MIRACLES: Wiles On Miracles

Question 1

Who is Wiles?

Answer 1

Anglican priest and academic

Question 2

Wiles Argument 1

Definition of miracles

Answer 2

God doesn’t act in the world through miracles

Wiles approves of Tillich’s view that miracles are sign events

Question 3

Wiles argument 2

Why does the view that God performs miracles exist?

Answer 3

God has been thought of as interfering in the laws of nature to perform miracles

Question 4

Wiles argument 3

If God performed miracles then he would seem to act immorally

Answer 4

If we think of God as sometimes using miracles to help people then the whole idea of miracles becomes ‘implausible … and religiously unsatisfactory’

Question 5

Wiles argument 4

The problem of evil

Answer 5

If God intervened selectively then the problem of evil would be unsolvable because there would be no reason why God couldn’t intervene all the time

‘The direct intervention of God … would … have disastrous implications for our understanding of the problem of evil’

Question 6

Wiles argument 5

Anti real view of miracles

Answer 6

The miracle tradition is problematic for the critical reader today
Our concern is with the meaning of miracles for those who developed and passed on the tradition
Jesus refuses to perform a miracle in the desert- miracles must have religious context
The biblical accounts of miracles are myths

Question 7

Wiles argument 6

The one miracle

Answer 7

There is only one miracle- creation

Question 8

Wiles argument 7

Deism

Answer 8

God creates the universe and leaves it to work through its natural laws; external creator God- deism