scientist who rules out the supernatural from the start is no longer being scientific.
I have discussed the two greatest miracles of the RESURRECTION & VIRGIN BIRTH of Jesus in previous articles on this website. For God to raise someone from the dead does not require any more extraordinary effort or power than anything else God does. The resurrection of Jesus presents the greatest instance of God's interfering with nature. God's activity in a miracle is not qualitatively different from God's activity in natural phenomena. The laws of nature are not rules that prescribe how God must act; they are simply expressions of how God has willed to act. In bringing to pass the law of gravity or the law of electromagnetic radiation, God acts freely and continuously. He is not constrained by these laws, as if he had to meddle with them to produce a different result.
For the Christian there are no "absolute natural laws," but only the mind of God. From man's point of view, the regularity of the universe is called "law,” but from God's point of view it is His "will." Even scientists admit that these “laws” are in fact, statistical probabilities & not absolute laws. For theists, it is a question of historical evidence and contextual significance (e.g., OT prophecies about the Messiah performing miracles, Matt. 11:2-5 and Isaiah 35:4-6 and Heb. 2:3, 4). Miracles must have religious significance, for God does not bring about miracles to entertain people.
Two recent researchers, both leading scholars in the historical Jesus discussion, have written almost 500 pages each on Jesus' miracles. John Meier found that in almost half of the miracle accounts recorded in the New Testament, we have enough data to conclude that something like that particular historical scene occurred. (For details, see Vol. 2 of Meier's set A Marginal Jew). The second, Graham Twelftree, concluded that about three-quarters of the Gospel miracle accounts were confirmable, again, at least that historical details in the accounts could be verified. (For details, see Twelftree's volume, Jesus the Miracle Worker.) They did not say that all these accounts were verifiable miracles, but that these particular miracle scenes have verifiable historical checks and balances, according to the normal standards applied in recent historical Jesus research.
Conclusion
Whether or not a miracle has ever occurred cannot be settled by philosophy alone; for it is a matter of history. Philosophically, it can be shown that miracles are possible, but whether or not miracles have actually happened can be known only experientially and historically. Having said all this, there is no argument available against the critic who has made up his mind that, by definition or by scientific presumption, miracles cannot occur. Nevertheless, there is a strong argument against the arbitrary close-mindedness of such critics and there is a profound challenge to the supposed adequacy of naturalism's attempt to dismiss the occurrence and significance of well-attested miracles like the bodily resurrection of Christ.
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Bibliography
In Defense of Miracles, edited by R. Douglas Geivett & Gary Habermas, Intervarsity Press 1997.
Richard Swinburne, The Concept of Miracle, The Macmillan Company1971.
Norman Geisler, Miracles and the Modern Mind, Baker Book House Company 1992
Colin Brown, Miracles and the Critical Mind, Erdmans Publishing Company 1984.
C.S. Lewis, Miracles, The Macmillan Company 1947
Graham H. Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker, InterVarsity Press, 1999
John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Doubleday, 2001
Ronald Nash, Faith & Reason, Zondervan, 1988
William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, Moody Press, 1984
Reflections on the “God vs. Science” Debate, Mark M. Hanna, unpublished paper 2007.
REFERENCES
[1] Malcolm L. Diamond, "Miracles," Religious Studies 9 (Sept. 1973): 316-17
[2] Ninian Smart, Philosophers and Religions Truth (London: SCM, 1964), p. 41
[3] Richard L. Purtill, Reason to Believe (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), p44.
