AN ASSUMPTION IN DEBATES ABOUT THE PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF MIRACLES IS THAT IF A MIRACLE (A VIOLATION OF NATURAL LAW OR A PERMANENTLY INEXPLICABLE EVENT) WERE TO OCCUR, IT WOULD BE EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN GOD. THE PAPER EXPLORES RESERVATIONS BY SEVERAL PHILOSOPHERS ABOUT THIS CONNECTION BETWEEN GOD AND MIRACLES, AND PRESENTS ARGUMENTS TO SHOW THAT IF A MIRACLE WERE TO OCCUR THERE WOULD BE GOOD REASON TO DENY THAT GOD EXISTS.

THE �COINCIDENCE� CONCEPT OF THE MIRACULOUS IS FRAUGHT WITH DIFFICULTIES THAT MAKE ANY COHERENT EMPLOYMENT OF IT IN A CHRISTIAN POLEMIC IMPOSSIBLE. TO BE A MIRACLE, AN EVENT MUST BE SEEN AS CAUSED BY GOD. IT IS ONLY BECAUSE MIRACLES DO NOT ADMIT OF EXPLANATION (EXCEPT THE DIVINE EXPLANATION) THAT THEIR DISTINCTIVENESS AS A SPECIAL CLASS OF EVENTS IS MAINTAINED. IF EVENTS ADMIT OF HISTORICAL OR NATURAL EXPLANATION, THEN IT IS ONLY THEIR WONDER OR EXCITEMENT-VALUE WHICH MAKES THEM DISTINCTIVE. THIS (...) IS TOO ARBITRARY A CRITERION FOR AN EVENT TO BE SUBSUMED UNDER THE CLASS �MIRACLE� AND IT SUFFERS INSUPERABLE DIFFICULTIES. (shrink)

Christine Overall has argued that miracles, if they exist, would be an evil committed by God and therefore disprove the existence of God. However, her notion of a miracle as an intervention presupposes a view about the relation between God and creation that posits God as an ‘outsider.’ Such a view has not been held by all theists. It was not held by Thomas Aquinas. I show that Aquinas ’s conception is not susceptible to Overall’s criticisms. The upshot is that (...) theists should avoid any view of God as an ‘outsider,’ if they wish to avoid Overall’s criticisms. (shrink)

The claim that a miracle is a violation of a law of nature has sometimes been used as part of an a priori argument against the possibility of miracle, on the grounds that a violation is conceptually impossible. I criticize these accounts but also suggest that alternative accounts, when phrased in terms of laws of nature, fail to provide adequate conceptual space for miracles. It is not clear what a ???violation??? of a law of nature might be, but this is (...) not relevant to the question of miracles. In practice, accounts of miracle tend to be phrased in terms of God's act not in terms of laws of nature. Finally, I suggest that the a priori argument reflects an intellectual commitment that is widely held, though wrongly built into the argument itself. (shrink)

Philosophers have made numerous and varied attempts to analyse the concept of a miracle. To the end, an assortment of necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth an instantiation of a miracle have been offered. In this paper we discuss one of the most common of these conditions - the violation restriction. This restriction holds that all miracles involve a violation of a law of nature.

Methodological naturalists generally believe that science is the best and only method for discovering the properties of reality and what exists. A central tenet of methodological naturalism is that science is limited to evaluating only natural things. Science cannot allow for the possibility of supernatural objects because doing so would irreparably damage the scientific method. Or, it may be that evaluating the supernatural is beyond the capabilities of science. In this thesis, I challenge these assumptions. I defend a form of (...) naturalism known as Provisory Methodological Naturalism which holds that science can, at least theoretically, evaluate supernatural claims. Provisory methodological naturalists believe the notion that science only evaluates natural things is provisional and subject to being overruled. Should supernatural objects exist, science would be able to observe them. (shrink)