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snarflemike
Guest
This is really a question for non-believers, obviously. Are miracles possible? Why or why not?
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snarflemike
Guest
I didn’t, because I suspect that the discussion would immediately get hung up on definitions. I’ll throw out one definition, but leave the option for others different and/or better.
“A miracle is an occurrence which cannot be explained by any known or unknown laws of science.”
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inocente
Guest
How would you know an unknown law can’t explain it?
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snarflemike
Guest
I don’t KNOW it, I DEFINE it that way. See, I told you things would get hung up on definitions!
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Least
Guest
[not a “non-believer” I am Infidel-Strong, but. . .]
The answer is “Yes.”
The answer is “Yes.”
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ccmcmg
Guest
Well, I’m a believer, but also a ‘learner’.
I believe in miracles. Every day. While some say that certain miracles can be explained by science, who created the possibility of certain things?
I have seen miracles, felt miracles. There are the miracles we see daily in our lives, in the beauty of nature around us. Sure, sunlight and all that stuff makes the leaves green, but who created the sun, the leaves, the tree? And how beautifully!
I’ve seen people walk away from accidents that should have killed them, especially if we were using ‘scientific’ reason; I walked away from one with hardly a scratch. (Did you know that you can say a LOT of “Hail Marys” in the moments your car is flipping over and over, and in the air?) Many people look back and can’t believe they did the things they did as teens, because the knowledge/science says that they shouldn’t have lived through it.
I’ve experienced them spiritually as well, in my own heart and life.
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Ion
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"How would you know an unknown law can’t explain it? "
First, if it’s an unknown law then obviously nobody can take advantage and pretend it is a miracle. Second, to define a law you need the repetability of the event.
First, if it’s an unknown law then obviously nobody can take advantage and pretend it is a miracle. Second, to define a law you need the repetability of the event.
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inocente
Guest
If there’s no way of knowing then your definition is incoherent and so there can be no agreement on what is or is not a miracle, it’s just subjective opinion.
Doesn’t the Church have a definition?
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Ismael
Guest
Well this is problematic, for a non-believer.
What I mean is that a non-believer is ALSO a believer, in something. Like materialism and naturalism (only matter and the natural world exist).
If a miracle goes beyond matter and nature (i.e. it cannot and never will be explained by science even if we reached a ’ theory of everything’) than the materialist/naturalist will DENY miracles can occur.
It would be like asking a person who belies flowers are ONLY red and yellow (and no other colors possible, just because he has seen only red and yellow flowers) if a flower can be white or blue.
He would say ‘no, all flowers are red or yellow’
Well… depends.
Sometimes there is some retro-active explaination, where people give some sort of theory based often on a materialist world view.
In reality you cannot, ever, truly explain an event you do not observe and then reproduce.
Of course some of these explaination (‘often’?) are so good that indeed there is no need to seek a supernatural answer… but some times (again often?) their explainations beg the questions and are just ad hoc.
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ccmnxc
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What type of possibility are we talking about here: logical possibility, epistemic possibility, et al?
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polytropos
Guest
This seems like a theoretical question. No need to get hung up on semantics.
It seems that the definition is supposing that the event cannot be explained by either current scientific laws or any theoretically discoverable scientific laws. In other words, if science were allowed to advance without bound and became capable of describing every natural phenomenon, and if the event were observed with the greatest particularity, then science still would not be able to explain the event if the event is to be called a miracle.
A nonbeliever (taking nonbeliever here to mean someone who subscribes to philosophical naturalism) must reject the possibility of miracles if they are defined in such a way.
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inocente
Guest
We must all reject the possibility. Scientists love things that currently can’t be explained, they would keep working on it for a thousand years if necessary. We’d never know when it would be explained and so could never call it more than a candidate that may or may not be a miracle.
What’s the Church’s definition for miracles?
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polytropos
Guest
I’m not sure why you get to decide what we all must do. You are presupposing that philosophical naturalism is right when it cannot be verified.
This is irrelevant. If a miracle were to occur, naturalists are compelled to exclude the possibility that science cannot theoretically explain it. That is an unverifiable position.
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Arizona_Mike
Guest
I would use a different definition of “miracle.” A miracle is a sign from God, as opposed to any other claim of an unexplained or unexplainable occurrence, like, for instance, apparent instances of ESP or time travel from the future or any other kind of Fortean claims that don’t involved divine agency and are not usually described as “miracles.”. A “miracle” understood in a Catholic sense is not a kind of magic show by God. A “sign,” as understood in Catholicism, is a physical thing or event that points towards a larger unseen reality. So, the miracles of Jesus and the saints are signs that point towards God and His love and power. So also are the miracles we witness day to day, that aren’t considered unexplainable - the sacraments, in particular the Transubstantiation; the glory of the visible universe in the night sky; unmerited acts of kindness and forgiveness; the beginning of life in the birth of a daughter or son. All are signs that point towards God.
The “laws of science” are not really “laws” as we understand that word - parameters outside which nothing can occur - they are observances of statistical probabilities for events occurring in very specific sets of contexts, where no outside agent or force is involved. Those described probabilities can be astronomically high, but they do not preclude the possibility of outside forces acting within that context, which can drastically alter the outcome. Given that a man has a severed femoral artery, the laws of physiology tell us that he will rapidly die in almost every case - but if a well-equipped surgical team can get to him in time, he may not. If I drop a rock to the ground, in most circumstances it will fall to earth - unless a friend reaches out his hand to grab it.
So, if one accepts the likelihood (based on the evidence available) of God, or even the possibility, then miracles are by no means impossible and are something that happens every day in our lives.
The “laws of science” are not really “laws” as we understand that word - parameters outside which nothing can occur - they are observances of statistical probabilities for events occurring in very specific sets of contexts, where no outside agent or force is involved. Those described probabilities can be astronomically high, but they do not preclude the possibility of outside forces acting within that context, which can drastically alter the outcome. Given that a man has a severed femoral artery, the laws of physiology tell us that he will rapidly die in almost every case - but if a well-equipped surgical team can get to him in time, he may not. If I drop a rock to the ground, in most circumstances it will fall to earth - unless a friend reaches out his hand to grab it.
So, if one accepts the likelihood (based on the evidence available) of God, or even the possibility, then miracles are by no means impossible and are something that happens every day in our lives.
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inocente
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Haven’t gone near naturalism, it’s rejected as it’s illogical.
That is irrelevant. The fallacy of God of the gaps was named by theologians: “Either God is in the whole of Nature, with no gaps, or He’s not there at all” - Charles Alfred Coulson
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polytropos
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Demonstrate that an event that cannot theoretically be explained by science is logically impossible.
Not God of the gaps. I did not invoke God; we are just discussing a theoretical event which cannot be explained by science. (You have said that such an event is illogical, but such a claim will require demonstration.)
Assuming that every event is theoretically describable by science is science of the gaps.
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inocente
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Don’t need to. You are inferring that the proposition “all events can be explained” is false from the fact that is not proved or known to be true. That’s what’s called an argument from ignorance fallacy.
Then call it miracle-of-the-gaps, you are still attempting to prove something by appealing to hypothetical eternal gaps in knowledge.
To put this on a more concrete footing, could you provide two or three examples of events which meet your criteria (post #14) of “being observed with the greatest particularity”, and show that they could never be explained even in principle.
Or you could go with Arizona Mike’s suggestion (#17), which seems a lot more plausible as to the Church’s view.
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PetrusRomanus
Guest
I don’t see how science could ever explain something like an airplane crash for instance and everybody dies, except one person. It’s surely a miracle that one person survived when if they had been sitting perhaps a hairline of a difference in another spot, they would have died.LOL…okay…
Then according to your definition, I think miracles are definitely possible.
We see things happen a lot that we cannot explain fully--yet.
But a lot of occurrences that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago were thought to be miracles, and can now be explained…so there’s a decent chance the same will be true in the future for the “unexplainable occurrences” we see today, as we discover and learn more about science and the laws of nature, space, matter, time.
But for now, since we do not know, some use the word “miracle”.
Others just say we cannot explain it–yet.
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Or if a person routinely gooes to Starbucks everyday at 8:00 a.m… except for one morning their alarm clock dies and person shows up at 9:00 a.m. instead only to find the Starbucks leveled and being explained on the news that a bomb had gone off at 8:00 a.m… Had the alarm clock not died randomly in that moment the person may have very well been inside the Starbucks at 8:00 a.m. as usual buried beneath the rubble. I don’t think science can explain these “coincidental” or “circumstantial” miracles–ever.
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polytropos
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Not exactly. I did not say that miracles did happen, just that you cannot know that they didn’t and therefore have no basis for calling belief in miracles illogical.Don’t need to. You are inferring that the proposition “all events can be explained” is false from the fact that is not proved or known to be true. That’s what’s called an argument from ignorance fallacy.
I was pretty clear that such circumstances were hypothetical. I also did not say that we should invoke a miracle for every unexplained event. I am pointing out that the belief that any given unexplained event theoretically has a scientific explanation cannot be proved. Hence, if a miracle occurred, a philosophical naturalist is compelled to assume that it was not a miracle and that he just doesn’t know enough.
Since I did not claim that we could be certain that it was a miracle or that we should reject the idea that science might someday be capable of explaining such of an event, there is nothing “of the gaps” here.
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