That would also be an interesting thread..
To summarize my thinking, much of what we understand as miracles are just instances where God knows more about His laws than we do.
If, by miracle you require God to violate his own laws that reflect His nature then that kind of miracle never happened. God does not work against himself.
When we know how and the mechanism of action, we may call it providence, but we do not call it a miracle. If we cannot understand it, we call it a miracle. The difference is more a matter of what we know than it is a fundamental difference in the kind of action.
Ancients would call much of modern life miraculous, but we do not because even if we don't personally understand some piece of technology, we are confident that other men understand it. Its still a matter of what is known.
As far as more astonishing occurrences, I would point out that underlying all our muindane existence is an underpinning of probabilistic atomic and subatomic interactions. I would make a conjecture that the various possible outcomes for each action may represent a choice by the creator. An infinite God can do astonishing things by making innumerable decisions that make large scale happenings that are statistically near impossible (vanishingly so), A key thing is the difference between near impossible and absolutely impossible, and the fact that God is infinite and however many choices He needs to make is no 'sweat' to him.
By the way, Look at the bottom right of my Avatar. That is a depiction of an atom. I know it is old style and that the Bohr planetary model has been supplanted by later research, but another of my understandings from my formative years was that whatever electrons are, and however they move, they do so because the Creator is the Sustainer and He individually wills each along its path.
This is kind of applying the concept of knowing the number of hairs on my head to the concept of nuclear actions, combined with the knowledge that God is active (He did not just get things going and sit back and watch). The natural laws are summations and descriptions of the choices of God. The fact that we can deduce laws just shows his consistency and that he is not arbitrary.
The particular atom I depicted (in diagram fashion) is the lithium atom. Lithium is used in many astronomical mirrors ( It is shinny and makes good mirrors, and it is relatively light which simplifies structural requirements ). Astronomical information was also a part of my being drawn to God.
Let me give you something to think about here with respect to the so-called "laws of nature".
Our bodies are so order by the Creator that we must depend upon our five senses to tell us certain truths about our world. This is well and good because these things allow us to function within the confines of our natural surroundings. Our understanding of certain conditions allow us to protect ourselves from potential harm. For example, I do not stick my hand in the fire because I know that heat radiation is painfully destructive to human tissue. I do not walk off the top of a twenty-story building because I know that the impact at the bottom will undoubtedly be fatal. I do not knowingly step out in front of a speeding vehicle because I know there is a determined relationship between my body and mass in motion that does not work in my favor. These facts are certainly real and cannot simply be ignored.
Our senses are instilled within each of us by the Creator and are indeed a necessary component of our material existence. We cannot however, trust ourunderstanding of material conditions to tell us all the truth about reality. These conditions do not tell me that the power of God manipulates, overrules, and overturns natural processes. I can only know this from revelation. Scripture shows us that in human history, God has repeatedly contravened and overturned established determined relations, which we generally refer to as “laws” of nature. By its very nature, the idea of law suggests something that cannot be countermanded or violated without consequences. This is how we understand what we regard as “natural laws,” but just what is law?
I mentioned John Barrow earlier. If you are not familiar with him, he is the one who set forth the five propositions of how we should understand the relationship between the universe and natural laws. I will not take the time to go into each of these points individually. I only want to make you aware of them.
In his first proposition, Barrow suggested that law is preexistent and stands outside the natural universe. His second proposition says that the universe is preexistent and law exists only as a product of rational human invention. What this means is that the concept of law is man's attempt to explain a set of observable regularities and answer the question of causation. His third proposition states that law and the universe are contiguous regularities in time and space. In other words, both law and the universe have always co-existed in an eternal relationship. His fourth possibility suggests that the universe is all there is and that law is nonexistent. His fifth proposition (and the most absurd) suggests that law is all there is and that the universe is actually nonexistent.
If revelation is true concerning the nature of the universe, then all things on the natural side of reality owes its existence exclusively to the presence, power, and reality of God. Matter has no power to exist in and of its self, nor does the universe have within it the power to establish laws to govern its behavior. Law is an abstract and by its very nature requires the presence of a dependent entity upon which to act, something outside of itself that is dependent upon its power to govern. Without something upon which to act, would not law then cease to be law? If such a law existed before and outside of the universe it would, of necessity, exist in a vacuum. I maintain this is not possible. I would have to insist that, apart from the existence of God, there can be no law. Law can only exist as a means to establish order and organization for something that is concrete. Law requires the function of an administrator to enforce it. Since law has no power to create something beyond itself, there must be a power beyond law that is causative. Since the universe and universal law cannot exist apart from one another, neither can be causative of the other. This means that natural law must be subordinate to powers beyond itself. Law is neither self-existing nor self-sustaining. What man generally considers as “laws of nature” exist not as laws but rather as a set of determined relations that allow man to function within the confines of the natural world. It is a mistake to think that man can come to an accurate understanding of the universe on his own terms through a rational observation of his experiences within it.
Rationality depends upon the consistency of observable regularities. For example, I know that every time I throw a rock into the air it will inevitably come down because it always has. It has never just kept on going and going or stopped in mid-air. Any expectation that these “laws” can be overturned is generally regarded as irrational and not to be given serious consideration. Yet, scripture is replete with examples of the “irrational.” It is not rational to believe that three men can be thrown into a furnace of fire for an extended period and emerge unharmed and with not even so much as the smell of smoke on them, Daniel 3:24-27. It is patently absurd to believe that the earth can suddenly and instantaneously cease its rotational pattern for several hours without dramatically disturbing gravitational forces, Joshua 10:12-14. There is nothing in our experience within the field of human biology to suggest that a virgin can conceive a child , or that an metal ax head can float, or that an man can walk on water, or that someone who had been dead and entombed for four days can be raised simply by verbal command to rejoin the living.
All of these examples are certainly inconsistent with our experiences in observable regularities. These things cannot be rationalized based upon natural processes. What these things serve to demonstrate is that God is not bound by the so-called "laws of nature" or constrained by natural process, nor is the universe governed by such. We live in a non-linear reality because our world does not exist as a closed system. Our world is governed and controlled by powers that are outside of our normal field of observation. If man is to properly context his world of experience, he must learn to link what he can see to the reality and the power of God whom he cannot see.
When we approach scripture in just this way, we find that certain conclusions about Barrow’s five possibilities must be recognized. 1) All of his possibilities are dependent upon natural process that scripture reveals are non-determinate. 2) He places causation strictly within the natural realm. 3) Absolute intelligence, which is demonstrated in the power to govern, control and organize, is somehow the product of material reality. 4) He divorces causation from any external source of intelligence. When we attempt to rationalize creation based on our own understand of the natural world, no matter how educated one's analysis may be, we will invariably come to the wrong conclusions about creation. If we want to understand the point of causation, we must defer to the one who framed creation and then provided us an inspired written record of that event.