7. Why bother to think about miracles?
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What are miracles?
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Do they happen?
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How can we tell?
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And do they matter anyway?
For some people miracles are doorways to God, in that
they provide them with reason for belief. Others however find them
obstacles, in that they simply can’t get their minds around them, and
come to the conclusion that if this is the sort of thing Christianity
is about, then it’s clearly not for them. A miracle is by definition
an extraordinary event, but not just that: a trick done by a magician
doesn’t count. It also has to have ‘religious significance’, in that
it results in believers seeing things differently, and may change
unbelievers into believers. If a believer and an unbeliever witness
the same extraordinary event, the believer may see it as a miracle,
whilst the unbeliever may (and in fact is bound to, if he is to remain
an unbeliever) simply see it as something very odd. Whose view is
correct?
Miracles have good consequences - at least from the point of view of
the miracle-ascriber. In Exodus we read of how the waters of the Red
Sea parted to allow the fleeing Israelites to pass through in safety,
but then closed over (and drowned) the pursuing Egyptians. We may
think of this event/story as a miracle, and this was certainly how the
Israelites regarded it. But the widows and children of those Egyptian
soldiers would presumably have seen things differently. Whose view is
correct?
Belief in miracles is still strong, especially amongst the ignorant
and superstitious. It is always difficult to know what to make of
reports of extraordinary events. As a general rule, the more
improbable the claim, the more unreliable the supposed witnesses, the
further back in time or the more remote in location is the event in
question, the more evidence that is needed, and the more cautious we
need to be. It is obviously not a coincidence that supernatural events
appear to occur with greater frequency the further back in history we
go. Each of us occupies our own particular position on the continuum
that ranges from extreme scepticism to extreme gullibility. Some
people, therefore, are more predisposed to believe in miracles (and
all sorts of other religious claims) than others, but religion must
never be allowed to become their sole preserve.
Miracles seem to require the existence of an interventionist God, but
there is the very real question as to why God only works miracles for
isolated individuals, and didn’t intervene to stop the monstrous evils
wrought on millions of innocent people by Hitler and Stalin? In other
words, why are miracles usually so small-scale? And why does God
apparently heal some people and not others? It’s all terribly
problematic!
Many people have difficulties with the miracle stories, not just of
Jesus but elsewhere in the bible as well. It’s important that such
difficulties aren’t allowed to get in the way of faith, and there are
various strategies for dealing with them. The first is simply to
ignore miracles altogether. It is perfectly possible to take
Christianity completely seriously, and try to live by Christ’s
teachings, whilst having nothing to do with any of the miracle
stories. Doing this doesn’t make someone less of a Christian, simply
one who can live on rather thinner gruel than others seem to need.
Another possibility is to try and ‘explain away’ miracles. Each of
them can be accounted for in some non-miraculous way, and this can
certainly help those who find them obstacles. The third strategy is to
take them at face value. This doesn’t mean to read them as historical
or scientific accounts, but as attempts to convey a sense of awe and
wonder, which was undoubtedly what those who told the stories were
trying to do.
Some of the miracle stories may be exaggerated, or even completely
legendary, but this doesn’t matter. Christians across the centuries
have revered them, not because of what happened, but because of what
they mean. Understanding them in this way means that they may cease to
be obstacles and instead become doorways to the sacred.
It is in this sense that a baby may be described as a miracle:
something which takes our breath away. Of course it may not: someone
may simply say that a baby is a baby, and there’s no big deal! But
this brings out the important point that miracles are never
unambiguous: they never provide knock-down arguments to prove
anything. The Gospel accounts show that whatever Jesus did, there were
many people who remained completely unmoved. In one sense they saw the
same things as those who were extremely moved. But in another, much
more important sense, they saw something different – or, rather, they
saw very much less. The essence of the miraculous is not to be found
in the event itself, but in one’s reaction to it. To say that
something is/was a miracle is not to describe it, but to kneel before
it.
Given such an understanding there can be no doubt that miracles do
occur. People really have changed the direction of their lives in
response to particular events (their first baby, the stillness of a
mountain top, the selfless love of a relative) such that they have
become more open and loving and generous. There may have been nothing
particularly unusual in the events themselves, in that others may have
barely noticed them at all, but despite this they acted as the trigger
for a new way of seeing and (more importantly) being. We might go
further and say that the truly miraculous is being able to find such
meaning in amongst the ordinary, being able to move, as it were, to a
different level of reality. Such ‘moments of disclosure’ are what
‘finding God’ amounts to.
Miracles always lead somewhere, they always take us forward in our
spiritual journeying. It follows that we must be on the lookout for
the miraculous, open to new sources of wonder and awe, ready to have
our breath taken away from us. Our world is so glorious, so brimming
with meaning, that it would be surprising if the miraculous were not
all around us: our task is to be alive and alert to it, and to be
prepared to live to the full whatever vision is granted us.
Tony Windross, Vicar of St Peter's, Sheringham.
Why bother
A fuller treatment of this topic, plus 36 others, can be found in ‘The Thoughtful Guide to Faith’
also written by Tony Windross, published by John Hunt (2004) and available from all good bookshops at £9-99.