//Ghost in the Machine

September. 26. 2005
-Miracles have been described by David Hume as, “a transgression of the law of nature by a particular deity or by the interposition of some invisible agent.” -Miracles could be described as a special category of religious experience as they are events attributed to the supernatural power of God. -Claims of miraculous events have been examined in great depth over the centuries. -They have always had the power to convert people and to confirm religious belief. -There are thousands of testimonies given down the ages of people who claim to have experienced miracles. -The miracles of Jesus play a vital part in his mission and they emphasise the fact that he had the authority and power of God over both the natural and spiritual world. -The miracles are shown as acts of power that not only reveal Jesus’ authority but also highlight his teachings about God. -Barrett says, “there are... clear indications that he by whom the signs are wrought is the Son of God and equal to God himself.” The miracles show that Jesus is the Son of God. -For Aquinas there were three kinds of miracles. -These are events done by God which nature could never do, such as stopping the course of the sun and walking on water, events done by God which nature could do but not in that order for example healings and turning water into wine and events done by God, which nature could do but which God does without the use of natural laws, such as healing by forgiving sins. -All of these fulfil the general definition Aquinas offered: “these things most properly be called miraculous which are done by divine power apart from the order generally followed in things.” -The author of the Fourth Gospel uses the word “Semeia” or “signs” to describe the miracles of Jesus. -This is different from the word “dunameis” or “act of power” or “mighty work” which is the term used in the Synoptic Gospels. -Tyler and Reid claim that, “the sign points beyond itself to highlight a spiritual truth.” -Moreover, when Jesus himself speaks of the miracles he uses the word “erga”. -This term is used in the Old Testament to mean God’s work in creation and salvation. -Thus in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus links God’s work in the past with his own in the present- God’s power continues in him. -This is highlighted in John: “For the very work that the Father has given me to finish and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me.” -Jesus performs signs because he has been sent by God and has a unique relationship with the Father. -However the signs have not always led people to believe. -Instead they have often brought controversy, conflict and condemnation. -The signs are an aid to faith, yet Jesus often seems to imply that people should believe without the signs. -Nevertheless to believe with the signs is better than not believing at all. “Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But of I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father.” -Tyler and Reid also claim that the signs, “reveal that the messianic era has arrived.” -Aquinas suggested a kind of interventionist God, who only acts of certain, almost random, occasions. -This is contrary to the classical theist view which says that God, as a loving father, constantly interacts with his creation, not occasionally or when he feels he has no other option. -Brian Davies argued that for us to talk about God “intervening”, suggests that he is little more then a spectator in human affairs, rather then a loving father who constantly interacts with his creation. -However Richard Swinburne suggested that the laws of nature are reasonably predictable and that if an impossible event occurs it is fair to call it a miracle. -He used two New Testament examples, the raising of Lazarus and the wedding in Cana to support his view: “the resurrection from the dead in full health of a man whose heart had not been beating for twenty four hours and who was dead also by other currently used criteria.” -Many testimonies of miracles seem to have no real point. -Peter Vardy questioned such miracles on moral grounds: “ a God who intervenes at Lourdes to cure an old man of cancer but does not act to save starving millions in Ethiopia- such a God needs at least to face some hard moral questioning.” -However Jesus did not heal everyone he met, his miracles were for a specific purpose: “Just believe that I am in the father and the Father is in me. Or else believe it because of the mighty miracles you have seen me do.” -His miracles were for the purpose of causing people to believe. -Aquinas’ argument is based on the notion that God breaks natural laws. -Since we may not actually know all natural laws, nor how they operate, we might not therefore be able to tell if a natural law has been broken or not. -John Hick suggested that natural laws might in fact, be no more than “generalisations formulated retrospectively to cover what has, in fact, happened.” -Similarly if a natural law is claimed to have been broken, this may be no more then saying that something happened that we did not understand or expect. -Mel Thompson argued that, “the idea of a miraculous event introduces a sense of arbitrariness and unpredictability into an understanding of the world.” -Just to say that a miracle is defined as God intervening in natural laws is not enough- there must surely be a reason for God’s actions. -Swinburne in “The Concept of Miracle”, suggests that a miracle must also have a deeper religious significance. “If a god intervened in the natural order to make a feather land here rather than there for no deep, ultimate purpose, or to upset a child’s box of toys just for spite, these events would not naturally be described as miraculous.” -The Resurrection certainly contains the religious significance that Swinburne demanded of a miracle, as it shows God’s power over everything including death. -Jesus rising again after three days gives the promise of salvation and an afterlife to Christians. -Miracles however, could be interpreted in different ways. -Biblical accounts of miracles owe their origin to a time when the worldview was significantly different to our rational scientific age. -Richard Bultmann famously wrote, “it is impossible to use electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of demons and spirits.” -The biblical writers may well have interpreted the recovery of the Gerasene Demoniac in the casting out of demons but modern psychiatry might identify him as a victim of multiple personality Disorder, soothed and calmed by the presence of Jesus. Did the Red Sea part through a miraculous act of God or did a freak wind blow back the waters at the precise moment that the Israelites were pondering how to circumnavigate this watery obstacle? - Fletcher argued that the New Testament miracles were merely unexplainable acts of the time, which could be explained using today’s rational scientific knowledge. -This can be likened to Hare’s theory of bliks in which a person is so prejudiced that they may interpret every experience as a verification of their beliefs -R.F Holland argued that a miracle is nothing more than an extraordinary coincidence that is seen in a religious way. - According to Holland, a coincidence “can be taken religiously as a sign and called a miracle.” - He used the example of a small boy who is stuck on a railway line. The driver of the express train, who cannot see the boy, unexpectedly faints onto the brake lever and the train stops, saving the boy. His mother says, “It’s a miracle”. -This coincidence theory could apply to any of the New Testament miracles. -Jairus’s daughter could have been just sleeping and was woken by Jesus. Furthermore Lazurus could have been in a coma and woke when Jesus called his name. -Holland’s view makes a miracle dependent on a personal assessment and this may vary from person to person- one says an action is a miracle, the other says it is not. -The account of God’s miraculous intervention in the Israelite’s war against the Amorites is an example of an Old Testament miracle: “ The sun stayed in the midst of heaven and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.” - The Pickering Bible Commentary observes, “The one thing clear is that the Lord helped his people to exploit their victory, neither we, nor the inspired writer, can fully explain how this was accomplished.” -The New Testament miracles do not cancel those from the Old Testament but build on them. -This shows that Jesus’ miracles supersedes the revelation of the Old Testament but does not render it null and void. -In “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, Hume argued that it will always be impossible to prove that a miracle has happened. - He took the view that all questions of truth have to be answered by the evidence of experience and that the evidence we have is unreliable, “no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless it is such that the falsehood would be more miraculous.” -He suggested that there are no grounds for believing the evidence we have for miracles, giving four reasons. - The first one is, “There is not to be found...any miracles attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning so as to secure against all delusion.” - He also claims, “the passion of surprise and wonder, arising from miracles...gives a tendency towards belief of these events...a religionist may be an enthusiast and imagines he sees what has no reality.” -Hume also goes on to say that miracles only occur “amongst ignorant and barbarous nations.” His fourth reason is that that the contradictions amongst accounts of miracles in different religions, “destroys the credit of those miracles.” -Miracles therefore are rendered unbelievable. -Philosophers such as Hume only want to discover if the physical feats described in the New Testament are true, while the religious writers sought only to prove that the teachings of Jesus were true. - As such, it is possible to say that some, if not all, of the New Testament miracles did not actually occur. -However, millions of people have claimed to witness miraculous events over the ages, so there is a wealth of testimony open to interpretation and evaluation. -Swinburne was prepared to consider the possibility that the best explanation for an event is indeed that it is a miracle. -He claimed that the evidence in favour of a miracle must be considered properly, not simply dismissed because it may not be scientific. -It is wrong simply to assume that miracles cannot occur. -The principle of Ockham’s Razor could be applied here- the principle argues that the simplest explanation for an unusual event is generally the most philosophically viable explanation. -There is no reason why, when all other issues have been considered, the simplest explanation for an unexpected event should not be that it is, in fact, a miracle. -Swinburne argued that as a principle of credulity we should normally accept what people tell us to be the truth: “we ought to believe things as they seem, unless we have good evidence that we are mistaken.” -Nevertheless, the idea that the simplest explanation is a miracle is questionable. - For example, with the calming of the storm, surely it would be simplest to say that the storm calmed down of its own accord. -Aquinas would deem this a weak miracle, as it is perfectly possible that the weather cleared naturally. -Those who subscribe to the realist point of view have suggested that miracles are purely for the faithful and that if there is a God, he would indeed make them happen to increase the faith of his people. -Anti-realists, however say that coincidences and similar events are miracles because God plays no part in them. -They suggest that miracles are events that help believers to understand the nature of God- they may be symbolic rather than real and are only understood properly by the religious believer, such as the signs in John’s Gospel. -However David Ben-Gurion says, "In order to be realist you must believe in miracles." -It makes more sense in this world to believe in miracles than not to. -David Torevell questioned the point of giving such importance to random, one-off events when it is perfectly possible for things to go against the normal. -He does not see the miracles as symbolic. -John Marsh suggested that the miracles of Jesus are both genuine historical events and are symbolic. -For the author, the actions of Christ are real and also have symbolic meaning, to enable the reader to see that Jesus is the Son of God. -Historically accurate or not, the purpose of the gospel writer is to convince his readers of those aspects of the person of Christ that will lead them to belief and eternal life. -The signs also highlight the most important aspects of faith- life, light, glory and the sacraments- as well as sharing the perceived superiority of that faith over Judaism. -The aim is also to lead the reader to a greater understanding of Christ. -“Miracles happen to those who believe in them,” says Bernard Berenson. -In conclusion, if a believer wants to believe that the New Testament accounts of miracles provide clear philosophical evidence for the existence of God, then they will be able to conclude that this is the case. -However, it is not the actual physical actions that matter quite as much as the symbolism that points to the true nature of God. -After all, it is this that has caused thousands to die for Christianity.

September. 26. 2005

-Miracles have been described by David Hume as, “a transgression of the law of nature by a particular deity or by the interposition of some invisible agent.”
-Miracles could be described as a special category of religious experience as they are events attributed to the supernatural power of God.
-Claims of miraculous events have been examined in great depth over the centuries.
-They have always had the power to convert people and to confirm religious belief.
-There are thousands of testimonies given down the ages of people who claim to have experienced miracles.
-The miracles of Jesus play a vital part in his mission and they emphasise the fact that he had the authority and power of God over both the natural and spiritual world.
-The miracles are shown as acts of power that not only reveal Jesus’ authority but also highlight his teachings about God.
-Barrett says, “there are... clear indications that he by whom the signs are wrought is the Son of God and equal to God himself.” The miracles show that Jesus is the Son of God.
-For Aquinas there were three kinds of miracles.
-These are events done by God which nature could never do, such as stopping the course of the sun and walking on water, events done by God which nature could do but not in that order for example healings and turning water into wine and events done by God, which nature could do but which God does without the use of natural laws, such as healing by forgiving sins. -All of these fulfil the general definition Aquinas offered: “these things most properly be called miraculous which are done by divine power apart from the order generally followed in things.” -The author of the Fourth Gospel uses the word “Semeia” or “signs” to describe the miracles of Jesus.
-This is different from the word “dunameis” or “act of power” or “mighty work” which is the term used in the Synoptic Gospels.
-Tyler and Reid claim that, “the sign points beyond itself to highlight a spiritual truth.”
-Moreover, when Jesus himself speaks of the miracles he uses the word “erga”.
-This term is used in the Old Testament to mean God’s work in creation and salvation.
-Thus in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus links God’s work in the past with his own in the present- God’s power continues in him.
-This is highlighted in John: “For the very work that the Father has given me to finish and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me.”
-Jesus performs signs because he has been sent by God and has a unique relationship with the Father.
-However the signs have not always led people to believe.
-Instead they have often brought controversy, conflict and condemnation.
-The signs are an aid to faith, yet Jesus often seems to imply that people should believe without the signs.
-Nevertheless to believe with the signs is better than not believing at all. “Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But of I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father.”
-Tyler and Reid also claim that the signs, “reveal that the messianic era has arrived.”
-Aquinas suggested a kind of interventionist God, who only acts of certain, almost random, occasions.
-This is contrary to the classical theist view which says that God, as a loving father, constantly interacts with his creation, not occasionally or when he feels he has no other option.
-Brian Davies argued that for us to talk about God “intervening”, suggests that he is little more then a spectator in human affairs, rather then a loving father who constantly interacts with his creation.
-However Richard Swinburne suggested that the laws of nature are reasonably predictable and that if an impossible event occurs it is fair to call it a miracle.
-He used two New Testament examples, the raising of Lazarus and the wedding in Cana to support his view: “the resurrection from the dead in full health of a man whose heart had not been beating for twenty four hours and who was dead also by other currently used criteria.”
-Many testimonies of miracles seem to have no real point.
-Peter Vardy questioned such miracles on moral grounds: “ a God who intervenes at Lourdes to cure an old man of cancer but does not act to save starving millions in Ethiopia- such a God needs at least to face some hard moral questioning.”
-However Jesus did not heal everyone he met, his miracles were for a specific purpose: “Just believe that I am in the father and the Father is in me. Or else believe it because of the mighty miracles you have seen me do.”
-His miracles were for the purpose of causing people to believe.
-Aquinas’ argument is based on the notion that God breaks natural laws.
-Since we may not actually know all natural laws, nor how they operate, we might not therefore be able to tell if a natural law has been broken or not.
-John Hick suggested that natural laws might in fact, be no more than “generalisations formulated retrospectively to cover what has, in fact, happened.”
-Similarly if a natural law is claimed to have been broken, this may be no more then saying that something happened that we did not understand or expect.
-Mel Thompson argued that, “the idea of a miraculous event introduces a sense of arbitrariness and unpredictability into an understanding of the world.”
-Just to say that a miracle is defined as God intervening in natural laws is not enough- there must surely be a reason for God’s actions.
-Swinburne in “The Concept of Miracle”, suggests that a miracle must also have a deeper religious significance. “If a god intervened in the natural order to make a feather land here rather than there for no deep, ultimate purpose, or to upset a child’s box of toys just for spite, these events would not naturally be described as miraculous.”
-The Resurrection certainly contains the religious significance that Swinburne demanded of a miracle, as it shows God’s power over everything including death.
-Jesus rising again after three days gives the promise of salvation and an afterlife to Christians.
-Miracles however, could be interpreted in different ways.
-Biblical accounts of miracles owe their origin to a time when the worldview was significantly different to our rational scientific age.
-Richard Bultmann famously wrote, “it is impossible to use electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of demons and spirits.”
-The biblical writers may well have interpreted the recovery of the Gerasene Demoniac in the casting out of demons but modern psychiatry might identify him as a victim of multiple personality Disorder, soothed and calmed by the presence of Jesus.
Did the Red Sea part through a miraculous act of God or did a freak wind blow back the waters at the precise moment that the Israelites were pondering how to circumnavigate this watery obstacle?
- Fletcher argued that the New Testament miracles were merely unexplainable acts of the time, which could be explained using today’s rational scientific knowledge.
-This can be likened to Hare’s theory of bliks in which a person is so prejudiced that they may interpret every experience as a verification of their beliefs
-R.F Holland argued that a miracle is nothing more than an extraordinary coincidence that is seen in a religious way.
- According to Holland, a coincidence “can be taken religiously as a sign and called a miracle.”
- He used the example of a small boy who is stuck on a railway line. The driver of the express train, who cannot see the boy, unexpectedly faints onto the brake lever and the train stops, saving the boy. His mother says, “It’s a miracle”.
-This coincidence theory could apply to any of the New Testament miracles.
-Jairus’s daughter could have been just sleeping and was woken by Jesus. Furthermore Lazurus could have been in a coma and woke when Jesus called his name.
-Holland’s view makes a miracle dependent on a personal assessment and this may vary from person to person- one says an action is a miracle, the other says it is not.
-The account of God’s miraculous intervention in the Israelite’s war against the Amorites is an example of an Old Testament miracle: “ The sun stayed in the midst of heaven and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.”
- The Pickering Bible Commentary observes, “The one thing clear is that the Lord helped his people to exploit their victory, neither we, nor the inspired writer, can fully explain how this was accomplished.”
-The New Testament miracles do not cancel those from the Old Testament but build on them.
-This shows that Jesus’ miracles supersedes the revelation of the Old Testament but does not render it null and void.
-In “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, Hume argued that it will always be impossible to prove that a miracle has happened.
- He took the view that all questions of truth have to be answered by the evidence of experience and that the evidence we have is unreliable, “no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless it is such that the falsehood would be more miraculous.”
-He suggested that there are no grounds for believing the evidence we have for miracles, giving four reasons.
- The first one is, “There is not to be found...any miracles attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning so as to secure against all delusion.”
- He also claims, “the passion of surprise and wonder, arising from miracles...gives a tendency towards belief of these events...a religionist may be an enthusiast and imagines he sees what has no reality.”
-Hume also goes on to say that miracles only occur “amongst ignorant and barbarous nations.” His fourth reason is that that the contradictions amongst accounts of miracles in different religions, “destroys the credit of those miracles.”
-Miracles therefore are rendered unbelievable.
-Philosophers such as Hume only want to discover if the physical feats described in the New Testament are true, while the religious writers sought only to prove that the teachings of Jesus were true.
- As such, it is possible to say that some, if not all, of the New Testament miracles did not actually occur.
-However, millions of people have claimed to witness miraculous events over the ages, so there is a wealth of testimony open to interpretation and evaluation.
-Swinburne was prepared to consider the possibility that the best explanation for an event is indeed that it is a miracle.
-He claimed that the evidence in favour of a miracle must be considered properly, not simply dismissed because it may not be scientific.
-It is wrong simply to assume that miracles cannot occur.
-The principle of Ockham’s Razor could be applied here- the principle argues that the simplest explanation for an unusual event is generally the most philosophically viable explanation.
-There is no reason why, when all other issues have been considered, the simplest explanation for an unexpected event should not be that it is, in fact, a miracle.
-Swinburne argued that as a principle of credulity we should normally accept what people tell us to be the truth: “we ought to believe things as they seem, unless we have good evidence that we are mistaken.”
-Nevertheless, the idea that the simplest explanation is a miracle is questionable.
- For example, with the calming of the storm, surely it would be simplest to say that the storm calmed down of its own accord.
-Aquinas would deem this a weak miracle, as it is perfectly possible that the weather cleared naturally.
-Those who subscribe to the realist point of view have suggested that miracles are purely for the faithful and that if there is a God, he would indeed make them happen to increase the faith of his people.
-Anti-realists, however say that coincidences and similar events are miracles because God plays no part in them.
-They suggest that miracles are events that help believers to understand the nature of God- they may be symbolic rather than real and are only understood properly by the religious believer, such as the signs in John’s Gospel.
-However David Ben-Gurion says, "In order to be realist you must believe in miracles."
-It makes more sense in this world to believe in miracles than not to.
-David Torevell questioned the point of giving such importance to random, one-off events when it is perfectly possible for things to go against the normal.
-He does not see the miracles as symbolic.
-John Marsh suggested that the miracles of Jesus are both genuine historical events and are symbolic.
-For the author, the actions of Christ are real and also have symbolic meaning, to enable the reader to see that Jesus is the Son of God.
-Historically accurate or not, the purpose of the gospel writer is to convince his readers of those aspects of the person of Christ that will lead them to belief and eternal life.
-The signs also highlight the most important aspects of faith- life, light, glory and the sacraments- as well as sharing the perceived superiority of that faith over Judaism.
-The aim is also to lead the reader to a greater understanding of Christ.
-“Miracles happen to those who believe in them,” says Bernard Berenson.
-In conclusion, if a believer wants to believe that the New Testament accounts of miracles provide clear philosophical evidence for the existence of God, then they will be able to conclude that this is the case.
-However, it is not the actual physical actions that matter quite as much as the symbolism that points to the true nature of God.
-After all, it is this that has caused thousands to die for Christianity.