WHERE WE ARE

In my previous post, I analyzed eight definitions of the word “miracle” into seven different elements. I am not satisfied with any of these definitions, and in this post I will evaluate these definitions to make clear the problems I see with them. In a later post, I will attempt to construct a definition that avoids the various problems that I will point out with these existing definitions.

MY ANALYSIS OF EIGHT DEFINITIONS OF THE WORD “MIRACLE”

Here is the table that represents my analysis of eight definitions of “miracle”:

THE IMPACT ELEMENT

The first element of definitions of “miracle” that I will examine is that the IMPACT element:

IMPACT – the emotional or psychological effect of a miracle

Only one out of the above eight definitions includes this element. The definition by the Christian philosophers Kreeft and Tacelli requires that something be “striking” in order for it to be considered a miracle. Although none of the other above definitions include such an element, I have seen other definitions that make a similar requirement (e.g. “amazing” or “awe inspiring”).

There are, however, some serious problems with this requirement.

First, the term “striking” is a VAGUE notion. There is a large gray area in which it would be difficult to be confident about whether an event is “striking” or not.

Second, whether an event is “striking” is a subjective matter, and different people are going to view the same event differently in terms of whether the event is “striking” or not. An event might well be striking to John but not be striking to Jane. Thus, the term “striking” is relative to individual people. But if event X is striking to John but NOT striking to Jane, how do we then correctly characterize event X? It is unclear how to determine whether an event is “striking” when different people have different emotional responses to the same event.

Using the word “striking” in a definition of “miracle” makes it so that a specific event might well count as being a “miracle” to one person, but not count as being a “miracle” to another person. But in that case, the term “miracle” becomes subjective and relative to individual persons, and ceases to be an objective category, and there might well be many events for which there is no correct answer to the question “Is this a miracle?”

Third, why do people think that a miracle should be “striking”? One reason for this is that biblical examples of miracles would be “striking” or “amazing” events (if they actually took place). But even if every story of every miracle was a story about a striking or amazing event, it does NOT FOLLOW that being “striking” or “amazing” is a part of the meaning of the word “miracle”.

It might simply be a general fact about miracles that they have all been “striking” or “amazing”. For example, nobody had ever seen a black swan “until around 1697 when Dutch mariners saw them in Australia.” (“Black swan theory” Wikipedia). No swans that had been seen up until that time were black swans. But the word “swan” did NOT mean a certain sort of non-black bird. It was simply a general fact about swans that none of them were black, at least that was what people believed until 1697. When a black swan was first sighted, it was clearly a swan, even though it was black. The word “swan” was correctly applied to that black bird, even though no swan that had been seen previously was a black swan.

Fourth, the idea that a miracle ought to be “striking” or “amazing” probably rests on the view that the purpose of a miracle is for God to reveal an important theological truth to humans. But if God wants to reveal an important theological truth to humans, then presumably God wants more than just a small handful of people who happen to be present to experience a miracle to learn that theological truth.

So, it makes sense for God to cause an event that is “striking” or “amazing” in order that the people who happen to be present to experience the miracle will take notice of that event, and remember the event, and tell others about the event, perhaps repeating the story for the rest of their lives. In other words, making an event that is “striking” or “amazing” is a reasonable strategy for promoting communication about that event to a large number of humans, perhaps for years, decades, or even for centuries.

Making it a requirement that an event be “striking” or “amazing” to count as a miracle, would thus involve assuming that the purpose of every miracle is for God to communicate an important theological truth to a large number of humans. But as we shall see when I discuss the element of PURPOSE, this assumption is FALSE. Because it is NOT the case that all miracles have this PURPOSE, it is NOT the case that all miracles must be “striking” or “amazing”.

Because the terms “striking” and “amazing” are VAGUE, these terms should not be used in a definition of the word “miracle”. Because the terms “striking” and “amazing” are SUBJECTIVE and thus relative to the emotional responses of individual persons, these terms should not be used in a definition of the word “miracle”.

It might be tempting to say that an event must be “striking” or “amazing” to be considered a miracle because all of the examples we can think of (such as miracle stories in the Bible) are about events that (if actual) would be “striking” or “amazing”, but it is important to resist this temptation, because it might well be simply a general fact that all (or most) miracles are “striking” or “amazing” without this being part of the MEANING of the word “miracle”.

Finally, the appeal of the requirement that an event be “striking” or “amazing” to be considered a miracle seems to be based on a FALSE assumption about the PURPOSE of miracles.

Therefore, a good definition of the word “miracle” will NOT include the IMPACT element (such as the requirement that an event be “striking” or “amazing”).

THE GENUS ELEMENT

The second element of definitions of “miracle” that I will examine is that the GENUS element:

GENUS – the most general category to which a miracle belongs

Purtill, Evans, and Habermas consider a miracle to belong to the general category of events. Geisler and Flew, on the other hand, consider a miracle to belong to the general category of acts. Kreeft and Tacelli consider a miracle to be an “intervention”, which seems to be a specific kind of act. Swinburne talks about a miracle being “a violation” and Hume similarly speaks about a miracle being “a transgression”, but it is unclear to me whether these are kinds of acts or kinds of events or something else entirely.

The main choice appears to be between considering a miracle to be a kind of event or a kind of act. I suppose that an act or action is itself a kind of event, so if we want to determine the most general category to which a miracle belongs, then the best choice would be: events. So, I favor considering a miracle to be a kind of event, because that is a more general category than an act or action.

There is another good reason to prefer the GENUS of miracles to be events rather than acts: we cannot observe the actions of God or of gods or of other supernatural beings. We MIGHT be able to INFER the occurrence of actions by God or by gods or by other supernatural beings, but that is uncertain. What is clear and certain is that we can observe events in the physical or natural world.

The point of using miracles as evidence for religious beliefs is that we BEGIN with facts that are based upon events that can be observed in the physical or natural world, and then use REASONING based on those facts to try to make inferences about God or about gods or about supernatural beings. Because we expect to start out from observable events in the physical or natural world, this is a good reason to define “miracles” as events rather than as acts. This allows us to ground this concept in observable events in the physical or natural world.

In fact, this makes the GENUS and SPECIES in the definition by Habermas very attractive:

GENUS: an event

SPECIES: which may be perceived by man’s senses

I like this GENUS, and like the SPECIES too, especially with slightly different wording:

SPECIES: in the physical or natural world and that is observable by humans using their ordinary senses

THE SPECIES ELEMENT

The third element of definitions of “miracle” that I will examine is that the SPECIES element:

SPECIES – the sub-category (of the most general category) to which a miracle belongs

Only a few of the definitions specify the SPECIES of a miracle. I have already mentioned the SPECIES given in the definition by Habermas (“which may be perceived by man’s senses”) as well as my revised statement of this SPECIES (“in the physical or natural world and that is observable by humans using their ordinary senses“). Evans and Hume specify similar SPECIES in their definitions:

brought about by a special act of… (Evans)

by a particular volition of …or by the interposition of… (Hume)

I like the SPECIES given in the definition by Habermas, because it grounds the concept of a “miracle” in facts based upon events in the physical world that are observable by humans using their ordinary senses. I preferred the GENUS of events, because that allows us to ground the concept of a “miracle” in facts based upon events in the physical world that are observable by humans using their ordinary senses, as opposed to “acts by God” or by gods or by other supernatural beings, which we cannot observe using our ordinary senses.

So, one might expect me to reject the SPECIES presented in the definitions of Evans and Hume. But I am not inclined to reject these SPECIES at this point. First, we don’t have to choose between the SPECIES given by Habermas and the SPECIES given by Evans or Hume. There can be more than one sub-category of events used to specify the particular things or phenomena that we have in mind when using the word “miracle”.

The SPECIES mentioned in the definitions of Evans and Hume are about HOW a miracle is CAUSED or brought about. It is appropriate to allow for the CAUSE or EXPLANATION of an event to be something that is INFERRED, something that we use REASON to determine.

It might turn out to be very difficult or even impossible to logically INFER that God (or a god, or a superhuman being) was the CAUSE of an event, but it would beg the question to assume that this was impossible at this point, when we are simply trying to clarify the meaning of the term “miracle”. First, we clarify the meaning of the term “miracle,” and then we can work on figuring out whether such an event is possible or is one that we can know about by means of reasoning based on facts about observable events.

Although the SPECIES given in the definitions of Evans and Hume get us into more uncertain territory, this is precisely the territory that we eventually want to go into. So, I accept their SPECIES in addition to the SPECIES given by Habermas, as a legitimate part of a good definition of “miracle”. However, I would suggest what I take to be simpler and clearer language for the statement of this further SPECIES about how miracles are caused:

intentionally brought about by …

UPCOMING POSTS

In the next post of this series, I will continue to work my way through the remaining elements of these definitions of “miracle”, evaluating the specific contents of the elements as well as the need or value of each element. This exercise is intended to help me formulate a definition of the word “miracle” that preserves insights in these existing definitions, and that avoids the various problems that I see in these existing definitions.