God’s Action in the World

1d: Miracles

Introduction

• Modern thinking about the Action of God in the world must involve a dialogue between theology and science.

• What we believe about God is the proper concern of theology. If God is the Creator and Sustainer of the world, it is reasonable to look at what we know about the world and to ask what, if anything, this says about God.

Approaches to knowing about God

• Christian theology has often distinguished between Special and General Revelation.

• Special Revelation refers to what we can know about God from Scripture in particular.

• General Revelation refers to what we can know about God from what he has created.

Doctrine of God

• As a result of theological deliberations, thinkers arrived at a doctrine of God. This represents, at any one time, the best attempt using the language available to describe what God is like and what He might do in relation to the world in general and humanity in particular.

• All attempts to speak of God are inevitably provisional and subject to change. We have a ‘best available model’ of God in our doctrinal formulations at any one time.

A contribution from science ?

• If theology makes assertions about God and his relationship to everything, it could well be the case that what we discover about the world that God has supposedly made, can and should inform our understanding about God.

• In particular we must ask the question: “How does God relate to the world and does He act in the world in any way other than to keep it in being?”

A link between science and theology

• Science involves the making of hypotheses, theories and models of reality. These are tested and rejected, retained and modified, in conformity with reality as it is.

• In theology, models of God should conform to the reality of God. Models of God can be revised too. How we ‘test’ them is of course more difficult than it is in science.

• Both disciplines make models and both respect the control of reality on them.

Model of GodModel of God

Reality of GodReality of God

Good fit?Good fit?

Model of the world

Model of the world Reality of the

world

Reality of the world

Good fit?Good fit?

THEOLOGYTHEOLOGY

SCIENCESCIENCE

IF WE BELIEVE THAT GOD CREATED THE WORLD, THEN WE CAN ASK

ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOD AND THE WORLD.

Back to the doctrine of God - 1

• Christian theology wants to affirm two things of God, namely:

• God is transcendent

• God is immanent

• In other words there is an simultaneous affirmation of God’s otherness and difference from His Creation alongside an affirmation of His closeness to all that He has made and keeps in being.

Back to the doctrine of God - 2

• In theory, therefore, it is possible for theologians to speak of an all-powerful God who could run the universe and interact with it in whatever way he chooses.

• In practice the key question is how does God act, and in particular, does God ever do anything which is different from the normal regular behaviour of the universe that we observe?

Key questions

• Is it the case that the universe always behaves in a regular way?

• Are there any sufficiently well documented exceptions to this apparently law like behaviour?

• If there are exceptions, do they have religious significance? What do they tell us about God?

• Is it a problem for science if God occasionally ‘intervenes’?

God created the universe and sustains it moment by moment.

The universe is observed to usually run in a law-like manner. This is understood

to be God’s way of creating a stable environment in which creatures can

develop and live.

God may choose to work in unusual ways if there are good reasons to do so.

God created the universe and sustains it moment by moment.

The universe is observed to usually run in a law-like manner. This is understood

to be God’s way of creating a stable environment in which creatures can

develop and live.

God may choose to work in unusual ways if there are good reasons to do so.

Some theoretical models of God and the

world

THEISMTHEISM

Some theoretical models of God and the

world

ATHEISMATHEISM

There is no God.

The universe is observed to run in a law-like

manner.

Miracles are impossible.

There is no God.

The universe is observed to run in a law-like

manner.

Miracles are impossible.

Some theoretical models of God and the

world

DEISMDEISM

God made the universe which He chooses to leave to run

according to the laws of nature He put within it and which we

observe.

We should therefore not expect anything ‘miraculous’

God made the universe which He chooses to leave to run

according to the laws of nature He put within it and which we

observe.

We should therefore not expect anything ‘miraculous’

The universe is in God but not to be identified with God.

The universe is observed to run in a law-like manner.

In theory God could choose to act in unusual ways.

The universe is in God but not to be identified with God.

The universe is observed to run in a law-like manner.

In theory God could choose to act in unusual ways.

Some theoretical models of God and the

world

PANENTHEISMPANENTHEISM

Choosing between worldviews

• A choice of this kind will not rest on one single factor or issue. Most of us arrive at conclusions in the light of many things, not least our own personal journey.

• There will be theological considerations independent of scientific questions.

• There will be concerns about which best fits with what we understand science to be saying.

A key empirical issue

• Let us restrict the use of the term miracle to something similar to that used in the classical discussion by David Hume, namely: “A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.”

• Is it the case that there have been any instances of such violations?

• If there have been this is presumably bad news for Atheism and Deism.

• Is it necessarily a problem for science?

Are miracles a problem for science?

• Some say yes and some say no!

• There are scientists who have very different worldviews.

• An atheist who is also a scientist has no place for miracles. They are not expected.

• A theist who is a scientist can accommodate miracles, indeed often expects them. ‘Laws of nature’ express how God normally runs the show, but do not forbid God from doing things differently.

Are miracles a problem for theology?

• Some say yes, others no!

• Theologians who happily accept miracles still face the question of why God chooses to do the miracles He does and not others, which He could presumably have done.

• This is a major reason why some theologians would prefer God not to do specific miracles at all, even to the point of denying the traditional understanding of the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus in the Christian tradition.

Historical Developments

•Isaac Newton was not a Newtonian!

Newton’s physics rapidly led to a view of the universe as a mechanism which could in principle be fully

understood as running according to the discovered Laws of Nature. Newton himself believed that it was God who directly mediated the force of gravity. Not only this, but God occasionally needed to modify the system, intrude into human affairs using such things as comets and epidemics and do miracles as well!

Historical Developments

•In succeeding years a view began to emerge which effectively removed God from the everyday management of His world. Newton’s belief in Divine Action began to be replaced by a view that the universe, even if it was a Creation of the Divine Being, was essentially autonomous in its functioning. God became, to all intents, the God of Deism. It would be a short step to Naturalism - atheism in other words - where God no longer had a role to play in our understanding of the day to day operation of the world.

Historical Developments

•Darwin’s work provided an account which removed the need for divine design of individual creatures.

Hume wrote that it was unreasonable to believe in miracles.

Laplace reckoned that in principle the world was completely determined by Newtonian mechanics.

God of the Gaps•It would be easy to see this historical trend as slowly removing God from the scene. Scientific accounts rely on the sorts of causal explanations that have no room for talk about God. If God is seen as competing for the same explanatory territory as science, the success of the latter looks like it squeezes God into the gaps - gaps in our understanding that, once filled, make God redundant.

God of the Gaps - 2•As Chris Southgate has written, “It was seen how difficult it was to sustain descriptions of the physical world in which God acted as a cause complementing physical causes - filling the gap left by scientific narratives.”

•But ‘God-of-the-gaps’ thinking can lead to bad theology. It removes God from the picture to be replaced by the ‘presumption of naturalism’.

Conceptualising the options

1. Atheism1. Atheism

God is banished.God is banished.

2. Deism2. Deism

God is before - the First Cause only.God is before - the First Cause only.

3. Different levels of cause

3. Different levels of cause

God is behind - operating at another level ‘behind’ the observed system of causation.

God is behind - operating at another level ‘behind’ the observed system of causation.

4. God and an ‘open’ system

4. God and an ‘open’ system God is acting through the system in gaps

left in quantum systems and chaotic systems.

God is acting through the system in gaps left in quantum systems and chaotic

systems.

5. God is not limited

5. God is not limited

God can and maybe does act at many levels: before, behind and through the

system, but can also change the normal way the system operates.

God can and maybe does act at many levels: before, behind and through the

system, but can also change the normal way the system operates.

The question of miracles•There are a number of reasons why the

term miracle should not be restricted to David Hume’s well known definition:

•‘Miracles are violations of the laws of nature’

•In Biblical language what we translate as miracle has a wider sense which could include, in our modern jargon, ‘violations of laws of nature’ but can also refer to events which do not violate anything but which are unusual events pointing to the work of God.

Hume’s argument - 1•The essence of Hume’s argument as to why we should remain incredulous of claims to the miraculous reduces to this:

•[a] We have uniform experience that the laws of nature are not violated.

•[b] ‘no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish.’

This rather begs the question - what if there are exceptions?

Does he simply refuse to believe any report with evidence of miracles?

Hume’s argument -2•C.S. Lewis is worth quoting here:

•“Now we must of course agree with Hume that if there is absolutely ‘uniform experience’ against miracles, if in other words they have never happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all the reports of them are false. And we can know all the reports to be false only if we know already that miracles have never occurred. In fact we are arguing in a circle.” (Miracles, 1947, 123)

Hume’s false premise•Science has moved on since Hume’s day and few

today accept that our current understanding of the

laws of nature is unchangeable. Moreover, even a

strongly determined natural order does not

necessarily allow for totally comprehensive scientific

explanations. In the light of what we know of

unpredictability at the quantum level and

unpredictability in non-linear dynamic systems, it

seems even more unlikely that we can speak with

any confidence of ‘violations of laws of nature’.

A theological definition of miracles

•Southgate offers the following as a possible definition of miracle:

•“an extremely unusual event, unfamiliar in terms of naturalistic explanation, which a worshipping community takes to be specially revelatory, by dint of the blessing it conveys, of the divine grace.”

Introducing John Polkinghorne and Arthur Peacocke

• Dr. Polkinghorne is the former Professor of

Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University. He then became an Anglican minister. He has written widely on science and religion and received the

2002 Templeton Prize.

Dr. Peacocke began his life as an academic scientist at Birmingham University. He later served as Dean at Clare College, Cambridge. Like John Polkinghorne he is an ordained Anglican minister and well know writer. He was also awarded the Templeton Prize in

2001.

Polkinghorne and Peacocke on Miracles

•Arthur Peacocke tends to be far more cautious about whether miracles happen.

These are two of the ‘Big Names’ in the field of science and religion.

John Polkinghorne has a more positive view as to the possibility of miracles.

The Resurrection and Virgin Birth of Jesus

• Note that the term Virgin Birth is probably less helpful than the more informative term ‘virginal conception’.

• Historically these are two pivotal miracles in the Christian understanding of who Jesus is. The creeds affirm that Jesus was born of a virgin mother having been ‘conceived by the Holy Spirit’ and that he was raised from the dead three days after being crucified.

• Polkinghorne and Peacocke have somewhat different understandings of these doctrines.

Polkinghorneon

Virginal Conception

Polkinghorne defends an essentially

traditional view: ‘the dual origin of the X

and Y chromosomes ... seems a possible

physical expression of the belief, in the

words of the Nicene Creed, that Jesus “by the power of the Holy

Spirit became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and was made

man”.’

Peacocke on

Virginal Conception

Peacocke really does not wish to accept

the virginal conception of Jesus. For him, the notion

of God supplying the Y chromosomes is strange. He wishes to separate stories

of virginal conception from the

doctrine of the incarnation.

Polkinghorneon

Resurrection

Polkinghorne’s view is more traditional

than Peacocke’s. He writes, “The empty

tomb is of great importance with its proclamation that the risen Lord’s

glorified body is the transmutation of his

dead body.”

Peacocke on

Resurrection

Peacocke is reluctant to accept either that the

tomb was empty or that the resurrected Jesus

needed the atoms of his previous body. He is not

convinced of the theological need for an empty tomb. It is our ‘bodily pattern’ that is

important, not the bits we are made of. Jesus’

resurrection body was of a different order -

transmuted in God.

A footnote on Peacocke: is he saying God cannot or does not do miracles?

•Consider these extracts from Peacocke’s Theology for a Scientific Age (1993, p183):

•“...we cannot rule out the possibility that God might ‘intervene’... to bring about events for which there can never be a naturalistic explanation ... such direct ‘intervention’ is (not) normally compatible with and coherent with other well-founded affirmations concerning the nature of God and of God’s relation to the world. The historical evidence that such an intervention has happened will therefore have to be especially strong and the event in question of a kind that renders it uniquely revelatory in its particular context of God’s purposes ... there are in the end very few events that pass through this seive.”

More on Polkinghorne and Peacocke

•You can find out more about these two key thinkers on the Counterbalance website which has biographical information about both and video clips where they talk about their beliefs about various issues in science and religion.

• http://www.counterbalance.net