Examine the Key Ideas of the Concept of Miracles

Note: One of my duties in the various places where I teach is to show students how to write essays – something most young people are not nowadays taught to do. What I like to do in class is to choose a question at random, discuss possible approaches, and then dictate an answer one paragraph at a time. Some of these answers are very short. Some are just notes. Some amount to small dissertations. In this latter case, the students take turns at looking on-line for the information we decide is needed. It they cannot find it, I show them how to change the structure of what has already been written, or to strike out in a new direction.

It is a “writing masterclass” approach that makes use of my own strengths, and is often a welcome alternative to formal teaching. It fills up a long morning session. Everyone learns something, and the more attentive will improve their final grades by at least one step.

Here is an example of the finished product. Do not take it as a statement of personal opinion. It is an answer produced for a specific question, and it bears in mind what a possibly unknown examiner will appreciate, and what can be written to incorporate the sources found in class. SIG

PS – If anyone wants to engage my services as a teacher of these skills, please click on the image to the left. Though they are my niche subjects, Greek and Latin are not my exclusive focus as a teacher. I do much else besides.

Examine the Key Ideas of the Concept of Miracles, and Comment on the View that a Miracle does not Violate the Laws of Nature

In everyday language, a miracle may be anything unexpected or a happy stroke of luck. Philosophically, however, following David Hume, a miracle may be defined more precisely as a violation of a known law of nature. A law of nature, in turn, may be understood as an observed and apparently invariable regularity of events.

For example, when a person dies, the body immediately begins to decay. There is strong medical reasoning to say that a man who has been dead for two weeks cannot be brought back to life, and cannot be brought back after an hour. Within a religious framework, it is therefore described as a miracle when Christ raises Lazarus, who had been three days in his grave. The concept depends on the assumption that such an event runs directly against what we take to be a universal law.

This immediately reveals a key idea: the concept of a miracle is meaningless without the prior assumption that there are laws of nature. If a community believes that every event is the direct result of divine choice, there can be no distinction between the ordinary and the miraculous. A dead body decays—this is God’s will. A dead man rises—this is also God’s will. The concept of “violation” disappears. Therefore, the idea of the miraculous only arises in a culture that has begun to understand the universe as orderly and predictable, governed by regularities that can, in principle, be described scientifically.

A further key idea is that a miracle must lie completely outside any natural explanation. Events once regarded as miraculous often cease to be so when better explanations are found. The appearance of a comet, for instance, was once interpreted as a divine sign. It is now understood as the movement of an extraterrestrial body with a particular orbit. The event has not changed, but our interpretation has. By contrast, the raising of the dead is still regarded by believers as miraculous precisely because it appears to resist all known natural explanation.

Another important feature is that a miracle must possess religious significance. Not every unusual or inexplicable event qualifies. If an ice cube were to take twelve hours to melt in boiling water, this would be an anomaly, not a miracle. By contrast, if someone suffering from a terminal illness recovers after prayer, the event invites religious interpretation. The significance lies not merely in the improbability of the event, but in its apparent connection to divine agency.

Closely related to this is the idea that miracles function as evidence for religious claims. Within the Christian tradition, the miracles of Christ are presented not simply as displays of power, but as signs validating his identity and mission. The raising of Lazarus, the feeding of the five thousand, and the resurrection itself are intended to demonstrate that God has intervened in history. Later phenomena—such as the reported liquefaction of the blood of St Januarius or the Shroud of Turin—serve a similar purpose. They are taken to confirm the truth of a particular religious worldview.

However, when we turn to the question of whether miracles genuinely violate the laws of nature, Hume’s critique becomes decisive. A miracle can be said not to violate the laws of nature only in the sense that, properly understood, there is never sufficient reason to believe that a miracle has occurred.

Hume’s argument is fundamentally evidential. Our knowledge of the laws of nature is based on repeated and consistent experience. We have overwhelming evidence that dead men do not rise, that bodies decay, and that physical processes follow regular patterns. When confronted with a report of a miracle, we must weigh two competing probabilities: either the law of nature has been violated, or the report is mistaken, exaggerated, or fraudulent.

Hume argues that the latter is always more likely. If someone claims to have seen a man return from the dead, we may consider several possibilities: that the witness is lying, that he is mistaken, that he has been deceived, or that the man was not truly dead. Applying a principle akin to Ockham’s Razor, the simplest explanation is to reject the miraculous claim. The evidence required to establish a genuine violation of natural law would have to be so overwhelming that no alternative explanation could be entertained. In practice, such evidence is never available.

Even direct experience does not escape this problem. If I were to witness a man apparently rising from the dead, I would still need to consider whether I had been deceived, whether the man had only appeared dead, or whether some unknown natural process was at work. The improbability of a genuine miracle remains greater than the probability of error.

Hume also observes that reports of miracles tend to arise in what he calls “barbarous ages,” or in contexts where critical scrutiny is limited. As knowledge and scientific understanding increase, such reports become less frequent. Furthermore, competing religious traditions make similar claims. If miraculous cures at Lourdes are taken to validate Catholicism, what should be said about equally impressive cures associated with other religions, such as those reported in the River Ganges? These conflicting claims undermine the evidential value of miracles as support for any one belief system.

Finally, even if an event appears to contradict established laws of nature, it does not follow that a miracle has occurred. A more plausible conclusion is that our understanding of those laws is incomplete. Scientific history provides many examples of phenomena initially regarded as inexplicable but later incorporated into a revised framework of natural law. The discovery of radioactivity is a case in point. When photographic plates were mysteriously exposed without light, the phenomenon was not attributed to divine intervention. Instead, it led to the discovery of a new natural process. What seemed impossible became intelligible through further investigation.

In this sense, miracles do not violate the laws of nature because there is no sufficient reason to believe that such violations occur. Apparent miracles are either the result of error, deception, or incomplete knowledge. The concept of a miracle depends on a misunderstanding: either of the reliability of testimony or of the scope of natural law.

In conclusion, while the concept of miracles plays an important role in religious thought—providing meaning, reinforcing belief, and linking the divine to human experience—Hume’s analysis casts serious doubt on its validity. If we adopt his evidential standards, the notion of a genuine violation of natural law becomes untenable. Miracles, in this strict philosophical sense, are not merely improbable; they are unsupported by any evidence strong enough to justify belief.

 

 

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