Miracles Are Beyond Causality And Human Knowledge

Miracle, also known as 'chamatkar', is a complex phenomenon beyond human understanding in relation to causality and

human knowledge

. In philosophy and theology, it is often debated and generally understood as an event that defies natural laws or exceeds known powers of nature.The survival of lone passenger,

Vishwash Kumar Ramesh

, in the recent

Air India plane tragedy

that took 241 lives, is a miracle. The survivor revealed, "I opened my eyes, unfastened seat belt, escaped through a small space on my left and walked up to an ambulance...don't know how I survived?"A 10-minute delay due to a traffic jam made Bhoomi Chauhan miss the flight from Ahmedabad to London. She believed that the delay and missed flight were due to

divine intervention

and considers her survival a miracle.Such tales defy or interrupt the standard chain of cause and effect that one typically expects in such a catastrophic event. It is a moment when the ordinary flow of events diverges and cannot be explained by physical factors or statistical probability. The incident compels one to ask a much deeper question: Is a miracle something entirely unknown and beyond the perception of the human mind?

The human mind, conditioned by habit, empirical observation, and specific situations, typically interprets events within a framework of cause and effect. However, the causal framework does not account for such an anomaly in catastrophic events where a lone survivor has emerged unscathed against all odds. Lone survivors: Juliane Koepcke (Dec 24, 1971), Vesna Vulovic (Jan 26, 1972), Cecelia Cichan (Aug 16, 1987), Bahia Bakari (June 30, 2009), Ruben Van Assouw (May 12, 2010), and now Vishwash Kumar Ramesh (June 12, 2025), underline limits of human knowledge and understanding pointing towards a hidden depth of reality yet to be fully comprehended by humans.Philosophers have different perspectives. For example, Spinoza insists that nature operates according to eternal universal laws, a deterministic system. To him, 'miracle' would violate these natural laws, which is impossible because God and nature are the same - Deus sive Natura. David Hume is sceptical and views '

miracles

' as improbable, irrational or unknowable. However, Thomas Aquinas and Leibniz have different perspectives and view 'miracle' as a purposeful intervention by a higher principle, a manifestation of God's will.This point is in accordance with traditional Hinduism, which views the universe not as a closed, mechanical system but as an expression of Brahmn, the ultimate reality. Naturally, the will of this Supreme principle can interrupt ordinary causality to produce what we call a chamatkar - an improbable event. Therefore, surviving a serious accident is a blessing in the ordinary sense.Such phenomena consider the possibility of hidden causal orders, subtler than physical laws, which govern extraordinary events. The survival of the lone individual against all odds may be a manifestation of these hidden dimensions.This resonates that the ordinary world we experience is only a surface phenomenon, a visible ripple, while the true depth of reality lies in a more unified whole. Miracles, therefore, are not violations of nature but revelations of their greater potential than the physical, measurable world. Here, the Supreme principle can interrupt ordinary causality to produce a wonder beyond human knowledge and causal explanations.Authored by: Vijay Hashia