Miracles

A miracle is an extraordinary event inexplicable by natural or scientific laws and accordingly gets attributed to some supernatural or praeternatural cause, often taken as a sign of the power of God.

It is generally defined, according to the etymology of the word—it comes from the Greek thaumasion and the Latin miraculum—as that causes wonder and astonishment, being extraordinary in itself and amazing or inexplicable by normal standards.

It has been argued that even if miracles such as those recorded in the Bible do occur, it does not follow necessarily that God is the author of them.

One alternative to the theistic interpretation, so the argument goes, that a candidate miracle is really an undisclosed extension of natural law.

If, on the other hand, it can be shown either that miracles cannot occur or that the evidence for them can never be strong enough to warrant their rational acceptance, then the question of God's authorship becomes superfluous.

David Hume (1711–1776), a Scottish enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian, and essayist and some of his philosophic successors have tried unsuccessfully to establish the impossibility of miracles on the sole basis of an appeal to the concepts of miracle and natural law.

Not all miracles are alike, they are distinguished into five types:

• Creational ones, are divine acts that bring things into existence.
• Sustaining ones, point to the ongoing operation of nature that especially allows humans to exist and flourish.
• Providential ones, do not appear to go against the normal operation of nature, but the timing of related events seems miraculous.
• Predictive ones, arise from making accurate predictions that are not adequately explainable by mere luck.
• Suspension ones, may appear to be “violations” of some natural law, but it’s better to think of such miracles as “suspending” a natural principle.

The 'Epistemic Theory of Miracles' is the name given by Dr. William Vallicella, an American philosopher on the subjects of metaphysics and religion, to the 'Theory of Miraculous Events' given by Augustine of Hippo (also known as St. Augustine), a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the Bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, and Baruch Spinoza, a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, born in Amsterdam. According to the theory, there are no events contrary to nature — that is no "transgressions", in Hume's sense, of the laws of nature…

Food for thought!