Miracles
Swinburne & Mackie
Are miracles any action of God, whether we notice it or not, or are miracles only those obvious actions that God performs that humans are capable of perceiving and attributing to God?
At first, I would be tempted to classify miracles as events that are exceptions or contrast to natural law that appear to have a supernatural source or cause, specifically God. But there are events, such as extreme situations of coincidence, which do not directly violate a natural law, but can be viewed as being so improbable statistically that it could only be the result of the benevolent intervention of God. These events arguably should be considered as miracles.
If both of these events can be considered miracles, namely direct exceptions of nature and benevolent coincidences, a new critique for ascertaining miracles is necessary.
The common element in both events is the acting force of God. Miracles must be defined as specific events that can be singled out from all common events, for God may be credited for the maintaining force behind all events, perhaps a greater noticeable effort to cause or achieve.
To God who is omnipotent, there would be no noticeable difference in effort, for He has no limit to His power, for the concept of greater effort for God is inconsequential. This concept of “greater effort” is the relative perception of humans. From God’s perspective then miracles would not be any greater in effort, or any greater in goodness. The only difference would be in the perception of the humans who witness these events who have the ability to recognize the unusualness or benevolent nature of the event, and attribute it to God.
We may then define miracles as events that occur that are perceived by humans as being caused directly by God, which we can directly attribute to His causing because of His benevolence or power.
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