What Is a Miracle?

We must make clear what we mean by "miracle." A popular definition of miracle is that it is something that is "contrary to nature." There are certain rules or laws at work in the universe. Every now and then something happens that is contrary to those laws, and this is a miracle.

But miracle can also be interpreted as something that is "contrary to what we know of nature." This definition, though more modest, may be more valuable. For it recognizes the limitations of our outlook, and suggests that there may be a more complete outlook than the one we possess. And it is precisely this that Biblical faith insists upon -- that God's outlook is the ultimate one and that we can never claim to share it. He may do things that seem strange to us but are not strange to him. It would even be true to say that from God's outlook there are no miracles -- God is simply working in ways that are "natural" to him, even if they appear "supernatural" to us. We have no right to limit God only to activities that we can understand.

Let's put it this way. Suppose you are a man from Mars. As your flying saucer circles above an American city, you see traffic and traffic lights. After a while you decide that there is a law which goes, "Cars move when the light is green, and stop when the light is red." But then a strange thing happens. All the cars pull over to the side of the street and a couple of cars race through six or seven red lights without stopping. Then the other cars start up again.

This leaves you highly perplexed. For this is contrary to the law. But actually it is not contrary to the law; it is only contrary to what you (a man from Mars, remember) know of the law. For the thing you do not know, sitting in a flying saucer, is that there is a provision in the law to take care of emergencies. When an ambulance and police car appear with sirens going, the other cars are required by law to pull over to the side of the street, and give them the right of way, red lights or no. The ambulance and the police cars are not breaking the law; they are illustrating part of the law that you didn't happen to know about. Your theory was all right as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough.