Limited Miracles the Omni-Max God

The occurrence of a finite miracle, in the midst of so many instances of unabated suffering, suggests that the being who is responsible doesn’t know about, doesn’t care about, or doesn’t have the power to address the others. (Matt McCormick in “God Would Not Perform Miracles” in The Case Against Miracles; quote courtesy of Tom Gilson since I don't currently have a copy of the original work)

First I'd like to say: I'm glad that he is giving voice to what we are too likely to tell ourselves on dark nights when things aren't going in our favor. The fact that the author gives an honest voice to an honest complaint is what draws me to respond in this case. The problem of evil is not a table game, and we all have a personal stake in it. And when I wish for a miracle that doesn't come, it's easy to imagine that God doesn't care. (Yes, I'm aware that quote could be misused. If someone wants a follow-up on that, it's only within my intent if it is a conversation, not quote-mining.)

When we're going through rough times, when we can join Job in doubting there's justification for why we exist, then we're not doing our best thinking. Our thinking at times like that has raw honesty, power and relatability; it's generally also full of bad ideas. We lose perspective and lose all sense of context when we're overwhelmed like that. Standard advice is not to make important decisions when our thinking is impaired by despair, so choosing world-views at a time like that seems like a bad idea.

At times in my life when I've been in pain, the point of the miracles that I've wanted can be just what McCormick mentioned: end the suffering and prove to me that God cares. At a time like that if I knew for a fact that God cared, if I knew that the pain would be over and I would have a life that I loved in the future, the despair wouldn't get out of hand. Then again, if I just had a miracle, it wouldn't get out of hand either.

Thing is, I don't know of a lot of modern miracles. It's not honest of me to think, "My neighbor got her miracle so where's mine?" My neighbor hasn't had a miracle either. There are only a few times and places in history where there were enough miracles to get my notice: the life of Moses, and the life of Jesus. Now the historical documentation we have for the two isn't comparable; I could understand someone who thought of Moses as Jewish folklore, though based on what I've seen I think it more likely he was an actual person. So I consider those two lives as the context where we found those clusters of miracles. Moses didn't do a lot of healing miracles (yes, I'm aware of some exceptions; still they were exceptions). Jesus, on the other hand, was well-known for healing.

So what's the context in which these known miracles happened? It seems to be in the specific presence of a person who has been sent by God and empowered in some particular way to do them. Which brings us to another of McCormick's points:

There are compelling reasons to think that an infinitely good being would not do miracles, even ones that do vast but finite good; if one were to occur, we should infer that the responsible party is not omnibenevolent.

In Jesus' case, what I see is a different scenario than McCormick pictured. The responsible party, Jesus, is someone I see as fully benevolent -- he doesn't send away people empty-handed. But he's not omnipresent, and in his incarnation he was not immortal. (Yes, follow-up conversations are begging to be had; still one thing at a time.)

Miracles, as confined, local events solving local problems… aren’t the sort of expansive, world spanning events befitting an omniscient being. (McCormick, as edited by Gilson. I see the trail of the passing editor ... and wish I know what the ellipsis omitted. Still, what remains is worth a comment.)

From the life of Jesus, what I see -- healings or resurrections -- starts with local events but doesn't end there. They did more than transform the lives of those who were healed. They did more than demonstrate Jesus as a channel of the healing touch of God. They did more than validate Jesus' message of God's love for the world, his portrayal of God as the God who blesses. They did more than validate Jesus' message that God does in fact raise the dead. They also validated Jesus' message that all of us will be raised some day, that all of us will receive the most desirable of all miracles -- being restored to life again. (Yes, there are more conversations to be had. But let's finish the one we're having first.)

From the life of Jesus, we see that our dark thoughts aren't in touch with what God is doing. We can imagine that God chooses not to help people -- but we see in the life of Jesus something different than what we imagined. We can tell ourselves that our health problems mean we're on God's less-than list; Jesus says that's not it. We can join Mary and Martha at Lazarus' tomb, thinking, "If Jesus were here it wouldn't have happened (but now it's too late)" -- but from what happened next we find out that it's not too late, that with Jesus even after someone has died it's not too late. And so all of the miracles become promises of what God will do for us all, down payments on the redemption of all creation. 

McCormick is actually on the right track with his insistence that a good God will do the same for all. It's one of the few things on which a Christian and an atheist might agree. For Christians, to the extent that we are waiting for that day, it lifts the quality of our lives.