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Created page with 'File:lighterstill.jpgright|frame A '''miracle''' is a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature, such that can be attempted to be expla...'
[[File:lighterstill.jpg]][[File:Miracle.jpg|right|frame]]
A '''miracle''' is a perceptible interruption of the [[Science|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 [[culture]]s 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.'
==Miracles as supernatural acts==
In this view, a miracle is a violation of normal laws of nature by some supernatural entity or unknown, outside [[force]]. Some scientist-theologians like [[John 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 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 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, [[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.
==Miracles in religious texts==
===In the New Testament===
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, 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]].
Miracle in the Qur'an can be defined as a supernatural intervention in the life of [[human being]]s.[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 [[process]]es. They argued that the nature was composed of [[uniform]] [[atom]]s 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 [[Israel|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.
===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]
===Søren Kierkegaard's views of miracles===
The philosopher [[Søren Kierkegaard]], following Hume and [[Johann Georg Hamann]], 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]
==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.
# John Polkinghorne Faith, Science and Understanding p59
# The God Delusion
# 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
# Denis Gril, Miracles, Encyclopedia of the Qur'an
# A.J. Wensinck, Muʿd̲j̲iza, Encyclopedia of Islam
# Robert G. Mourison, The Portrayal of Nature in a Medieval Qur’an Commentary, Studia Islamica, 2002
# Miracles on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
# [links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-4189(195110)31%3A4%3C274%3AHAK%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2 Hume and Kierkegaard] by Richard Popkin
# Kierkegaard on Miracles
# Keller, James. “A Moral Argument against Miracles,” Faith and Philosophy. vol. 12, no 1. Jan 1995. 54-78
# "Are Miracles Logically Impossible?". Come Reason Ministries, Convincing Christianity. Retrieved on 2007-11-21.
# "“Miracles are not possible,” some claim. Is this true?". ChristianAnswers.net. Retrieved on 2007-11-21.
# 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. Retrieved on 2007-11-21.
# http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982807,00.html
# http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=3664
# Messori, Vittorio (2000): Il miracolo. Indagine sul più sconvolgente prodigio mariano. - Rizzoli: BUR.
# Religion in the Roman World
==External links==
* [http://www.smajournalonline.com/pt/re/smj/fulltext.00007611-200712000-00016.htm The history of thinking about miracles in the West.]
* [http://signtificverses.blogspot.com/ Click here for Scientific Miracles of the Qur'an]
* [http://www.miraclesofthequran.com/ About the miracles of the Quran]
* [http://www.backtoislam.com/?cat=68 God's Miracles, Islamic perspective]
* [http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/yuktibaadi.htm An Indian Skeptic's explanation of miracles: By Yuktibaadi] compiled by [[Basava Premanand]]
* [http://www.cdk.si/grz/relig_ic_e.htm Religious miracles]
*[http://www.55a.net/firas/english/ The Quran Miracles Encyclopedia]
*[http://www.islamicmedicine.org/medmiraclesofquran/medmiracleseng.htm Medical Miracles of the Quran]
* [http://www.skepdic.com/miracles.html Skeptic's Dictionary on miracles]
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry]
* [http://www.chabad.org/article.asp?AID=248167 Why Don't Miracles Happen Today? - A Jewish view on miracles nowadays] chabad.org
* [http://home.regent.edu/ruthven/cess.html On the Cessation of the Charismata] — the problem of miracles today.
* Andrew Lang, [http://www.psychanalyse-paris.com/823-Science-and-Miracles.html "Science and 'Miracles'"], ''The Making of Religion'' Chapter II, Longmans, Green, and Co., London, New York and Bombay, 1900, pp 14–38.
* [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Miracle Miracle]
* [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/miracle miracle]
* My Burning Bush, Nancy's Miracle from God, from Judaism to the Lord Jesus Christ by Nancy Goldberg Hilton,hiltonbooks.com
* Article "miracle" in the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science * [http://www.disf.org/en/Voci/86.asp]
[[Category: Religion]]
[[Category: The Sciences]]
A '''miracle''' is a perceptible interruption of the [[Science|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 [[culture]]s 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.'
==Miracles as supernatural acts==
In this view, a miracle is a violation of normal laws of nature by some supernatural entity or unknown, outside [[force]]. Some scientist-theologians like [[John 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 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 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, [[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.
==Miracles in religious texts==
===In the New Testament===
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, 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]].
Miracle in the Qur'an can be defined as a supernatural intervention in the life of [[human being]]s.[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 [[process]]es. They argued that the nature was composed of [[uniform]] [[atom]]s 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 [[Israel|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.
===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]
===Søren Kierkegaard's views of miracles===
The philosopher [[Søren Kierkegaard]], following Hume and [[Johann Georg Hamann]], 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]
==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.
# John Polkinghorne Faith, Science and Understanding p59
# The God Delusion
# 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
# Denis Gril, Miracles, Encyclopedia of the Qur'an
# A.J. Wensinck, Muʿd̲j̲iza, Encyclopedia of Islam
# Robert G. Mourison, The Portrayal of Nature in a Medieval Qur’an Commentary, Studia Islamica, 2002
# Miracles on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
# [links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-4189(195110)31%3A4%3C274%3AHAK%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2 Hume and Kierkegaard] by Richard Popkin
# Kierkegaard on Miracles
# Keller, James. “A Moral Argument against Miracles,” Faith and Philosophy. vol. 12, no 1. Jan 1995. 54-78
# "Are Miracles Logically Impossible?". Come Reason Ministries, Convincing Christianity. Retrieved on 2007-11-21.
# "“Miracles are not possible,” some claim. Is this true?". ChristianAnswers.net. Retrieved on 2007-11-21.
# 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. Retrieved on 2007-11-21.
# http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982807,00.html
# http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=3664
# Messori, Vittorio (2000): Il miracolo. Indagine sul più sconvolgente prodigio mariano. - Rizzoli: BUR.
# Religion in the Roman World
==External links==
* [http://www.smajournalonline.com/pt/re/smj/fulltext.00007611-200712000-00016.htm The history of thinking about miracles in the West.]
* [http://signtificverses.blogspot.com/ Click here for Scientific Miracles of the Qur'an]
* [http://www.miraclesofthequran.com/ About the miracles of the Quran]
* [http://www.backtoislam.com/?cat=68 God's Miracles, Islamic perspective]
* [http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/yuktibaadi.htm An Indian Skeptic's explanation of miracles: By Yuktibaadi] compiled by [[Basava Premanand]]
* [http://www.cdk.si/grz/relig_ic_e.htm Religious miracles]
*[http://www.55a.net/firas/english/ The Quran Miracles Encyclopedia]
*[http://www.islamicmedicine.org/medmiraclesofquran/medmiracleseng.htm Medical Miracles of the Quran]
* [http://www.skepdic.com/miracles.html Skeptic's Dictionary on miracles]
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry]
* [http://www.chabad.org/article.asp?AID=248167 Why Don't Miracles Happen Today? - A Jewish view on miracles nowadays] chabad.org
* [http://home.regent.edu/ruthven/cess.html On the Cessation of the Charismata] — the problem of miracles today.
* Andrew Lang, [http://www.psychanalyse-paris.com/823-Science-and-Miracles.html "Science and 'Miracles'"], ''The Making of Religion'' Chapter II, Longmans, Green, and Co., London, New York and Bombay, 1900, pp 14–38.
* [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Miracle Miracle]
* [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/miracle miracle]
* My Burning Bush, Nancy's Miracle from God, from Judaism to the Lord Jesus Christ by Nancy Goldberg Hilton,hiltonbooks.com
* Article "miracle" in the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science * [http://www.disf.org/en/Voci/86.asp]
[[Category: Religion]]
[[Category: The Sciences]]