October 2012 (edited July 2022)
Joshua Morris
Based on a lecture given 9/27/12, 7/19/22.
The Bible is full of fantastic stories: Noah's Ark, Lazarus rising from the dead, Jesus healing paralytics, the blind, and the lame, walking on water, raising from the dead himself. What are we to make of these accounts? Are they as mythical as Zeus on Mount Olympus? Are they tall tales once based on real history that became legendary over time? Would only an idiot believe something like this? I will go through a biblical account of a miracle, analyze objections to the possibility of miracles, and discuss some common views. Are miracles possible? If so, this may change our paradigm in a big way.
Let's start with a passage from the Bible. Please note that defending the potential for miracles is not the same as endorsing every miracle story ever told. One can hold miracles are possible and still be skeptical of most miracle stories. The surrounding context and evidence for each miracle would still determine its credibility. For example, we would not put the same trust in a popular Greek myth as a biblical account. There are differences in style and context. One is written as an entertaining narrative, while the other is presented as a morally significant history. When approaching an account, ask, "Did the author believe they were describing a real event or just an exciting story?" If miracles are possible, the door is open. But other lines of evidence guide us in assessing the truthfulness of each account.
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: "He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him." Now I have told you." So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."
This passage makes several claims. It asserts the existence of a supernatural being: an angel. This angel interacts with the world in a physical way and is intelligent. Jesus was killed just prior to this passage, but has risen from the dead. He appears in a physical body that is able to be seen and heard. He appears to multiple people (in different places, at different times), making it difficult to explain away as hallucination. The angel moving the stone allows the women to see the tomb is empty.
Unlike most ancient myths, the account mentions specific dates, people, and geographic locations. These details establish a real time and place for the event. Actual people, who could have been questioned, are mentioned. The context is not a mythical mountain with a cast of gods. It is a historical event fitting known times, people, and locations. The author is asserting an actual miracle in the lives of real people. While this is not conclusive, it makes the account substantially more reasonable.
Before we go into arguments for and against miracles, it is useful to define a miracle. Geisler and Little state, "A miracle is a divine intervention into the natural world"1 or, "Miracles… are acts of God."2 This is important as Geisler notes, "It may be that the event which we call a miracle was brought about not by the suspension of the laws in ordinary operation, but by the super-addition of something not ordinarily in operation." That is, miracles do not necessarily interfere with the operation of natural law as we know it but could be merely the introduction of supernatural causes. For instance, when Jesus walked on water, it is not necessarily the case that gravity was inverted or suspended from operating at the location. It could be that another supernaturally caused force pushed against it. While one could hold that miracles are the bending or violating of natural laws, this is not logically necessary. A miracle could be a supernatural cause working in concert with natural forces. This is the definition of a miracle we will use.
Many objections have been raised against accounts like the one in Matthew. Most objections revolve around the credibility of miracles. People wonder if there is any justification in believing something like this. Doesn't it lead to absurd beliefs and conclusions? This is not a new issue. Jesus's contemporaries raise this objection with him directly in Matthew 22.
That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. "Teacher," they said, "Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?" Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead-have you not read what God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."
The Sadduccess are using a reductio ad absurdum argument. Isn't it absurd to believe in the resurrection? Doesn't it lead to bizarre and contradictory situations? In their example, a woman who is married to only one person at a time, in keeping with their moral traditions, would find herself married to seven men at once in heaven. Despite living morally on earth, she's put into an immoral situation in heaven. This is contradictory. Jesus corrects their misunderstanding. Heaven is not what they think and there will be no marriage relationships there, hence no contradiction. He cites Exodus 3:6 to remind them God is the God of the living. Their own scripture indicates these dead forefathers live on.
Today many people think heaven will be a dreadfully boring place, floating on clouds with nothing exciting to do. This is a similar argument to the Sadducees. How could we believe in something that seems so foolish? Instead, we see in Revelation 21, heaven is compared to a bustling city filled with people and with God immediately present. The city is always open and full of splendor. There is no death, mourning, or pain. Before we assert heaven or the afterlife are absurd, we should be sure we have the right facts about them.
But hasn't modern science filled in the gaps of our knowledge? Things which may have been considered miraculous in the past now have scientific explanations. Humanity was ignorant in the past, but don't we know miracles to be impossible? Several famous philosophers have argued against miracles and these ideas cover a lot of people's issues with them. We will discuss their objections next to see if they have any foundation.
Baruch Spinoza was a seventeenth century Dutch philosopher. He argued that we know now miracles are impossible. He attempted to prove this logically. His argument is more from a pantheistic perspective, that "God" wouldn't violate his own nature. A summary of his argument is as follows:
People in the past may have thought nature followed the whims of the gods, but modern people know nature follows natural laws. This is what Spinoza asserts. The argument is in premises 1) and 2). Miracles are breaks in natural law, but natural laws are consistent and immutable. Premises 3) and 4) flesh out the contradiction. Since natural laws do not change, miracles cannot be possible. First, note his definition of a miracle. This is not consistent with our definition of miracles above. If it is possible a miracle is a superposition of additional forces to natural laws, then laws are not being suspended or broken. Miracles would be possible. Spinoza has a stricter definition of miracles in mind. Why would we be required to accept his definition? Second, consider premise 2) as it relates to the beginning of the universe. If the universe had a beginning, and scientific consensus is almost universal that it did, then what does it mean for natural laws to be immutable? They did not exist, then came into existence. Are they immutable now? Our observation shows they are remarkably consistent but it is a much stronger point to say they are immutable. Third, what do we mean by natural law? Natural laws are merely our current theories based on observations of regular occurrences. Even a cursory view of the history of sciences shows us accepted natural laws are routinely overthrown and changed.4 At best we are holding a miracle account up to our current standard of what we think the natural laws are. Our understanding of the laws is hardly immutable. Hence, we see that both premises 1) and 2) have serious flaws when it comes to analyzing particular miracle accounts. Finally, by defining miracles as breaking an unbreakable law, Spinoza is doing what is called begging the question in philosophy. He assumes a definition of miracles and natural law in such a way that makes his conclusion inescapable. This is not persuasive. As Spinoza's premises crumble, so does his objection to miracles.
David Hume, a famous skeptic from the eighteenth century, argued a slightly more conservative case against miracles. Instead of claiming them to be logically impossible, he declared every miracle account to be refutable. His argument is as follows:
Like Spinoza, Hume gives a different definition of a miracle from ours. Our definition includes any divine intervention into the natural world, with no restriction on frequency. Hume's argument against miracles is compelling and much discussed. It makes sense for us to put more weight on regular occurrences than rare ones. Things that are difficult to reproduce are hard to understand or analyze. We certainly have more evidence for regularly occurring, easily observable phenomenon. Since much is based off of observability, Hume's argument runs into similar questions that Spinoza's did. How rare are miracles? They are rare from Hume's perspective. Perhaps they seem rare from our perspective. As each of us lives in only one time and place, our experiences are a minuscule slice of all events in the world as we live, let alone all events throughout history. We need to be careful establishing the regularity of an event from only our experience. But we do this all the time. "Everyone drives on the right-hand side of the road," says the person from America. "No, they all drive on the left," says the person from the U.K. Hume makes a good point, but one we have to temper a bit. An Israelite who was a slave in Egypt when Moses lead the Exodus would have experienced large miracles every day for decades. The disciples, who followed Jesus, experienced consistent miracles for three years during his ministry and many the year after his death. The Bible indicates the frequency of miracles tends to go up during important periods of history. They still occur, but with much less frequency, during other times.
Hume's third premise deserves a closer look. Does Hume's logic here hold up in all instances? What level of evidence would you need to believe a particular event? Say a friend of yours claims to have won the lottery. You would be right to be skeptical. They've never won the lottery before (past experience) and people do not usually win the lottery (common experience). But what if they start paying for every meal. Then you notice that they have a new, very nice car. They actually have seven new cars. They pay off their house and all their siblings houses. They take you and your entire family to stay in Hawaii and they fly you in a private jet. At what point would the evidence for the particular event, even though rare, make believing it rational? A more common example would be the birth of your child. Your child being born is an incredibly rare cosmic event, it only happens once ever for that child. But we have evidence every day that it happened, seeing our child next to us. Hume's logic, taken to its extreme, denies rare events, not just miraculous ones. Hume would have us deny a miracle even if we saw it with our own eyes! Wise individuals base beliefs on evidence. Hume's argument ignores that cumulative evidence for a particular rare event can be great, like in the examples above. This is the part of the probability Hume leaves out. Perhaps we object, "I hear about people winning the lottery and having babies but I never hear about miracles." Answered prayers, healing, demon possession still occur today, but in the secular West, they are not discussed frequently. When they are, we may reject them out of hand. Instead, investigate the cumulative evidence for miracles like Jesus's resurrection.
Antony Flew, a twentieth century philosopher, made his professional career by laying a foundation for atheism. His theories on falsification became famous. Like Hume, Flew does not assert the strict impossibility of miracles, but claims that the scientific evidence will always be against them. His argument is as follows:
We've been taking our arguments from the most sweeping to the most conservative. Flew seeks to frame the evidence in terms of science. Like Hume, he suggests that we should be the most sure of regular, repeatable things. That is, things which are testable should be held fast while things which are not must be held loosely. What does Flew mean by unrepeatable? He likely has things like natural laws in mind, which can often be demonstrated over and over. But if he means impossible to repeat, then he is mistaken. God could repeat a miracle any time he wishes. If the Biblical accounts are accurate, God has repeated types of miracles many times. If Flew means unrepeatable by humans, then he is faulting a miracle for not being a human-initiated event. This would be contradictory to our definition of miracles, and probably most definitions. Since miracles are acts of God, it is no surprise that humans cannot repeat them at will. If God is a personal being, instead of an impersonal force, then we would not expect such repeatability on demand. The initiation would be an act of God's choice rather than a pervasive, always available natural force.
We've discussed issues with doubting rare events above. Regarding Flew's third premise, we will argue this premise does not stand and so the conclusion does not follow. Similar to Hume's argument for the regular, Flew conflates the nature of evidence for the general and particular. The Big Bang is a very particular, non-repeatable event. Big Bangs do not happen in our universe often and it is not observable to most people. Yet, the evidence for it is very good. The fact that other repeatable things have good evidence for them does not bear on the problem. Both a general fact, like "Big Bangs don't happen often," and a particular fact, "the Big Bang did happen," can be true and have substantial evidence at the same time. Similarly, the evidence for people staying dead is general and repeatable. This does not mean that the evidence for Jesus's non-resurrection is necessarily greater than for his resurrection. It was a one-time historical event. We'd gather evidence for it like we would the Big Bang. If the Big Bang did not happen, how do we explain background microwave radiation and the doppler effect being the same for galaxies moving away from each other? We need a consistent alternative explanation that has even better evidence for it. If no miracle occurred after Jesus's death, we need a consistent account for the empty tomb, the witnesses who saw him alive again, the revolution in the lives of the apostles, and the rise of Christianity out of Judaism at that moment in history. These can't be treated piecemeal but an alternative explanation with even stronger cumulative evidence must be given. Historical, logical and scientific evidence can be applied to events like these.
We've shown there are particular and unrepeatable events that are part of even naturalistic core beliefs. These events are trusted with deep conviction. We should not fault historical events for being in the past rather than part of a lab experiment. If Flew's criteria eliminates miracles, then it eliminates these things as well. Many unusual events in history are not repeatable, but we hardly dismiss these events as having poor evidence. Particular, non-repeatable miracles are no different.
The short answer is yes; miracles are central and key to Christian belief. First, without miracles there is no divine interaction into history and human experience. Unless God is considered to just be part of the universe and a natural law, which few hold, all of his actions count as miracles. All of the key Old Testament stories, from the giving of the Law to Moses, to the words of the prophets who claimed God spoke to them, to the supernatural predictions about the coming of Jesus would be false. So too, the New Testament accounts of exorcizing demons, seeing visions, and Jesus's actions would be removed. One is left with very little of the Bible if the divine interaction into history is removed. We should be troubled by what to remove. If we removed everything for which we do not have a good explanation, we must realize past people would have cut more and future people would cut less. We are not in a good position to determine what to keep or remove.
Removing miracles would affect almost every major tenant of Christianity. Without miracles, there is no indwelling of the Holy Spirit. No spiritual growth or empowering of believers beyond their natural effort or abilities. No life after death. No personal interaction with God. It is not possible to redefine all of these terms and retain the same beliefs. This would be like asking someone if they believed in unicorns. They say they do but describe unicorns as small furry animals that bark alot and theirs is named "Fido." It is reasonable to think they believe in something entirely different than what you meant by "unicorn." The person who asserts that "Jesus rose in our hearts and our memory of him is what keeps him alive" does the same thing. To carry the memory of Jesus in our heart is quite different than a physically resurrected Jesus who will come back and save us. Traditional Christian theology requires a physical resurrection.
We should consider what the founders thought. Listen to the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:
For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Paul says if Jesus did not rise from the dead then the Christian faith is futile and Christians are to be pitied. It would be strange to affirm Paul, who wrote a third of the New Testament, by embracing the teachings of the Bible but then deny him in his clear declaration on the centrality of miracles. Paul says miracles are a deal breaker to the faith being true. All of the founders of biblical thought, including Jesus, asserted the reality of miracles. Christianity completely at odds with Jesus and the Apostles is no true Christianity.
Alright, maybe we are less confident now in proving miracles are impossible. We've considered the limits of our knowledge of natural law and our ability to determine what would constitute a miracle. Hasn't modern knowledge shown these stories to be unlikely? If not, impossible, surely miracles can be ruled out just by probabilities.
Modern objections to miracles essentially boil down to preferring any other explanation over a miracle. But we've now seen several shortcomings to this position.
Arguments against miracles in the Middle Ages often had hidden Deistic presumptions. God had created a well oiled machine of a universe under Newtonian physics. Why would he need to tweak things or mess it up? Discounting miracles was often an attempt to keep God remote and His creation "pure." Many modern arguments presume God does not exist. A powerful God who created the universe makes miracles very possible. He is certainly capable of intervening in the world, adding to or bending the laws of nature, and causing the rare or humanly unrepeatable to occur. As William Paley said, "What better way to authenticate a revelation then to set up regularities and exceed them?" One way to prove you are a superhuman being is to do superhuman things. The Bible shows God authenticating himself this very way. He dares others to do the same.
God has already established the revelation of himself to the world. He shows himself primarily through his Son, Jesus. The prophecies predicting Jesus, his miracles, his wisdom, and his resurrection all point to God interjecting in history. The Bible is about a story between God and us, but is it one bigger than just this world, just this life, and just natural laws.
We've seen that miracles are possible, but are you open to them? Would you be willing to ask God to reveal himself in his own way? Are you willing to explore some of the accounts of Jesus in the Bible? If you know God, are you willing to trust him with that area you've been worrying about? He's bigger than this world; he put its rules in place. God does what he says. Miracles are real, Jesus came back from the dead, and he can bring you back. Why not accept his offer? As Geisler concludes on the subject, "In the final analysis it is not simply a matter of thought but of choice."7
Jesus speaks to this question in Luke 16:27-31:
"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.' "Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.' "'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.' "He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"
Jesus is telling a parable to the rich Pharisees, who were sneering at him and who love wealth (verse 14). In the story the rich man, who is in Hades, pleads for a miracle to save his family. He wants Abraham to send someone back from the dead to warn his family not to share in his fate. This would have been miraculous. Abraham confronts him with the assertion that if his family is unwilling to believe the Bible, then they will not find a miracle compelling either. Jesus's Abraham knows miracles don't always increase faith. The point of the parable is lost on the Pharisees who reject the risen Christ later. Jesus does come back from the dead but some still do not believe in him.
This may seem shocking to those who swear that if they could just see something with their eyes they would believe, but the Bible lays this rebuttal out several times. The Israelites of Moses' day saw miracles every day but still did not trust God. Hebrews 3:10 tells us, "we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief." Regular experience of miracles did not give them faith. The Pharisees and other enemies of Jesus' day did not claim he performed no miracles, rather they said it was the power of Satan. They watched him do miracles but did not believe in him. We may say we would believe, but God says it doesn't work that way. How can we be so sure?
Second, the Bible points out there are things going on outside our viewpoint. In the book of Job, his friends think he is being punished for his mistakes and secret sin. They are wrong. Job thinks he is being punished by God unjustly despite his righteousness. He is also wrong. The book reveals to the readers that it is caused by an argument between God and Satan on why people follow God. Satan claims it is only for the blessings. Similarly, there may be things going on in the spiritual world outside our view that decide whether God chooses to do a miracle or not. We are focused on ourselves and our own problems are central to us, but they are not necessarily central to the bigger picture around us. God may be choosing to delay good things, like he did with Job, for some reason we cannot see yet.
Third, miracles are temporary solutions. Lazarus was raised from the dead by Jesus, but later died again. The widow's son, the people healed by the prophets, they all eventually got sick and died. The sun standing still for Joshua's battle started moving again. Paul survived the snake bite but was executed by the Romans. Miracles fade in their impact and in our memories. God is focused on long term solutions. He's poured most of his efforts into reuniting us with him and with each other. Jesus is his solution to reconcile the world to him. Jesus's death on the cross and resurrection is the best attested miracle as it is key to fixing our futures in a permanent way. It makes sense God would put the most focus on the important thing.
God has given us minds, reason, and a will. We need to use these assets to investigate what he has already revealed through the Bible and through Jesus. We are justified in our openness to miracles as we investigate, as there is no good philosophical justification to write them off. Presupposed naturalism against miracles is biased. While God does not promise to change the color of the sky at your command to compel you to believe in him, he does say, "Seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). The honest investigator will be able to find the truth of God's presence in history.
Miracles are possible today. 1 Corinthians 12 lists "miraculous powers" right alongside the other spiritual gifts. How would your life be different if you were convinced miracles were possible? Would you ask for more than you do? Would your hope be sparked no matter how dark the current day? Let God set the limits, not us! Ask for big things, things beyond what we can imagine. Have hope your life can be radically better than it is or has been thanks to God's miraculous power.
1. Geisler, p.4 [note page numbers from an electronic version]
2. Little, Paul. p.102
3. Geisler, p.5
4. See Larry Laudan’s book, Science and Values for a long list of overturned scientific theories that were very widely accepted in their day and held large explanatory power.
5. Geiser, p.12
6. Geisler, p.16
7. Geisler, p.15
Craig, William Lane. "The Problem of Miracles: A Historical and Philosophical Perspective." https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/historical-jesus/the-problem-of-miracles-a-historical-and-philosophical-perspective. Accessed 21 July 2022.
Geisler, Norman. Miracles and the Modern Mind. 1992.
Little, Paul E. Know Why You Believe. 2000. (Chapter 8, "Are Miracles Possible?")
McGrew, Timothy. "Miracles." http://plato.standford.edu/entries/miracles. 2 June 2011. Accessed 26 August 2012.
Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ. (Part 3, "Researching the Resurrection")