A ‘miracle’ is generally agreed to be an act of God (or a god).

However, the nuances of this definition can be very different.

For example

• a ‘realist’ believes that they are supernatural events, but

• an ‘anti-realist’ believes that they are natural events.

He argues instead that God created the world, but does not interfere in it.

Here we examine three different understandings of miracles, and their significance to the Christian faith.

David Hume argues that a miracle is ‘a breaking of a law of nature by a particular act of God’s will or by the interposition of some invisible agent’ (1748: 59).

However, he argues that there is never any good reason to believe in a miracle, because ‘A wise man [...] proportions his belief to the evidence’ (1748: 56).

He means that the probability of a miracle occurring will always be LOWER than the probability that the person who experienced the miracle was mistaken, so we should never believe in them.

In contrast, Maurice Wiles (1986) believes that miracles do happen, but that there has only ever been one — Creation itself.

Wiles points out that if God intervenes in human history, we are left with the unsolveable PROBLEM OF EVIL.

However, he recognises that certain stories (like those found in the Gospels) and even certain natural events can make people aware of God, and these can in some sense be called ‘miracles’ too.

Thomas Aquinas argues that ‘those things that are done by God outside of the causes known to us that are called miracles’ (ST I, q. 105, art. 7).

He argues that they DO happen, because God established the normal order of thing in the universe, but is not bound by it, and so ‘when He wants to, He can act outside of the order that has been instituted’ (ST I, q. 105, art. 6).

God NORMALLY leaves the order of things alone, but SOMETIMES acts outside it in order to communicate with His creation.

References

• Aquinas, Thomas. n.d. 'New English Translation of St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae (Summa Theologica)', trans. Alfred J. Freddoso <https://www.freddoso.com/summa-translation/TOC.htm> [accessed 29 May 2026]

• Hume, David. 1748 [2017]. 'Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding', ed. Jonathan Bennett, Early Modern Texts <https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/hume1748.pdf> [accessed 29 May 2026] 

• Wiles, Maurice. 1986. 'God's Action in the World' (SCM Press)