With Due Respect: Miracles happen in other religions too!

Too often I have heard many a friend state that presence of miracles to prove their belief system is true. For instance, they would pray for a friend or a family member to be healed, and he/she is healed supernaturally. This proves that their point of view is correct, right?

Christianity does not discount the possibility of the supernatural in other faiths
As a Christian, I recognise the possibility of miracles. In the Apostle's Creed, I confess the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus.

Therefore, I also do recognise the possibility of the supernatural activities. My point is whether any of such miracles deny the reality of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

In other words, miracles of other belief systems by themselves do not lessen the case for Christianity.

The point of Christianity is not too simply perform miracles
One of the evidence of Christianity is the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus.

However, many would claim this point to be able to heal supernaturally or pray in tongues. If that was all we preached, we completely missed the love of God.

The point of Jesus's sacrifice was that he loved us so much, he died for our sins so that we can be reconciled with God. And if we missed that, we will be so much poorer.

Theology 1.0: What is the importance of miracles in Christianity?

Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2013

I do not know why Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the removed all mention of miracles and the supernatural from his version of the Bible. Maybe like some modern Christians, he was uncomfortable with the idea of God violating of the laws of nature.

I would like to make a bold statement-- unlike other religions and worldviews, miracles are essential to Christianity.

1.) Miracles make Christianity what it is.

Although the Bible contains accounts of many miracles such as the parting of the Red Sea and the prophet Elijah summoning fire, I want to focus on the main miracle of Christianity-- the resurrection of Christ.

As the apostle Paul says in the 1 Corinthians 15:17-19,

17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

The basis of Christianity is based on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus-- to deny any of these beliefs is to undo Christianity entirely (Lewis, 1945).

2.) Miracles presupposes reason

Many people seem to think believing miracles requires to people to suspend their intellect. In order to recognise a miracle, one needs to be reasonable.

For instance, in order to recognise the Virgin birth of Jesus Christ as a miracle, one has to understand that sex is needed before birth (Lewis, 1904).

In other words, to recognise a violation of the laws of nature, one has to know the laws of nature.

Conclusion

Miracles are important in Christianity. However, it is not the most important issue. The more pressing issue is this: is it true?

As journalist GK Chesterton (1904) writes,

"What matters about a religion is not whether it can work marvels like any ragged Indian conjurer, but whether it has a true philosophy of the Universe. The Romans were quite willing to admit that Christ was a God. What they denied was the He was the God – the highest truth of the cosmos. And this is the only point worth discussing about Christianity." 

References

Chesterton, GK (1904). The Religious Doubt of Democracy.

Lewis, CS (1942, October). St Jude's Gazette, 73, 4-7.

Lewis, CS (1945, 27 April). The Grand Miracle.  The Guardian, 161-165

With Due Respect: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

A criticism of miracles

In the 1980, popular cosmologist Carl Sagan made a comment concerning miracles in episode 12 of his famous TV series, Cosmos.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

This statement became dubbed as "Sagan's Dictum" and is often used by atheists and sceptics to dismiss the eyewitness accounts of Jesus's miracles and resurrection.

To be fair, this statement is healthy as it encourages checking of claims. Too many a time, we see reports on how honest, hardworking people are conned of their valuables by cheats or charlatans. Too often we are too trusting and take wholly the word of advertisements.

However this statement is flawed to some extent. Let me explore why.

1) Self-refuting claim
This statement itself is an extraordinary claim! Because it claims to be true for all possible extraordinary claims. We cannot prove this claim to be true with extraordinary evidence.

2) How much evidence?
Furthermore, the person asking for evidence tends to not to define the how much evidence would be considered extraordinary, and whether this demand is reasonable. Let's take the claim for Jesus's resurrection.

More evidence?
Some people argue that if Jesus really rose from the dead, there would be much more accounts than the Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke and John). However the fact that most people living that time period were illiterate, and the fact that we even have copies of the original manuscripts is extraordinary!

Higher quality evidence?
Some people argue that since the Gospels were written so some time after the life of Jesus that they cannot be considered accurate. The copies of the original Gospel manuscripts were written about 100 to 200 years and sceptics often claim for evidence of a higher quality (copies closer to the events themselves).

However, when we compare the copies of the Gospels to other records of the Antiquity (i.e. that that time period of Ancient Romans and Greeks), the Gospels are of extraordinary quality! The earliest copies of Caesar's Gallic Wars were written 1,000 years after the events,  but few doubt the events happen. The earliest copies of Aristotle were written 1,100 years after his lifetime, but no one doubts that there were Aristotle original works.

A different kind of evidence?
Lastly, some people demand a different criteria for reliability. Some people lament the lack of video evidence (why should there be?) or more secular records of Christ. However, we have to wonder why such demand is resonable.

3) Flawed reasoning
The statement also fails to acknowledge that extraordinary claims need not extraordinary evidence. For instance, in 2008 I won a poker tournament despite having zero experience at card competition and only played poker at a recreational event once before. Despite this being a highly unlikely event, I did not have any supernatural evidence for it.

My friends witnessed the event, I have a trophy to show for it and my victor was announced by the emcee. None of this evidences can be considered extraordinary, yet none of my friends doubted the event.

Conclusion
While Sagan's Dictum sounds intelligent on paper and encourages proof-checking, it is inherently flawed.

For further reading

Apologetics

CARM

For evidence on the resurrection of Christ-- bethinking

With Due Respect: Miracles are unscientific!

One of evidences for God?
One of the most frequently touted evidences for God is the occurance of miracles. Scottish philosopher David Hume states in his 1748 book An Enquiry on Human Understanding, that "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience as can be imagined".

In other words, a miracle is an event that violates scientific laws. David Hume further asserts that since these scientific laws are "established", the occurance of miracles are an impossiblilty. Therefore, it is not scientific (or even rational) to accept the existance of miracles.


With great respect to David Hume, I disagree with him. It is entirely possible to be a scientist, and believe in miracles.


On scientific law
Firstly in the realm of science, the word "law" has an entirely different meaning from what it is common understood. In everyday use, it is a legal set of rules that everyone has to follow. Unlike the legal term, a scientific "law" merely states what is generally observed.


For example, let's talk about Mendel's laws of genetic inhertience. His second law (aka the Law of Independent Assortment) states that each parent transmits a random copy of an allele. However, it is noted that while this oberservation is generally true (as it is a law), it does not always happen (due to the presence of epigenetics and self-genetic elements). Violating the scientific law just means an anomaly in the observations. It does not mean the laws no longer hold.

I suppose one could ask miracles do not occur more often. If they did, they would not be rare, and therefore would be called miracles.



A circular argument
Furthermore, the English poet Chesteron (1908) rightly points out the David Hume's argument is circular-- he defines miracles as impoosible to happen. Consider this:

1) Only scientific laws happen

2) Miracles cannot happen because they are by nature, unscientific.


3) Therefore, miracles cannot happen.


In other words, Chesterton points out that the assertion that miracles cannot happen because they simply cannot happen is an argument from dogma, rather than rationality.


Miracles aren't unscientific?
Yes miracles are one-time or rare events. So they aren't scientific as science investigates the repeatible and the general. However, they can be investigated-- through history (i.e. the historical method). So come and investigate Jesus Christ, the God who stepped into time and space, and who knows-- it could be heavenly.

References

Chesterton, G.K. (1908) Orthodoxy



For further reading
Bethinking