If something happened, it can happen.

[eatheiun]

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.

Comments

[dickdawk]

You just presented a false dichotomy.

[eatheiun]

The only dichotomy I used was possible/impossible. I'm not saying that miracle and possible are dichotomous. I'm saying that impossibility is a criterion within the term miracle.

To extend, miracles are by definition (my definition) impossibilities.

[dickdawk]

"I'm saying that impossibility is a criterion within the term miracle. To extend, miracles are by definition (my definition) impossibilities."

You've created a false dichotomy because you've redefined these terms to fit your argument. It's fine to believe that miracles are impossible, but your argument rests on a presupposition of this.

Within your redefining of the term, you've exclude the option of miracles being possible in the sense that they work outside of the laws of the universe. Here lies the false dichotomy. Again, it all rests on your presupposition.

And in the end, it all comes back to a naturalism of the gaps when you say that, if something is seen that might be considered a miracle, we need to understand that one day it will be explained in a natural sense.

[eatheiun]

"Within your redefining of the term, you've exclude[d] the option of miracles being possible in the sense that they work outside of the laws of the universe."

This is a misuse of the term "laws" as they relate to our universe. The natural laws are descriptive not prescriptive. A natural cannot be disobeyed because the laws are set up to describe our reality not confine it. If all of a sudden things started falling upward instead of down we wouldn't say, "Hey, quit that you're breaking the laws of the universe." We would say, "Hey, this whole gravity idea needs to be revisited, let's refine our theory so that it incorporates things suddenly falling upward instead of down."

The idea of a miracle is not just that it has no explanation, but that it can not have one. That it "breaks the laws of nature." This is why a miracle, in the religious sense, is impossible.