A miracle is not in conflict with the laws of nature.
Posted on August 1st 2010 in Weekly messages
Last week a rare meeting of doctors was arranged at Lourdes to examine the claims of an Italian woman that she had been cured of her wasting disease. The credibility of the case has now effectively passed its first test. However, there must still be many further investigations before a miracle is declared. The woman concerned had originally come to Lourdes not to seek healing for herself but for an ill baby in the family, and for her husband so that he might receive the graces necessary to cope with her medical condition. Such a meeting of doctors would be unthinkable elsewhere, but in Lourdes this seemed the most natural course of action. However, among Catholic Doctors faith and rigorous science are not seen as mutually exclusive.
The uncritical acceptance of the separation of faith and reason leads to an erroneous understanding of the nature of a miracle. They are seen by the secular minded as an interruption of the laws of nature, and so are basically irrational and their pursuit by anyone a matter of superstition. The mechanistic application of the laws of nature requires a shrunken understanding of both time and space. These are accepted as absolutes: time is only considered one moment after another; and space, one place after another. These are perfectly serviceable meanings, as the rapid advance of technology makes obvious.
However, the exclusion of the spiritual dimension to space and time does justice neither to its deepest reality nor to the common human experience of both. This mysterious dimension may be grasped in our own experiences of time, which is certainly one of time passing, but always in conscious relation to one’s own perception. An individual may experience a fixed finite period of time as timeless, too long, or too short according to his own feelings. The relationship therefore, between our spiritual selves to space and time find its foundation in the widest relationship of all that between God and His creation within space and time to God.
This way of grasping space and time as all related to God might help us grasp that a miracle is not really in conflict with the laws of nature. If they were the case then God’s special action of facilitating a miracle would be in conflict with His creative power that establishes the laws of nature, including that of space and time. Such a situation would be incomprehensible in itself let alone to someone trying to understand the healing power of God in all its extra-ordinary forms. Yet this unfortunately is the unconscious position of the many believers who find all talk about miracles as being superstitious and medieval.
The issue of the nature of space and time might well be considered an abstruse point of philosophy, but in fact is fundamental for a reflective concept of faith. If time and space are absolutes then God, should He exist, would have to break into this secular world to achieve anything, rather than remaining present to His creation at every moment and in every place. In such a situation, the act of faith would not lead to an internal spiritual transformation but become a simple veneer of religious respectability over a secular body. The pursuit of a moral life loses its transforming power, and life is not seen as a possible whole, of reflective experience fostering spiritual growth. Instead of a potential deepening of understanding, a cult of instantaneous satisfaction takes over. The march of time to such a culture has to be halted or delayed, and is so revealed in binge drinking, drug taking, plastic surgery, endless travel and blind pursuit of wealth. The examination of this miracle, and the reflections on the implications to faith of God’s healing action, show that the believer lives within a richer sense of reality than someone who places the laws of nature over and against the actions of God.