“The mark of a miracle, in a word, is not that it is contra-natural, but that it is extra-natural and more specifically that it is super-natural” (B.B. Warfield, “The Question of Miracles”). The great Princeton theologian B.B. Warfield is exemplary of a whole model of thinking about the relationship between miracles and nature. Miracles, they say, are intrusions into the world. This, however, does not quite fit with the Biblical worldview. Many Christians confuse the relationship between miracles and natural law.
We must begin by clarifying what we mean by “natural law”. Dr. John Frame states that there are at least four different ways of thinking about “natural law”. In each case, considering miracles as a violation fails to do appropriate justice to the relationship between nature and miracle.
The first perspective says that natural law is the “ultimate principle that governs the world.” In the Biblical worldview, however, this ultimate principle is the decree of God. Hebrews 1:3 states that Christ upholds the universe by the power of his word. In this sense, then, to consider miracles as an exception to “natural law” is simply false. Miracles, like natural law in this definition, are nothing less than the decrees of God.
The second perspective states that natural law is the “regular process by which God usually governs creation.” We note here that God has patterns of regularity by which he governs the world. So he says to Noah that he will keep the seasons regular (Gen. 8:22), and he has kept his word. Yet, we should not be too quick to observe miracles as a contrast with this perspective of natural law. After all, God sometimes uses very natural things to accomplish amazing miracles. Exodus 14:21 states that God used a “strong east wind” to dry up the land of the Red Sea to make way for the Israelites to cross. So, sometimes God “suspends natural law” in a miraculous work, and sometimes he doesn’t. Therefore this idea should not be part of our definition of a miracle. Furthermore, as Frame points out, “usual” or “regular” are matters of degree. He writes:
Events can be more or less “usual,” and many obvious miracles are not entirely unique. Jesus’ miracles are often similar to works of Yahweh in the Old Testament: he stills the storm, he feeds multitudes, he raises the dead. There are, indeed, enough similarities among miracle stories themselves to include them all in the genre “miracle.” On the other hand, all events, whether miracles or not, are unique (and therefore unusual) in that no event is precisely identical with any other. So this definition of miracle does not yield a sharp distinction between miraculous and nonmiraculous events, a distinction usually important to those who propose that miracles suspend natural law. (The Doctrine of God, 248-9)
We continue to need further clarification then on the relationship between natural and miracle.
The third perspective calls natural law the “human expectation concerning the works of nature.” The trouble with this perspective is fairly obvious. It reduces “natural law” to something essentially subjective. After all “expectations” vary from person to person, generation to generation, age to age. The expectations of those in the ancient world were far less “sophisticated” and scientific than those of modernists. But even today peoples intellectual capacities differ too and their expectations cannot be simply reduced to a single expectation. This offers us, then, no better distinction between the differences.
Fourthly, Frame says that some use natural law to mean “the basic created structure of the universe.” This view, however, tends to suggest that natural laws are a kind of mechanistic structure that operates within the universe apart from God’s hands-on governance. In this view, then, miracles occur when God suspends these laws. That is simply, however, not the Biblical view of nature. The Bible ascribes to God all the events of nature. He brings rain and sun, storm and locust. He governs the changing of seasons and the placement of seas. Furthermore, as we saw with Exodus 14:21, sometimes God uses the nature to accomplish what we would clearly qualify as a “miracle”- the parting of the Red Sea. So again the distinction that Christians try to make between nature and miracle in this way simply doesn’t work.
While there is no doubt that miracles are extraordinary acts, trying to clarify that definition requires care. I will explore in coming posts how we can more accurately articulate a definition of miracles. For the moment, however, it’s important to say that how we think about miracles may actually reveal an unbiblical view of how God relates to the world. We ought, then, to be careful about our definition of miracle, they should not be defined as an intrusion into nature. Even the great Princeton theologian needed to be cautious in this manner.
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 