do you believe in miracles essay

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Why and how I believe in miracles

I don’t struggle with their plausibility. i do struggle with their consequences..

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D o you believe in miracles?

The charismatic evangelical communities that raised me would have answered each with an emphatic and unswerving yes. In fact, they would have insisted that a Christianity stripped of the miraculous isn’t Christianity at all. I agree. But my yes is much quieter these days, more tender and searching.

Wil Gafney makes the point with greater urgency, suggesting that we can’t talk about God’s supernatural intervention in our world without remembering those who desperately needed a miracle and didn’t get it. Otherwise we “make mockery of their suffering and death as we try to make meaning of the miraculous stories that are our scriptural heritage. Because, if it is not good news—salvation and liberation—for the least of these . . . then, it’s not good news.”

In the Christian tradition, belief is more about trust than intellectual assent. So yes, I believe in miracles. Which is to say, I surrender in trust to a God who will stop at nothing to bring about our salvation. A God who is intimately close, present, and involved. A God who is in all things, interacting with all things, restoring all things in the name of love.

Debie Thomas

Debie Thomas is minister of lifelong formation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, California, and author of A Faith of Many Rooms .

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This year, one of the most essential holy days in the Christian calendar, Easter, coincides with perhaps the silliest of annual secular celebrations, April Fools’ Day. Easter commemorates a miraculous event, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. April Fools’ Day is marked by practical jokes and hoaxes.

The conjunction of these two days raises a question: Is the belief in miracles the mark of a fool? One major thinker, the Scottish philosopher David Hume, said yes.

Hume’s definition

Hume published perhaps his most widely read work 270 years ago, the “ Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding .” A milestone in philosophy, its 10th section, which he entitled “Of Miracles,” was intentionally omitted.

Hume later explained that he excised the section to avoid offending his readers’ religious sensibilities – and perhaps also to spare himself the censure to which doing so would give rise. Yet the 10th section is included in all modern editions.

In “Of Miracles,” Hume claims to have discovered an argument that will check what he calls “all superstitious delusion.” It is based on this definition of a miracle: “A transgression of a law of nature by a deity or invisible agent.”

Though not original to Hume, this definition quickly gained wide assent. Just 60 years later, Thomas Jefferson had produced his own version of the Bible, “The Life and Morals of Jesus,” from which all of the miracles had been expunged as offenses against reason.

A bit about Hume

Born in 1711 in Edinburgh, Hume entered university there at the remarkably young age of 12, but he never graduated. He read voraciously. As a young man, he suffered something close to a mental breakdown. His initial attempts to write philosophy fell “dead-born from the press,” but he landed a post as a librarian at the university. He subsequently wrote a best-selling history of England . In a number of important philosophical works, he exemplified skepticism, the view that certain kinds of knowledge are impossible, and naturalism, the belief that only natural forces can be evoked as explanations.

Hume’s skepticism led him to reject many speculations about the nature of reality, such as belief in the existence of God. Though he produced a number of important philosophical works, his views on religion encumbered his career. He died, likely from some form of abdominal cancer, in 1776.

Concerning the role of miracles in Christianity, Hume wrote in “ Of Miracles ”:

“The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: and whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.”

By defining miracles as either highly improbable or perhaps even impossible events, Hume essentially guarantees that reason will always weigh strongly against them. He points out that different religions have their own tales about miracles, but because they contradict one another on multiple points, all of them cannot be true. He also argues that those who claim to have witnessed miracles are gullible and hopelessly biased by their own religious beliefs.

Hume’s enduring influence

Hume’s views on miracles have many defenders in the present day. For example, the biologist Richard Dawkins defines miracles as “coincidences which have a very low probability, but which are, nonetheless, in the realm of probability,” implying that they can be accounted for by science. The late polemicist Christopher Hitchens rejected claims of miracles by saying, “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”

So pervasive is Hume’s account of miracles that it can even be found in the dictionary. Oxford Dictionary’s definition of a miracle is “an extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency.” If miracles do not contradict science outright, the definition suggests, they at least resist explanation by scientific principles, and thus stand out as supernatural, a category of events that many people reject out of hand.

Augustine’s alternative view of miracles

Of course, other accounts of miracles are possible. Augustine of Hippo , writing in the fifth century, explicitly rejected the idea that miracles are contrary to nature, holding instead that they are contrary only to our knowledge of nature. He went on to argue that miracles are made possible by hidden capacities in nature placed there by God. In other words, our knowledge of what is naturally possible is limited, and new potentialities may over time reveal themselves.

At prior points in history, many capabilities we take for granted today would have seemed miraculous. Human flight, the wireless transmission of the human voice, and the transplantation of human organs would have struck men like Hume and Jefferson as impossibilities. It is likely that as history continues to unfold, new capacities in nature will be identified, and human beings will command new powers that we cannot imagine today.

Miracles versus science

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the course of history inexorably moves unusual events from the domain of the miraculous to the scientific. Augustine also famously wrote:

“Is not the universe itself a miracle, yet visible and of God’s making? Nay, all the miracles done in this world are less than the world itself, the heaven and earth and all therein; yet God made them all, and after a manner that man cannot conceive or comprehend.”

Augustine does not argue that human understanding cannot advance, or that science is impossible. Nor does he regard science and miracles as opposed to one another. To the contrary, Augustine is highlighting an account of science and the human desire to know that treats the world as we experience it every day as no less miraculous than any event that science cannot explain. From this point of view, daily life is full of wonder, if only we see it rightly.

Miracles today

As a physician, I regularly experience this sense of wonder in the practice of medicine. We know a lot about how babies are made, how human beings grow and develop, how infections and cancer arise, and what happens when we die. Yet there is also a great deal we don’t understand. In my experience, deepening our scientific understanding of such events and processes does not diminish our sense of wonder at their beauty. To the contrary, it deepens and enriches it.

Inspecting cells through a microscope, using CT and MRI to peer into the inner recesses of the human body, or simply listening carefully as patients offer up insights on their lives – these experiences open up the realm of wonder to which Augustine is pointing. Of course, many people outside of medicine enjoy similar experiences, as when sunlight filters down through the leaves or forms a rainbow as it passes through drops of rain.

Some, Hume among them, might say that it would be a blessing to drive out all trace of the miraculous from our view of the world, perhaps even dismissing the possibility of miracles outright. Others – myself included – think otherwise. Far from seeking to expunge the miraculous from life, we strive instead to reawaken our awareness of its presence. To those who see the world in such terms, April 1 this year is less about hoaxes than the blossoming of a renewed sense of wonder at the fullness and beauty of life.

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C.S. Lewis on Miracles: Why They Are Possible and Significant

Why they are possible and significant.

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One is very often asked at present whether we could not have a Christianity stripped, or, as people who ask it say, “freed” from its miraculous elements, a Christianity with the miraculous elements suppressed. Now, it seems to me that precisely the one religion in the world, or, at least, the only one I know, with which you could not do that is Christianity. 1

No doubt Lewis considered miracles to be a crucial topic. I originally decided to delve into his writings on the subject several years ago when asked to speak at a conference that focused on the legacy of C.S. Lewis. As usual, I was not disappointed with the time and effort I spent to understand his thinking. There is a reason why all of his books remain in publication, and he is still one of the most popular Christian authors of the twentieth century.

On September 8, 1947, C.S. Lewis was featured on the cover of Time magazine with the headline “Oxford’s C.S. Lewis, His Heresy: Christianity.” The six-page article identified Lewis as “one of a growing band of heretics among modern intellectuals: an intellectual who believes in God… not a mild and vague belief, for he accepts ‘all the articles of the Christian faith.’” One of these “articles” was the belief in miracles. The emergence of public intellectuals such as C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others was in clear contrast to many of his colleagues at Oxford, as well as intellectuals throughout Europe, who were securely convinced of a naturalistic worldview that ruled out the possibility of miracles. Lewis described this version of naturalism as “the doctrine that only Nature — the whole interlocked system — exists.” 2 He was able to insightfully critique naturalism because he had previously embraced a naturalistic worldview but later became convinced of the truth and beauty of a classical Christian worldview.

Before we delve deeper into Lewis’s approach to the possibility and significance of miracles, it is helpful to give a brief overview of how the Bible and classical Christianity approach the topic of miracles. The Scriptures reveal a God who is living and personal (Exod. 3:14). He is free to act in history to reveal, create, sustain, redeem, heal, judge, and so forth. Reality is not limited to physical realities, but also includes spiritual realities (Col. 1:16). The seen and the unseen worlds are both real and interactive (Gen. 1; Eph. 6:12). The creator God is unique in that He is both above and beyond the rest of creation (transcendent, Isa. 55:8–9; Eccl. 5:2), and He is also personally present to His creation (immanent, Ps. 104:29–30; Acts 17:27b–28). God actively created everything (Gen. 1:1), and through Him everything holds together (Col. 1:16– 17; Heb.1:3); therefore, we live in an orderly, consistent world which we can investigate with confidence. Because the God of classical Christian theism is transcendent, He is not restricted to act from within the patterns of nature that He established and upholds but is free to act in unusual ways to reveal, save, heal, and surprise (signs and wonders).

Philosophical Skepticism Concerning Miracles 3

In contrast to the supernatural view of reality, there are individuals, groups, and movements who embrace worldviews that challenge the rationality and historical witness to the miracles of the Bible using what we will refer to as a philosophical argument. For instance, many naturalists claim that miracle reports are necessarily false since the “Cosmos is all there is and all there ever will be.” 4 C.S. Lewis encountered many people who rejected the belief in miracles — the rejection being a common view in the academic circles of his day due to the impact of the European Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

A good place to start when addressing any controversial question is by defining terms. Lewis defined a miracle as “an interference with Nature by supernatural power.” 5 The most significant point about this definition is that it requires the existence of a power beyond nature that can decide to act within nature. This is important to emphasize, because many skeptics, in his day and ours, are not open to evidence but operate on the assumption of naturalism. Lewis writes, “Many people think one can decide whether a miracle occurred in the past by examining the evidence ‘according to the ordinary rules of historical inquiry.’ But the ordinary rules cannot be worked until we have decided whether miracles are possible, and if so, how probable they are.” 6

Later he writes, “If Naturalism is true, then we do know in advance that miracles are impossible: nothing can come into Nature from the outside because there is nothing outside to come in, Nature being everything.” 7 This is simply a case of begging the question (assuming what one wants to prove). If naturalism is the “whole show,” then everything, even our reasoning process, can be explained from within the whole system of nature. But then it is difficult to see how our knowledge can be anything other than the result of natural processes. So why should we assume that naturalism is true? After all, we have good reasons to believe that our experience of reasoning, moral oughtness, and beauty point to transcendent realities. 8

Scientific Skepticism Concerning Miracles

Any day you may hear a man (and not necessarily a disbeliever in God) say of some alleged miracle, “No. Of course I don’t believe that. We know it is contrary to the laws of Nature. People could believe it in olden times because they didn’t know the laws of Nature. We know now that it is a scientific impossibility”. 9

Robert Funk, founder of the radical Jesus Seminar, is a good example of someone making the scientific argument.

The notion that God interferes with the order of nature . . . is no longer credible… Miracles… contradict the regularity of the order of the physical universe… God does not interfere with the laws of nature… The resurrection of Jesus did not involve the resuscitation of a corpse. Jesus did not rise from the dead, except perhaps in some metaphorical sense. 10

Experiential Skepticism Concerning Miracles

Debates about the possibility of miracles have sometimes led to considerations of probability. So the question of miracles is stated like this: In light of the constant experience of natural law, doesn’t it always make more sense to doubt the report that an exception to the laws of nature has taken place (i.e., a miracle) than to believe the report of miracle? I will refer to this an experiential argument against miracles. One name that is frequently associated with this type of argument is the eighteenth-century skeptical philosopher David Hume. Hume is a good example of a person making this type of argument against the probability of miracles because his views were considered conclusive by some in his own day and are still thought to be convincing by many contemporary skeptics, such as Michael Shermer and Richard Dawkins. 12 Hume defined a miracle as a “violation of the laws of nature.” His argument could be summed up by the statement: since natural laws are firmly established on the basis of uniform human experience, it is always much more likely that there is some natural explanation for a supposed miracle than that an exception to the uniform natural laws has occurred. Lewis described Hume’s probability argument with clarity:

The more often a thing has been known to happen, the more probable it is that it should happen again; and the less often the less probable. Now the regularity of Nature’s course, says Hume, is supported by something better than the majority vote of past experiences: it is supported by their unanimous vote, or, as Hume says, by “firm and unalterable experience”. There is, in fact, “uniform experience” against Miracle; otherwise, says Hume, it would not be a Miracle. A miracle is therefore the most improbable of all events. It is always more probable that the witnesses were lying or mistaken than that a miracle occurred. 13

Lewis writes that from Hume’s point of view, “historical statements about miracles are the most intrinsically improbable of all historical statements.”14 In Hume’s way of thinking, not only are miracles most improbable due to the uniformity of nature, but miracle reports are also unreliable because they are dependent on the testimony of witnesses who were ignorant and superstitious. For Hume, as was the case with many Enlightenment deists, personal experience was much more reliable than the testimony of prescientific people. Lewis and others have pointed out that Hume proceeds through his argument against the possibility of an exception to the regularities of nature (i.e., miracle) with the assumption that experience proves the “uniformity of nature.” But the answer to the question of whether we can know if a miracle has taken place should not be predetermined by an assumption of the uniformity of nature since this would also be a case of begging the question.

Concerning Hume’s questioning of the credibility of ancient witnesses to miraculous events, I would point to the earlier responses made to scientific arguments. I would also point out that perhaps Hume’s conclusions about the possibility of miracles were based on his own limited experience. Maybe miracles were occurring more frequently in Hume’s day than he was aware of, but they were happening outside his sphere of contact. In our own day, contemporary New Testament scholar Craig Keener has investigated thousands of eye-witness miracle accounts from all around the world and found many to be highly credible. He presents the results of his investigations in a two-volume work (1,172 pages) titled Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. He writes,

a priori modernist assumption that genuine miracles are impossible is a historically and culturally conditioned premise. This premise is not shared by all intelligent or critical thinkers, and notably not by many people in non-Western cultures. 15

Much more could be said in response to David Hume’s objections to miracles, but contemporary philosopher of science John Earman says it well in his book Hume’s Abject Failure:

It is not simply that Hume’s essay does not achieve its goals, but that his goals are ambiguous and confused. Most of Hume’s considerations are unoriginal, warmed over versions of arguments that are found in the writings of predecessors and contemporaries. And the parts of “Of Miracles” that set Hume apart do not stand up to scrutiny. Worse still, the essay reveals the weakness and the poverty of Hume’s own account of induction and probabilistic reasoning. And to cap it all off, the essay represents the kind of overreaching that gives philosophy a bad name. 16

Concerning the Grand Miracle

Lewis is in agreement with the apostle John, who wrote concerning Jesus, “the Word was God” (John1:1) and “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14 ESV). So questions concerning the possibility of miracles are related to even larger questions such as, What is God like? How does God interact with the world? Does God care about His creation? Having done the hard work of asking and answering the right preliminary questions, Lewis winsomely shines a light on the reality in which a creative, powerful, and loving God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. This is unquestionably the Grand Miracle.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son into the world that we might live. (1 John 4:9–10 NIV)

Bill Smith is the Director of C.S. Lewis Institute Atlanta. His desire is for others to grasp God’s perspective and experience God’s presence throughout all of life. Bill teaches and facilitates discussions in a variety of contexts including schools, churches, businesses, conference/retreat centers, coffeehouses, bookstores, and homes. His interest in the life and writings of C.S. Lewis has resulted in a book titled Conversations on the Question of God with C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud . Bill holds a B.S. in Biblical Studies from Toccoa Falls College and a M.Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

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The Miracles of Christ

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The miracles of Christ are expressions of God’s power in the divinity of Christ, testified authoritatively to in the Bible, which signified the coming of that salvation that was associated with the kingdom of God.

Modern, Western society often assumes that the reality of miracles is in tension with the methods of modern science. However, this is a function of modern, naturalistic presuppositions, not necessarily with science itself. The miracles of Christ are exercises of the power of God, which Christ wielded fully in his incarnation as the divine Son. The Bible testifies to these miracles, and the fact that the Bible is historically accurate and divinely authoritative should give us pause before rejecting miracles because they are in tension with current, naturalistic presuppositions. These miracles were apart of God’s larger plan of salvation and testified that the kingdom of God, where God would bring about the climactic and definitive salvation of his people, had come in the person of Jesus, who was both divine Son and promised Messiah.

Did Christ actually work the miracles that the Gospels record? And what do we learn from them? What is their significance?

The Reality of the Miracles

Let us first consider the question of whether the miracles recorded in the four Gospels actually took place. A great deal of skepticism about biblical miracles has arisen in the Western world. Skepticism exists in scholarly circles, in elite culture, and also in the broader culture at large. But the skepticism is largely a Western phenomenon. People in some other cultures find little problem, because they already believe in a spirit world.

Cultural Narrowness of Skepticism

This cultural narrowness of skepticism shows that one topic to consider has to be what it is about the leading edges of Western culture that creates the difficulty. At least part of the problem is the influence of a materialistic or naturalistic worldview. This worldview says that the universe is an impersonal system, whose basic character is matter and energy in motion. There is no room for a personal God. There is no room either for finite spirits, such as angels, demons, or departed spirits. As a consequence, there is no room for miracles. There is no room for God, as a personal God, to act in a personal way that deviates from the normal patterns in which he rules the world. There is no room either for finite spirits who would interrupt the normal course of nature. “Nature” is conceived of as impersonal, and there can be no exceptions.

This worldview wields powerful influence because it is so widespread, yet people seldom analyze whether it actually has support beyond the level of being a cultural prejudice. It is widely assumed that the successes of natural science support a materialistic worldview. And yet those successes originally arose within the context of early modern Europe, which still had a more-or-less Christian worldview. In the early days, science itself was conceived as an investigation of the wisdom of God in the ways that he ruled the world. It focused on the regularities, what we call “scientific law.” It is only by a philosophical commitment, a kind of atheistic faith, that people could conclude that there must be no exceptions, no miracles.

God’s Power

One aspect in treating the miracles of Christ is to refuse merely to accept the modern, Western materialistic point of view. Instead, we have to deal positively with what kind of world we live in. The world we experience is actually a world created and maintained by God. The regularities are the regularities of his faithful rule over the world. But he can also act exceptionally, and that is what we call “miracle.”

The Divinity of Christ

Next, we have to reckon with who Christ is. According to the Bible, he is the eternal Son of God (John 1:1), who took on human nature and came to earth to save us. If he really is the divine Son of God, and not merely an especially religious human being, it makes all the difference. If God is who he is, and the divine Son is who he is, we should be surprised if there were no miracles accompanying the decisive acts that brought about the salvation of the world. People are prejudiced against the reality of the miracles because they are also prejudiced against who Christ actually is.

Evidence for Historical Reliability of the Bible

We can also appeal to the historical reliability of the Bible. Several scholars have written books indicating how many times the historical reliability of the Bible can be confirmed in places where it is possible to cross-check from other ancient records.

Divine Authority of the Written Text of the Bible

In support of miracles, we can appeal to the divine authority of the Bible. The New Testament is not merely a work of various human authors who might be trying to be reliable and yet might sometimes fail. It is also a divinely authored work, commissioned by Jesus Christ. Christ sends his Spirit to his apostles and to others (like Mark and Luke) who faithfully give us his word by the power of the Spirit (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21).

Miracles Outside the Bible

Finally, we can inspect reports of miracles outside the Bible. These, of course, do not have the infallibility of the divine authority of the Bible itself. But they can further testify to the fact that we live in a personal world governed by God, a world that also has angelic and demonic spirits.

The Significance of the Miracles of Christ

What now is the meaning and significance of the miracles of Christ? This question is actually deeper and more multifaceted than the question of whether they happened. Why did they happen? What was God doing?

The Larger Plan of God for History

The miracles occur within the overall unfolding plan of God for all of history, and especially for the history in which he works out the redemption of the world. Christ and his coming are at the center of that redemption. The works he accomplished—above all his suffering, his death, and his resurrection—are the all-important foundation for the entire plan of God for redemption. The Old Testament anticipated the coming of Christ and the coming of the kingdom of God. In the Gospels we see that coming actually taking place. In the rest of the New Testament we see the outflowing consequences, both in the historical events in Acts and in the explanations and exhortations and warnings in the New Testament letters. The letters show the New Testament people of God the meaning of Christ’s salvation and the way in which it comes to bear on their lives.

Jesus as Messiah

The miracles of Christ demonstrate and confirm some truths about Christ himself. They show that he is the fulfillment of Old Testament promises that predict the coming of the Messiah, the great king in the line of David, the one who will rule forever (Isa. 9:6–7).

Jesus as Divine Son of God

The miracles show Christ’s divine power. It is true that some of the prophets in the Old Testament, like Moses and Elijah, worked miracles. But it is clear from the contexts that these prophets did not work miracles by their own power and might. They were merely servants of God. By contrast, Jesus’ religious opponents were offended by him because he behaved as someone who was more than just a prophet. He had innate authority. In connection with healing the paralytic, he claims authority to forgive sins, which belongs only to God (Matt. 9:1–8). After the stilling of the storm, the disciples ask each other, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” (Matt. 8:27). After the incident when he walks on water, “[T]hose in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God’” (Matt. 14:33).

The miracles of Jesus display divine power. God is present in them. God shows that his kingdom is arriving. God the Father is doing his works in the Son: “the Father who dwells in me does his works” (John 14:10).

Miracles as Signs of Redemption

The arrival of the kingdom has another side to it. God is not merely present to display who he is. He is present to work out the accomplishment of the salvation that he promised all the way through the Old Testament.

The expression “the kingdom of God” in the Gospels does not focus on the fact, true though it is, that God rules all the world and all of history (Ps. 103:19). It focuses on the new exercise of his divine power in the course of bringing about climactic and definitive salvation. Jesus, in whom God the Father dwells, is the Savior. The miracles are miracles of the kingdom. Therefore, they are also miracles of salvation . That does not mean that every person whom Jesus healed was eternally saved. Saving faith came to some but not necessarily to all those who were physically healed. The physical healing was a good thing. But in itself it was not ultimate. The people who were healed would eventually die a physical death.

So the cases of healing in Jesus’s ministry pointed to something more. They were signs that pointed beyond themselves. (The Gospel of John characteristically uses the word “sign” to describe Jesus’ miracles, thereby pointing to their deeper meaning.) The miracles dealt with people being saved from physical ills. Or they depicted being delivered from demonic power. Both of these deliverances were real in themselves. But they also signified the whole structure of salvation as a whole . Jesus came not simply to accomplish something temporary in the lives of various individuals, but to bring lasting and permanent salvation. This salvation includes, centrally, deliverance from spiritual death—deliverance from sin, from guilt, from the power of the kingdom of Satan. These deliverances Jesus brought about climactically through his suffering, his death, and his resurrection. His resurrection means for us permanent deliverance from sin and condemnation. It also guarantees the resurrection of our bodies. We will in the future be perfectly delivered from every bodily sickness and ailment, and even from death itself. The miracles that Jesus worked were foretastes of this two-stage deliverance, in his resurrection from the dead, and then, finally, in our resurrection of the body, in union with and by the power of his resurrection.

Let us consider, as an example, the healing of the centurion’s servant, recorded in Matt. 8:5–13. Jesus healed the servant from being paralyzed and from “suffering terribly” (8:5). The release from the bodily disability of paralysis foreshadows the final release from every bodily disability, which will come with bodily resurrection. Physical paralysis is also a suitable analog for the spiritual “paralysis” of sin, which keeps us from carrying out the will of God. Jesus in his death takes our sin on himself, and in his resurrection he enters new life that gives us the power to be free from sin and its guilt (Rom. 4:25). Instead of suffering in the body, in the resurrection of the body we enter a life entirely free from suffering (Rev. 21:4). Instead of spiritual suffering from sin, we enter the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:21, 23).

In like manner, many of the miracles of Jesus during his earthly life are small-scale pictures, anticipations, or foreshadowings of the two stages of his definitive accomplishment: first his death and resurrection; and then his coming again, including the establishment of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21:1).

Do You Believe in Miracles?

June 19, 2011

Is it reasonable to believe in miracles? Skeptics question the credibility of any miracle claim. Many hold to a naturalistic worldview and believe that since we live in a closed system, the laws of nature are constant and cannot be violated. Therefore, there can be no such thing as a miracle. Christians however, believe that miracles, specifically the miraculous life of Christ and the resurrection, confirm Christianity to be true. Can miracle accounts be substantiated? Did they actually happen? In the following article we will investigate, the definition of a miracle, the purpose of miracles, and the possibility of miracles happening.

What is a Miracle?

Some say the birth of a baby is a miracle or every sunset is a miracle. Many have even jokingly commented that my college graduation is a miracle. Although these events are special, they should not be considered miracles. Rather, these are examples of God working through the natural order of creation or the laws of nature that He has set in place.

A miracle, on the other hand, can be defined as an event in which God temporarily makes an exception to the natural order of things, to show that He is acting.1 Dr. Norman Geisler defines a miracle as a “divine intervention into or an interruption of the regular course of the world that produces a purposeful but unusual event that would not have occurred otherwise.”2 A miracle is a special act of God that interrupts the natural course of events. Miracles are unusual, irregular, and specific acts of God. There are three words associated with miracles in the Bible: powers, signs, and wonders. “Power” is used in the Bible to emphasize the divine energizing of a miraculous event.3 God is the force behind the miracle.

“Signs” means an unusual occurrence transcending the common course of nature.4 Signs stand out from the ordinary course of events to convey a message. For example, conspicuous traffic signs help people to easily notice symbols and information related to driving. A red, octagonal sign tells the driver to stop. Signs are also temporary. Once the message is given, its purpose is accomplished and it does not need to continually appear over and over again. Continuing with our example, once the driver brakes at the stop sign and checks the intersection, he can proceed on. The stop sign does not continue to follow the car. Once the sign is given, it has accomplished its purpose. In the Bible, miracles are signs telling observers that God is acting in history.

“Wonders” refer to strange events that cause the beholder to marvel.5 Wonders trigger others to pay attention. Miracles are unusual events designed to capture the audience’s attention and draw them to a realization that God is moving in history and sending a message that calls for a response.

Miracles are an exception to the normal course of events in nature and are thus considered extraordinary. The birth of a child or a sunset is a special event but they are not exceptions to the regular events found in nature.

Miracles are also supernatural in that only someone outside of this universe can be responsible for them. For example, in John 14, it was natural for Lazarus to die from illness but it was supernatural for him to be raised from the dead after several days. Miracles have the fingerprint of God on them. They are the result of a God who is beyond the universe and possesses the ability to intervene in history. In Exodus 8:19 the Egyptian magicians had to admit the miracles Moses performed were indeed achieved by “. . . the finger of God.”

Finally, miracles have a moral dimension. They bring glory to God and manifest his righteous character. No act of God is evil or contrary to His nature. God will not confirm what is false.

The Purpose of Miracles

God performs miracles with a definite purpose in mind. He does not use them for entertainment purposes nor does He carry them out to those whose hearts have been proven to be resistant to His message. In Matthew 12, the Jewish leaders ask Jesus to perform a miracle for them. Jesus would not answer their challenge with a miracle for He knew their hearts were hardened and they would not listen to His message even if He performed a miracle there. He had done several miracles already and they still did not believe. He tells the Pharisees the only sign they will be given is the sign of Jonah, which was a prophecy of His death and resurrection.

The purpose of miracles is to confirm God’s message and His messenger. The three major monotheistic religions affirm that miracles confirm a messenger of God. In the Old Testament, God confirmed His prophets with miracles. God used miracles to assure the Israelites Moses’ call as a prophet of God (Exodus 4). In 1 Kings 18, God confirmed Elijah and his message with miracles.

God also confirmed Jesus and the Apostles with miracles. Miracles reinforced the Messianic claims of Christ. In Luke 7, when John’s disciples questioned Jesus, He authenticated his messianic qualifications with His record of miracles. In John 3:1-2, Nicodemus saw Jesus as a prophet because of His miracles. When Peter addressed the crowd in Jerusalem at Pentecost, he pointed to the miracles of Christ as confirmation that Jesus was indeed the Messiah (Acts 2:22).

Miracles also validated the Apostles authority and message. In Acts 2:43, the crowds were amazed at the miracles the Apostles performed and as a result, many came to believe their message. Hebrews 2 states that God confirmed Jesus and the Apostles through miracles (Hebrews 2:3-4).

The Koran, the holy book of Islam also states that miracles confirm the divine calling of a prophet. Sura 4:63-65 states that God’s power is manifest through the miraculous works of the prophets. Throughout the Koran the people ask Muhammad to perform a miracle but he refuses. The only miracle he points to is the Koran (3:181-184,4:153, 6:8-9). However the Koran teaches that the Old Testament prophets Moses and Elijah performed miracles (23:45, 7:100-108, 116-119). It even teaches that Jesus did miracles (5:113). In the Koran, Jesus and the Old Testament prophets are confirmed by miracles whereas Muhammad does not have a testimony of executing miracles.

Possibility of Miracles

Are miracles possible? The answer lies in the fact that if God exists, then miracles are possible. There is strong evidence to indicate that we live in a theistic universe. The first proof is the argument from first cause, also known as the cosmological argument, which states, “Whatever begins to exist has a cause.” The scientific evidence shows that the universe has a beginning and therefore, it must have a cause. It is illogical to assume that the universe was created out of nothing. What initiated the creation of the universe? It must have been someone or something greater than the universe to create the universe. It is reasonable to conclude this cause to be God who is intelligent, eternal, and greater than the universe.

Secondly, the apparent order and design in nature points to an intelligent designer. For example, none of us would assume that a computer was created as the result of natural forces. Although all the components of a computer can be found on earth, we would never assume the wind, rain, and lightening somehow produced something so complex and sophisticated as a computer. If we can arrive at the conclusion that a computer could not have possibly come bout by chance, how much more can we similarly deduce that the human brain, which is even more complex, did not randomly come into being? Apparent design can be found in all arenas of creation. Complexity and design point to an intelligent designer.

Thirdly, we have our moral intuition. We inherently know right from wrong. All people recognize that it is wrong to torture and murder a child for entertainment. All people acknowledge that rape is wrong. This universal moral law embedded in the hearts of all people points to a moral lawgiver who established a moral law code and placed it in the conscience of every individual. This moral lawgiver is God. (For a more expanded treatment, refer to the article entitled, “Proofs for the Existence of God,” which can be found at www.evidenceandanswers.com).

If God exists then miracles are not only possible, but they are actual. This is exemplified by the fact that the greatest miracle has occurred, God created the universe out of nothing. If there is a God who acts, then there can be acts of God. Moreover, if this miracle has already taken place, it is also reasonable to ask when else has God acted in human history?

The Gospels

The Bible presents an accurate historical record of God’s work in history. Since examining the evidence for the Bible would be a very extensive work, I will focus on the Gospels which record the life of Jesus. (For further reference, see the article “Authority of the Bible” which can be found at evidenceandanswers.com). The Gospels have proven to be an accurate historical account. There is strong evidence to show that eyewitnesses precisely recorded the events of Christ’s life. (For more in-depth discussion, read the article, “Gospels: History or Myth” at www.evidenceandanswers.org).

There are ancient manuscripts of the Gospels that date from the early second century A.D.. Since these are ancient copies, we can conclude the originals were completed within the first century A.D.. The ancient church fathers from the late first century to the third century quoted most of the New Testament. Fathers like Clement of Rome, who lived in the first century, quoted the first three Gospels as Scripture. This is strong proof that the Gospels were written and circulating in the first century.

There is also non-Christian historical works from the first through third century that corroborate the facts of the Gospels. First century historians Josephus and Thallus along with early second century Roman historians Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and Suetonius corroborate events, and characters mentioned in the Gospels.

This early evidence shows that eyewitnesses were alive when the gospels were circulating and could attest to their accuracy. Apostles often appealed to the witness of the hostile crowd pointing out their knowledge of the facts as well (Acts 2:22, Acts26:26). Therefore, if there were any exaggerations or stories being told about Christ that were not true, the eyewitnesses could have easily discredited the Apostles accounts. We must also remember that the preaching of the Apostles began in Israel and specifically in Jerusalem, in the very cities where the eyewitnesses were present. The Jews were careful to record accurate historical accounts. Many enemies of the early church were looking for ways to discredit the Apostles’ teaching. If what the Apostles were saying proved false, the enemies would have cried foul and the Gospels would not have earned much credibility.

There are also hostile witnesses and non-Christian sources that attest to the miracles of Christ. Historians acknowledge that positive evidence from a hostile source is one of the strongest kinds of evidence. In the gospels, the enemies of Christ do not deny the fact that He did indeed perform a miracle. Instead, they present alternative explanations for them (Matthew 12:24 & 28:11-15). Jewish historian Josephus who recorded the history of the Roman Empire in the first century A.D. writes, “Now there was about that time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles.” The Jewish Talmud written in the fifth century A.D., record that Jesus performed powerful deeds but attributes His miracles to sorcery. Thus opponents of the Gospels do not deny the miracles of Christ, but instead, they attempt to present alternative explanations for them.

Miracles are supernatural acts of God that interrupt the natural course of events. It is reasonable to believe in miracles because God who created the universe exists. The evidence for His existence is substantial. Since there is a God who can act in history, there can be acts of God. The record of His intervention in history has been accurately recorded in the Bible. We can believe these miracles are historical because the Bible is an accurate historical document. The Gospels in particular have been proven to be very credible. The early dating of the Gospels, the fact that we have multiple written sources, and the testimony of hostile witnesses all uphold the events recorded in the Gospels. The evidence then, clearly indicates we can believe in miracles.

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1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

Can We Believe in Miracles?

Author: Tomás Bogardus Category: Philosophy of Religion Word Count: 1000

True story: My friend’s daughter failed a hearing test when she was two years old, and was subsequently diagnosed with a rare hearing disorder. The doctors recommended a battery of follow-up tests and procedures, both expensive and invasive. My friend was, of course, crushed by the news. I suspect most parents would grimly set their teeth and proceed with the doctors’ orders for the child’s sake. Fortunately, my friend was a philosophy student in those days, studying probability theory. What he learned allowed him to decline further treatment and still sleep in peace. For he knew that, though this test was highly reliable, it was not infallible. It occasionally, though rarely, issued false positives. And he knew that the incidence of this hearing disorder—its base rate , its frequency in the general population, the prior probability that his child had the disease, before the test—was low enough to de-claw the test’s result.

Just how low is low enough? Suppose the disease is as common as the test’s failure rate: One in a thousand. Now picture my friend’s child standing last in a line of one thousand anxious children waiting to take this hearing test. Let’s say every child before my friend’s gets a true negative result from the test; they all check out fine. Now my friend’s child steps up and receives the dreaded positive result. On the one hand, we feel cause for concern: This test fails only 0.1% of the time, so isn’t the diagnosis overwhelmingly likely to be accurate? But, on the other hand, we know that, after 999 true results, this test was “due” to fail, like a bald tire approaching its last mile. So, should we be concerned? The correct answer is that, given the low base rate of the disease—and despite the test’s very low failure rate—there is only a 50% chance that the child who tested positive actually has the disease. Maybe it’s the real deal, but just as likely it’s a false positive. And, of course, the rarer the disease—the lower its base rate—the more likely it is that this child pulled the “false positive” card rather than the “rare disease” card. If the base rate of the disease is vanishingly small—as it was in the case of my friend and his daughter—a positive result from a test that rarely fails can, paradoxically, be almost certainly false.

Careful attention to probabilities might yield many more useful conclusions, beyond my friend’s. For example, philosopher Larry Shapiro believes that what we just learned should convince us that no one can justifiably believe in miracles, e.g., that God raised Jesus from the dead. His argument follows my friend’s right down the line. Shapiro generously grants to the miracle-believer that those who tell us about these miracles—St. Paul, say—are as reliable as the hearing test we discussed, falsely reporting miracles only 0.1% of the time. The problem, according to Shapiro, is that the base rate of miracles like resurrection of the dead—the frequency of resurrection, its “prior” probability, before the testimony—is vanishingly small. It’s a miracle , after all. And so, Shapiro says, any testimony of a miracle, even from a highly reliable source, is almost certainly false. So much for Christianity, Shapiro concludes: It’s irrational. As is any other religion based on miracle reports.

Shapiro’s argument is as smooth as wind on ice, as menacing now as it was when David Hume premiered it back in 1748. But perhaps it’s too quick. Before you give up on miracles, let me develop a response to Hume offered by Peter van Inwagen. Try this colorful experiment for yourself. Find some lipstick and the nearest mirror. Pick an improbable string of numbers or letters—maybe, “Miracles do happen, Larry!”—and write them across your forehead. Stare into the mirror. Look at what you’ve become. Can you believe you wrote that message on your face just because the internet told you to?

Seriously. Can you? Yes, of course you can. In fact, you do and you should . That belief is highly rational, given the testimony of your eyes. But hold on: While your eyes are reliable, they’re not infallible. Occasionally they’ll issue false positives, reporting something’s there when it’s not. Presently, they’re reporting that message on your face. But what’s the base rate of that ? Prior to reading this essay and watching it happen, how likely would you have thought it that you would be standing there with a lipstick message on your face? Nothing just like that has ever happened before in the history of the universe. So the base rate of that event—its prior probability—must be vanishingly small, right? But then doesn’t the general form of Shapiro’s argument lead us to the conclusion that it would be irrational to believe what’s staring you in the face?

Perhaps this shows that something’s wrong with Shapiro’s argument. Most likely it’s his assumption that, because something has never happened before, or only rarely, its base rate—its prior probability—must be low. The lipstick message on your face had never happened before. But we know of things like that, we know how such a thing easily might happen, so its prior probability need not be low. That would explain why the reliable albeit fallible testimony of our eyes convinces us that it’s happening. And, if that’s right, the miracle-believing Christian could reason this way: “Before Jesus, the dead rose rarely. Or maybe even never. It needn’t follow that the prior probability of God’s raising Jesus from the dead is small. For we know of things like that, how such a thing easily might happen. It’s God, after all, who can do as he likes, and he may like resurrecting people. And that’s why, contra Shapiro and Hume, it may be fully rational for the reliable albeit fallible testimony of St. Paul et al. to convince us that it happened.” So says the miracle believer. What do you say?

Hume, David (1748) “Of Miracles”

Kahneman, Daniel and Amos Tversky (1996) “On the Reality of Cognitive Illusions”

Shapiro, Lawrence (2013) “A Drop in the Sea,” Aeon Magazine , 11/1/2013

Van Inwagen, Peter (1998) “Of ‘Of Miracles’”

Related Essays

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Conspiracy Theories by Jared Millson

The Epistemology of Disagreement by Jonathan Matheson

About the Author

Tomás Bogardus is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. https://sites.google.com/site/tbogardus

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Guest Essay

How Would You Prove That God Performed a Miracle?

An illustration of a dove with its wings spread, perched on the hand of a person wearing a blue medical glove.

By Molly Worthen

Dr. Worthen is a historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who writes frequently about America’s religious culture.

Josh Brown directs the program in neuroscience at Indiana University Bloomington. He has published dozens of articles on topics like the neural basis of decision making in the brain. He has wire-rimmed glasses and a calm, methodical way of speaking. And after almost two decades of keeping relatively quiet, he is now speaking openly about his most surprising research finding: He believes that God miraculously healed him of a brain tumor.

Christmas is a time when miracles happen, according to the Hallmark cards and cartoon specials. But Dr. Brown and his wife, Candy Gunther Brown, who did her doctorate in religious studies at Harvard and is also a professor at Indiana, believe that God does intervene to cause miraculous healing, all the time. Partly to understand the healing that shocked their family, they have traveled as far afield as Brazil and Mozambique to collect documentation purporting to link Christian prayers and revivals to sudden, inexplicable medical recoveries. But is it possible to prove that a miracle happened? Is it dangerous to even try?

We are not talking about metaphorical, wow-what-luck, “I can’t believe I got that parking space” sorts of miracles. The Browns seek out stories of healings that are impossible to account for by natural means, based on current medical knowledge (although they believe that God mostly heals through modern medicine). “I don’t see a conflict between investigating matters of neuroscience and investigating claims of divine healing,” Josh Brown told me. “The question is always empirical: What does the evidence say about what happened?”

Polls suggest that about half of American scientists and three-quarters of doctors believe in a higher power. But the Browns are among the few who refuse to compartmentalize their faith — who treat God’s supernatural action as a legitimate object of research. This can be unnerving, especially in an era of anti-vaxxers, climate change denialism and the replication crisis that has shaken the social and medical sciences. Public trust in scientific expertise is already wobbly.

But the Browns’ experiences and research — not to mention the abundance of healing testimony from other witnesses, especially outside the West — deserve serious consideration. Watertight proof of divine causation may be an impossible goal, but the search for it forces us to confront the assumptions that prop up our own worldviews — whether one is a devout believer or a committed skeptic.

Candy Brown was nine months pregnant when her husband had a seizure in the middle of the night. “I went to bed, and when I woke up the next morning, I was in an ambulance,” he said. Two and a half weeks later, newborn in tow, they got his diagnosis: an apparent brain tumor called a glioma . (He provided The New York Times with medical records to support this account.) He was 30 years old. “Chemo, radiation and surgery don’t statistically prolong the life span with what I had. There was nothing to do but get ready to die, basically.” Doctors prescribed no treatment other than anticonvulsant medication to manage symptoms.

The Browns grew up in Christian families but not the sort that expected God to intervene ostentatiously in modern life. Still, he was desperate. He started traveling the country seeking out Christian healing revivals, dragging along his wife and baby daughter. “I needed to find out what was going on,” he said. “If there was any reality to it, I wanted a miracle.”

Candy Brown recalled more disturbing details: the morning after her husband’s diagnosis, they began to pray together, but mentioning the name of Jesus seemed to trigger a frightening physical response. “Josh shoots out of bed, starts turning somersaults,” she said. “I’d say, try worshiping Jesus, and he couldn’t say the name Jesus. I was thinking of the herd of pigs,” she said, recalling the unlucky swine run off a cliff by demon possession in the Gospels. “He was hoarse and exhausted. For that 45 minutes, there was such a palpably evil presence in that room that hated the name of Jesus. If I ever had doubted whether Jesus was real, I couldn’t now.”

Josh Brown began traveling with healing missionaries. He told me he saw things he couldn’t explain — like a blind man on a street in Cuba who appeared to instantly regain his sight after missionaries prayed for him. Months later, after many sessions of prayer for healing and deliverance, an M.R.I. revealed that his tumor had turned into scar tissue.

He quickly volunteered to me that he never had a biopsy, but doctors often diagnose this type of tumor on the basis of M.R.I.s and the patient’s symptoms. “One way or another, the tumor went away,” he said. “I’ve been symptom-free for 19 years. The doctors said very little.” The Browns felt grateful — and perplexed. “At that point I wondered why, when I had seen so many things that seemed miraculous and difficult to explain, why was there so little careful investigation of these things?” he said.

In 2009, on a grant from the John Templeton Foundation , the Browns flew to Mozambique to investigate the healing claims of Global Awakening and Iris Global , two ministries focused on healing and revival. They brought audiometry equipment and eye charts to test people who requested prayer for deafness and blindness. The sample size was small — they tested 24 people — but they found statistically significant improvement beyond placebo effects and hypnosis.

“I was standing right there next to this woman who could not tell how many fingers were held up when you were a foot in front of her,” Candy Brown told me. “Then five minutes later, she’s reading an eye chart with a smile on her face.” She and her colleagues published the results in The Southern Medical Journal — not a prestigious publication but a respectable one with peer review — and she drew on the research for her 2012 book , “Testing Prayer.”

Skeptics complained about the Browns’ methods and field conditions. They pointed out that the hearing tests were in a noisy setting, there was no control group and test subjects would naturally want to please those who prayed for them by showing results. “That simple trick explains why both hearing and sight appears to have dramatically improved among these poor, superstitious villagers,” one critic declared . (The study explained in detail how the researchers did their best to weed out false data.)

If you want to evaluate people’s experiences at a revival in rural Africa, you probably need to give up on double-blind studies in a perfectly controlled environment. But let’s imagine for a moment that researchers could meet such standards (and that an all-powerful deity humors us and submits to this scrutiny). They might persuade skeptics that something strange happened. But is there any evidence that would persuade a nonbeliever that God was behind it — that we do not live in a closed system in which all causation is a matter of natural laws?

Christians have sought to scientifically evaluate miracle claims at least since the 16th century, when the Council of Trent tightened up the verification process for canonizing saints. But the Christian God does not work in randomized, repeatable trials. He works in history. So maybe medical histories are a more appropriate approach. “Medical case reports rely on a different epistemology, which is more of a historical epistemology,” Josh Brown said. “It’s not something you can necessarily recreate, whatever the time course of a disease.”

In 2011 the Browns helped found the Global Medical Research Institute, which publishes case studies on the small number of inexplicable events that its staff members can scrupulously document — like a blind woman who, while praying one night with her husband, regained her sight and a teenage boy who depended on a feeding tube until his stomach suddenly healed itself during an encounter with a Pentecostal minister. “When we write these case reports, we’re not claiming these must have been a miracle of God, but these are the facts of the case,” Josh Brown told me.

Most professional scientists won’t go for this. “Case methods are fine as a way to start,” Michael Shermer , the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine and a historian of science, told me. “But how do you shift from case studies to more experimental protocols that are the gold standard?”

Dr. Shermer sometimes asks believers about all the times prayer fails to heal. “Their answer is, ‘God works in mysterious ways.’ It’s just hand-waving,” he said. Divine mystery is central to Christian faith, but it creates problems for a scientific method premised on the assumption that the laws of cause and effect are uniform — and will yield up their mysterious ways if you test and measure again and again.

The Browns’ experiences are striking because they operate in one of the most antisupernaturalist subcultures in the modern world: secular academia. But in a global context — and we are in the midst of a worldwide Christian revival — stories of unexplained healing in response to prayer are common. (Although healing is central to Christianity, other religions claim their share. One Christian response is that God shows himself to non-Christians in partial ways, and some Christians I interviewed described non-Christian healings that, they claimed, later proved false.)

Scholars estimate that 80 percent of new Christians in Nepal come to the faith through an experience with healing or deliverance from demonic spirits. Perhaps as many as 90 percent of new converts who join a house church in China credit their conversion to faith healing. In Kenya, 71 percent of Christians say they have witnessed a divine healing, according to a 2006 Pew study. Even in the relatively skeptical United States, 29 percent of survey respondents claim they have seen one.

You can quarrel with the exact figures, but we are talking about millions of people who say something otherworldly happened to them. Yet most secular people — and even many religious believers — are oblivious to this or shrug off miracle stories on principle as motivated reasoning, hallucination or fraud.

When Ifeanyi Chinedozi came to the United States for college in 2009, he “was shocked, as a young man from Nigeria, at the discomfort in talking about spiritual experiences and marvelous things that happen as part of routine Christian discourse in Nigeria and across the world,” he told me. (According to Pew, 62 percent of Nigerians say they have witnessed a divine healing; 57 percent say they have experienced or seen an exorcism.)

Dr. Chinedozi went to medical school at Tufts University and is completing his residency in general surgery at the University of Maryland, as well as a cardiac surgery research fellowship at Johns Hopkins. He also leads a ministry called Healing Vessels International, which brings both prayer and medical resources to people in need. He has been a healing evangelist since the age of 7, when, he said, Jesus appeared to him in a dream and asked if he would like to heal people. His family was not Christian at the time, but after his frightened parents heard him speaking English in his sleep (they spoke only Igbo), they took him to a local minister, who proclaimed that the boy was anointed as a healer.

In 2007, when he was in high school, a family sought his help to raise their mother, who had been declared brain-dead at a hospital. He told me that he initially refused because he had tried and failed to raise someone from the dead before. Finally, he agreed to pray over a bottle of olive oil for them. “I lifted it up and said, ‘Father, let this represent me and be unto this girl and her family as their faith has demanded, in the name of Jesus Christ.’ They didn’t thank me, just rushed out, and I thought, ‘I don’t have to go with them and be embarrassed. Whatever happens happens.’”

He heard later that the woman’s daughter poured the whole bottle onto her while praying; the woman coughed and opened her eyes. The family gave a party to celebrate her recovery, where Dr. Chinedozi said he met her.

God instituted prayer “to communicate to his creatures the dignity of causality,” according to Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century French philosopher. But for those whose prayers are answered, there is a temptation to take credit. Dr. Chinedozi told me that his family and friends address him as “man of God,” but he stressed that the woman’s recovery proved he has no special powers, not even superhuman faith. “People say God only works when you have faith,” he told me. “I don’t think that’s true. God sometimes overrides our unbelief and high-mindedness and proves himself to be God. He doesn’t need our faith to be God.”

Why are stories like this so much more common outside the West? Skeptics say that naturally, people pray more often and overinterpret lucky breaks when they don’t have antibiotics or doctors close by — although the raising that Dr. Chinedozi described took place in a hospital. In the Bible, humans see wondrous signs of God’s power where the Gospel is spreading to new lands, and Jesus refuses to perform magic tricks for skeptical Pharisees but heals those whose desperation drives them to faith.

J. Ayodeji Adewuya is a professor of New Testament at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary in Tennessee. He saw his share of miracles in his home country, Nigeria — including, he believes, the raising of his stillborn infant son after he spent 20 minutes shouting and pacing the room in prayer. “I joke, you don’t really need to pray the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Give us our daily bread,’ when you have everything provided by Walmart and your fridge is full,” he told me. “When you’re in a place where you have nothing, the only thing you can do is depend on God, and at that point you’re expecting something. The average white evangelical Christian doesn’t expect anything.”

Western skeptics have disregarded witness testimony from places like Nigeria at least since David Hume complained in his 1748 essay on miracles that “they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations.” Such dismissal is more awkward for 21st-century secular liberals, who often say that Westerners should listen to people in the Global South and acknowledge the blindnesses of colonialism. “Some people claim that the best thing to do is to listen to people’s experiences and learn from them,” Dr. Chinedozi said. “Yet these people will be the first to find a way to disprove experiences in other cultures and contexts.”

Witness testimony in general has come in for a drubbing lately. Courts have overturned convictions when DNA proved that witnesses who sounded sure of themselves on the stand turned out to be horribly mistaken . Yet we rely on it all the time in the course of ordinary life. “If your epistemology is that eyewitness evidence doesn’t count, then there goes most historiography, journalism, even anthropology and sociology,” Craig Keener, a professor of biblical studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, told me. (He included Dr. Chinedozi’s and Dr. Adewuya’s stories in his book “Miracles Today.”)

Among those who deny miracles, “the presuppositions are so strong,” Dr. Keener said. “There’s a dogmatism there, just like a religious dogmatism. It looks to me like it’s so ideologically driven — if you’re starting from the standpoint that a miracle claim is not true if we could possibly come up with another explanation and one of the explanations can be, ‘We don’t have an explanation now, but maybe someday we will.’” When I asked Dr. Shermer what he thought about this analogy, he objected. Belief in future scientific discovery “is not faith,” he said. “It’s confidence that the system works pretty well from experience.”

Well-documented testimonies can suggest that something very strange happened, but they can never settle the crucial question of causation; this is, whether you are religious or not, a matter of faith. (Even Hume, in a way, granted this.) So do efforts to prove miracles miss the point — and miss other signs of God’s presence?

I put this question to Kim O’Connor, a nurse, and Hamilton Grantham, a pediatrician, who help lead the British Lourdes Medical Association , a group of medical professionals who accompany critically ill pilgrims to the Catholic shrine of Lourdes in France. They described startling cases of cancer remission and unresponsive people with dementia getting up to dance. But most of their stories emphasized internal transformation, the acceptance of approaching death by pilgrims and their families. “A lot of people we take are too humble for themselves. They don’t expect a miraculous cure,” Ms. O’Connor said.

The Catholic Church has officially acknowledged 70 miraculous healings associated with Lourdes since pilgrims began traveling there in 1858, but “they’re the small pinnacle of a much bigger blessing,” Dr. Grantham said. “The reality is that when we think of ourselves as doctors and nurses, as people who want to heal, healing comes in many different forms.”

If God can heal, why does he do it so rarely? The world is full of suffering people who pray with no relief. “Even people who believe in miracles often don’t pray for them because they’re afraid of disappointment,” Candy Brown said. “I’ve had people die on my watch. It’s incredibly painful. You ask, ‘Is it my fault?’” She speculated that many Christians’ belief that miraculous healing ceased after New Testament times springs from “protection against pain, protection against feeling ill will toward God or other people. It takes hope and vulnerability to be open to healing.”

For Christians, it also takes spiritual maturity to remember that miracles are not the point. Miracles are signs meant to help humans see the greatest miracle of all, the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ— God’s ultimate intrusion into ordinary life, by which he eventually “shall wipe away all tears,” according to the Book of Revelation.

For now, stories of suffering in this fallen world vastly outnumber reports of miraculous healing; believers must search out God’s power in all these things. William Dembski is a Christian writer and proponent of intelligent design who completed a doctorate in mathematics at the University of Chicago (and later one in philosophy). He is an expert in probability theory, so he is well aware that statistically rare things do happen randomly.

“I believe in miracles, but I think they require scrutiny,” Dr. Dembski told me. “I don’t tend to see things as flamboyant as in the New Testament.” He published a moving account of his family’s disappointment at a healing revival, where he sought prayer for his autistic son. “There can be quite a bit of self-delusion on the part of people looking for miracles, and it troubles me,” he said.

Dr. Dembski’s family has learned to look for the miraculous in everyday loving encounters, like when a teacher’s aide made it her mission to help his son learn to use the bathroom on his own. “His life is so much better because of this person who wouldn’t give up on him,” he said. “It was no miracle, in terms of a magic wand that touched him and everything was fine. It was people who were willing to love him and do the hard work.”

Molly Worthen is the author, most recently, of the audio course “ Charismatic Leaders Who Remade America ” and an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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3 (page 51) p. 51 Why do so many people believe in miracles?

Published: November 2017
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‘Why do so many people believe in miracles?’ considers why it is that the belief in miracles is so widespread. It addresses a number of remarkable recent findings in psychology that seem to support the miracle bias hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, belief in miracles is widespread because humans are cognitively and developmentally biased towards forming and transmitting such a belief. The minimal counterintuitiveness theory suggests concepts that deviate slightly from intuitive expectations can be transmitted more successfully than common concepts that are compatible with expectations. This theory applies across cultures, which may be why miracle episodes are common irrespective of geographical location or religious tradition.

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Opinion: Do you believe in miracles?

By Hugh Mclachlan

5 August 2009

Do miracles depend on definitions of the laws of nature?

(Image: Carsten Koall / Getty)

THESE days most people think it unscientific to believe in “miracles”, and irreligious not to believe in them. But would the occurrence of miracles really violate the principles of science? And would their non-occurrence really undermine religion? David Hume and Richard Dawkins have attempted to answer these questions in their different ways, but I am not convinced by their arguments, and for me they remain open questions.

In 1748, in one of his key essays, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding , the Scottish…

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Do You Have To Believe In Miracles To Be A Christian?

Miracles are a super natural action by God on the Earth on behalf of His people (you and I). If you are a Christian, does one have to believe in miracles? The answer is very simple, let us show you. Of course, the Bible is a spiritual book, but it’s also filled with science, history, poetry, music, and even some sensual love stories to name a few areas.

When you read the Word of God (the Bible), you see that it’s all about people who refuse to allow God in their lives, and contrasts those unbelievers with those who engage Father God. Cain and Abel, Abraham and Lot, Martha and Mary, Judas and the disciples… we see many instances of why it is better to get into God’s light than stay in the darkness of this world

Does A Person Who Thinks They Are A Christian Need To Believe In Miracles?

Being a Christian is founded on the fundamental truth or as Jesus called it the “rock” confession we each have to make as in Matthew 16:18. That personal proclamation Jesus is the Messiah and our Savior. If you want to be a Christian, the first miracle you must accept is that Jesus’ birth is a miracle through a young girl named Mary. How many women can have a baby without a man involved? None. The seed, or semen, of a man is required. But God, came in the form of man, to save man as Jesus is God, God is Jesus. The birth of Jesus is a miracle.

What About Other Miracles?

Did Jesus turn the water into wine? Did He walk on the water? Did the donkey speak to Balaam? Did Moses part the Red Sea? Did the world’s most powerful army of the tie drown in the Red Sea. Did the plagues hit Egypt to force Pharaoh to release the Israeli people? Did Samson destroy the enemy who stood against God? Did the walls of Jericho fall down? Did Abraham become the father of a nation?

These are all miracles. They all happened. We can see their results in history. The Bible is full of miracles. It is all about getting God involved in the lives of believers. It may sound harsh but one pastor said, “If a person doesn’t believe in miracles, they are not a Christian”. Although it is very direct, it is very important to acknowledge God in your life. When you do that, that’s when the miracles start to happen.

Are you ready for some miracles in your life? First thing, you need Jesus. You can learn how to meet Him here . Secondly, you need the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Find out more about that here .

Buckle up! God has miracles for those who believe. Amazing!

___________________________

Thanks for reading FaithPro! You are here because you want to know the truth, and the truth of the Word will set you free! Don’t keep the freedom to yourself! Share with others via the buttons below. One Word from God can change someone’s life forever. Jesus is Lord!

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Sample details

This I Believe

I Believe in Miracles

I believe In miracles. Ata very young age I began to get an Idea of what a miracle was. Dialing H. Oaks defines a miracle as “a beneficial event brought about through divine power that mortals do not understand and themselves cannot duplicate. ” When I was SIX years old I had my first experience when a miracle took place In my life. I was in our small front yard taking golf lessons from my father in a small CUL-De- sac. My father laid down the golf ball on the freshly cut grass.

As he swung and hit he ball across the street, my two older brothers Jeremy and Michael ran as fast as they could to retrieve the ball, but shortly found out it had landed in the dog kennel. As the dog viciously barked they backed away and didn’t dare go in to get it. Being the brave little kid I was; not thinking twice, I decided I would retrieve the ball. I ran quickly but never made it across the street. My neighbor at the end of the CUL-De-sac was driving an old rusty gold station wagon, and the timing couldn’t have been worse.

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I don’t remember much, but my dad said when I collided with the car I was eke a wet noodle being flung through the air. I flew ten feet and rolled five more. My body was limp. My father for sure thought I was dead. My two brothers and dad ran to me but there was no sense of life. They picked me up off the gravel covered road and laid me in the grass. After a few minutes I came back to and took my first breath. My skin was covered in cuts and scrapes and they were worried something might be wrong. They quickly rushed me to the hospital where the doctor cleaned the gravel from my skin, but found no broken bones or any other damage.

Was this a miracle or incidence? Many people have stopped believing in miracles. It is much easier for me to believe In them. Than to pretend they never happened because they cannot be explained. Miracles happen in many ways, they can be a mighty change in heart, a new born baby, or even overcoming a trial. You have to believe in miracles for them to exist. Miracles happen because of faith. Dialing H. Oaks quotes In his talk (Miracles) ” It shall come to pass that he that have faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed. Though many miracles have happened wrought my life, I would like to discuss one where the power of the priesthood was key to my healing. At age twenty three I was in Paris, Illinois. I had a very bad headache so took a pain killer. Shortly after I had taken one, I got into the medicine cabinet and unconsciously took the whole bottle. Several hours later, after the medicine was in full affect, my grandparents realized something was wrong. They immediately called the ambulance. By the time I got to the hospital I had gone into a coma; the doctors were scared my kidneys were going to shut down, and that I would to make it through the night.

It was too late to pump my stomach; all they could do was put me on an IV and wait to see if I would pull out of it. They called my father and told him that I was going to die, and to make arrangements to get my body back to Idaho. My dad changed his schedule and flew down to Illinois. I made it through two nights. The third day my grandfather gave me a blessing and I came out of my coma. The doctors believed there would be lots of Internal damage and possibly brain damage but the test came out clear, and I was able to leave the hospital that ay.

When the doctors tried to explain to my father what happened, all they could say miracles has been strengthened. I know miracles happen every day. The Lord is constantly reaching down to bless our lives. You have to believe in Him, and have faith so that His mighty hand can perform the miracles we seek. You will never fully understand what happened, but there is peace in knowing the Lord was there with you. We are all his children, he watches over each of us, and will continue to perform this miraculous work we call miracles.

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COMMENTS

Why and how I believe in miracles
So yes, I believe in miracles. Which is to say, I surrender in trust to a God who will stop at nothing to bring about our salvation. A God who is intimately close, present, and involved. A God who is in all things, interacting with all things, restoring all things in the name of love. This column appears in the June 2023 issue.
Do you believe in miracles? Why they make perfect sense for many
In "Of Miracles," Hume claims to have discovered an argument that will check what he calls "all superstitious delusion.". It is based on this definition of a miracle: "A transgression of ...
Miracles
The miracles of Jesus in the Gospels certainly display his kindness toward human need and suffering (e.g., Mark 1:41), building the readers' trust in the Savior they love and follow. They also accredit Jesus as a divinely authorized spokesman for God, to whom all people should listen (Acts 2:22). They also reveal his unique person, with ...
C.S. Lewis on Miracles: Why They Are Possible and Significant
Lewis writes, "Many people think one can decide whether a miracle occurred in the past by examining the evidence 'according to the ordinary rules of historical inquiry.'. But the ordinary rules cannot be worked until we have decided whether miracles are possible, and if so, how probable they are." 6.
The Miracles of Christ
The miracles that Jesus worked were foretastes of this two-stage deliverance, in his resurrection from the dead, and then, finally, in our resurrection of the body, in union with and by the power of his resurrection. Let us consider, as an example, the healing of the centurion's servant, recorded in Matt. 8:5-13.
Do You Believe in Miracles? Essay
He also warns us that he thinks we would be crazy not to have beliefs of the future. For Hume, the notion of a miracle is based on three considerable obstacles. Firstly, Hume writes, "a. Free Essay: Let me ask you a question, do you believe in miracles? Or, more appropriately, do you consider, that in today's scientific era, it is illogical...
Do You Believe in Miracles
Explore. Featured Essays Essays on the Radio; Special Features; 1950s Essays Essays From the 1950s Series; Browse by Theme Browse Essays By Theme Use this feature to browse through the tens of thousands of essays that have been submitted to This I Believe. Select a theme to see a listing of essays that address the selected theme. The number to the right of each theme indicates how many essays ...
Do You Believe in Miracles?
Miracles are supernatural acts of God that interrupt the natural course of events. It is reasonable to believe in miracles because God who created the universe exists. The evidence for His existence is substantial. Since there is a God who can act in history, there can be acts of God.
Can We Believe in Miracles?
Before you give up on miracles, let me develop a response to Hume offered by Peter van Inwagen. Try this colorful experiment for yourself. Find some lipstick and the nearest mirror. Pick an improbable string of numbers or letters—maybe, "Miracles do happen, Larry!"—and write them across your forehead. Stare into the mirror.
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Perhaps as many as 90 percent of new converts who join a house church in China credit their conversion to faith healing. In Kenya, 71 percent of Christians say they have witnessed a divine healing ...
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'Why do so many people believe in miracles?' considers why it is that the belief in miracles is so widespread. It addresses a number of remarkable recent findings in psychology that seem to support the miracle bias hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, belief in miracles is widespread because humans are cognitively and developmentally ...
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People do not believe in religion because they accept occurrences such as miracles. Surely it is because people believe in particular religions that some interpret some particular occurrences as miracles. But believers need not mean by "miracles" what Hume and Dawkins mean by them. And belief in miracles need not be inconsistent with an ...
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THESE days most people think it unscientific to believe in "miracles", and irreligious not to believe in them. ... In 1748, in one of his key essays, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding ...
Do You Believe In Miracles Essay Example
For scholars such as Maurice Wiles, Alastair McKinnon, and Steven Bayne a miracle can never occur because the actual concept of a miracle is incoherent. Bayne states, "Given Hume's view on the nature of belief and belief production, it seems…that we should begin not by asking whether belief in a miracle can be rationally justified, but by ...
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Coincidences happen on a small scale like wearing the same shirt as a classmate. This proves that not only do miracles exist, but they're also able to coexist with coincidences. I choose to believe that my life and everyone elses' life is a miracle—not just the fertilization of an egg. I choose to believe that I was born at a time when ...
Essay on Miracles
A miracle is a difficult term to define because it depends on the individual's perspective and experience. Generally speaking, miracles can be considered to be natural and unnatural acts of God or series of unlikely events occurring concurrently- coincidences. I believe miracles and coincidences can both be seen as a series of unlikely ...
Do You Believe Miracles?
2389 Words. 10 Pages. Open Document. Do you believe in miracles? Before, I never thought that miracles could happen till I saw one happen right before my eyes. It was very scary and one of the worst days of my life I was 15 and my brother was 17. I knew from that day on my family and my life would no longer be the same.
Do You Have To Believe In Miracles To Be A Christian?
Being a Christian is founded on the fundamental truth or as Jesus called it the "rock" confession we each have to make as in Matthew 16:18. That personal proclamation. Jesus is the Messiah and our Savior. If you want to be a Christian, the first miracle you must accept is that Jesus' birth is a miracle through a young girl named Mary.
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Miracles do happen.
I believe in miracles. Miracles are little packages filled with happiness waiting to be opened; they come when you least expect. Miracles are compared to dreams, fulfilling the impossible, and overcoming the unbelievable; they happen every day. For instance, a single mother who struggles and tries so hard providing everything for her kids ...
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A miracle would be based on induction which would come from cause and effect suggesting that the laws of nature are no violated. The more an event happens in a particular way the less likely it is that the opposite will happen, for example the sun will rise so it will always rise.thereofore it is more rational to believe that miracles do not ...