miracle

1. An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God: "Miracles are spontaneous, they cannot be summoned, but come of themselves" (Katherine Anne Porter).
2. One that excites admiring awe. See synonyms at wonder.
3. A miracle play.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin mīrāculum, from mīrārī, to wonder at, from mīrus, wonderful.]

noun

1. An event inexplicable by the laws of nature: wonder. See supernatural.
2. One that evokes great surprise and admiration: astonishment, marvel, phenomenon, prodigy, sensation, stunner, wonder, wonderment. Idioms: one for the books, the eighth wonder of the world. See good/bad.

Definition: wonderful, surprising event or thing
Antonyms: normalcy, usualness

Nickname of Haydn's Symphony no. 96 in D (1791), so called because it was said (incorrectly) that at its first performance the audience miraculously escaped being injured by a falling chandelier (the incident actually occurred in 1795 after a performance of his Symphony no.102).

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To the author of the Bible, the activity of God, as such, is nothing unusual and the recording of His "mighty deeds" is seen as precisely the essential subject-matter of the Bible. God destroys the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, enables Sarah to give birth in old age, brings plagues upon Pharaoh for abducting Sarah (Gen: 17), and causes a well of water to appear for Hagar in the wilderness (Gen. 21:29). Such actions are not referred to as "miraculous," although to the modern reader they are hardly compatible with his understanding of natural law. For the author of the Bible, the sufficient condition for a certain event to be designated as wondrous was not that it was caused by God and violated natural law, but that it had a certain psychological impact upon its witnesses and certain practical consequences. Thus, the classic "sign and wonder," which Israel was urged never to forget, was the Exodus from Egypt, which involved the Ten Plagues and the Parting of the Red Sea. Those who experienced those events saw them as "the hand of God" (Ex. 14:31) primarily because of their prophetic context; the spokesman for God had predicted what was going to happen and the purpose of the events. For the Israelites, these events signified that God had liberated them from bondage so that they might become a covenanted people dedicated to His service (Ex. 6:6-8). In terms of Israel, these "signs and wonders" were performed not to prove the existence or power of God but to reveal His intentions for and relationship to Israel.

Similarly, the significance of the blocking of the waters of the Jordan (Josh. 3:16, 17) and the collapse of the walls of Jericho (Josh. 6:20) lies not in their being supernatural events but in the fact that they constituted the fulfillment of God's promise to bring Israel into the Promised Land.

A pattern concerning "miracles" can be discerned in the Bible. Until the appearance of MyMoses, "miracles" happen to people but no individual is described as performing miracles. From Moses until Elijah, miracles are performed by individuals but only for a multitude. In the period of Elijah and Elisha miracles are performed for individuals by individuals.

According to Maimonides (Yesodé ha-Torah 7), the miracles recorded in the Bible were performed in order to achieve particular concrete results: to save the Israelites, to provide food and drink in the wilderness, to suppress the rebellion of Korah. They were not intended to provide the evidential basis for belief in the Divine authority of Moses' mission. This basic tenet of the Jews was grounded in the direct encounter with God experienced by all Israel at Sinai. Subsequent to that event, the necessary qualifications of a prophet were that he uphold the teachings of the Torah. Should he fail to do so, even the performance of miracles could not give him credibility (Deut. 13:2-4). The talmudic rabbis ruled that the ability to perform miracles is no proof of the correctness of one's halakhic views (BM 29b). Maimonides held that the future Messiah will not be asked to validate his claims by the performance of miracles.

Since the world is seen as God's creation, the need to intervene with miracles would appear to raise questions about the effectiveness of His handiwork. The rabbis proposed a reconciliation between natural law and miracles. "At the time of creation, God set a condition for the sea that it should part before the Children of Israel upon their leaving Egypt ... and so for all the other parts of creation ... that the fire should not harm Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah in the furnace, that the fish should cast up Jonah" (Gen. R. 5:45). In this way, the "miracle" is part of preordained "natural" processes.

Naḥmanides wrote that the purpose of overt miracles is to draw attention to the "hidden miracles" which are all around every day. The greatest miracle of all is life itself. In fact, says Naḥmanides, there is no such thing as "nature." It is all miracle!

While the talmudic sages believed that miracles continued to occur in their time (and the "miraculous" intervention of Ḥoni ha-Me'aggel and ḥanina Ben Dosa are described in the Talmud) and were performed by their own colleagues, they ruled that a person must not rely on miracles (Pes. 64b). In the Halakhah it is stated that a Jew visiting a place where miracles occurred for the benefit of the Jewish people must recite a special blessing (Ber. 9:1). (See also Magic; Superstition.)

Extraordinary events ascribed to divine or supernatural intervention in the ordinary course of events. In biblical times, man viewed both the world of nature and the human world as the area in which an omnipotent God frequently displayed his power and purpose by such acts so as to move men to marvel and to religious reverence. As the creator of both spheres God was not bound or limited by the fixed laws of nature.

The OT abounds with acts that, passing beyond the limits of the natural, bespeak God's power and control of events. Many of these miracles are meant to prove the divine character of the commission imposed by God on various special individuals. For example, the shepherd's staff Moses holds in his hand is converted into a snake and then converted back to a staff. On God's command, Moses thrusts his hand into his bosom; upon withdrawing it, his hand has turned leprous. Again thrusting it back into his bosom, it resumes its ordinary appearance (Ex 4:2-8). The angel who appears to Gideon touches with his staff the meat and bread Gideon has placed on a rock and a flame consumes them (Judg 6:20-22). Gideon tests the veracity of God's promise to grant him victory over Midian and Amalek by placing a fleece of wool on the ground and asking that God perform a miracle with it (Judg 6:36-40).

The story of Korah and his followers being swallowed up by the earth is intended as proof that Moses has indeed been sent by God (Num 16:28-32). Similarly, the miraculous blossoming of Aaron's rod (Num 17:1-10) serves as evidence of Aaron's appointment by God as priest. The story of Elijah's contest with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel is similar in nature. The fire that descends from heaven and consumes Elijah's sacrifice is proof that the Lord, and not Baal, is the one and only God (I Kgs 18:20-39).

Miracles are also performed as evidence of the future fulfillment of a prophecy.

The divine promise that King Hezekiah will recover from his illness within three days is verified by the miracle of the shadow of the sun dial turning backwards ten degrees (II Kgs 20:8-11).

The ten plagues visited on the Egyptians (Ex 5:1-12:29) are described as wonders performed by God (Ex 3:20) to humble Pharaoh, for the Egyptian ruler had initially refused to recognize the God of Israel and do his bidding (Ex 5:2). The wonders serve as signs of God's power. The memory of them is repeatedly recalled in many passages throughout the Hebrew Bible, where they are called "signs" and "wonders" (Num 14:22; Deut 4:34; 29:3; Josh 24:17; Ps 78:43; Jer 32:21).

Beginning with the story of the parting of the Red Sea (Ex 14:26-29), the years of wandering in the wilderness are marked by a number of miracles the purpose of which is to teach the lesson of God's saving power. Among these, are the sweetening of the waters at Marah (Ex 15:22-25), the manna, the "bread from heaven" (Ex 16:4, 31), the quails (Ex 16:13; Num 11:31) and Moses' drawing water from a rock by striking it (Num 20:8).

The prophets Elijah and Elisha are related in terms of the miracles they performed or were performed by God through them. Elijah is fed by the ravens (I Kgs 17:3-7). He performs a miracle for the widow of Sidon by having her jars of flour and cruse of oil repeatedly refill themselves (I Kgs 17:8-16) and he restores her son to life when the latter is apparently dead (I Kgs 17:17-23). It is significant that in these three episodes, the prophet is but the instrument through which God performs his miracles. When Elijah calls down the fire from heaven that consumes the "captain of fifty" and his "fifty men" (II Kgs 1:10; cf 6:18), the miracle is ascribed to God, not the prophet. Like his master Elijah, Elisha is described as performing a series of miracles, some of them similar to those performed by Elijah (cf I Kgs 17:8-16 with II Kgs 4:1-7). Elisha too restores a child to life (II Kgs 4:8-37; cf I Kgs 17:17-23). He cures the Aramean captain Naaman of his leprosy by having him bathe seven times in the Jordan (II Kgs 5:1-14).

No miracles are reported as having been performed in the time of the literary prophets – a period of approximately three centuries. After this long lapse, however, we find two miracles being performed for Daniel. Daniel and his three companions are cast into a fiery furnace and emerge unscathed (Dan 3:24-25), and, Daniel is cast into a den of lions but remains unharmed (Dan 6:17, 23).

Miracles are an essential feature of the NT portrayal of Jesus. Although earlier, more rationalistic scholarship had suggested that miracles were a later accretion on the gospel traditions about Jesus, today most scholars would concede that the miracles are integral to the gospel portrayal.

A wide variety of miraculous acts are ascribed to Jesus, more, in fact, than the number credited to any other figure in antiquity. Most of the miracles are "therapeutic": healings of various physical and psychological afflictions (e.g., leprosy, blindness, deafness, paralysis, epilepsy, etc.). The most radical form of the therapeutic miracle was the restoration of life to the dead (e.g., Luke 7:11-17). In the Synoptic Gospels, particularly in Mark, Jesus also performs exorcisms; powerful expulsions of evil spirits that hold human beings in bondage (e.g., Mark 5:1-20). The NT world often (but not always) attributed physical and mental afflictions to the presence of demonic beings (see Demons), so that the line between healings and exorcisms is often very thin (as in the story of the cleansing of the leper in Mark 1:40-45). Another type of miracle has been labeled by some scholars as "nature" miracles. Examples would be the stilling of the storm (Mark 4:35-41), the walking on the water (Mark 6:45-52), the multiplication of the loaves (Mark 6:34-44), and the changing of water into wine (John 2:1-11). In these instances too, the intent of the miracle is ultimately therapeutic or salvific but the action of Jesus is focused on elements of nature: wind, sea, food, etc. Finally, there are a few miracle stories that are not immediately salvific in intent but seem more calculated to show the awesome power or authority of Jesus. This is the case with the story of the coin found in the mouth of a fish (Matt 17:24-27) or the cursing and withering of the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14, 20-21). Similar stories are told of the apostles in Acts (e.g., their miraculous escape from jail with the help of an angel, Acts 5:17-26). This type of story is exceptional in the NT and has a strong analogy with the type of wonders attributed to other figures of Greco-Roman antiquity.

The miracles of Jesus are given important theological meaning by the evangelists. In general the Synoptic Gospels view the healings and liberating nature of the miracle as part of Jesus' basic mission to inaugurate the rule of God. This is expressly stated in Matthew 12:28: "but if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the Kingdom of God has come upon you" (cf a similar saying in Luke 11:20). It is also evident in mark: the first public activity of Jesus following his announcement of the Kingdom (Mark 1:14-15) is the expulsion of a demon in the synagogue of Capernaum (Mark 1:21-28). By freeing human beings from the threat of sickness, evil and death itself, Jesus reveals the nature of God's coming rule, the longed-for era of salvation when evil would be defeated and the fullness of life attained. Therefore the miracles disclose the ultimate meaning of Jesus' mission just as forcefully as his teaching. And, consequently, healing is considered an essential part of the disciples' mission, which is to take its inspiration and authority from that of Jesus (see Matt 10:7-8; Mark 3:13-15; 6:7).

The miracles also help define the scope of Jesus' redemptive mission. Because sickness could involve isolation and denial of access to social life and to the sacred, the healing activity of Jesus has an inclusive, boundary-breaking quality to it. God's redemption is extended to the ritually unclean (e.g., the leper), and to the foreigner (e.g., the daughter of the syro-Phoenician woman in Mark 7:24-30). In this sense, the miracles serve as symbolic actions pointing to the universal horizon of the gospel.

Such acts also illustrate the God-given authority and power of Jesus. The acclamations that often follow a miracle of Jesus make this point: the crowds acclaim his unique authority (e.g., Mark 1:27), his identity as prophet (Luke 7:16), his divine power to forgive sins (Matt 9:8), etc. In other instances such as the stilling of the storm (Mark 4:35-41), Jesus' power is evocative of God's own power (e.g., authority over the chaos of the sea). Although the miracle stories are not exclusively apologetic in intent, it is clear that through these stories the gospels assert Jesus' identity as the messiah and the unique revealer of God.

In the Gospel of John miracles play a slightly different, if related, role. The fourth gospel refers to the miracles as "signs" (in the Synoptics they are usually termed "acts of power"). The miracles are transparently symbolic stories which demonstrate the unique identity of the Johannine Jesus. Thus the healing of the man born blind illustrates Jesus' identity as the "light of the world" (John 9:1-41); the raising of Lazarus gives force to Jesus' self-designation as the "resurrection and the life" (John 11:1-44). The miracles are "signs" in that they point to the profound identity of Jesus as the revealer of God.

For John and the Synoptics the miracles of Jesus are not recounted for their own sake but are meant to provoke a response of faith. Only if new insight is gained into the power of God revealed by Jesus' actions can the miracle be termed successful. Within the stories themselves the recipients of healing are usually called upon to express their faith in Jesus (e.g., Matt 10:27-31; Mark 10:46-52) and the same response is evidently expected of the reader or hearer of the narrative.

Miracles, therefore, play a major role in the NT. In Acts, Luke attributes miraculous powers to the great heroes of the early church. Paul himself acknowledges that he was gifted with extraordinary powers (e.g., II Cor 12:12) and gives miraculous healing a place among the gifts of the Spirit (I Cor 12:28) – aspects of Paul's ministry often overlooked.

(Latin, miror, I wonder at). Augustine propounds a subjective definition of a miracle: it is ‘whatever is hard or appears unusual beyond the expectation or comprehension of the observer’. It is only our habits of mind, therefore, that prevent us from seeing the entire cosmos as the miracle that it is, and that it would appear to be to someone who could see for the first time. In the medieval period the idea arises that a miracle is something special, ‘contra consuetum cursum naturae’ (contrary to the usual course of nature). The rise of the concept of hard, mechanical laws of nature in the 17th century set the stage for the definitive account of Hume in his famous essay ‘On Miracles’ (1750): ‘A miracle may be accurately defined, a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent.’ Hume argues that it can never be reasonable to believe in such an event on the evidence of human testimony, at least when that testimony is being used in support of a system of religion. For a miracle needs to be quite outside the normal run of things, whereas human ‘knavery and folly’, the kind of thing that leads to false or misunderstood reportage, is a recognized and regular natural occurrence. So the chance of any report being due to knavery or folly is always greater than the chance of it being due to an event that is quite outside the normal run of things. Hence, they provide the better explanation of the testimony. Hume was aware that a consilience of independent and otherwise creditable testimonies might reasonably lead to people supposing that something they would have regarded as miraculous has actually happened, but he thought the condition was never met in religious contexts, where enthusiasm, piety, and other emotions clouded judgement.

The display of a wide range of miracles is described throughout Buddhist scriptures. The ability to perform such miracles is said to derive from the attainment of supernatural knowledge (abhijñā) and psychic powers (ṛddhi) as a culmination of lengthy practice of meditation (samādhi). In the earliest Buddhist sources, the display of one's miraculous abilities is discouraged or even forbidden by the Buddha. Later textual sources, however, especially those emanating from Mahāyāna circles, take a different view and regularly commend such miracles, particularly when said to be performed by the Buddha, as an appropriate means of demonstrating his unlimited powers and bringing beings to salvation. Many accounts of miracles are also mentioned in connection with the lives of the tantric adepts (siddhas). See also Pāṭihāriya; ṛddhi.

Miracles were a vital feature of Christianity in the early modern period. Issues surrounding the possibility and impossibility of miracles were enthusiastically discussed in many theological, devotional, and scientific works, even as most Europeans actively sought divine intervention when harsh circumstances threatened. In his theological and historical work, The City of God, the fifth-century theologian St. Augustine (354–430) had outlined many of the teachings concerning miracles that were to play an important role in Europe for centuries to come. Augustine had stressed that the greatest of all miracles was the daily re-creation of the earth, sustained and controlled by a benevolent God, who used nature as a mirror to display his power over every aspect of his Creation. In this view, seemingly inexplicable events that occurred in the natural order were not to be feared, but rather to elicit awe as signs of God's dominion. At the same time, The City of God also enthusiastically recounted many wonders the saints had worked in recent years, using these as signs to confirm the truth of orthodox church teachings. These dimensions of Augustine's theology of miracles—his emphasis on nature's wonders and his insistence that the miracles of the saints confirmed the church's truth—continued to exert a powerful influence on the religious piety of the early modern world.

Around 1500, though, it was the miracles of the saints that most often captivated the European imagination. The keeping of records of miracles worked by the saints was a common practice, one whose origins stretched back into late antiquity and found at least partial inspiration in the teachings of Augustine. A vast network of pilgrimage shrines sustained the practice, and the manuscript records that survive from these places reveal that an exchange mentality largely governed Europeans' appeals to the saints. When life's trials threatened, the faithful approached the saints with prayers and vows of pilgrimages and gifts. With their requests granted, pilgrims journeyed to the saint's shrine, often describing their miracle to a scribe, who carefully recorded their testimony. These miracle records were often proclaimed to those who visited these places. By the later fifteenth century, such accounts were increasingly being committed to print and circulated among a broad readership. Church authorities and humanist critics sometimes condemned these practices, seeing in them an indulgence in forms of magic and barter they believed bordered on idolatry. At the same time, the tens of thousands of miracle records that survive from the period point to the widespread popularity of the practice.

Protestant Attacks

During the sixteenth century, Protestant reformers stepped up criticisms long voiced about the saints and their miracles, unleashing a war against pilgrimage and the cult of the saints in an attempt to rid the European countryside of these practices. In turning to oppose the long-standing popularity of the cult of the saints, Protestants faced several dilemmas. First, they needed to explain the seeming effectiveness of the saints to their sixteenth-century audience. In some cases the reformers accused the medieval clergy of having promoted fraudulent miracles. More often, however, they admitted that the miracles that had long been attributed to the saints were real, but that they had actually been worked by demonic, rather than divine, agency. A second issue involved the role that miracles had played in confirming not only a specific pilgrimage or saint but all church teachings. From the early days of the Reformation, reform-minded preachers and theologians responded that miracles were unnecessary to those who possessed faith, since faith was in and of itself its own self-confirming miracle. Even as they made such a claim, though, most sixteenth-century reformers were anxious to exploit wonders that seemed to confirm their own religious positions. Like Augustine before them, they turned to nature, where they found wonders that confirmed their teachings. The fashion for natural wonders in Protestantism emerged early, beginning even with Martin Luther, who in 1524 exploited a dramatic misbirth in print. Luther treated the appearance of a hideously deformed calf in Saxony, the so-called Monk Calf of Freiberg, as a divine pronouncement on the degenerate state of monasticism and the church. Numerous similar readings of natural miracles followed, and by the later sixteenth century hundreds of short broadsides and pamphlets filled with tales of recent celestial apparitions, earthquakes, floods, and deformed births poured from the presses of Europe. While accounts like these were consumed everywhere, the fascination with reading natural wonders as divine signs was far more pronounced in Protestant than in Catholic regions. Here, natural wonders came to satisfy the appetites of readers for signs of God's continued intervention in the world, an appetite that early modern Catholics indulged, by contrast, through the miracles of the saints. Even in the generally restrained and often rationalistic climate of John Calvin's Geneva, natural wonders played a role in shaping piety. Although on occasion Calvin held out the possibility that miracles had long since ceased to occur, he endorsed the publication of Luther's treatment of the Monk Calf in Geneva, and in the dedication to his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) he insisted that a steady stream of wonders had long confirmed the Reformation message. Thus a curious paradox surrounded miracles in the Protestant tradition. On the one hand, most Protestant commentators insisted that miracles were not necessary to those who possessed a saving faith. On the other hand, wonders—if not full-fledged miracles—were enthusiastically tracked and commented upon and continued to shape piety in Protestant Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Polemic and Growing Disenchantment

Miracles also entered into the heated religious rivalries of the time. The reformers' attacks of the early sixteenth century had sent pilgrimage and the recording of saintly miracles into a temporary decline in many parts of Europe, but in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries these practices experienced a dramatic resurgence. Catholic propagandists enthusiastically promoted the miracles recently worked by their saints or by the Blessed Virgin Mary as a vivid testimony to Roman Catholicism's truth. These renewed efforts sparked bitter confessional rivalries and polemic, prompting the Protestant charge that pilgrimage and the intercession of the saints was nothing more than a form of sorcery. In the overheated disputes of the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, miracles of healing, successful exorcisms, and any seeming violation of the natural order might be used alternately by Protestants or Catholics to condemn their opponents. At the same time, the popular demand for miracles of healing persisted particularly in the Catholic countryside and inspired the foundation of numerous new pilgrimage shrines, many of which grew to heights of popularity far beyond any pre-Reformation precedent. While the saints did not survive in Protestant territories except as vestigial models for piety, the fashion for visiting sites where great miracles had occurred was shared by Protestants and Catholics alike. At the end of the seventeenth century, for example, a spate of miracles involving images of Martin Luther inspired new pilgrimages among Lutherans to his one-time residences. As a result, the reformer's birthplace, Eisleben, was celebrated as Germany's "New Bethlehem" and was sought out by the pious well into the eighteenth century.

Even as the hunger for the wonders persisted, though, new forces were at work that questioned the possibility of God's supernatural intervention in the world. One important development in this regard was the appearance of the doctrine of the cessation of miracles, a teaching pioneered by Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466?–1536) and endorsed by seventeenth-century Calvinists, alleging that wonders had been necessary only for the foundation of the Christian religion in ancient times. Once Christianity had been successfully established, the Holy Spirit had ceased to work miracles. While this notion did not find general acceptance among most religious thinkers at the time of its appearance, the doctrine pointed to a new skepticism that would eventually result in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment's denials of miracles. The most famous of these appeared in the work of the Scottish empirical philosopher David Hume (1711–1776). In his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1758), Hume argued that miracles were impossible because nature's laws operated according to ironclad regularity and inevitability and could not be violated. A similar debunking spirit pervaded Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary (1752), in which he argued that miracles had functioned throughout Europe's history only to sustain fanaticism and intolerance. Even as these elite attacks on supernatural beliefs flourished, accounts of miracles remained vital to the religious life of the eighteenth century, particularly in the Catholic countryside where the cult of the saints and pilgrimage retained great popularity. At the same time, the attacks of elites were not without an eventual impact. By the later eighteenth century, Europe's Catholic princes often viewed the appetite for miracles as an archaism and many reform efforts focused on weaning people away from the long-standing customs of pilgrimage and the veneration of the saints.

Bibliography

Eire, Carlos M. N. War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin. Cambridge, U.K., 1986.

Scribner, Robert W. Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany. London, 1988.

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—PHILIP SOERGEL

Miracles, in the biblical sense are signs and wonders, the extraordinary events that inspire awe and open the world of the divine. By the Middle Ages the differentiation between the natural and supernatural had been made and miracles were redefined as the invasion of the supernatural into the world of the natural. As the concept of natural law and an orderly universe developed, the word miracle gradually took on the meaning it has had for the last three centuries—an event that occurs outside the laws of nature as we know them. Christian theologians tended to view a miracle as an event caused by God laying aside one of his own laws out of his concern for humanity.

David Hume (1711-76), the great Scottish philosopher, defined a miracle as "a violation of the laws of nature." The idea that nature follows certain laws and the consideration of whether or not those laws can be violated set the issues of a modern debate. Alfred Russel Wallace, prominent nineteenth-century scientist, in his book On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism (1881), assumes the existence of natural law and objects to Hume's skepticism by arguing that since we do not know all the laws of nature we cannot rule out the possibility of an unknown law overcoming a known one. He suggests that a miracle is "any act or event necessarily implying the existence and agency of superhuman intelligences."

Contemporary observers of the progress of science have developed a different approach to the question of miracles. They note that the idea of natural law is a concept imposed upon nature by scientists, who have observed its regularities. A miracle, they say, is a religious affirmation in the face of an extraordinary event that affects the individual positively. Calling an event a miracle is but one evaluation among several (e.g., coincidence, trickery) that can be made about the occurrence.

According to Hume, no amount of human testimony can prove a miracle. Hume's philosophy created a scientific environment in which the evaluation of an anomalous extraordinary event could only be explained as a phenomenon already understood. It is on this basis that, in spite of a popular belief in the paranormal, many scientists generally refuse to investigate the nature and evidence of so-called miracles. This resistance is odd since the history of human progress demonstrates that, as Charles Richet stated, "the improbabilities of today are the elementary truths of to-morrow." The truth of his statement was amply demonstrated in the lives of great scientists, many of whom had to fight an entrenched scientific community for recognition of their discoveries in an era in which the process of accepting new facts was very slow. Galileo (1564-1642) was persecuted and declared "ignorant of his ignorance;" the evidence of his telescope was rejected without examination; Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), born the year Galileo died, had to fight for so long for recognition of his theory of gravitation that he nearly resolved to publish nothing more and said; "I see that a man must either resolve to put out nothing new, or become a slave to defend it." Modern science is replete with stories of people who were ridiculed by their contemporaries for their extraordinary ideas and discoveries and otherwise outstanding scientists who thought the ideas of their younger colleagues to be mere ridiculous flights of fancy.

Belief in the reality of miracles has always been a cornerstone of religion. In former times it was sufficient to have faith that the divine power that created the universe of matter could also transcend its laws either directly or through the agency of particular humans. However, the religious skepticism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—built in large part by the emergence of science and later sustained by its obvious success in changing the world through technology—threw doubt on the reality of all miracles, sacred or secular.

Part of the present-day opposition to claims of the paranormal is based on the brilliant achievements arising from applied scientific laws, reinforcing confidence in the logic of the material world. From this viewpoint, many agnostics and atheists deny the possibility of either religious miracles or secular paranormal happenings, claiming that both are the result of malobservation, superstition, or fraud. Meanwhile many religious authorities have upheld the validity of biblical miracles as indicating God's omnipotence and intervention in human affairs. For example, Vatican Council I(1870-71) denied that miracles are impossible. However, many theologians, responding positively to the world of natural science, have taken the view that miracles are no longer necessary in modern times as evidence for religious faith. Even the Roman Catholic church, informed by its own experience as much as by modern scientific worldviews, champions the idea of caution in evaluating apparent miracles in modern times, since it would be foolish to ignore the possibility of misunderstanding or deception. Ever since the claimed miraculous healings associated with pilgrim centers like Lourdes, the church has been careful to insist on satisfactory scientific and medical evidence over a prolonged period of time before placing official confirmation on any claimed miracle.

Through the twentieth century a spectrum of approaches to the question of miracles have been put forth. Older supernatural worldviews have survived and are still championed by conservative Christians. Paranormal events are judged to be either godly miracles (within the context of the Christian community) or devilish deceptions (occurring elsewhere). More liberal Christian leaders have suggested that while miracles are possible, they are rare, and tend to occur spontaneously.

A growing body of believers, members of metaphysical, Spiritualist, ancient wisdom, and other occult religious groups—as well as many parapsychologists—tend to accept the existence of genuine paranormal events, but define them as purely natural events that science is slow in defining. Some would accept basic ESP, but not take the additional step and offer a positive evaluation of evidence for spirit communication or human survival. Of course, a small but vocal group deny the existence of all paranormal or supernatural events.

The problem of the distinction between religious and secular "miracles" remains a matter of polemics between conservative Christians and other religionists. Parapsychologists, Spiritualists and liberal Christians may point to the many reported miraculous events in the Bible as descriptions of paranormal events that also occur in modern times. Conservative believers accept as miraculous only those events with a clearly established religious purpose and reject all other claimed paranormal happenings. Some conservative Christians claim that all psychic phenomena are mere simulacrum of the miraculous—the work of devils or deceptive spirits counterfeiting real miracles. Of course, non-Christians resent such accusations.

Extraordinary events—miracles to the believer—are the common property of all religious traditions and the nonreligious alike. Every religious community can produce accounts of extraordinary occurrences to strenthen the faith of their believers. Most religious traditions also de-emphazize miracles as secondary to the development of a mature relationship to the transcendent and the performance of spiritual, moral, and social duties within the human community. In such a context, miraculous events may be helpful signposts or motivators at some point, but they do not take the place of spiritual development. In fact, too much attention to the miraculous (or long-term focus on psychic events) may actually be a hindrance to spiritual progress.

Sources:

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Stemman, Roy. One Hundred Years of Spiritualism. London: Spiritualist Association of Great Britain, 1972.

Thurston, Herbert, S. J. The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism. London: Burns & Oates, 1952. Reprint, Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1953.

West, Donald J. Eleven Lourdes Miracles. London: Duck-worth, 1957.

In Islam, the only miracle associated with Mohammad is the reception and transmission of the Qur'an.

n.

An act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.

Quotes:

"Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature." - St. Augustine

"Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles is not a realist." - David Ben-Gurion

"In order to be realist you must believe in miracles." - David Ben-Gurion

"Miracles happen to those who believe in them. Otherwise why does not the Virgin Mary appear to Lamaists, Mohammedans, or Hindus who have never heard of her?" - Bernard Berenson

"For all his learning or sophistication, man still instinctively reaches towards that force beyond. Only arrogance can deny its existence, and the denial falters in the face of evidence on every hand. In every tuft of grass, in every bird, in every opening bud, there it is." - Hal Borland

"We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts." - Ray Bradbury

See more famous quotes about Miracles

For other uses, see Miracle (disambiguation).

The Raising of Lazarus, (c. 1410) folio 171r from Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Musée Condé, France.

A miracle is a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature, such that can be attempted to be explained by divine intervention, and is sometimes associated with a miracle worker. Many folktales, religious texts, and people claim various events they refer to as "miraculous". People in different cultures have substantially different definitions of the word "miracle". Even within a specific religion there is often more than one of the term. Sometimes the term "miracle" may refer to the action of a supernatural being that is not a god. Thus, the term "divine intervention", by contrast, would refer specifically to the direct involvement of a deity.

In casual usage, "miracle" may also refer to any statistically unlikely but beneficial event, (such as the survival of a natural disaster) or even which regarded as "wonderful" regardless of its likelihood, such as birth. Other miracles might be: survival of a terminal illness, escaping a life threatening situation or 'beating the odds.'

Contents 1 Miracles as supernatural acts 2 Miracles in religious texts 2.1 In the Hebrew Bible 2.2 In the New Testament 2.3 In the Qur'an 3 Miracles as events planned by God 4 Philosophers' explanations of miracles 4.1 Aristotelian and Neo-Aristotelian views of miracles 4.2 Baruch Spinoza's view of miracles 4.3 David Hume's views of miracles 4.4 Søren Kierkegaard's views of miracles 4.5 James Keller's views of miracles 5 Nonliteral interpretations of the text 6 As products of creative art and social acceptance 7 As misunderstood commonplace events 8 Claims of miracles 8.1 Religious groups 8.1.1 Catholic Church claims 8.1.2 Protestant claims 8.1.3 Hindu claims 8.2 Individuals 8.2.1 Buddha 8.2.2 Muhammad 8.2.3 Vespasian 8.2.4 Apollonius of Tyana 9 Miracles in other religions 10 Dismissal, Disbelief and Skepticism 11 See also 12 Notes and references 13 Bibliography 14 External links

Miracles as supernatural acts

In this view, a miracle is a phenomenon not explainable by known "laws" of nature, or an act by some supernatural entity or unknown, outside force. Some scientist-theologians such as Polkinghorne suggest that miracles are not violations of the laws of nature but "exploration of a new regime of physical experience".^[1]

The logic behind an event being deemed a miracle varies significantly. Often a religious text, such as the Bible or Quran, states that a miracle occurred, and believers accept this as a fact. However, C.S. Lewis noted that one cannot believe a miracle occurred if one had already drawn a conclusion in one's mind that miracles are not possible at all. He cites^{[citation needed]} the example of a woman he knew who had seen a ghost, who had discounted her experience; claiming it to be some sort of hallucination (because she did not believe in ghosts).

Many conservative religious believers hold that in the absence of a plausible, parsimonious scientific theory, the best explanation for these events is that they were performed by a supernatural being, and cite this as evidence for the existence of a god or gods. However, atheist Richard Dawkins criticises this kind of thinking as a subversion of Occam's Razor.^[2] Some adherents of monotheistic religions assert that miracles, if established, are evidence for the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent God.^{[citation needed]}

Finally, miracles would contradict the hypothesis of the Non Overlapping Magisteria proposed by Stephen Jay Gould, in that they would both be evidence for supernatural beings in the theological magisterium, and also subject to scientific investigation. ^[opinion]

Miracles in religious texts

In the Hebrew Bible

Descriptions of miracles (Hebrew Ness, נס) appear in the Tanakh.

In the New Testament

See also Miracles attributed to Jesus.

The descriptions of most miracles in the Christian New Testament are often the same as the commonplace definition of the word: God intervenes in the laws of nature. In St John's Gospel the miracles are referred to as "signs" and the emphasis is on God demonstrating his underlying normal activity in remarkable ways.^[3]

Jesus is recorded as having turned water into wine, fed a multitude by turning a loaf of bread into many loaves of bread, and raised the dead. Jesus is also described as rising from the dead himself, with God his father having raised him. 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." (Gospel of Matthew 17:20). 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. (Acts 4:29-31). Other passages mention false prophets who will be able to perform miracles to deceive "even the elect of Christ" (Matthew 24:24, 2 Thes 2:9, Revelation 13:13).

In the Qur'an

A 16th century Persian miniature painting celebrating Muhammad's ascent into the Heavens, a journey known as the Miraj. Muhammad's face is veiled, a common practice in Islamic art.

Main article: Islamic view of miracles

Miracle in the Qur'an can be defined as a supernatural intervention in the life of human beings.^[4] According to this definition, Miracles are present "in a threefold sense: in sacred history, in connection with Muhammad himself and in relation to revelation."^[4] The Qur'an does not use the technical Arabic word for miracle (Muʿd̲j̲iza) literally meaning "that by means of which [the Prophet] confounds, overwhelms, his opponents". It rather uses the term 'Ayah'(literally meaning sign).^[5] The term Ayah is used in the Qur'an in the above mentioned threefold sense: it refers to the "verses" of the Qur'an (believed to be the divine speech in human language; presented by Muhammad as his chief Miracle); as well as to miracles of it and the signs(particularly those of creation).^[4][5]

In order to defend the possibility of miracles and God's omnipotence against the encroachment of the independent secondary causes, some medieval Muslim theologians such as Al-Ghazali rejected the idea of cause and effect in essence, but accepted it as something that facilitates humankind's investigation and comprehension of natural processes. They argued that the nature was composed of uniform atoms that were "re-created" at every instant by God. Thus if the soil was to fall, God would have to create and re-create the accident of heaviness for as long as the soil was to fall. For Muslim theologians, the laws of nature were only the customary sequence of apparent causes: customs of God.^[6]

Miracles as events planned by God

In rabbinic Judaism, many rabbis mentioned in the Talmud held that the laws of nature were inviolable. The idea of miracles that contravened the laws of nature were hard to accept; however, at the same time they affirmed the truth of the accounts in the Tanakh. Therefore some explained that miracles were in fact natural events that had been set up by God at the beginning of time.

In this view, when the walls of Jericho fell, it was not because God directly brought them down. Rather, God planned that there would be an earthquake (or some such other natural disaster) at that place and time, so that the city would fall to the Israelites. Instances where rabbinic writings say that God made miracles a part of creation include Midrash Genesis Rabbah 5:45; Midrash Exodus Rabbah 21:6; and Ethics of the Fathers/Pirkei Avot 5:6.

Philosophers' explanations of miracles

Fundamentally, no philosopher sticking to the scientific world view could explain the existence or not of miracles, since miracles are incompatible with it by definition. What philosophers discuss is the fact that they could be taken or not as a justification to the existence of supernatural forms of expression different from those given to reason and experience, or in minor intellectual approaches, to what is considered to be fair and unfair from a human God's perspective to be given to the common human claims for palliation of suffering.

Aristotelian and Neo-Aristotelian views of miracles

Aristotle rejected the idea that God could or would intervene in the order of the natural world. 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's view of miracles

In his Theologico-Political Treatise Spinoza claims that miracles are merely lawlike events whose causes we are ignorant of. We should not treat them as having no cause or of having a cause immediately available. Rather the miracle is for combating the ignorance it entails, like a political project. See Epistemic theory of miracles.

David Hume's views of miracles

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.".^[7] See Of Miracles.

Søren Kierkegaard's views of miracles

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,^[8] but Kierkegaard, writing as his pseudonym Johannes Climacus, regulates any historical reports to be less than certain, including historical reports of such miracle transgressions, as all historical knowledge is always doubtful and open to approximation.^[9]

James Keller's views of miracles

James Keller, along with many other philosophers, 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.” ^[10] An example would be "If God intervenes to save your life in a car crash, then what was He doing in Auschwitz?". Thus an all-powerful, all-knowing and just God, predicated in Christianity, would not perform miracles.

Nonliteral interpretations of the text

These views are held by both classical and modern thinkers.

In Numbers 22 is the story of Balaam and the talking donkey. Many hold that for miracles such as this, one must either assert the literal truth of this biblical story, or one must then reject the story as false. However, some Jewish commentators (e.g. Saadiah Gaon and Maimonides) hold that stories such as these were never meant to be taken literally in the first place. Rather, these stories should be understood as accounts of a prophetic experience, which are dreams or visions. (Of course, such dreams and visions could themselves be considered miracles.)

Joseph H. Hertz, a 20th century Jewish biblical commentator, writes that these verses "depict the continuance on the subconscious plane of the mental and moral conflict in Balaam's soul; and the dream apparition and the speaking donkey is but a further warning to Balaam against being misled through avarice to violate God's command."

As products of creative art and social acceptance

In this view, miracles do not really occur. Rather, they are the product of creative story tellers. They use them to embellish a hero or incident with a theological flavor. Using miracles in a story allows characters and situations to become bigger than life, and to stir the emotions of the listener more than the mundane and ordinary.

As misunderstood commonplace events

Littlewood's law states that individuals can expect miracles to happen to them, at the rate of about one per month. By its definition, seemingly miraculous events are actually commonplace. In other words, miracles do not exist, but are rather examples of low probability events that are bound to happen by chance from time to time.

Claims of miracles

C.S. Lewis, Norman Geisler, William Lane Craig, and other Christians have argued that miracles are reasonable and plausible. For example, C.S. Lewis says 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.^[11][12][13]

Religious groups

Catholic Church claims

See also: Marian apparition, Stigmata, and Incorruptibility

The Catholic Church recognizes miracles as being works of God, either directly or through the prayers and intercession of a specific Saint or Saints. There is usually a specific purpose connected to a miracle, e.g. the conversion of a person or persons to the Catholic faith or the construction of a church desired by God. The Church tries to be very cautious to approve the validity of putative miracles. It maintains particularly stringent requirements in validating the miracle's authenticity.^[14] The process is overseen by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.^[15]

The Catholic Church claims to have confirmed the validity of a number of miracles, some of them occurring in modern times and having withstood the test of modern scientific scrutiny. Among the more notable miracles approved by the Church are several Eucharistic miracles wherein the Sacred Host is transformed visibly into Christ's living Flesh and Blood, bleeds, hovers in the air, radiates light, and/or displays the image of Christ. The first example of the Host being visibly changed into human flesh and blood occurred at Lanciano, Italy around 700 A.D. Unlike some miracles of a more transient nature, the Flesh and Blood remain in Lanciano to this day, having been scientifically examined as recently as 1971.

According to 17th-century documents, a young Spanish man's leg was miraculously restored to him in 1640 after having been amputated two and a half years earlier^[16] (see miracle of Calanda).

Another miracle claimed valid by the Church is the Miracle of the Sun, which occurred near Fátima, Portugal on October 13, 1917. Anywhere between 70,000 and 100,000 people, who were gathered at a cove near Fátima, witnessed the sun dim, change colors, spin, dance about in the sky, and appear to plummet to earth, radiating great heat in the process. After the ten-minute event, the ground and the people's clothing, which had been drenched by a previous rainstorm, were both dry.

In addition to these, the Catholic Church attributes miraculous causes to many otherwise inexplicable phenomena on a case-by-case basis. Only after all other possible explanations have proven inadequate may the Church assume Divine intervention and declare the miracle worthy of veneration by the faithful. The Church does not, however, enjoin belief in any extra-Scriptural miracle as an article of faith or as necessary for salvation.

Protestant claims

There have been numerous claims of miracles in Christendom. Mainline protestant, Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians accept spiritual gifts, including healing and the working of miracles. Some of the types of miracles that are claimed to occur in modern times are healings, casting out demons, multiplying food, etc.

Hindu claims

The Hindu milk miracle was a phenomenon considered by many Hindus as a miracle which occurred on September 21, 1995.

Individuals

Buddha

Buddha is said to have performed miracles such as walking on water. (see Miracles of Gautama Buddha)

Muhammad

Main article: Miracles of Muhammad

Vespasian

The emperor Vespasian was credited with having performed several miracles. According to stories recorded by the Roman historians Dio Cassius and Tacitus, Vespasian worked several healing miracles, while visiting the shrine of Sarapis in Egypt. Among these miracles, Vespasian is credited with healing a blind man and restoring another man's crippled hand (Tacitus Histories 4.81).^[17] It should be noted that these "miracles" of Vespasian were performed after consulting with human physicians that the infirmities were in fact within the reach of human skill (Tacitus Histories 4.81).^[18]

Apollonius of Tyana

According to his later biographer, Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana possessed extraordinary gifts, including innate knowledge of all languages, the ability to foretell the future, and the ability to see across great distances. Apollonius's possession of divine wisdom also endowed him with the ability to heal the sick and demon-possessed, and Philostratus narrates the miraculous quality of a number of these cures and exorcisms.^[17]

Miracles in other religions

Followers of the Indian gurus Sathya Sai Baba and Swami Premananda claim that they routinely perform miracles. The dominant view among skeptics is that these are predominantly sleight of hand or elaborate magic tricks.

Some modern religious groups claim ongoing occurrence of miraculous events. While some miracles have been proven to be fraudulent (see Peter Popoff for an example) others (such as the Paschal Fire in Jerusalem) have not proven susceptible to analysis. Some groups are far more cautious about proclaiming apparent miracles genuine than others, although official sanction, or the lack thereof, rarely has much effect on popular belief.

Dismissal, Disbelief and Skepticism

Thomas Paine, one of the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution, wrote “All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe”.^[19]

Thomas Jefferson, principle author of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, edited a version of the Bible in which he removed sections of the New Testament containing supernatural aspects as well as perceived misinterpretations he believed had been added by the Four Evangelists.^{[20] [21]} Jefferson wrote, "The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems, [footnote: e.g. The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity; original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy, etc. —T.J.] invented by ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him, is a most desirable object, and one to which Priestley has successfully devoted his labors and learning." ^[22]

Robert Ingersoll wrote, "Not 20 people were convinced by the reported miracles of Christ, and yet people of the nineteenth century were coolly asked to be convinced on hearsay by miracles which those who are supposed to have seen them refused to credit." ^[23]

Writer Christopher Hitchens, when asked for his favorite Bible story replied “Casting the first stone” is a lovely story, even though we’ve found out how much it wasn’t in the Bible to begin with. And the first of the miracles. Jesus changes water into wine. You can’t object to that." ^[24]

John Adams, second President of the United States, wrote, "The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?" ^[25]

Elbert Hubbard, American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher, wrote "A miracle is an event described by those to whom it was told by people who did not see it." ^[26]

American Revolutionary War patriot and hero Ethan Allen wrote "In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue." ^[27]

See also

• Cessationism
• A Course in Miracles
• Divine Providence In Jewish thought
• Intercession of saints
• The Lourdes effect
• Miracles at Lourdes
• Miracles attributed to Jesus
• Međugorje
• Occasionalism
• Signs and wonders
• Spontaneous remission ("medical miracles")
• Superstition

Notes and references

1. ^ John Polkinghorne Faith, Science and Understanding p59
2. ^ The God Delusion
3. ^ see e.g. Polkinghorne op cit. and any pretty well any commentary on the Gospel of John, such as William Temple Readings in St John's Gospel (see e.g. p 33) or Tom Wright's John for Everyone
4. ^ ^{a b c} Denis Gril, Miracles, Encyclopedia of the Qur'an
5. ^ ^{a b} A.J. Wensinck, Muʿd̲j̲iza, Encyclopedia of Islam
6. ^ Robert G. Mourison, The Portrayal of Nature in a Medieval Qur’an Commentary, Studia Islamica, 2002
7. ^ Miracles on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
8. ^ [links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-4189(195110)31%3A4%3C274%3AHAK%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2 Hume and Kierkegaard] by Richard Popkin
9. ^ Kierkegaard on Miracles
10. ^ Keller, James. “A Moral Argument against Miracles,” Faith and Philosophy. vol. 12, no 1. Jan 1995. 54-78
11. ^ "Are Miracles Logically Impossible?". Come Reason Ministries, Convincing Christianity. http://www.comereason.org/phil_qstn/phi060.asp. Retrieved 2007-11-21. 
12. ^ "“Miracles are not possible,” some claim. Is this true?". ChristianAnswers.net. http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t011.html. Retrieved 2007-11-21. 
13. ^ Paul K. Hoffman. "A Jurisprudential Analysis Of Hume’s “in Principal” Argument Against Miracles" (PDF). Christian Apologetics Journal, Volume 2, No. 1, Spring, 1999; Copyright ©1999 by Southern Evangelical Seminary. http://www.ses.edu/journal/articles/2.1Hoffman.pdf. Retrieved 2007-11-21. 
14. ^ http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982807,00.html
15. ^ http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=3664
16. ^ Messori, Vittorio (2000): Il miracolo. Indagine sul più sconvolgente prodigio mariano. - Rizzoli: BUR.
17. ^ ^{a b} Religion in the Roman World
18. ^ [1]
19. ^ The Writings of Thomas Paine, Volume 4, page 289, Putnam & Sons, 1896
20. ^ Jeremy Kosselak (November 1998). The Exaltation of a Reasonable Deity: Thomas Jefferson’s BIBLE of Christianity. (Communicated by: Dr. Patrick Furlong). Indiana University South Bend - Department of History. http://www.iusb.edu/~journal/1999/Paper9.html. Retrieved 2007-02-19.
21. ^ R.P. Nettelhorst. Notes on the Founding Fathers and the Separation of Church and State. Quartz Hill School of Theology. http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume2/ushistor.htm. Retrieved 2007-02-20.
22. ^ Letter to William Short (31 October 1819), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 12, pp. 141–142.
23. ^ New York Times, Page 8, April 24, 1882
24. ^ New York Magazine, Apr 26, 2007
25. ^ John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815
26. ^ Elbert Hubbard, The Philistine (1909)
27. ^ Ethan Allen, Reason, the Only Oracle of Man, 1784

• Colin Brown. Miracles and the Critical Mind. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984. (Good survey).
• Colin J. Humphreys, Miracles of Exodus. Harper, San Francisco, 2003.
• Krista Bontrager, It’s a Miracle! Or, is it?
• Eisen, Robert (1995). Gersonides on Providence, Covenant, and the Chosen People. State University of New York Press.
• Goodman, Lenn E. (1985). Rambam: Readings in the Philosophy of Moses Maimonides. Gee Bee Tee.
• Kellner, Menachem (1986). Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought. Oxford University Press.
• C. S. Lewis. Miracles: A Preliminary Study. New York, Macmillan Co., 1947.
• C. F. D. Moule (ed.). Miracles: Cambridge Studies in their Philosophy and History. London, A.R. Mowbray 1966, ©1965 (Good survey of Biblical miracles as well).
• Graham Twelftree. Jesus the Miracle Worker: A Historical and Theological Study. IVP, 1999. (Best in its field).
• Woodward, Kenneth L. (2000). The Book of Miracles. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-82393-4.
• M. Kamp, MD. Bruno Gröning. The miracles continue to happen. 1998, (Chapters 1 - 4)

Bibliography

• Houdini, Harry Miracle Mongers and Their Methods: A Complete Expose Prometheus Books; Reprint edition (March 1993) originally published in 1920 ISBN 0-87975-817-1.
• Andrew Dickson White (1896 first edition. A classic work constantly reprinted) A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, See chapter 13, part 2, Growth of Legends of Healing: the life of Saint Francis Xavier as a typical example.

External links

Look up miracle in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Online newspaper reporting on miracles happening all over the world.
• The history of thinking about miracles in the West.
• Click here for Scientific Miracles of the Qur'an
• About the miracles of the Quran
• God's Miracles, Islamic perspective
• An Indian Skeptic's explanation of miracles: By Yuktibaadi compiled by Basava Premanand
• Religious miracles
• The Quran Miracles Encyclopedia
• Medical Miracles of the Quran
• Skeptic's Dictionary on miracles
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• Why Don't Miracles Happen Today? - A Jewish view on miracles nowadays chabad.org
• On the Cessation of the Charismata — the problem of miracles today.
• Andrew Lang, "Science and 'Miracles'", The Making of Religion Chapter II, Longmans, Green, and Co., London, New York and Bombay, 1900, pp 14–38.
•  "Miracle". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Miracle. 
•  "miracle". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. 
• Article "miracle" in the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science * [2]

v • d • e Philosophy of religion Related articles: Criticism of religion • Exegesis • History of religion • Religion • Religious philosophy • Theology • Relationship between religion and science • Religion and politics • Faith and rationality • more... Concepts in religion Afterlife • Euthyphro dilemma • Faith • Intelligent design • Miracle • Problem of evil • Religious belief • Soul • Theodicy • Spirit Theories of religion Acosmism • Agnosticism • Animism • Antireligion • Atheism • Brights • Dharmism • Deism • Divine command theory • Dualism • Esotericism • Exclusivism • Existentialism (Christian, Agnostic, Atheist) • Feminist theology • Gnosticism • Henotheism • Humanism (Religious, Secular, Christian) • Inclusivism • Monism • Monotheism • Mysticism • Naturalism (Metaphysical, Religious, Humanistic) • New Age • Nondualism • Nontheism • Pandeism • Pantheism • Polytheism • Process theology • Religious fundamentalism • Spiritualism • Shamanism • Taoic • Theism • Transcendentalism • more ... Philosophers of religion Albrecht Ritschl • Alvin Plantinga • Anselm of Canterbury • Antony Flew • Augustine of Hippo • Averroes • Baron d'Holbach • Baruch Spinoza • Blaise Pascal • Boethius • David Hume • Desiderius Erasmus • Emil Brunner • Ernst Cassirer • Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Troeltsch • Friedrich Schleiermacher • Gaunilo of Marmoutiers • Georg Hegel • George Santayana • Harald Høffding • Heraclitus • Immanuel Kant • J. L. Mackie • Johann Gottfried Herder • Karl Barth • Ludwig Feuerbach • Maimonides • Paul Tillich • Pico della Mirandola • Ramakrishna • Reinhold Niebuhr • René Descartes • Richard Swinburne • Robert Merrihew Adams • Rudolf Otto • Sigmund Freud • Søren Kierkegaard • Thomas Aquinas • Thomas Chubb • William Alston • William James • W.K. Clifford • William L. Rowe • William Whewell • William Wollaston • more ... Existence of god For Beauty · Christological · Consciousness · Cosmological · Degree · Desire · Experience · Love · Miracles · Morality · Ontological · Pascal's Wager · Proper basis · Reason · Teleological · Transcendental · Witness Against 747 Gambit · Atheist's Wager · Evil · Free will · Hell · Inconsistent revelations · Nonbelief · Noncognitivism · Occam's Razor · Omnipotence · Poor design · Russell's teapot · Transcendental Portal · Category · Task Force · Discussion · Changes

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - mirakel, under, vidunder

idioms:

• miracle drug    vidundermiddel
• work miracles    hekse

Nederlands (Dutch)
wonder, mirakelspel

Français (French)
n. - miracle

idioms:

• miracle drug    médicament miracle
• work miracles    faire des miracles

Deutsch (German)
n. - Wunder

idioms:

• miracle drug    Wunderarznei
• work miracles    Wunder tun

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - θαύμα

idioms:

• miracle drug    θαυματουργό φάρμακο
• work miracles    κάνω θαύματα, είμαι θαυματουργός

Italiano (Italian)
miracolo

idioms:

• miracle/wonder drug    farmaco miracoloso
• work miracles    fare miracoli

Português (Portuguese)
n. - milagre (m)

idioms:

• miracle/wonder drug    remédio milagroso (m)
• work miracles    fazer milagres

Русский (Russian)
чудо, выдающееся событие

idioms:

• miracle/wonder drug    чудодейственное лекарство
• work miracles    творить чудеса

Español (Spanish)
n. - milagro, maravilla, prodigio

idioms:

• miracle drug    droga milagrosa
• work miracles    hace prodigios

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - mirakel

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
奇迹, 奇事

idioms:

• miracle drug    特效药
• work miracles    创造奇迹

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 奇跡, 奇事

idioms:

• miracle drug    特效藥
• work miracles    創造奇蹟

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 기적, 정말 놀라운 일, (기독교의) 기적극

idioms:

• work miracles    기적을 행하다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 奇跡, 奇跡的なでき事, 驚異的な実例

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) معجزة‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮נס, פלא‬

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