Summary:
• Miracles fall into three categories: events that seem to truly break the laws of nature; events that only appear miraculous because people do not understand them; and events that follow the laws of nature but still fill us with wonder.
• The Lazarus Syndrome is a documented medical phenomenon in which a person who was officially declared dead suddenly comes back to life with no medical explanation. Cases like this suggest that genuinely supernatural miracles might still be happening today.
• Many things once called miracles—or even “the work of Satan,” such as the first mass-printed Bibles—were simply natural events or new technologies that most people did not yet understand.
• Fake miracles are deliberate tricks meant to deceive people. Throughout history, criminals have used fake miracles to gain money, influence, or power.
• The most common miracles—like the birth of a baby, a beautiful sunset, a rainbow, a magnificent song, or a delicious meal—are not supernatural but are extraordinary. We often overlook them because they seem ordinary, but they deserve our attention and appreciation.
• The purpose of any miracle is to inspire wonder. A miracle does not need to prove to be supernatural; simply noticing these moments can change how you see life.
• Spiritual values, such as love, compassion, and caring for the needy, should never depend on believing in miracles. Living these values is worth doing merely because they are good. They are miracles of the third category.
Miracles come in many forms but generally fall into three categories. The first category are miracles that violate the laws of nature. Violations of the laws of nature are supposed to be physically impossible, and so those miracles must be truly supernatural.
An example of a supernatural miracle is when a dead person comes back to life without any medical assistance. In both Christianity and Islam, there are stories of Jesus calling dead people back to life, with God’s approval. (In the Holy Bible, see Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:21-43, Luke 7:11-17, Luke 8:40-56, and John 11:1-44. In the Holy Quran, see Surah 3:49.) The most famous story is of a man named Lazarus. According to the Gospel of John 11:1-44, Lazarus was already dead for four days when Jesus arrived. At the entrance to the tomb where the body was, Jesus said a prayer and then called to Lazarus to arise and come out. As a crowd watched in astonishment, Lazarus came out, alive and well. Lazarus was from a town named Bethany. Centuries later, the town of Bethany was renamed Al-Eizariya, which in Arabic means “the place of Lazarus.”
Throughout history, there are many cases of dead people either coming back to life or at least appearing to. A common theory being offered as a scientific explanation is that perhaps the person was not really dead, only unconscious, and that the body’s life signs, such as breathing, were so slight that other people thought the person was dead. In other cases, however, there is no scientific explanation—and there are many of those cases, even today. In the typical one, medical personnel try to keep the dying person alive but the person dies and is officially declared to be dead (a declaration necessary for official records); the body is treated as dead—until later, suddenly, the person comes back to life. And there is no medical explanation for this. But there is a medical term for this phenomenon: the Lazarus syndrome. In some percentage of these cases, the person even has memories of being dead, memories we call a Near-Death Experience or NDE.
This means that supernatural miracles could be occurring even today, many of them called the Lazarus syndrome. Many people, especially many scientists, insist that supernatural miracles are impossible and therefore the event must have a rational, materialist explanation that we have not discovered yet.
The second category of miracles are events that people only imagine have violated the laws of nature but, in fact, do not. For example, if a person does not know that earthquakes are possible and then feels an earthquake, that person might associate the event with dark magic, an evil miracle. Or, if a person does not know about the existence of telephones and is told that a little device can be used to talk with people located on another continent, that person might think such a device is impossible, a miracle, an invention that uses magic.
Rare natural events like earthquakes or seemingly magical technologies do not violate the laws of nature. It obeys them. To people who do not know any better, however, it looks like a miracle. In medieval Europe, when the printing press was invented and first began to mass produce the Holy Bible, some Christians called those Bibles the work of Satan because the Bibles looked perfectly identical. Those people could not believe that such perfection was possible. Despite the fact that the book was the Holy Bible—the most important book in Christianity—those people still believed that those printed copies were an evil miracle.
There are also fake miracles, which are tricks portrayed as miracles. A trick is deliberately deceptive: it may appear to be supernatural but it isn’t. If you know that the trick is only a trick, it can be entertaining. If you do not know this, however, the trick can be dangerous. Criminals have long used such tricks to get money or power.
The third category of miracles are events that obey the laws of nature and everybody accepts that fact, but we still marvel at them and so we call them miracles. In many European languages the word miracle comes from the Latin word miraculum, meaning “object of wonder.” This word is related to another Latin word, mirari, which means “to wonder at, marvel, be astonished by.” These words can be traced back even earlier, to India, to a Sanskrit word that is pronounced as merah or smerah— स्मितं —meaning “to smile, to laugh.”
Such miracles—wondrous but not supernatural—include the birth of a baby, or seeing a beautiful vista or a rainbow in the sky, or hearing a magnificent song, or smelling the wonderful fragrance of a flower, or tasting a food so delicious that it surprises you. The birth of the Universe can be called a miracle. The fact that mathematics can be used for modeling so many things, even the Universe, can be called miracle. Not all miracles in this category are pleasant: a mother raising her child by herself can also be called a miracle. But all miracles in this third category are extraordinary, and they exist everywhere. They are not appreciated as much as they should be because we treat them like ordinary events. But when we pause to notice them, they astonish us.
The point of a miracle, any miracle, is that it is wondrous. It may not be proof of anything supernatural, but because it is wondrous, you should pause to think about it and appreciate it. Remember that miracles are all around you, and most of them are not supernatural. Their existence may not always change your life, but noticing them and appreciating them can change your life. Remember also that spiritual principles should not depend on believing in miracles. Spiritual principles, such as care for the needy and love for all, are worth doing because they are inherently good. And when someone is needy, doing something good in response can feel