Miracles

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I work in a Catholic college and have to support students in RE classes. The topic of miracles comes up frequently and also arises when discussing faith with staff. I try to be respectful.

I won't go to the bother of providing examples of miracles because these are many. I'm not only talking about ones that sound silly like, 'I saw the Virgin Mary in a waffle'. There are many medically related miracles to do with people making a full recovery from terminal or seriously disabling conditions, when medical science has advised the patient to start the grieving process, use a wheelchair, etc.

My stance on this is that just because medical science can't explain these instances now, they will be able to at a later date. I am aware that my position requires faith as much as the position that 'God did it'. It seems that every believer I talk to has some miraculous story of their own, and some of these look like confirmation bias - e.g. my grandmother was hungry and had no money whatsoever, she prayed to God for enough money to buy a loaf or bread, and lo and behold, she saw this money on the street outside her house. This is obviously a fairly ordinary occurrence being attributed to the supernatural.

Other examples are less obviously confirmation bias, for example, my collegue had a car accident and was told that she would never be able to use her right arm again. Weeks later, she regained full use of her arm (with pain) and she attributes this to a higher power. The doctors had no explanation. In this example, I'm aware that my conviction that her recovery was the result of natural events requires faith.

What is your position on miracles? Whilst I'm aware that my position requires faith, I think that better on the natural over the supernatural is the better bet. I don't quite know how to explain why, though. If another materialist/atheist could explain, I would be grateful. I have an idea that the track record of science explaning things that were in the past seen as supernatural is a good place to start. For instance, thunder was once seen as supernatural in origin - but now we know it isn't. I would also be interested to read explanations from believers about why they think it's more plausible to have faith in the supernatural origin of miracles.

Okay, forgive me if I'm wrong, but what I gathered from your post is that you're an atheist who believes that miracles should be/will be explained away with science, but you're looking for reasons why others would point to God as the explanation for it? If that is the case, I will share my opinion. If not, please correct me.

I am a Christian. I've always believed in God (haven't always acted like it though). I believe that miracles come from God because of what the Bible tells me, and from the miracles in my own life. Things have happened in my life and the lives of those around me that confirm in my mind and in my heart, that God is the deliverer of miracles. The reason? Because prior to the miracle, there was a prayer.

Don't get me wrong, prayer does not always bring about a miracle, but more often than not, it precedes one. Does this help? I'm willing to also go indepth on the miracles that have happened in my life, I just chose not to in this for brevity's sake.

Regarding health "miracles", the placebo effect can have a significant effect sometimes. It is known that a positive mental attitude can stimulate the body's immune system and healing response. Nothing mystical or miraculous about this, the brain influences most of the body's systems directly or indirectly.

Regarding other "miracles", many fall as you say under confirmation bias, some are fraud or propaganda, some are urban myths and some are simply unexplained - but this doesn't not mean some supernatural origin for the "miracle".

People often have a psychological need to attribute morality and justice to purely physical events and attribute divine intervention where pure statistical luck is at play. Take the case of someone narrowly missing a flight which subsequently crashes killing all the passengers - they may take that as divine intervention and turn to religion as a result. However, the other 100 people who were on the plane screaming their heads off as the plane plummets from 10,000 feet into the ground see no such divine intervention.

Our daily lives are filled with luck and misfortune. No divine interference is at play. Just circumstances and statistics.

Doctors can be wrong and people do recover. There is nothing miraculous about it.

What would be miraculous is if a surgeon amputated somebody's leg and it grew back overnight.

Why Won't God Heal Amputees?

No matter how many people pray. No matter how sincere those people are. No matter how much they believe. No matter how devout and deserving the recipient. Nothing will happen. Amputated legs will not regenerate. Prayer does not restore the severed limbs of amputees. You can electronically search through all the medical journals ever written -- there is no documented case of an amputated leg being restored spontaneously. And we know that God ignores the prayers of amputees through our own observations of the world around us. If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs, we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day.

Isn't that odd? Why does there seem to be a plethora of 'miraculous' cures for diseases that can not be seen by the naked eye, but an utter lack of miraculous cures that are so obvious as to eliminate all doubt and skepticism whatsoever?

Why won't God heal amputees?

It is a sin in Judaism to ask God for a miracle. To ask God to break his own laws of the natural world to make your situation better is very often also made worse by the fact that you only approach God in times of great need.

Do I believe miracles happen or can happen? Certainly. Do I believe they happen as often as people say they do? No. But that's fine, miracle or you were dealt a lucky hand, the glory is always to be given to God.

Faith really feeds this belief in the miraculous, because of the Personal God (butler in heaven), and if this God is always watching out for you and everything you do, then even the obstacles in your life will be seen as challenges from him meant to test your faith, and alleviation or triumph of any sort will be seen as undeserved grace, and a miracle. That is how one sees the hand of God in ones life. This is my understanding of the Christian outlook. You began to divide the unexpected between a divine intervention, or the absence of God in ones life, very often followed by reading into people's mishaps as a product of their faith or actions. It makes one very judgmental of those who were just dealt a straight run of lucky cards in life.

But I'm not prepared to dismiss the supernatural... science is young.

The Catholic church takes miracles very seriously. It's on their criteria for canonisation (you must have performed two miracles posthumously). The Church submits claims of miracles to scientifc scrutiny before accepting them (although they don't tend to revise this status in the light of future scrutiny once science has developed more). Asking for miracles from saints is of course encouraged (how else are posthumous miracles supposed to occur). I think people go to intermediaries as opposed to God directly.

The Church's authority rests on miracles. This is why Catholics I talk to often use the existence of miracles as a major part of their argument.

In the Lutheran and Anglican churches, people become saints by virtue of good works that aren't necessarily miraculous. When I was a Catholic, I always felt that there was insufficient recognition of simply good people if they didn't have the hocus pocus to back themselves up with. I saw the function of saints as being examples of non-divine humans who I could seek to emulate, but the Church really sees them as evidence to support their authority. I think the prioritisation or miracle workers over simply good people leads to the huge number of reported miracles in Catholic community. People are primed to look out for them because of the status is affords you if you witness or perform one. I'm not religious any more, but after a certain age, I realised that this was a distraction from spiritual development. I remember thinking before that realisation, 'I hope a miracle happens to me like it did to Bernadette because then I'll be famous'. Seriously.

I've also found a purported amputee leg restoration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Calanda - but that looks decidedly fishy.