After writing articles on several facts concerning Jesus’ resurrection that nearly every historian (Christian and non-Christian) believes is true, one may wonder why more scholars do not believe that Jesus was truly raised from the dead.
Ultimately, one’s worldview is going to determine how they perceive certain facts. If historians do not believe in the supernatural, then they will only look for natural explanations to account for the data. This is unfortunate, especially since the alternative explanations fail miserably to account for all of the data. Nevertheless, these skeptics are forced into holding these bad explanations due to their constricted and non-miraculous worldview.
The result of this causes skeptical historians to automatically dismiss something extraordinary (miraculous). Afterall, dead people do not rise from the dead! This would be a miracle, and miracles can only happen if God exists, which they do not believe. But hold on, they need to take into consideration that there are some events that cannot be adequately explained by natural causes alone.
Extraordinary Claims Do NOT Require Extraordinary Evidence
You’ve heard it before and no doubt you’ll hear it again from skeptics. They believe that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It’s one of their go-to lines which they believe is enough to dismiss any evidence given for a miraculous event. This old and wore out claim by atheists has been disproven over and over again, so I’ll quickly address it before moving on.
The key here is to understand what skeptics mean when they say something is an extraordinary claim. By this, they mean an event that’s very unusual or monumental. But this in no way entails that the evidence for that claim must be very unusual or monumental, otherwise, we couldn’t believe the average evidence we have for non-miraculous events that have occurred despite their unusual nature and high improbability.
For example, if I won the biggest lottery in the history of lotteries in which the odds were 1 in 10 billion, then unusual or monumental evidence would not be required for us to believe the truth of this highly improbable and monumental event. As philosopher William Lane Craig says,
“The evidence that it takes to counterbalance the low prior probability of that person’s winning needn’t be enormous or unusual at all but just more probable given the truth of the hypothesis than its falsehood.”[1]
In other words, given our background information in which we know that I have entered the mega lottery, we also know there is a level of probability that I can win, and although it is highly improbable, we don’t need extraordinary or monumental evidence for someone to rationally believe that I won.
Likewise, it’s not impossible nor improbable for a miracle to occur given the background information that an all-loving God exists who is involved in his creation. If he didn’t exist, then of course miracles wouldn’t happen, and we would be in our rights to deny what evidence is provided to us. But if one did happen, only a sufficient amount of evidence would be needed to believe it, not an extraordinary amount.
In regard to rationally believing that a miraculous event occurred, Craig reminds us,
“What is crucial is that the evidence be far more probable given that the event did occur than given that it did not.”[2]
As for the resurrection, the evidence we have is far more probable given our background information of God’s existence, the religious-historical context, and Jesus’ self-proclaimed divinity.
When we hear of a miracle, we need to ask, how likely it is to have evidence that something miraculous did occur, had there not really been something miraculously occur? Why do we have the evidence we do? As philosopher Tim McGrew says,
“What is more likely, or more unlikely, that a miracle has occurred or that people should falsely give the kind of testimony that in fact we have?” He rightly adds, “Probability theory is math, math cannot settle empirical questions.”[3]
At this point, you’ll probably hear the skeptic use this to argue that it’s more probable for someone to lie or be mistaken, than it is for a miracle to happen. But they’ve missed the point: the fact that people lie or are mistaken, does nothing to nullify that something miraculous may have occurred. Each miracle claim must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
As for Jesus’ resurrection, the alternative natural explanations fail to account for all of the data, leaving us with God as the best explanation and the one directly responsible for such an event. Therefore, a massive amount of evidence is not needed to believe that something improbable happened given our background information and religious-historical context here. The person risen from the dead wasn’t your average Joe…it was Jesus!
Hume Got it Wrong
Another go-to argument that skeptics use to deny the possibility of miracles is found in the works of the famous eighteenth-century Scottish skeptic David Hume. Hume’s philosophy about miracles is the gold standard for many atheists, and you will be sure to hear them parrot his arguments.
Insufficient Testimonies
Hume said that there is no testimony sufficient enough to establish a miracle claim because our uniform experience tells us that a natural explanation is more likely to be true.[4] So, because we do not observe dead people coming back to life, we should automatically dismiss the claim that someone has been raised from the dead.
Our experience tells us that it doesn’t happen, and therefore when we hear that it does, we can simply dismiss it, or we are rational in not believing the evidence presented to us. Here’s something else that is noteworthy: It has been demonstrated by theist and atheist philosophers alike, that Hume was dead wrong on his treatment of miracles.
Don’t take my word for it—just look at what distinguished philosopher and atheist John Earman titled his book: Hume’s Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles. Earman says that “it is not simply that Hume’s essay does not achieve its goals, but that his goals are ambiguous and confused,” and “the essay represents the kind of overreaching that gives philosophy a bad name.”[5] …Wow!
Ignorant Ancients
How about when skeptics parrot Hume by declaring that people in ancient civilization were barbaric, ignorant, superstitious and gullible, and therefore we cannot possibly trust their testimonies of incredible events.[6] I can’t tell you how often I hear that one!
This is pretty unfair and isn’t well thought out, though. Just because ancient people were ignorant of how certain aspects of natural laws worked, does not entail they were ignorant concerning natural laws. In this case, we don’t need to know how something works in order to know that it works.
The ancients knew very well how babies were made, and that a pregnant virgin was nonsensical and unnatural apart from phenomena beyond the natural realm. They also knew that dead people stayed dead, so when they saw Jesus alive again, they knew something beyond natural processes had occurred.
Miracles in Other Religions
Hume thought that if you tried to confirm one religion through their miracle claims, then a competing religion could do the same thing and thus cancel each other out, similar to a court of law where two witnesses provide conflicting testimonies.
So, for example, you couldn’t use the resurrection to confirm Christianity is true because there are miracle claims used by Muslims to confirm Islam is true (even though Muhammad explicitly denied his ability to perform miracles/signs which only belonged to Allah).
However, we must remember that not all miracle stories are equally credible. When looking at the evidence carefully, one can see that many miracle claims do not provide sufficient evidence to believe in them. Most are hearsay and old tales made up by people sitting around the campfire. False miracle claims do nothing to invalidate true miracle claims.
Furthermore, many religions that make miracle claims contradict their original founder’s teachings or they’re inconsistent with their religious framework. For example, Buddha was said to perform miracles, but Buddhism denies a permanent divine being; and hence miracles are impossible in this religion. Or take Pantheism for example, which says there is an impersonal Ultimate Reality. On this view, there is no personal agent to perform a personal act, i.e., miracle.[7]
It’s also important to distinguish between miracles and magic. There are some religions in which gurus and other spiritual leaders have employed magic by receiving aid from demonic forces. Maybe they levitated, lifted something extremely heavy, or deprived their bodies of food and water for abnormal amounts of time. In the Bible, Pharoah’s magicians turned their staffs into snakes.
Jesus was accused of sorcery by his opponents, but he, unlike the magicians, performed supernatural acts by his own authority and power. Because demons are part of the natural order as they are contingent and created beings, they can only manipulate to a limited degree that which already exists. And the only reason it exists is because of the one who created it—God. Jesus performed supernatural acts while sorcerers perform supernormal ones. Philosopher David Clark explains,
“It is best to interpret demonic acts as supernormal but natural events, since demons are part of the natural order that God created.”[8]
Therefore, from a Christian perspective, miracles and magic are conceptually distinct from one another.
Miracles Violating Natural Laws
Hume is also famous for saying that “a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.”[9] This is an easy thing to say when you’ve already prevented the existence of miracles due to your preconceived notions and biased worldview. Recall that Hume didn’t believe in the existence of God, so of course he’s going to interpret every event as a natural one.
Yet, Hume failed to realize that if God exists and created the natural world, then God has the power to intervene in the natural world. But it doesn’t follow that God is somehow violating natural processes while doing it. As C. S. Lewis explained: when God intervenes by introducing a miracle, then it
“finds itself conforming to all the laws. If God creates a spermatozoon in the body of a virgin, it does not proceed to break any laws. The laws at once take it over. Nature is ready. Pregnancy follows, according to all the normal laws, and nine months later a child is born.”[10]
The laws of nature simply provide descriptions of how things operate in our universe. They do not intentionally cause things to happen. Hence, it does not, and cannot, tell us if there is someone existing outside of it that has the ability to intervene within it. Philosopher Robert Larmer says,
“If God creates or annihilates a unit of mass/energy, or simply causes some of these units to occupy a different position, then He changes the material conditions to which the laws of nature apply. He thereby produces an event that nature would not have produced on its own but breaks no laws of nature.”[11]
As an immaterial personal agent that is not composed of matter, God has the ability to work within an “isolated” physical system such as our universe in order to achieve what he wants (this may be similar to how our non-physical soul interacts with our physical body).
Correctly Defining Miracle
Perhaps now would be a good time to provide a good definition of what a miracle is. Here are a couple that I prefer. First, philosopher Richard Purtill’s:
“An event in which God temporarily makes an exception to the natural order of things, to show that God is acting.”[12]
Second, highly acclaimed philosopher Keith Ward’s:
“An expression of the presence and power and purpose of God in an extraordinarily impressive event.”[13]
These signs which show God acting within his created order allow people to recognize that something greater is at work to accomplish a specific action for a specific purpose. Let’s take a look at a well-known miracle in the Bible: the crossing of the Red Sea. This is an example that some think was only a natural event, and over time became nothing more than a legendary tale. Hume would certainly propose such a theory.
For example, when God parted the sea for the Israelites, a “strong east wind” (Ex. 14:21) was used in this process which some have said was purely a secondary cause (natural cause), and therefore wasn’t a miracle. They think God wasn’t directly involved, but rather a natural process (the strong wind) accomplished this.
I think this is incorrect. Larmer reminds us that God “can directly act upon the created entities which make up nature so as to produce an event which is not wholly explicable in terms of the operation of secondary causes.”[14]
In other words, God can supernaturally intervene through natural processes to create specific events, and therefore they are miraculous as we have defined the term. In this case, these strong winds were directed supernaturally by God which could not have occurred otherwise.
A world in which God only sustains our existence but doesn’t directly interact with our existence is a deistic one.[15] A god that winds up the clock (our universe), then lets it unwind itself while remaining distant from us. One that hears our prayers but doesn’t respond to them. One that gives us over to the evil in this world but provides no victory or redemption for us. This is not the god of the Bible, nor what we have experienced in the past or present.
Now, this isn’t to say that God cannot act providentially through secondary natural causes, in the sense that he knows when these natural processes will occur and has placed people in the right place at the right time to experience them, but God is certainly not restricted to this as his only option for involvement within creation.
So, God can work providentially with secondary causes, i.e., strong winds, but he can also intervene and be the direct cause of an event that requires the suspension of natural laws, i.e., going beyond the secondary cause (strong winds) by supernaturally separating the waters in an unnatural way, holding them back by his intervening power, rapidly drying the ground, and keeping the water apart long enough for the Israelites to cross over. Voila! And now you have a miracle. It sounds like a lot to us, but it’s literally nothing for God.
It’s also important to note that miracles are not just unusual coincidences. They are spectacular events and signs of religious significance that could not occur unless there was someone outside of the natural realm responsible for them. So, when you hear someone say it was a miracle that they made it to work on time because they hit green lights the whole way there, that does not mean they experienced a supernatural event.
The same goes for birth. You hear all the time that babies are little miracles. I know babies are amazing creations, but their development and entrance into the world is not miraculous in the way in which the term is defined. Rare coincidences and babies being born are things that can be explained through natural processes. Although miracles can be empirically verified and observed through our direct experience, they are not part of our natural order, nor could natural processes bring them about on their own.
I’ll conclude this section with Larmer’s definition of a miracle (it’s a great one) which summarizes what I just went over; he says that miracles are
“An unusual and religiously significant event which reveals and furthers God’s purposes, is beyond the power of physical nature to produce in the circumstances in which it occurs, and is caused by an agent who transcends physical nature.”[16]
Evidence of Recent Miracles
Like the crossing of the Red Sea, here’s another example of something we know that is not a coincidence and is not natural in any way: A dead person coming back to life days later. Hume jumped all over this example with Jesus’ resurrection in mind and thought this was a great example to show the falsehoods of miracle claims.
When Hume said nobody has ever observed a dead man coming back to life, he was committing the fallacy known as begging the question, because the premise of his argument already assumed the truth of his conclusion.
He did not believe that God existed, and he didn’t see people rise from the dead, therefore he thought this was impossible and something we shouldn’t believe. However, the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ resurrection would beg to differ with Hume’s biased analysis.
Historian Craig Keener shows that it wasn’t common for ancient people to go around claiming that dead people were rising from their graves; he says,
“I do not know of ancient stories of particular persons, outside the persons under discussion (Jesus and his first followers), raising the dead, based on eyewitnesses and written within a generation.”[17]
This was a miracle that happened in history which we still experience the remnants of today. Yes, some of the ancients had spiritual teachings that said a soul might float away after you die, and others believed emperors would be deified after their death, but these examples are not comparable to the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
Moreover, miracles were not only reported in ancient civilization but all throughout history. Even to this day, millions of people across the world have witnessed miraculous events.[18] Keener provides literally hundreds of cases in which multiple eyewitnesses observed several miraculous healings of different kinds. In one example, Keener provided an excerpt from a professional journal where the author told the following:
“When my younger sister was three years old, she walked accidentally into the swordshaped leaf of a Spanish bayonet yucca plant and punctured one of her eyes. It deflated like a beach ball. The attending physician pronounced her blind and offered what treatment he could. My parents prayed and asked the church to pray. In several weeks, my sister could see again. The church and my family praised God for a miracle. The physician sheepishly objected that he had misdiagnosed the injury and the eye had healed quite naturally.”[19]
Many of these documented cases of miraculous healings are supported by medical records and have baffled physicians over the years.[20] Some doctors attribute unknown natural causes as the explanation for these healings, while other doctors believe they are miraculous.
Here is just a fraction of the reports Keener provides with valid sources. Keener says:
“Dr. Jenny Lai, a medical doctor who long worked with a healing ministry in Taiwan, sent me a number of cure reports known directly to her about which she felt confident. Dr. Jeannie Lindquist notes a patient healed of kidney failure through prayer, and Dr. Raquel Burgos testified of her own medically documented healing as a child. I reported earlier accounts regarding cures of severe epilepsy, tumors, and the like, that I received from Dr. Alex Abraham, a neurologist. Dr. Mirtha Venero Boza provided her eyewitness report of a burn healing. Dr. Tonye Briggs attested as an eyewitness a dramatic closing of a massive wound overnight after prayer in Nigeria. Psychiatry professor William Wilson noted the healing after three hours of prayer of a Methodist pastor friend, who had previously had ‘75% occlusion of his major arteries.’ He also reports a nurse healed of her depression and the asthma she had suffered for thirty years when he prayed; a healing of severe ankylosing spondylitis mentioned earlier; and other accounts.”[21]
Native American minister Andrew Maracle said that he got into a terrible accident in the mid-1930s and was paralyzed from the neck down (he was told that he would never walk again). Maracle was instantly healed during prayer, and the next morning the doctor acknowledged that a miracle happened.[22]
Keener also provides numerous contemporary intellectuals, such as philosophers, engineers and physicians, who claim to have either experienced a miraculous healing themselves or witnessed someone else experience them.[23]
He mentions J. P. Moreland, a distinguished professor of philosophy at Biola University, who formerly didn’t believe in the gifts of healing in certain churches, saying that Moreland “was astonished to find himself instantly healed in answer to prayer. He [Moreland] and a colleague now also provide reports of instantly healed bones; an instantly and completely healed knee; healings of cancers in their own church, including some that were beyond medical help; and the healing of blindness and deafness there.”[24]
Many skeptical Christians have come to believe in miracles after encountering healings after prayer services. I have personally experienced what I believe to be a small (major to me) miraculous healing. When I was about 10 years old, I started having waives of intense lower stomach pains. I began to get fevers and started feeling extremely sick. My parents took me to the doctor who referred us to a gastroenterologist.
After a colonoscopy they discovered hundreds of polyps that would require the removal of a large portion of my colon. In preparation of the potential surgery, I remember my mom and dad explaining to me that I could still do things that other kids could do even though I would be wearing a colostomy bag. After my parents and church prayed for me, I went in the following week only to discover that all of my polyps had completely disappeared. God healed me.
Another story involves my brother, who is a Christian missionary in Panama and helps refugees that are staying in camps as they migrate through the area. One day a woman who had a severe case of malaria was brought to him so he could pray for her. When he laid his hands on her she felt extremely cold despite the weather being well over 100 degrees. He prayed that God would heal her by the power of Jesus Christ.
That evening while she was laying down and slipping in and out of consciousness, she could hear people around her saying that she wasn’t going to make it through the night. However, around 3am she suddenly heard a voice telling her to get up; she received the strength to do so, went outside and looked up into the night sky and said she believed Jesus was going to heal her.
As she went back inside and laid down, she began feeling an intense amount of pain consume her body, and then suddenly, the pain disappeared and she felt completely fine. She reported these details to my brother when she first saw him a few days later. She said that she could literally feel the sickness leave her body that night.
Now, even if only a dozen of the millions of miracle reports were true, that would automatically falsify naturalism: the idea that only the physical or material exists, and therefore God and supernatural activity does not. Or as philosopher Ron Nash puts it:
“All that is required for naturalism to be false is the discovery of one thing that cannot be explained in a naturalistic way.”[25]
If naturalism is true, then that would mean every single miracle ever reported would be false! This is quite the burden for atheists to bear.
Anyone who surveys a small portion of the never-ending miracle reports will have a difficult time dismissing these events as just mysterious natural phenomena. This also flies in the face of Hume’s and other skeptic’s claims that only ancient, ignorant and superstitious people believe in miracles.
Many non-believing, intelligent people across the world have witnessed miraculous events, many of which converted to a branch of Christianity because of it. Their conversion doesn’t prove Christianity is true, but it does show how powerful their experience was regarding a supernatural encounter, so much so, that they were willing to change their lives because of it.
Santa Vs. Jesus
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard atheists say that believing in God or Jesus is like believing in Santa Claus. Is atheist philosopher William Vanderburgh correct concerning the testimonials of persons who claim to have witnessed miraculous events, when he says that “we have the same total evidence for religious miracles as we do for the miracles of Santa Claus”?[26] He says that we know about Santa’s great powers and works because “someone said so, wrote it down, sang songs about it; there is a long tradition about it.”[27]
Is that all that Christianity really is? An old fairy tale perpetuated by family and friends? No evidence of its truthfulness, whatsoever? This is a silly strawman argument that can easily be knocked down by the most superficial of observations.
First, there has never been a correlation between Santa and the Maximally Great Being, i.e., God (omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent)[28] who is non-contingent and the uncaused First Cause that created our universe and manifested himself to humanity by taking on the human nature of Jesus of Nazareth. There must be an Ultimate Reality for our existence, and the philosophical and scientific evidence support the idea that an immaterial, non-spatial, timeless, intelligent and personal being brought our universe and life into existence.[29]
Second, there has never been a huge group of adult eyewitnesses claiming to have seen Santa Claus, let alone be willing to undergo intense persecution and death because of it, which is exactly what happened to many of Jesus’ disciples. There has also never been a massive movement eventually transforming Western civilization and individual lives for the better because of Santa.[30] And Santa has never caused billions of people around the world to testify to a direct and life-altering experience by a transcendent spiritual force, i.e., Holy Spirit.
Third, atheist historians believe that Jesus actually existed, but no serious person believes that Santa does. The historical evidence we have for the life and resurrection of Jesus far outweighs any kind of evidence for Santa.
The background context for who Jesus was, where he lived, and what he did can be historically verified, whereas a large man from the North Pole flying around with magic reindeer while covering the entire globe in one night has never been verified. We are all aware that Santa is a fictitious character, hence the reason why parents tell the stories and set the presents under the tree while children are asleep!
Anyone who makes this kind of comparison is hard to take seriously. Although not everyone will be persuaded that Jesus is God based on the historical data, we can at least see that Vanderburgh’s rhetoric and exaggerated claim that we have the “same total evidence” is demonstrably false.
These false parallels misunderstand the value of human experience and testimony, which is the very thing that Vanderburgh and Hume are attempting to undermine through their own experience and testimony. Keener says,
“The evidence that Jesus’s followers somehow saw him alive after his crucifixion is, however, quite strong; many (including myself) believe that a supernatural explanation is by far the most plausible one if one allows for it.”[31]
Additionally, for what it’s worth, I can personally attest that I have had a religious experience which cannot be explained by natural causes, and that a transformed moral character combined with inner moments of tranquility while connecting with a higher power (God) is in no way similar to belief in the big guy from some of my favorite Christmas movies.
Hyper-Skepticism Prevents Rational Thinking
Unfortunately, many (not all) skeptics have set the bar so high, that no amount of evidence would convince them that something supernatural has occurred. If a skeptic asked God for a neon cross to appear in the sky in order for her to believe, and God did it, then she would merely attribute the sign to a psychological problem or hallucination to explain it away.
I have heard several skeptics say this! Why? Because their worldview prevents any kind of explanation that goes beyond the natural world. They have ruled out God as a possibility, therefore they are forced to interpret the available data in a prejudiced and limited way. These types of skeptics are being unreasonable.
For example, atheist philosopher Steven Cahn provides a scenario that seems to be unreasonable and uses Hume’s philosophy to justify it. He says to imagine that a man falls from a bridge in which a group of people witness a fiery chariot suddenly appear to save him, ensuring that he landed safely before disappearing. Cahn immediately dismisses this possibility (using Hume’s theory) because the law of gravity would have to be suspended.
Cahn even strengthens the credibility of the story by adding “more numerous, independent and reliable” witnesses who saw the fiery chariot rescue the man. However, Cahn still thinks the probability of a miracle occurring has not increased to a significant degree because “the probability that a miracle occurred is always far less than the probability that the law suddenly stopped functioning.”[32]
So, although Cahn seems to be admitting there is a possibility that a miracle could have happened, he basically says the probability is so low that we cannot have enough evidence to establish if a miracle actually happened.
But in doing this he contradicts his own use of Hume’s argument against miracles because Cahn supported his own argument by quoting the following from Hume: “There must . . . be a uniform experience against every miraculous event otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here direct and full proof from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle.”
Hume is saying the existence of miracles is absolutely impossible, but Cahn seems to imply that it is possible, just not probable by saying it’s “highly unlikely.” This seems odd, though, given the fact that he adds “numerous, independent and reliable” witnesses.
Cahn fails to take into consideration that God, by definition, has the ability to suspend a natural law, and therefore he is missing the point: If a fiery chariot suspending the laws of gravity best explains the data from the accident, and it is reported by “numerous, independent and reliable” witnesses, then we have sufficient reasons to believe, regardless of how crazy it sounds, that what those witnesses reported is what most likely happened. Obviously, if this really was reported as a true story, then we would need to know more about the background context and evidence to rationally believe if this truly happened and was indeed a miracle/sign from God.
Purtill reminds us that although the laws of nature cannot be violated, “such ordinances can, however, be suspended, temporarily and for a particular purpose, by the creator of nature.”[33] It is not difficult for the all-powerful God to temporarily modify an aspect of the very laws he designed.
Does Science Disprove Miracles?
Scientist Nicholas Saunders points out that “philosophers of science differ widely as to the extent to which we can know the laws of nature.”[34] However, we have a firm enough grasp on them to understand very well how things operate within our universe, and we can certainly know if something occurred that is outside their boundaries.
If we dismiss every miraculous event as just another law of nature that we don’t yet fully understand, then we can’t say that we know the laws of nature. Sadly, even some Christian scholars have been influenced by Hume’s philosophy, believing that if a miracle did occur, we wouldn’t be able to detect it.[35] Nevertheless, we are advanced enough in our scientific understandings to know when something beyond nature is happening.
For us to simply dismiss the possibility that God could somehow interact with his creation without violating the fundamental features of it seems a bit arrogant on our part. But even if God did “violate” them, there are arguments put forth by some theistic scholars such as the distinguished Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne, who show that God could still perform miracles despite their violation of natural laws.[36]
Because miracles are not repeatable events that can be tested and experimented on in a laboratory, they therefore cannot be evaluated purely on a scientific level. Theology, philosophy and human experience are needed to properly engage the concept of such unique events. Just because a supernatural event cannot be tested on purely scientific grounds, does not in any way entail that the event didn’t occur or that miracles don’t exist. Ward says,
“I think any dispassionate thinker would have to concede that David Hume’s arguments against miracles are not at all convincing and that the theory that the universe is a closed and complete causal web is no better proved by science than is the theory that the universe is created by God. Both theories go well beyond the strictly scientific evidence…the laws of nature, as modern science understands them, do not exclude the occurrence of miracles.”[37]
Renowned Cambridge physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne can certainly weigh in on this topic. I liked how he described his understanding of miracles through his own scientific and theological lens and how he correlates this to Jesus’ resurrection:
“Miracle is the revealing by the Creator of the profound potentialities that the divine will has for creation, beyond those so far discerned in the workings of the world. Divine consistency requires that there must be a deep coherence between the already known and the now being revealed. Miracle becomes credible when these two are seen to constitute a fundamental unity. The central and essential Christian miracle of the resurrection of Jesus has just this character.”[38]
In other words, sometimes God reveals certain things to us through a special action that the physical laws alone could not, and because we already know how natural laws operate, we can certainly know that God is showing us something important when he decides to override or modify them. Larmer agrees, saying that
“Miracles are, at least in principle, detectable as qualitatively different expressions of divine power than what usually occurs.”[39]
The Best Explanation
It’s okay to be skeptical of certain things; I know that I certainly am, because I don’t believe everything I hear, and neither should you. But we should at least be open-minded to alternative explanations that best account for the data of certain events, and not miss what could be true due to unreasonable hyper-skepticism.
What if miracles have occurred but skeptics have deemed them as something else? That means skeptics aren’t justified in claiming that miracles don’t happen since they aren’t properly evaluating the evidence and data. They are happening…they just keep dismissing them!
If certain events occur that cannot be adequately explained by natural causes, such as the immediate healing of a physically deformed eye, defective limb, or terminal cancer after praying, then are we not in our rights to attribute such wonders to a cause beyond the physical?
If God exists, then miracles are possible and probable in different circumstances. Honestly, I don’t know if I would believe the fiery chariot story either. That’s why miracle claims need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis with a close examination of the background information and evidence, which in some cases would be the general reliability of the sources, witnesses, corroborating evidence, and so on.
We do, however, know the religious-historical context and background information on Jesus and who he identified himself to be (God who is maximally great and loves humanity). Moreover, the historical records reveal that Jesus was said to be a miracle worker and declared that he would rise from the dead. In fact, these miracle claims weren’t even denied by his enemies (they attributed them to the devil).
We also have eyewitness testimony of Jesus’ resurrection from his friends and enemies (see my previous articles on the resurrection). These stories were circulating and documented within a generation of the event, whereas other ancient miracle stories are told centuries after the lives to which they are attributed.
The evidence supports the resurrection hypothesis as the most plausible explanation. Because God exists, Jesus’ ability to rise from the dead would be possible, and because, among other things, it perfectly fits the Israel-messianic context that had been preached for thousands of years prior, it’s also very probable.
We also know the context of the miraculous healings as documented by Keener and others. People were praying by faith for an all-loving God to heal an ailment, then an unnatural healing occurred soon after (sometimes immediately), and the result or evidence was experienced by numerous competent witnesses. This isn’t rocket science!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should believe someone who says they just jumped over a house or something, as that doesn’t serve to reveal God’s purposes or fit within our definition of miracle.
What I am saying is that it’s possible and probable for certain incredible events to occur that natural explanations will never be able to adequately account for regardless of our future scientific understandings, and that the event is best explained by an all-powerful supernatural being who caused it to happen for a specific purpose. As Larmer says,
“When believers call an event a miracle they are not simply claiming that it is a dramatic exception to the usual course of nature, but that it was produced by a transcendent agent acting to further divine purposes. Miracles occur and are recognized in a context.”[40]
Natural explanations fail to adequately explain the data of certain incredible events, so an inference to the best explanation would be that God supernaturally intervenes within our world to communicate certain truths to us while achieving certain outcomes. This allows us to argue from what we do know, rather than what we don’t.
Miracles are ways in which God interacts with his creation to reveal powerful truths to us. If God can create the universe out of nothing, then that in itself is miraculous; and if he can do that, then he can certainly perform other miracles. The evidence shows that God exists, and this means that it is possible and probable, given what we know about Jesus, that he was who he claimed to be, and was indeed raised from the dead. Hallelujah! Thanks for reading.
Blessings,
Andrew Drinkard
[1] See William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, Question of the Week: #604: Do Extraordinary Events Require Extraordinary Evidence? November 11, 2018, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/do-extraordinary-events-require-extraordinary-evidence/. Craig also explains the coherence of this idea by using Bayes theorem (probability calculus) to show that for an extraordinary event, the evidence needs to be much more probable than not given the hypothesis and background information.
[2] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 3rd ed (Wheaton: Crossway Publishing, 2008), 273.
[3] Tim McGrew, guest, “Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence? (interview with Dr. Tim McGrew)” Capturing Christianity Podcast with Cameron Bertuzzi, host (podcast), March 30, 2021, accessed April 2, 2021, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/capturing-christianity-podcast/id1329400660?i=1000515050627.
[4] David Hume, “Section X: Of Miracles,” An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), 577-579. http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/ewatkins/HUM4Texts/Hume-Miracles%2810%29.pdf.
[5] John Earman, Hume’s Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles (New York: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2000), 1.
[6] Hume, Of Miracles, 581-582.
[7] See David K. Clark, “Miracles & Conceptual Systems,” In Defense of Miracles, ed. R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 202-205. Clark provides a list of several world religions in which miracles are not possible and explains why this is.
[8] David K. Clark, “Miracles & Conceptual Systems,” In Defense of Miracles, ed. R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 201.
[9] Hume, Of Miracles, 579.
[10] C. S. Lewis, The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics: Miracles (New York: HarperCollins Publishing, 2002), 353.
[11] Robert A. Larmer, The Legitimacy of Miracle (Blue Ridge Summit: Lexington Books, 2013), 45.
[12] Richard L. Purtill, “Defining Miracles,” In Defense of Miracles, ed. R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 63.
[13] Keith Ward and Harry L. Poe, The Big Questions in Science and Religion (Radnor: Templeton Press, 2008), 85.
[14] Larmer, The Legitimacy of Miracle, 20.
[15] Deism is the belief that God is the creator and sustainer of our universe, but he is not directly involved in our universe. This view holds that God is distant from his creation and does not intervene in human affairs.
[16] Larmer, The Legitimacy of Miracle, 38.
[17] Craig S. Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 448
[18] See Keener (2011), 212; Keener actually says “hundreds of millions” have reported supernatural events. In his massive research project, he goes on to provide numerous testimonies supported by strong contemporary evidence.
[19] Keener, Miracles, 435.
[20] See Keener (2011), 571-575 in which he provides several eyewitness testimonials of miraculous healings that are supported by the medical records from those healed individuals.
[21] Keener, Miracles, 572.
[22] Keener, Miracles, 439.
[23] Keener, Miracles, 582-586.
[24] Keener, Miracles, 584.
[25] Ronald H. Nash, “Miracles & Conceptual Systems,” In Defense of Miracles, ed. R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 125.
[26] William L. Vanderburgh, David Hume on Miracles, Evidence, and Probability (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2019), 35.
[27] Vanderburgh, David Hume on Miracles, Evidence, and Probability, 35.
[28] For a simplified understanding of this argument, see William Lane Craig’s video developed by his ministry Reasonable Faith: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/other-videos/the-ontological-argument/. For an in-depth understanding of this argument, see Alexander Pruss’ analysis of Alvin Plantinga’s modal ontological argument for a Maximally Great Being; Alexander R. Pruss, “The Ontological Argument and the Motivational Centres of Lives.” Religious Studies 46, no. 2 (2010): 233-49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25676939.
[29] See William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument which he revived during his doctoral studies at the University of Birmingham. This has now become a forceful contemporary argument for God’s existence to this day and is internationally recognized. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/the-kalam-cosmological-argument/.
[30] See Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2019); Holland, an agnostic/atheist, convincingly argues and demonstrates that the modern West is founded upon Christian principles, and that our understanding of modern science and highly valuable ethical framework is ultimately derived from Christianity.
[31] Keener, Miracles, 449.
[32] Steven M. Cahn, “Miracles.” In Religion Within Reason (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 45-48.
[33] Purtill, “Defining Miracles,” 68.
[34] Nicholas Saunders, Divine Action and Modern Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 60.
[35] See William Lane Craig, “Reasonable Faith,” When is it Rational to Believe in Miracles? August 23, 2015, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/when-is-It-rational-to-believe-in-miracles/. Hans Halverson of Princeton seems to misunderstand the nature of miracles and attempts to interpret them through methodological naturalism, that is, the idea that everything can be explained by the laws of nature. Craig does an excellent job showing why Halverson doesn’t adequately understand the nature of miracles and how these events do not violate the laws of nature.
[36] See R. G. Swinburne, “Miracles.” The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-) 18, no. 73 (1968): 320-28; he notes, “I understand by a miracle a violation of a law of Nature by a god, that is, a very powerful rational being who is not a material object. My definition of a miracle is thus approximately the same as Hume’s,” 320.
[37] Ward and Poe, The Big Questions in Science and Religion, 106. Ward personally does not think that miracles prove the existence of God, but demonstrates that they are possible, coherent, and do not violate the laws of nature.
[38] John Polkinghorne, Faith, Science and Understanding (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 127-128.
[39] Larmer, The Legitimacy of Miracle, 20.
[40] Larmer, The Legitimacy of Miracle, 40.
