Eighty-four percent of Americans say they believe in so-called “miracles,” defined as “an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause. “ But many scientists reject the possibility of such things because, by their very definition, they require a violation of the known laws of nature.

In the 19th Century, David Hume addressed miracles and their contention with both reason and science. He argued that miracles are scientifically impossible and superstitious delusions. We only believe something is a miracle because we haven’t witnessed it occurring naturally, and this is not sound thinking.

As Hume states:

“…(T)here is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning as to serve us against all delusion in themselves; of such undaunted integrity as to place themselves beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood, and at the same time attesting facts performed in such a public manner and in so celebrated a part of the world as to render the detection unavoidable...”

In a more modern example, Dr. Steven Dutch, a professor of Natural and Applied Sciences at the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay wrote a piece in 2001 titled, “Why Science Can’t Accept Miracles (Even If They Really Exist).” He argues that scientists work on evidence according to observable laws and therefore cannot allow for the possibility of miracles. “Science rejects miracles for exactly the same reasons that accountants do when conducting audits, the police do when conducting forensics, and mechanics do when trouble-shooting cars,” writes Dr. Dutch.

He goes on to say that a strong belief in miracles can just be a lazy way of explaining away facts or avoiding the hard work of investigation. Here Dr. Dutch makes a salient point, for many Christians often ascribe events to God what may or may not actually derive from God. “That’s totally a God thing,” you may hear a fellow Christian say after he or she has merely analyzed the circumstances.

But do these scientists' assertions prove that the reality of miracles—a fundamental belief held by Christians—is nonsense? Is the wall of separation between scientists and the religious on this issue too high to climb?

[For more on the faith and science divide check out Q's The Spirituality of Science small group study.]

Actually, not all scientists and skeptics rule out the possibility that such things may occur, even if they agree that science is not the correct tool by which to test and judge such things. Michael Shermer, for example, is editor of Skeptic magazine and a regular columnist for Scientific American. He uses statistics to show that “miracles” happen hundreds of times a day in America.

“I cannot always explain such specific incidents, but a principle of probability called the Law of Large Numbers shows that an event with a low probability of occurrence in a small number of trials has a high probability of occurrence in a large number of trials. Events with million-to-one odds happen 295 times a day in America,” he writes.

Shermer doesn’t ignore Dr. Dutch’s assertion that miracles can be a scapegoat for the intellectually lazy. In fact, he believes talk of miracles does a great disservice to the faith:

“Let’s say 1 million people have cancer in America (it’s much higher than this), and only one-tenth of 1 percent experience a spontaneous recovery (it’s actually higher than this). 1,000,000 x .001 = 1,000 people. Out of that cohort of 1,000 people, what are the chances that half a dozen of them have compelling narrative stories worthy of broadcast television? Pretty good! Here is a show you will never see on any television series: “Next, we examine the remarkable fact that 99.99 percent of people who were diagnosed with incurable cancer and were prayed for died anyway. Stay tuned, for you won’t want to miss these stark statistical realities.”?Of course you will never see such a show because of the confirmation bias, in which we look for and find confirmatory evidence for what we already believe and ignore or rationalize the disconfirmatory evidence. This is naturally what any religion or television production team is going to do when telling a story about miracles: They will pick and choose the most compelling cases that seemingly defy science and reason, and present those to the public, while blindly (and cruelly) ignoring all those devoutly religious people whose loved ones prayed in earnest for them and who died nonetheless.”
- Science and Religion Today, April 2010

We must be careful that we allow science to answer the questions that science is asking using scientific methodology. We cannot force science to operate on faith's terms. Still, the mere fact that respected non-Christian thinkers like Shermer allow for the possibility (or even probability) of miracles is significant. It seems to be one more indicator that the divide between faith and science is not nearly as wide as some might assume.

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Do you believe that science and faith are irreconcilably separated on this issue and others? How can the science and faith communities begin dialoguing more meaningfully?

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Editor's Note: The painting featured above is "The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes" by Lambert Lombard, 16th Century.

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