If you look on the web, or listen to many videos on this topic, you’ll hear definitions of miracles such as “a contradiction of the laws of nature”, or “an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs” (as the Merriam-Webster dictionary puts it). But what really is a miracle? Is there any point even entertaining their possibility? How do they happen? I hereby detail the classical theistic view.

A brief introduction to logic is in order. Philosophers, mathematicians and logicians recognise three fundamental laws of classical logic:

1. Identity: a proposition is identical to itself.
2. Non-contradiction: two opposing propositions (claims about reality) cannot both be true at the same time and in the same respect.
3. Excluded Middle: a proposition is either true or false – there is no third/”middle” option.

Hume doesn’t really make sense

18^th century Scottish philosopher David Hume popularised the definition of a miracle being “a violation of the laws of nature”. Stephen Hawking claimed that the laws of nature should “should hold everywhere and at all times; otherwise they wouldn’t be laws. There could be no exceptions or miracles”. However, I think these two takes get things a little confused, and with good reason.

Firstly, it’s common knowledge nowadays among physicists that these so-called “laws of nature” fundamentally break down at the Big-Bang. I’m not claiming the Big-Bang was the beginning of creation (as that’s not my current point), I’m simply stating that there was a point in time where the laws of nature that we observe now were not as universal as Mr. Hawking would have liked.

Laws of logic, on the other hand, are universal and inviolable. They hold at all times and at all places and, as a matter of fact, the laws of nature depend on them. For example, the strong nuclear force cannot be both 147.08 times the value of the electrostatic force coupling constant α and 300 times the value of the electrostatic force coupling constant α in the same atomic nucleus at the same instant. Notice how this presupposes both the first and second laws of logic (identity and non-contradiction) and implies the third.

Secondly, Hume elsewhere characterises the laws of nature as regular descriptions as opposed to prescriptions of how the world works. Hume writes:

“Some events are found, in all countries and all ages, to have been constantly conjoined together: Others are found to have been more variable, and sometimes to disappoint our expectations; so that, in our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence.”
Part 1 of Section X, Of Miracles, in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Essentially, Hume’s scepticism about our ability to have certainty forces him to adopt a position that: although we might have high confidence in the laws of nature (due to our experiencing them most often), that’s all we can have – high confidence, and no knowledge of necessity. Ultimately, they can never be said to rise from descriptions to prescriptions. Ignoring the presuppositions required for one to even trust their reasoning faculties to make this inference, it’s hard to see how an event that runs contrary to a description of the world (what a miracle would be in this case) is logically impossible.

So… what are miracles?

Miracles could, in theory, relate to deviations or changes in the laws of nature, but not the laws of logic, so if your gripe is that these laws regarding miracles can’t change – not only is that not true, but so far there is no reason to write them off.

Regarding the state of laws of nature, I would agree with Dr. Ed Feser, who writes:

“There could have been a world without water, fire, acorns, or dogs in it in the first place, but which did have entities which in certain superficial ways resembled these things. In that sense the laws of nature that actually obtain need not have obtained, and are therefore to that extent contingent. But there couldn’t have been a world which really had water, fire acorns, and dogs in it but where these things did not naturally behave in the ways they in fact do behave“

Feser, E. (2017). Five Proofs of the Existence of God, p213. Ignatius Press

More simply put, laws of nature are necessary in every possible world, but the specific laws that obtain in a given world are dependent on the things that exist.

Having said this, it makes sense to say that the laws of nature are the laws of natures. To get a bit technical, things have inherent dispositions (natures), which they can exhibit. Loosely, these dispositions define what a certain thing is and distinguish it from other things. For example, humans are rational animals, and as such can exhibit rationality (reasoning capacities), and animality (animalistic capacities).^[4]

Some brief notes on essentialism:

• It should be noted that in an essentialist framework, the manifestation of a disposition might not occur – it might be blocked or lack the requisite triggers. An example might be humour – a human might have the ability to laugh, but it doesn’t mean that they always will (it could be argued that other animals laugh, but you get the gist). Also, certain types of characteristics can be predicated (or ‘assigned’) to an object in different ways. For example, “rationality” (reason-driven thought, reflection, and decision-making) is an essential predicate – i.e., the ability is present in all humans in the same inherent capacity (that doesn’t mean we all make the same decisions), however something like the number of toes one has would be an accidental predicate – it can be absent without destroying the essence of something. There are some other categories, but I just wanted to make this point.

Returning to the main topic, this would mean that strict violations (such as those Hume suggested) are impossible. A miracle, I contend, is not merely an exception to that which is natural (since that would be true for defective objects too, such as an apple tree that is missing its fruit), miracles are exceptions that are super-natural, “they are not contrary to nature, they are beyond nature” – Ramelow, “God of Miracles” (p314-15).

On this view, miracles require God. They have as their cause, something which is outside the natural order altogether-miracles can only have a divine cause and must not be confused with the extraordinary but still merely preternatural effects that an Angel (for example) might produce (Feser, 2017).

As proven in post 5.1.1 and 5.1.2, God is not one being among others in the sense that he has a nature and really distinct existence among other creatures – he is a categorically distinct being that simply is. Considering we are arguing for a cause ‘beyond nature’, its only source, in the classical theist’s eyes, is God – that which is beyond natural and preternatural causes, and the ultimate explanatory cause for all of existence.

If this is the case, then we can note something rather simple, but profound:

Miracles can be neither “violations” or “interventions” (when properly stated), considering God cannot ‘interfere’ with the universe.

This would be due to the fact that God is not an ‘alternative’ to the universe (as both of ‘violations’ and ‘interventions’ would suggest), rather, God is the cause of the universe. It doesn’t really make sense to say that God steps in, muddles around with the controls a bit, and then disappears. Rather, everything is ultimately dependent upon him for its existence in a given moment.

With this in mind, it makes more sense to consider miracles as ‘suspensions’ of laws, rather than ‘violations’ – or what happens when God doesn’t let “natural” causes run their course. Classical Theists believe that, for example, with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego’s not being burned in the furnace, when fire burns something, it does so because^[1]:

1. Fire has an intrinsic power to burn (due to its nature).
2. God sustains fire in existence.
3. God concurs with its causal activity, allowing its power to produce its effect.
   • If God doesn’t do this, then although fire retains its intrinsic power to burn (otherwise it would no longer be fire), it doesn’t burn anything. Fire retains its natural power to burn, but in this particular case, God withholds His concurrence, so its power does not actualize in burning them.

Clearly, if any of these three requirements fails to be the case, fire doesn’t “fire”.

Are miracles improbable?

This section is a summary of section 8.3 in Andrew Loke’s Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Let’s say you agree that miracles are possible, but just so hopelessly improbable that they may as well be impossible. For example, our old friend David Hume writes (regarding Jesus’ resurrection):

“But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed, in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation.”

Hume, 1748 – An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (p.87)

A problem with Hume’s claim, though, is that it’s begging the question. He essentially claims miracles haven’t happened (or are at most improbable) because they have never been observed – but that’s the exact point in question. We’re trying to find out whether miracles are probable or happen – we can’t say “they are improbable because they have never been observed”.

A sceptic could modify the argument by using a frequentist notion of probability – essentially saying that the ratio of the frequences of miracle to non-miracle events makes it such that historians (who can only establish what probably happened) cannot establish that a miracle occurred (again, presupposing that miracles are highly improbable due to our experience).

The problem with this modified approach is, to put it simply, how do you know? Mike Licona, a New Testament scholar, writes:

“how does the nontheist historian know this? Testimonies of God’s intervention in history occur with every claim to answered prayer. Although many claims of God’s intervention could in reality be coincidence, many claims of coincidence could in reality be God’s intervention”
(Licona, 2010)

Obviously, I am not claiming that all instances of purported answered prayer are miraculous – I am just highlighting the imprudence of brazenly claiming that miracles are by definition improbable. Based on the above sections, I think there is good reason to do away with that definition, but also due to the fact that a publication from some years ago by Harvard University Press notes a survey indicating that 73% of US medical doctors think that miraculous healing occurs today (or at least, at the time of the survey) (Brown, 2012). As a matter of fact, the survey also notes that there have been documented cases of tumours disappearing and the blind healed after prayer – sceptics would need to assess these cases before making sweeping claims. What’s also relevant is the background information – this is something that can be explained using Bayes’ rule:

P(A|B) =

Let’s say A refers to the event that Jesus rose from the dead and so A’ refers to the event that he did not, and let’s say B refers to the background information (which you’ll see in section 6). This says that the probability of Jesus having risen from the dead, given the background information (P(A|B)) is equal to the probability of the background information given Jesus having risen from the dead (P(B|A)) multiplied by the probability that Jesus rose from the dead (P(A)) divided by the probability of the background information.

Calculating this for the reverse, we can note that:

P(A’|B) =

Since both calculations are divided by P(B), we can ignore that and just say that P(A|B) = (P(B|A) * P(A)).

Using some arbitrary but reasonable values – let’s say:

• P(B|A) = 0.95 (and I think there is good reason to believe it’s higher)
• P(A) = 0.05
• P(A’) = 1 – P(A’) = 0.95
• P(B|A’) = 0.05 (there’s good reason to think it’s at least this low, or far lower)

Here we get P(A|B) = (0.95 * 0.05) = 0.0475. We also get P(A’|B) = (0.95 * 0.05) = 0.0475. Of course, the probabilities provided above are arbitrary (although I think they’re not that far off their true values). Note that although the probability of Jesus having risen from the dead alone (P(A)), is very small (0.05), when taking into account the background information, we realise that when comparing it to the probability that he did not (also taking into account the background information), the probabilities of the respective events (in this case) become equal. That’s the power of background information!

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I suppose I’ll leave it there. I think I’ve shown that the common definition of miracles doesn’t really work, along with having given good reason to accept God’s existence and how, metaphysically, miracles actually occur – along with decent reason to think (if good enough evidence is presented) that miracles can actually happen.

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Sources:

1. Summa Theologiae I, q. 105, a. 5.
2. Parts of the “So what are miracles?” section are generally taken from Ed Feser’s Miracles section in Chapter 6 of Five Proofs of the Existence of God
3. Feser, E., 2017. Five proofs of the existence of God. Ignatius Press.
4. For a detailed exposition of how essentialism (the name of this position) works, interested readers might want to check out the “Essentialism” chapter (section 4.1) in Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, by Ed Feser.
5. Licona, Michael. 2010. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.
6. Brown, Candy Gunther. 2012. Testing Prayer: Science and Healing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.