David Cowles
Apr 1, 2025
“…Everything that happens happens only once…there is nothing under the Sun that is not new! Being and novelty are synonymous.”
We’ve got it all wrong. How unusual! Ok, not so unusual. Let’s start over: We’ve got it all wrong as usual! That’s better.
When you’re 10 years old, not just last year (in my case), beginning to question what you do and don’t believe, the miracle stories from the Bible and the lives of saints are a real stumbling block. At 10, God’s still in the mix but Santa no longer makes the cut. But what about miracles?
The Red Sea parting,
The Israelites fed with Manna,
The walls of Jericho crumbling,
Jesus walking on water, curing the stick, etc.
The multiplication of loaves and fishes,
Marian apparitions at Fatima and elsewhere,
Inexplicable cures at Lourdes, et al.
Of course, these are just the stories that made the nightly news. Every day, all around the world, people are attesting to ‘miracles’, most not camera ready. But what are we post-Enlightenment science aficionados to make of these alleged ‘events’?
A bunch of people lying to make an ideological point?
A symptom of some sort of mass hallucination?
An exaggerated or otherwise distorted account of everyday events?
If you are a believer, the authenticity of such miracles may be a load bearing column of your faith; or miracles may support a faith developed out of some sort of ‘personal encounter’ with the Transcendent; or miracles may be a slightly uncomfortable aspect of a faith deduced through reason.
Or perhaps you believe that the Bible’s accounts of miracles are meant to be understood metaphorically: “It was as if the food supply had multiplied; it was as though Jesus’s floated atop the waves, unencumbered by any sort of vestigial vessel.”
On the other hand, if you are a non-believer, the objective impossibility of most reported miracles may contribute to your skepticism. Or you may accept the validity of at least some so-called ‘miracles’, but you may chock them up to non-miraculous causes:
The parting of the Red Sea was caused by a strong wind,
The apparitions at Fatima were an optical illusion,
Lourdes is testimony to the power of the mind to heal the body.
But what if I were to tell you that all of these explanations are wrong…on both sides?
Inspired by the positivist philosophers of the early 20th century (e.g. Ayer, Wittgenstein, Austin), we sort normally events into three buckets: (1) the set of all events that can be reliably repeated at our discretion (scientific method), (2) the set of all events that can repeat but cannot be replicated on demand and (3) the set of all events that can never be repeated.
The first set contains the propositions of empirical science. The second set concerns potentially recurring patterns in the world. The third set consists of events that can never repeat or be repeated under any circumstances:
Given certain standardized conditions, water will always boil at 100°C.
The Boston Red Sox have won a few world series and may do so again, but neither wishing nor rooting can make it so.
Humpty Dumpty can only fall off the wall once (since all the king's horses and all the king's men can’t put Humpty together again).
Would it surprise you to learn that our first two cherished sets of events are empty (ø)? The Universe consists entirely of events in the third set. Sometimes two events are so similar that we’re tempted to use an ‘R word’ (repeat, reflect, recur, etc.). But similarity, no matter how close, is never identity. Regardless of resemblances, every event is unique; otherwise they would be just one event.
On one level, all events are congruent – for example, they are all ‘event-shaped’, whatever that is; but on another level, no two events are ever the same. Consider the cells in your body. There are more than 30 Trillion of them at any point in time. They are all descended from a single cell, and they all have certain structures (e.g. DNA) and processes in common, but no two cells are the same cell. Each cell is an independent organism, occupying a unique region of spacetime, performing a specific set of functions, and tracing its own life trajectory.
Outside the classroom ‘A = B’ if and only if A is B, in which case A and B are two names for one event. “You call it corn; we call it maize.”
There are no absolutely, positively repeatable events because…
It is impossible ever to reproduce exactly the initial conditions of any experiment.
No true event is ever entirely the product of its initial conditions; there must be an element novelty, the sine qua non of being.
The initial conditions of any event are always the entire Universe of past events:
Each event is a unique expression of a unique antecedent Universe.
Every event automatically becomes part of the Universe of all future events.
Therefore every event contributes novel conditions that ensure that no other event can ever duplicate it exactly.
The Universe is a giant block chain. Every novel event adds to the chain, making it unique. Therefore, every event has a unique pre-history and no subsequent event can ever modify any prior event.
Nothing ever enters the same river twice (Heraclitus).
Patterns that appear congruent are only congruent down to a certain level of detail. Of course, all events are ‘congruent’ at scale, but any two events can always be differentiated.
“There is nothing new under the Sun!” That’s the adult version “Mom, I’m bored, there’s nothing to do,” to which my spouse would always reply, “Only boring people get bored.” She’s right, of course. How can anyone ever be bored when everything that happens happens only once.
In fact , there is nothing under the Sun that is not new! Everything that is, is new, always. Being and novelty are synonymous. How could they be otherwise? What claim to being would Y have if Y were identical to X. Such a Y would be X…and therefore not Y.
So where do miracles fit in? ‘Miracle’ is simply another name for ‘Event’, a one-off. Every event is miraculous; it may (or may not) be predictable, but it is never certain. Analyzing the apparent consistencies of physics, we believe that there is a very high probability that the Sun will rise tomorrow…but not a certainty. Therefore, every sunrise is a miracle, exactly as the Ancients taught and exactly as you know…if you’ve ever truly watched the sun rise.
Arguing whether miracles are real is a colossal exercise in self-deception. Miracles are events so of course they are real (unless your cosmology does not include ‘real events’). So it is just as accurate to say that ‘all events are miracles’ as it is to say that ‘no event is miraculous’.
You object: It was a miracle that the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXVI, beating ‘the greatest show on turf’; it was not a miracle that there was an Equinox on March 21st. But these events are only apparently different: one was a ‘long shot’, one a ‘sure thing’, but neither was guaranteed. I wasn’t brave enough to bet on the 2001 – 02 Patriots, I’m all in on tomorrow’s sunrise, either way, it’s still gambling.
Miracles do not violate the Laws of Nature! How could they? The Laws of Nature are just one way of conceptualizing whatever is. (James Joyce Ulysses is another.) Events are; therefore, every event must be consistent with, and indeed an expression of, Natural Law. In the event of an apparent inconsistency, either the ‘event’ is not truly an event, or the so-called Laws of Nature are not actually ‘laws’.
Nor can we explain away ‘miracles’ by reducing them to safe, every day, non-miraculous, nearly repeatable processes. Rather, the events we call ‘miracles’ are simply demonstrations of Nature’s creativity. They demonstrate aspects of nature we don’t often notice. There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies.
Nature is not an inert stage set, suitable only as background for a Broadway blockbuster; nature is a force, an eruption, a physis (Gk.). As such, nature does not follow some pre-determined set of rules; it makes the rules. Events occur; we abstract patterns from those events and call those shared patterns, Laws.
Miracles do not occur outside the sphere of the possible; but they are its frontier. They teach us about the ‘transcendent’ power that is entirely immanent in our material world.
In another essay in this collection, we proposed a Genetic Model of Ontology. We drew parallels between events in the universe and organisms in the biosphere. In our world, an organism is an orchestra of instruments conducted by DNA/RNA.
The main orchestra is housed in the cell nucleus but there are a multitude of local orchestras (mitochondria), each with its own conductor, playing various supporting roles – a technological marvel not yet duplicated on human scale, not even in Austria.
Funny thing about orchestras: the main orchestra might include up to 100 instruments (and each local orchestra would add its own smaller number). All musicians are under contract for every performance, but not all are needed on stage for every piece. Even when needed, a particular instrument may pop up only spottily in a particular score.
Biological organisms work much the same way. Genetic material is concentrated in the nucleus, but independent DNA/RNA exists in the surrounding mitochondria.
The DNA molecule consists in part of ‘genes’, particular sequences of bases that produce proteins that account for ‘the phenotypical attributes of the apex organism’. (Say that 10 times!) Certain genes are ‘on’ most of the time; but many genes are never on. They are there, in reserve, should their proteins be needed to combat an unexpected external threat…or should evolution need them for its long term project of adaptation.
Most genes turn ‘on’ as needed and are otherwise ‘off’. The genetic potential of a complex organism is mind bogglingly vast; but the phenotypical expression of that potential is always stochastic.
It is a great mistake to imagine that Nature is primarily about limiting variety in events. Rather, it is the rich top soil out of which novel events emerge. Nature is more than just the tiny subset of phenomena that can be approximated in a laboratory setting. Nature is what’s happening! Call it ‘miraculous’…or not: “It’s still rock and roll to me.” (Billy Joel)
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, c. 1818. Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. Oil on canvas, 94.8 cm × 74.8 cm (37.3 in × 29.4 in). Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg.
