Miracles

Different philosophers through the ages have contributed different ideas about what miracles are to the general discussion.

The word miracle comes from the Latin meaning 'wonder' because it is unusual and so, no prizes for guessing, provokes wonder.

Thomas Aquinas

Aquinas was inspired by the work that Augustine had previously done.

Augustine said that a miracle was something that did not break the laws of nature, like science, but those are the very things that make it possible because God made those laws. It is only because we don't fully understand these laws.

Aquinas developed it to say that a miracle is

'That which has a divine cause, not that whose cause a humans fails to understand'.

Basically he said that everything in creation has a purpose, or a nature. It has a thing that it is able to do. Like trees can photosynthesize or produce apples. A miracle goes beyond this, so it could make the tree produce cats or something. It goes beyond the natural power

There are 3 types:

1) When God does something nature couldn't do

2) When God does something nature could do but in a different order. He flips nature around.

3) where God does something that nature usually does, but sped up.

David Hume

The basic definition is that Hume said a miracle was 'a violation of natural law'.

Natural laws in this sense are applied to everything and an example would be something like gravity.

A fuller definition is this

'a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of a Deity or by the interposition of some invisible agent'.

This is very wordy but its pretty easy to understand. It just means that the laws of nature are broken because God, or some invisible agent wills it.

A miracle is a miracle even if no one sees it because...

1) God is there

and 2) because the laws of nature have been broken.

Those are the two things that make a miracle for Hume.

There are two ways that Hume's laws of nature are understood.

1) THE HARD INTERPRETATION

All laws are unalterably uniform. They cannot be changed at all. Period. The definition of miracles is that they break the laws of nature. If laws of nature cannot be broken at all, then miracles must be impossible. This so called breaking of the laws of nature are probably not miracles, but just a misstated or understood law of nature. We might not know what happened in the here and now and so call it a miracle, but in the future, there may be more research which said it was just us not understanding the particular law of nature.

2) SOFT INTERPRETATION

Natural laws are not as fixed as we think. They can be changed so can allow for miracles.

Holland

A miracle does not need laws of nature to be broke or even an intervention by God. It is 'a remarkable and beneficial coincidence that is interpreted in a religious way'. Basically only if someone calls it a miracle is it a miracle. Holland calls it a contingency miracle.

He used the story of the child caught in the rail tracks with a train approaching. The mother races towards the train but would be too late to reach him. The train driver has a heart condition so, as a result, the train slows down. The mother calls it a miracle, even though she was told what happened.

It is an interpretation of an ordinary event that makes it a miracle.

Swinburne

Swinburne liked Hume definition of a miracle and said that miracle was when God intervened.

However he made two changes

1) Instead of Hume definition as 'a violation of a law of nature', Swinburne said 'an occurrence of a non-repeatable counter instance to a law of nature'. This basically means something that cannot be repeated that goes against a law of nature.

from this we can make a conclusion.

There are laws of nature.

If we say a miracle happens or something that goes against the law of nature happens, then we might conclude as philosophers of Hume that it is just a misunderstood law of nature.

Therefore, if another miracle happens, it is just because a law of nature has changed.

However miracles are non-repeatable.

We cannot just change our understanding of a law of nature because something countered it that is non-repeatable. Our future understanding of laws of nature will be completely wrong, if we only base it on something that goes against it once.

Therefore, we can't say that it is down to a misunderstood law of nature. We must leave the laws of nature alone and say that miracles happen.

2) Miracles hold a deep religious significance for people. They are not just simply breaking laws of nature. They are seen as signs from God.