Filosophy - Sneak Peek 2: Miracles

An excerpt that attempts to clear the air around the day-to-day events that are usually sidelined as ‘Miracles’ due to it being indescribable by humans at any single point of time. The excerpt is part of a chapter titled ‘A Beautiful God’ in my book-in-the-making ‘Filosophy – Setting fuzzy facts straight’.

​

Miracles are not those that, as assumed by the world today and has been assumed ever since the day they were first witnessed, happen in a way that is far-fetched for the rules of the world to provide for its occurrence but rather is one which is beyond the contemplation of man at any given point of time with due recognition of the knowledge possessed and experiences faced at that very instant.

​

An event, occurrence, action, or process that was considered a miracle a couple of decades ago can very well be dismissed as a normal possibility today thereby making it an entity whose what’s why’s where’s and how’s have been explained and detailed well.

​

In that very regard, in a scientific sense, the noble works that doctors carry out, with the help of the tools that they acquire through the principles of a lot of other scientific fields, in order to save lives will most certainly be considered a miracle by Adam and Eve, whom we consider our foremost forefathers, or for that matter even the people belonging to the Adivasi tribe of India today.

​

Not to mention, some of the customs that the Adivasi tribe practice may be lame to us but when thought out more deeply can incite us in realizing that they too have a miraculous way of getting the task at hand done.  Here, both the works of the doctors and the stupendous innovation that characterizes the working mechanisms of the tools that the former use can both be considered miracles let alone the former alone being considered one.

​

To both Adam and Eve, even the process by which fire was discovered or how the first group of humans who came up with the idea of a wheel by rolling down circular objects down the hill would have both constituted the idea of miracles let alone the possibility of carrying out heart surgery. A mobile phone would have been a miracle to those who spent weeks and months to hear back from the ones with whom they communicated by posting the letters that they crafted out beautifully with a feather and some ink at the end of it.

​

Why consider the olden days, even today for those of us who don’t understand the technology that powers most of our electronic devices and gadgets, a mobile phone included, all of these would make up as a bundled group of miracles whose thorough understanding we may never attain in our lives. It is assumed here that people understand that miracles are nothing more than wonders, wonders which are too brilliant to be achieved yet happen between the blinking of our eyes.

So when people think of the miracles performed by Jesus Christ, it is only normal for people to assume that He is doing works that would, by a normal person, on any given day, with the knowledge or skills that he or she possesses, be impossible to be carried out. One must understand that all the miracles stated before the point immediately above about that of Christ are those that have used the laws of nature for its occurrence.

​

Not one miracle has been carried out such that it alters the law or even if it does in some scientific cases, it would be based on various altered outcomes of the law at the maximum and never out of a nonexistent base which very often is one of the basic laws of nature.

​

For example, an iPhone was not brought out from outer space, not at least in my knowledge, but rather was brought into one piece with the help of various elements and minerals that were mined out from the core of the earth in a hardware perspective while the software of the same will have been built with the help of minds that worked towards bringing about an Operating System and other related software entities that would do the role that the producer would do for the consumer, in providing for the needs of the latter without the interference of the former. Now, if the battery that holds charge in the iPhone, which enables the consumer to use it with mobility, had never got drained out, then we will be right in claiming that it is truly a miracle, one for which there is no possible explanation ever, for such a thing to happen. Even in such a case, we are most certainly aware that no miracle that we claim it to be has the potential to break the laws of nature as both creation and sustenance of the same needs the conformance of some law or the other to assist it, hands down. That’s how nature works, in case we have any doubts about that.

​

So what matters most here is just whether the action that we have seen with our eyes or heard with our ears and most importantly understood with our hearts and minds are conforming to some law and here, there is always a possibility that it may conform to a law that we are not aware of or the basis of which has not yet been established.

​

A person living during the stone age who, for the first time without any prior knowledge or awareness, experienced an apple falling on their head from a tree or a huge rock rolling down a hill thereby making them run for their life, will most certainly assume that some evil force which they are unaware of is trying to use some natural elements against them. Though from time to time such things happen and are considered either miracles, if they happen for the good of someone or something, or omens if they happen for the converse, it is not until it is established as a normal event by scientists such as Isaac Newton, who confirmed that both of these examples are ones that happen due to the object, either the apple or the huge rock, experiencing the gravitational pull of the earth, that people start accepting that no major force played truants against them in specific. Even then you will most certainly have chaps here and there especially in countries like India who would like to stick to their superstitious beliefs.

​

The only question here would be, why out of all of sudden would such a law have its changing effect when all along they were keeping in harmony with the same law? Well, this is where some preceding action, either of the person themselves or of a congruently effective natural event would have played a crucial role in deciding the turn of events. It could very well have been that the winds blowing through the region of the apple tree, at that very instant, would have been both exceedingly and unusually high so much so that the stem gave its way to the same thereby owing to the unfortunate fate of the person, on whose head it fell on.

​

In case of the huge rock atop a hill, it could very well have been that the person, whom it was chasing, was, not very long ago before it started rolling down, responsible for pushing away a relatively small piece of rock upon which its whole weight was resting upon.

​

The only question here then is what or who instructed the winds to blow too strongly at that point, in case of the apple tree, or what made the person do something so silly, in case of the chasing rock and to answer such a question momentary explanations of the same wouldn’t suffice.

​

In the latter case, when it is assumed that it is the folly of the person that caused the rock to roll down the hill and make them run for their life, we must remember that there are instances where people don’t really understand why some acts have come out them, either good or bad. This is true as in the case of Peter in the Bible who swore to Christ that he wouldn’t betray the latter but went on to do so not once but thrice, leaving aside all the wonderful teachings and days that he had spent learning and moving along with his divine master.

​

What Peter can, and would most certainly have, taken as his consolation at the end of it all is how his life was turned downside up just because he chose to live on, and not end his life with guilt and regret like Judas Iscariot, and came in contact with his resurrected master and willingly with complete dedication, took on the task bestowed on him to lead more sheep onto the shepherd’s care.

​

In such cases, it is only logical for us to understand that just as revolutionary acts happen for the greater good, or are at least assumed to be for the same in cases of those that don’t truly happen for it, miracles are intended purely for greater causes to be achieved.

​

In Peter’s case, his folly allowed Christ to make him realize that a transformation of the highest order is in the cards, a transformation that would make his faith rely not on himself, rather in Christ.

​

If a person can understand this transformation of faith without experiencing it, one can only assume the greatness of that spirit but I doubt that such a thing can happen in the modern world because to truly rely upon God, there most certainly needs to be a transformation – again one which makes us realize that God is the most stable entity to rely upon than our own selves. And indeed, once we learn to abide by our wonderful Creator, we ensure that our souls slowly start reflecting a nature that is of that divine being Himself so much so that our souls can not only be trusted by ourselves, but also by the selves of other neighboring beings, truly so too.

​

The major aspects to be carried away from here are not just the what’s and how’s of the miracles that happen from time to time but also the why’s and when’s of the same and knowing the latter is of higher significance since the former determines something that can be established due to its unchanging nature while the latter has a direction of its own which cannot be determined by mortal beings.

​

If Jesus Christ’s miracles, such as the acts of bringing the dead back alive, curing lepers of their ailment, walking on water and the turning of water to fresh wine, which are often considered lame or not even taken into consideration due to the vague claims behind the same, are to be understood, you need to go nowhere beyond Science, particularly the part of the same that yet remains to be explored despite the centuries that have passed with humans trying to learn from nature.

​

In that, Science being a language of observation and results must be understood as explorative and not conclusive of aspects that yet remain mysterious or in the words as put before – miraculous, because what lies ahead for every observation of nature is more than what lies behind and this can be agreed upon by atheists and believers equally.

​

Now, to explain the above-mentioned miracles of Christ in scientific terms, we are going to need to make some assumptions which one day we again assume would become scientific principles or laws that ensure that any man could do the same unless of course, God doesn’t permit it by hiding the reasoning of the same from man in order to maintain the divinity of Christ and more importantly of the act itself.

​

By considering the above-mentioned explanation for the happenings of miracles and their purposes, let us now assume that the act of bringing back a person from death or removing leprosy from a person or walking on water or turning water into wine happens based on a law of nature that has been written when the earth was created.

​

Now, if you or any other person comes in contact with the spell or command that ensures that such a law is triggered, it can only be imagined what we would do with it. Since believers know that Christ is the Son of God, as claimed by himself and because we believe in Him and His words, it is normal for Christ to know the ‘Abracadabra’ that made the acts possible.

If observed stringently, we can conclude that the only assumption made above is that a law behind what we call miracles exist thereby making them normal acts since what triggers the law would have been established by the time the air behind the assumption is cleared.

​

It must also be remembered that an ordinary con artist can also do the subtler miracles mentioned above such as the walking on water and turning of water into wine but what gets established there is not the law but a way by which the law’s consequences can be replicated and to be fooled or not by the person claiming to have known the ‘Abracadabra’ behind it is our choice, a choice that we need to make very judiciously and soulfully. As Christ had reminded us, ‘Many false prophets will come’ and ‘Ye shall know them by their fruits’, the only prayer we can afford to have here is that more people are made aware of what the truth is and more importantly what the truth can be and cannot be deviated into.

​

The answer to miracles, as discussed above, comes not from religious claims but from a mix of religious and scientific claims and indeed it is in accordance with Einstein saying, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

If a person repeats what the passers-by during Christ’s crucifixion said, ‘If you are the Son of God, bring yourself down from the Cross’, then it is only safe to assume that they are yet to understand that the what and how has been answered but not the why and when, thereby giving primary importance to the will of God, the purposes of God.

​

The first aspect to be realized when we think of God, if we believe in Him that is, is that He is the creator, the contemplator of this universe and what matters above everything else is His purposes as no creation would be meaningful without a purpose. We, almost in all spectrums of life, have people saying – the ends can be met at any cost, either in terms of minds, money and its related luxuries, etc., but that which matters the most is ‘what are we going to achieve, what’s the purpose behind all of this’ and if that is set right, then all the ends of the world can be shaken to get it done.

​

We often ask, why some people are more blessed than the others, why the good are considered the chosen ones of God, as is mentioned in many cases in the Bible itself, and also as to why some people have it much easier through the different phases of their life than others, indeed with a benchmark set for all while questioning, and the most convincing yet simple explanation for it is that God’s laws have been set in place for the sustenance of all living beings.

​

You may have asked for the intervention of God at times in your life, perhaps at a time when you were having faith, but may have got dismayed because of the silence from the other end, but one must realize that intervention means mishandling the free-will that God has given us and a start for such things would mean a never-ending strand of interventions which would seem unnatural of God. Laws make up for the interventions that need to be made by God as is it in the case for any human law that has been put in place in order to provide for a peaceful living of all men.

​

Now, the circumstance where we expect God’s intervention is when either our fellow men or we ourselves, owing to our own folly, do something that tears apart the peace that is meant to be maintained thereby expecting a divine hand to restore back all the peace. The only counter-question in such a circumstance would be, why a man who is interested in this peace and expects God to provide for the same doesn’t take willful steps to ensure the same and in the argument of it all, all that is lost is merely sensible reasoning.

​

Just as ‘Fortune favors the brave’, God’s laws are destined to favor those who strive for the truth and goodness, as we may all agree, is just a persona that is reflected by the constant dwelling of truth in one’s heart.

​

Now, once we abide by our Creator, it wouldn’t be a surprise if He assists us with the laws that are persistent across the horizons of nature, that which are both understandable by mortals and not and with that assistance, we could make a whole lot of positive difference in the world and there can’t be any argument over that.