ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses serious problems with the claim that God has performed miracles in something like the fashion many traditional Christian theists believe that God has. The claim that the view of miracles implies that God is unjust suggests why one's argument about miracles is another problem of evil. Moreover, even if sometimes there were an equivalent non-miraculous benefit conferred; to avoid God's being unjust an equivalent non-miraculous benefit would have to occur always, in relation to people who do not miraculously survive accidents, illnesses, and threats to their well-being. In the Christian tradition two kinds of goods have been mentioned. One has to do with enhancing the recipient's knowledge of God or faith in God; the other has to with various temporal goods: life, health, offspring, and other goods that are needed or desired. Traditional theists can insist on the importance of God's hiddenness to allow room for faith, or they can say that God performs epistemic miracles.