Miracles: Can Science Explain Everything?

YEAR 9 · UNIT 14: RELIGION & SCIENCE · LESSON 4

What You'll Learn

Define miracles and examine religious claims against scientific explanation.

Recall: Evolution and Faith

Building on Lesson 3
5:00

Test your understanding of evolution.

What is natural selection?

🔒Reveal answer

Answer: Mechanism where individuals with suited traits survive and reproduce more.

What is Theistic Evolution?

🔒Reveal answer

Answer: Belief that God uses evolution as the method of creation.

Why does Buddhism align with evolution?

🔒Reveal answer

Answer: No creator God and natural causation fit evolutionary theory.

Name evidence for evolution.

🔒Reveal answer

Answer: Fossil record, DNA similarity, homologous structures, observed evolution.

What Are Miracles?

Defining a Miracle

A miracle is an event that seems to violate laws of nature, attributed to divine intervention.

David Hume (1711–1776): Miracles violate natural law. But natural law is established by firm experience. Testimony is less reliable than law. So it is always more rational to doubt miracles.

Thomas Aquinas: Miracles are not violations of nature but God working through creation in unexpected ways.

Religious Examples

Christianity: Resurrection of Jesus, healing miracles, transubstantiation (bread = Christ's body).

Islam: Qur'an itself is called a miracle (God's perfect word). Miracles of the Prophet.

Buddhism: Miraculous powers mentioned but downplayed. Real miracle is enlightenment.

Can Science Explain Miracles?

Skeptical View

Most claims explained by: false diagnosis, spontaneous remission, placebo, coincidence, fraud.

Religious View

Some things transcend science. Miracles are unique events; science studies repeatable phenomena.

Lourdes Case Study

Pilgrimage site in France. Church carefully investigates healing claims; only 70 officially recognized as "medically inexplicable."

But spontaneous remission happens naturally in 1-2% of cancers. Does "medically inexplicable" prove divine causation?

Evaluate the Evidence

Terminal cancer patient heals after prayer (spontaneous remission is rare but natural). Qur'an has mathematical patterns claimed as proof of divine origin. Someone recovers from healing with no medical explanation, but placebo present. Medieval relic tested and found to be fake. Car crash survival with minor injuries when should have died.

SUPPORTS RELIGION

SUPPORTS SCIENCE

UNRESOLVED

Essay: Miracles and Natural Law

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Key Concepts

What is a miracle?

Answer: Event attributed to divine intervention that seems to violate natural law.

What is Humes argument?

Answer: Testimony is less reliable than established natural law, so doubt miracles.

How does Aquinas differ?

Answer: God works through nature in unexpected ways; not violations.

What is Lourdes?

Answer: Pilgrimage site where Church investigates healing claims carefully.

Can miracles and science coexist?

Answer: Yes if miracles are God working through natural processes; No if they violate law.