Miracles (part 3): Is there room for miracles in modern medicine and science?

Miracles are complicated.  Some people believe in them and some don’t.  When faced with a life-threatening illness like cancer, many folks in the latter group switch to the former.  A pithy aphorism that I’ve heard oncologists use is “Hope for a miracle, but makes plans in case one doesn’t happen.”  But what really to make of these phenomena?

We typically think of the dramatic demonstration, such as the unexplained remission of a metastatic cancer. Or even something more remarkable, like the “Miracle of the Sun” in Fatima, Portugal on October 13, 1917 that was reportedly witnessed by somewhere between 30,000 to 100,000 people and documented on the front page of a Lisbon (Portugal) newspaper.  But what about the smaller, more personal miracles. Like turning your head at just the right moment to prevent being hit by that speeding car.

A strictly scientific view might say that a miracle is really just a natural phenomenon for which we have not yet discovered the scientific basis.  Certainly the more we learn about the natural world, the better we can use this knowledge to improve the health and well-being of mankind.  For us oncologists, the remarkable and durable remissions of advanced cancer that are being seen with new immuno-oncology treatments certainly can feel like miracles, compared with the transient responses to chemotherapy that were all too common in the not-so-distant past.  But these immunotherapy drugs were the product of a step-wise and synchronicitous research process over decades.

But there are still things in this world that truly seem to defy understanding, apart from a divine source.  Things that may never have an adequate explanation by modern science.  Things that increase our sense of awe and wonder that seem to be growing so scarce in today’s world.  A society that requires a scientific explanation for everything that it witnesses misses out on something important, as wonder loses out to cynical skepticism.  Even opening the smallest crack in the door of the mind to the possibility of miracles softens our rigid need for control over all that we experience in life.

Ultimately, I suspect that we must fall back on the wisdom of the medieval philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas: “For those with faith, no evidence is necessary; for those without it, no evidence will suffice."  For all my medical and scientific training, the more I learn, the more I find the world to be a miraculous place, where the presence of miracles only increases my wonder of it all.  Or as the Bible so succinctly puts it:  “He gave medical knowledge to human beings, so that we would praise him for the miracles he performs (Sirach 38:6, Good News Translation).”