Miracle Explained

A miracle is a supernatural event that seems inexplicable by natural or scientific laws.[1] In various religions, a phenomenon that is characterized as miraculous is often attributed to the actions of a supernatural being, (especially) a deity, a magician, a miracle worker, a saint, or a religious leader.

Informally, the word miracle is often used to characterise any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws of nature, such as surviving a natural disaster, or simply a "wonderful" occurrence, regardless of likelihood (e.g. "the miracle of childbirth"). Some coincidences may be seen as miracles.[2]



The word miracle is usually used to describe any beneficial event that is physically impossible or impossible to confirm by nature.[4] Wayne Grudem defines miracle as "a less common kind of God's activity in which he arouses people's awe and wonder and bears witness to himself."[5] Deistic perspective of God's relation to the world defines miracle as a direct intervention of God into the world.[6] [7]

Naturalistic explanations

A miracle may just be fake information or simply a fictional story, rather than something that truly happened. A miracle experience may be due to cognitive errors or psychological errors of witnesses. Use of some drugs may produce similar effect. [8] [9] [10]

Law of truly large numbers

See main article: Law of truly large numbers and Littlewood's law. Statistically "impossible" events are often called miracles. For instance, when three classmates accidentally meet in a different country decades after having left school, they could consider this as "miraculous". However, a colossal number of events happen every moment on Earth; thus extremely unlikely coincidences also happen every moment. Events that are considered "impossible" are therefore not impossible at all - they are just increasingly rare and dependent on the number of individual events. British mathematician J. E. Littlewood suggested that individuals should statistically expect one-in-a-million events ("miracles") to happen to them at the rate of about one per month. By Littlewood's definition, seemingly miraculous events are actually commonplace.

Supernatural explanations


Philosophical explanations

Aristotelian and Neo-Aristotelian

The Aristotelian view of God has God as pure actuality[11] and considers him as the prime mover doing only what a perfect being can do, think.[12] Jewish neo-Aristotelian philosophers,[13] who are still influential today, include Maimonides, Samuel ben Judah ibn Tibbon, and Gersonides. Directly or indirectly, their views are still prevalent in much of the religious Jewish community.

Baruch Spinoza

See also: Epistemic theory of miracles. In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus Spinoza claims[14] that miracles are merely lawlike events whose causes we are ignorant of. We should not treat them as having no cause or of having a cause immediately available. Rather the miracle is for combating the ignorance it entails, like a political project.

David Hume

See main article: Of Miracles. According to the philosopher David Hume, a miracle is "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent". The crux of his argument is this: "No testimony is 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." Hume defines miracles as "a violation of the laws of nature", or more fully, "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent." By this definition, a miracle goes against our regular experience of how the universe works. As miracles are single events, the evidence for them is always limited and we experience them rarely. On the basis of experience and evidence, the probability that miracle occurred is always less than the probability that it did not occur. As it is rational to believe what is more probable, we are not supposed to have a good reason to believe that a miracle occurred. https://web.archive.org/web/20170320215642/http://documents.routledge-interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138793934/A2/Hume/HumeMiracles.pdf

Friedrich Schleiermacher


Søren Kierkegaard

The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, following Hume and Johann Georg Hamann, a Humean scholar, agrees with Hume's definition of a miracle as a transgression of a law of nature,[16] but Kierkegaard, writing as his pseudonym Johannes Climacus, regards any historical reports to be less than certain, including historical reports of miracles, as all historical knowledge is always doubtful and open to approximation.[17]

James Keller


Religious views

According to a 2011 poll by the Pew Research Center, more than 90 percent of evangelical Christians believe miracles still take place.[19] While Christians see God as sometimes intervening in human activities, Muslims see Allah as a direct cause of all events. "God’s overwhelming closeness makes it easy for Muslims to admit the miraculous in the world."[20]



The Honchō Hokke Reigenki (c. 1040) of Japan contains a collection of Buddhist miracle stories.[22]



See main article: Miracles of Jesus and Gift of miracles. The gospels record three sorts of miracles performed by Jesus: exorcisms, cures, and nature wonders.[23] In the Gospel of John the miracles are referred to as "signs" and the emphasis is on God demonstrating his underlying normal activity in remarkable ways.[24] In the New Testament, the greatest miracle is the resurrection of Jesus, the event central to Christian faith.

Jesus explains in the New Testament that miracles are performed by faith in God. "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'move from here to there' and it will move." (Gospel of Matthew 17:20). After Jesus returned to heaven, the Book of Acts records the disciples of Jesus praying to God to grant that miracles be done in his name for the purpose of convincing onlookers that he is alive. (Acts 4:29–31).


In early Christianity miracles were the most often attested motivations for conversions of pagans; pagan Romans took the existence of miracles for granted; Christian texts reporting them offered miracles as divine proof of the Christian God's unique claim to authority, relegating all other gods to the lower status of daimones:[25] "of all worships, the Christian best and most particularly advertised its miracles by driving out of spirits and laying on of hands".[26] The Gospel of John is structured around miraculous "signs": The success of the Apostles according to the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea lay in their miracles: "though laymen in their language", he asserted, "they drew courage from divine, miraculous powers".[27] The conversion of Constantine by a miraculous sign in heaven is a prominent fourth-century example. Since the Age of Enlightenment, miracles have often needed to be rationalized: C.S. Lewis, Norman Geisler, William Lane Craig, and other 20th-century Christians have argued that miracles are reasonable and plausible. For example, Lewis said that a miracle is something that comes totally out of the blue. If for thousands of years a woman can become pregnant only by sexual intercourse with a man, then if she were to become pregnant without a man, it would be a miracle.[28] [29] [30]


Catholic Church

See also: Marian apparition, Eucharistic Miracle, Stigmata, Weeping statue, Moving statues, Visions of Jesus and Mary, Incorruptibility and Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena.


The Catholic Church has listed several events as miracles, some of them occurring in modern times. Before a person can be accepted as a saint, they must be posthumously confirmed to have performed two miracles. In the procedure of beatification of Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, the Vatican announced on 14 January 2011 that Pope Benedict XVI had confirmed that the recovery of Sister Marie Simon-Pierre from Parkinson's disease was a miracle.[33]



Another miracle approved by the Church is the Miracle of the Sun, which is said to have occurred near Fátima, Portugal on October 13, 1917. According to legend, between 70,000 and 100,000 people, who were gathered at a cove near Fátima, witnessed the sunlight dim and change colors, and the Sun spin, dance about in the sky, and appear to plummet to earth, radiating great heat in the process. After the ten-minute event, the ground and the people's clothing, which had been drenched by a previous rainstorm, were both dry.




Things that are at times divinely accomplished, apart from the generally established order in things, are customarily called miracles; for we admire with some astonishment a certain event when we observe the effect but do not know its cause. And since one and the same cause is at times known to some people and unknown to others, the result is that of several who see an effect at the same time, some are moved to admiring astonishment, while others are not. For instance, the astronomer is not astonished when he sees an eclipse of the sun, for he knows its cause, but the person who is ignorant of this science must be amazed, for he ignores the cause. And so, a certain event is wondrous to one person, but not so to another. So, a thing that has a completely hidden cause is wondrous in an unqualified way, and this the name, miracle, suggests; namely, what is of itself filled with admirable wonder, not simply in relation to one person or another. Now, absolutely speaking, the cause hidden from every man is God. In fact, we proved above that no man in the present state of life can grasp His essence intellectually. Therefore, those things must properly be called miraculous which are done by divine power apart from the order generally followed in things.





For a majority of Evangelical Christians, biblicism ensures that the miracles described in the Bible are still relevant and may be present in the life of the believer.[37] [38] Healings, academic or professional successes, the birth of a child after several attempts, the end of an addiction, etc., would be tangible examples of God's intervention with the faith and prayer, by the Holy Spirit. [39] In the 1980s, the neo-charismatic movement re-emphasized miracles and faith healing. [40] In certain churches, a special place is thus reserved for faith healings with laying on of hands during worship services or for campaigns evangelization. [41] [42] Faith healing or divine healing is considered to be an inheritance of Jesus acquired by his death and resurrection. [43]





See main article: Islamic view of miracles, Quran and miracles and Miracles of Muhammad.

See also: Occasionalism. In the Quran, a miracle can be defined as a supernatural intervention in the life of human beings.[45] According to this definition, miracles are present "in a threefold sense: in sacred history, in connection with Muhammad himself and in relation to revelation".[45] The Quran does not use the technical Arabic word for miracle (Muʿd̲j̲iza) literally meaning "that by means of which [the Prophet] confounds, overwhelms, his opponents". It rather uses the term 'Ayah' (literally meaning sign).[46] The term Ayah is used in the Quran in the above-mentioned threefold sense: it refers to the "verses" of the Quran (believed to be the divine speech in human language; presented by Muhammad as his chief miracle); as well as to miracles of it and the signs (particularly those of creation).[45] [46]






Most Chasidic communities are rife with tales of miracles that follow a yechidut, a spiritual audience with a tzadik: barren women become pregnant, cancer tumors shrink, wayward children become pious.[51] Many Hasidim claim that miracles can take place in merit of partaking of the shirayim (the leftovers from the rebbe's meal), such as miraculous healing or blessings of wealth or piety.







Biologist Richard Dawkins has criticised the belief in miracles as a subversion of Occam's razor.[59]


Baden Powell, an English mathematician and Church of England priest, stated that if God is a lawgiver, then a "miracle" would break the lawful edicts that had been issued at Creation. Therefore, a belief in miracles would be entirely atheistic.

See also

Notes and references

General references and books

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/miracle?q=miracle Miracle
  2. Book: Halbersam, Yitta . Small Miracles . Adams Media . 1890 . 1-55850-646-2.
  3. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/ Miracles
  5. Book: Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. 1994.
  6. https://www.thoughtco.com/deism-95703
  7. News: Definition of Miracles. Bible.org. 2017-11-22.
  8. Web site: The Salvia divinorum FAQ . July 30, 2012 . Those who think of the salvia experience in religious, spiritual, or mystical terms may speak of such things as enlightenment, satori, and "cleansing the doors of perception." . SageWisdom.org . August 26, 2007.
  9. Web site: Adamson . Sophia . Metzner . Ralph . The Nature of the MDMA Experience and Its Role in Healing, Psychotherapy, and Spiritual Practice . maps.org . MAPS . 16 December 2018.
  10. Watts . Alan . Psychedelics and Religious Experience . California Law Review . 56 . 74–85 . 1 . January 1968 . 10.2307/3479497. 3479497 .
  11. Web site: Adamson . Peter . The Theology of Aristotle . stanford.edu . 31 July 2018.
  12. Web site: ARISTOTLE ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD . logicmuseum.com . 31 July 2018.
  13. Book: Afterman, A. . "And They Shall Be One Flesh": On The Language of Mystical Union in Judaism . Brill . Supplements to The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy . 2016 . 978-90-04-32873-0 . 31 July 2018 . 102.
  14. Book: Benedictus de Spinoza. translated by Robert Willis. Thelogico-Political Treatise. Chapter 6: Of Miracles.
  15. Book: On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despirers. 1893. London. Paul, Trench, Trubner. 23. Second Speech: The Nature of Religion.
  16. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1198939 Hume and Kierkegaard
  17. http://www.stolaf.edu/collections/kierkegaard/newsletters/Newsletter43.pdf Kierkegaard on Miracles
  19. News: What Do the World's Religions Say About Miracles?. 2016-04-28. National Geographic Channel. 2017-11-22. en.
  20. Book: The Cambridge Companion to Miracle. Cambridge. 2011.
  21. Korea: a religious history, James Huntley Grayson, p. 34
  23. [Robert W. Funk|Funk, Robert W.]
  25. [Ramsay MacMullen]
  26. MacMullen 1984:40.
  27. Quoted in MacMullen 1984:22.
  28. Web site: Are Miracles Logically Impossible?. Come Reason Ministries, Convincing Christianity. 2007-11-21.
  29. Web site: "Miracles are not possible," some claim. Is this true?. ChristianAnswers.net. 2007-11-21.
  30. Web site: A Jurisprudential Analysis Of Hume's "in Principal" Argument Against Miracles. Paul K. Hoffman. Christian Apologetics Journal, Volume 2, No. 1, Spring, 1999; Copyright ©1999 by Southern Evangelical Seminary. 2007-11-21 . https://web.archive.org/web/20071026160950/http://www.ses.edu/journal/articles/2.1Hoffman.pdf . October 26, 2007.
  31. Web site: Modern Miracles Have Strict Rules. Pathfinder.com. 10 April 1995. Van Biema. David. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20070713212401/http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982807,00.html. 13 July 2007.
  32. Web site: The necessity of miracles. 30giorni.it. 2004. Falasca. Stefania. 2006-12-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20070929084326/http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=3664. 2007-09-29. dead.
  33. News: Pope Benedict Paves Way to Beatification of John Paul II. bbc.news.co.uk. 14 January 2011. 14 January 2011.
  34. [Messori, Vittorio]
  35. http://www.vailankannishrine.org/miracle.php Velankanni shrine miracle
  36. Book: Aquinas, St. Thomas. Contra Gentiles, lib. III cap. 101. Thomas Aquinas. https://web.archive.org/web/20091102035333/http://josephkenny.joyeurs.com/CDtexts/ContraGentiles3b.htm#100. 2009-11-02.
  43. Randall Herbert Balmer, Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism: Revised and expanded edition, Baylor University Press, USA, 2004, p. 212
  44. Book: Miracles: Wonder and Meaning in World Religions. David L. Weddle. 2010. 978-0-81479-483-8. 35–70.
  45. Denis Gril, Miracles, Encyclopedia of the Quran
  46. A.J. Wensinck, Muʿd̲j̲iza, Encyclopedia of Islam
  47. Robert G. Mourison, The Portrayal of Nature in a Medieval Quran Commentary, Studia Islamica, 2002
  48. https://books.google.com/books?id=4nWa8y-HiB0C&pg=PA48 The heirs of the prophet: charisma and religious authority in Shi'ite Islam By Liyakatali Takim
  49. http://www.sufismjournal.org/history/history.html SAINTS AND MIRACLES
  50. Mishnah Ta'anit 3:8 Hebrew text at Mechon-Mamre
  51. The encyclopedia of Jewish myth, magic and mysticism, Geoffrey W. Dennis, p. 49
  52. The Writings of Thomas Paine, Volume 4, page 289, Putnam & Sons, 1896
  56. Ethan Allen, Reason, the Only Oracle of Man, 1784
  57. News: Ingersoll on Talmage.; The Brooklyn Clergyman's Creed Discussed Before a Large Audience. . April 24, 1882 . . 2014-01-03.
  58. Elbert Hubbard, The Philistine (1909)
  59. Richard Dawkins. The God Delusion
  60. Book: Morris Kline. Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty. 1982. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-503085-3. 345.