The Importance of Miracles

Late last year we published Origin: Why Genesis 1–11 Trumps Secular Accounts. The book attempts something increasingly unusual in the modern world: a discussion of physics, cosmology, biology and history which also treats biblical miracles as real events.

This approach was necessary because the Christian faith is inseparable from miracles. In fact, it is not possible to be a disciple of Jesus without believing in them, as Paul the Apostle affirmed. In relation to the miracle of Christ’s resurrection, Paul stated:

“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile” (1 Corinthians 15:17).

That said, scepticism toward claims of the miraculous is not always unreasonable. People are prone to exaggeration, misinterpretation and wishful thinking. Medical science itself is not immune from diagnostic uncertainty and placebo effects. But when it comes to miracles, many have gone much further than healthy skepticism. In the last several hundred years, some prominent intellectuals have been scornful of those who believe in miracles.

In the eighteenth century, philosopher David Hume famously argued that belief in miracles requires a person “to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.” (p. 101). For Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976), a Lutheran theologian*, belief in miracles is no longer possible in the modern, scientific age:

“For the worldview of the Scripture is mythological and is therefore unacceptable to modern man whose thinking has been shaped by science.” (Bultmann, Rudolf. (1958). Jesus Christ and Mythology. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, pp. 36–37).

More recently, Stephen Pinker wrote that

“… truth is not always halfway between two extremes. … [and it is incoherent to think that] you can have it both ways: that God (…) sort-of exists; that miracles kind-of happen … .”

In the other direction are cases where belief in miracles has contributed to grave negligence. In Queensland, a religious sect which believed in miracles withheld insulin from an eight-year-old diabetic girl, who died. (Fourteen members of the sect were convicted and jailed for manslaughter.)

If belief in miracles is required to be a disciple of Jesus, but many hold this belief to be ludicrous, or even dangerous, it is incumbent on thoughtful believers to have a reasonable grasp on what miracles are, how they should be understood, and how they relate to the ordinary course of nature. For the scientifically minded it is important to consider how miracles relate to science, and how miracles impact our understanding of knowledge.

In view of the importance of miracles to Christianity, notable Christians have written books defending belief in miracles. C. S. Lewis published Miracles in 1947, a book which remains popular today. Lewis established the plausibility of miracles in philosophical/theological and historical terms. Lewis’ argument countered those naturalists who dismissed miracles on philosophical grounds.

More recently Craig S. Keener investigated a large number of biblical and modern accounts of miracles in his book Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. Keener established that it is academically suspect to reject miracles out of hand; he showed that they do appear to occur. Both Lewis and Keener presented arguments against the excessively sceptical point of view—Lewis mainly from the philosophical approach and Keener principally from an anecdotal/observational data standpoint. But what these writers didn’t do is explore in detail the biblical distribution of miracles or the pastoral problems that often arise from unhealthy expectations about miracles. Neither writer sought to develop a broader theology of miracles that integrates providence, suffering, “unanswered prayer”, medical causation, epistemology, and the overall role of miracles within the Christian life.

For example, why do miracles cluster around certain people and periods of history? Why does the biblical account describe some being healed miraculously while others—like Paul himself—were not? And what distinguishes miracles from coincidence or providence?

We’d like to address these issues in a series of blog posts. The core questions we will seek to answer are:

• What are miracles?
• Why does God sometimes act miraculously and at other times through ordinary providence?
• How should Christians evaluate miracle claims wisely without drifting into either unbelief or superstition?
• And what role should miracles occupy within a mature Christian worldview centered on Christ and the kingdom of God?  

We will examine these questions carefully to see what the combination of Scripture, history, theology, medicine and reason might reveal.

Here’s an outline of what we’ll explore in forthcoming posts:

1. What is a miracle? How should miracles be defined? How are miracles distributed throughout Scripture? Do we live in a profoundly miraculous world?
2. Does belief in miracles make Christians superstitious? Did the ancient Egyptian magicians perform genuine miracles? How do common grace, providence, prayer, and miracles relate to one another?
3. What are the great miraculous pillars of the Old Testament? How do creation, the flood, and other mighty acts of God shape the Christian understanding of history and redemption?
4. What are the great miraculous pillars of the New Testament? Why are the incarnation, resurrection, Pentecost, and other miracles central to the Christian faith?
5. What do the miracles of Jesus reveal about the kingdom of God? What do Christ’s healings, exorcisms, signs, and wonders teach us about His identity and mission?
6. How might a medical practitioner evaluate claims of miraculous healing? How should doctors and other clinicians distinguish between natural recovery, misdiagnosis, placebo effects, psychosomatic illness, unexplained remission, and potentially miraculous healing? What standards of evidence, causation, and humility should be applied when assessing extraordinary medical claims?
7. Are miracles still occurring today? If so, what kinds of miracles are most commonly reported, and how should Christians think about modern claims?
8. Why do some people develop unhealthy views of miracles? How can miracles be misunderstood, sensationalised, manipulated, or detached from biblical teaching?
9. What should we expect from prayer and healing? What are the limits of expectation? How should Christians understand suffering, unanswered prayer, cessationism, and continuationism?
10. How should miracles be evaluated philosophically? What do miracles teach us about evidence, testimony, causation, and the nature of knowledge itself?
11. What can we learn from Craig Keener’s research on miracles? What did his extensive documentation of modern miracle claims actually demonstrate?
12. What does James 5:14–15 teach about healing and prayer? What is the role of the elders, anointing with oil, confession, faith, and divine healing in the life of the church?

We look forward to sharing our thoughts, and invite comments or questions.

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* While Rudolf Bultmann is commonly regarded in Christian circles as a Lutheran theologian, and we have described him as such here, we should point out the usefulness of his work to the high-profile Muslim missionary Ahmed Deedat (1918–2005), who sought to oppose and undermine Christianity using Christian sources. “Deedat lean[ed] heavily on liberal Biblical scholarship with Rudolf Bultmann getting pride of place as a scholar whose views on the historicity of the New Testament [were] accepted without question” (Scheepers, 2016, p.14). In other words, Bultmann’s theology, which incorporated the belief that miracles are “unacceptable”, was of considerable corroborative value to a declared opponent of Christianity.