What Is a Miracle?

What Is the Question?

A miracle, in the philosophical and theological tradition, is a divine intervention that violates or suspends the order of nature. The word comes from the Latin miraculum, meaning "a wonder," and it carries the sense of an event that is extraordinary, that is attributed to divine action, and that is taken as a sign of God's power or purposes. The concept is central to the Abrahamic religions, where it names a category of divine action, and it has been the subject of philosophical reflection from the early church through the modern period. The philosophical questions miracles raise are deep. Are miracles possible, given the laws of nature? Are miracles knowable, given the limits of testimony? And how are miracles related to the divine action that sustains the created order? The question is what a miracle amounts to, and whether the concept is coherent.

The SEP entry on miracles sets the contemporary debate as a contest between the classical account, developed by Aquinas, and the Humean critique, developed by David Hume in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. The two positions turn on different accounts of the laws of nature and of the relation of divine action to the created order, and the debate is part of the larger question of divine action and of the coherence of theism.

Historical Background

The concept of a miracle is ancient. In the Hebrew Bible, miracles are the acts of God, from the parting of the Red Sea to the healings of the prophets, and they are treated as signs of God's power and purposes. The New Testament continues the tradition, with the miracles of Jesus, from the healings and exorcisms to the resurrection, treated as signs of the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. The early church treated miracles as a continuing feature of the Christian life, and the church fathers, including Augustine, defended the reality of miracles against the skepticism of the philosophers.

Aquinas, in the Summa Contra Gentiles and the Summa Theologica, gave the concept its classical philosophical form. Aquinas defined a miracle as an event that is beyond the order of created nature, produced by God alone, and he distinguished three kinds of miracle: those that are beyond the power of nature, such as the creation of the world; those that are against the power of nature in the order of nature, such as the parting of the Red Sea; and those that are against the power of nature in the subject, such as the healing of a disease. The Aquinan account shaped the Catholic theology of miracles, and it has been the reference point for the subsequent debate.

The Enlightenment was the crisis of the concept. Spinoza, in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, argued that miracles are impossible, because the laws of nature are the necessary expressions of the divine nature, and a violation of the laws would be a violation of the divine nature, which is incoherent. Hume, in the chapter on miracles in the Enquiry, gave the critique its classic form, arguing that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, because the evidence for the uniformity of nature always outweighs the evidence for the testimony. The combined effect of Spinoza and Hume was to make the concept of a miracle look intellectually disreputable, and the modern debate has been largely a debate about whether the critique can be answered.

Aquinas: Miracles Beyond the Order of Nature

Aquinas's account of miracles is the classical form of the concept, and it deserves a closer look. Aquinas's central claim is that a miracle is an event that is beyond the order of created nature, produced by God alone. The "beyond the order of created nature" is the key, because it distinguishes a miracle from an unusual event that is still within the power of nature, such as a rare natural phenomenon or a remarkable healing that is within the body's capacities. A miracle, on Aquinas's view, is an event that the created powers could not produce, and that therefore requires the direct action of God.

The three kinds of miracle Aquinas distinguished correspond to the degree to which the event is beyond the power of nature. The first kind, beyond the power of nature absolutely, includes the creation of the world and the raising of the dead, events that the created powers could not produce in any circumstances. The second kind, against the power of nature in the order of nature, includes the parting of the Red Sea and the turning of water into wine, events that the created powers could produce in some circumstances but not in the way they occurred. The third kind, against the power of nature in the subject, includes the healing of a disease, events that the created powers could produce in the subject but not in the speed or completeness with which they occurred.

The Aquinan account has several features that are philosophically important. The first is that a miracle is not a violation of the laws of nature but a suspension of the created powers, an event that the created powers could not produce. The distinction matters, because it allows the defender of miracles to say that the laws of nature are not broken but suspended, and that the suspension is the direct action of God, who is the author of the created powers and who can act beyond them. The second is that a miracle is a sign, an event that points beyond itself to the divine power and purpose, and that is part of the divine revelation. The third is that a miracle is a form of divine action, and the question of miracles is inseparable from the wider question of how God acts in the world.

Hume: The Critique of Miracles

Hume's critique of miracles, in the chapter "Of Miracles" in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, is the classic statement of the case against the concept. Hume's argument is that a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, and that the evidence for the laws of nature, drawn from the uniform experience of humanity, always outweighs the evidence for any testimony to a miracle. The testimony, no matter how credible the witnesses, is always weaker than the uniform experience, and so the rational agent should never believe a miracle on the basis of testimony.

Hume's argument has several steps. The first is that the evidence for a miracle is the testimony of witnesses, and the testimony is to be weighed by the credibility of the witnesses, the consistency of their reports, and the absence of a motive to deceive. The second is that the evidence against the miracle is the uniform experience of humanity, the fact that the laws of nature have held without exception in all observed cases. The third is that the evidence against the miracle always outweighs the evidence for it, because the uniform experience is more extensive and more reliable than any testimony, and so the rational agent should never believe a miracle on the basis of testimony.

Hume's argument has been criticized from several directions. The first is that the argument begs the question, because it assumes that the laws of nature have held without exception, which is what the miracle is supposed to challenge. The second is that the argument is too strong, because it would rule out any unusual event, including the discoveries of science, on the basis of the uniform experience. The third is that the argument does not take seriously the possibility that the testimony to a miracle could be very strong, including the testimony of many credible witnesses, the consistency of their reports, and the absence of a motive to deceive. The defender of miracles can argue that in such a case, the testimony could outweigh the uniform experience, and the rational agent could believe the miracle.

The Modern Debate

The modern debate has refined both the Aquinan and the Humean positions. Richard Swinburne, in The Concept of Miracle (1971), defended the coherence of the concept, by arguing that the laws of nature are not necessary truths but descriptions of the regularities in the created order, and that God, as the author of the order, can act beyond it. The laws of nature, on Swinburne's view, are not violated by a miracle but suspended, and the suspension is the direct action of God, who is the author of the laws. The defense preserves the coherence of the concept, and it answers the Spinozist objection that a violation of the laws would be a violation of the divine nature.

The Humean critique has been refined by the development of the Bayesian analysis of evidence, in the work of John Earman and others. The Bayesian analysis treats the evidence for a miracle as the prior probability of the miracle multiplied by the likelihood of the testimony given the miracle, divided by the prior probability of the testimony given no miracle. The analysis shows that the Humean conclusion, that the rational agent should never believe a miracle on the basis of testimony, depends on the prior probability of the miracle being very low, and that the prior probability is itself a substantive philosophical question. The Bayesian analysis has not settled the debate, but it has clarified the structure of the reasoning and the points at which the disagreement is located.

Miracles and the Laws of Nature

The central question is how miracles are related to the laws of nature. The traditional account, in Aquinas and Swinburne, holds that the laws of nature are descriptions of the regularities in the created order, and that a miracle is an event that goes beyond the regularities, produced by the direct action of God. The Humean critique holds that the laws of nature are the uniform experience of humanity, and that a miracle is a violation of the laws, which is to be rejected on the basis of the evidence. The disagreement turns on the nature of the laws of nature, and on whether the laws are necessary truths, regularities, or something else.

The contemporary philosophy of science has produced a number of accounts of the laws of nature, including the regularity theory, the necessitarian theory, and the best-system account. The accounts have different implications for the question of miracles. The regularity theory, which holds that the laws are descriptions of the regularities, is most congenial to the defender of miracles, since it allows the laws to be suspended without contradiction. The necessitarian theory, which holds that the laws are necessary truths, is most congenial to the critic of miracles, since it makes a violation of the laws incoherent. The best-system account, which holds that the laws are the axioms of the best systematization of the phenomena, is somewhere in between, since it allows the laws to be revised in the light of new evidence, including the evidence of a miracle.

Miracles and Divine Action

The question of miracles bears on the wider question of divine action, the question of how God acts in the world. The traditional account, in Aquinas, holds that God acts in the world both through the regularities of nature and through special divine actions, including miracles and answers to prayer. The contemporary debate has produced a number of distinct accounts, including the account of special divine action as a form of non-interventionist divine action, developed by Maurice Wiles and others, and the account of divine action as a form of causal joint, developed by Robert Russell and others. The debate is live, and the question of miracles is a part of it.

Contemporary Relevance

The concept of a miracle remains a live topic, both in philosophy and in the wider culture. The persistence of reports of miracles, from the healings at Lourdes to the contemporary charismatic movement, and the continued philosophical interest in the concept, suggest that miracles are a deep feature of the religious imagination, and the philosophical question of what to make of them is correspondingly urgent. The honest philosophical stance is to take the reports seriously, to engage with the Humean critique, and to ask what the concept names that the alternatives do not.

The deeper lesson is that the question of miracles is part of the larger question of how to understand the relation of the divine and the created order, and the older concept, with its insistence on the possibility of divine action beyond the created powers, may still have something to teach us. The work of philosophy is not to dismiss the concept by procedural fiat, but to do the careful work of comparison and assessment that the question deserves.

Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Miracles" — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "David Hume" — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Thomas Aquinas" — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Philosophy of Religion" — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-religion/

Related Topics

• Is Faith Rational? — the wider question.
• What Is Prayer? — a related form of divine action.
• What Is Religious Experience? — the experiential context.
• What Is Natural Theology? — the theistic arguments.
• Who Bears the Burden of Proof for God? — the procedural question.
• Does God Exist? — the central question.
• Philosophy of Miracles — the wider domain.