Miracles Essay

The question are miracles possible is a hard question for me to answer because while I am a believer in God I am also a believer in Scientific reasoning with a scientific and mathmatical mind. To answer this question to the best of my ability I am going to answer it both from a Christian and a scientific standpoint. To answer this question we must first know what is defined as a miracle. The dictionary defines a miracle as â€Å"an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause†. By the dictionaries definition of a miracle anything that happens that we cannot possible have an explanation must be a miracle like the stain that appears on Henry Poole’s wall (Henry Poole Was Here). The appearance of the stain itself is not a miracle because a person putting it there can explain that, but what happened to the people that touched it was a miracle. When people touched the stain they were healed (Henry Poole Was Here). The most widely knows miracles are the biblical miracles performed by God through his son Jesus. Jesus feed the thousands with food that was only meant to feed the few, he turned water into wine, and he made the blind see, we cannot comprehend nor explain these actions therefore they are marked miracles. From a religious stand point I see a miracle as an act of God to benefit this strongest, purest, and most innocent believers as acknowledgement and gratitude of their belief in him. These miracles are a sign that he is here and he appreciates our faith in him. Gods miracles are not only meant for his believers, they are also used to show the lost and the nonbelievers that he is here and he just wants to help us. These miracles are not always good as shown in the plagues that God put upon Egypt to show the pharaoh that God does exist. This was relevant in the movie when the nonbeliever Henry went to the doctor and was told that he was no longer sick (Henry Poole Was Here). God also use a miracle to destroy his creation when he realized the wickedness of man and is grieved by his creation, but as a gracious forgiving God he sought to preserve creation so he chose Noah to build an ark and fill it with the worlds animals and repopulate the world once the flood had subsided. This was a miracle that was meant to wake up the world to see its flaws and learn from them to become a better God-fearing world. From a scientific view there are no miracles, there are only the unlikely mathematically impossible phenomenons that although impossible they happen. Hume gives us a different definition in his book: A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. (Hume) To Hume if it happens according to the established laws of nature, it is not a miracle, so basically if it happens then it is not a miracle. Scientifically there are no miracles, which means if it happens then there is a scientific reason that will explain it no matter how hare it is for the mind to grasp. From my religious background miracles do prove the existence of God because a miracle is the action of God used to show that he is there and he is watching over us. Gods miracles are also used to show nonbelievers that he is here with his arms open wide to accept all that take him into their heart, they are also used to punish the worst of nonbelievers and that shows others that he exists. Hume said: I beg the limitations here made may be remarked, when I say, that a miracle can never be proved so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. (Hume) From a scientific point of view just because an event happens that we cannot explain does not make it a miracle, and just because we cannot explain the event does not mean that God caused it. If we went back in time and brought a person to the future they would see so many things that they cannot explain, so they may call them all miracles, but we would know how these things work so we would know that they are not miracles. To get to my point just because we cannot explain it now does not mean it is a miracle, we may eventually evolve and discover more information in the future that will give us an explanation to the event. My religious background wins over my scientific mind for now, so I myself do believe in miracles and that they are signs from God that he is watching over us. Miracles are Gods reminders, rewards, and punishments to help guide us on our path of riotousness that will eventually lead us to Heaven if we do not stray.