So far we have explored how the truth that is affirmed by Christ is nothing less than an unfathomable life-giving event. We have also reflected upon the idea that God, as expressed within the Judeo-Christian tradition, cannot be distinguished from this event. Now we will turn our attention to its nature as miracle.
Unlike the common view that would split God into the distinct categories of being, revelation, and event, the approach that we have been developing here leads to the claim that these cannot be separated. Instead, from our human perspective, they ought to be approached as exhibiting a type of Trinitarian structure whereby each is inextricably bound up with the others and affirms one and the same fundamental reality. The three are one, operating with a minimal difference, that is, a difference within the one rather than a difference that would render it into three. We misunderstand the truth of faith if we think that the nature, revelation, and event of God can be torn apart from each other and compartmentalized in isolation from one another.
Each of these is merely a different way of bringing to mind, describing, exploring, or referring to the same reality in a different register. On the lips of the believer words such as God, revelation, and rebirth are responses to the occurrence of an intervention, a miracle that has taken place. When Pascal wrote of the heart as having reasons that reason does not know, he was referring to a type of knowledge that is foreign to the academic disciplines and different from the type of knowledge we seek in daily life. He was referring to the knowledge of a transformation that could never be placed into words or experience and thus could never be objectified, dissected, and distanced from us.
Christian faith teaches us, if we are sensitive and able to be taught, that the seemingly opposite and opposed realms of radical doubt and absolute certainty are reconciled in a knowing beyond knowledge. There is no doubt for the believer that God dwells with us (as an event), yet there is a deep uncertainty about who, what, or even if God is (as a being). As we saw in the last chapter, the Christian is one who affirms the intervention while understanding that there will always be questions as to the source of that intervention. God, the revelation of God, and the event of God all, at their most luminous, are ways of referring to and responding to a miracle.
Discussion and debates concerning the idea of miracles have generally revolved around issues to do with whether or not it is possible for events to occur that suspend or break the laws of nature. Debates have taken place concerning whether the present, future, and even the past can be altered by supernatural intervention. In addition to these questions there are a host of others connected to issues such as whether what we think is a miracle may actually be the occurrence of a natural event that we do not yet understand, whether we are ever justified in claiming to have witnessed a miracle, and what would even count as one. Indeed, there are even people who wonder whether some of the latest scientific theories concerning quantum mechanics lend credibility to, or take it away from, the possibility of a supernatural intervention. While such debates are interesting and find a happy home in undergraduate philosophy classes, these discussions can actually obscure the very thing that they are attempting to illuminate. For the Christian idea of the miraculous delves much deeper than such debates.
This does not mean that one must reject the idea of physical transformations any more than it means that one ought to embrace them. It no more means that one ought to stop praying for the sick any more than it is a call to do so. Both those reading this book who regularly engage in praying for physical healing and those who do not believe in such occurrences will find no support for their positions within these pages, for in order to get to the heart of what a miracle is we must move beyond these discussions. The miracle that Christianity affirms is too precious to be reduced to such a level.
There are no doubt a host of strange occurrences that take place in the world, occurrences that are often given the name “miracle.” Yet the whole idea of a miracle as that which suspends or breaks the laws of nature is not only legitimately interrogated by academics but also undermined by the works of magicians, and mired by the unscrupulous acts of religious charlatans. As such, even if one deeply believes in the possibility and actuality of events of this nature, one must also acknowledge that such a position is debatable—not just in the absence of witnessing some extraordinary event but even in the presence of one.
It would be dishonest of the believer not to acknowledge that there are other valid explanations for seemingly extraordinary events that may even provide more intellectually satisfying answers. Such miracles are thus open to legitimate doubt, not only for those who have not witnessed or attempted to evoke such extraordinary events but also for those who have. It is only honest for one who prays for the sick to understand that there may be other explanations for what is taking place than the supernatural one. This does not in any way take away from the practice itself, but simply acknowledges our intellectual finitude and demonstrates openness to other perspectives.
In contrast to the above debates there is a sense in which the miracle of Christianity takes place at a level that is indubitable, at least for the person who has undergone it. This idea of miracle, as we shall see, is a full-blooded one that bears witness to an earth-shattering event that can transform the present, future, and even the past. In this event, everything is changed, and even the old is made new. However, in order to approach this miracle it is important for us to bracket out the above debates, debates that can so often eclipse the supernatural moment that Christianity affirms. Indeed we can witness this desire to avoid allowing physical healings to get in the way of the true miracle in the Gospels themselves when Jesus is presented as healing people and then, in stark contrast to what we would expect, asks them to keep the healing secret. For instance, in the Gospel of Luke we read this:
While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.
Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”76
It was as if Jesus was worried that such healings could so easily become a barrier to understanding the central miracle of the Christian faith, that some outward sign inspiring awe and devotion would stand in for the real thing.
This idea is beautifully illustrated in the Hasidic story in which the rabbi of Gur, during the Second World War, was invited to advise Winston Churchill about how to ensure the downfall of Germany. The story goes that this great rabbi looked at Churchill and solemnly said, “Prime Minister, there are two ways in which this could happen. The natural and the supernatural. The natural solution would involve a million angels with flaming swords descending upon Germany. The supernatural would involve a million Englishmen parachuting down from the sky.” The story famously ends with the line that, being a rationalist, Churchill first opted for the natural solution.
The key to understanding this enigmatic message is to understand that if a million angels with flaming swords descended upon Germany, then this would be an event that took place in the natural realm. In other words these angels would act like other objects in the world; they would be seen, heard, and experienced. These angels, if they showed up as the rabbi described, would inhabit space and time like any other object and so, while unlike other objects that we encounter in the world, would still be objects.
In contrast, the rabbi speaks of a supernatural response to the Nazi war machine, namely a million British soldiers descending from the sky in parachutes. But what is it about this response that is supernatural in contrast to the image of angels descending from the heavens? Here one could say that the rabbi is hinting at a deep change in the hearts of the British that would precipitate such a drastic response. This change, for the rabbi, would be deeply supernatural in the sense that the change itself would not be something that could be captured in a laboratory or measured by reference to some purely utilitarian calculation (otherwise it would be a natural phenomenon). Unlike the descent of warrior angels, this change would not lend itself to be approached as a natural object to be reflected upon; it would not be made manifest to the senses like the angels with their flaming swords.
The point is not to exclude the idea that miracles can involve awe-inspiring, breathtaking spectacles, but rather to point out that if the event is purely spectacular, involving no real change in the core of one’s being, then it is nothing more than a spectacle. Physical changes are natural insomuch as they take place in the natural realm. Our medical technology is constantly improving and is able to heal in ways that would have seemed magical only a hundred or two hundred years ago. Vital as such healing is in today’s world, such a focus can eclipse what Christianity affirms as the true miracle. It is not something natural (although it will manifest itself in the natural world) but something supernatural. It does not register as an object that can be recorded and beamed around the world on some religious cable channel, or witnessed at a local charismatic healing service. A miracle worth its salt takes place in the world but is not of it. A miracle worthy of the name is so radical that while in the physical world nothing may change, in the one who has been touched by it nothing remains the same.
Consider the words of Jesus after we read that he has caused a fig tree to wither away just by speaking to it in Matthew 21. In response to this his disciples are amazed and say, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” Jesus is recorded as replying, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.”77
On the surface this claim seems utterly insane. Does Jesus really mean that one could, through faith, lift a mountain and place it into the sea? Can faith really evoke a miracle that will irrevocably change an entire landscape? Yet at a fundamental level this is precisely what a miracle does in fact do. A miracle is signaled by the fact that the entire landscape of our being is transformed and transfigured. For when a miracle takes place, everything changes in the life of the individual—not only the present and the future, but also the past. Let us consider one such miracle, the act of forgiveness. When one forgives nothing changes in the world; everything continues as normal as if nothing had happened. Yet, in another sense something of fundamental significance has taken place.
Those who forgive find themselves interacting with the present in a totally different way and experience liberation from the past. The past is not forgotten; one cannot, and should not, forget great injustices. Rather, in forgiveness the past is remembered, but remembered differently, held differently, recalled differently. Nothing in the past has changed, yet it seems like a different past; the situation remains but has lost its burdensome weight. In this act of forgiveness we are freed from the past—a freedom that changes the whole trajectory of a person’s life, opening up new possibilities and opportunities. Forgiveness, love, and hope are all miraculous in the supernatural sense that the rabbi of Gur was hinting at. In the language we have been using here, the miracle is not something that can be judged by the conceptual framework used in scientific research, for it does not dwell there or manifest itself directly in that exterior space.
Is this not what we see expressed in Matthew 9 when we read that a man who was paralyzed met Jesus? In contrast to what we would expect, Jesus turns to him and performs the true miracle, saying to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” The teachers of the law understood what was happening here—or at least they understood what Jesus was claiming to be doing—and they said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!” In response to this we read:
Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” Then the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to human beings.78
This text is a beautiful expression of the miracle—that which transforms the core of our being, revolutionizing our interior world. The actual physical healing here is nothing more than a signpost to the real miracle. In order to understand this let us consider the following parable, inspired by a story in the Gospels.
After Jesus descended from the Mount of Olives he came across a man who had been blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must carry out the works of him who sent me while it is day, for night is approaching, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “My friend, go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” So the man went and washed and returned in jubilation, shouting, “I can see.”
The neighbors and those who knew him as a beggar began to grumble saying, “Has this man lost his mind? for he was born blind.” Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” In response the old man kept repeating, “I am the man. Jesus anointed my eyes and said, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and now I can see everything.”
To ascertain what had happened to this man since his meeting with Jesus, they brought him to the Pharisees. “Give glory to God,” they said. “We know that this man is a sinner.” But the old man answered, “Whether or not he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
But the Pharisees began to laugh. “Old man, meeting Jesus has caused you to lose your mind. You had to be carried into this room by friends, you still stumble and fall like a fool. You are still as blind today as the day you were born.”
“That may be true,” replied the old man with a long, deep smile. “As I have told you before, all I know is that yesterday I was blind but today, today I can see.”79
Because a miracle takes place at a radically subjective level that cannot be objectified or analyzed, it is not, strictly speaking, something that is believed in. Rather it is lived. Indeed it can easily be lived and not believed in. The evidence of such a miracle is in the way in which it transforms the individual’s inner world, changing the entire trajectory of that person’s life in a positive, healing way. How one names this miracle, or even if one wishes to baptize it with any name, is irrelevant. What matters is the occurrence. It is this miracle that the church is there to affirm by engaging in creative acts of remembrance concerning this immemorial event. However, instead of these acts of humble remembrance, much of the church has emphasized the importance of what we think. So often we find an emphasis on belief, followed by behavior, that then leads into belonging. For instance, if a Christian is sharing his or her faith, the discussion will likely concern a set of beliefs that one is asked to accept—beliefs that will often include the existence of God, the deity of Christ, the existence of sin, and the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. If these are accepted then the individual will be asked to engage in a certain behavior, that is, to pray, repent, and join the local church. Then, once this has taken place, that individual will be welcomed into the Christian community, being invited to get involved in the life of the church.
This approach works with the underlying idea that belief is of prime importance in Christianity, followed by behavior, followed by belonging. In contrast to this let us briefly consider the birth of an infant. When a child enters the world she does not begin with a system of beliefs that must be accepted before she belongs to the family. The infant, in a healthy environment, begins her life with absolute, unconditional acceptance. The infant belongs to the family as the family now belongs to the infant. As the child grows she gradually learns to engage in the various rituals in which the family engages. These will include times when the family members eat together, play together, relax together, and so on. Then the child will begin to form a set of beliefs about the world into which she is already embedded. These will generally begin by mimicking the beliefs of the parents. Then these beliefs will likely come into conflict with those of the parents, as she attempts to wrestle with the world for herself and test limits. And finally she will often come into some equitable relationship with the parents’ beliefs, agreeing with some and disagreeing with others. Within a healthy, loving family each of these stages will be welcomed and allowed room to breathe.
This approach thus places belonging first, followed by behavior, followed last and least, by belief. This model is what we find in operation within a broadly Hebraic approach to faith, an approach that emphasizes belonging to the community and engaging in the shared rituals of that community. When it comes to our beliefs, that is, to theoretical reflection upon our embedded existence, there is an acknowledgment that we will often think and rethink these at various times in our lives. What is important is that, regardless of the doubts and beliefs we have, we know that we have a vital place in the community and are encouraged to remain involved in the traditions—traditions that, at their best, provide ample space for doubt, ambiguity, and uncertainty.
Is this not the wisdom that is contained in the Jewish parable that speaks of a heated debate taking place in a park between two old and learned rabbis? The conversation in question revolves around a particularly complex and obscure verse in the Torah. It is not the first time that these two intellectual giants have crossed swords over this verse; in fact they have debated it for years, sometimes changing their opinions but never finding a consensus. God is, of course, known to have the patience of a saint, but even God begins to tire of the endless discussion. So finally God decides to visit the two men and tell them once and for all what the parable means. God reaches down, pulls the clouds apart, and begins to speak: “You have been debating this verse endlessly for years; I will now tell you what it means. . . . ” But before God can continue, the two rabbis look up and say, in a rare moment of unity, “Who are you to tell us what the verse means? You have given us the words, now leave us in peace to wrestle with it.”
In this parable we are reminded that a religious approach to the text is not one in which we attempt to find out its definitive meaning, but rather where we wrestle with it and are transformed by it. The parable tells us not that a God’s-eye view is impossible, but rather that even if it were possible it would not be wanted. Why? Because a God’s-eye view of the truth would not be the truth. We can thus say that any interpretation of a verse that is given to us by God is not a true interpretation of the verse and must be rejected as such. For the problem resides not in having an interpretation but rather in the place that we give to our interpretation. No matter how wonderful our interpretation is, if it occupies an authoritative place then it undermines its own status.
For the rabbis in this story the truth of the verses is not discovered after some long, drawn-out process of debate and discussion, but rather is evidenced within the process of debate and discussion itself. The truth is negatively testified to in the commitment to a constant unraveling and re-sowing of our ideas in relationship with the text—an approach that emphasizes the need for relationship (they are friends), shared rituals (they are both rabbis), and the place of diverse views (they disagree with each other).
We see this approach fleshed out in the life of Jesus when he calls the disciples. In the Gospels we read that the disciples are called to leave their past behind and live in close community with Jesus. It is likely that they know very little about this man, beyond perhaps that he is a subversive rabbi. Once they are part of this intimate gathering, the disciples begin to engage in shared practices. Then, finally, near the end of the ministry of Jesus, some of the disciples appear to begin to develop beliefs about who they think Jesus is. Here we witness an emphasis upon belonging, followed by behavior, followed last and least by belief. Indeed, what is interesting is Jesus’ reaction when some of the disciples begin to form some beliefs that we would recognize today as a primitive form of Christology. In the Gospel of Matthew we read this:
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of death will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.80
It is the last line that is of particular interest. In contrast to those who wish to shout from every rooftop the belief that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus is presented as wishing to keep this a secret—almost as if such a belief might get in the way of the good news itself.
It is such an idea that Pascal understood as he worked on his unfinished book Pensées. Pascal is known best for an argument that has been named Pascal’s Wager. He is famous for arguing that in life one must live as though there is an ultimate personal source called God or that there is not. One cannot sit on the fence on this issue, because our decision is evidenced in our life rather than in some verbal declaration. Whether or not I say that I believe in God, the evidence of my belief is shown in whether I live as though there is a God or not. So Pascal asked whether it would be more reasonable to act as though God does not exist or to live as though God does exist, considering one has to wager one’s life anyway. He then went on to argue that it would be more reasonable to bet that God does exist and live accordingly, rather than the other way around. The reason for this relates to the fact that the consequences of making this bet and being right could be very considerable, while the consequences of making this bet and being wrong would seem pretty insignificant. In contrast, betting that God does not exist significantly reduces the chances of gaining the possible pleasure that would result in betting that God does exist and being right. This is a rather simplified and concise rendering of the argument, and there are a number of legitimate problems with it. However, what is often missed when the wager is being dissected in philosophy class is the underlying idea that provoked Pascal to forge it in the first place. For the argument is very different from those that had been offered before, arguments that attempted to prove that belief in God is reasonable because of certain evidence or because of the principles of logic.
While Pascal believed that the evidence of creation and the human psyche point toward the reasonableness of Christianity, he understood that this is not relevant. What is important is that people join the religious community and engage in the rituals. This acting as if it were true was not, for Pascal, authentic Christianity, and it did not guarantee that the miracle of faith would take place. But he reasoned that it was the best place to invite this miracle. Thus he was simply attempting to construct an argument that would convince his friends, many of whom were gamblers and would have thus been intrigued by the idea of a wager—to enter into a faith community and engage in the various activities.
If one were to think of this argument in relation to the idea of love, Pascal was in effect saying that if someone does not believe in love the best approach is not to engage in some abstract debate about the subject matter but rather to convince the person to wager that love does exist and to engage in the activities that those who believe in love engage in. While this does not guarantee that one will find love, it would seem like the best place to look for it.
Up to now I have attempted to argue that the truth attested to by Christian faith is not something that we can distance ourselves from and reduce to the realm of physical objects, but rather is nothing less than the undergoing of what has been called, within the Christian tradition, a miracle. This miracle, however we understand it, is analogous to a rebirth or new life in which we are radically transformed so that our relationship to the past, present, and future is no longer the same. This miracle signals the transfiguration of our entire being. It refers to a world-shattering transformation that is hinted at it in words such as love, forgiveness, hope, and faith. The result is a truth that is both undeniable to the one who undergoes it and yet is open to doubt. For one can simultaneously question the source of this miracle while embracing it, being nourished by it and living in the light of it. Indeed, one can deny the miracle or be oblivious to it and still testify to it via one’s life.
What we find within the Christian tradition is a beautiful way of remembering, embracing, being nourished by, and living in the light of this miracle despite all the legitimate concerns and doubts we may have concerning it. For Christianity, at its best, offers us a community of people who have likewise been knowingly marked by the miracle and who wish to celebrate it through shared rituals such as prayer, meditation, fasting, liturgy, serving the poor, fighting injustice, and so on.
Instead of forming churches that emphasize belief before behavior and behavior before belonging, there is a vast space within the tradition to form communities that celebrate belonging to one another in the undergoing and aftermath of the miracle, a belonging that manifests itself in communally agreed rituals, creeds, and activities. In the midst of all this these communities can also encourage lively, heated, and respectful discussions concerning the nature and form of belief.
When thinking through issues to do with morality, religion, the world, and social action, people can introduce and employ the richest thoughts of the various intellectual disciplines, because the truth that Christianity affirms does not impact these discussions in terms of content but rather in terms of approach, demanding that the conclusions we come to bring liberation and healing.