Rowe (1993), focuses his discussion on the three important questions that he believes are the conditions of a genuine miracle, the possibility of modern belief in miracles, and the reasonableness of believing in miracles. For most people, these are not issues: those who believe in miracles define them in their own terms, while those who do not believe in miracles are automatically dismissive. Miracles are not primarily considered a source of intellectual debate; belief or disbelief in miracles is a matter of world view and belief system. However, there may be more than one modern world view, with some associated with belief in miracles and others not. Exploring that possibility is the focus of this paper.
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 transformative in people's lives. His is not a fundamentalist or prescientific position, however, but a position in which surprising events may still seem unexplainable, and miraculous. They may not be supernatural, but they are still labelled as miraculous.
Let us look at one example of that. Rowe (1993) indicated that one requirement of a miracle is that it is not due to any natural process or natural cause. He described the event at which Jesus turned water into wine as an example of this. However, while this may have bee...