Lecture notes
Miracles
Religious Studies AQA A Level. Complete Year 2 Philosophy notes.
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MiraclesRealist views
o A realist understanding of miracles is to see them as real events in the world, brought about by a
transcendent being.
o This would be a God who is personal and who acts in the world for a purpose.
o Realist examples include the 1950 church choir incident and Juliane Koepcke’s survival.
o Miracles are events brought about by the power of God working through people, e.g. Moses.
o They are an example of God’s divine power and compassion.
o Hume said that miracles were a violation of natural law.
Issues with realist views
o God choosing to only save some people, there is still a huge amount of suffering.
o Science does not accept a violation of natural law as a possibility.
o The mass of evidence supporting the laws of nature make it unreasonable to believe.
Counters to the issues with realist views
Natural laws are seen as probabilistic, hey summarise what has been found to happen.
If something appears to go against nature, the law has to be revised.
Hick said that is there is an exception to a law of nature, the law simply expands to include the
exception.
Anti-realist views
An anti-realist understanding of miracles is to reject realist views, there is no commitment to
understanding ‘God’ as a transcendent ‘being’.
Miracles are mental states of human psychology, it is something that transforms a community of
people or lifts the spirit, e.g. a beautiful sunrise or birth of a child.
Natural events such as this are seen as miraculous.
Scholars who take anti-realist views of miracles
o Paul Tillich
Believes God is not a ‘being’, but ‘being itself’.
Miracles are not interventions in the world by a transcendent God.
They are events that are astonishing without breaking the laws of nature.
Or they point to the mystery of being.
Or they are signs/symbols within a religious experience.
o John Hick
Believes miracles are ordinary/natural events seen through the eye of faith.
They are events through which one can become conscious of God acting towards them.
The event must be religiously significant.
A miracle is an event that is experiences as a miracle.
o R. F. Holland
Miracles do not have to violate the laws of nature.
If an event has a beneficial coincidence which is interpreted in a religious fashion, then it is a
miracle.
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