In Defense of Miracles

Like most children of the Enlightenment, I have struggled with the concept of Miracles: “They’re not reasonable, they’re illogical, irrational, and unscientific; they cannot be replicated and therefore they cannot be verified.” 

Duh! They’re called ‘miracles’ for a reason! We’re not talking about a package of Twinkies here…are we? But I digress. I still could not comfortably accommodate ‘miracles’ in my overly rationalistic theology, until I realized…

“Miracles are reasonable, logical, rational, scientific, infinitely repeatable and therefore auto verified.” Ecce rem!

How so? As an historical document, the Bible begins with Exodus. Genesis is incredibly important, but it stands outside, and above, the rest of the document. It provides the mythological, cosmological, theological, and anthropological context for everything that follows. But Bible History per se starts with Jacob & Co. entering Egypt (Exodus 1: 1-5). 

From there, it’s not long before we find ourselves face to face with the miraculous. The Egyptians initially welcomed their Hebrew refugees but over time the welcome turned to exploitation. (What a surprise! At least that could never happen today…could it?) 

YHWH caught ‘sight and sound’ of these infernal goings on. According to Scripture, he declared “I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt…” (Exodus 3). But I imagine his inner dialog continued along these lines:

“…Best set things right. But that’s a problem, isn’t it? I ‘created’ the Heavens and the Earth; I didn’t just imagine them. So they’re free to evolve as they see fit…and that means no interference from moi.”

We have previously established (Whitehead) that God is the paradigmatic exemplification of Natural Law, not an exception to it.     

God, it seems, is subject to something resembling Star Trek’s Prime Directive. Interference in the local order of nature is forbidden.

“Still, enough is enough! This evil is intolerable. So what to do?” 

Et voila! The concept of ‘miracle’ was born. YHWH appears to Moses in the form of a burning bush. Now an ordinary bush, when it burns, leaves a mark in nature. Heat is generated, and smoke. A remnant of ashes is left on the ground. And of course, tornadoes devastate Chicago: Butterfly Effect!

There’s a name for all these consequences: “Entropy” – the inexorable increase of disorder. 

But Moses’ burning bush is special: it does not generate entropy! Therefore, it does not ‘happen’ at all, at least not in any ‘ordinary’ (entropy generating) sense of ‘happening’. It leaves no record of itself…and yet it indirectly diverts the course of history. The Exodus is the mother of all butterflies.

Now the scientists among you are shaking your heads, if not your fists, if you haven’t long since stopped reading this nonsense. I can’t blame you, can I? Admittedly, it’s far out! But…

According to Gregory Bateson, being is ‘a difference that makes a difference’. A miracle is certainly different, by definition, and it certainly makes a difference. Therefore, it is, according to Bateson’s standards, but it does not happen (according to the standard set by the Second Law of Thermodynamics). 

Now of course the Exodus generated an incalculable amount of entropy. But according to our model, the fact that there was an Exodus rather than not is entropy neutral. With or without the physical events associated with the Exodus, entropy would have increased. Living in slavery is just as entropic as escaping from it. 

Time advances, events happen, entropy increases. But the ‘shape of things to come’, the ‘subjective form’ of events (Whitehead), is a function of the future, not the past. Events shape themselves in pursuit of certain transcendent, universal Values. The aim of an event is its cause: the cause of the ‘burning bush’ is Freedom (Liberation).

The ‘lure’ of the future is not entropic per se; our response to that lure is. Robert Frost’s desire to return home is not entropic; the walk he takes to get there is. 

Now of course, the synaptic activity involved in forming an intention is entropic, but the intention itself is not. Reductionists notwithstanding, an intention is not merely the sum of its associated neurological processes. 

‘God works in mysterious ways’ - backwards! That an event occurs is a function of causality, that it generates entropy is a function of thermodynamics, but which event (out of all possible events) occurs, when and where, is the function of teleology. 

We are all, always, Robert Frost. Life is a ‘walk in the woods’. Walking generates entropy, the mental processes associated with choosing a path are also entropic, but the preference of one specific path over all others is entropy neutral.

Presumably, every human being alive today will die. At death, entropy = 1, order = 0. There is but one death and that one death is the common fate of all. On the other hand, each and every one of us will live a totally unique life. No two lives have even one event in common (therefore, the Other Minds problem). Each life unfolds behind its own event horizon; each of us is our own black hole. 

But on yet another hand, all lives are nodes in a single evolving entropy function linking all places and all times. Like Frost, our lives consist of a perpetual series of choices, choices within choices, choices leading to choices. Each time, the act of choosing is entropic; the choice made is not.

That there are choices is the common fate of everything that is. The details of those choices are unique to each entity at each time and place. Making choices generates entropy but the particular set of choices that each of us makes is entirely free, undetermined, and entropy neutral.

The quiddity of an event is causal…and entropic; the quality of that event is teleological, freely chosen, and entropy neural. Therefore, every event is a ‘burning bush’, every event is a miracle!

Back to Frost. One step always leads to another and with each step entropy increases in his hundred acre wood. But the peculiar details of each step, its trajectory, its gait, are purely a function of the goal, his ultimate destination. 

Still don’t believe in miracles? No problem. You’re a nihilist. Be proud. But be sure you understand the implications of your choice. If there are no miracles, how do you account for any events? Every event satisfies our definition of a miracle, every event is a burning bush. 

***

El Greco’s Christ Healing the Blind (c. 1560–67) shows Jesus restoring sight to a blind man amid a gathering of astonished onlookers, symbolizing both physical and spiritual illumination. The elongated figures and radiant colors heighten the sense of divine power breaking into ordinary life, reflecting faith’s transformative vision.