The Question of Miracle

We take up this central question in the Christian theology of God’s action by extending our comparison of the two British scientist-theologians Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne (see Peacocke and Polkinghorne compared and Peacocke and Polkinghorne: comparison of models of divine action.

Despite the similarities between their views on divine action, Polkinghorne still sticks to his emphasis on the possibility of particular, revelatory divine acts in a way which Peacocke strives to avoid.

The first point to make about miracle is that definition is all-important. The 18th-Century philosopher David Hume’s famous attack on miracle can be summarised as follows:

1. A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.
2. We have uniform experience that the laws of nature are never violated.
3. Therefore, miracles cannot occur.

But this approach is based on a premise which the new science no longer has on offer. As Antony Flew says, (Christians) ‘have to presuppose the existence of a strong natural order.’But even granted a strong natural order, it is very clear from the science of unpredictability in non-linear dynamic systems(including the human brain) that it is inconceivable that the behaviour of a real-life system involving human beings could be the subject of a totally comprehensive scientific explanation. If we do not know - precisely - what the laws of nature prescribe in a particular situation we cannot be sure what would constitute a ‘violation’. We have therefore to define miracle in theological terms rather than in terms of scientific regularities.

A possible definition would be: an extremely unusual event, unfamiliar in terms of naturalistic explanation, which a worshipping community takes to be specially revelatory, by dint of the blessing or healing it conveys, of the divine grace.

Polkinghorne has an extensive discussion of miracle in his Science and Providence (1989),and takes a very positive view of the possibility of such events. Again this is a reflection of his sense of the openness and flexibility of physical processes. God does not violate the regularities God has put into placebut God still has scope for working within the natural processes to generate remarkable results.

Peacocke takes a much more cautious view, questioning ‘whether such direct “intervention” is compatible with and coherent with other well-founded affirmations concerning the nature of God and of God’s relation to the world.’

Email link | Feedback | Contributed by: Dr. Christopher Southgate
Source: God, Humanity and the Cosmos  (T&T Clark, 1999)