Stories of Extraordinary Events
People in earlier cultures tended to be less skeptical about claims of events caused by powers beyond the ordinary than educated people in our era are. They could doubt particular stories, but it was rare for well-informed people in these cultures to reject all claims to something extraordinary. A key to the difference between our reaction and theirs is that we have learned ways of thinking about the world that are in tension with accepting claims about events our science can’t explain. Our default assumption is that what happens is a product of regularities in the physical order that science discovers. To someone who thinks in this way, making a claim about God causing some event sounds like giving up prematurely on the quest for scientific understanding.
It is not just people who reject the existence of God who tend to be skeptical about claims of the miraculous. Christians who have internalized scientific attitudes are often skeptical as well. They may affirm that God could intervene to produce something that is scientifically inexplicable, but in particular cases they are likely to think that claims of divine intervention shouldn’t be accepted unless it can be established that what is reported actually occurred and that a scientific explanation of such a thing can be ruled out. Like their skeptical counterparts, they treat accounts of events not explainable in scientific terms as requiring a high level of proof.
There are Christians who believe miracle stories in scriptural texts because they are in the Bible. But educated Christians in our time have learned to treat biblical reports from ancient times in the way they would treat such reports in any other ancient document. When they encounter a miracle story, they think that it is likely to be a product of superstition or pious exaggeration or a way for an author to make a theological point. Even if they accept some miracle stories as having some factual basis, they recognize that the evidence won’t be convincing to everyone.
Modern skepticism about claims of miracles is often rooted in conceiving of the miraculous in a way that makes it hard to establish that such a thing could happen. We think of a miracle as an event that nature could not have produced that is caused by a power beyond nature. Giving this way of thinking, affirming a miracle would require reason to believe (1) that an event couldn’t have been produced by nature and (2) that the event actually occurred. Skeptics can point out that in cases where there is strong reason to think that a natural explanation is ruled out, there are likely to be reasons to doubt that what is reported really happened.
Suppose we shift the focus. Instead of asking whether there are events that nature could not have produced, ask whether there are events that suggest the operation of powers beyond those our science recognizes. Answering yes would not by itself tell us whether such events should be attributed to God. But separating the question of whether remarkable events occur from the question of whether there is a supernatural cause has some advantages. First of all, it brings us closer to the way extraordinary events were conceived in biblical times. The stories where we speak of miracles use terms translated as signs and wonders to describe events that are out of the ordinary. While a biblical sign may point to God, there is no assumption that a sign had to be something nature could not have produced. Even in accounts of spectacular events, such as crossing the sea in Exodus, the biblical text refers to an East wind. Saying that an East wind brought about the event and saying that God brought it about are apparently not seen as conflicting answers.
Another thing to notice is that in most cases where people speak of something miraculous happening, there is no way to decisively determine whether the event could have been produced by natural causes. For example, if there if there is a healing that defies our ordinary expectations, it is hard to rule out the claim that it might have been a spontaneous remission or a product of natural regularities we don’t fully understand. But even if we don’t know whether there is a natural explanation, the event can be recognized as a sign of what God is doing in the world. A sign doesn’t have to be a proof; it can be an occasion for revelation for people who are receptive to the possibility.
Thinking that there are powers that produce events that seem anomalous from a scientific point of view does not lead all the way to God. But if there are powers other than God’s that might lead to remarkable events, we can be more open to levels of reality beyond our ordinary understanding of physical causality. Viewing the world through a lens that is shaped by materialist assumptions conditions us to filter out aspects of reality that don’t fit with these assumptions. By contrast, thinking that there are such things as telepathic connections between minds or mental influences on physical processes leads in the direction of considering mind as fundamental reality. When we conceive of reality in this way, we are likely to increase our ability to recognize signs and wonders that may point us toward God.
For a fuller discussion of this issue, 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.
