Malaclypse the Younger

The word "miracle" has been thrown around a lot lately.

Is there a good philosophical definition that we can agree on? Does that definition allow us to conclude if actual "miraculous" events constitute evidence for "supernaturalism" (itself requiring a definition) in general or the christian God in particular?

The dictionary doesn't seem to be much help:

Science advances by noting that certain events appear inexplicable by our current beliefs about the laws of nature. To conclude that an event is miraculous, one would have to assume that we knew the laws of nature a priori (or completely as a result of a subset of experience)--a claim that no competent skeptic makes.

Alternatively, a miracle might be defined as "an event caused by a god"; such a definition, however, would not allow us to conclude a "miracle" as evidence for a god, since the existence of a god is assumed in labelling an event as a miracle, and it is trivially unconvincing to conclude a proposition explicitly stated as an assumption.

[ February 26, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>

Wyrdsmyth

The word is often used as a colloquialism, and that tends to blur its meaning quite a bit:

"I saw a baby being born and it was an absolute miracle! There's just no way to explain it!"

Sometimes, people will call an amazing coincidence a miracle, or something odd or not easily explained a miracle. It's pretty damn subjective, if you ask me.

Jayhawker Soule

Perhaps ... miracle - an event of such a nature as to preclude the possibility of current or future scientific explanation.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Malaclypse the Younger,
The inexplicable is not the miraculous. For example, most people consider serial killers inexplicable, but most people don't consider them miraculous angels of light sent by God. However, most primitive people can not be blamed for considering a common airplane a miracle or perhaps God Himself. Therein lies the confusion.

For an inexplicable event to obtain miraculous status, it must in some way establish or reconfirm our notions of God. Thus, no inexplicable event can convince a strong atheist of God. Thus, the least little synchronicity or coincidence reconfirms the strong theist that God is working in mysterious ways.

To illustrate:

The Catholic notion of God is that He is the "God of the living" and has come that we may "have life and life more abundantly." Ergo, Jesus' acts of healing and raising the dead seem miraculous to us. Whereas, some weak theist's notion of God might be the all-powerful. Ergo, if someone came along and acted just as inexplicably as Jesus, but with opposite results (he made the walking lame, and the sighted blind, and the living dead) the weak theist would consider these signs and wonders as miracles from their all-mighty god while Catholics would not.

Of course, metaphysically, every quantum moment is a miracle. The existence in time of anything and everything is utterly mysteriously miraculous. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Jayhawker Soule

If everything is a miracle, then, for you, the term serves no role in differentiating classes of events. Hopefully, this means that you have exhausted your contributions to this thread.

Malaclypse the Younger

Indeed. We style ourselves philosophers, though, and it seems that we ought to expect a more rigorous definition, at least of ourselves.

This seems to be a definition of the first kind (as noted above). To preclude the possibility of a scientific explanation, we must somehow know those explanations now.

This seems to be a definition of the second kind. To determine if some event is a miracle of this kind, we must presume that it establishes our notions of god and it thus cannot act as evidence of the existence of god.

[ February 26, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>

Kvalhion

On almost all occasions, what we are supposed to accept as a 'miracle' is really not a miracle at all as far as science is concerned. Most miracles I hear about are invariably of personal relevence.. like someone surviving a violent crash, or escaping a burning building, or recovering from what is deemed an incurable disease. While highly unlikely, they do not defy the known laws of nature.

Personally, I like to use this standard:

It may seem like a miracle if a child was struck by a bus and was unharmed.

An actual miracle would be if the bus passed through the child, leaving the child unharmed.

[ February 26, 2002: Message edited by: Kvalhion ]</p>

jbussey

Malaclypse:

For a classical discussion of miracles, check out Hume's essay on the subject. For good contemporary discussions, check out J.L. Mackie's book, "The Miracle of Theism" and Richard Swinburne's book "The Existence of God." (I believe Swinburne has also published an anthology on the subject--including both skeptics and theists--but the title escapes me.)

Most philosophers define miracles as naturally inexplicable events brought about or caused by God. The reason for including the first condition is fairly obvious; if an event can be fully explained without reference to supernatural agents then any such invocation would be unwarranted. (This is just Occam's razor at work.) As for the second condition, if a naturally explicable event occurred, but it was clear that it was caused by some agent other than God (say, a fallen angel), then it would generally not be considered a miracle. Some theistic philosophers (i.e., Swinburne, Holland) argue that any putative miracle must also possess religious significance, but due to the elasticity of the notion of religious significance this condition doesn't really do any work in tightening up the definition.

These conditions present at least two problems. The first problem involves the distinction between the unexplained and the unexplainable. Just because we are currently unable to explain the natural causes of an event doesn't mean that the event didn't have any natural causes. This objection is especially relevant when putative miracles involve complex organisms and/or areas of science not fully understood (i.e., miracle cures). However, I think one can imagine events which, if they occurred, would be rationally classified as inexplicable. For example, the only way to naturally explain something like the turning of water into wine (without the addition of any additional ingredients or chemical agents) would be to throw out virtually everything we have learned about chemistry (and to some extent biology). If such an event were to occur I don't think it would be irrational to consider it of supernatural origin. At any rate, one must concede that it would be VERY unlikely such an event would eventually yield to natural explanation.

Another problem is that the occurrence of a supernatural event cannot prove God's existence, but rather can only prove that there are some supernatural force at work. This is so for the reason that one cannot infer an infinite effect (let alone an effect with God's other attributes) from a finite cause. However, one can imagine circumstances in which it would be reasonable to attribute a supernatural event to God. Imagine, for example, that every time a Catholic priest prayed for a supernatural intervention his prayers were answered, but that anytime another religionist (or anyone else) did the same nothing happened. This wouldn't prove that God was the cause of the event, but it would certainly be enough evidence to make such a belief rational

As for the alleged question-begging you refer to, I don't really think that is a problem with the definition. You are correct in noting that if a miracle is defined as an event caused by God then, strictly speaking, we can't conclude that existence of a miracle proves God's existence, because in that case the conclusion that God exists would logically precede the conclusion that a miracle occurred. However, all this means is that the evidence that would lead us to conclude that the event in question is a miracle (i.e., that the event is inexplicable and seemingly attributable to a being with God's characteristics) would itself count as evidence of God's existence.

Kevin Dorner

Maybe no inexplicable event that is passed off as one. You're telling me that the creator of the universe, of a hundred billion galaxies of a hundred billion mighty suns a million earths in size... can only communicate with us by perhaps hiding an image of a woman that we don't believe in anyways in a burned tortilla? (Funny how only believers find these things...)

You seem to think that we're a pretty closed-minded bunch, but you think wrong in most cases. Most atheists that I know of (as I am) are "positive" atheists (aka "agnostic atheists.") We don't believe because there isn't any evidence, and we certainly don't assert that we know that god doesn't exist (just that his/her/its existence is very unlikely, so we have no belief in it.) Although "Negative" atheists assert the non-existence of any god, and they actively assert "there is no god," what if the evidence were strong enough? The asserted "miracles" look a little tinny and stale.

Give me a miracle worthy of a creator of the universe, and I will accept it! No burnt tortillas! No knots in trees! No broken bones healing! No charlatans pretending to heal the deluded! And no perfectly normal births! These are pathetic!

Show me the name of god, in plain writing for anyone to see and undeniable, written in a million galaxies. Show me suffering, disease and hunger vanishing from the earth at the prayer of a prophet. Show me something so vast, so amazing, so undeniably the product of an intelligence that we can't comprehend (unlike the chemical basis of life.)

But save the cheap parlour tricks for the gullible.

[ February 26, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin Dorner ]</p>

David Gould

A miracle is an unlikely event with a mythological context.

There does not have to be anything outside the laws of nature for it to be a miracle.

For example, let us assume that the Jews did get away from the Pharoh because the sea parted to let them.

However, let us assume that the parting of the sea was caused by an earthquake somewhere. Thus, it has a purely naturalistic explanation.

However, the chances of it occurring just at the right time to save the Jews and destroy the Egyptians is very small.

When you add to this the idea that Moses was lead to that point at that time by what he claimed to be God and I think you have a miracle that provides evidence for God's existence.

(Of course, this assumes that all the above actually happened, which is dubious in the extreme).

A miracle thus has a number of components:

1.) It is an unlikely event.
2.) It has good consequences for the believer.
3a.) It was either predicted by the believer or
3b.) The unlikely event lead to a result predicted by the believer and that result was unlikely otherwise.

As we can see, the parting of the sea lead to the freedom of the Jewish people, which was the eprediction of Moses (note that it was not required for Moses to predict the parting of the sea - all he has to do is say that he is leading the Jews to freedom). It certainly had good consequences for the believers. And it was certainly unlikely for it to happen at that moment.

Known or unknown natural laws have nothing whatever to do with miracles. Miracles need the mythological element - the prediction or claim of contact with the supernatural prior to the event.