If something happened, it can happen.
Using miracle in the sense of water to wine, walk on water or parting the red sea, I'd like to make the following couple statements.
If it's possible, it's not a miracle.
If it's impossible, it's never happened and never will.
If water turns into ice at a certain temperature, that can be called miraculous, but it would be in a different sense than how I'm using it here. (I look at it with as much awe and wonder as a religious person does toward his scriptural, or other, miracles) If, in a holy book, it enumerated several tales of ice turning into water, or visa versa, no one would consider them miracles. This is perhaps a littler over-simplification, but you take my meaning. The point of a miracle is that it defies natural law or explanation other than one nested in the metaphysical. Said another way, if you can explain it without god, it's not a miracle (in this sense).
In this light, it's impossible to think of something that could be considered a miracle. Because if it happened, it can happen, and therefore has an explanation. Even if the moon were to disappear from our sky one day, all traces gone, never to be seen again, there would be an explanation for why and how it happened because it took place in nature, and is therefore natural. Though, it is unlikely we'd ever be able to explain it because we probably wouldn't have very long to live.
If Jesus Christ were to appear to me in living flesh, take my glass of water, pour it out into another glass wherein it became wine, and if this could be reproduced in a controlled atmosphere under close observation from objective bystanders, it would turn the scientific community on it's head. It would change everything about what we know and understand about our universe. People would say, look you've been wrong all along! Even so, it would not be a miracle. It would be something later known as part of the laws that govern our universe. This is not what most theists mean when they say miracle.
They tend to mean that god reached out of his non-physical dimension and made two plus two equal to 450.13, or a square a circle, or one equal to three or three equal to one. These things don't happen, because impossible things by definition, can't happen.
If it's possible, it's not a miracle.
If it's impossible, it's never happened and never will.
If water turns into ice at a certain temperature, that can be called miraculous, but it would be in a different sense than how I'm using it here. (I look at it with as much awe and wonder as a religious person does toward his scriptural, or other, miracles) If, in a holy book, it enumerated several tales of ice turning into water, or visa versa, no one would consider them miracles. This is perhaps a littler over-simplification, but you take my meaning. The point of a miracle is that it defies natural law or explanation other than one nested in the metaphysical. Said another way, if you can explain it without god, it's not a miracle (in this sense).
In this light, it's impossible to think of something that could be considered a miracle. Because if it happened, it can happen, and therefore has an explanation. Even if the moon were to disappear from our sky one day, all traces gone, never to be seen again, there would be an explanation for why and how it happened because it took place in nature, and is therefore natural. Though, it is unlikely we'd ever be able to explain it because we probably wouldn't have very long to live.
If Jesus Christ were to appear to me in living flesh, take my glass of water, pour it out into another glass wherein it became wine, and if this could be reproduced in a controlled atmosphere under close observation from objective bystanders, it would turn the scientific community on it's head. It would change everything about what we know and understand about our universe. People would say, look you've been wrong all along! Even so, it would not be a miracle. It would be something later known as part of the laws that govern our universe. This is not what most theists mean when they say miracle.
They tend to mean that god reached out of his non-physical dimension and made two plus two equal to 450.13, or a square a circle, or one equal to three or three equal to one. These things don't happen, because impossible things by definition, can't happen.