Premise 1: A miracle is defined as an event that violates
or is not accounted for by natural law.
Premise 2: Natural laws are consistent and universal; their validity depends on
the absence of arbitrary exceptions.
Premise 3: God, being omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, would design
natural laws perfectly and foresee all outcomes.
Premise 4: An event cannot be considered a justified exception to a rule when it
appears arbitrary or inexplicable to human observers - we have no reason to
guess that it is.
Premise 5: If natural laws are perfect and all outcomes are foreseen, no
arbitrary exceptions are necessary or logically possible.
Conclusion: Therefore, events traditionally called miracles cannot be true
violations or exceptions to natural law; they must be either misunderstood, part
of natural law, or misinterpreted as supernatural. We have to make this
approach our working hypothesis.
THE ARGUMENT
Is it true that God makes laws and creates exceptions to them, such as miracles?
A miracle is what is not naturally possible. It is a supernatural occurrence. It is paranormal. The core of Christian belief is that God, who is bigger than nature, was able to have Jesus rise from the dead, though natural law is that the dead stay dead. That is the mega-miracle.
A statue coming to life hardly looks like a natural law gone astray. It looks like magic or a violation of nature. Religion says God makes good rules for nature, and all rules can have exceptions, so the miracle is an exception to the normal course of nature.
This theory cannot be supported by any data or evidence.
The reason is that the exception must always prove the rule, and you have no way of showing that God was proving the rule. You cannot know all His reasons for acting.
It is odd how religion considers miracles—which it passes off as signs from God that its doctrine is true—to be exceptions. If exceptions happen, then we have to expect the unexpected. Perhaps that statue of Isis in the pagan temple will come down from the altar and make tea? Calling a miracle an exception to the rule will be refuted and contradicted, for example, if an asteroid just vanishes. That couldn’t be an exception, for it is pointless, and we have no right to cause confusion by saying, “But maybe there is a point we are not thinking of?”
It is nonsense to argue that a miracle you see and are inspired by is not God tampering with nature, just because you see it and are inspired by it. It is like saying that spilling milk, which a cat enjoys, is not an accident because the cat benefits.
The exceptions issue is only a theory and totally lacks credibility.
Do exceptions really exist with God? If your rule is that all shoplifters go to jail, you may make an exception for somebody because she is dying from cancer, and you decide not to punish her. You make an exception because the rule turned out to be wrong in this instance. You are fixing the damage. But if you are God, you will set up the rule that NOT all shoplifters go to jail. It will only be the rule for those who are not dying from cancer. Another rule will be created to handle them. Thus we see that though humankind needs to make exceptions for laws, God cannot, for He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-wise, and sees the future.
This means that a miracle should not be seen as supernatural or as wonderful any more than anything else is. A miracle does not deserve the interest and devotion it gets from believers. The miracle itself is only a law of nature. It is not a miracle, then, in that case!
The exceptions issue ruins science. Science cannot trust its experiments if a natural law allows for exceptions.