Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-l4t7p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-23T09:49:05.800Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Miracles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Malcolm L. Diamond
Malcolm L. Diamond
Affiliation:
Professor of Philosophy of Religion Princeton University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The status of religion in the modern world is intimately related to the rise of science. The clearest way of getting at this relation is to consider the issue of miracle. Given the success of scientists in predicting and controlling natural phenomena, many of the leading theologians of the modern era abandoned the understanding of miracle as a supernatural violation of natural regularities. They conceded the capacity of scientists to offer natural explanations of phenomena that are naturally observable and shifted their theological focus from the observable patterns of nature to morality, religious experience, and history. Although many liberal and existentialistic theologians affirmed the miraculous, especially with regard to the Resurrection, they avoided a head on collision with science.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , September 1973 , pp. 307 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

page 307 note 1 Anderson, Bernhard, Understanding The Old Testament (Engelwood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Ham, 1957), pp. 47 f.Google ScholarBuber, MartinMoses (Oxford and London, East and West library, 1946), pp. 74 ff.Google Scholar

page 308 note 1 Farrer, Austin, ‘An English Appreciation’ [of Rudolf Bultmann] in Bartsch, H. W., ed., Kerygma and Myth (New York, Macmillan, 1955), pp. 221 f.Google Scholar

page 309 note 1 For a comprehensive discussion of these developments see, Barbour, Ian, Issues in Science and Religion (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1966)Google Scholar, ch. 6, which contains references to the relevant literature.

page 309 note 2 Cross, F. L. ed., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957), p. 905.Google Scholar

page 309 note 3 Tennant, F. R., Miracle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925), pp. 4 f.Google Scholar

page 309 note 4 ibid., pp. 67 ff.

page 310 note 1 Tennant, F. R., Miracle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925), pp. 10.Google Scholar

page 310 note 2 Herbert, Feigl, ‘Philosophy of Science’ in Chisholm, R., Frankena, W. et al. , Philosophy (Engelwood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1964) p. 477. SeeGoogle ScholarTennant, F. R., Miracle, pp. 22 ff.Google Scholar for a discussion of the gap between forces of nature and the laws of science.

page 311 note 1 Copi, Irving M., Introduction to Logic, 2nd edition (New York: Macmillan, 1960), pp. 257 f.Google Scholar

page 311 note 2 Rogers, Eric, Physics for the Inquiring Mind, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1960), pp. 343 ff.Google Scholar, especially pp. 348 f.

page 312 note 1 Hastings, James ed., Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (New York, Scribner's, 1916), vol. VIII, pp. 148 ff.Google Scholar

page 314 note 1 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III, ch. 102Google Scholar. A convenient edition is On The Truth of the Christian Faith, Bourke, V. J., translator and editor (New York, Doubleday, 1956), Book III, Part 2.Google Scholar

page 315 note 1 Ross, James F., Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1969), pp. 82 f.Google Scholar

page 315 note 2 Smart, Ninian. Philosophers and Religious Truth (London: SCM Press, 1964), pp. 42 f.Google Scholar

page 316 note 1 McKinnon, Alastair, ‘“Miracle” and “Paradox”,’ American Philosophical Quarterly 4, 4 (1967), PP. 309 f.Google Scholar

page 317 note 1 Robinson, Guy, ‘Miracles’ Ratio IX, I (1967), p. 159.Google Scholar

page 317 note 2 Holland, R. F., ‘The Miraculous,’ in Phillips, D. Z., ed., Religion and Understanding (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967), pp. 165 f.Google Scholar; see also Dietl, Paul, ‘On Miracles’ American Philosophical Quarterly 5, 2 (1968), pp. 130 ff.Google Scholar

page 318 note 1 Swinbourne, Richard, The Concept of Miracle (London: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 26 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 318 note 2 Smart, Ninian, Philosophers and Religious Truth, p. 40 f.Google Scholar

page 319 note 1 Smart, Ninian, Philosophers and Religious Truth, p. 41.Google Scholar

page 320 note 1 Robinson, Guy, ‘Miracles’, Ratio p. 159.Google Scholar

page 322 note 1 James, William, The Will to Believe (New York, Dover, 1956), p. 3.Google Scholar

page 323 note 1 Flew, Anthony, ‘Theology and Falsification’, in Flew, A. and MacIntyre, A. A., eds., New Essays in Philosophical Theology (New York, Macmillan, 1955), pp. 98 f.Google Scholar

page 324 note 1 Bultmann, Rudolf, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York, Scribners, 1958), p. 36; see also pp. 83 ff.Google Scholar