Not a Miracle: Our Knowledge of God’s Signs and Wonders

Abstract

Not a Miracle:Our Knowledge of God’s Signs and Wonders Anselm Ramelow, O.P. Perhaps more than in other religions, miracles play an essential role in the Christian faith, most particularly the Resurrection. But miracles have attracted not only the attention of believers and theologians, but also of philosophers. This is the case especially since David Hume’s objections against our ability to recognize miracles even if they occur. In this article, I wish to show that it is possible to know that miracles have taken place if we include further philosophical considerations and scientific methods. Science and historiography can recognize the occurrence of miracles on their own principles, if only they are sufficiently and properly articulated. Miracles as Intersection of Faith and Reason The phenomenon of miracles constitutes one of the most obvious intersections of faith and reason: since miracles are to provide evidence for the authenticity of revelation and therefore faith, they cannot yet rely on an appeal to faith. In fact, faith itself sends us back to reason, for it is the defined faith of the Church that we can know miracles by reason. The First Vatican Council teaches: In order that the obedience of our faith might be in harmony with reason, God willed that to the interior help of the Holy Spirit there should be joined exterior proofs of his revelation; to wit, divine facts, and especially miracles and prophecies, which, as they manifestly display the omnipotence and infinite knowledge [End Page 659] of God, are most certain proofs of his divine revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all men.1 To put it paradoxically: by faith we are not fideists. The Church herself sends us out to investigate reasons to believe. This is risky, but necessary. These reasons to believe include evidence for miracles that authenticate faith. We cannot base our belief in miracles on the authority of the Church because that authority is itself authenticated by miracles. In fact, the whole of Christianity is based on the miracles and signs that Jesus worked in his life, but most fundamentally on the miracles of the Incarnation and the Resurrection. Even while faith is a gift of grace, belief in these events must be reasonable. This is denied not only by modern fideists, but also by David Hume, who hopes “to confound those dangerous friends or disguised enemies to the Christian Religion, who have undertaken to defend it by the principles of human reason.” He continues: Our most holy religion is founded on Faith, not on reason … So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.2 In spite of some pious rhetoric, Hume is quite conscious that he is attacking the very heart of Christianity, which is both a religion of reason and, at the same time, a religion of miracles.3 No other religion [End Page 660] claims more miracles than Christianity, which is itself based on the fact of God’s unique intervention in history. No doubt, faith will make the believer more susceptible to the acceptance of miracles. But if that faith is in turn reasonable, then this would only imply that the believer has a background knowledge that makes it easier for him to recognize a miracle. Just as a physician will be trained to recognize the symptoms of beginning diabetes and therefore recognize it more quickly than a lay person, so a believer might have a better training in recognizing miracles.4 Still, a miracle must be recognizable to unbelievers as well, and the believer can and must make available criteria for non-believers to recognize the miracle, provided they in turn are open to the evidence.5 The Church herself is extremely cautious with regard to miracle claims...