"Why Believe in Miracles?" - Chapter 4 of Know Why You Believe

Know Why You Believe
By K. Scott Oliphint

“Why Believe in Miracles?” – Chapter 4

Lesson Overview

• Reasons
  
  • From Hume to Hitchens
  • Theism to the Rescue?
  • Christian Theism to the Rescue
• Responses
• Conclusion

Reasons

From Hume to Hitchens

• Objections to the Idea of Miracles
  
  • David Hume (1711-1776)
    
    • Empiricism – we can know only what we experience through the senses (“naturalism”). Everything else is illusion.
      
      • “A wise man…proportions his belief to the evidence.”
      • If there is no evidence for a miracle, or if the “proportion” of evidence is only slight, the possibility of the miracle must be rejected.
    • Probability – the likelihood of something happening or taking place.
      
      • Probability is in part determined and dependent on other things.
      • The probability that I will drive to work depends on what day it is.
    • Hume’s philosophy:
      
      • Can it be measured or quantified?
      • Can it be sensed by experience?
      • Is it matter or physical?
      • No to all of these: “Commit it then to the flames: for it contains nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
      • Christianity is by definition ruled out of bounds in this philosophy.
      • No place for miracles or “supernatural.”
    • Hume’s definition of a miracle: “an act which is a violation of the laws of nature.”
      
      • Since the laws of nature are unalterable and fixed, then there can be no such thing as miracles which violate these fixed laws.
      • Which is more probable? To think that a man was raised from the dead or to think that a person was deceived into thinking someone was raised from the dead?
      • So, Hume rejects miracles on the basis of empiricism (what is experienced through the senses) and probability (miracles are not as likely as other more likely explanations).
    • Hume’s argument against miracles is still followed today by many atheists. It is viewed as the preeminent argument against miracles and the supernatural.
      
      • Christopher Hitchens is a modern example.

Theism to the Rescue?

• There is a major flaw in Hume’s argument: his understanding of “nature”
  
  • It assumes that no one has ever experienced a miracle.
  • Empiricism only works as an argument against miracles if miracles have never happened in anyone’s experience and perceived by the senses.
  • The only way to know with certainty that no one has ever experienced a miracle is if miracles are impossible.
  • Arguing in a circle: miracles are impossible because no one has ever experienced them; no one has ever experienced them because miracles are not “normal” and “natural” – thus not possible.
• What if we suppose the existence of God—that there is more to what is “natural” than what can be seen or experienced empirically?
• Would establishing God’s existence prove the possibility of miracles?
• Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677) didn’t think so.
  
  • A Jewish theist who reasoned that the unchangeability of God required the unchangeability of nature – no miracles.
  • The miracles of the Old Testament were “natural” occurrences that only appeared new or supernatural because of man’s ignorance.
  • So, like Hume, Spinoza thought that “witnesses” of miracles were themselves deceived or confused.
• Bare theism alone does not solve the debate over miracles.
  
  • Deism would deny miracles based on the unchangeability of the nature God made. He wound it up and let it go.

Christian Theism to the Rescue

• Some flaws in definitions that need correcting:
  
  • The assumption that “nature” is all there is and that it moves on its own according to unchangeable laws/forces.
  • The assumption that God’s unchangeability prevents him from disrupting or momentarily changing the “laws of nature.”
• Is “nature” moving on its own?
  
  • The Scriptures know nothing of a “nature” or creation that moves on its own.
    
    • Psalm 104:10-13: “He makes springs pour water into the ravines… He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.”
    • The workings of nature are the workings of the God who made it.
    • The “laws of nature” are actually the faithful activity of a faithful God.
  • Hume denied miracles because he defined nature as a predictable, closed system.
  • Spinoza denied miracles because he defined nature as invariably law-like.
  • Both of these conclusions misunderstand “nature.”
    
    • Nature is what it is because God is working in and through it – actively and dynamically.
• Why would God want to act differently in his world at special times?
  
  • Miracles are not God’s magic tricks.
  • They are not arbitrary displays of God’s power.
  • They are given to point toward the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.
  • Miracles are testimonies; they communicate a message. That message is ultimately pointing to salvation through Christ.
• Example:
  
  • Jesus calms the sea (Mark 4; Matt 8; Luke 8).
    
    • Given to increase the faith of his disciples in their Savior.
    • This miracle demonstrated the nature of the kingdom of God that Jesus had been teaching his disciples about.
    • Miracles are given to authenticate the message and the messenger.
    • The works affirm the words.
    • The calming of the sea was intended to point the disciples to Psalm 107:
      
      • “He stilled the storm to a whisper… Let them gives thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind.”
      • The disciples were meant to see that Jesus was himself the Lord of creation who calmed the sea in Psalm 107.
• Miracles are intended to point to something higher. They accompany the proclamation of redemptive truth.
  
  • When you come across a miracle in Scripture, ask “What redemptive truth is God communicating through this miracle?”

Responses

• Are Christians arguing in a circle in the same way as David Hume?
  
  • There is an important difference:
    
    • When Hume assumed “nature” as a closed, law-like uniformity he was making an assumption that he could not prove because he had not experienced all of nature. He had not experienced the entire system that he speculated about.
    • When Christians begin with God, we are not beginning with our limited experiences. Our belief in God is grounded in what he has said and done.
    • We begin with God not because we “sense” him, but because he has spoken.
    • We do not believe that we can know only what we experience. We can know because of who God is and what he has done.
• How can we believe in an unchangeable God who at times disrupts the normal pattern of nature/creation?
  
  • The unchangeable God is not aloof, disconnected from his world.
  • We believe in the Triune God; we believe that God the Son became flesh and lived among us. This was the “Grand Miracle” and certainly a disruption of the normal order of things.
  • God is dynamically, actively involved.
  • God is at work in his world and in history to save a sinful people.
  • All the miracles in the Bible are meant to point to, explain, and testify to that great and glorious “Grand Miracle” of God coming to man by becoming a man.
  • All other miracles serve that one redemptive act of God.

Conclusion

• We believe in miracles because we believe in Christ.
• When we believe in Christ, we believe that he is the greatest miracle of all.
• Once we believe in him, it is no step at all to believe in those great acts of God that show us his plan of redemption, in and through his Son.