DAY 133
CHALLENGE
“A perfect God could create a world he didn’t have to keep fixing. It would be able to run without periodic miracles.”
DEFENSE
This misunderstands the natures of the universe, of miracles, and of God.
The only reason the universe exists at a particular moment in time is that God sustains it. “What comes forth from nothing would return to nothing if it were left to itself and not conserved in being by the Creator. Having created the cosmos, God continues to create it, by maintaining it in existence. Conservation is a continuous creation” (John Paul II, General Audience, May 7, 1986; CCC 301). Ongoing divine intervention is therefore a given. The question is what form the intervention takes.
God could arrange the universe so that his interventions (direct or through secondary causes) always operate according to the regular patterns that humans refer to as the “laws” of nature. Or he could arrange it so some of his interventions deviate from these regular patterns, so that humans regard them with wonder (Latin, miraculum).
This is what miracles are. They are not efforts to fix a universe that has broken down like a machine. They are simply divine interventions that depart from the regular patterns we see in the world. “The word ‘miracle’ indicates . . . the extraordinary aspect of those events in the eyes of those who saw them” (John Paul II, General Audience, Nov. 11, 1987).
How God performs his interventions is up to him. We should not think of the universe as if it were a labor-saving device that God should interact with as little as possible. Humans value labor-saving devices because we have limited resources. God does not have limited resources, and so he has no need to save labor. For an omnipotent God, every action is equally easy. No action can deplete the infinite (unlimited) power he has. It is thus a matter of God’s choice if he wants to interact with the world in ways that are obvious or non-obvious.
Even humans create devices that require overt intervention on our part (e.g., video games). If we do this for our purposes, God can do the same for his. One of those purposes is helping us realize that God both exists and interacts with the world. Miracles make that clear.