Questions

1. What do you see as the problems associated with authenticating a traditional miracle?

2. Nineteenth century medicine and psychoanalysis first showed that people may suffer from what are termed "hysterical symptoms". Because of psychological stress, they found that a patient might develop such things as blindness, paralysis and dementia. However, these symptoms could "miraculously" disappear when the right psychological trigger was found. Will all "miracles" one day be explained away by science?

3. Is there any reason that even if an event is inexplicable we should ascribe its origin to divine intervention?

4. Even if a miracle could be authenticated, could it tell us anything about the nature of God?

5. What might a sceptic say about the following "miracles":

a) A man who has been pronounced clinically dead revives after two days.

b) A woman who falls asleep at the wheel of a car wakes up to find that she has crashed harmlessly into a haystack.

c) A soldier whose parachute does not open survives a fall of thousands of feet with only a few scratches.

d) Rushing to catch a plane, a man is delayed by an encounter with a drunk. He misses the plane which later crashes leaving no survivors.

History

Miracles have always been seen as evidence that some supernatural power is present. However, it is only in more recent times that their existence - or not - has come to be seen as proof of divine existence (before this, it was more a sign that some individual was divinely inspired or possessed godly powers).

The most telling attack on the possibility of miralces comes from the Scottish philosopher David Hume who attacked the very idea that -

(a) they could exist, and

(b) that we they could be used to prove God's existence.

A more detailed account of Hume's views can be found in the section devoted to miracles.

Summary

Since religion began miracles, or the working of wonders, have been considered a sign of the existence of the divine. Later on we will consider problems associated with the definition of miracles and the possibility of their existence, but for the moment I only want you to consider in what way they might be seen as evidence of the existence of God.

Miracles may be defined in one of two ways: an event which seems to contravene all that we know about the laws governing the physical world (such as turning water into wine); or simply a highly unlikely happening which seems to be evidence of divine providence (such as a lottery win just as the house was about to be repossessed).

Obviously, the two sorts of miracle are open to different criticisms, but it is the water-into-wine variety that we should consider most seriously as the traditional idea of what a miracle is.