All our lives we have heard much about miracles. Especially as children in the Sunday School and as grown people from the pulpit, have we heard the word miracle oft-repeated. We came to accept it in the same unthinking way, that we accepted many other things taught us. We supposed the word to have a special and limited meaning, and beyond this we did not have sufficient interest to inquire. We therefore looked upon a miracle as something supernatural, as a suspension of the laws of nature for the purpose of doing some unusual act or as what is often termed a special Providence, or a mysterious power which we were not to know and should not inquire into.
This is not only the common, but the general theological conception of a miracle. There is no one who so authoritatively reflects the common understanding of the meaning of words as the lexicographer. Webster gives the following definition of the word miracle; "Specifically an event or an effect contrary to the established constitution of things, or a deviation from the known laws of nature a supernatural event a wonder or wonderful thing."
Treating the word from this definitional standpoint, let us see, if we can, what a miracle is. What is a deviation from the known laws of nature?
