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Did Jesus (or
anyone else) perform miracles?
Notes for a lecture delivered in London,
December 11th, 2007
[These are rough notes, used as a basis for the lecture. They
may be used by individual students and copied within a single
institution for study, but not commercial, purposes. Copyright
remains with the author.]
The answer to that
question depends on what you mean by ‘miracle’:
·
Some use it to refer
to a pleasant surprise. He’s done ‘miracles’ with that place.
(Means that he has made an unexpected success of decorating his
new home – but using ordinary means. It is a ‘miracle’ because
it is unexpected and very good news.)
·
It may be used of an
unexpected and good event for which there is no known cause.
(For example, someone may unexpectedly recover from a serious
illness.)
·
It might be taken to
indicate that a person has very special powers. Thus, in the New
Testament, the ‘miracle’ stories of Jesus were recounted in
order to illustrate to people who he was and what authority he
had.
·
It may by used to
describe an event which is ‘a violation of a law of nature’. In
which case, it is the sort of thing which science might
possible, but at the moment cannot explain.
If what you mean by
miracle is limited to the first two of these, there is no
problem. We don’t know the cause of everything that happens,
even if we assume that there is a perfectly rational and
scientific explanation for it. Our knowledge is limited, but
perhaps one day it will be fully explained.
The third of them is
more important religiously. Accounts of Jesus’ miracles, and
those of his followers, were written down in order to persuade
people of Jesus’ authority and of his divine nature. And that
applies to modern day religious people too:
The Catholic Church has
the ‘Congregation for the Causes of the Saints’ which
investigates accounts of miracles performed by those people who
are being considered for canonisation – in other words, to
become saints. You can’t become a Saint in the Catholic Church
unless you have performed miracles. Why? Because they are taken
as a sign of God’s action through that person, and therefore his
endorsement of their status.
Investigations are made,
witnesses interviewed, medical evidence is gathered. Something
is only accepted as a miracle if there is strong evidence for it
having taken place, and no scientific explanation.
And that last point
brings us to the fourth way in which something may be described
as a miracle – that it violates a law of nature. In other words,
it goes against science.
Miracles and
science:
With the rise of
modern science, in the 17th century, the general view
of the world was of an ordered mechanism. An argument about
miracles, starting with that premise, comes from David Hume.
Hume was an
empiricist
– in other words, he believed that
all knowledge is based on evidence that we gain through the
senses, and which the mind then sorts out to give us the
information we need.
Note: scientific
laws are descriptive, not prescriptive. In other
words, a ‘law of nature’ cannot dictate what must happen;
it summarises
what has been found to happen. Laws of nature sum up
what we have observed.
Hume defines a
miracle as ‘a violation of
a law of nature’. He took
the view that laws of nature were based on evidence. The more
evidence we have, the more certain we are about them. For Hume,
everything is a matter of probability, not certainty.
The more
evidence, the higher the probability; that principle has been
fundamental to science. Here Hume applies it to miracles:
‘A miracle is a
violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable
experience has established these laws, the proof against a
miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any
argument from experience can possibly be imagined... The plain
consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our
attention), ‘That no testimony is ever sufficient to establish a
miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its
falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it
endeavours to establish;’...
from his An Enquiry into Human
Understanding
He argues
that, since we proportion belief to evidence, there can never be
enough evidence to prove that a miracle has taken place.
It is always going to be more likely that the person reporting
it was mistaken.
BUT notice that
Hume’s argument is not
that miracles cannot happen, but that – given the amount of
evidence that has established and confirms a law of nature –
there can never be sufficient evidence to
prove
that a law of nature has been violated.
Science is never
absolute – it is simply the best interpretation of evidence. BUT
that does not let miracles off the hook, because the scientific
method assumes that, if all the evidence were known, then we
would be able to explain why everything happens. In practice we
don’t know all the evidence, all the possible variations that
make each event unique – hence we should be cautious in saying
that we know anything for certain. BUT certainty is exactly
what the religious believer, checking on the account of a
miracle, is hoping to achieve.
Of course, Hume was
taking a rational view, not a religious one. But let’s consider
how two religious philosophers describe miracles…
Aquinas (13th
century) in Summa Contra Gentiles. Miracles are ‘those
things done by divine agency beyond the order commonly observed
in nature.’
In other words, for
Aquinas, miracles can’t simply be coincidences for which there
could be a scientific explanation, they must show divine agency.
Eric Mascall (20th
century), describes as miracle as ‘a striking interposition of
divine power by which the operations of the ordinary course of
nature are overruled, suspended, or modified.’
So whatever else it
might be, a traditional Christian view is that a miracle must go
against what is observed in nature, and must be a sign of divine
intervention.
This is important,
because it relates to so many other religious issues. For
example:
- If you believe in
miracles, you must believe in a God who interferes in the
workings of nature. But what sort of God could that be? If
people argue that nature is designed in such a way as to
reflect the intentions of a loving God, does that not
exclude miracles? If God needs a miracle to put something
right, should he not be blamed for getting it wrong in the
first place? So an understanding of miracles impinges on our
understanding of ‘God’. In a well-ordered world, miracles
should not be necessary.
- Are miracles
moral? If one person is saved when 99 are killed, can that
person claim that they were spared through a miracle? And,
if they do, does that not imply that the 99 who were killed
were victims of God’s ill-will or indifference?
Trivial miracles
If you Google ‘miracles’
you’ll soon end up with sites showing you the ‘Crosses of Light’
– these are cross shaped patterns that have been seen in
bathroom windows, at certain times of day, or when light is
shining from a particular angle outside. No matter that it’s
not the shape of the thing on which Jesus was executed, any
cross shape will do as a sign from God.
[One image was presented at the lecture -
more are available from the El Monte site or similar sites.]
Share International
reported on the phenomena of these crosses in El Monte, in
Southern California in 1988 ‘As word spread about the cross,
crowds began lining up to see the phenomenon. While viewing the
cross, people kneel and pray, say a rosary, cry, and even
faint.’
The Los Angeles Herald
Examiner was reported to have commented:
‘Whether or not a
miracle exists, it is clear that many people in Los Angeles want
desperately to see and touch a fingerprint of the creator. All
but the most committed atheist would like to have a sign, any
sign. Everyone wants to know that we are here for a reason, and
that a higher entity stopped by to sell us so.’
I call these miracles
‘trivial’ because they are not significant in themselves – as
would be the case, for example, of someone being instantaneously
healed of a deadly disease – but only for the effect they have
upon the people who witness them. It illustrates that the
desire to see a sign, and the religious feelings evoked, are the
important phenomenon, not the actual thing itself.
Back in the 19th
century, the philosopher Feuerbach argued that miracles were
projections of people’s desires. In other words, you want
something to happen – for someone to be cured, for example – and
think that, in a world created and ordered by God, it ought to
be the case. If that thing you want actually happens, it is
therefore interpreted in terms of that idea of God – but it is
an idea that you have projected onto the event, it is not part
of the event itself.
Miracles are not
shown by analysis
You can describe
something totally, and yet you will find nothing in that
description that corresponds to the word ‘miracle’. Not
surprising – you could cut me up into little pieces, examine all
my individual tissues, including my brain, but you would not
find the word ‘Mel’ imprinted on any of them. But if someone
says that ‘Mel’ does not exist, that only means that ‘Mel’ is a
conventional way of describing the bundle of living organs that
comprises ‘me’. When the Catholic Church investigates a
miracle, it does no more than try to establish the facts, and to
establish that there was no existing medical or scientific
explanation.
What about the Bible
accounts of miracles…
Clearly, if we are to
take the Bible literally,
those who wrote it believed that events were not determined by
fixed laws of nature, but were the result of the action of God
or of the devil, or angels, or evil spirits. Hence, if something
unusual happened, they would naturally ask ‘Why did God choose
to act in this way?’ If everything reflects God’s purpose, then
the unusual is a most clear example of what he wants to happen.
That is very different from a scientific question about the
reason for an event.
Biblical
accounts are not science, nor do or did they ever pretend to be.
They are religious writings, interpreting events – some
perfectly normal, others unusual – to make a point about belief
in God and what follows from it.
And they are (by
rational standards) morally ambiguous. The fall of the walls of
Jericho might have been seen as a miracle, since the account
says that the instructions for marching round the city and
shouting were given by ‘the commander of the army of the Lord’.
Some might argue that the stamping feet and shouting might have
weakened the foundations – but that seems a bit far fetched. But
what happens after that (Joshua 6:21) – ‘They devoted the city
to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in
it – men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.’
You may, of
course, say that accounts of Jesus healing the sick were of a
different moral order from that. But the principle is the same –
there is a special power at work, bringing about a result that
has God’s approval, and people respond accordingly.
Specialness
and meaning
Even today,
religious people sometimes ask ‘Why should this happen to me?’
when something goes wrong, they may pray for God to help in a
situation of suffering, and they may refer to a fortunate and
unexpected event that follows such prayer as a ‘miracle’.
Unless an event
has religious meaning, it is not likely to be called a miracle.
So the explanation of miracles in terms of a freak events is not
really going to solve anything. It’s not a miracle because it’s
unique – every event is unique in some respects – but because it
is significant.
Interpretation
What makes something ‘religious’ is
generally a matter of interpretation, rather than fact.
Religious people may argue that a miracle is an event that is
seen as having special significance in showing God’s will,
not necessarily something against a law of nature. But, if so:
Why are miracles necessary in a world ruled
by an all-loving, all-powerful and all-knowing God? Why should
anyone pray for a miracle, if God would otherwise not perform
it? Does that not imply that he is less than all-loving etc?
Regularity?
The Cosmological and Teleological arguments
for the existence of God were based on the idea that the world
displayed a regularity and design, which suggested the existence
of a divine designer. This creates problems for the idea of
miracles because:
·
If the regularity and predictable
nature of the world suggests that it is sustained and guided by
God, ‘miracles’ – which go against that regularity – are an
argument against God.
Hence, your view on miracles is a good
indication of your view on God.
- Is God the name we give to the overall
meaning and purpose of the universe – the source of whatever
is loving and creative? If so, fine: but you are likely to
see God in every event, not just in those that are
absolutely unlikely, or miraculous.
- Or is God the name you give to a
particular personal being who can come and interfere in the
normal working of the universe, a being who will respond to
requests if he or she chooses, and who will selectively
choose to make things better or worse? If so, you are indeed
going to look for miracles as evidence of God’s activity,
but you will then have to explain the resulting sense of
unfairness.
So: Back to the original question – Did
Jesus (or anyone else) perform miracles?
First – be clear that an event is an event.
One person may call it a miracle, another may not. So the fact
that something unusual happened (e.g. someone revived after they
were thought to have died), even if factually correct, does not
in itself show that it was the working of some supernatural
force. Random and utterly improbable bad luck is not deemed a
miracle.
Second – look at the evidence. Weigh up the
probability of something unusual having happened with the
possibility that the evidence for it was mistaken. And – like
Hume – check whether the person giving that evidence has any
personal reason to present it in a particular way (i.e. to make
it seem more definite, or to give a religious interpretation).
And then, the final check… If someone does
perform a miracle (in the strongest, literal sense), is it
because of his or her own unusual powers (mind over matter) or
simply because he or she is a vehicle for some divine power?
Miracles (along with the ‘problem of evil’)
present most clearly the issues and problems for anyone who
believes in God – if you know a person’s view on miracles, you
know almost all you need to know about their view of God.
© Mel Thompson 2007
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