Concept Of Miracle Research Articles

Professor Langford's Meaning of ‘Miracle’

In his paper ‘The Problem of the Meaning of “Miracle” (Religious Studies, March, 1971), Professor Michael J. Langford proffers a concept of miracles that derives its intelligibility from the familiar phenomenon of the interaction of minds. Miraculous occurrences are portrayed as a variant, though abnormal, form of what we may term ‘inter-psychosomatic influence’, God's mind being the ultimate determinant. Langford thinks that to speak significantly of miracles, the phenomenon should be understood as ‘not totally dissimilar to our previous experience’ (p. 49); hence the familiar notion of inter-psychosomatic influence. He thinks, too, that to talk of miracles as God interfering directly with the natural order would be to admit that such interference would not upset our concept of human nature and responsibility, a consequence which, to Langford, would make it inconsistent for Christians to maintain the free-will defence in the face of the problem of evil. According to Langford, human interference with the natural order does not vitiate the preconditions of human responsibility, and so he thinks that his concept of miracle, which is only ‘an extension of the same phenomenon, of a kind that also does not disrupt either human freedom or the stable order that is the necessary context for human life’ (p. 49), will provide a way out of the dilemma. Having agreed with Hume and Flew that it would be unreasonable ‘to explain an unusual event by introducing divine causation if we hadn't already got independent evidence for the divine’ (p. 44), Langford nevertheless maintains that ‘unthought possibilities’ should not be ruled out in the manner of a ‘prejudiced theorist’ (p. 45). He thinks that such possibilities are left open in his concept of miracle, which makes the prior assumption that ‘independent grounds for belief in God’ exist (p. 51) before affirming that, given that God exists, miracles may be consistently and substantively understood in terms of a special distinguishable (pp. 50, 51) sort of inter-psychosomatic influence. He concedes, of course that his concept would rule out ‘those miracles that appear to be quite apart from the working of grace through human minds’ (p. 51). I think, however, that Langford's thesis is faulty at key places.

The Concept of Miracle for To-day

The Concept of Miracle for To-day

The Concept of Miracle from St. Augustine to Modern Apologetics

The Concept of Miracle from St. Augustine to Modern Apologetics

The Old Testament Conception of Miracle

The purpose of this study is to elucidate the significance underlying the concept of miracle in the world of Old Testament thought and theology, in the hope that the results attained may shed fresh light upon something which touches the very centre of religious life and is a frequent cause of genuine doubt and perplexity for modern man. Perhaps the word miracle itself is ambiguous in this connexion, for it has gathered around itself a penumbra of associations derived from its use in our modern scientifically determined modes of thought and speech. Broadly speaking the background which it implies is that of nature conceived as an independent system presupposing fixed laws or if, with the more modern scientific outlook we reject the notion of materialistic determinism and mechanism, then, at any rate, we must substitute for ‘laws’ the tendency for uniform patterns and processes to emerge. Against such large uniformities, miracle, in the modern sense, stands out somewhat sharply as an exception, mysterious and apparently inexplicable, repugnant in its arbitrariness to the spirit of pure science. Such presuppositions do not exist in the Old Testament World of ideas where we are confronted by a type of thought which is through and through theological rather than philosophical and scientific. The corner-stone of the Old Testament system of ideas is the primacy of God as self-existent Creator whose creative activity is unceasing, upholding and interpenetrating by His watchful redeeming care all that is.

Jesus, by Eduard Schweizer. SCM, 1971. 200 pp. £3.

Book Reviewed in this Article:JESUS, by Eduard Schweizer.GOD AND MAN, by Anthony Bloom.TRUTH, by Alan R. White.AUGUSTUS TO CONSTANTINE: THE THRUST OF THE CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT INTO THE ROMAN WORLD, by Robert M. Grant.THE WORKS OF ST CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: Volume 2: The The Fathers of the Church: Volume 64. Translated by Leo P. McAuley, S. J., and Anthony A. Stephenson.JOSEPH ARCH (1826–1919), The Farm Workers' Leader, by Pamela Horn.THE SPIRITUALITY OF FRIEDRICH VON HUGEL, by Joseph WhelanTHE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH UNDERGROUND, 1917–1970, by William C. Fletcher.THE CONCEPT OF MIRACLE, by Richard Swinburne.