Answers to Tough Questions - Other Stumbling Blocks

Can miracles really happen?

The reality of miracles is often a stumbling block to people's belief in the Bible, and for some it is their principle objection. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, tore all of the miraculous passages from his Bible. But even if this is the only objection to the reliability of Scripture, it is a substantial one: take away miracles, and you eliminate the resurrection of Christ, among other things.

The argument against miracles usually goes something like this: Miracles do not occur today and there is no scientific explanation for them, therefore miracles never happened and the Biblical accounts are fictional (at least in part).

Behind the skeptics' objection to miracles is a substantial bias against the existence of God This is the actual matter at hand. If you begin with the assumption that God does not exist, then you not think that miracles occur. Therefore, the reality of miracles becomes a litmus test for the skeptic: if miracles can be proven, then there is possibly a God. This is a modern form of the Pharisees' demand for a sign (cf. Matthew 12:38-42): just as they claimed they'd respect Jesus' teaching if he performed a sign for them, so the skeptic claims he'd concede God's existence if he could see a miracle today - or, at the very least, be rationally convinced that the ones recorded in Scriptures did occur. But belief in miracles is secondary to, and arises from, belief in the existence of God. Also, by using miracles to test the truth of the Bible and the existence of God, skeptics are already treating the Bible as unreliable, because they assume that it's presupposition of God's existence is inaccurate.

The whole Bible assumes without defense that God exists, beginning with its very first verse: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). Scripture is concerned with recounting God's works without ever explaining His existence. So the line of reasoning that the skeptic uses is the reverse of what the Bible does. The skeptic begins with the assumption that miracles do not occur today, adds this to the assumption that everything carries on as it always has (cf. 2 Peter 3:4), and concludes that if miracles don't occur now, they could not have occurred at any time in history. Then, based on this conclusion, the skeptic further concludes that any recording of miracles in the Bible must be false, thus rendering the Bible unreliable. Naturally, if the Bible is unreliable, then its claims about God cannot be trusted.

No miracles today >> No miracles ever >> Bible untrue >>
No God (as Bible describes)

On the other hand, the Bible itself begins with the assumption that God does exist and then goes on to describe what He has done in the world, which includes things that are inexplicable to normal human experience. (The irony of dismissing the Bible, Jesus, or God by disbelief in miracles is that God expressly used miracles at critical points in redemptive history - Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus and the Apostles, etc. - to validate His message.)

God exists >> Bible reliable >> Miracles do occur

So, to answer a question about the reality of miracles, you must begin with the foundational claim of the Bible - that God exists and He created everything. Assuming that God created this world, then it follows that He also created the rules by which the world works. So it is completely within God's power to suspend or interrupt those rules. There is nothing illogical or unscientific about a miracle if you accept the existence of God. Science only explains what occurs in the physical world, it does not explain either the spiritual world or the impact the spiritual world can have on the physical world. Even renowned scientists who do not believe in God, such as Stephen Hawking, admit that science is entirely incapable of proving or disproving the existence of the supernatural.

In the end, the question at hand is not whether miracles can really happen. They can. The real question is "Does God exist?" As long as God remains physically unseen, one must begin with one of two assumptions - that He exists or He doesn't - and then the burden of proof rests upon supporting the initial assumption. Ironically, the best forum for arguing the existence or non-existence of God (apart from any truth-claim of the Bible) is the existence of life. This is ironic because all life points to a present multiplicity of miracles and a large, single past miracle - the original origin of life from which all current life descends. Quite frankly, the atheist's explanation for this is far more miraculous and unbelievable than the theist's: because the atheist says that all life spontaneously and autonomously formed out of nothing. But nothing is nothing (no thing), which by definition is the absence of something. It is sheer nonsense to say that something can come out of nothing. But it is not nonsense at all to say that God, who is eternally self-existent and all-powerful, can make everything come out of nothing. If He is unlimited in power and ability, that is perfectly reasonable. It is the only reasonable explanation as to how matter and energy came to be in existence.

So, "Can miracles really happen?" Yes! They do happen because God exists and He intervenes in His creation. They may defy scientific explanation, but that's the point - if they were natural occurrences, then they wouldn't be miracles at all.

Top of Page