What is the difference between magic and miracle?

[OnceConvinced]

I am presuming that god and the devil are real. I am presuming here that miracles and magic are real. They are supernatural events of some kind. They are not tricks done by shysters. They are not freak occurences as a result of luck or being in the right place at the right time.

It seems some Christians get a little offended when you use the term "magic" for deeds done by god. They seem to want to use the term "miracle". But really, what is the difference? Both appear to be a supernatural event that either involves something being generated from nothing or something changing as a result.

The only difference I can get is that a "miracle" is a supernatural event that is caused by god, while "magic" is a supernatural event caused by Satan. But really, what is the difference? How is a "miracle" different to "magic"?

[Zzyzx]

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It is worthy of note that the parlor trick / illusion of "water into wine" has been done by many tricksters and was known (and devices made) more than 2000 years ago.

http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient- ... ugs-001852

[wiploc]

Does it make any sense to speak of an occurrence surpassing powers? Or is that just gibberish?

Since we are often speak of such occurrences the discussion must make sense. This thread alone is sufficient evidence that it is not gibberish.

It looks like gibberish to me. I don't see any meaning in that string of words. Since you think it is meaningful, perhaps you can rephrase it, let me know what is being communicated?

You say, "Since we often speak of such occurrences." Perhaps you can give an example of occurrence surpassing powers? I just don't get it.

Perhaps, since you think this is cut and dried, you can explain the difference in your own words. What is magic? What is miracle? What is the difference?

Fair enough. The difference is the source. A miracle is supernatural Being affecting the physical world. Magic is a physical being affecting the physical world by non-physical means.

Thanks. That is ever so much clearer than your dictionary definitions. I don't think it removes all confusion (Which category would it fall in, for instance, if I heat my coffee by chanting an invocation to Jehovah, so that Jehovah works a local minor inversion of the second law of thermodynamics?) but it is a definite leap toward clarity.

If anyone believes that either of these is or is not possible has nothing to do with their definition. These are words in the English language. The meaning of the word magic does not change if a person believes magic is possible or not.

Okay, I'm confused again. Didn't your distinction between the rabbit-from-the-hat-phenomenon and the loaves-and-fishes-phenomenon depend entirely on which one you believed actually involved magic/miracle? Wouldn't your answer be reversed if you assumed that the loaves-and-fish bag had a false bottom, but the rabbit from the hat involved the supernatural?

[David the apologist]

C. S. Lewis grapples with these sorts of questions in his book Miracles, so if you want a really competent treatment of this issue, I refer you to him.

The short answer, however, is that miracles have a different atmosphere than magical acts. Miracles (in the NT sense) are supposed to do on a small scale and in a short period of time what God is already doing on a large scale over long periods of time - or else to foreshadow something He will do. So, for example, Circe turning Odysseus' crew into swine qualifies as "magic" because it seems so... out of place. It neither replicates natural events, nor does it foreshadow any eschatological ones. Jesus feeding the 5 000 with five loaves and two fish, on the other hand, is suggestive of the natural processes of fertility by which fish reproduce and new grain comes in each year. Hence it qualifies as a "miracle."

As you can see, this is more of a spectrum of event kinds than it is a black-and-white sharply defined division. So, for example, the cures attributed to the Roman Emperor Vespian could be classified as either magic or miracle, as while they don't seem particularly arbitrary, they also seem just a tad out of place, given that their only context appears to be that of giving divine sanction to his rise to power. There is also the somewhat subjective factor of what the individual considers to constitute "fitting in with" the themes we find in nature.

Once again, I emphasize that C. S. Lewis does a much better job of laying this all out than I do, so if it seems like there's some kernel of a real response in what I have to say, I encourage you to read Lewis' book for yourself.

I think this furthers the point I just made.

If you go to a show and watch a guy pull more things out of his hat then would physically fit, we understand it to be a magic trick.

Read the same event out of your favorite holy book, and adults can call it a miracle. How is a magic trick more credible when read thousands of years later compared to something you witness with your own eyes?

Same event and both I would consider a magic trick if I saw them in person, but if I still had my Christian beliefs, as an adult, I would call the fish and loaves story a miracle. Most adults don't believe in magic after all.

Perhaps you would, but I think that the description of the miracle of feeding the 5,000 as "pulling more things out of a hat than would physically fit" is a bit inaccurate.

If Jesus had walked up onto the mountain, yelled "Prepare to be amazed," and proceeded to reach into his yarmulke and pull out a trombone, a fishing boat, a clouded leopard, etc. and then gone on his merry way, I'd be inclined to call it "magic." There is no religious context, there is no meeting of anyone's needs, and there's no obvious connection to what God is doing in the world or what He will do at the end of the age. There's just showmanship.

[FarWanderer]

The difference is the source. A miracle is supernatural Being affecting the physical world. Magic is a physical being affecting the physical world by non-physical means.

How about demonic possession? Is that a miracle?

[Danmark]

... I think that the description of the miracle of feeding the 5,000 as "pulling more things out of a hat than would physically fit" is a bit inaccurate.

If Jesus had walked up onto the mountain, yelled "Prepare to be amazed," and proceeded to reach into his yarmulke and pull out a trombone, a fishing boat, a clouded leopard, etc. and then gone on his merry way, I'd be inclined to call it "magic." There is no religious context, there is no meeting of anyone's needs, and there's no obvious connection to what God is doing in the world or what He will do at the end of the age. There's just showmanship.

I heard an explanation for the story many years ago. It went something like:
"When they realized they did not have enough to feed everyone, a little boy overheard and volunteered to share the bit of food he had brought for the occasion.

Others in attendance saw his gesture and were shamed and shared their food as well."
If nothing else, this version has verisimilitude on its side.

Over the years of course, the retelling embellished the story. The gospels, written many years after the events and by people who were trying to prove the power of 'the Messiah' were not much interested in checking out the 'miracle' story's provenance.

[David the apologist]

I am presuming that god and the devil are real. I am presuming here that miracles and magic are real. They are supernatural events of some kind. They are not tricks done by shysters. They are not freak occurences as a result of luck or being in the right place at the right time.

It seems some Christians get a little offended when you use the term "magic" for deeds done by god. They seem to want to use the term "miracle". But really, what is the difference? Both appear to be a supernatural event that either involves something being generated from nothing or something changing as a result.

The only difference I can get is that a "miracle" is a supernatural event that is caused by god, while "magic" is a supernatural event caused by Satan. But really, what is the difference? How is a "miracle" different to "magic"?

C. S. Lewis grapples with these sorts of questions in his book Miracles, so if you want a really competent treatment of this issue, I refer you to him.

The short answer, however, is that miracles have a different atmosphere than magical acts. Miracles (in the NT sense) are supposed to do on a small scale and in a short period of time what God is already doing on a large scale over long periods of time - or else to foreshadow something He will do. So, for example, Circe turning Odysseus' crew into swine qualifies as "magic" because it seems so... out of place.

Right, as opposed to raining frogs which is totally not out of place... lol

If I may, I would first like to point out that I am concerned principally with the miracles of Jesus here, or at least have been until now. However, if you would like to expand the scope of the discussion on miracles, I will gladly oblige.

It never "rained frogs." Frogs came out of the Nile river in prodigious numbers right as Pharaoh refused to let Israel go. They came from the waters of Egypt, where they would have always come up, not out of the sky.

To be entirely blunt, while I do take the Exodus accounts as more or less literal history, I don't consider any of the first nine plagues to have been "miracles" proper, but were instead particularly dramatic forms of providence. The Nile turned to blood? A particularly pernicious bloom of red algae, or perhaps red sediment washed down from Ethiopia. The frogs? The amphibian population happened to spike at that point. Gnats? Flies? Locusts? Nothing out of the ordinary, except perhaps in scale. The plague on livestock? The plague of boils? The ancient world had a lot of epidemics. This was the age before modern medicine, veterinary or human. The plague of hail? A particularly bad thunderstorm hit. Hail and "fire" (read, "lightning") coming from the sky would have been par for the course if the atmospheric disturbances were bad enough. The plague of darkness? An abnormally severe sandstorm blew in from the desert.

The only things that would have been "miraculous" about any of these plagues would have been scale and timing.

If you don't believe that the Exodus events were historical, that's fine by me. I'm just pointing out that, even if they were historical, they were essentially natural disasters that hit during a dramatic moment in the history of the Jewish people.

The truth is that if you thought a voodoo witch doctor transformed water into wine, you'd call it magic. If you believe Jesus did it, you call it a miracle.

It depends. If the witch doctor was a recent covert to Christianity, and was attending a church service that ran out of wine for communion, and proceeded to perform the trick in the baptismal font, I'd be inclined to call it a "miracle." Context matters as much as content for classifying these sorts of events, in my opinion.

It's all just make believe. Anybody in the 21st century who believes any of it to be true should be ashamed of himself.

Well, I believe in miracles. And I am not ashamed. I'm sorry that I don't measure up to your standards.

[David the apologist]

... I think that the description of the miracle of feeding the 5,000 as "pulling more things out of a hat than would physically fit" is a bit inaccurate.

If Jesus had walked up onto the mountain, yelled "Prepare to be amazed," and proceeded to reach into his yarmulke and pull out a trombone, a fishing boat, a clouded leopard, etc. and then gone on his merry way, I'd be inclined to call it "magic." There is no religious context, there is no meeting of anyone's needs, and there's no obvious connection to what God is doing in the world or what He will do at the end of the age. There's just showmanship.

I heard an explanation for the story many years ago. It went something like:
"When they realized they did not have enough to feed everyone, a little boy overheard and volunteered to share the bit of food he had brought for the occasion.

Others in attendance saw his gesture and were shamed and shared their food as well."
If nothing else, this version has verisimilitude on its side.

Over the years of course, the retelling embellished the story. The gospels, written many years after the events and by people who were trying to prove the power of 'the Messiah' were not much interested in checking out the 'miracle' story's provenance.

Perhaps that is the case. I do not believe it to be so, because I consider the resurrection to be a historical event, and if that can happen, anything can happen. However, since you are unconvinced on that point, there's hardly any argument I can bring forward that would convince you of the feeding of the five thousand.

That being said, the topic of this thread is the difference between miracles and magic, not whether the historical data we have are sufficient to infer that an event of either sort has ever actually happened.

[OnceConvinced]

If Jesus had walked up onto the mountain, yelled "Prepare to be amazed," and proceeded to reach into his yarmulke and pull out a trombone, a fishing boat, a clouded leopard, etc. and then gone on his merry way, I'd be inclined to call it "magic." There is no religious context, there is no meeting of anyone's needs, and there's no obvious connection to what God is doing in the world or what He will do at the end of the age. There's just showmanship.

So what about turning water into wine? That seems like a showmanship type thing to me. After all the guests at that wedding feast hardly NEEDED wine. Even if you claim it's fruit juice, it still wasn't really a need because if they were dying of thirst they could simply drink the water.

And what about Jesus walking on water? What exactly was the need he was meeting there? Once again seems like showmanship. The real miracle was him commanding the storm to halt.

Oh and what about the classic one of withering the fig tree? That is also classed as a miracle in the bible. What need was he meeting there? In fact there he was actually performing an act that would have negative consequences. Concievably that fig tree might have one day beared fruit for people. Instead Jesus withered it for no good logical reason. He simply unleashed his wrath on the poor tree.

[OnceConvinced]

[quote="[url=http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?

The truth is that if you thought a voodoo witch doctor transformed water into wine, you'd call it magic. If you believe Jesus did it, you call it a miracle.

It depends. If the witch doctor was a recent covert to Christianity, and was attending a church service that ran out of wine for communion, and proceeded to perform the trick in the baptismal font, I'd be inclined to call it a "miracle." Context matters as much as content for classifying these sorts of events, in my opinion.

This seems a little like the argument that if it's from God, then it's a miracle. If it's not from God, then it's magic.

It seems to be less about context and more about the desire to confine "miracle" to being something cause by God.

They still really look like the same thing though, don't they?

What if the church service was being held by a cult in a little commune led by someone like David Koresh. Would it be a miracle or magic?

[Danmark]

Perhaps that is the case. I do not believe it to be so, because I consider the resurrection to be a historical event, and if that can happen, anything can happen. However, since you are unconvinced on that point, there's hardly any argument I can bring forward that would convince you of the feeding of the five thousand.

That being said, the topic of this thread is the difference between miracles and magic, not whether the historical data we have are sufficient to infer that an event of either sort has ever actually happened.

True, I am unconvinced about the supernatural. I do not in the least believe in true 'magic.' I am, however, astounded by the ability of illusionists. I read half a dozen or more books about Houdini when I was a kid. Some of his tricks required tremendous skill, but most were simple illusions combined with great showmanship. He was so good that men as astute as Arthur Conan Doyle were convinced he had supernatural powers.
https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/doyle.htm

The Great Randi, Houdini, and Scientific American have offered money to anyone who can prove any of this supernatural or psychic mumbo jumbo exists. No one has claimed a dime. More than a thousand have tried to collect the $million offered by Randi. None have succeeded.

It's all bunkum.

At least two factors are in play:
1. The skill of the illusionist is underestimated
2. The gullibility of the audience and the desire to believe is very strong.