Assess The Possibility Of Miracles (50 Marks)

Nowadays, people in general tend to use the word miracle when referring to a surprising event, such as the Patriots coming back from a 25 point deficit to win Super Bowl LI, or the American hockey team winning at the 1980 hockey Olympics, dubbed a “miracle on ice”. However, these so called miracles do not portray the actual meaning of the word, which is defined as an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers therefore is ascribed to be a work of God. Although there has been some skepticism among people, Christians included, as to the existence of miracles, this paper will argue that true miracles do occur. Furthermore,

Unless there exists, in addition to Nature, something else which we may call the supernatural, there can be no miracles” (5), therefore we can assume that miracle can’t occur without the consideration of something else existing outside nature. According to Lewis, super-naturalists claim that an entity with God’s attributes exists outside nature (42), and also reveals that God created nature (7). Since God created nature and He exist outside of natural, proof of miracle cannot be found within nature, and Lewis describes the occurrence of miracle as “they come on great occasions: they are found at the great ganglions—not of political or social history, but of that spiritual history which cannot be fully known by men” (273). Miracle are rare events, and it takes the highly spiritual to witness

The second miracle involved a nobleman’s son. The nobleman’s son was very sick and lived in Capernaum. The nobleman heard that Jesus was coming into Galilee, and approaches Him and ask if He would heal his dying son. Jesus replies, “that unless ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe.” John 4:48 According to Dr. Towns, this miracle showed power over space. Jesus did not travel to the man’s son to perform the act, but performed the miracle from a distance. Twice John mentions the faith of the nobleman. First, he “believed the word that Jesus spoke to him” (John 4:50) Later, when that word was confirmed, “he himself believed” (John 4:53). The first expression of faith was faith in the spoken word of God, and the second expression of faith was in the incarnate Word of God. This sign was significant in that not only the father believed but also his whole household, which would include not only his family but also his servants. This is the first example of salvation to all that believe.”[5]

Before one is able to debate the ideas of inconsistency surrounding miracles, we must define and clarify what a miracle actually is. One definition is ‘an event caused by God, this view is traditionally supported by Christians and philosophers such as Aquinas. A second definition is ‘a violation of the laws of nature’ which is most commonly associated with David Hume. These two definitions usually underlie the way in which people approach the question of God acting in the world, thus impacting ones interpretation of miracles showing a benevolent God. Benevolence is used to describe God being a good and loving God. Many

In light of this, it is important to establish to Biblical truth on the matter of miracles. One passage that

Hume argues that a miracle is a breach of a law of nature. As I said

Weak naturalism: as far as we know, the natural world is all there is. I defend the claim that naturalism is more probable than supernaturalism, in my essay Naturalism versus Supernaturalism- the false dichotomy – I argue that the observance of the natural world along with its laws combined with the absence of any evidence of the supernatural, amounts to a strong prima facie case for naturalism, and its likelihood in comparison to the sans-evidence claims of supernaturalism.

The miracle of curing a blind man gives shows the skepticism of the masses towards the new religion that was being founded. This miracle takes multiple attempts and when completed gives the man complete vision. However; Jesus tells the man to not return to the village that he had come. The texts surrounding these verses have this similar theme of ‘silent’ miracles. The part that sparks my interest is showing what people thought about Jesus at this time. I think showing that the miracle took two attempts shows that people were skeptical about this

Though Jesus intention was not to perform miracles for him. Sometimes it was necessary to do miracles to show us God’s grace and they could have faith. Let’s not forget that He did not do miracle because they deserve it. He would do miracle to help them believe and so we would believe in him. Even his disciples sometimes had uncertainty. In Luke 8:9-10 “His disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God had been given

For centuries, people have had differing opinions about miracles. Have any miracles ever really happened? Or is everything a at the mercy of chance? Across all cultures, peoples, and time periods, there have been stories of miracles. In the Isreali culture alone, there are stories of Moses calling down plagues upon Egypt and parting the red sea to lead the people to freedom. Many stories like this are told across cultures. And then there are the miracles of Jesus, which spearheaded the movement of Christianity across the world. Today, it is difficult to know whether or not miracle have ever really happened. Whitman’s poem, Miracles, seems to be in response to this very question, “Is there any such thing as a miracle?” While many people would look for miraculous healing or resurrection from the dead or some other such dramatic miracle as proof.

In the New Testament, we see a large portion of the Gospels devoted to recounting the miracles of Jesus. One of the first miracles done by Jesus shortly after calling his discples and beginning

It is with this definition of miracles that the majority of arguments occur, with some claiming them to be obvious signs of God’s reality and active presence within the world, with some such miracles being incorporated in arguments for religious experience. We see examples of such RSSE in the gospels. For many Christian’s miracles, demonstrate God’s care for his creation and show God’s willingness to intervene to change things for the better. Such examples of RSSE are not confined to the times of Jesus, but have occurred in the fairly recent past especially in the Catholic Church (who undertake a strict procedure in ascertaining the validity of miracles) e.g. Lourdes, The miraculous recovery of John Fagen, which lead to the sainthood of John Ogillve etc. Scholars such as Hume, and scientists such as Dawkins, believe that ‘miracles’ have natural explanations and are only seen as miraculous due to ignorance (as science advances forward so faith retreats).

If life could be solved on “good” intentions alone then the government would be revered as a miracle worker, unfortunately in reality good intentions are often followed by those who would seek to profit from them Across American history this trait is a pattern that has repeated itself numerous of times, from the past century alone good intentions created the great depression and the savings and Loans collapse. Most recently the new good intention became low-income families, and from it blossomed a thorny rose of a new standard of business ethics. The intention of assisting low-income families started becoming more prevalent under Bill Clinton’s administration, and can traced to 1992 with the creation of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO). In time, from administration to administration while people either looked away or got paid under the table the remaining ethics of every the American industry vanished, leaving in its wake a crisis which even today remains as a shadow on the minds of all Americans. A shadow greater than the one created by the explosion of the USS Maine in the harbor of Havana, or even the darkness on the day of Pearl Harbor. The reason the shadow remains is because of that very vanishing ethics, which had created it under the guise of good intentions starting with OFHEO.

The first miracle Jesus performed was changing water into wine. He and His disciples arrived at a wedding celebration that was already in progress. Mary, the mother of Jesus, came to Him and

A miracle after their death is evidence that the person is indeed in heaven with God interceding for us here on Earth. It is actually God performing the miracles, yet the potential Saint is credited with assisting God with his miracle. The process of confirming that a miracle truly happened must be: instantaneous, lasting, and unexplainable. An example of verifying this criteria, is doctors and scientific experts scrutinizing medical and scientific records, or non-religous skeptics are invited to try to disprove of the miracle. On top of that, there has to be evidence that people prayed for the intercession of the would be Saint before the cure. So once there is proof that a miracle resulted from the aspiring Saints intercession, the person may now be officially called