The Miraculous and the Paranormal
We’ve all heard them: stories describing strange events that just don’t fit with our usual ways of thinking about what is likely, or even possible. Some of these stories are told in ways that describe what happened as religiously significant, such as claims that God performed a miracle, perhaps in answer to a prayer request. But many accounts of anomalous events lead us to suspect that mysterious powers within the natural order are involved.
A young woman sees an appearance of a loved one in her room at the same time this person is committing suicide at a distant location. An idea for a new novel suddenly arises in a famous author’s mind. The author writes down a detailed plot synopsis, but a few days later receives a letter from a fellow author containing a virtually identical plot synopsis. A woman dreams that she will heal a stranger by putting her hands on this person. She has never done anything like this before, but on the next day the prediction in the dream comes true.
In many cases, we can dismiss accounts of strange events as having some ordinary explanation, or we can suspect that the accounts are a product of misreporting or deliberate deception. But sometimes proposed explanations seem strained, and these reports often come from sources we trust. The stories can lead us to wonder whether events like these actually happen. Thinking that they do, or even acknowledging that some of these reports might be true, raises the question of how such things could be possible.
Near the beginning of the twentieth century, some scholars believed that there was significant evidence for events that couldn’t be explained in terms of standard accounts of physical causality, but they didn’t think of these events as supernaturally caused. They coined the term “paranormal” as a way of referring to these anomalous events. They regarded the events as revealing surprising potentials of nature that arose from capacities of the mind to do things exceeding what we think of as ordinary, such as a capacity to acquire information about reality that comes from some source other than the senses (ESP) or to have direct mental influence on physical things (PK).
People who think that whatever happens is due to physical causes reject the idea that there are mental powers leading to outcomes that can’t be explained in these terms. From their point of view, getting information through extrasensory channels or affecting physical phenomena outside one’s own body by means of one’s mental state sounds like magic. They presume that whatever evidence seems to support such claims must be flawed. But there are also well-informed scientists and philosophers who find the evidence for paranormal phenomena persuasive and judge that it gives reason to question fundamental assumptions about the natural order.
Suppose that there is strong reason to think that the natural order is more mysterious than our scientific representations suggest: that paranormal phenomena really happen. What would it mean for Christian thinking about God and the world? I offer a few suggestions:
Accepting paranormal powers is conducive to a lower level of skepticism about extraordinary events. In earlier ages Christians thought that they could appeal to miracles to establish that Christianity is the true faith. In our time this kind of argument less effective because people who are scientifically minded tend to react to miracle stories with a level of skepticism that is hard to overcome. When they encounter such stories in biblical texts, they assume that the accounts are unreliable. However, someone who is convinced that there is strong evidence of powers of mind producing extraordinary outcomes can be more open to the possibility that some religious stories reporting remarkable events might have a factual basis.
Accepting paranormal powers removes an obstacle that sometimes stands in the way of seriously considering the idea that God is involved in the world. Christians often think of God’s involvement in the world as a matter of overriding the operation of natural regularities. However, scientifically minded Christians are skeptical about particular claims of events that conflict with established understandings of natural regularities. Hence, they are skeptical of claims of divine intervention. Credible evidence of paranormal phenomena suggests that part of what happens in the world is due to powers of mind beyond the powers our science recognizes. Accepting these powers means recognizing that our existing scientific theories don’t tell the full story of what can happen. Thinking of how humans might influence things through such powers provides an analogue for conceiving of the influence an Ultimate Mind might have.
Accepting paranormal powers suggests a way that God might influence what happens without overriding finite control. The picture of God sometimes overriding the natural order through miraculous interventions makes it difficult to explain cases in which God does not intervene to prevent terrible outcomes. Answers to the question of why God doesn’t do more to prevent such things generally appeal to the idea that powers to control what happens have been given to created beings. The idea is that in creating our kind of world God relinquishes control so that created things can have a significant degree of independence. Accepting paranormal phenomena as real gives us a way to conceive of how God could influence what happens without taking control. If God communicates information through extrasensory channels, that communication can motivate action in harmony with divine purposes. This kind of influence is resistible, but when created beings are receptive to it, God’s purposes can be achieved through the exercise of their ordinary powers or through powers of mind that seem extraordinary.
For a fuller discussion of these issues, see chapter 2: Science, Religion and Mystery and chapter 3: The Miraculous and the Paranormal in Making Room For Mystery: Anomalous Events, Extraordinary Experiences, and Christian Faith.
