From the very beginning, the accounts of the life of Jesus seem to include miraculous
elements. In the four Gospels that are now part of the New Testament, Jesus is reported
as having done many strange and amazing things. Most of these involve the healing of
various diseases and disabilities, many of them apparently of long standing. There are
also other incidents, such as walking on the water, calming a storm, and changing water
into wine at a wedding feast, that do not involve healings. There is at least one striking
case of a resurrection attributed to Jesus, the raising of Lazarus (John, ch. 11). And
finally there is the miracle that, for many Christians anyway, overshadows all of these
others in importance. That is the resurrection of Jesus himself several days after his death
by crucifixion.
As we might imagine, the strange things that Jesus did often resulted in awe and
amazement among those who saw them. They contributed greatly to Jesus' reputation,
and they drew large crowds to him wherever he went throughout Galilee and Judea. No
doubt they had a significant effect on the way his preaching was received, and on
people's reaction to him personally, both before and after his death.
The idea of the miraculous, of course, was not invented by Jesus nor by the writers of the
Gospels. The Judaic tradition within which Jesus began and carried out his ministry
already included the idea of the miraculous. The Hebrew scrip
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tures (now often called the Old Testament by Christians) include many such accounts of
strange things being done by prophets of past time.
We should beware, however, of hastily assuming that all these strange things that Jesus
did can properly be lumped together into any single convenient and useful category, such
as that of miracles. After all, there is probably no one who thinks that everything that
Jesus did was a miracle. And it is possible that even some of the strange things were not
miracles. Of course, that raises the question of just what a miracle is, or what it is
supposed to be. And that might lead to some understanding of the ways an event, even if
surprising, might fail to be a miracle. That is one of the topics I discuss below.
The Concept of Miracle
What is a miracle? The most significant and influential attempt in Western philosophy to
define the idea of the miraculous is probably that of David Hume. This is found in his
essay “Of Miracles,” which constitutes section X of An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding (1777), first published in 1748. Indeed, this whole essay is probably the
most provocative and influential philosophical discussion of miracles in the history of
Western philosophy. It touches on most of the philosophically significant questions
related to this topic. I will not discuss Hume's essay systematically, but I will refer to it
from time to time as a convenient way of introducing the questions that I will discuss.
Hume's definition is found in a footnote in part I of the essay. There Hume says, “A
miracle may be accurately defined, a transgression of a law of nature by a particular
volition of the deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent” (1777, 115). This