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One word that often creeps into the active vocabulary of religious people is ‘miracle’. Many would say that miracles occur, or that they have occurred. It is also sometimes suggested that they provide evidence for various things, notably the existence of God, or the truth of some particular religion, or die teaching of certain religious leaders. The topic of miracle has occasioned much philosophical and theological debate. But what should we say about it?
Perhaps the obvious question to turn to at the outset is that of the nature of miracles. What are we discussing when we talk about miracles? The answer is not all that obvious, for those who refer to miracles have offered various understandings of what it is that they are talking about
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- Copyright © 1992 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
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9 Holland is evidently thinking of the mother in the story as viewing the deliverance of her child as something in line with the Christian belief that God can deliver people in difficulty. So my comments might not apply to his notion of miracle as coincidence.
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18 Notice, however, that all the points about miracles argued by Hume can be found in the work of writers working before the publication of ‘Of Miracles’. This fact is ably demonstrated by R.M. Burns, op. cit.
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49 Mark 13:22 f.
50 Matthew 46; 12:38–41; Mark 8:11–13; 15:31–32; Luke 4:23.