Who S Got the Miracles

Who’s got the miracles?

John Campbell

Miracles produce the religious experience by confronting us with phenomena purportedly only explicable by employing supernatural agents. The only problem is that these ‘supernatural’ agents whether they are the Holy Ghost, God or Angels are almost by definition incapable of detection and it is therefore impossible to verify that the said agent was indeed responsible for the miracle. For instance if a prayer to God is said over a patient with ‘incurable’ cancer, and that patient recovers how can it possibly be verified that the healing was done by God when God is not detectable and the means by which he conducts the cure unknown. After all a certain number of people with ‘incurable’ diseases do recover without prayer and many die who receive prayers. How can attribution of healing to God be anything more than wishful thinking taken on faith? Indeed the record is replete with documented cases of faith healers conning gullible patients.

It is also a routine, well documented fact that many people with otherwise ‘incurable’ conditions recover after receiving medication or surgery. This, of course, is not a miracle because the cure is not attributed to supernatural agents. In order to be approved for use a new drug or surgical procedure must pass a battery of experimental test to prove that it is effective in treating the condition. The tests must be verifiable by others and produce highly reliable results. Almost always the effectiveness of the medication or surgery is readily explained by pre-existing medical knowledge. It is no miracle.

That medical knowledge is able to reliably cure so many lethal conditions is a phenomenon truly deserving of awe and is often described as a miracle. We can attribute cures that occur for unknown reasons to supernatural agents but aren’t we only fabricating a fiction to mask our ignorance?

Throughout history, religious or supernatural means have often been invoked in the quest for power. Magical spells have been cast and God has been implored to give us superhuman powers or to destroy enemies. Sometimes he is said to have complied as when the Egyptians were engulfed by the Red Sea. Those occasions on which the supernatural is thought to have lent us their powers are occasions that strike us with awe and cause us to reverently give thanks. They are miracles. And yet this means of invoking power has been highly unreliable. Indeed the evidence suggests that none of these invocations has ever made the slightest difference except perhaps in the psychology of those performing them.

The only reliable method we have ever had for invoking power has been knowledge and by far the most powerful knowledge we possess is science. Using science we can fly further and faster than any bird. In fact we can fly to the moon and there is little doubt that soon we will fly to Mars. Using science we have the power to engulf our enemies in a mini-sun if we lack the wisdom to refrain. But this is not a miracle; there are no supernatural agents involved. These phenomenons are fully explained by our scientific knowledge. And yet they are worthy of awe and of a deep and humble reverence for our situation.