50 Key Concepts in Theology

A Discourse
concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion and the
Truth of Christian Revelation
(1705), saying that a miracle is not a violation
of natural laws, but simply an unusual instance of God’s rational activity.
William Lane Craig (1949– ) argues that miracles should not be ruled out
as logically impossible, but should be judged on the empirical evidence in
each individual case.
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) rejected supernatural explanations in
favour of a scientific understanding: ‘Thence it is that ignorant and

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superstitious men make great wonders of those works which other men,
knowing to proceed from nature (which is not the immediate, but the ordinary
work of God), admire not at all’ (Leviathan).
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) argued in his book Miracles that it is rational to
believe in God and supernatural phenomena.
Hermann Reimarus (1694–1758): a German Deist who argued that, since
true religion is reached by the exercise of reason, belief in miracles cannot be
part of a true religion. It would be irrational to suppose that God would
transgress his own natural laws.
Baruch de Spinoza (1632–77) ruled out belief in miracles on principle,
arguing that God would have no need to alter his plan for nature. Belief in
miracles happens out of ignorance of the natural causes of things.
Francois Voltaire (1694–1778) argued, with the Deists, that it would be
‘the most absurd of all extravagances to imagine that the infinite Supreme
Being would on behalf of three or four hundred emmets on this little atom of
mud derange the operation of the vast machinery that moves the universe’
(‘Miracles’ in the Philosophical Dictionary).
Thomas Woolston (1669–1733) argued in his Discourses on the Miracles
of our Saviour that the miracles of Jesus, including the resurrection, should be
read as allegories.
IDEAS
Coincidence: this is different from a miracle, even if it is startling. A
miracle must involve the direct action of God. So turning up late for a bus that
crashes is fortunate, but not a miracle, unless God intervened in some
supernatural way to stop you boarding the bus.
Littlewood’s Law: a ludicrous but entertaining theory formulated by John
Littlewood (1885–1977) – that a miracle (defined as a one-in-a-million event)
will happen to someone in the world at least once every month.
Providence: God’s ongoing activity in nature and history. So the
provision of harvests each year is providential rather than miraculous.
BOOKS
Ian Ramsey (ed.), The Reasonableness of Christianity, and a Discourse of
Miracles (Stanford University Press, 1958)

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