Holland states that miracles are a matter of an individual’s interpretation. If the person is religious then they are likely to the above example as a religious miracle in which God intervened to save the boy. A non-religious person may on the other hand take the above example as a mere coincidence where the train diver may by chance fainted and it was just very good luck that the train stopped in time. Such events are often interpreted as signs or revelations from God. However, there are no grounds for establishing that God intervened at all such an assumption rests on faith.
2. There are many points to why miracles could be discredited. Firstly it would be necessary to ask why an omnipotent God needs to carry out miracles. The world must be flawed if God has to carry out miracles as a ‘quick fix’ in an attempt to plaster up cracks in the universe. Some miracles seem to be pointless and have no beneficial or negative outcome. Jesus walking on water and tales of statues drinking milk may be seen as an example of this. Also why does God not perform miracles of benefit like saving people from the 911 attacks? Also God could use miracles for a greater number of people rather then now and again miracles for just one or a group of people. What about negative supernatural events or neutral events if all this power is supposedly meant to come from God. If God could intervene in such a way as Mary and the virgin birth then why can’t he intervene in other things?
The concept of a miracle is exciting and people are likely to suspend their disbelief to be caught up in the excitement rather then judge their experience on proper evidence. However organisations such as the Roman Catholic Church have much to lose if they get swept up in excitement. They seek to differentiate between genuinely miraculous and unusual events people claim to be miraculous. Hume stated that miracles are largely the preserve of ignorant and barbarous nations. However many miracles have been claimed in all countries. Miracle claims abound in all the religions: they cancel one another out as they can’t all be true. Miracles from opposing religions do not necessarily undermine one another. Swinburne answered this by saying that God is behind all religions. Bultmann said ‘no one who presses an electric light switch can believe in miracles. He is basically saying people are able to explain how things work and unlikely to believe in an unexplainable event. However Sir Arthur Conan-Dolye said that ‘when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth.’ Can you violate a law that is not absolute? If we stuck to the same laws without updating them we would have to discard a lot of modern data.
In 1995 a group of church goers in America were all late for a service that was meant to start at 7.20m for different reasons. However at when they arrived at 7.30 the church building exploded. This was seen as a miracle by the church goers. However it may just be seen as a coincidence and the fact that there was merely a fault in the gas pipes which made it explode. If it was a miracle then it could be asked why God is biased towards the church people when he is meant to care for everyone. This could all so be asked when God parted the red sea for the Jews.
Support in miracles can however still be strong. Augustine lived in the l2thC. He believed that nature is the will of God. Therefore, when God acts in miracles he does not break some kind of law but merely wills something different/unusual. The miraculous is therefore contrary only to our knowledge of nature, not to nature itself.
‘The Bible knows nothing of nature as a closed system of law. Indeed the very word ‘nature’ is unbiblical... the biblical view of miracle runs counter to the accepted view of miracle as an occurrence contrary to the laws of nature? (Interpreting Miracles, 1966)
R.H. Fuller is a 20thC thinker. He agrees with Augustine and adds that the whole idea of nature as a closed system of law which God somehow stands back from and which operates independently from him is alien to the Bible. In the Bible, God lies behind everything.
Swinburne also argues that miracles are possible as the existence of God has not been disproved. While Swinburne accepts that a modern understanding of science makes a violation of the law of nature impossible ( the law would simply be adjusted to fit the new ‘miraculous’ happening) he says
‘We have to some extent good evidence about what are the laws of nature, and some of them are so well established and account for so much that any modification of them which would suggest to account for the odd counter instance would be so clumsy and ad hoc as to upset the whole structure of science.’
tTe laws of nature are able to give a generally accurate picture of how the natural world functions. Therefore it is reasonable to consider an event such as the Resurrection as miraculous, and to re write the laws of nature to include such an exceptional event would upset the whole basis of science (with its emphasis on predictability).
Other points are that sceptics are unable to disprove and explain some miracles. There is biblical support for miracles such as the resurrection of Jesus. People have selective scepticism such as UFO’s and crop circles. To dismiss all miracle accounts without weighing evidence in each case is arrogance.
