Miracles

Note: Last Updated 6/4/2025.

E. B. White:

     “Have you heard about the words that appeared in the spider’s web?” asked Mrs. Arable nervously.

     “Yes,” replied the doctor.

     “Well, do you understand it?” asked Mrs. Arable.

     “Understand what?”

     “Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider’s web?”

     “Oh, no,” said Dr. Dorian. “I don’t understand it. But for that matter I don’t understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle.”

     “What’s miraculous about a spider’s web?” said Mrs. Arable. “I don’t see why you say a web is a miracle—it’s just a web.”

     “Ever try to spin one?” asked Dr. Dorian.

(E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web, [New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1999], pp. 108-109.)

The Possibility of Miracles.

John Chrysostom:

For if He did not rise again, but remains dead, how did the Apostles perform miracles in His name? But they did not, say you, perform miracles? How then was our religion instituted? …For this would be the greatest of miracles, that without any miracles, the whole world should have eagerly come to be taken in the nets of twelve poor and illiterate men.

(John Chrysostom, A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily 1; trans. NPNF1, 11:5.)

C. S. Lewis:

     There is also an objection to Hume which leads us deeper into our problem. The whole idea of Probability (as Hume understands it) depends on the principle of the Uniformity of Nature. Unless Nature always goes on in the same way, the fact that a thing had happened ten million times would not make it a whit more probable that it would happen again. And how do we know the Uniformity of Nature? A moment’s thought shows that we do not know it by experience. We observe many regularities in Nature. But of course all the observations that men have made or will make while the race lasts cover only a minute fraction of the events that actually go on. Our observations would therefore be of no use unless we felt sure that Nature when we are not watching her behaves in the same way as when we are: in other words, unless we believed in the Uniformity of Nature. Experience therefore cannot prove uniformity, because uniformity has to be assumed before experience proves anything. And mere length of experience does not help matters. It is no good saying, “Each fresh experience confirms our belief in uniformity and therefore we reasonably expect that it will always be confirmed”; for that argument works only on the assumption that the future will resemble the past—which is simply the assumption of Uniformity under a new name. Can we say that Uniformity is at any rate very probable? Unfortunately not. We have just seen that all probabilities depend on it. Unless Nature is uniform, nothing is either probable or improbable. And clearly the assumption which you have to make before there is any such thing as probability cannot itself be probable.

     The odd thing is that no man knew this better than Hume. His Essay on Miracles is quite inconsistent with the more radical, and honourable, scepticism of his main work.

     The question, “Do miracles occur?” and the question, “Is the course of Nature absolutely uniform?” are the same question asked in two different ways. Hume, by sleight of hand, treats them as two different questions. He first answers “Yes,” to the question whether Nature is absolutely uniform: and then uses this “Yes” as a ground for answering, “No,” to the question, “Do miracles occur?” The single real question which he set out to answer is never discussed at all. He gets the answer to one form of the question by assuming the answer to another form of the same question.

     Probabilities of the kind that Hume is concerned with hold inside the framework of an assumed Uniformity of Nature. When the question of miracles is raised we are asking about the validity or perfection of the frame itself. No study of probabilities inside a given frame can ever tell us how probable it is that the frame itself can be violated. Granted a school time-table with French on Tuesday morning at ten o’clock, it is really probable that Jones, who always skimps his French preparation, will be in trouble next Tuesday, and that he was in trouble on any previous Tuesday. But what does this tell us about the probability of the time-table’s being altered? To find that out you must eavesdrop in the masters’ common-room. It is no use studying the time-table.

(C. S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, [New York: Touchstone, 1996], XIII: On Probability, pp. 135-136.)

C. S. Lewis:

     The second assumption which Professor Price attributes to the scientific method is ‘that laws can only be discovered by the study of publicly observable regularities.’ Of course they can. This does not seem to me to be an assumption so much as a self-evident proposition. But what is it to the purpose? If a miracle occurs it is by definition an interruption of regularity. To discover a regularity is by definition not to discover its interruptions, even if they occur. You cannot discover a railway accident from studying Bradshaw: only by being there when it happens or hearing about it afterwards from someone who was. You cannot discover extra half-holidays by studying a school timetable: you must wait till they are announced. But surely this does not mean that a student of Bradshaw is logically forced to deny the possibility of railway accidents. This point of scientific method merely shows (what no one to my knowledge ever denied) that if miracles did occur, science, as science, could not prove, or disprove, their occurrence. What cannot be trusted to recur is not material for science: that is why history is not one of the sciences. You cannot find out what Napoleon did at the battle of Austerlitz by asking him to come and fight it again in a laboratory with the same combatants, the same terrain, the same weather, and in the same age. You have to go to the records. We have not, in fact, proved that science excludes miracles: we have only proved that the question of miracles, like innumerable other questions, excludes laboratory treatment.

(C. S. Lewis, “Religion Without Dogma?” In: C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1970], p. 134.)

Charles Babbage:

…if independent witnesses can be found, who speak truth more frequently than falsehood, it is ALWAYS possible to assign a number of independent witnesses, the improbability of the falsehood of whose concurring testimonies shall be greater than that of the improbability of the miracle itself.

(Charles Babbage, The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise: A Fragment: Second Edition, [London: John Murray, 1838], “Appendix E,” p. 202.)

Thomas Sherlock:

     Suppose you saw a man publicly executed, his body afterward wounded by the executioner, and carried and laid in the grave; that after this you should be told that the man came to life again; what would you suspect in this case? Not that the man had never been dead, for that you saw yourself; but you would suspect whether he was now alive. But would you say, this case excluded all human testimony, and that men could not possibly discern whether one with whom they conversed familiarly was alive or not? On what ground could you say this? A man rising from the grave is an object of sense and can give the same evidence of his being alive as any other man in the world can give. So that a resurrection considered only as a fact to be proved by evidence is a plain case; it requires no greater ability in the witnesses than that they are able to distinguish between a man dead and a man alive; a point in which I believe every man living thinks himself a judge.

     I do allow that this case and others of like nature require more evidence to give them credit than ordinary cases do. You may therefore require more evidence in these than in other cases, but it is absurd to say that such cases admit no evidence when the things in question are manifestly objects of sense.

(Thomas Sherlock, The Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Christ, [New York: Lane & Scott, 1849], pp. 65-66.)

The Nature of Miracles.

C. S. Lewis:

     It is therefore inaccurate to define a miracle as something that breaks the laws of Nature. It doesn’t. If I knock out my pipe I alter the position of a great many atoms: in the long run, and to an infinitesimal degree, of all the atoms there are. Nature digests or assimilates this event with perfect ease and harmonises it in a twinkling with all other events. It is one more bit of raw material for the laws to apply to, and they apply. I have simply thrown one event into the general cataract of events and it finds itself at home there and conforms to all other events. If God annihilates or creates or deflects a unit of matter He has created a new situation at that point. Immediately all Nature domiciles this new situation, makes it at home in her realm, adapts all other events to it. It finds itself conforming to all the laws. If God creates a miraculous spermatozoon in the body of a virgin, it does not proceed to break any laws. The laws at once take it over. Nature is ready. Pregnancy follows, according to all the normal laws, and nine months later a child is born. We see every day that physical nature is not in the least incommoded by the daily inrush of events from biological nature or from psychological nature. If events ever come from beyond Nature altogether, she will be no more incommoded by them. Be sure she will rush to the point where she is invaded, as the defensive forces rush to a cut in our finger, and there hasten to accommodate the newcomer. The moment it enters her realm it obeys all her laws. Miraculous wine will intoxicate, miraculous conception will lead to pregnancy, inspired books will suffer all the ordinary processes of textual corruption, miraculous bread will be digested. The divine art of miracle is not an art of suspending the pattern to which events conform but of feeding new events into that pattern. It does not violate the law’s proviso, ‘If A, then B’: it says, ‘But this time instead of A, A2,’ and Nature, speaking through all her laws, replies Then ‘Then B2’ and naturalises the immigrant, as she well knows how. She is an accomplished hostess.

(C. S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, [London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2002], pp. 94-95.)

Henri Blocher:

…the idea of violation of the laws of nature is not at the forefront of the scriptural narrative when miracles are treated. It might be wondered whether this is strictly speaking a biblical notion—especially when terms as loaded as “transgression” and “violation” are employed. Many phenomena called miracles in Scripture took place according to causal chain reactions, in an entirely ordinary manner, which did not bring about any apparent transgression of the normal workings of the cosmos. It is mainly through the interpretation which several evangelical Commentators have given to miracles which, on the surface and perhaps due to the heritage of Sunday school, seem to be transgressions of the laws of nature. If the language of the Bible is better understood, however, this is not the case.

     Let us consider, for example, the famous episode of the sun that Joshua would have caused to stand still—implying that the entire solar system had paused for a few hours, entailing the abrogation of all the laws of gravitation. Is that what the text really says? It does not appear so. An evangelical scholar and expert in ancient languages (professor at the Princeton School of Theology), Robert Dick Wilson, was able to demonstrate by citing Mesopotamian astronomical tables that the biblical language signifies that, in reality, an eclipse took place. God so ordered this natural phenomenon to occur at that precise moment, thus throwing confusion into the enemy ranks and permitting Joshua to seize the victory. The miracle was the coincidence, in God’s plan, between the battle and the eclipse (which informed astronomers would have predicted, with its exact time).

     Concerning the crossing of the Sea of Reeds (yam sûf, and not the Red Sea—later texts speak of the Red Sea but the text in Exodus, Exodus 14, speaks of the Sea of Reeds), often the phenomenon is imagined whereby all the laws of nature were violated, where the waters, all of a sudden, stood vertical, forming an aquatic wall as if frozen (with salt water no less!). The language of Exodus and the references made later to the episode can be interpreted in an entirely different sense. The waters formed a rampart, a wall, but not in the literal sense of a straight-cut panel. They formed a rampart with respect to the Egyptians, who were on the attack (as is evidenced by the translation “fortified wall” in Exodus 14:22 and Psalm 78:13), is probable that, in a marshy area of a depth of one or two meters, with systems of small lakes interconnected by narrow passageways, an extremely powerful wind drove and backed up a mass of water of one of the swampy lakes to another, making a dry passage. The waters thus piled up formed a kind of rampart, which permitted the children of Israel to pass through. Then, when the Egyptians threw themselves headlong after the Israelites (would they have done so if they had seen a wall of water ten meters high?), God changed the direction of the wind, and the piled-up waters gushed down upon them. This is likely what happened. It is a plausible interpretation of the biblical texts, which remains faithful to them. Here again, no particular transgression of the laws of nature occurred, but only a synchronization in conformity with the Lord’s plan.

(Henri Blocher, Faith & Reason, [Peabody: Hendrickson 2017], pp. 95-97.)

Henri Blocher:

The principal biblical terms for speaking of the miracles do not imply per se that there is a discontinuity in the causal chain, or transgression of the laws of nature. …None of these terms lays emphasis on the violation of the laws of nature, but rather on a series of traits: something highly unusual which surprises, which displays a power that is not at the disposal of man. Something humans only dream about without ever being able to carry out on their own now takes place! Whether improbable coincidences that occur at just the right moment or certain unhoped-for expectations that are fulfilled! It is the power of God that is thereby denoted. This power does not act simply to be seen. Rather, it is designed to challenge, to instruct, and always to reveal the presence of God. The biblical perspective on miracles beckons first and foremost to show interest in their meaning.

(Henri Blocher, Faith & Reason, [Peabody: Hendrickson 2017], pp. 97, 98.)

Henri Blocher:

     For all the biblical writers, miracles are conceived of as divine interventions in a system where God is active and directs everything that takes place. Miracles are unusual, it goes without saying. However, at bottom, they do not differ from other events which occur, since everything proceeds from God. God directs everything that happens according to the counsel of his will (Ephesians 1:11). It has been stated, a bit tongue in cheek, that it should be not said that “it rains,” but rather that “God rains,” or more precisely, that “God makes it rain.” Everything that takes place issues from the activity of the Most High who superintends all things and who orders all things with wisdom. Miracles belong to the workings of God. An ancient expression for them is most apropos: they are “extraordinary providences.” God governs all things and provides for the needs of his creatures, sustaining them. Without him, everything would collapse, as Psalm 104 states. God acts in his providence, in a regulated and usual manner. However, he dispenses freely as well certain “extraordinary providences.” Thus, God intervenes, provides in another manner, according to need, while drawing ever more attention to his superintending and redemptive work. In sum, in response to ill-informed objections, it must be emphasized: in the biblical worldview, miracles are integrated into a larger whole which might simply be called divine providence.

(Henri Blocher, Faith & Reason, [Peabody: Hendrickson 2017], pp. 98-99.)

Note: Christ raising Lazarus from the dead is no more an “act of God” than His causing the sun to rise this morning. Whether He ministers directly—primary causation—or through the “ordinary” workings of nature—secondary causes—God remains the sovereign source of every effect. He is no more or less the ultimate cause when He operates through secondary means. In His transcendence, He is beyond creation; in His immanence, He sustains it continuously. At every moment and in every event, God both governs and upholds all things (Revelation 22:13; Colossians 1:17; Acts 17:28).

Cf. Sir Francis Bacon:

     That notwithstanding God hath rested and ceased from Creating since the first Sabbath, yet, nevertheless, he doth accomplish and fulfil his Divine Will in all Things, great and small, singular and general; as fully and exactly by Providence, as he could by Miracle and new Creation, though his Working be not immediate and direct, but by Compass; not violating Nature, which is his own Law upon the Creature.

(Francis Bacon, A Confession of Faith, [London: W. Owen, 1757], p. 17.)

Note: See further: Providence.

Cf. John 5:17:

But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.”

(New American Standard Bible: 1995 Edition.)

John Polkinghorne:

Miracles are not to be interpreted as divine acts against the laws of nature (for those laws are themselves expressions of God’s will) but as more profound revelations of the character of the divine relationship to creation. To be credible, miracles must convey a deeper understanding than could have been obtained without them. Hence the language of ‘signs’ used in the fourth Gospel.

(John Polkinghorne, Science and Theology: An Introduction, [London: SPCK, 1998], p. 93.)

Henri Blocher:

The Lord God has arranged the natural world with an order, he has established regular correlations, but he has not thereby tied his own hands! His is not a system that would stand on its own and remain closed in on itself. The correlations and operating rules are at the disposal of the Lord and need him to exist.

…Given that God established certain regularities, the researcher can examine them, carry out experiments with a view to unlocking their mechanisms, repeat them in the laboratory, and finally quantify them. That does not exclude God from acting, too, if he so pleases, outside of these regularities.

     We are obliged to affirm that God does this very thing, that he acts outside of these regularities which scholars call the “laws of nature.” We have given several examples of biblical miracles in which that has perhaps not taken place, as some suppose. In certain cases, however, we must simply admit that God acts outside these laws. He does not constrain himself to the ordinary correlations.

(Henri Blocher, Faith & Reason, [Peabody: Hendrickson 2017], p. 100, 100-101.)

Jürgen Moltmann:

When Jesus expels demons and heals the sick, he is driving out of creation the powers of destruction, and is healing and restoring created beings who are hurt and sick. The lordship of God to which the healings witness, restores sick creation to health. Jesus’ healings are not supernatural miracles in a natural world. They are the only truly ‘natural’ thing in a world that is unnatural, demonized and wounded. As parables of the kingdom, Jesus’ parables are also parables of the new creation in the midst of the everyday life of this exhausted world. Finally, with the resurrection of Christ, the new creation begins, pars pro toto, with the crucified one.

(Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions, trans. Margaret Kohl, [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993], pp. 98-99.) Preview.

Cf. C. S. Lewis:

     How a miracle can be no inconsistency, but the highest consistency, will be clear to those who have read Miss Dorothy Sayers’ indispensable book, The Mind of the Maker. Miss Sayers’ thesis is based on the analogy between God’s relation to the world, on the one hand, and an author’s relation to his book on the other. If you are writing a story, miracles or abnormal events may be bad art, or they may not. If, for example, you are writing an ordinary realistic novel and have got your characters into a hopeless muddle, it would be quite intolerable if you suddenly cut the knot and secured a happy ending by having a fortune left to the hero from an unexpected quarter. On the other hand there is nothing against taking as your subject from the outset the adventures of a man who inherits an unexpected fortune. The unusual event is perfectly permissible if it is what you are really writing about: it is an artistic crime if you simply drag it in by the heels to get yourself out of a hole. . . . Now there is no doubt that a great deal of the modern objection to miracles is based on the suspicion that they are marvels of the wrong sort; that a story of a certain kind (Nature) is arbitrarily interfered with, to get the characters out of a difficulty, by events that do not really belong to that kind of story. Some people probably think of the Resurrection as a desperate last moment expedient to save the Hero from a situation which had got out of the Author’s control.

     The reader may set his mind at rest. . . . If they have occurred, they have occurred because they are the very thing this universal story is about. They are not exceptions (however rarely they occur) nor irrelevancies. They are precisely those chapters in this great story on which the plot turns. Death and Resurrection are what the story is about; and had we but eyes to see it, this has been hinted on every page, met us, in some disguise, at every turn, and even been muttered in conversations between such minor characters (if they are minor characters) as the vegetables. If you have hitherto disbelieved in miracles, it is worth pausing a moment to consider whether this is not chiefly because you thought you had discovered what the story was really about? — that atoms, and time and space and economics and politics were the main plot? And is it certain you were right? It is easy to make mistakes in such matters. . . . it is a very long story, with a complicated plot; and we are not, perhaps, very attentive readers.

(C. S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, [New York: Touchstone, 1996], XII: The Propriety of Miracles, pp. 130-131.)

False Teachers / False Miracles.

Henri Blocher:

     The Bible emphasizes that false teachers, which is to say purveyors of false doctrine, will work miracles. . . . False prophets and false Christs will come with miracles “so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24 RSV). If we were left to ourselves, we would fall into the same trap as well, so strong in our hearts is this unhealthy craving, but God protects his elect! The Old Testament, likewise, solemnly warned long ago that if one tried to turn the people of God toward idols, even if he did great signs and wonders, he should be shown no quarter and must be completely shunned (Deuteronomy 13). The Bible envisions that wonders, through the power of Satan, may very well be wrought, as outside causalities which overrule the framework of cause and effect. Since the forces of evil are very much real, they can produce real effects.

(Henri Blocher, Faith & Reason, [Peabody: Hendrickson 2017], p. 102.)

Henri Blocher:

     The Bible warns believers not to allow themselves to fall into deception. Miracles are given as confirmatory signs of the message. When the Lord does bestow them, they must not be dismissed out of hand either, as if we were wiser or more correct in our understanding than God! The gospel was confirmed by miracles (Hebrews 2:2-4), so they indeed have a positive role. But it must first be the Word itself, in the continuity of revelation, which is determinative. If there is no continuity of revelation, nor harmony with the teachings of the prophets of old, then the miracles are worthless and must instead be denounced as so many snares, as poisonous lures.

(Henri Blocher, Faith & Reason, [Peabody: Hendrickson 2017], pp. 102-103.)

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria