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I don't believe in miracles, but I'd better be clear on what I consider a miracle. According to Mirriam-Webster, a miracle is defined as "an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs". And there's the problem right there, the D-word.

For something to be a bona-fide miracle, it would have to be divine in origin. Now, I'm no fan of religion, and don't believe in any kind of supreme being or deity. But let's, for the sake of argument, assume that there is. We'll focus on him being some kind of Judeo-Christian figure, being as they're the ones who focus on miracles, particularly the Catholic church.

Now, according to Christian doctrine, Man has free will. God does not interfere in our actions. This is usually a neat way of explaining why an omnipotent being would choose to allow suffering and evil in the world; it's not his choice, it's ours. By our own actions, we can put an end to such things. Alternatively, by our sins, we're the ones who cause the problems in the first place. But either way, it's up to us to sort them out.

Now, if that's the case, why do miracles occur? By the definition above, they have to be both extraordinary and divine; they're an example of God directly intervening in human affairs, in such an unambiguous way as to leave no other rational explanation for the occurrence. Why is it that this particular blind man who could suddenly see, or this child who survived a head on car crash suddenly warrants the very specific attentions of God? Some would argue 'God has plans for them later in life', or words to that affect. But again, free will; if our actions are decided only by us, we can't have any Fate or Destiny to fulfill.

And why act so specifically? Almost all recorded miracles are either paranormal displays (statues weeping and such), or amazing cures of diseases with no such cure. Why should they only happen to specific people? Are the people who remain blind, or die in car crashes somehow undeserving of the attention of God?

Finally, isn't it equally miraculous when something happens that's extraordinary but results in the deaths of people? Say a freak power surge shorts out a traffic control system and dozens of cars pile up, causing multiple fatalities. The manufacturers assure us such an occurrence couldn't have been forseen, that it was a million to one chance that it could happen. Does that qualify as a miracle? It's up there in the probability stakes. And what if this God had somehow prevented that from happening, and business went on as usual. That would certainly qualify as a miracle, but no-one would even know.

I believe it was Richard Fortey who used to have a little anecdote he opened his speeches with sometimes, along the lines of how, on the way to the auditorium or lecture hall, he'd happened to see a car with the licence plate 423DGC. "Imagine," he would say "the chances of me seeing that particular plate! How incredible!" The point is, if you look hard enough, you can find improbable coincidences in anything. It doesn't mean that they have any significance.

There are a lot of things that happen in the world that we don't have an explanation for. Some of them probably don't have an explanation to give, even if we could understand it. Some of them seem like the most impossible things. This doesn't mean we shouldn't ask how they happened, or ascribe them to some vague sky-spirit and leave it at that. A 'miracle' is a handy way of washing our hands of a situation, instead of asking questions.

Learn more about this author, Dave Simmons.
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