The idea of some kind of supernatural agency with an agenda, intervening in people’s lives, well, even I would be considered skeptical when it comes to that. That seems to neat, too fantastical. Too much like a, well, movie. It actually overlaps very neatly with the other conversation of how people view the supernatural or the concept of God. Let’s unpick this a bit…
There are many ways of understanding something other than us, something bigger than us, the forces we don’t understand. Let’s say we refute every last one of those ideas. Let’s say we are completely atheist. What position does that put us in? What is the stance? i.e. what is the opposite of God & Miracles?
Well, by definition, the opposite of God & Miracles is self will. There are no ‘outside forces’, or supernaturals. There’s us, and what we make of it and that’s that. That’s fair enough. Completely logical.
So now that we have demonstrated that the opposite of miracles is self will, we might be able to test for evidence of miracles by looking at situations that are devoid of self will.
This is where it gets interesting.
Having spent many years working in the field of recovery (from addiction) and interfacing at a deep level with a 12 step recovery program – the spiritual solution to addiction – it has become very, very apparent what happens when one removes self will. Indeed, a key principle of many spiritual or religious philosophies is that self will is the very thing at the root of our demise. The continual trajectory of recovery is therefore characterised by the continual surrender of the ‘self’. The more we surrender the self, the more we leave our recovery in the hands of something bigger than us, our ideas on what we think is the right way to go about things.
The question is, does it work? What happens when we hand over the reins to forces bigger than us, forces we don’t understand that perhaps don’t conform to the way we understand nature (at least scientifically)? This is where it’s absolutely easy to see it.
Within the field of recovery from addiction, there must have been hundreds of thousands, if not millions of examples, by now, of people who have tried everything, driven themselves and others to mind-boggling levels of destruction, even death, having tried everything, forced everything, made promises in all genuine honesty to themselves and loved ones, racked by crippling guilt and shame having seen the terrible things they have become embroiled in, but could not stop….until they simply let go. Let go of their thinking, of their Selves, of the desire to provide themselves with the answer to the problems. True healing has occurred. Complete transformation. When no other thing could help. What’s more, is that there is no onus on anyone to have to understand exactly what is happening and who/what is in control. All we know is that it’s forces beyond our comprehension.
So – supernatural agents with will? Maybe. each to their own. Who knows. Even I dont feel comfortable with that kind of description. But is that just a point of view? A way of putting into words the things we don’t understand?
How about we just have one word for that….the ‘Miraculous’?
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