I’m serious. Miracles are a serious topic of religious discussion. But first, as Voltaire insisted, we must define our terms. There is a common-sense meaning of the term “miracle” which refers to a highly unlikely positive event that nevertheless comes to pass. Spontaneous remission in a cancer patient. A check that arrives out of the blue, unexpected, so you can pay the rent and buy food for the family. A bunch of college hockey players brought together as a team and beating a powerhouse national hockey team full of seasoned, disciplined veterans. There is no necessary supernatural element to this type of “miracle.” Even if some people prayed for the US hockey team to beat the Soviet team in 1980, that doesn’t make it a miracle in the sense that it wouldn’t or couldn’t or didn’t happen without some sort of supernatural intervention. Sometimes underdogs win games. Sometimes an unexpected check arrives in the mail. These events do not violate any law of nature (Merriam Webster: “a generalized statement of natural processes”) or constitute an example where the impossible happens. Everyone believes this sort of miracle happens from time to time. Flip a nickel. The Internet tells me empirical studies show there is a 1 in 6000 chance it comes up neither heads nor tails but comes to rest on its edge. Very improbable events just happen every once in a while, all on their own.
Then there are supernatural miracles. Here’s from Wikipedia entry “Miracle“:
A miracle is a supernatural event that seems inexplicable by natural or scientific laws. In various religions, a phenomenon that is characterized as miraculous is often attributed to the actions of a supernatural being, (especially) a deity, a magician, a miracle worker, a saint, or a religious leader.
Furthermore, I think we can split “supernatural miracles” into two categories. One is when a natural, even unremarkable, event happens at a particularly opportune moment. Your daughter falls off a chair or spills a hot drink on herself and you throw her in the car to take her to the ER … but where are your car keys? If you say a silent prayer and God or a local angel puts into your mind the thought “check the freezer,” and you sprint to the freezer and find your keys next to the ice cream you put there an hour ago, you can call that a supernatural miracle of the common sort. Maybe God put His hand on the scales or maybe it was just a lucky coincidence that you happened to think of the freezer. But say you are up in a hot air balloon with the same kid a week later and she leans over too far and plummets to earth from a thousand feet … then when you touch down five minutes later, frantic and panicked, your daughter runs up to you and she says, “I’m fine, Mom. I bent my knees when I hit the ground, just like you taught me.” That’s more a supernatural miracle of the impossible sort. I’m sure you could come up with other examples, some contrived and some based on actual occurrences. The kind of thing that doesn’t happen without divine intervention in the natural order of things.
Mormon Miracles
I’ll bet just about every reader can share a few personal life events that are maybe candidates for supernatural miracles that seem to go beyond the common sort (finding the car keys, a much needed but unexpected check) to maybe come close to a supernatural miracle of the impossible sort. I can think of a couple in my own life. I don’t think we have to put those personal events under a microscope, at least in this post. If you just got lucky, well some people do just get lucky. If God did put His thumb on the scales on your behalf or in favor of a family member (even though He declines to do so in many other cases) be thankful and acknowledge that great are the mysteries of God.
Sometimes such personal events (those that approach a supernatural miracle of the impossible sort) become anchors to one’s LDS testimony. I suspect priesthood blessings followed by an unexpected speedy recovery have this testimony-building effect, although priesthood blessings followed by a swift decline, even death, don’t generally have the opposite effect. But I am rather confident that if an LDS person finds their testimony of the standard LDS truth claims compromised or completely gone for some other reason (you know the standard list), that an earlier miracle of the impossible sort, if there was one, that anchor to a testimony, gets recast as a miracle of the common sort. I guess I just got lucky. Raise that anchor. Move along.
More interesting are what might be called institutional or official miracles. For the LDS Church, events of this sort might include the Miracle of the Seagulls as memorialized in the monument that stands on Temple Square, shown in the image at the top of this post (with its own Wikipedia page) and Joseph Smith’s healing of Elsa Johnson’s arm, one of the first recorded healings in the LDS Church. These particular examples are more like supernatural miracles of the common sort, since seagulls regularly eat crickets, especially when there are huge swarms of them, and injured arms often heal themselves over time. The translation of the Book of Mormon, which is never simply described as Joseph translating characters on the plates but always as translating by the gift and power of God, is held out more as an official miracle of the impossible sort. Even LDS apologists don’t claim that Joseph had any natural understanding of any ancient languages at that point in time, certainly not sufficient to translate using the natural process we generally associate with the term “translation.” Whether through the (mysterious) operation of his Nephite interpreters that came with the plates, the (mysterious) operation of (somehow divine) seer stones that glowed in his hat, or just through words coming into his mind through the operation of the Spirit, the whole translation episode is described in LDS materials as a supernatural miracle of the impossible sort, something that simply could not have happened without divine intervention.
These LDS examples of institutional or official miracles have a place in the official histories and curriculum materials of the Church. I’m sure you can quote others. They serve as evidence of God’s endorsement and support of the LDS Chruch as an institution, in the same way that personal miracles often serve as an anchor to one’s personal LDS testimony. But every church and religious tradition has its miracle stories, deployed to strengthen the standard narrative of that tradition in the same way that LDS institutional miracles are.
What About Catholic Miracles?
Here’s where it gets interesting. Skeptics might reject on principle any possibility of supernatural miracles of the impossible sort. But believers who acknowledge and even insist on them can either believe only such miracle accounts within their own religion or denomination (which makes God seem rather partisan and petty, as if God would heal sick folks in denomination X but not in denomination Y) or they can believe reputable miracle accounts from all religions and denominations (which undercuts the claim that the official miracles in one’s own denomination are evidence of God’s endorsement of your particular denomination). It’s not like just Mormon seagulls eat crickets. Seagulls, all of them, even Catholic seagulls, will eat crickets when they are around in abundance. Catholics tell other miracles stories, of course, not seagull stories. But either way you believe in miracle stories, whether just your own church’s stories or everyone else’s miracle stories as well, raises tricky questions.
Human nature enters the picture here with great force, as well. It’s easy to believe miracle accounts in one’s own tradition, but just as easy to disbelieve and completely dismiss miracle accounts in someone else’s tradition. Easier still, simply avoid any account or discussion of someone else’s miracles so you don’t even need to the disbelieve and dismiss them, you just ignore them. Similarly, believers are very good at compartmentalizing. Most people know better than to shell out $99.95 for a gadget that screws into their engine and supposedly increases miles per gallon by 30%. But somehow that sort of pragmatic skepticism is regarded as inappropriate for miracle accounts, at least those in one’s own tradition. There are different rules for assessing the plausibility and probability of a miracle story. Those in your own tradition are often rather politely taken at face value, at least in group discussions.
Apart from these problems with firmly asserting supernatural miracles — coherence (first paragraph) and the distorting effect of human nature and psychology (second paragraph) — there are philosophical objections, most cogently expressed by David Hume in a chapter in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. One argument is that for any account of a supernatural miracle, it is always (almost always?) more likely that the reporter is mistaken or the report as it comes down to the reader is garbled or even simply made up than that the event actually happened as reported. Another argument is that the degree of evidence necessary to reasonably establish any claimed event is proportional to the unlikelihood of the claimed event. If I tell you I went to the store this morning, you are likely to accept that at face value, and if you doubt me a receipt with time and date is fairly conclusive. If I tell you I went to the store this morning and on the way I encountered an alien spacecraft, plus had a conversation with a friendly alien, you’re going to want a lot more than a receipt before accepting the story. A video isn’t enough (people can do anything with video or pictures these days). A paper with alien characters on it isn’t enough (who’s to say whether those strange characters have anything to do with aliens). And so forth. If a police officer half a block away observed the exchange and filed a contemporaneous report, and a government satellite tracked a fast-moving object with its sensors and tracked it descending to that spot where I supposedly saw it, then fly away, that’s better, but cops are known to get the facts wrong and electronic systems have glitches. If a USAF jet shot down the alien craft and the wreckage is now strewn across the salt flats, with pictures in the New York Times and scientific analyses of the wreckage claiming alloys unknown to planet Earth are found in the wreckage — well now we’re approaching credibility. It takes a lot of credible evidence to reasonably establish a highly improbable event. Very few highly improbable events can muster that amount of evidence.
What About Ancient Miracles?
It’s much easier to dismiss ancient miracles, whether Christian or otherwise. But they serve the same functions (propping up religious claims and bolstering the legitimacy of religious and political rulers) and, in the context of their time, have about the same degree of believability/incredulity as more modern miracle stories. Here’s one about an early Pope from the pages of The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe (HarperCollins, 2021) by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry.
[W]hen Bishop Pelagious II fell to the plague in 589, the city turned to a man named Gregory (later known as Gregory I the Great, 590-604). … The people all agreed that the plague was God’s punishment on the sinfulness of the Romans and so, just after ascending to his new position, Gregory led a penitential procession through the streets. Lit by torches, the crowd prayed vigorously even as some of them — allegedly — fell down dead along the route. Finally, according to a much later version of the story, as the procession neared its conclusion, Gregory looked to the sky and saw a vision of Michael the Archangel hovering above with a flaming sword, drawn and menacing. But as the procession neared, Michael sheathed his sword and disappeared. The people’s repentance, led by their new leader Gregory, worked. The plague supposedly abated shortly thereafter. (p. 48-49)
Maybe you can see some similarities to LDS institutional miracles of the common sort: ignoring contrary evidence (people dying along the route), a convenient private vision, a tale that grows in the telling over the years. It’s just much easier to acknowledge those features in an ancient miracle story than in a more modern story in your own tradition. Here’s another one, about Radegund of Poitiers, a noblewoman who, after some marital ups and downs, “became abbess of a religious house named after a relic of the True Cross given to her by the Byzantine Emperor Justin II”:
Radegund soon developed another sort of power, one derived from her spiritual position instead of her political one. Imbued with the presence of the cross at her own house, she worked miracles of healing, according to her hagiographers. … A blind girl regained her sight, oil from a lamp overflowed endlessly in the presence of the sacred wood …. Eventually, a tale in which Radegund turned away a dangerous serpent grew in stature, until the serpent became a dragon, the “Grand’Goule,” which Radegund defeated with the presence of the relic and the power of her personal sanctity. (p. 57)
Same process, on a smaller stage. Same deployment of miracle stories to bolster claims to legitimacy, for Radegund, then for nuns who carried on at the house after her death. Same “growing in the telling” arc of the miracle stories. Same questions in the mind of a modern reader (“Did they really believe that?”). I’m sure most of the peasants believed every account. Some of the leaders did, others were aware of how the stories were oh-so-useful, true or not. Were any doubting peasant to mount a bench at the back of a church and shout, “That’s not a piece of the Cross, it’s just a regular piece of wood, probably chopped from the forest on the hill outside town!”, they would probably be dragged out back and beaten to a pulp by a couple of burly monks.
So what do you make of Mormon miracles? How about modern Catholic miracles like healing attributed to the waters of Lourdes? What about medieval or ancient miracles, such as the two I quoted or hundreds of other examples? If you accept some but not others, where do you draw the line? If you don’t accept any at all, then have you banished diety and the supernatural from religion, any and every religion? Is attending a disenchanted church any different than a friendly book club with the occasional service project or potluck dinner and hefty monthly dues? Tough questions.
I expect the comments here will range across the spectrum, partly from a variety of views and partly from a variety of experiences. For many, this is a touchy topic and a personal one, so if you choose to respond to someone else’s comment or account, don’t offer scathing critiques.
Wheat & Tares 
I’ve wondered (a lot) why the church seems to go to great lengths to NOT talk about (new) miracles (institutional) and to discourage members from relating their own “private” miracles. The “it’s a sacred experience–shut up!” card seems to be at the top of the deck most of the time. One would think that the (ongoing) presence of miracles would be viewed favorably as evidence of the institution’s (continued) favor with Deity, and that “private” miracles would be viewed as beneficial to the bolstering of others’ / peers’ testimonies…(thought it seems that the closer one’s miracle drifts towards “heavenly manifestation”, the more close-lipped one is “encouraged” to be).
I myself am the survivor of a fairly serious trauma (resulting from me flipping a four-wheeler over on my face) and my healing is viewed by me (and many in my ward) as a miracle. Never once have I felt the temptation to sensationalize or advertise, nor have I sensed in others anything other than gratitude that my life was spared…
I appreciated the portion of the post about “Catholic miracles”, and had a moment of introspection / self-awareness because I know that I in the past (and even still in the present?) will assume “non-Mormon” miracles are “false until proven true” whereas “Mormon” miracles are “true until proven false”…and the more I think about it, the more that seems to make God a respecter of persons.
Someone attempted to track down the details of the Miracle of the Seagulls and Crickets. All they could find were urban legends. There were no details, names or locations from anyone who was actually there. There was no evidence that it actually happened.
Honestly, I was crushed to find that there was no truth behind the story. But, the LDS community has always loved a good story and the seagull story fits that dynamic.
Readers Digest used to have stories about situations when someone beat a million to one odds. People would read those stories and expect to be that one out of a million in difficult situations in their own lives. I wish there was more emphasis on the 999,999.
In religion, there is so much emphasis on expecting miracles due to worthiness, faith and belief. Out of a full million people with a particular diagnosis, I find it rather narcissistic to assume that my prayers, faith and righteousness is somehow more worthy than those of everyone else. What makes me special? The truth is “not much.” In our efforts to focus on the love that God has for us as individuals, we often forget that God loves ALL his children.
In my opinion, we would be better individuals and better members of society if we quit looking for miracles that demonstrate that we, and those we love, are somehow more righteous, deserving or beloved by God.
Truly following Christ is supposed to be all about losing our narcissistic tendencies — not increasing them.
This is a fantastic post. It is about time that someone addressed miracles under a statistical lens.
It does great harm when members get up month after month and profess to be the recipient of miracles that are really just common events. Time after time, we hear of someone who misplaced his Jazz tickets, but prayed and found them in time for the game. Or someone who was running low on gas, but prayed and made it down the hill to 7-Eleven before the gage hit empty.
The truth is that Deity does not care whether you make it to the Jazz game in time to purchase a chili dog before tipoff. Deity does not care if you run out of gas before getting to 7-Eleven for your grape slurpee. If these events occurred a thousand times, there would be plenty with pleasant outcomes and plenty with bad, based on probability.
That is why so-called miracles should not be paraded about like Cardi B’s navel. Claiming that every day activities are miracles only serves to cheapen the real miracles when they happen.
I believe in the kind of miracles David Bednar talks about. You know, ordinary events that happened to be what someone needed at the time after praying, thus a “miracle”. Then again, I have the kind of faith “not to be healed”, but in a different way than Bednar proposes.
I suppose God relies on supernatural miracles of the common sort for a reason. Such events don’t limit our agency and allows us to keep covenants and commandments as acts of faith.
I do have a pet peeve about miracles. Some demand them. Rather than make efforts to limit or heal disease they demand a miraculous “insta-healing” instead, accompanied by angelic choruses (of course). A good example of this is the response of some LDS missionaries during the 1853 Hawaiian smallpox epidemic. Claiming they would use their priesthood to protect and heal the native Hawaiians, the missionaries instructed the new converts to avoid inoculations, which were effective. The results were catastrophic for the new converts. I don’t trust those who claim medical science is in error, especially those who believe that faith-healing is a solution for a public health crisis. Miracles of any type don’t occur when Latter-day Saints try ordering God around the universe. That isn’t faith, it is hubris.
I believe in miracles and see no reason to limit the effects of faith (miracles) to my own faith tradition.
I believe that nature is very difficult to understand and is full of marvelous surprising wonders. I believe that people sometimes get better from illnesses in spite of doctors’ grave prognoses. I believe that technology continues to advance and surprise and baffle the minds of laypeople around the world. I believe that stubborn people’s hearts and minds soften and change. I believe that weather is sometimes surprisingly good and that rain can come even when drought is forecast. I believe that surprising and pleasant coincidences happen to people all the time. I believe that a favored underdog sports defy odds against better teams and manage unexpected and amazing plays for victories. I believe that positive outcomes defy negative expectations on a regular basis.
I don’t believe in the supernatural. It is all nature. Just that much of nature remains to be understood.
Sometimes I wonder how much many Mormon believers believe in the full range of claimed miracles. Stories of miracles in Mormonism somehow almost always seem to follow a pattern and to be in conformity of accepted miracle claims in Mormonism. I hear of garments stopping wounds, of priesthood blessings curing illness, of dead Mormon ancestors making appearances to confirm belief in the Mormon afterlife. However, curiously I’ve never heard Mormons gushing about Marian apparitions or Muhammad’s miraculous journey in the space of only one night on the back of a winged horse (buraq) from Mecca to Jerusalem. I’ve never Mormons talking about how they are the reincarnation of someone who had died. I have often heard Mormons mocking claims of miracles that do not confirm their belief system or that do not conform to what they believe a miracle to be. I wonder what people’s reactions would be in sacrament meeting would be if I stood up during fast and testimony meeting and very solemnly told of a sacred experience I had where I witnessed the virgin Mary. They’d probably cut my mic and ask me to leave.
John W:
That’s odd that you’ve never heard talk of reincarnation from a Latter-day Saint. Half of Utah’s state legislators believe they are personally the reincarnation of Orrin Porter Rockwell. I know that can’t be true. Ol’ Porter was far more liberal!
I believe in the kind of miracles David Bednar talks about.
Bednar reclassified those as “tender mercies.” Most of the time, that is how most people I know talk about ordinary events that worked out favorably for them. They typically reserve “miracle” for things that happen to other people, including those historical accounts that have been embellished. (Like the seagull and crickets story, which–Damascene’s research notwithstanding–did happen but was not widely regarded as miraculous at the time or the following year when it happened again–see https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume38_1970_number3/s/107089.)
For a long time, I was taught and fully bought into an LDS prosperity gospel. I had a fantastic confirmation bias, where I attributed all good things as “blessings” and all negative outcomes as “trials of faith” just as I was taught to. I had those “supernatural miracles of the common sort” on a daily basis. It was great. I’m a bit narcissistic and I like to feel special (like God was specifically blessing me), so this way of thinking actually worked out really well for me… until it didn’t. It’s a bit embarrassing, but that’s what led to my faith crisis.
I still have the question of “How much does God intervene in our lives?” I don’t know, but it seems to me that God (almost) never intervenes. I’ve stopped praying for anything with a specific outcome, and changed my prayers to just be about: thanksgiving, helping me improve myself and be better, and guidance. (I am working on praying for others, but I haven’t decided if/how it would help).
I’m open to the idea of God intervening and miracles happening, but my honest reaction is just a shrug with a question mark over my head. I can’t work out when and why God would intervene and provide miracles sometimes, and why so often He doesn’t. If He does intervene directly, I’m sure that miracles and intervention aren’t limited to the LDS church, but happen across all the world and all religions.
If someone wants to give credit to God for a good happening, I am okay with that.
That reminds me of the old story of the lady who was always saying “Praise the Lord!” and such, to the disapproval of her atheist neighbor. One day, when the lady was enduring hard times, she arrived home to find a bag of much-needed groceries on her doorstep. She exclaimed, “Praise the Lord for these groceries!”
Her neighbor then stepped from around the corner and said that there is no God, and God didn’t deliver the groceries — he (the neighbor) did it to prove to her that there was no God. But the lady exclaimed even louder, “Praise the Lord for these groceries! Not only did He hear my prayer, but He used the devil himself to answer my prayer! Praise the Lord!”
My dad had chronic illness from about the time I was born that kept him homebound and in and out of hospitals. My dad was a mystic. I mostly remember our bishops avoiding my dad because he always wanted another blessing and I think they had no idea what to say to him anymore. I also went through a bout of roughly seven years with some really bad chronic pain that no doctor could diagnose, and that slowly went away. I was still TBM back then and it literally felt like God didn’t think I mattered. So I’m quite jaded when it comes to this sort of thing.
I remember teaching GD a few years ago. We were in the NT. Someone in the class made an excellent point that the apostles were astounded when Christ calmed the seas. They said “but he’d already been healing people so why did this astonish them?” I think the answer is that faith healings can be discounted to nature and luck. As mentioned above, we all know people we recovered from something very serious. So even the apostles may have initially seen Jesus as a voodoo doctor/lucky. But commanding the elements really is something else.
Growing up in UT but now being a full-fledged California boy, we are urged by leaders to pray for rain about once every other year. I remember one year after the fast it starting raining, but it was a pathetic little thing that lasted maybe eight minutes. Boy my social media lit up. God loves us! He answered our prayers! It’s a miracle! But I don’t think that little rain cloud gave us enough water to flush a toilet.
I also remember the Saints fasting for the pandemic to end. I still believe the vaccine that was produced is somewhat miraculous, though I’m not even willing to give God more than 49% of the credit there, as I want to give credit to the many scientists who produced it. While the vaccine is not perfect, the stats clearly show it is quite effective at reducing the severity of COVID.
Please forgive the length of my post; it is “from the Heart”.
Where is this Great God of Comfort and Help?
I’m sure that (like everyone who has ever lived) I look back on the passage of time and wonder “how did it all pass so quickly”. At the same time I ask this fairly common “human” question, I also have to add a somewhat uncommon (perhaps even unique) query – which is “how in the world have I devoted almost half of my life to the loving, raising, nurturing….and the 24/7 management of a severely autistic child?”
I’m sure it may come as no surprise when I tell you that this is not the first time I’ve asked this question. In fact, there have been times when I have practically shouted it at the heavens; and to any God or God’s who may be inclined to listen. “What could the possible purpose be (from a loving God) to force a precious soul into a lifetime of captivity; dwelling in a broken body – with a broken mind?” And then, to “gift that child to parents in way that will slowly, inexorably grind their health, well-being and God given energy into the ground; as the demands of caring for this loved child never, ever end”.
Being the offspring of 5 generations of faithful LDS heritage, I was raised on a steady diet of stories, teachings and I suppose doctrine of how our Heavenly Father is a God of miracles; who has a keen interest in every aspect of our lives – all throughout our lives. At this point, it is important to underscore that I thoroughly internalized all of this, throughout my young life, during my missionary service for the church and in the early years of my marriage and family life.
Today, as I search my heart, my soul, my mind and my memories, I have to admit that I can no longer believe in a being who regularly bestows miracles on his offspring here on this planet. Nor, does everything that happens in our lives have purpose or reason for occurring. Yes its’ true, sometimes “shit just happens”. (Or, if you’re put off by the harsh reality of that statement, we can certainly say “life just happens”.)
I readily acknowledge the steady stream of testimonies, Facebook posts, faithful blogs and stories from people who express gratitude for the miracle of a beautiful morning, of finding lost car keys, an extra five dollar bill in an old pair of jeans and/or the road being cleared for a person to make their way to work on time on a busy morning. Generally, many of these minor miracles seem to fall under the description of “tender mercies”; as described by those who experience them.
Please don’t think I’m making light of these daily positive events which happen to everyone from time to time. Rather, I’m simply asking if all of these little, daily uplifting occurrences are gifts from a loving God, then where does this same loving, omniscient Being disappear too when the “big stuff” comes into a person’s life!
As I reflect on the life changing “hurricane” of having a severely autistic child (at a relatively young age) I feel compelled to mention that (on the opposite end of the life spectrum) my much loved Dad is now suffering through the cruel, debilitating, soul stealing condition of Alzheimer’s disease. So, for almost thirty years I’ve watched and cared for my beautiful little girl in a broken body with a broken mind and now I’m watching and help care for my wonderful Dad whose body and mind have become broken as well. And honestly – I just don’t know what to make of it all; particularly within the context of what I’ve been taught throughout all of my history with Mormonism and Christianity.
Over the course of decades, many Priesthood blessings have been given; by higher and higher authorities. My wife and I have fasted and prayed until “we’re blue in the face”. We’ve put names on the prayer rolls at the Temple and we’ve watched and waited….and waited…and waited…and waited for the hoped for divine intervention. Sadly, it hasn’t come – at least in any kind of way that I can recognize.
However, here is the reality of WHAT HAS occurred. My wife and I have worked our asses off (for years) to hold everything together; our family, our marriage relationship, our home, the well-being of our other children – let alone our own emotional, mental and physical health. We’ve been deeply bruised, scarred and very-nearly broken. We’ve given up on, or indefinitely postponed our own dreams and personal aspirations and have stoically forced ourselves to survive. But, here we stand!
To simply say that I’m intensely proud of both my wife and I really doesn’t do justice to the depth of my feelings; which I really haven’t shared much publicly.– until now. Rather than finding divine intervention from without, I’ve discovered and found life in the strength, kindness, laughter and friendship of other human beings. Additionally, I’ve mined strength from within myself that I had not known existed. This comes, I suppose, when one must choose between giving up or simply continuing to put one foot in front of another – as long and as steadily as possible.
There is a small place, deep in my heart, where I still believe in a God who cares and is willing to comfort us spiritually. At rare times, I think I can still perceive some order in the universe and perhaps intelligence behind it. But, more often than not, the harsh realities of life teach me something else entirely. That is:
We (human beings – at least in this life) are most likely all that we have – and that we must rely on each other.
Love for each other, support for each other and acceptance for each other is of paramount importance; particularly if we want to make it through this life with any semblance of sanity.
This whole business of any organized religion telling us “what we need to do” to gain God’s favor is (in large part) nonsense. I’ve chosen instead to focus on God’s grace.
No one is going to swoop in and save us from ourselves and “make sense of it all”; at least on a daily basis.
This world is all that we have. We’d better become much more diligent stewards of it.
Our time is precious – and limited. We ought to cherish each and every moment we have with those we love.
And…
While Mormonism (and other religions as well) all make promises of comfort, assistance, miracles and relief, the only true comfort generally comes from dear friends and neighbors; within a “Ward family” Once anyone sees or experiences what is chronically real – an understanding sets in that much of what they teach is nonsense and man-made.
We are all children of the stars…..
Lefthandloafer, that was beautiful. You have moved me to tears.
Lefthandloafer,
Human love and kindness in the face of a cruel world with immense challenges, like what you and your wife are showing, is really the only miracle I believe in any more. That enough for me. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Great post and comments. Lefthandloafer, I second Chadwick’s comment.
Do I believe in miracles? I’m trying not to hedge my bets, but I would say, sort of. I think lots of things in this world are possible and I think that often, we call things miracles that we don’t understand or can’t explain. Does that make them the result of divine will? No. But I do try to keep an open mind about such things. Over the past decade, I have come to believe less and less in what the church (or any organized religion) teaches. Despite that fact, I try to keep myself open to a variety of possible explanations concerning why we’re here, the origins of the universe and the possible sources of seemingly miraculous happenings.
Several people above have alluded to so-called “miracles” that are the heart of the Mormon experience and narrative (seagulls and crickets being only one of those). I think that a certain kind of believer really needs these sorts of stories in order to believe in the church and that’s fine; I’m not judging what other people need to stay close to or in their religion. It’s just my observation that a fair amount of people have such a deep need for such stories that said stories get more attention and more embellishment than they should. To my knowledge (and please correct me if I’m wrong), there has been no single instance of a verified miracle. That is, God has not performed a miracle, then come down, showed himself to everyone and claimed said miracle in front of millions of witnesses and a substantial amount of television cameras. Short of that happening, I’ll remain a skeptic about miracles so-called, especially considering how the church simultaneously pushes such narratives and obfuscates when pressed for proof or evidence. And that, I think, is the shame of it. I feel that it’s a perfectly legitimate position to maintain both a sense of wonder and a sense of faith about the myriad mysteries of our universe; it’s one of the things that makes us human, IMHO. But what I think is truly insidious is when a church takes advantage of that human tendency, creates a series of dubious narratives, then manipulates people into believing them so that the church can enrich itself, either with membership numbers or cold hard cash (tithing dollars). That is simply unconscionable.
I personally don’t believe in miracles. I don’t need Christ’s miracles to believe in His message. It’s easy for me to believe they were added by overly enthusiastic chroniclers. Particularly since the Gospels were written long after His Crucifixion.
As for the miracle of the seagulls, I heard an enhanced version. That the seagulls didn’t eat the crickets, they dropped them in the GSL to drown. And then went back for more.
But I understand that others believe in miracles and that is fine. But if you look at alleged miracles from a rational perspective, most are difficult to understand and justify.
The idea of miracles is beautiful. A higher power (deity) is aware of an individual, sympathizes, and blesses. I have heard some testify that deceased family have been allowed to assist or comfort them in unique and unexplainable ways.
If a person humbly claims they have experienced a miracle, and it is not to brag or get attention, I say good for them. Life is tough enough. I wouldn’t rain on anyone’s parade. What benefit does arguing metaphysics or concepts of justice bring to that conversation?
If an institution or person shared experiences of miracles as an enticement to belong to a community or provide evidence that they or their group are special, I will not be persuaded.
If religious leaders claim to know how to bring more miracles into one’s life, and the requirements have anything to do with loyalty to them and obedience to unrelated commandments, I will be skeptical and critical.
If religious leaders, after peddling story after story of miracles connected with the institution or members’ histories, start reimagining faith to be measured by a person’s ability to accept no miracle in a time where one couldn’t be more appropriate, I am going to be angry.
God is not a vending machine stocked with miracles to purchase. Loyalty and obedience to an institution are not currency for miracle disbursements. God cannot be limited to blessing one religion more than another.
I believe in miracles. One observation though. I have noticed that people I know at church occasionally testify of medical type miracles in their lives, of miraculously being cured of diseases. Over my lifetime I would guess I have heard dozens of these kind of testimonies at church. But in my work as a physician, where I have cared for thousands of patients, I do not see anything I would consider a miracle. I really can’t think of a single one. People can do better or worse than expected but I can’t think of any cases that were so far out of range that I would call it a miracle.
I personally don’t believe in the supernatural.
However, when looking out over a valley or up at a mountain or waterfall, or when watching birds or other animals, or looking into the face of my child, I sometimes remember that existence itself is a miracle. Without a creation myth to exercise faith in, I’m left with a big question mark at the beginning of life, the universe, and everything. Whatever the reason for all of this wondrous, painful, joyous mess of life, it does inspire awe. I like the sentiment expressed by many of you that regardless of who gets the credit for the good things that happen to us, the important thing is to foster a sense of gratitude and wonder in one’s self rather than a sense of entitlement or pride.
Some beautiful comments (thanks @lefthandloafer).
I’ve never seen an interventionist-type supernatural miracle. And I don’t know that I’ve spoken to a first-hand witness to one, either.
I’ve been inspired to do things for other people that I think they needed. I’ve likewise received help from people when I’ve needed. I’ve received some inspired and perhaps prophetic / visionary blessings from my dad and husband.
I’ve seen a lot of people not healed, a lot of things prayed for not given, and I’ve had a lot of times where people did not seem inspired to help when I needed it :-).
I think we are connected somehow. And I think God’s power is love. And those two things can create some beautiful things. But probably more of the “tender mercy” variety than supernatural miracle.
Funny story, on my mission I accidentally locked the screen of our cell phone the night before a really big day when we had some baptisms scheduled and a lot of coordinating to do. My companion was … difficult … and she was SUPER mad at me (and mean to me about it) and I felt terrible. I prayed SO hard for a miracle. I thought how hard could it be for God to just reset the screen? That’s like, a TINY miracle. And for such a good cause – for us to get our investigators to their baptisms. And I was so obedient. And what “lesson” would I learn by God not helping me – it wasn’t as though I broke the phone through disobedience that I should be punished for. I prayed and prayed and honestly truly that that when I opened my eyes I had enough faith and pure intent that the screen would be unlocked.
Nope.
And that was the beginning of the end for my faith. Jk it wasn’t. I can’t remember what happened but it all worked out. I just kinda want to give that poor sister missionary self a hug.
Re: the crickets and the seagulls. Bill Bryson in A Short History of Nearly Everything suggests that the “miracle” was that when the settlers broke ground to start growing their crops they interrupted the breeding ground of the crickets whose eggs hatched underground. Not inspirational but a whole lot more plausible.
I suggest that BYU return to the goal of being the Harvard of the West. Right now the GAs and school administration seems to want BYU to become the Oral Roberts of the West. The latter will devalue the university’s degrees and make it more difficult for grads to find quality jobs.
Also, I suggest that the religion dep’t move off campus. Any job requiring CES certification needs to be off campus. The religion dep’t is about indoctrination, not critical thinking.
The Engineering Dep’t needs more classes in assisting with developing country needs. Technologies like solar units, water treatment, well drilling, computers, communication, etc. For missionaries going to developing countries, the MTC could provide some background on developing country technologies.
When you went to the freezer to find the keys, the real miracle would have been to remember your first aid training, grab some ice and put on the burn, thus stopping further damage to the skin.
Ours is a storytelling culture, and stories are more compelling when we highlight the extraordinary and omit the mundane. We expect this from politicians, lawyers, and marketing departments, but I’m always disappointed when church leaders do it in order to miracle-ize ordinary events.
For example, when my stake presidency was called, one of the visiting GAs remarked in stake conference, “The fact that we can come here and, without knowing you, find the person that the Lord has chosen for stake president, is a witness that this church is run by revelation.” This gave the impression that they, through revelation, pulled the name from an informational void. In reality, the process involves a lot of information gathering, recommendations from current stake and ward leaders, and interviewing. Nothing in the procedure defies mundane explanation.
In the long run, such spin serves only to erode our credibility.
(BTW, JCS, grape slurpee FTW!)
No, I don’t really believe in miracles anymore. From time to time I’ve witnessed surprising occurrences that were beyond explanation, but could instead be chalked up to the randomness and coincidences of lived experience. I’ve seen (and sometimes given) blessings of healing that didn’t end up working any better than the person’s own immune system or prescribed treatment regimen, and a few in which the person eventually died (contrary to the blessing’s promise), but never one that caused a spontaneous recovery that defied all medical explanation. Years ago, my stake president called for a special stake-wide fast to improve missionary work in the area. When it didn’t yield the promised “miraculous” results, the next stake conference consisted of the members being berated from the pulpit for our collective lack of faith.
It’s harmful to view God as a wish-granting genie, who can fulfil any of your righteous desires, provided you are faithful enough, obedient enough and/or ask in the right way. Never mind trying to understand why “miracles” happen to people who clearly don’t deserve them and deserving, faithful people continue to wait for miracles that never come. This is a screwed-up transactional relationship with God, and it really turns Him into a cruel, arbitrary dictator who plays favorites rather than a loving Eternal Father. Especially when “miracles” (or the lack thereof) can be exploited or weaponized by those who claim to act on God’s behalf.
Beautiful comments and thoughts here. For myself, I am empirically naturalist and philosophically humanist. I don’t believe in an interventionist God, and in fact the thought to me is actually somewhat disturbing given the state of the world and the unfair distribution of wealth and opportunity. That said, it’s up to us humans to correct the balance, which I find to be a beautifully motivating paradigm.
From a naturalist perspective, the existence of intelligent life is itself wildly improbable, much more so than any supposed miracle I can think of. That should probably give me more pause and wonder than it does, but I do have rare moments when I am filled with awe and gratitude for the gift of simply being alive and able to enjoy this gift of life.
I see no reason to believe in a God who intervenes in our behalf and I am ok with that. That disbelief is what motivates me to reach out and engage with humanity, whereas for others, it is precisely their belief in a deity that is their motivation. Either way, the end result is reaching outside one’s self, so I don’t begrudge others their belief.
Only when belief in a God who intervenes in the form of miracles leads to insular world views and “one and only true” religion and “chosen people” mentality do I see harm in the belief itself.
I think modern medicine is a miracle. When Jesus heals one person at a time we call it a miracle. When a doctor is inspired to invent drug that cures thousands, we dismiss it.
I don’t want to go into details out of respect for the family, but they will probably hit Exponent II soon. Something happened yesterday that to me is yet another example that defies an interventionist God (an extremely tragic death). And claiming to have an interventionist God in the face of that kind of tragedy honestly makes God look like a terrible creature not worth worshipping.
I know people who’ve gone through personal tragedy who really can’t handle going to Church anymore because of the ways other people talk about God. I have a friend who lost her husband to cancer with four young kids who is tired of explaining to them why God didn’t save their dad but did save the neighbor’s bunny rabbit (and the bunny rabbit rescue BTW was a story told by an adult … not a child). As if God cared more about the rabbit that family than their dad or them.
DoubtingTom:
“ Beautiful comments and thoughts here. For myself, I am empirically naturalist and philosophically humanist. I don’t believe in an interventionist God, and in fact the thought to me is actually somewhat disturbing given the state of the world and the unfair distribution of wealth and opportunity. That said, it’s up to us humans to correct the balance, which I find to be a beautifully motivating paradigm.”
Ditto
I haven’t done anything remotely worthy of the “ miracle” of my life’s circumstances, beginning with my birth. Hardship and “trials” —beginning with the circumstances of ones birth—clearly are nowhere near fair, or evenly dispersed. It is easier for me to believe in a largely non-interventionist God than believe in a God who allows abused and starving children’s prayers to go unanswered.
I cringe when we members refer to trivial things—a lost ring, found—as miracles or answers from Heavenly Father.
Don’t forget the Rasband miracle of the power outage when the power came back on…
Roger Hansen,
In the academically well-received book “Zealot: The life and times of Jesus of Nazareth”, Aslan points out that searching through of all the slurs and accusations lobbed at Jesus which ultimately cost him his life, Jesus miracles were not contested. Even searching through the closest historical non-biblical records we have of Jesus (from non-believers), his miracles were not attacked. Neither were his miracles on trial when he stood before the Roman court. For centuries after- no one lobbed the insult “charlatan” at Jesus the miracle worker. Why? The profession of “exorcist” and “healer” was a legitimate trade of the day. And there were charlatans in the field, but also magicians and herbalists/healers. Aslan has more to say about the uniqueness of Jesus’ miracles which were devoid of herbs and medicines.good read if you are interested. The healing of the woman who touched the hem of his clothes and the idea of a “force”was different from the tools of the trade- smoke, prayers and incantations and herbs/plants, etc.
Dr E,
No miracles among thousands of patients? How can it be that you have so few zebras, so few rare cases and unexplained phenomenon? You must be the most brilliant physician the world has ever seen, to have discovered so much that the rest of the scientific world struggles to methodologically discover and confirm. Do you have a research lab in a bat cave? Wait- let me guess, orthopedist?
In one of the Avengers movies, Loki is facing down the Hulk. Loki points out the he is a god. Hulk proceeds to pummel him and then declares, “Puny god.”
I think that is an apt description of the Mormon god. So limited, bound up, needy, and vengeful. “This isn’t working, Gabriel/Michael/Joseph/Russell. Let’s give them another commandment.”
You know those little ants that appear out of nowhere by the hundreds at the edge of the sidewalk? You ignore them because they’ll vanish in and hour or so – unless they are too close to the house so you spray them and the universe is filled with their silent cries.
I’m not capable of knowing each of those ants or in caring about how Annie Ant’s day is going – or if she’s lost her keys and needs my help. And I don’t care. Maybe I’m a monster.
I also don’t hold out promises that I may or may not fulfill. If you don’t like what went down Madam Ant – it was all part of my plan.
A couple days ago was the 15th anniversary of my son Josh’s death. He had Down syndrome and was as near to perfect as anyone I’ve ever known. No one in the family was steeped in sin. That same day thousands of us “ants” died. Thousands got better.
We all want to feel that we are special enough to be “known of God” and even “favored of God”. What does that even look like in the game of life. Roll the dice and see what happens today.
We want to feel that we are special and known by an unimaginably powerful being.
And maybe I’m just having a crappy day and you should just ignore me.
Anyone seen the LDS movie “17 Miracles”? It somewhat historically recreates the Willey–Martin Handcart company’s trek- which has long been a source of many LDS miracle stories. The movie’s writers address the question of “what is a miracle” and “do we /how do we believe in miracles”.
The writers depicted almost all the miracles in the movie as explainable phenomenon and coincidences. Watchers were urged to “count” the miracles and see if they could find all 17 because each is made to look ordinary and completely natural. For example, in Mormon testimony, there were stories of a literal angel that miraculously appeared in the middle of nowhere-land Wyoming (far from outposts and other caravans) with food that, for a little longer, saved them from starvation. The pioneer accounts were of an angel. The movie depicted a man in 19th c clothing, something of a fur trader or lone wilderness man, who simply encountered the desperate group, shared his cache, thereby bestowing a miracle of charity. All the other miracles are similarly camouflaged as interruption miracles of brotherly love and true godly charity, as opposed to any heavenly physical interruption.
I don’t believe the pioneers’ testimonies were so exaggerated, that they conflated actual angels with fur traders, because when they encountered other caravans or people who similarly helped, they accurately described them as such. The movie bothered me in this regard, because in camouflaging all the miracles, they veered from the pioneer accounts and made up explanations, or added details not in the historical record to create plausible deniability.
It bolstered my faith in that it highlighted dimensions of love, grace and charity in those spiritual giants we call pioneers that had been somewhat over-shadowed by the physical miracles. Stripped down to bare bones, the heart-felt “miracles” were just as and even more powerful.
And at the same time, it saddened and deflated me as every metaphysical miracle was wiped away. And there is a place in my heart for miracles “in carnate”. This belief is renewed in me as I observe the Milky Way, spend time admiring the utter awesomeness of the earth, study the function of the human body from the physics of joint movement down to the lacework of microscopic, chemical and even atomic-level interdependencies , or marvel at the miracle of cognition and an awareness of existence and conscience. Yes, the universe is large enough to believe in miracles.
@BeenThere, that’s a great comment and along the lines of what I was thinking in one of mine. The way we describe God as something that can intervene but chooses not to “for our own good” or that can’t for some reason (universe laws?) describes a “puny God” that many people I know who have been through terrible things don’t really want to worship. It may be comforting to some to think “everything happens for a reason” but I know many for whom that’s no comfort at all (like the infertile woman who wonders, ok, am I just not fit to be a mother?).
I don’t know the answer but I generally tend not to believe in supernatural miracles as (1) I see no evidence of them happening and (2) that makes for a sort of arbitrary God.
@mortimer Marcus Borg (another prominent historical Jesus scholar) thinks some of the miracles in the NT likely happened and some didn’t. His take is that some types of “miracles” have been described as happening in other times and places (like healings) while others appear to be totally unique (like turning water to wine or walking on water). He thinks the former likely happened and the latter did not. I guess that gets us back into supernatural miracles like healings, I don’t know, but just sharing that bit to corroborate Aslan’s point.
Mortimer, zebras, rare cases, and unexplained phenomena (i.e. undiagnosed) I have certainly seen. Those aren’t the same as miracles. I’m thinking of miraculous cures. I can’t think of any. I know a woman in my ward who has testified for years of a cancer that miraculously disappeared. It was there but then it disappeared! The doctors don’t know what happened! But she does! It was her faith and the power of the priesthood! Then I happened to be involved in taking care of her for another matter and in reviewing her records, saw that “cancer” was something on a mammogram that the radiologist wanted additional imaging on (not an uncommon occurrence and these usually turn out to be benign). Additional imaging showed it was an artifact. There was never any actual cancer diagnosis.
re: supernatural miracles
I suspect one of the reasons we hear so little of them is the recipients tend to keep quiet. I know a person well who experienced one as a young adult; I’d known them for more than thirty years before they shared it with me and consider them to be exceptionally unlikely to deceive or exaggerate. I don’t feel like it would ever be my place to share further in any significant detail, but in summary: visible and audible intervention of a heavenly personage to save a life, seen and responded to by victim and all three aggressors. Why this, when so many others are not so protected? I have no explanation and nor does the recipient.
I believe in miracles but I also believe picking up litter makes Earth look better. And as this post clarifies, beliefs can change or be debated. Which pushes me to understand God, not as a Being separate, sometimes intervening, but as the sustaining infinite, revealing the naturalness of healing. But healing itself is open to discussion. I recently had a healing of anger toward a co-worker that I felt was as miracle and more profound than a physical healing of my body.