I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (34 page)

So Hume commits the same error as the Darwinists—he hides his conclusion in the premise of his argument by way of a false philosophical presupposition. His false presupposition is that all human experiences have been against miracles. How can he know that? He can’t, so he presupposes it. As we have seen, miracles are possible because God exists. Therefore, human beings may have experienced true miracles. The only way to know for sure is to investigate the evidence for each miracle claim. Assuming that each and every miracle claim is false, as Hume does, is clearly illegitimate.

Finally, although Hume correctly defines a miracle as a rare event, he then punishes it for being a rare event! It’s as if Hume is saying, “If only miracles happened more often, then we could believe them.” But if miracles happened more often, say, regularly (to use Hume’s termi-nology), then they would cease being miracles (rare events), and we might consider them natural laws or part of unexplained natural phenomena. But as soon as we consider them natural in origin, then they would no longer get our attention as special acts of God. Its rarity is one of the characteristics that distinguishes a miracle from everything else! To put it another way, the reason miracles get our attention is because we know that such an event could not be produced by natural laws.

So by Hume’s logic, even if there is a God who performs miracles, we shouldn’t believe any miracles he performs because they are not regular events. Again, there’s something wrong with an argument that tells you to disbelieve what has actually occurred. And there’s something wrong with an argument that requires that miracles not be miracles to be believed.

The bottom line is that Hume, without justification, simply declares that the only believable events are regular events, and since a miracle is not a regular event, it fails to meet this artificial criteria. As we’ve mentioned above, if we can’t believe in rare events then we can’t believe anything from history, because history is comprised of succeeding rare, unrepeatable events. Such a position is clearly unreasonable.

After presenting this information at Harvard University, I received no questions or challenges to my critique of Hume, just stunned silence. During this same time period (the 1980s) I was challenged by a professor at another Ivy League school, Princeton University, to a debate on this issue. The professor asked for a copy of my presentation before the debate, which is very unusual. The element of surprise at a debate is an advantage that most debaters will not relinquish. However, I was so confident that my critique of Hume was correct that I sent it to the professor in advance. After receiving my critique of Hume, the professor contacted me to say that he would prefer that I lecture to his class rather than debate him, but that he would be there to “lead the charge” during the question and answer period. I agreed.

When I arrived on campus on the appointed date and time, the professor was nowhere to be found. His assistant said that he had some “personal emergency” and that the meeting was canceled. I wound up presenting my critique to a group of students that Ravi Zacharias had brought down from Nyack College. The professor never responded to my subsequent attempts to contact him.

I received a similar response from Antony Flew, currently one of the foremost philosophical atheists. In the late 80s, I asked him to comment on my book
Miracles and Modern Thought,
¹²
which critiqued numerous anti-miracle arguments including his own (which is very similar to Hume’s). Flew agreed to provide a written critique in the next edition of a major humanist journal. But in that article, instead of attempting to refute the arguments I presented, Flew provided a backhanded compliment by suggesting that atheists need to come up with better arguments against miracles if they are going to answer contemporary theists.

The reluctance to deal directly with the flaws in Hume’s argument tells us that disbelief in miracles is probably more a matter of the will than of the mind. It seems as though some people uncritically cling to David Hume’s argument because they simply don’t want to admit that God exists.
But since we know that God exists, miracles are possible.
Any argument against miracles that can be concocted, including that of
David Hume, is destroyed by that one fact.
For if there is a God who can act, there can be acts of God (miracles).

So in the end, it’s not miracles that are hard to believe—David Hume’s argument is hard to believe! We might say it’s a “miracle” so many people still believe it.

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So the box is open—miracles are possible. But how will we know a miracle if we see one? In order to answer this, it’s important to define what a miracle is, and isn’t, so that we know what we’re looking for.

As shown in table 8.2, there are at least six different kinds of unusual events, only one of which is a miracle.

Let’s take a brief look at each of these unusual events. We’ll start with miracles because if we know what those are, we can better understand why other unusual events are not miracles.

Miracle
—For an act of God to be an unmistakable sign from God, the act would have to meet certain criteria—criteria that would distinguish God’s acts from any other unusual event. Like a king’s seal, God’s sign must be unique, easily recognizable, and something only God can do. In other words, it has characteristics that cannot be explained by natural laws, natural forces, or anything else in the physical universe. What would these criteria look like?

As we saw from the Cosmological, Teleological, and Moral Arguments, God alone has infinite power (power beyond that in the natural world), supreme design and purpose, and complete moral purity. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that his acts would display or contain elements of these attributes. So the criteria for true miracles include:

A. An instantaneous beginning of a powerful act, as evidenced by the Cosmological Argument (the beginning of the universe);

B. Intelligent design and purpose, as evidenced by the Teleological Argument (the precise design of the universe for the purpose of supporting life, and the specified and complex design of life itself);

C. The promotion of good or right behavior, as evidenced by the Moral Argument (the Moral Law pressing on us).

The power component of miracles (A) means that the sign could not be explained naturally. For if a natural cause is possible, then the sign cannot be definitely identified as a miracle. A miracle has an unmistakable supernatural cause—one that transcends nature.

The design component (B) means that any sign done without an obvious purpose—to confirm a truth or a messenger of truth or to bring glory to God—is probably not a sign from God. In other words, God is not likely to do miracles for mere entertainment purposes. Just like most earthly kings will not use their seals lightly, the King of the Universe is not likely to use his seal for frivolous reasons. After all, if he were to use miracles for mere entertainment, then we would be less likely to recognize his intent when he was trying to confirm a new truth or a new messenger. So as not to “cry wolf,” miracles must be focused on promoting a truth claim and must be relatively rare if they are going to be effective.

The moral component of miracles (C) means that any sign connected with error or immorality cannot be a sign from God. Error and immorality are against God’s nature because he is the unchanging standard of truth and morality. He cannot confirm error or immorality.

With these criteria—instantaneous power, intelligent design, and morality—we can identify what unusual events are true signs from God. Notice that we drew these criteria from what we’ve learned about God from the natural world and what we’ve learned about the limits of nature itself. The Bible agrees with our assessment by calling events that meet these same criteria miracles.
¹³
And both the Bible and the Qur’an teach that miracles have been used to confirm a word from God.
¹⁴

So an event connected with a divine truth claim that had these characteristics would be a miracle—an act of God to confirm a word from God. For example, a miracle has occurred if Jesus—a man who predicted he would rise from the dead—actually rose from the dead. Such an event would display instantaneous power beyond natural capabilities, intelligent forethought and design, and a moral purpose by confirming that Jesus is from God (and we, therefore, ought to listen to what he has to say!). There is no natural force or other source of power that could explain such an event.

Moreover, if the Resurrection actually happened, it did not occur “out of the blue” but in context. In other words, the Resurrection was an event in the context of a theistic universe, where a man claiming to be from God and performing miracles along the way predicted it would happen. Such a context suggests it’s a miracle and not just a yet-to-be-explained natural event. In short, if the Resurrection actually occurred (and we’ll investigate that question later), it has God’s “fingerprints” all over it.

Providence—
Religious people, particularly Christians, throw the term “miracle” around rather loosely. Quite often they identify an event as a miracle when it could be more accurately described as providential.

Providential events are those caused by God indirectly, not directly. That is, God uses natural laws to accomplish them. Answered prayer and unlikely but beneficial happenings can be examples. These may be quite remarkable and may stimulate faith, but they are not supernatural. For example, the fog at Normandy was providential because it helped conceal the Allied attack against the evil Nazi regime. It wasn’t a miracle, because it could be explained by natural laws, but God may have been behind it. By contrast, a miracle would require something like bullets bouncing off the chests of our young men as they assaulted the beach.

Satanic Signs—
Another possible cause of an unusual event could be other spiritual beings. Since God exists, it is possible that other spiritual beings exist. But if Satan and demons do exist, they have limited powers. Why? Because, as we have mentioned earlier in this chapter, it is impossible for there to be two infinite beings. Since God is infinite, no other being can be infinite.

Moreover, pure dualism—an infinite Good power vs. an infinite Evil power—is impossible. There is no such thing as pure evil. Evil is a privation of or a parasite in good; it cannot exist on its own. Evil is like rust to a car. If you take away all the rust, you have a better car. If you take away all the car, you have nothing. So Satan cannot be the evil equivalent of God. In fact, Satan has good attributes such as power, free will, and rational thought, but he uses them for evil purposes.

The bottom line is that God has no equal. He is the one infinite Being who is supreme over all of creation. As a result, created spiritual beings, if they exist at all, are limited by God and cannot perform the kinds of supernatural acts that only God can perform.

So by natural revelation alone—without revelation from any religious book—we know that if other spiritual beings exist they are limited in their power. Incidentally, this is exactly what the Bible teaches.

But just how limited are these other spiritual beings? Now we need special revelation. While we haven’t gotten to the point yet of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bible is true, let’s assume that such beings are real and can interact with the natural world as the Bible describes.

According to the Bible, only God can create life and raise the dead (Gen. 1:21; Deut. 32:39). Pharaoh’s magicians, who had imitated the first two plagues, couldn’t imitate the third, which created life (in the form of lice). These magicians acknowledged that the third plague was the “finger of God” (Ex. 8:19).

Satan can perform tricks better than the best magicians—and there are many examples of these in the Bible
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—but those tricks fail to meet the characteristics of a true miracle. As we have seen, true miracles cause one to think more highly of God, tell the truth, and promote moral behavior. Counterfeit signs from Satan do not do this. They tend to glorify the person ostensibly performing the sign, and they are often associated with error and immoral behavior. They also may not be immediate, instantaneous, or permanent.

In short, only God performs true miracles; Satan does counterfeit miracles. This is precisely what the Bible calls them in 2 Thessalonians 2:9 when Paul writes that, “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of
counterfeit
miracles, signs and wonders.” Of course, unless one is discerning, such signs can be deceptive and may be mistaken for miracles (Matt. 24:24).

Table 8.3 summarizes the differences between a divine miracle and
a Satanic sign:
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