Appendix D 1 min read
Analytical Criteria for Evaluating a Vindicatory Miracle
From the minimally refined research manuscript
This appendix gathers the analytical model used throughout the book. The labels are modern reconstructions intended to organize the traditional materials, not magisterial formulae.
The master sequence
Event → Causal Discernment → Divine Attribution → Signification → Scope of Attestation → Ecclesial/Doctrinal Integration
Six judgments
| Judgment | Controlling question |
|---|---|
| Historical | Did the alleged event actually occur? |
| Scientific/causal | Can ordinary bodily, psychological, environmental, medical, or other created causes account for it? |
| Metaphysical | What order of created causality, if any, does the event exceed? |
| Theological | Is divine agency appropriately inferred rather than illusion, fraud, preternatural agency, or an unknown created cause? |
| Semiotic/vindicatory | What truth, person, mission, or good is the event intelligibly ordered to attest? |
| Ecclesial-juridical | Has that attribution been established with sufficient evidence for the Church to rely upon it publicly? |
Non-equivalences that prevent invalid inference
extraordinary ≠ miraculous
miraculous ≠ automatically vindicatory
vindicatory ≠ unlimited vindication
divine action through a person ≠ endorsement of everything that person believes
medical inexplicability ≠ positive proof of divine causation
miraculous manifestation ≠ sacramental efficacy
divine omnipresence ≠ special manifestation or mode of presence
A heuristic for evidential force
Vindicatory force rises, other things being equal, with extraordinariness, evidential reliability, semantic specificity, independence, and convergence.
This heuristic is not intended as a literal quantitative equation. It expresses the principle that a semantically vague, poorly documented anomaly should not be assigned the same apologetic weight as a well-attested event antecedently tied to a determinate claim.