Miracle
A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific laws and accordingly gets attributed to some supernatural or preternatural cause. Various religions often attribute a phenomenon characterized as miraculous to the actions of a supernatural being, a deity, a miracle worker, a saint, or a religious leader.
Informally, English-speakers often use the word miracle to characterise any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws of nature, such as surviving a natural disaster, or simply a "wonderful" occurrence, regardless of likelihood. Some coincidences may be seen as miracles.
A true miracle would, by definition, be a non-natural phenomenon, leading many writers to dismiss miracles as physically impossible or impossible to confirm by their nature. The former position is expressed by Thomas Jefferson, and the latter by David Hume. Theologians typically say that, with divine providence, God or Allah regularly works through nature yet, as a creator, may work without, above, or against it as well.
Definitions
The word miracle is usually used to describe any beneficial event considered physically impossible or otherwise inexplicable by natural means. Theologically, however, there are more specific definitions. Wayne Grudem defines a miracle as "a less common kind of God's activity in which he arouses people's awe and wonder and bears witness to himself". A deistic perspective of God's relation to the world defines a miracle as a direct intervention of God into the world.Naturalistic explanations
A miracle may be false information or simply a fictional story, rather than something that truly happened. A miracle experience may be due to cognitive errors or psychological errors of witnesses. Use of some drugs such as psychedelics may produce similar effects to religious experiences.Law of truly large numbers
Statistically improbable events are sometimes called miracles. For instance, when three classmates coincidentally meet in a different country decades after having left school, they may consider this miraculous. However, a colossal number of events happen every moment on Earth; thus, extremely unlikely coincidences also happen every moment. Events considered impossible are therefore not sothey are just increasingly rare and dependent on the number of individual events. British mathematician J. E. Littlewood suggested that individuals should statistically expect one-in-a-million events to happen to them at the rate of about one per month. By his definition, seemingly miraculous events are actually commonplace.Supernatural explanations
A miracle is a phenomenon claimed to be unexplained by known laws of nature. The criteria for classifying an event as a miracle vary. Often a religious text, such as the Bible or Quran, states that a miracle occurred, and believers may accept this as fact.Philosophical explanations
Aristotelian and Neo-Aristotelian
The Aristotelian view of God has God as pure actuality and considers him as the prime mover doing only what a perfect being can do, think. Jewish neo-Aristotelian philosophers who are still influential today include Maimonides, Samuel ben Judah ibn Tibbon, and Gersonides. Directly or indirectly, their views are still prevalent in much of the religious Jewish community.Baruch Spinoza
In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, the philosopher Spinoza claims that miracles are merely lawlike events of whose causes we are ignorant. We should not treat them as having no cause or as having a cause immediately available. Rather the miracle is for combating the ignorance it entails, like a political project.David Hume
According to the philosopher David Hume, a miracle is "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent". From this premise, the crux of his argument is this: "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact which it endeavours to establish." By Hume's definition, a miracle directly contradicts our regular experience of how the universe works. As miracles are single events, the evidence for them is always limited and we experience them rarely. On the basis of experience and evidence, the probability that miracle occurred is always less than the probability that it did not occur. As it is rational to believe what is more probable, we are not supposed to have a good reason to believe that a miracle occurred.Friedrich Schleiermacher
According to the Christian theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher "every event, even the most natural and usual, becomes a miracle as soon as the religious view of it can be the dominant".Søren Kierkegaard
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, following Hume and Johann Georg Hamann, a Humean scholar, agrees with Hume's definition of a miracle as a transgression of a law of nature, but Kierkegaard, writing as his pseudonym Johannes Climacus, regards any historical reports to be less than certain, including historical reports of miracles, as all historical knowledge is always doubtful and open to approximation.James Keller
states that the "claim that God has worked a miracle implies that God has singled out certain persons for some benefit which many others do not receive implies that God is unfair".Religious views
According to a 2011 poll by the Pew Research Center, more than 90 percent of evangelical Christians believe miracles still take place. While Christians see God as sometimes intervening in human activities, Muslims see Allah as a direct cause of all events. "God's overwhelming closeness makes it easy for Muslims to admit the miraculous in the world."Buddhism
The Haedong Kosung-jon of Korea records that King Beopheung of Silla had desired to promulgate Buddhism as the state religion. However, officials in his court opposed him. In the fourteenth year of his reign, Beopheung's "Grand Secretary", Ichadon, devised a strategy to overcome court opposition. Ichadon schemed with the king, convincing him to make a proclamation granting Buddhism official state sanction using the royal seal. Ichadon told the king to deny having made such a proclamation when the opposing officials received it and demanded an explanation. Instead, Ichadon would confess and accept the punishment of execution, for what would quickly be seen as a forgery. Ichadon prophesied to the king that at his execution a wonderful miracle would convince the opposing court faction of Buddhism's power. Ichadon's scheme went as planned, and the opposing officials took the bait. According to legend when Ichadon was executed on the 15th day of the 9th month in 527, his prophecy was fulfilled; the earth shook, the sun was darkened, beautiful flowers rained from the sky, his severed head flew to the sacred Geumgang mountains, and milk instead of blood sprayed 100 feet in the air from his beheaded corpse. The omen was accepted by the opposing court officials as a manifestation of heaven's approval, and Buddhism was made the state religion in 527 CE.The Honchō Hokke Reigenki of Japan contains a collection of Buddhist miracle stories.
Miracles play an important role in the veneration of Buddhist relics in Southern Asia. Thus, Somawathie Stupa in Sri Lanka is an increasingly popular site of pilgrimage and tourist destination thanks to multiple reports about miraculous rays of light, apparitions and modern legends, which often have been fixed in photographs and movies.
Christianity
The gospels record three sorts of miracles performed by Jesus: exorcisms, cures, and natural wonders. In the Gospel of John, the miracles are referred to as "signs" and the emphasis is on God demonstrating his underlying normal activity in remarkable ways. In the New Testament, the greatest miracle is the resurrection of Jesus, the event central to Christian faith.Jesus explains in the New Testament that miracles are performed by faith in God. "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'move from here to there' and it will move.". After Jesus returned to heaven, the Book of Acts records the disciples of Jesus praying to God to grant that miracles be done in his name for the purpose of convincing onlookers that he is alive..
Other passages mention false prophets who will be able to perform miracles to deceive "if possible, even the elect of Christ". 2 Thessalonians 2:9 says, "And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the Truth, that they might be saved." Revelation 13:13,14 says, "And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live." Revelation 16:14 says, "For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." Revelation 19:20 says, "And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." These passages indicate that signs, wonders, and miracles are not necessarily committed by God. These miracles not committed by God are labeled as false miracles though which could mean that they are deceptive in nature and are not the same as the true miracles committed by God.
In early Christianity, miracles were the most often attested motivations for conversions of pagans; pagan Romans took the existence of miracles for granted; Christian texts reporting them offered miracles as divine proof of the Christian God's unique claim to authority: "of all worships, the Christian best and most particularly advertised its miracles by driving out of spirits and laying on of hands". The Gospel of John is structured around miraculous "signs": The success of the Apostles, according to the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, lay in their miracles: "though laymen in their language", he asserted, "they drew courage from divine, miraculous powers". The conversion of Constantine by a miraculous sign in heaven is a prominent fourth-century example.
Since the Age of Enlightenment, miracles have often needed to be rationalized: C.S. Lewis, Norman Geisler, William Lane Craig, and other 20th-century Christians have argued that miracles are reasonable and plausible. For example, Lewis said that a miracle is something that comes totally out of the blue. If for thousands of years a woman can become pregnant only by sexual intercourse with a man, then if she were to become pregnant without a man, it would be a miracle. Others argue that Jesus's healing miracles dealt with conversion and somatization disorders, could manifest as blindness, paralysis etc. In a Mediterranean context, healing was also defined as restoring a person's social standing. Some diseases, like leprosy, caused immense social stigma.
There have been numerous claims of miracles by people of most Christian denominations, including but not limited to faith healings and exorcisms. Miracle reports are especially prevalent in Roman Catholicism and Pentecostal or Charismatic churches.