"The Greatest of Miracles"

St Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Contra Gentiles, 1:6

"That anyone should assent to the teachings of the Christian faith is the greatest of all miracles."

Of course, Aquinas is not being sarcastic here: what he means is that it truly is a *wonder* that anyone should accept a teaching that is so contrary to what the world teaches. To accept the teaching of the Christian Faith requires a dramatic change in the way in which one lives, such as rejecting the pursuit of earthly pleasures and riches in favour of something that is future, unseen and of faith.

Aquinas' position reminds us that we should not forget that miracles can not really be properly understood except in the context of faith.

Aquinas' three types of miracles

There are three types of miracles according to Aquinas:

(1) Those things which only God can do and which nature can not do (these are supernatural events, such as the creation of something from nothing)

(2) Those things which nature can do, but which are not in the usual order (for example, nature can give sight but not, in its normal operation, after blindness. Jesus' healing of Blind Bartimaeus is an example of this kind of miracle).

(3) Those things which nature can do, but which are without the usual principles (for example, a crop that grows without seed).

Miracles and the problem of evil...

One of the common criticisms against miracles is that if God can and does perform miracles, why doesn't he do so for little children, for example, starving to death in Darfur?

The question is suggesting that if God can and does intervene in human affairs in an extraordinary way, why doesn't he do so regularly, and so make such an intervention an ordinary occurence?
Again, put another way, if God helps a few people with miracles, why doesn't he help all of us with them?

Is a belief in miracles and a benevolent, all-powerful God justifiable? How might one respond to this criticism? In the first instance, the problem of evil is not an argument against the possibility of miralces, but of the reason why God allows evil. For more information on this topic, refer to blogs on 'Theodicy'.

David Hume on miracles

Hume's Attitude to Miracles

Hume is often considered the starting point for philosophical discussions on and evaluations of miracles. The primary source is Chapter ten, "Of Miracles", in his "Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding" (1748).

David Hume defines miracles as being "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent."

Hume does not think that we should believe in miracles because there will never be enough evidence to support belief in them. It is more likely that someone who says there has been a miracle is mistaken or lying.

The only time we should believe the claim that there has been a miracle is if accepting that there was no miracle would be more unbelievable (and of course, that will never be the case).

Hume's criticism of miracles is not that they can not happen, but that it would be impossible to know if they had happened or not. As such, his critique is an epistemological one: at what point can we say we "know something"? In the case of miracles, Hume's answer to that question is "never". Remember that for Hume, all knowledge is gained inductively. Since we can never have sufficient inductive knowledge of an alleged miracle, we can not claim to know that it is an event as he has defined it.

(Follow the link 'Criticisms of Hume' for a short evaluation of his position).

Faith & Miracles

Do miracles "prove" the existence of God?

There is a passage in the Gospel of Mark in which some pharisees demand a sign from Jesus. They want him to prove that he is from God, to prove that he has the authority he says he has.

Jesus refuses their request. He is not a magician who conjures up miracles to impress people, or to compel them to believe in him. In fact, when you consider Jesus' miracles in the Gospel, you can see that they are not attempts to show-off or to grab attention and humiliate his critics, but rather responses to cries for help: the paralysed man, the bleeding woman, Jairus' daughter, blind Bartimaeus, etc. All of these came to beg Jesus with urgency and he in turn responded to them in mercy. Jesus' miracles represent a profound human encounter, encounters full of mystery and love, encounters which say something about what it means to be human and about human destiny. Nowhere do Jesus' miracles appear as "philosophical demonstrations". How can one subject an act of love to the scrutiny of a "logical exercise"?

Jesus makes it clear that miracles and faith go hand in hand (consider the story of the man whose son is possessed; Jesus says that only faith can help in those situations).

Miracles do prove God's love to those who believe in him, but it does not seem that they can have any value as a "proof" for a heart that is not disposed towards him.

In that sense, we can say that miracles do not prove God's existence philosophically--unless you subscribe to a type of philosophy that already accepts the existence of God, in which case they are useful in helping us to increase a little more our understanding of the Creator.

Are miracles philosophically significant?

Pick up any philosophy text on the philosophy of religion, and you are likely to find entries on "miracles." Often, these articles will ask, "are miracles religiously significant?" In other words, can miracles be proven to be from God? And if not, what possible significance can they have for religious believers? After all, if you can't prove that a miracle really is from God, aren't you better off taking the safer path and keeping a bit of healthy skepticism about them?

Philosophers who take this view--that miracles are either unknowable or impossible--include Hume, Spinoza, Schleiermacher and Flew. They represent types of philosophy called empiricism and rationalism. In a nutshell, empiricism is the belief that you only have true knowledge if what you claim to know can be verified by sense experience. Rationalism is the belief that you only have true knowledge if it can be demonstrated by logical steps.But other philosophers and theologians, such as William Lane Craig (see link) turn the question around: are miracles philosophically significant? The affection between two young lovers, for example, may not be philosophically significant. This does not mean that the reality of love is any less significant simply because philosophy can not quantify it in its totality. There is an aspect of love that transcends the rational process, like elements of beauty, music and poetry.

Miracles may only make sense in the context of faith (see Faith & Miracles). Just because miracles can not be contained by a philosophical investigation may point to a limitation in philosophy, and not necessarily in religious belief.