Miracles are commonly characterized as divine actions in violation of the laws of nature. Not a surprising definition.
However, while on the surface simple and clear, this definition encounters difficulties in application. And given that at least one major religion, Christianity, holds as a core tenet that God-made-man, Jesus Christ, performed miracles, these difficulties can call into question a major Christian tenet.
So while these difficulties enter into the realm of the esoteric, we should delve into their intricacies. We will examine three issues:
Can we summon sufficiently accurate testimony to miracles?
Would miracle events be distinguishable from the simply extraordinary?
Do the laws of nature prevent God from performing miracles?
Critical Miracle Issue One: Testimony
Can sufficiently valid testimony be offered to support a miracle?
The noted 16th century philosopher David Hume voted to the negative, i.e. valid testimony can not be offered. For him, such testimony faces an essentially insurmountable hurdle. Hume stated:
"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless it is of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact that it tries to establish.
"For, first, never in all of history has a miracle been attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning as to guarantee that they aren't deluded; of such undoubted integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion of wanting to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind as to have much to lose if they were found to have told a falsehood; and at the same time testifying to events-the reported miracle-that occurred in such a public manner and in such a famous part of the world as to make the detection of any falsehood unavoidable. All these conditions must be satisfied if we are to be completely confident of the testimony of men.
In other words, a miracle stands as so momentous and at the same time so unlikely, and mankind so notably fallible and imperfect, that no person could given testimony sufficiently credible. We should more question the testimony than believe the miracle.
Note, however, that is in our world. Mankind's fallibility pertains to our actual, contingent, messy, version of a world.
Philosophy allows us to consider not just our world, but possible worlds. So could we, in some conceivable world, a world with a better human nature, achieve sufficiently credible testimony? Certainly. Give people more accurate perceptions, higher moral integrity and improved mental memory. Or populate the world with Three Rule Asimov robots. The accuracy of testimony in such conceivable worlds could rise to sufficient integrity.
Now, in Hume's time, maybe such a world could not be conceived. But today, such a conceived world could become a real world.
Compared to the time of Hume, we possess sophisticated technology. We can record, detail and store recordings and data of all types. We can collect phenomena in multiple media. We can disseminate, cross-check, review, question, and otherwise scrutinize reports and data of any occurrence.
So, if in our time the walls of Jericho have been foretold to come down at the sound of trumpets after seven days of marching, CNN, and Fox, and every news outlet, and a plethora of scientific instruments, and an array of digital recording devices, would stand ready to observe, record and document the event.
I will leave as not discussed a corollary, but unfortunate question. The miracles of God-made-man, of Jesus, did not occur under the scrutiny of modern techniques, but two millennium ago. Does the testimony of that time from ancient Galilee rise to sufficient accuracy to attest to a miracle? We will not discuss that here, but we are left to ponder the question.
Critical Miracle Issue Two: Extraordinary
Every day, across our globe, and more broadly throughout the universe, within the billions and billions of occurrences, a subset for sure fall outside the ordinary, many standard deviations outside the ordinary.
But amongst this cascade of events, can we separate the uniquely divine from the simply extraordinary. How can we even recognize a phenomena as being an act worthy of consideration as a miracle? Note here we assume sufficiently accurate testimony. We thus ask if we could cull from the enormous cacophony of extraordinary but otherwise worldly events, accurately reported, those that represent miracles, or at least candidates for miracles.
Maybe, in fact most likely, if we look at the proper attributes of the phenomena. Three attributes stand out: 1) variability 2) originality, and 3) attribution.
Consider weather. Variability lies in the very nature of weather. Temperatures, precipitation, winds - all can vary across enormous ranges. A 200 inch rainfall, or 250 mile an hour hurricane, stands as extraordinary, but within possible variability.
However, within that variability, certain variations essentially never occur. Rain falls as precipitation, but wheat grains do not. Temperatures vary, but not in directly adjacent locations. So if we stepped outside our house to a rain of wheat flakes, and the temperature between our front and back yard differed by one hundred degrees, we might think miracle.
In terms of originality of the observation, consider exoplanets. We have just begun discovering planets, and thus just begun understanding the principle behind planet production. An original discovery of planets would likely be an addition of our current limited knowledge, not an exception.
But water. Many years of practical experience and scientific study give us a sense of the properties of water. If some suddenly became wine, we might think miracle.
Let's turn to attribution, in other words can we attribute the event to a divine cause.
Consider, for example, if a standard water sample, from an average lake, taken by a typical graduate student in biology, contains, unexpectedly, a here-to-for unknown, astonishing and strange life form. Or consider, if a normal archeological dig, in an average location, by a typical graduate student of ancient history, turns up a here-to-for unknown, astonishing, and strange human civilization.
Would we attribute the findings to a miraculous intervention by a divine entity? Some might, but we might not. Even given that these findings represented an enormous outlier, we might not judge the findings as a miracle https://www.saishiridi.com/. Why? No causal connection exists to the divine; no divine motivation or purpose appears present; no foretelling of the findings occurred; no religious message or divine revelations were received.
However, consider an additional to our scenario. Consider that the archeological dig uncovered an ancient religious text, which indicated that a million digits into the decimal expansion of pi, the sequence at that point would give the GPS coordinates of a buried cave. And further that sequence delineates a chemical structure billions of molecules long, of a life form not previously found on earth. And the GPS coordinates and chemical structure match the fossil we find in the cave.
The foretelling by a religious text, and the precision of the foretelling, and the unique structure of the life form, would indicate a possible attribution to the divine.
We now again must reflect, for Christianity, on another unfortunate question. Do the prophesies in the Old Testament contain enough precision to unquestionably foretell of the miracles of the New Testament, and even whether some New Testaments miracle phenomena ranked original enough (i.e. sick people recovering, spirits appearing in dreams) to not actually be natural occurrences. We will not delve into that question, but leave it for us to ponder.
Critical Miracle Issue Three: Occurrence
Could God perform miracles?
We focus here on the laws of nature. Does nature itself, with magnificent laws and regularity, constrain its maker? Do the deep symmetries and principles by which the universe operates block divine miracles?
No. God does not operate as if on the same level as these laws, but from a level above the laws.
Consider a feature film director, or a video game creator, or a computer programmer. They can create worlds with physical, biological and social regularities different from our actual world, and adjust, develop and change them as they wish to serve the purpose of their plot, or game, or research.
We can similarly conceive that our actuality operates in a similar relation to a God. Such a divine entity could "recode" our actual world at will, to create any "violation" or "augmentation" or "suspension" desired, in other words perform what we would consider miracles.
Thus a divine entity does not work in the sandbox of our laws. Consider such a divine entity building a sand castle, or for our analogy a film director putting a sand castle in the movie. Neither would not need to build the castle by sculpturing actual sand. Rather, just like the film director could construct a sand castle with a digital graphic, God could, in a figurative sense, at its level above out laws, just reprogram our actuality as if a set of lighted pixels on a Smartphone.
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