A miracle, at its core, is an event of discontinuity rather than explanation, lesson, or revelation. Consider a person on the brink of death who suddenly recovers: we witness the change, but not the mechanism, timing, or reason. The “how” may be instantaneous, gradual, or entirely mysterious; the “why” — why this person, now, in this situation — remains unanswered. Such events confront us not to teach, but to pressure us: epistemically, by exposing gaps in understanding; existentially, by destabilizing our assumptions about finality; and morally or interpretively, by tempting us to assign meaning where none can be verified. Miracles present a boundary between what can be explained and what must be endured. They are indifferent rather than benevolent or cruel, demanding reckoning rather than belief. The term “miracle” itself carries theological and supernatural connotations, framing discontinuity in a way that predisposes observers toward awe or devotion, rather than impartial reflection.
All that makes the recipient and witnesses perhaps into some kind of project.
The discontinuity does that.
Yet even if we didn't appeal to it to show the degradation, there is plenty of other points to show it.
Even if a miracle is real, it is still reasonable to question what it implies about the way the recipient is regarded. A miracle may solve a problem or produce an outcome, but that does not tell us whether it respects the person as a full moral agent rather than treating them as a means to an end or as a kind of project to be fixed. From the mere fact that something extraordinary occurred, we cannot infer the intentions, attitudes, or ethical stance behind it. For that reason, the most intellectually responsible position is often agnosticism: to acknowledge the event without claiming knowledge of whether it honors the recipient as a person or instrumentalizes them, since that distinction lies beyond what the miracle itself can establish.
Even if a miracle occurs, it is still reasonable to withhold judgment about whether it treats the recipient as a person or as a project.
A true miracle—being a creation ex nihilo—would require divine power, but we cannot be certain that what appears miraculous is genuinely an act of creation rather than a natural process or a perversion of nature simulating one. Believers are forced to just guess that an act of creation was involved and to treat that guess as if it were a well-grounded belief. That attacks prudence, rationality and decency. We never directly observe something coming from nothing, so the miraculous nature of an event is uncertain in many ways not just epistemically. There is epistemically but also theologically epistemically. We should not even be spiritually or psychologically convinced.
The ultimate consequences or “fruits” of a miracle are rarely clear, so we cannot definitively conclude that it expresses love or moral regard.
The “good fruits” of a miracle are too simplistic a measure, ignoring the complexity of moral evaluation: it is unclear whether God grounds morality. It is uncertain if it is a morality that we can relate to if he does. Many divine revelations virtually command stupidity. So their teachings can produce harm. Thus, we cannot strongly or definitively conclude that a miracle expresses love or moral regard.
Taken together, these considerations make it logical to adopt agnosticism about the moral significance of miracles.
It is not respectful if you are helping a person feel special about their miracle when it may have in fact degradingly seen them as a mere project. Let the person who thinks they are a project, rise above it. Help them empower themselves in defiance.