Epistemology of Miracle: scientific inexplicability, religious sense and system approach towards the epistemology of miracle

The more thorough analysis of the notion of miracle as an extraordinary event leads us towards distinguishing two more features of the miracle, i.e. its supernaturality and scientific inexplicability. Considering the miracle as the event caused by God’s action requires, in turn, distinguishing another element, which is the religious significance. Distinguishing and presenting the fundamental features of miraculous event (supernaturality, scientific inexplicability, the effect of God’s action, religious significance), which are present, although not always expressed in the same way, in the definitions of the miracle, the literature suggests, is aimed at indicating the basic directions of further analysis of the problem in question. At the same time, we will mention the main problems, which appear in connection with accepting the above features. These problems concern various ways, the miracle is understood, so they require the revision of the meaning of this notion. Miracle as an ‘extraordinary event’, may be understood in two ways: (1) as a supernatural event (the ontological aspect) and (2) as a scientifically inexplicable event (epistemological aspect). The directions of further analyses are determined by making a distinction between two aspects of philosophical problems concerning the miracle, namely, the ontology and epistemology of the miracle. This book is devoted to the issue of epistemology of miracle.