There are some cases where individuals can reasonably believe in claims of miraculous events

04 Mar 2026

When people claim that a miracle has happened—like someone suddenly healing from an incurable illness or holy bread turning into actual flesh—they’re often met with skepticism, or even worse, dismissed outright as irrational. This article explores how we might reasonably believe in such miracles. Traditionally, there are two main views: one says miracles must break natural laws (like turning water into wine), while the other says miracles are just personal feelings of awe. But both of these views fall short, either it is nearly impossible to prove a miracle happened, or it is so personal that it loses any real meaning. I propose a third way: we should think of miracles like detectives solving mysteries. When faced with an event that seems impossible to explain, we look at all the possible explanations and choose the best one—this is called abductive reasoning. If the best explanation after ruling out others is that a divine being intervened, then it can be reasonable to call it a miracle. This does not mean everyone has to agree, but it shows that belief in miracles isn’t always irrational. It depends on what else the person believes and the evidence available to them. In short, I argue that some miracle claims can make sense—not because they break science, and not just because they feel special, but because they offer the best explanation in specific, well-examined situations, especially for believers who already accept the existence of god as a rational possibility.

My paper charts a third way between the objectivist and subjectivist accounts of miracle recognition, arguing that our appraisal of whether or not events are miraculous is dependent on inferences to the best explanation. I contend that while objectivists like Hume took our knowledge of objectively “natural” laws for granted, subjectivists like Wittgenstein rendered miraculosity a hollow concept devoid of any claim to extraordinariness. My approach allows for a more dynamic relationship between claims of religious experience and attempts by scientists to verify such claims, both because it retains the distinction between natural causation and allegedly miraculous events, and because it does not reify “natural” laws, recognizing that the allegedly miraculous might really be edge cases that should lead us to question our scientific theories. This work also develops an abductive account of reasoning about miracles, contending both that miracle believers can form positive beliefs about miracles rationally, while making no explicit claim for or against the truth of theism or miraculosity.

Author: Justin Felip D. Daduya (Department of Philosophy, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman)

Read the full paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11153-025-09952-6

Image by waldryano from Pixabay

There are some cases where individuals can reasonably believe in claims of miraculous events

When people claim that a miracle has happened—like someone suddenly healing from an incurable illness or holy bread turning into actual flesh—they’re often met with skepticism, or even worse, dismissed outright as irrational. This article explores how we might reasonably believe in such miracles. Traditionally, there are two main views: one says miracles must break natural laws (like turning water into wine), while the other says miracles are just personal feelings of awe. But both of these views fall short, either it is nearly impossible to prove a miracle happened, or it is so personal that it loses any real meaning. I propose a third way: we should think of miracles like detectives solving mysteries. When faced with an event that seems impossible to explain, we look at all the possible explanations and choose the best one—this is called abductive reasoning. If the best explanation after ruling out others is that a divine being intervened, then it can be reasonable to call it a miracle. This does not mean everyone has to agree, but it shows that belief in miracles isn’t always irrational. It depends on what else the person believes and the evidence available to them. In short, I argue that some miracle claims can make sense—not because they break science, and not just because they feel special, but because they offer the best explanation in specific, well-examined situations, especially for believers who already accept the existence of god as a rational possibility.

My paper charts a third way between the objectivist and subjectivist accounts of miracle recognition, arguing that our appraisal of whether or not events are miraculous is dependent on inferences to the best explanation. I contend that while objectivists like Hume took our knowledge of objectively “natural” laws for granted, subjectivists like Wittgenstein rendered miraculosity a hollow concept devoid of any claim to extraordinariness. My approach allows for a more dynamic relationship between claims of religious experience and attempts by scientists to verify such claims, both because it retains the distinction between natural causation and allegedly miraculous events, and because it does not reify “natural” laws, recognizing that the allegedly miraculous might really be edge cases that should lead us to question our scientific theories. This work also develops an abductive account of reasoning about miracles, contending both that miracle believers can form positive beliefs about miracles rationally, while making no explicit claim for or against the truth of theism or miraculosity.

Author: Justin Felip D. Daduya (Department of Philosophy, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman)

Read the full paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11153-025-09952-6

Image by waldryano from Pixabay