There must have been a dozen of us in the room when our host began to tell us the story of how he had managed to secure additional income for his large family (five children at the time). The new family tax credit system had only just come into being and he had heard the news that he would receive a significant sum to supplement his salary. Excellent news indeed, we all concurred. And it was at this point he said, ‘Praise God! It’s such a miracle!’

No more than a natural event

Whether I was the only one to tense up at that point I’m unsure but tense up I did for I knew that my host was using the word ‘miracle’ in a most serious way. And yet the event described was nothing of the sort. Far from being a miraculous event unexplained by natural means his good news was nothing more than the implementation of government policy designed to help struggling families. It was certainly worth being grateful for – grateful to God and Gordon Brown – but it did not merit the term miracle.

I share the story to highlight how the word today has lost so much of its currency within church circles. It’s another example of how we may need to adapt our language to fit our beliefs.

Supernatural

It was as a first year undergraduate that I picked up the definition (via the philosopher David Hume) that for an event to be termed a miracle it should be an extraordinary happening that breaks the laws of nature and has God as its author. It seems to me that that definition still makes sense and should be held onto. And yet the word is used to describe events that are significantly outside that boundary. Our humanist critics would say that we use it to describe pretty much any event we can’t explain but I would say we’ve even slacker than that and can use to refer to things that could be explained through natural means. This is especially true as science presents us with new understandings of the world around us.

Misusing the word can have two main problems. First, it does not enhance faith when we misapply it to phenomenon that can be explained; indeed it could make us more cynical. Second it makes us appear quite credulous and gullible to unbelievers as we reject sensible explanations. This only pushes us farther away from those we are trying to draw into God’s love.

How do you use the word miracle and is the above definition still relevant?


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