Is chance an ‘element’ of miracle? In search for common aspect of miraculous and chance events
Is chance an ‘element’ of miracle? In search for common aspect of miraculous and chance events
Author(s): Adam ŚwieżyńskiSubject(s): Philosophy
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego w Warszawie
Keywords: chance; miracle; laws of nature; scientific laws; ontology; epistemology
Summary/Abstract: Philosophical attempts to answer the question as to what chance is and the question as to the possibility of the existence of the miracle, are ineluctably bound up with the problem of the concept and structure of the laws of nature. It thus appears that the most competent area of philosophical deliberation, within the framework of which one might seek the answer to the foregoing questions, is the philosophy of nature, rooted within contemporary natural sciences. An extraordinary event, one which we are unable to incorporate into the regularities of nature as we know them, may be such either on account of its ontic structure, or on account of the observer’s limited cognitive capabilities. What emerges here is a convergence between the empirical element of a miraculous event and an event which we describe as a chance event, in the sense of there being an absence of cause/a lack of knowledge regarding the cause.
Journal: Studia Philosophiae Christianae
- Issue Year: 46/2010
- Issue No: 2
- Page Range: 61-86
- Page Count: 26
- Language: English