Miracles

Understanding Miracles: Exploring Supernatural, Naturalistic, Philosophical, and Religious Perspectives

• A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific laws and accordingly gets attributed to some supernatural or praeternatural cause.

• Informally, English-speakers often use the word miracle to characterise any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws of nature.

• Statistically "impossible" events are often called miracles, but a colossal number of events happen every moment on Earth; thus, extremely unlikely coincidences also happen every moment.

• A miracle is a phenomenon not explained by known laws of nature. Criteria for classifying an event as a miracle vary.

• 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".

• The gospels record three sorts of miracles performed by Jesus: exorcisms, cures, and nature wonders.

• The Catholic Church believes miracles are works of God, either directly, or through the prayers and intercessions of a specific saint or saints.

• Before a person can be accepted as a saint, they must be posthumously confirmed to have performed two miracles.

• The Catholic Church has listed several events as miracles, some of them occurring in modern times.

• The Catholic Church also says that it maintains particularly stringent requirements in validating the miracle's authenticity.

• Other religions, such as Buddhism, also have miracle stories and beliefs.

• Miracles have been rationalized by some Christian theologians as reasonable and plausible.Miracles in Different Religious Traditions

• Miracles are defined as supernatural events that occur in a religious context.

• In Christianity, miracles are seen as acts of divine intervention that occur outside the natural order and are therefore considered extraordinary.

• Thomas Aquinas divided miracles into three types: those that are beyond nature, those that are beyond nature but still possible, and those that are within nature but occur in an unusual way.

• Evangelical Christians believe that miracles are still relevant and may occur in the lives of believers.

• Hinduism sees miracles as episodes of liberation of the spirit, designed to bring spiritual liberation to those who witness or read about them.

• Islam defines miracles as supernatural interventions in the lives of human beings and sees them as present in sacred history, in relation to Muhammad, and in relation to revelation.

• Judaism sees miracles as supernatural events that occur in a religious context and are performed by individuals such as prophets.

• Some people, such as Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen, have criticized belief in miracles, while others, such as Elbert Hubbard, have defined them in a more skeptical way.

• Mathematician Charles Hermite believed that the correspondence between abstract mathematics and the physical world reveals the synthesis of the two.

• Baden Powell believed that a belief in miracles would be entirely atheistic because it would break the lawful edicts that had been issued at Creation.