Been pondering Amy's startling post concerning the time she spoke to an author who said that no authentic miracles can take place outside the Catholic Church. She reports:
"A person who'd written a book on apparitions, visions and other miraculous things said that there was no way, no how that a "miracle" of any sort, healing included, that occurred in any context outside the Roman Catholic Church could be authentic. Here was his logic: Miracles occur, in part, to point people to the truth - to reveal the truth to them. Hence, any miracle that occurred in any tradition other than Roman Catholicism must be inauthentic, for if it was authentic, it would mean that God was revealing truth through the means of that other tradition, and since those other traditions aren't the True Church, then God would be pointing people to untruths, or something less than the Full Truth so....such events must either be coincidental, natural or demonic - but no way from God."
My initial reaction was that he or she was a Triumphalist. But then....the test of the truthfulness of the OT prophets was their miracles. Jesus said believe in Him because of the miracles if you must, and so it seems there is a biblical tradition of linking the miraculous with truth. And yet God is not bound by the sacraments, so why would He be bound by miracles? Sacraments are gifts of grace, similar to miracles... But isn't conversion to the truth much more difficult if one has seen a miracle in one's own religious tradition?
A relative I know clings to the Medjugorje apparations because, I think, it gives her certitude in the faith. My wife and stepson report the miraculous at their charismatic services - why would they flee the miraculous? If God is there in such a palpable way, why would they leave? Whether they are true who can say? I'm not aware of any other religion who certifies miracles rigorously as the Catholic Church does, at least at Lourdes.
Highly regarded author Fr. Thomas Dubay would seem to agree with Amy's triumphalist author: "Miracles are a conclusive sign of the divine. And by miracles I mean the real thing. I do not mean secondhand reports that may issue from an emotion-filled prayer meeting, good as that may be...I refer to happenings which by rigorous scientific probings can have nothing but a supernatural origin."
One reason miracles are important is because reason is not. Conversions usually do not occur because of well-reasoned arguments which is why apologetics only goes so far (and can have an equal and opposite effect).
John Henry Newman wrote:
"Men go by their sympathies, not by argument...The heart is commonly reached, not through reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us."Even in science, Max Planck said that important scientific innovations come about not by gradually winning over and converting its opponents, but by its opponents gradually dying out! A new generation arrives who are familiar with the idea from the beginning.
Dubay continues, "Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas quoted Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes' bit of advice to him, "You must remember...[that] at the constitutional level where we work, 90% of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections."
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