Miracles and the Modern Worldview

From the beginning, there is the problem of definitions. If a miracle is defined by an event that is outside of natural law and performed by a supernatural being, then this makes it difficult for most people with a scientific world view to accept the possibility of miraculous occurrences. In Rowe (1993), Bultmann was a proponent of this viewpoint, arguing that miracles belong to a prescientific view of the world.

However, there has been a resurgence of belief in miracles and books about miracles, not all of which are associated with fundamentalist positions. For example, Dan Wakefield's (1998) anecdotal book about miracles includes a number of stories of seemingly impossible events that were

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a number of gradations of this. Perhaps it would be more accurate to think of the modern world view as a continuum of responses to the development of reason/science model. For some people, there is clearly no longer the possibility of belief in miracles, as Bultmann noted. But, for other people, there are gradations. In the same way that there are many popular definitions of miracle, there are also many world views which allow for those definitions to emerge. Philosophy is very much dependent upon definitions and understanding the meaning of the terms that are used in arguments. A problem arises, however, if definitions are treated as if they are static. In language itself, the meaning of words changes throughout the century to reflect many factors, including conquest, changed social organization, and different world views. In philosophy, meanings may need to change even more rapidly as the way in which people understand the world changes with the new scientific understanding. Thus, for example, it is not likely that scientists would really describe nature in the way that Rowe describes Bultmann of defining it (Rowe, 1993, 115). It is not a closed, autonomous realm separate from human beings, nor separate from other aspe
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Approximate Word count = 1280
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)