It has been said that “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” There is truth in this statement. I would normally argue that there must be also all the permutations in between. However, when it comes to miracles there does not appear to be any middle ground.
We see our ordinary day to day life as being exactly that, ordinary, what we were born into. That is just how it is. We are used to it and do not see anything special about it, let alone miraculous. Under this view we hold miracles to be exceptional, extraordinary and inexplicable events. Science is always there to give us explanations and where there are none, we are told that it is just a matter of time until science sheds light on the occurrence. When this happens, we will then see that it is just another way in which the world works, it will become ordinary.
When it comes to miracles science has nothing to contribute as it is man-made. Being man-made, it is necessarily based on hypotheses as humans are the created and not the creator. We need to look elsewhere. We live in a natural world, the earth, that is the material world that we perceive through our bodily senses. Again, this material earth did not create itself so there must be something that transcends it, that has created it, which is invisible to us.
Bodily perceptions are the smaller part of our life. The bigger part of our life is intangible. Our will, our knowing, thoughts and emotions, intuitions, love, friendship, the meaning and purpose that we give to our experiences and things, creativity and inventiveness, the formulation of problems and solutions and more. These intangibles transcend that which is of this earth. These non-material functions, that we all have, are the essence of each one of us. We can go as far as to say that, without them, we would not be human. A better way to see it is that these intangibles have reality in both the earthly and the transcendental, or the realm of the spirit.
We therefore would be justified to conclude that that which makes us human is not of this earth but is derived from spirit.
In my opinion, the meaning and purpose of God’s incarnation on earth in the person of Christ, was to display the miracle of the resurrection. The logical arguments for the existence of a creator and that creation has intention, are overwhelming. So, the question is not whether one believes in miracles but whether one believes in God. In the absence of a belief in a highest principality that is true, good, loving, all-powerful and eternal, one cannot fathom the possibility of miracles. Whereas if one believes in such a highest principality then miracles are obviously possible and an integral part of life.
Icon of the Resurrection
Whether it is the creation of a human baby or the young of any other species or a plant growing from a seed, these events can only be described as miraculous. Now, these and other miraculous occurrences take place every second of every day in numbers that are too large to calculate and have done so since the beginning of time in all living organisms on earth. For example, the latest estimates for the number of cells in a human body is one hundred trillion. Therefore, the daily interactions in one human body between one cell and another, runs into thousands of trillions. Do the math for all living organisms. Science can list what may be observed of the process, but it has no light to shed on what is powering and intending this immeasurable expression of life.
The argument for a continuously miraculous creation of our lives, and all life, is supremely obvious. As human life comes from spirit, it cannot be other than a spiritual journey. The world is an enchanted place and it should be experienced from a standpoint of humility, awe and wonder.
Miracles exist, and are happening all around us, as such is the nature of a miraculous life.
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Also published on Substack.com
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