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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Theological Instructions LESSON TWENTY-EIGHT: RESPONSES TO CERTAIN DOUBTS Responses to certain doubts With respect to ‘Miracles’, some doubts have been raised. The following presents the doubts and their relevant explanations: Do miracles contradict causality? Every physical phenomenon has a specific cause, which can be recognised through experimentation.

However, if due to the deficiencies of laboratory equipment the cause of a phenomenon is not recognised, it cannot be considered as evidence for rejecting causality. Therefore, extraordinary acts can be justified, by saying that their causes have not yet been recognised and that the only extraordinary thing about them is that while being unknown to ordinary people, their causes have been discovered by their performers.

Thus, denying experimentally recognisable causes is contradictory to the principle of causality and is unacceptable. The response to this doubt is that the principle of causality is nothing more than the proof, that any dependent or resulting phenomenon has a cause; however, the realisation of that cause through scientific experiments is by no means a requisite for such a principle and there is no reason why it should be so.

The reason is that the scope of scientific experimentation is limited to natural phenomena, and it is impossible to prove the existence or non-existence of metaphysical phenomena or their effects through laboratory tests.

Moreover, it is incorrect to interpret miracles in terms of being aware of the unknown causes, because if this awareness is gained through the usual factors, there would be no difference between an extraordinary phenomenon and other usual phenomena, and it could not be considered extraordinary.

However, if such awareness is reached unusually, the act will be extraordinary, and should it be in accordance with God’s specific permission and the evidence of true prophecy, it would be considered as a miracle (scientific miracle). In this way Jesus’s (a) knowledge about people’s food and property is known as one of his miracles (Āl-‘Imrān: 49). Miracles are not only limited to the scientific; there are other types as well, which cannot be denied.

Finally, the question remains as to what the difference is between miracles and other types of extraordinary acts with reference to the principle of causality? Do extraordinary acts indicate changes in Divine customs?