Are miracles a faith killer?
In many discussions on the existence of God the debate inevitably turns to miracles, at which point the skeptic proclaims victory because “any thinking person could not believe in miracles in this day and age.”
At the outset miracles do indeed appear to kill any rational thought about a worldview. How could any person logically believe that a virgin gave birth? What reasonable individual could actually support the notion that the dead could be raised?
They seem so outlandish and outrageous, so contrary to the way things work. They are so abnormal, they must not be possible. In fact, noted theologian and author Dr. William Craig said that he became a Christian inspite of the virgin birth. He called it “totally absurd” and a “stumbling block” to his faith.
However, there are several reasons why I believe that miracles can happen and why it is logical to accept them.
First of all, to reject miracles out of hand because of their improbability is to reject much of the central tenets of modern science. The evolution of life, especially human life, has to be one of the biggest improbabilities ever discussed – the miniscule chance that everything could develop just the right way for human life and all other living organisms. One can also consider the beginning of life. Louis Pasteur supposedly did away with the theory of spontaneous generation in 1859, yet for life to have developed on Earth non-life had to give rise to life.
These event hold an extremely low probability, so low that many, even atheists, have used the world “miracle” to describe them. So to remove miracles from the realm of logic, one has to use more than merely their improbability.
In fact, that is why they are miracles because they are improbable or even impossible. Craig defines a miracle as “an event which is not producible by the natural causes that are operative at the time and place that the event occurs.” Things are miraculous precisely because they could not occur naturally.
Atheistic philosopher Michael Ruse said, “Creationists believe the world started miraculously. But miracles lie outside of science, which by definition deals with the natural, the repeatable, what which is governed by law.”
What may surprise Ruse is that Christians hold to the same concepts. The key as Craig points out is that Ruse says miracles lie outside of science, but that does not mean they contradict it. Many things lie outside of science, while not contridicting it.
The key to understanding the place of miracles is evaluating the a priori assumptions of the world. If you assume that there is no supernatural at play, then of course the inclusion of miracles would be ridiculous. However, if one allows that the supernatural may be present in any form in our world, miracles may logically flow from that. A supernatural event must flow from a supernatural being, therefore if a supernatural being exists, supernatural events (miracles) may exist.
If you allow that there may indeed be a God in the universe, how is it any larger of a leap to assume that occasionally, he “interfers” with the natural way of doing things? C.S. Lewis put it this way, “If we admit God, must we admit miracles? Indeed, indeed, you have no security against it. That is the bargain.”
But are miracles a violation of the laws of nature? J.P. Moreland uses Newton’s classic experiment of the falling apple and gravity to explain. If you happen to reach out and catch the apple from falling, are you violating the law of gravity by preventing the apple from hitting the ground? Of course you are not violating the law or negating the law, you are merely intervening. That is essentially what the supernatural would be doing in a miracle – intervening in nature to cause a different outcome than the one that would happen without any action.
This should illustrate the point that if finite beings such as ourselves are able to overcome and intervene in certain natural laws like gravity when we catch something, fly in an airplane or blast into space, how much easily should it be for a infinite being to intervene.
Famed skeptic David Hume argued that miracles should not be considered by a logical man. He essentially said the evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare and since miracles are by definition rare, the logical thing would be to always discount miracles.
But Hume was wrong in his assumption – the origin of the universe happened only once, the origin of life happened only once, the origin of specific new life forms happened only once, the entire history of the world is comprised of rare, unrepeatable events and David Hume himself was born only once. I don’t think he doubts his own birth.
According to Dr. Norman Geisler, Hume confuses several things. First off, he confuses believability with possibility. The assertion only challenges the believability of miracles, not their possibility. Hume’s argument would ask that you disbelieve a miracle even if you personally witnessed one and gathered all the convincing evidence. You are not allowed to believe what you verified to be true.
Secondly, Hume confuses probability with evidence. He doesn’t weigh the evidence for each rare event. Instead, he adds the evidence for all regular events and claims this makes rare events unworthy of belief. We believe many rare events in our life. Do you discount a hole-in-one when you witness it firsthand? Do you tell the lottery winner that they can’t claim their prize until they pick the winning numbers five times?
Hume’s assertions disallow miracles from the start. He starts with the assumption that he knows all miracles to be false, which one can only have if you already know that miracles have never occurred. He also rightly defines miracles as a rare event and then says we shouldn’t believe it because it is rare. So in order for miracles to become believable for Hume, they must cease being miracles.
I began by telling how Dr. William Craig became a Christian in spite of his doubting miracles such as the virgin birth. So how did he go from a young doubting atheist to the author of numerous books on the veracity of Jesus’ resurrection and a contributor to books such as In Defense of Miracles?
He answers with this: “Well I sort of put that issue aside and became a Christian anyway, even though I didn’t really believe in the virgin birth. But then after becoming a Christian, it occured to me that if I really do believe in a God who created the universe, then for Him to create a Y chromosome would be child’s play.”
The insertion of the possibility of a supernatural being brings with it the possibility of supernatural acts. As C.S. Lewis said, “That is the bargain.” What I think is the better question is: why don’t we see those Biblical miracles today?
Many argue that they do occur today just not much in the West. A very well-educated and intelligent evangelist that I know shares the story of seeing a girl raised from the dead in India. Many others argue that they too have witnesses these type of events.
Of course the skeptic in most of us, myself included, says, “Why wasn’t that featured on CNN last night?” And if they are not well known today, why should we believe they happened in the past?
While many believe that the Bible is filled with miracles from start to finish, there is only about 250 in the 6,000 years of recorded history and virtually all of those are confined to three time periods: the lifetimes of Moses, Elijah and Elisha, and Jesus and the apostles. The significance of these three periods in the Bible is that this is when God was confirming a new revelation and new messengers of that truth.
So why no miracles today? If the Bible is true and complete, God is not confirming any new revelation and thus does not have this main purpose for performing miracles today.
Much of the information of this post comes from Case For Faith by Lee Strobel and I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Dr. Norman Geisler and Frank Turek.
First of all, to reject miracles out of hand because of their improbability is to reject much of the central tenets of modern science.
Miracles cannot and should not be defined as extremely improbable occurrences. Something that is improbable, no matter how astronomical the odds against the occurrence are, are still explainable by science and reason. True miracles are impossibilities.
The evolution of life, especially human life, has to be one of the biggest improbabilities ever discussed
Human life is not as improbable as you make it out to be. Read “The Blind Watchmaker.” If you want references, let me know.
…the minuscule chance that everything could develop just the right way for human life and all other living organisms.
Your father ejaculated millions and millions of sperm during intercourse and only one could fertilize your mother’s egg. The odds just from that are what, around 10 million to one. If your father coughed during intercourse with your mother, you wouldn’t exist. If your father’s father coughed during intercourse with your grandmother, you wouldn’t exist. If your great grandfather coughed during intercourse with your great grandmother, you wouldn’t exist. This chain of events, each dependent on the previous event, goes all the way back to the origin of life: or Adam and Eve for you creationists. So, 10 million times 10 million times 10 million = 10 to the 20th power. And thats just the odds for coughing back to your great grandparents, factor into to that, what if your mother had a headache that night. It goes on and on and on. Yet here you are! You defied all the odds. Is your existence, a miracle or the result of an immensely improbable chain of events? The latter of course and it’s within the realm of science (natural, repeatable, governed by law) despite the improbability.
If you assume that there is no supernatural at play, then of course the inclusion of miracles would be ridiculous.
This is the rational stance of course. There is no evidence of a supernatural God outside of time and space just as there is no evidence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster God. Assuming either exists is irrational. “If we admit [The Flying Spaghetti Monster], must we admit miracles? Indeed, indeed, you have no security against it. That is the bargain.” – CS Lewis
So why no miracles today?
A real miracle would be if amputees heal back their limbs. Maybe some day science can regenerate lost limbs but it seems today that God can’t or won’t.
I find it convenient that the disbeliever said, "I don't believe in miracles," and then, upon believing in God, found all the explanation he needed, saying, "Forget everything we know! God exists in this book here! He made a miracle baby in a womb! Miracles."
Come on. Miracles don't occur. Unexplained phenomenon occur, and in Jesus's case, Mary had sex with another man, and produced a child.
True miracles are impossibilities.
That is the same logical mistake that Hume makes. How can you possibly, logically consider something when you eliminate the possibility from the start? You cannot know that miracles cannot happen unless you have discounted every account of a miracle. It is a big leap to say that I don’t think miracles happen to I know they don’t happen. It is virtually impossible to know that something can never happen.
Suppose you were the evangelist I know. You were in India. You saw a girl die. You saw the village mourn and go through the ceremonies. You know for a fact that the girl is dead. Medically she was not living. Then somehow the girl is living again. You know she was dead and now you know she is alive. There is no natural way to explain what happened.
You are telling me that because you know “true miracles are impossibilities” you would disbelieve something that you personally witnessed and verified logically that it was true? That doesn’t seem right.
Your argument about the odds of my existence further deteriorates Hume’s argument about trusting the common above the rare. Things that happen very rarely happen often (as paradoxical as that sounds), so the rareness of something is not a reason to disbelieve. That defeats part of Hume’s reasoning.
I am not dealing with at this moment the existence of God, only the possibility of the supernatural. If a supernatural being is possible, then supernatural acts are possible. There can be no argument of that fact, regardless of how many times you invoke the FSM.
If you don’t start with the assumption that you have all knowledge of what exists within the universe, then miracles become a possibility because something beyond our knowledge, beyond nature may exist.
Sam, Dr. Craig didn’t say, “Forget everything we know!” What he said was that once he allowed for the possibility of a supernatural being, God, then it was the most rational thing in the world to allow for supernatural acts. It would be irrational to believe in the possibility of a God, while not believing that the God could act in our world in any way outside of nature.
As he said, if God created the entire universe, adding a Y chromosome inside of Mary’s womb would not be difficult.
You and Cineaste, althought not admittedly, start with the assumption that you know everything there is to know about what exists because you know that a supernatural being cannot exist. But if there is any area which you do not know could that not be the area that God exists?
I’m not talking probability here. You may find it very, extremely improbably that God exists, but unless you have all knowledge you cannot say that God does not exist. And if God may exists then miracles may exist. That is a logical stance to take based on the limited information we have available and that is my point. It does not take being irrational to believe in the possibility of God or miracles. It is the height of arrogance to say that you know that a miracle cannot happen. “Sorry to be so blunt” to quote Richard Dawkins.
Suppose you were the evangelist I know. You were in India. You saw a girl die. You saw the village mourn and go through the ceremonies. You know for a fact that the girl is dead. Medically she was not living. Then somehow the girl is living again. You know she was dead and now you know she is alive. There is no natural way to explain what happened.
It would be a miracle if she was dead for 100 years and came back to life. That is the difference between possible and impossible. I can scientifically explain your scenario if you wish.
Your argument about the odds of my existence further deteriorates Hume's argument about trusting the common above the rare. Things that happen very rarely happen often (as paradoxical as that sounds), so the rareness of something is not a reason to disbelieve. That defeats part of Hume's reasoning.
It means that there are not 6 billion miracles walking about despite the astronomical odds for each individual.
I am not dealing with at this moment the existence of God, only the possibility of the supernatural. If a supernatural being is possible, then supernatural acts are possible. There can be no argument of that fact, regardless of how many times you invoke the FSM.
The point is the FSM is just as good an argument for the existence of the supernatural and miracles as God is.
If you don't start with the assumption that you have all knowledge of what exists within the universe, then miracles become a possibility because something beyond our knowledge, beyond nature may exist…. You and Cineaste, althought not admittedly, start with the assumption that you know everything there is to know about what exists because you know that a supernatural being cannot exist. But if there is any area which you do not know could that not be the area that God exists?
It very well may. My mind is open to that possibility. However, my default position is to not assume a supernatural entity exists. My default position is the rational one, that there are no supernatural beings. If evidence for Gods, and leprechauns presents itself, I'll reconsider. Until then, as a rational human being, I must rule Gods, FSM, ghosts, astrology and all the rest of them out.
It is the height of arrogance to say that you know that a miracle cannot happen. "Sorry to be so blunt" to quote Richard Dawkins.
No apology necessary. Miracles cannot happen because by definition they are impossible not highly improbable events. It's the difference between zero odds and 1 in a zillion. Mary could have dried herself with Joseph's towel and got pregnant from it. We will never know what actually happened but to assert that God got her pregnant sounds crazy.
Cineaste, I am well aware of people being "technically dead" and coming back to life, but that misses my point. If you say miracles cannot happen, then you would have to disbelief your own experience and logic if you personally witnessed one. Are you willing to follow a belief that tells you that you must ignore what you saw and what you know to be true?
My existence is not a miracle. Neither is yours. As you say, there are scientific explanations for that. It may be improbable, but not naturally impossible. Hume is (was) saying that because the claims for miracles are so rare then it is the logically thing to believe the event that is the least rare. That is not wise, since we see that many things that are rare happen. If miracles occur, they are rare events, but their rareness is not a reason to disbelieve them.
At this point the FSM is just as "reasonable" explanation for miracles as the Christian God, in that any supernatural being is a (the only) reasonable explanation for a supernatural act. Of course, I don't find the FSM reasonable and I find God very much so, but that is for later.
I'm not sure how you can say your mind is "open to that possibility (miracles)" while saying that you must at the same time rule them out. You can say, my mind is open to the possibility, but I don't believe in them personally. Or I'm open, but I doubt they are real. You can't say I'm open, but I know they don't exist.
Perhaps we could better move forward if you defined what you regard as a miracle, since you say "by definition they are impossible."
It does sound crazy to say that God caused Mary to be pregnant if there is no God, but if you accept that there is a Creator God actively iinvolved in the world, it becomes a lot less strange.
It does sound crazy to say that God caused Mary to be pregnant if there is no God, but if you accept that there is a Creator God actively involved in the world, it becomes a lot less strange.
Inserting a creator god as an explanation for what you can't explain is a gigantic logical cop out. I will not commit that logical transgression.
If you say miracles cannot happen, then you would have to disbelief your own experience and logic if you personally witnessed one.
If I saw something that defies belief, I would not say God did it by default. I would ask first, is there a reasonable explanation, no matter how unlikely? If there is no possible scientific explanation, only then would I label what I saw as a miracle or supernatural.
If miracles occur, they are rare events, but their rareness is not a reason to disbelieve them.
I could care less about how often apparent miracles occur. I am more concerned with if they can be explained reasonably, naturally and scientifically. It is science which determines a miracle's validity because if the event falls outside of nature and can only be described as supernatural, then it's a true miracle.
I'm not sure how you can say your mind is "open to that possibility (miracles)" while saying that you must at the same time rule them out.
I rule them out until evidence for them presents itself. So, I won't deny miracles if there is compelling evidence of the supernatural like everyone in the world being spontaneously cured of all diseases or my dead relatives suddenly pop back into existence. That would make a believer out of me. My mind is open. I don't rule out the possibility of miracles. I just have a higher standard of what constitutes a miracle than you do.
Perhaps we could better move forward if you defined what you regard as a miracle, since you say "by definition they are impossible."
Please see above.
Actually I agree with you on basically everything you said.
If I saw something that defies belief, I would not say God did it by default. I would ask first, is there a reasonable explanation, no matter how unlikely? If there is no possible scientific explanation, only then would I label what I saw as a miracle or supernatural.
Agreed.
I could care less about how often apparent miracles occur. I am more concerned with if they can be explained reasonably, naturally and scientifically. It is science which determines a miracle's validity because if the event falls outside of nature and can only be described as supernatural, then it's a true miracle.
Agreed.
I just have a higher standard of what constitutes a miracle than you do.
That doesn't seem to be the case.
Dr. William Craig said much of the same thing when discussing miracles. He was asked about Max Plank and Richard Dawkin's predictions that faith in miracles would inevitably yield ground to the advance of science and biology. He responded this way:
You do seem to place an extraordinarily high burden of proof on a miracle though. Only after everyone is cured and your dead relatives come back to life would you believe. What if only one person came back to life after being dead for several days, does that constitute a miracle and would you believe it if it were proved logically to you?
Doubt and believe are not complete opposites. You can believe something because it has been proven logically and rationally to you, but you still may have some doubts or reservations. There are not many things of which humans can be 100% sure.
If there are natural explanations to so-called "miracles" I welcome those. I have no problem with exposing things that are not "acts of God."
My scenario would definitly leave no room for doubt in my mind.
And that is why Christian theology says it will never happen. You would be forced to believe in a supernatural being. It would not be a question any more.
As we discussed in other threads, God does not force Himself upon us. He could make all of us belief right now if He so desired, but He wants us to come to him by our own free will. He wants us to choose Him. If He acted and healed all the sick people and brought back to life all the dead people that would force everyone to acknowledge His existence.
So I am trying to pin down your current position on miracles. Is it safe to say that you doubt seriously that miracles do occur or have occured, but if you were presented with overwhelming evidence for them you could accpet them?
Would that sum up your feelings and if so does that mean that you no longer consider miracles "impossible?"
There are not many things of which humans can be 100% sure.
We will have to disagree on this point. I believe there are many things of which humans can be 100% sure. By 100% sure I mean things I would be willing to wager my life upon. There are also many things of which we cannot be 100% sure of but it is reassuring to know that these things are fewer and farther between with each scientific advance.
And that is why Christian theology says it will never happen. You would be forced to believe in a supernatural being. It would not be a question any more.
Who's to say that it wasn't Allah who cured all the diseases in the world. If those miracles I mentioned occurred it would certainly convince me of a supernatural agent. My next logical question would be, which one? Most likely in my mind would be that the supernatural agent is one which humans have never considered.
As we discussed in other threads, God does not force Himself upon us. He could make all of us belief right now if He so desired, but He wants us to come to him by our own free will. He wants us to choose Him. If He acted and healed all the sick people and brought back to life all the dead people that would force everyone to acknowledge His existence.
Aaron, you cannot know this. No one can. This is actually your interpretation of the Protestant tradition which is itself an interpretation of Christianity which in turn is derived from the Jewish tradition which then also borrows from prior religions. I wonder if I asked a Muslim, "Why doesn't Allah reveal himself?" if they would give a similar answer to the Protestants. Regardless, I honestly believe that you gave a neat and tidy rationalization for why "God is Silent" (unrevealed). From my perspective, using Occam's razor, the best explanation for why God is silent is because He is not there.
So I am trying to pin down your current position on miracles. Is it safe to say that you doubt seriously that miracles do occur or have occurred, but if you were presented with overwhelming evidence for them you could accept them?
That is what I am saying. Bear in mind however all I have said above regarding the subject of miracles lest you misunderstand.
Would that sum up your feelings and if so does that mean that you no longer consider miracles "impossible?"
I consider every disease of every person in the world being cured simultaneously as impossible. I would also consider it a miracle. I would also venture that you feel the same way as I on such an occurrence. If you don't then you probably think NOTHING is impossible and that would illustrate a fundamental difference in thinking between us. You think there is nothing impossible because you invoke a supernatural agent. I think that impossibilities are part of reality because I do not invoke the supernatural. I view such invocations as "logical transgressions" (I am trying not to use the term Cop Out but that is what I mean).
Aaron, was that the answer you were looking for?