7/29/18 “The Myths of Miracles” by Nancy Petty
John 6:1-21
“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.”
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics. While Einstein’s work is known for its influence on the philosophy of science, he is best known for his mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc2 which has been dubbed “the world’s most famous equation.” In 1921, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect,” a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory. His intellectual achievements and originality have made the word “Einstein” synonymous with “genius”.
The quote, “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.” is often attributed to this genius. There is, however, great controversy as to whether Einstein actually said this. Some argue that he did, while others argue that it is so out of character for Einstein that there is no way these are his words. I guess there is really no way to know one way or the other. And yet, it is an interesting exercise to imagine the possibility of both—that these are his words and/or these are not his words.
Let’s consider first the possibility that these are not his words.
In January of 1954, a year before his death, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to philosopher Erik Gutkind after reading his book, Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt. He had only read the book due to the repeated recommendation by their mutual friend Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer. In the letter, Einstein made known his views on religion, at least at that point in his life. The letter dated 3. 1. 1954 begins:
Dear Mr Gutkind,
Inspired by Brouwer’s repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me. What struck me was this: with regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element. This unites us as having an “unAmerican attitude.”
Still, without Brouwer’s suggestion, I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.
With that beginning, Einstein continues the letter stating his differences with Brouwer. But he concludes his letter with these words, words that could lend themselves to the possibility that the quote about miracles is his words:
Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e; in our evaluations of human behavior. What separates us are only intellectual “props” and “rationalization” in Freud’s language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.
With friendly thanks and best wishes,
Yours
A. Einstein
Since before his death, people have used Einstein’s writings and sayings to prove that he was an atheist, while others have used his writings and sayings to prove he was a religious person—a believer. The truth, and this may be what made him the genius he was, is that Einstein constantly contradicted himself when speaking of religion and God.
Take for instance his response when an interviewer asked him about Jesus. Interviewer: You accept the historical existence of Jesus?
Einstein: Unquestionably. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.
But then asked about his religion he said: “It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
But he would follow those thoughts with this statement: “Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent, I am, in point of fact, religious.”
I wonder if that line, “…behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable” opens up the possibility that Einstein entertained the notion of miracles? Maybe they are his words: 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. And, if the man whose name is synonymous with the word “genius” might be open to the possibility of miracles, might we open our minds and hearts to the possibility of entertaining miracles as well?
The sixth chapter of the gospel of John presents us with, not one, but two miracles: Jesus feeding thousands of people with two small fish and five loaves of bread; and Jesus walking on water. For those of us who grew up in the church, the miracle stories, especially these two, are foundational to our religious education. I would bet that in 8 out of 10 Southern Baptist churches, whether in a children’s classroom or parlor or hallway, there is hanging a picture of Jesus feeding the multitude with those two small fish and five pieces of bread and a picture, this one possibly in the baptistery, of Jesus walking on the water. We grew up with not only these images imprinted on our minds but more importantly with a theology that Jesus was a miracle-working man—someone who could do things that could not be explained by natural or scientific laws—the impossible, the inconceivable.
For those of us now in places like Pullen, we have spent the better part of our faith and spiritual lives trying to fashion a theology that explains these stories from a different perspective. For instance, we talk about the “real” miracle of the feeding of the multitude as being about people being willing to share their food with one another. We explain away the miracle of Jesus walking on the water by studying sandbars in the Sea of Galilee. Anything to explain the unexplainable. Anything to reason the unreasonable. Anything to dispel the notion that faith has elements of the mysterious and miraculous.
The longer I live, the more open I am to the idea of miracles. Not so much the kind where thousands of people are fed with small quantities of food, or those who see Mary, mother of Jesus, face on a piece of toast, or the ilk of those who claim to have been miraculous healed by a TV preacher of some deadly disease, or those same TV evangelists claiming to have had a vision from a 900-foot-tall Jesus who told him to build City of Faith Medical and Research Center, and that the hospital would be a success. No, these days I am less and less inclined to argue with the theology of Oral Roberts and the likes. I am simply more and more inclined to accept that my theology is not the same as Oral Roberts and yet, still be open in my own faith to the possibility of a miracle. I have grown weary of handing over my theological language to those who abuse it.
Like most progressive, more accurately liberal, Christians I have needed to make the spiritual journey to free myself from the myths of miracles—that is the myths my early theological training in that small Southern Baptist church in Shelby taught me about what constitutes a miracle. While I am far from being a genius, I, like Albert Einstein have struggled with a faith and religion in which my statements about my faith often contradict one another. I have found myself making the statement: “I don’t believe in a God who cures cancer in some people and not in others.” And at the same time say something like: “God’s ways are not our ways and we can’t always understand why something happens as it does.” Intellectual props. Rationalization. Contradiction.
Jesus feeding thousands of people with two small fish and some bread, Jesus (or even Peter) walking on water, a dead person being raised from the dead, a lame person all of the sudden walking, a person blind from birth one day being able to see… I have often wondered why these miracle stories were included in the Bible. What purpose do they serve? What are they trying to communicate to us about faith, about God, about Jesus, about us?
My responses to these questions have come over time. I have come to believe that these stories are indeed important but not for the reasons we have been taught. I do not believe it is crucial to one’s faith to believe in miracles, at least not the kind mentioned above. I do not believe that Jesus intended for his ministry of healing to define whether one has faith or not. Miracles are not about right belief or blind faith or ignoring the laws of nature or science for the purposes of faith. No, my theology tells me we have an account of miracles because Jesus was trying to tell us something significant about the embodiment of our faith—that it wasn’t just the spiritual life he cared about but that he actually cared about people’s physical needs. In my current theology, the miracle stories are important because they represent those who were often marginalized and oppressed because of some physical illness or difference, and the fact that Jesus touched them and healed them brought them into the kingdom Jesus taught about. And maybe more significantly, my current theology welcomes these miracle stories because they keep me open to new possibilities, to new ways of seeing things, to new ways of thinking, to the kind of faith that affirms the mysterious and the inexplicable—the kind of faith that is dynamic and relevant. In the end, I have decided, that being open to the possibility of miracles frees me from my faith having to be about right belief. The miracle stories tell me that I don’t have to be right or know everything or be able to explain everything to have a faith that is rooted in integrity and intellectual honesty.
As someone once wrote: “Our brains are inefficient machines. We consistently make poor assumptions, misjudge probabilities, misremember facts, give in to cognitive biases and make decisions based on our emotional whims. As humans, we’re wrong pretty much constantly, so if your metric…is to be right” life is going to be difficult. I would add, that if we base our faith on the metric of right belief, of being able to explain in natural and scientific and rational laws our faith, then the life of faith is going to be difficult for us.
To hear these miracle stories as a person of faith, it may be wise to consider the myths of miracles and rethink our understanding of what a miracle is. I propose that as people of faith it would befit us to dispel at least two myths of what a miracle is. The first of these two myths is the idea that a miracle is magic. Magic is concerned with conjuring tricks, the slight of hand, making cards disappear. Magic seeks to manipulate reality through the use of supernatural powers for one’s own purposes. Miracles, on the other hand, are a suspension of the laws of nature by some power that we do not ourselves produce.
Human experience tells us that things happen that are inexplicable. “We don’t have all the explanations. Scientists have made amazing discoveries, but rather than getting all the answers, their research usually also unlocks how much more there is to discover, and one of the things they are discovering is that the natural order is not quite so firm and unchangeable as we first thought. There is a dynamic and unpredictable element to the natural world. Reality is rubbery. There is an open-ended quality to our experience.” Miracles are not magic.
The second myth is the idea that miracles are rare and that something has to be inexplicable or supernatural to be considered a miracle. Miracles happen every day. Maybe not in terms of the suspension of natural or scientific laws but in ways that miraculously open our eyes to see a situation from a different perspective, therefore changing the course of our life.
The miracle was not only the burning bush that was not consumed by the fire. The miracle was also the fact that Moses recognized the burning bush as something significant. The miracle was not only that Jonah survived in the belly of a whale. But that Jonah woke up to God’s presence in his life. The miracle was not only that the Virgin Mary became pregnant, but that she said yes to God’s love being born through her. The miracle was not only that Jesus healed the paralyzed man but that his friends cared enough to dig through a roof in a house to lower their friend to Jesus.
We are quick to say we don’t believe in miracles but here we sit. Bodies made up of water, fat, muscle, bone, containing hundreds of different types of cells all working together to make us who we are—human beings who think and feel and act. How can we say we don’t believe in miracles? We are miracles.
I am skeptical that Albert Einstein ever said, “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.” I can imagine, however, this genius of a man considering the possibility that behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable—maybe even a miracle.
