I Believe in Miracles

Mark 8:4-9

"His disciples answered, "But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?" "How many loaves do you have?" Jesus asked. "Seven," they replied. He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and they did so. They had a few small fish as well; he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. About four thousand men were present. And having sent them away.."

A journey through the Gospels is a remarkable experience for any reader and might also present itself to be baffling to the uninitiated. A great deal of the events in the these narratives are interlaced with supernatural events initiated at will by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is becoming more and more common in nowadays, more than ever in our modern times since probably the Enlightenment period (18th Century) to cast doubt on miraculous events and dismiss such stories as made-up fables. Even honest Christians at the time tried to come up with ways to explain away the miraculous aspects of the events recorded in the Gospels and the rest of the Bible. Do we really believe in miracles? 'Undoubtedly, one of the major stumbling blocks to becoming a Christian for many people today is that Christianity is a religion of miracles. It asserts that God became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, being born of a virgin, that he performed various miracles, exorcised demonic beings, and that, having died by crucifixion, he rose from the dead.' That somehow, 2 molecules of Hydrogen and a molecule of Oxygen by the sound waves produced by the vibrations of one particular man's larynx create a chemical reaction to add 2 more molecules of Hydrogen and 2 new molecules of Carbon in the mix? Do miracles violate the 'Laws of Nature'? And if it does, is it unreasonable for us to believe that these events happened as they are recorded? One of the eminent thinkers of the time was the Scottish Empiricist (knowledge only comes from direct observation via the senses) David Hume. Contrary to popular belief though, that Hume supposedly had done away with the idea of miracles — the last nail to the coffin of Christian belief, there were many other thinkers who had robustly answered all of Hume's objections to miraculous events from all angles: Thomas Sherlock, Gottfried Less, and William Paley. It is unfortunate though that popular media and modern skeptics did not pick up on the ample counter-arguments published. Here's one statement that I commonly encounter: "Extraordinary Claims require extraordinary evidence." This was popularized by the late skeptic cosmologist Dr. Carl Sagan. The idea actually is a variation of the first part of Hume's arguments. It sounds good and sounds correct but actually it is a loaded dice: '(1) Given God’s existence, miracles are as possible as any other event; (2) and the probability that God would reveal himself nullifies any inherent improbability in miracles. (3) A miracle is a matter of sense perception like any other event, and is therefore capable of being supported by historical testimony. (4) A miracle is not contrary to experience and therefore, the testimony to a miracle cannot be nullified by the testimony to the regular order of other experiences.' These are just some arguments that have been presented to support miracles recorded in the bible as actual historical events. We can actually demonstrate that rationally believing in a highly improbable event doesn’t require an enormous amount of evidence. 'What is crucial is that the evidence be far more probable given that the event did occur than given that it did not. The bottom line is that it doesn't always take a huge amount of evidence to establish a miracle.' Ultimately, I thank God for reaching out to us and authenticating His nearness and relevance by the power demonstrated in the Lord Jesus' life and ministry.

...Romans 1:16-23

"It’s news I’m most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else! God’s way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: "The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives." But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand."

~22.07.2014

Sources:

Craig, William Lane, Reasonable Faith