This is based on a short essay by Andrew Pinsent, formerly a particle physicist at CERN, the Research Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre at Oxford University and a Roman Catholic priest in the diocese of Arundel and Brighton in England.
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It is not irrational to believe in miracles because they purportedly break the "laws of nature."
Our view of nature was once governed by the Aristotelian model that determined what was, and what was not, naturally possible. This gave way to the Newtonian model, and it is this model which insists on 'natural Law' as being a kind of hard-wired structure to the cosmos. The over-arching model was the empirical system by which everything can be measured and monitored, classified and categorised, and as a result of which a tendency to compartmentalisation and determination. Einstein and Dirac, the bomb, relativity and the emergence of Quantum Physics have, for the moment at least, rendered the cosmos as something other than a vast, fixed mechanism. Contemporary science suggests a more 'organic' cosmos, to allow such phenomena as spontaneity, 'spooky action at a distance' and quantum entanglement. All things designated as 'impossible' under the Newtonian model.
Belief in the Divine adds another layer to the mix. By it's very nature, according to every metaphysical model of the ancient religion traditions, as well as Western Philosophical tradition, the Divine is not constrained by and transcends physical conditions. Pantheistic beliefs may be the only exception to this statement, but then pantheism cannot offer an explanation that renders an essentially conditional deity as a product of nature, rather nature is the product of the deity, in that we must allow for non-existence being a divine attribute. Factoring in the multiverse only exacerbates the problem.
The assumption that the Divine 'suspends' or 'contradicts' natural law is, I suggest, a wrong assumption. Rather, the Divine can work through the law, that is work the laws, to achieve Its own will within its created matrix. Remember that the laws are constructs derived from the observation of phenomena, so we know them from the outside, as it were. Gravity, time, space, thermodynamics, etc., all possess a degree of mystery, and there is no reason to assume that the natural laws are entirely within our whit to comprehend them. They are not beyond our capacity to model, of course, but we should not assume that because we can model them, we 'know' them.
In the Resurrection narrative, when 'doubting Thomas' is invited to touch the risen Christ (John 20:24–29), we can safely assume Thomas understood that the crucified do not come back to life. Likewise with the miracle accounts presented in the New Testament. John calls them 'signs', which is itself significant, but the point is the sacred scribe was well aware of metaphor and analogy, and of hyperbole — as was Jesus Himself, as his parable of the mustard seed evidently demonstrates (Matthew 13:31–32), Mark 4:30–32, Luke 13:18–19 and Gospel of Thomas logion 20) — and the presentation of the miracle accounts are not couched in the same terms.
An argument that exclude miracles, dependent upon appeals to the laws of nature, have serious implications for human freedom.
A ball is falling through the air. It will follow a path that is more or less predictable by the law of gravitation. If, however, I reach out and catch the ball, have I made a freely chosen intervention? If so, if I can intervene and change things within the laws of nature, why cannot that which transcends those laws intervene in a transcendent manner? If one accepts the idea of the Divine, why should divine intervention be excluded?
An argument that insists that divine intervention is ruled out by the laws of nature, will inevitably go on to argue that the apparent free actions of man, that freedom as such, is actually nothing of the kind, but the product me of those same blind, unthinking forces of nature.
In my opinion, we should be cautious in embracing such nihilistic conclusions which, in extremis, undermine the human values we cling to as meaningful and worthwhile.
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It is not irrational to believe in miracles because they purportedly break the "laws of nature."
Our view of nature was once governed by the Aristotelian model that determined what was, and what was not, naturally possible. This gave way to the Newtonian model, and it is this model which insists on 'natural Law' as being a kind of hard-wired structure to the cosmos. The over-arching model was the empirical system by which everything can be measured and monitored, classified and categorised, and as a result of which a tendency to compartmentalisation and determination. Einstein and Dirac, the bomb, relativity and the emergence of Quantum Physics have, for the moment at least, rendered the cosmos as something other than a vast, fixed mechanism. Contemporary science suggests a more 'organic' cosmos, to allow such phenomena as spontaneity, 'spooky action at a distance' and quantum entanglement. All things designated as 'impossible' under the Newtonian model.
Belief in the Divine adds another layer to the mix. By it's very nature, according to every metaphysical model of the ancient religion traditions, as well as Western Philosophical tradition, the Divine is not constrained by and transcends physical conditions. Pantheistic beliefs may be the only exception to this statement, but then pantheism cannot offer an explanation that renders an essentially conditional deity as a product of nature, rather nature is the product of the deity, in that we must allow for non-existence being a divine attribute. Factoring in the multiverse only exacerbates the problem.
The assumption that the Divine 'suspends' or 'contradicts' natural law is, I suggest, a wrong assumption. Rather, the Divine can work through the law, that is work the laws, to achieve Its own will within its created matrix. Remember that the laws are constructs derived from the observation of phenomena, so we know them from the outside, as it were. Gravity, time, space, thermodynamics, etc., all possess a degree of mystery, and there is no reason to assume that the natural laws are entirely within our whit to comprehend them. They are not beyond our capacity to model, of course, but we should not assume that because we can model them, we 'know' them.
In 1767 William Adams remarked: "There must be an ordinary regular course of nature, before there can be anything extraordinary. A river must flow, before its stream can be interrupted." In other words, for an extraordinary event to be properly 'miraculous', exceeding the productive power of nature, there must a robust regularity of nature in the first place, a basic assumption of science.
In the Resurrection narrative, when 'doubting Thomas' is invited to touch the risen Christ (John 20:24–29), we can safely assume Thomas understood that the crucified do not come back to life. Likewise with the miracle accounts presented in the New Testament. John calls them 'signs', which is itself significant, but the point is the sacred scribe was well aware of metaphor and analogy, and of hyperbole — as was Jesus Himself, as his parable of the mustard seed evidently demonstrates (Matthew 13:31–32), Mark 4:30–32, Luke 13:18–19 and Gospel of Thomas logion 20) — and the presentation of the miracle accounts are not couched in the same terms.
An argument that exclude miracles, dependent upon appeals to the laws of nature, have serious implications for human freedom.
A ball is falling through the air. It will follow a path that is more or less predictable by the law of gravitation. If, however, I reach out and catch the ball, have I made a freely chosen intervention? If so, if I can intervene and change things within the laws of nature, why cannot that which transcends those laws intervene in a transcendent manner? If one accepts the idea of the Divine, why should divine intervention be excluded?
An argument that insists that divine intervention is ruled out by the laws of nature, will inevitably go on to argue that the apparent free actions of man, that freedom as such, is actually nothing of the kind, but the product me of those same blind, unthinking forces of nature.
In my opinion, we should be cautious in embracing such nihilistic conclusions which, in extremis, undermine the human values we cling to as meaningful and worthwhile.