“A miracle may be accurately defined, a transgression of the laws of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent.” An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, “Of Miracles” (1748) by Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711 – 1776).
“Imagine that you see a light of immense splendor, that penetrates everything, and at the same time gives life and animation to all, so that whatever exists has its being from this light and in it lives. Thus I see my God and creatures in him. Imagine a fiery furnace, great as the universe, nay, infinitely greater, that burns everything without consuming anything, and burning Gethsemane illuminates and strengthens, and those who are most penetrated by its flames are happiest, and desire more ardently to be consumed. Thus I see our souls in God.” Italian Saint Gemma Galgani (1878 – 1903) from several sources dated between 1901 and 1903.
Introduction: The Kirk Miracle
Praxis Circle has published 35 posts mentioning the word “miracle” and many more discussing people, events, and topics relating to miracles. Why? Because they’re central to anyone’s worldview, even atheists. Yet we’ve never tried to define them. We will do that today. I will warn you, however, that it will be impossible to satisfy everyone. As might be expected, the definition you choose will depend on your worldview. Clearly, that’s the most important takeaway from this post. You will be making a worldview choice, and one we hope will be true.
On October 29, 2019 we offered a blog post introducing Praxis Circle Contributor Eric Metaxas’ book, Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life (2014). In the post, there is an excellent video (5:02) where he gives quick answers to several related questions. My own personal definition of a miracle aligns with Eric’s, likely because we are both Christians and believers in the Resurrection.
Pardon me if I sound like a smart aleck. (This term derives from the 1840s suggesting a person who is too clever or sarcastic for his or her own good, perhaps a know-it-all. No doubt, some of you materialists might regard me as criminally so.) But the Resurrection is not unusual given the countless other miracles witnessed in human experience in and around my own lifetime and as recorded in history. It was Jesus’ life, experience, and timing that made him uniquely noteworthy, to say the least. Yes, “the greatest story ever told.”
In 2019 when we wrote the “Miracles” post we were in the process of building up an extensive Praxis Circle video library in part to define and illuminate the topic (among many other key worldview subjects). While we’re continuing to do that, if not accelerating the effort, I thought this would also be a good time to stop and present you with an overview of some our work on miracles so far. We like to think we’re not only exploring worldviews, but helping you build one or more.
We are dedicating this post “What Is a Miracle?” to Charlie Kirk, his beautiful family, and Turning Point USA. Charlie’s life falls into the category of miraculous for reasons I hope you’ll understand by the end. (If you know of him and sympathize with his cause, you don’t need an explanation.) Charlie was a gifted, charismatic leader who represented to millions of young people views most normal Americans have embraced during my lifetime, within one or two standard deviations of the mean, concerning their lives and their country. He would have been a perfect subject for Molly Worthen’s book Spellbound (recently reviewed by us here) on the Holy Spirit, charisma, and the often magnetic connection between leader and followers.
The way I think of Charlie, he wasn’t a “conservative.” Quite the opposite: he was a normal, red-blooded, American Christian who loved his Savior, country, and family. What he believed has unlocked the power of the universe and humankind for well over 2,000 years. His death and its surrounding events will significantly alter politics in America for the good for years to come.
Poles Apart: Secular Versus Theistic Presuppositions
Even though the majority of Americans and people outside the West remain theistic, most Western academic and media elites believe the West has been thoroughly secularized since the Enlightenment. Perhaps the most recognized definition of a miracle is David Hume’s cited here at the top.
Hume defines a miracle as a Deity’s or other invisible agent’s willed “transgression of the laws of nature.” No doubt, Hume adopted this definition as a consolation to the largely Christian European audience of the mid-1700s. To Hume, however, miracles don’t exist because God doesn’t exist. Everything that happens is possible, and probably necessarily so or determined, within a completely closed, natural, and mechanical system.
Praxis Circle’s Ten Worldview Pillars
With reference to our Ten Worldview Pillars diagram presented in prior posts, Hume saw no Supernatural existence. In designing his own worldview diagram, he would have probably combined the pillars in the Natural and Human Relations circles.
Our scheme places you or individual persons in the middle as the tenth pillar. Christians would see themselves there as imago Dei and overlay a cross, with each individual’s relation to Christ being paramount.
I’m sure Hume would agree to leave you and himself in the scheme as human beings, but without any divine, spiritual attributes. To Hume, God does not interact with the natural world or humanity in Grace, and humanity is not lifted up to God via grace or the transcendentals of truth, goodness, and beauty. (Truth and Beauty are separate pillars in the Praxis Circle scheme, with goodness covered in the Morality pillar and all of God’s creation in the Jewish and Christian schemes.)
I believe Contributor Jonathan Turley in the video at the top represents a typical American today in his theistic views. He was raised Catholic. He wants to believe there are greater unseen powers not commonly recognized in our day-to-day existence. He sees belief in God as a positive influence on humankind, and he likely submits himself to commonly held Christian morality because he thinks it’s right and understands that it might have been revealed. Such revelation would be graceful, a form of miracle.
The second quote above is from Saint Gemma Galgani, a Catholic mystic who died at age 25 from tuberculosis after years of suffering. She experienced stigmata, visions, and miracles. Clearly, Galgani saw God’s light filling the entire Supernatural circle of truth, goodness, and beauty illustrated in our Ten Pillars diagram. In spite of her suffering and perhaps because of it, she saw God’s splendor miraculously spilling over into the Natural and Human Relations circles, continuously creating and sustaining life on earth.
It would be difficult to find two Europeans who would have a more opposed view of miracles than Hume and Galgani. Hume sees a miracle as God’s imposition (or “transgression”) of his own will on his own laws (though Hume, again, didn’t believe in God and, therefore, natural laws are uncreated and simply exist). In contrast, Galgani believed all creation emanates from God, absorbing and reflecting His light. To her, all of creation is obviously a beloved miracle gaining energy from God.
My “from the heart” belief is that human beings worldwide see so many different types of miracles that, as mentioned, the word is difficult to define. It’s one of those words like mind, religion, worldview, and beauty that’s famous for being difficult to describe, but always recognized and communicated rapidly when experienced. (Contributor Bart Ehrman jokes in the clip below about his attempt to define religion, the subject to which he’s dedicated his professional life.)
Before turning to our final seven videos and brief supporting comments, which we’ve also placed in one playlist (25:21) for easy review, I’ll list different types of miracles commonly recognized and documented today all over the world:
- Creation of the universe itself (unknown in Hume’s time)
- Its development with sustaining continuity (unknown in Hume’s time)
- Creation of the perfect conditions for life on earth (unrecognized in Hume’s time)
- The creation of life on earth and human beings in particular (“scientifically” recognized as unexplained in Hume’s time)
- The existence of the human mind and consciousness (still unexplained, perhaps with prospects fading)
- The creation from conception to maturity of each human life
- The amazing grace-assisted nature of particular lives and events (see Charlie Kirk)
- The unexplainable “scientific” attributes of nature and life (such as a boundless universe, black holes, magnetic forces, the cell, DNA, and quantum mechanics; really, an endless list)
- The intervention of the Supernatural into the Natural (God, angels, demons, ghosts, apparitions, dreams, etc.)
- The intervention of the Natural into the Supernatural (dreams, Near Death Experiences, After Death Experiences, etc.)
Praxis Circle Videos Addressing Miracles
The seven video clips below are taken from interviews where miracles of various kinds are discussed. We’ve included a link to the Contributor’s full interview, along with the featured clip’s library number for your own reference. You can find where that clip appears in their interview by simply scrolling through the full interview’s playlist. The conversation on miracles often extends beyond one clip, so feel free to explore the conversations for more commentary on the topic.
1. Bart Ehrman: Definition of Religion and Miracles
Bart Ehrman discusses in video BE-32 why he doesn’t define religion. He also adopts a definition of a miracle similar to David Hume. To him, any god is a “god of the gaps.” Bart is a former Christian who is now an atheist-naturalist. He believes the ancients had no issues with miracles because they had no conception of modern science or natural law. He says elsewhere in the interview that he gave up believing in God because he could not get past the problem of evil, pain, and suffering after teaching on the subject for many years. Given what he sees in the world, he believes a creator god would necessarily be as bad as good. This seems like a reasonable position to many, and a response is beyond the scope of this post. We’ve addressed it before, but more attention is needed here in the future. Watch his full interview here.
2. Heather Mac Donald: A Conversation on the Evidence for God and Miracles
In video HM-15, Heather Mac Donald indulges me quite respectfully in a discussion about the evidence for God and miracles. She does not believe in coincidences. She says the human mind seeks agency and teleology often when none exists. She believes all reports of the supernatural are delusions or illusions. I press her on the amount of evidence around the world of supernatural-seeming events that are provable but cannot be explained. She places her faith in the scientific process of randomized controlled experiments offering repeatable data. As a relevant aside: I did not recall this during my interview of Heather, but Michael Novak and Heather engaged in a delightful back-and-forth in his book No One Sees God (2008), where she challenges religion, and he responds. In our Praxis Circle interview, she is particularly critical of petitionary prayer, where God seems to favor certain human beings over others. Her issues with miracles are related to Bart’s. Watch her full interview here.
3. Eben Alexander: What Began on November 10, 2008? A Brain Destroyed
I mention Eben Alexander at the end of the Heather clip above. Most of Eben’s long interview centered on the personal experience he had while a materialist brain surgeon practicing at Harvard in 2008, when he contracted meningitis. He went into a coma for seven days, experienced severe brain damage, and became brain dead. In his bestselling book Proof of Heaven (2012), he describes the coma experience of going to heaven and encountering verifiable evidence of the supernatural. His experience would either be classified as an NDE or ADE, depending on whether complete death occurred (another definitional problem). He and other doctors believe he did die (see below in EA-8R), and others believe he was not dead. (A materialist would believe he could not have died if he came back to life.) The experience radically changed Eben. He went from being an atheist-materialist to the other end of the spectrum. While raised a Christian, he is not a Christian today but a spiritualist-idealist believing in God and seeing all of life as consciousness. He claims that heaven (ultimate reality) was more real than this world’s reality. His experience was similar to thousands of other reported NDEs. He encountered God, believes God loves us intensely, and assures everyone we have nothing to worry about in this life. In my opinion, his description of God is similar to Saint Galgani’s. His miracle recovery fits patterns involving the mind recently reviewed in The Immortal Mind (2025). Watch his full interview here.
4. Stephen Meyer: Do Miracles (Like the Resurrection) Violate the Laws of Nature?
Stephen Meyer is a Christian scientist who believes science is proving God. He’s led the movement bringing religion back into science. He believes in the Resurrection (his comments here alone are worth watching 7:12) and does not believe miracles break David Hume’s laws of nature. He explains why. In any case, he believes Hume’s arguments are weak. He explains how he thinks about God’s intervention in this world in the video below (SM-33). While they have significant disagreements on scientific theory, particularly involving evolution, Stephen and Francis Collins have made religion respectable again for scientists. They see no conflict between religion and science; rather, the two enhance each other. Finally, both realize the limitations of man’s knowledge, understand science’s inescapable connection to philosophy, and appreciate the nature of man needing God—the Mind they believe is continuously creating the universe. Watch his full interview here.
5. Eric Metaxas: How Would You Define a Miracle? God Revealing Himself
Eric Metaxas defines miracles in EM-31 as mentioned above in a way only he can. Through miracles, God reveals himself to the point that we say “that was astonishing.” What he tried to achieve in his book Miracles is to show how astonishing experiences are actually common in the everyday lives of ordinary people. I sympathize with this because I see God in my life all the time and have even experienced the paranormal (The Ghost on Steamboat Road). In addition, there are stories in my family tree that provide incontrovertible evidence that a supernatural world exists (The Man Who Wouldn’t Die). All good material as we approach Halloween. (By the way, if there is a supernatural world, not everything there is good.) Almost every revelation is different, but the common element is that we say “that had to be God.” To Eric and Doug, reality is enchanting almost everywhere with God influencing us in astonishing ways, commonplace in the aggregate. Watch his full interview here.
6. Ross Mackenzie: Do You Believe in the Supernatural?
Ross Mackenzie went to Yale, studied under Leo Strauss at University of Chicago, and worked with William Buckley. He was the Editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch (morning) and the Richmond News Leader (afternoon) together for 38 years during the glory era of regional newspapers. In RM-11, we find that Ross does believe in the supernatural. His point of view here, I think, is similar to Jonathan Turley’s at top. I know that Ross intensely studied great men and women and their times and could see the hand of God in the lives of outstanding leaders. He would see that in the lives of Molly Worthen’s book Spellbound that includes, for example: Anne Hutchinson, George Whitefield, George Washington, Tecumseh, Andrew Jackson, Joseph Smith, Cora Scott, Abraham Lincoln, William Seymour and on to current times with Kathryn Kulhman, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and even Donald Trump. Leaders who are well known, had significant followings, and made a difference. Charlie Kirk is an outstanding example of a man in that category. But Ross also sees God in his own life, and he experienced his own miracle briefly mentioned in the interview involving cancer and especially surviving a broken neck in the wilderness that would have killed him without God willing otherwise. (By the way, he doesn’t like the word “conservative” either, considering himself a moderate or centrist. I believe we “conservatives” are now in the national majority, thanks in part to the efforts of amazing leaders like Charlie Kirk.) Watch his full interview here.
7. Julia Burns: Who Sees the Miracles in Your Life?
Julia Burns was interviewed because of the miracles she experienced in her own life. She was a devoted wife and mother of three, a compassionate psychiatrist to children, and a consistent leader of her church. You see her below after a deadly cancer had totally left her body, probably extending her life from two to eight years. Though she followed medical science’s suggestions closely, she attributed her recovery primarily to her faith and prayer. She talks extensively about that in her interview, but also about other miraculous events from her own life involving an angel, healings, and unusual observations in nature. Julia says below in JB-37 that her husband, Andy, is always the one who sees these “little” miracles first. Such miracles are all around us and have been seen in nature since the beginning of time by “primitive” (or native) people and “modern” people alike. But we have to be awake and ready because God’s signs come and go like stars twinkling in the night. Watch her full interview here or see our tribute to this her here.
Conclusion: Follow the Signs
Three weeks ago I found myself with five passengers and two pilots in a private jet at 41,000 feet flying back to Richmond, VA from Elkhardt, IN, comfortably sitting in my foam-cushioned seat looking down through the clouds at the beautiful setting. We flew over farmland, mountains, valleys, lakes, rivers, towns, and occasional cities. You could see the houses, barns, pools, highways, and gravel pits. I had just toured a foam plant of almost 1 million square feet that would have made the President of the United States break down in tears at the marvel of human ingenuity, management, and efficiency.
What struck me most was how much America remains a pastoral land of forested bounty with room for human beings in and of nature to grow and prosper as God’s favored creatures and nature’s stewards. All of known life in the universe spread out below our jet in a thin band of light, oxygen, and water around the earth.
When I got home I searched AI to discover that human beings cannot live permanently above 16,700 feet. The rest of life gives out somewhere between there and 30,000 feet. At the Armstrong Limit of 60,000 feet, without an aircraft’s protective chamber, my blood would have boiled—instant death—due to reduced atmospheric pressure that lowers the boiling point of human blood.
Truly, I concluded, what I had experienced in the jet was a miracle of imago Dei ingenuity, certainly to anyone living before the Wright Brothers, in viewing an infinitely greater miracle of life on earth, the only known place in the universe where we’re certain life exists.
At this stage of life, my belief is that human beings are homo religiosi programmed by God to see, seek, and love their Creator, though all in free agency. I see miracles everywhere, every day. I refuse to allow any “modernist” or materialist view of reality to transform the truly extraordinary into the mundane—or the truly sacred into the profane.
I believe Eric Metaxas’ definition of a miracle is most correct: “The Greek word for ‘miracle’ is simaios, which means ‘sign.’ Miracles are signs, and like all signs, they are never about themselves; they’re about what they are pointing toward . . . But to what? To God himself.” (Miracles, page 16) Miracles are a sign from God.
So, how many black swans are needed to prove all swans aren’t white? How many Biblical miracles must be true to prove miracles are real? How many miraculous people or events are needed to conclude God is in our lives communicating with and helping us constantly?
As we know, witnessing a miracle doesn’t mean our troubles are over. We still must live and act wisely to serve Him. But what miracles do is assure us the Kingdom of God is near.
God bless Charlie and Erika Kirk, and Rest in Peace, Mr. Kirk. In Christ, our and your spirit grows ever stronger.
