The Significance of Views on Miracles for Religion (AQA A-Level Religious Studies): Revision Notes
The Significance of Views on Miracles for Religion
Introduction
There are major differences between realist and anti-realist approaches to miracles. Each approach involves a different understanding of the significance of miracles for religion.
Two Fundamental Approaches to Miracles:
Realist approaches see miracles as real events brought about by a transcendent God who is personal, can answer prayer, and acts in the world as part of his care for creation.
Anti-realist approaches see miracles as events with profound personal and psychological significance, but not necessarily as supernatural interventions by a transcendent being.
Realist approaches
Biblical significance - the value of miracles for faith
The Gospels record many miracles performed by Jesus himself, including:
- Miracles of healing
- Exorcisms (casting out demons)
- Miracles over nature (such as calming a storm)
- Resuscitations
These miracles serve as evidence of Jesus's divine authority and the arrival of God's Kingdom on earth.
Gospel terminology for miracles
The New Testament writers used three key Greek terms to describe miraculous events, each emphasizing a different aspect of these extraordinary occurrences:
The Three Greek Terms for Miracles:
- Dunameis (powerful deeds) - from the same root as 'dynamite', indicating something extraordinary (Matthew 11:20)
- Emphasizes the power and strength of the event
- Terata (wonders) - emphasising the astonishing nature of the events (John 4:48)
- Focuses on the awe and amazement they inspire
- Semeia (signs) - indicating that miracles point to the arrival of God's Kingdom (John 6:2)
- Shows that miracles have deeper meaning and purpose
The use of the term 'signs' (semeia) shows that the Gospel writers understood miracles as indicators that God's Kingdom had arrived, not merely as spectacular displays of power.
The resurrection as the central miracle
The resurrection of Christ is the central miracle of the New Testament. St Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians 15:14 that if Christ has not been raised, then preaching is pointless and faith is in vain.
The Foundation of Christian Faith
St Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 15:14 is difficult to interpret as mere metaphor. The miracles performed by Jesus all point towards the resurrection, which forms the foundation of Christian faith.
Paul reinforces this view by stating that if Christ was not raised, then faith is futile (v.17), because without Christ's resurrection there can be no resurrection from the dead for humanity (vv.21-22).
Some Christians do understand the resurrection metaphorically or in an anti-realist sense, but this does not appear to be how the New Testament authors understood it.
God intervenes providentially as a demonstration of power and love
Providence refers to the doctrine that God cares for his creation. This belief is based on two key characteristics of God:
- Omnipotence (all-powerful)
- Omnibenevolence (all-loving)
As the all-powerful and all-loving Creator, God has both the power and the love to be active in the world.
Forms of God's intervention
Two Types of Divine Revelation:
God intervenes through:
General revelation - experiences of God given through:
- Reason
- Conscience
Special revelation - includes:
- Scripture
- Religious experiences (dreams, visions, voices, conversion experiences)
- Miracles
Christian acceptance of Hume's definition
Whilst Hume defined miracles as violations of natural laws done by a particular act of will of God, he believed miracles do not occur. Many Christians accept Hume's definition but conclude that miracles do occur. They see them as demonstrations of God's power and love.
The idea of miracles as the actions of an all-loving and all-powerful God raises the problem of evil
For many Christians, the problem of evil is the greatest stumbling block to religious belief. Theologians have struggled for centuries to explain why an all-powerful and all-loving God allows evil to exist.
The selectivity problem
The Challenge of Selective Miracles
One of the major problems with miracles is their selectivity:
- Why would God select some people to be recipients of miracles and not others?
- Why should some humans have the power to perform miracles and not others?
This selectivity issue led Maurice Wiles to reject a realist understanding of miracles, as it seems inconsistent with God's omnibenevolence.
Keith Ward's response to the selectivity problem
Keith Ward offers a response to these questions by arguing that miracles have a wider purpose than being selective demonstrations of God's power:
Universal significance
When God brings about a miracle, it has universal (not selective) significance. Miracles disclose to humanity something of God's intentions for the universe. Miraculous events directly caused by God are interventions but are primarily signs.
The Resurrection as Universal Sign
The resurrection of Jesus is a sign that discloses God's intention for human life to have ultimate fulfilment after death. This miracle is not selective because it reveals God's plan for all humanity, not just for Jesus or his immediate followers.
Human agency in miracles
When miracles are brought about through human beings (such as Catholic saints), this occurs because the power to bring about miracles is always available to humans. However, humans can only use this power if they open themselves up to God. Such miracles are a natural human response to God that 'open' the world.
Natural and supernatural combined
The power to perform miracles is both natural and supernatural. However, it is not interventionist in the sense of God arbitrarily interfering.
Ward's concept: 'Epiphanies of the Spirit'
Keith Ward's Understanding of Miracles
Ward sees miracles not as God 'tinkering with his creation'. Instead, they are 'Epiphanies of the Spirit' - clues to God's intentions for humanity. Miracles reveal God's plans rather than being arbitrary acts of power.
This understanding addresses the selectivity problem by showing that miracles have universal significance as revelations of God's purposes.
Anti-realist approaches
By contrast with realist approaches, anti-realist understandings of miracle have a different understanding of religion
Anti-realist views reject the idea that miracles are real interventions by a transcendent God. Instead, they focus on the personal and psychological significance of events perceived as miraculous.
Paul Tillich's view
According to Tillich, miracles must be understood in a fundamentally different way:
Tillich's Non-Realist Understanding
- God is not 'a being' among others, but is 'Being-itself' - existence itself
- Miracles cannot contradict the rational structure of reality
- Therefore, miracles are not interventions in the world by a transcendent God
- Instead, they are 'sign-events' that cannot be divorced from their religious context
- They point to the 'mystery of being'
- They are given to us through ecstatic religious experiences
- Miracles in this sense have profound personal and psychological significance
Holland's railway line example
Holland's Illustration of Anti-Realist Miracles
Holland's story of the child on the railway line illustrates an anti-realist understanding:
- The 'miracle' is not supernatural
- It is an event which has deep personal significance to those involved
- The miraculous quality lies in how the event is experienced and interpreted
The same objective event might be experienced as miraculous by some (such as the child's mother) but as merely fortunate by others. The 'miracle' exists in the subjective response, not in any supernatural intervention.
Wiles' view
Wiles understands miracles as events that reveal something of God's intentions for the world. The New Testament miracles are about inspiring people to overcome evil and suffering. Rather than actual supernatural interventions, they are meaningful events with transformative potential.
The significance for religion
Looking at these anti-realist interpretations:
- Their significance for religion is personal
- They do not relate to real events brought about by a real God
- Rather, their 'reality' is in the mind of the person who experiences an event with extraordinary personal significance
- The focus is on psychological and subjective transformation rather than objective supernatural intervention
Which approach to miracles is most significant for religion?
Key questions to consider
Central Questions in the Debate
The nature of God
- Tillich's understanding of God and miracles ultimately relates to how our minds work
- Is God a real being, or does God exist only as a psychological reality?
- The Cosmological Argument raises the question: does God exist as the reason why the universe exists, or is 'God' just a way of looking at and explaining the world?
The nature of miracles
- For realists, miracles are real events
- For anti-realists, they are unusual and astonishing events within human experience
- Which description most accurately captures the significance of miracles?
Religious implications
- If anti-realism is correct, does this reduce God to a psychological construct?
- If realism is correct, how do we address the problem of evil and the selectivity of miracles?
- Are miracles necessary for religious belief?
Key definitions
Realism
Realist understandings of the world generally hold that:
- Scientific theories give us true (or approximately true) descriptions of the world
- They give us knowledge of things that exist but cannot be observed, such as isolated quarks
- The world is mind-independent: it exists the way it is, regardless of what we think
Applied to miracles, a realist account sees them as real events brought about by God (or someone empowered by God). God exists as a real being, transcendent and unobservable, who creates and cares for the world.
Anti-realism
Anti-realist understandings deny that we can have knowledge of a mind-independent world, since the phenomena observed by our senses are interpreted by the mind. Any talk of God as an unobservable 'something' has no cognitive content, so 'God' cannot be discussed meaningfully.
Applied to miracles, a miracle might be seen as something that lifts the spirit, or transforms a community of people. The focus is on subjective experience rather than objective events.
Providence
The doctrine that God cares for his creation. God's providence is based on his characteristics of omnipotence (all-powerful) and omnibenevolence (all-loving). As Creator, God has both the power and the love to be active in the world.
Being-itself
Tillich's concept of God. Rather than understanding God as 'a being' among other beings, Tillich describes God as Being-itself - existence itself. This is a non-realist understanding that sees God not as a separate transcendent entity but as the ground of all being.
Sign-events
Tillich's term for miracles. They are events that cannot be divorced from their religious context and point to the 'mystery of being'. They are given through ecstatic religious experiences and have profound personal and psychological significance.
Epiphanies of the Spirit
Keith Ward's term for miracles. Rather than seeing them as God 'tinkering with his creation', Ward sees miracles as revelations that provide clues to God's intentions for humanity.
Remember!
Key Points to Remember:
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Realist approaches see miracles as real events brought about by a transcendent God, demonstrating his power and love as part of his providential care for creation
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Biblical miracles were understood as signs (semeia) of God's Kingdom, with the resurrection as the foundation of Christian faith - 'if Christ was not raised, then faith is futile' (1 Corinthians 15:17)
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The problem of evil challenges realist views: why would God perform miracles selectively? Keith Ward responds that miracles have universal significance as 'Epiphanies of the Spirit' that reveal God's intentions
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Anti-realist approaches understand miracles as events with profound personal and psychological significance rather than supernatural interventions - they are 'sign-events' (Tillich) or inspirations to overcome suffering (Wiles)
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The key debate centres on whether God is a real transcendent being or a psychological reality, and whether miracles are objective events or subjective experiences with personal meaning