The text-only issue.
One fine day a professor from the local university was strolling through the park when he heard a voice calling out, “Praise God! Hallelujah! Praise God!” Turning the corner, he saw a boy sitting on a bench reading a Bible.
“What are you shouting about?” asked the professor.
“I'm reading Exodus,” the boy replied, “and God has just parted the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to escape from the Egyptians.”
The professor smiled at the boy's naïveté and then proceeded to explain that modern achaeology had found that the Red Sea in Biblical times had actually been quite shallow. The Israelites would have found it easy to cross as the water level wouldn't have been much more than, say, three inches high.
Leaving the boy looking quite crestfallen, the professor took his leave and went on his way, feeling pleased with himself that he had rescued another poor fellow from the perils of simple blind faith. He hadn't gone more than half a dozen steps when he heard the boy calling out again—“Praise God! Hallelujah! Praise God!”
Turning back, frowning, he said to the boy, “Now what?”
The boy replied, his eyes shining, “I just read that God destroyed the whole of Pharaoh's army in three inches of water!”
Many an unbeliever has problems with the Bible because the events depicted within it seem so fantastic and unreal, they could not possibly have happened. The world is created in six days (Genesis 1) and then is destroyed by flood (Genesis 7); the walls of Jericho collapse without human aid (Joshua 6); the sun moves backwards at the will of a king (1 Kings 20); and a virgin gives birth to a child (Matthew 1). Once Jesus comes on the scene, the events described become more and more improbable: Jesus turns water into wine, heals the lame and the blind, feeds thousands of people with a couple of loaves and fish, and even raises a girl and a man from the dead. After he is executed and buried, he too rises from the dead and appears to many. No wonder many think that the Bible reads just like a fairy story; how could you possibly accept such tales as truth?
It is no wonder, then, that believers and sceptics passionately argue for or against the possibility of miracles and the evidence of miracles, and, ultimately, the existence of God and the validity of the Christian faith. The believer feels compelled to provide hard concrete irrefutable evidence; the sceptic sits in smug assurance knowing that science and three hundred years of philosophical thought is on his side.
The philosophical question is an interesting one and, in the mind of some unbelievers, a very important one which should be addressed. Intellectuals have been quoting David Hume's Of Miracles for years to back up their unbelief. I will not respond to their arguments here for I think enough people have already done so and with far more eloquence than myself.1 I am also of the view that, in the end, the philosophical question doesn't really matter because the Bible isn't concerned with philosophical questions of whether the miracles occurred (the text assumes they did), but with what the miracles signify. But before I launch into a discussion of this, it is worth looking at some definitions first.
Our English word, “miracle” comes from the Latin, miraculum (“object of wonder”) and means “an extraordinary event attributed to some supernatural agency” (Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary, 3rd edition). The word “wonder” comes from the Old English, wundor or wundrian—that is, of unknown origin. A miracle incites feelings of wonder within us because we feel that we have witnessed something extraordinary by supernatural means but we cannot explain what has caused this.
In the Greek New Testament, there are three words which are sometimes translated into English as “miracle” or “miraculous”:
In every instance of each word, the agency that has produced the “wonder”, “sign” or “power” is always explained by the Bible: it is either God; Jesus; God working through the apostles; false christs/false prophets; or the “lawless one” acting on the part of Satan (2 Thessalonians 2:9). Therefore the English word, “miracle”, isn't entirely correct; the origin is not unknown but explainable.
Another important difference between the English meaning and the Greek is that of significance; usually the miracles are not arbitrary but done for a purpose. The plagues God visited upon the nation of Egypt were accompanied by his hardening of Pharaoh's heart so that “[t]he Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.” (Exodus 7:5). For similar reasons, God parted the Red Sea and allowed the Israelites to cross on dry land (Exodus 14:17-18).
Some of the miracles were signs that God would accomplish his purpose. For example, when Hezekiah asks the prophet Isaiah for confirmation that God will add another 15 years to his life, God causes the shadow on the steps to go backwards ten steps (2 Kings 20:9-11). Similarly, when the kings of Syria and Israel come to invade Judah, God gives Ahaz, king of Judah, assurance that they will not prevail against Jerusalem by causing a virgin to conceive and give birth to a son (Isaiah 7).
The incarnation is what C.S. Lewis asserts as being the central miracle of Christianity: “Every other miracles prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this.” (Miracles: A preliminary study, Fount, 1974, p. 112). The birth of Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the prophecy of the virgin birth in Isaiah 7; the work of Jesus is the ultimate exodus from the slavery of sin for the people of God.
Jesus' authority is shown on earth through his works. When he heals the paralytic man who was lowered through the roof, he heals so that “you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” (Mark 2:10). When he drives out the merchants in the temple at Jerusalem and the Jews ask him for evidence of his authority to do such things, he replies, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” in reference to his resurrection (John 2:18-22).
Jesus' message is confirmed through his works. The feeding of thousands from a couple of loaves and fish heralds the new age of the kingdom of God when all shall feast on bread from heaven like the Israelites did in the desert (Matthew 14; Mark 6; Mark 8; Luke 9; John 6). The raising of Lazarus (John 11) foreshadows his own resurrection and the resurrection age where death is “swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54). Similarly, the message of the apostles (the preaching of the gospel) is confirmed through signs and wonders done by God through their hands (Mark 16:20).
Despite all the signs, wonders and mighty works that Jesus performed, he was actually quite scathing when those around him asked him for a sign. He says repeatedly, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah”—that is, the sign of his resurrection and therefore, of impending judgement (Matthew 12:39, 16:4; Luke 11:29—c.f. Acts 17:31). He did not trust those who believed in his name when he saw the signs he was doing (John 2:23) since false christs and prophets could do the same things with a more sinister purpose (Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:22). Jesus knew the hearts of all men and therefore where they placed their trust. In the end, belief in the miracles is not enough; it is belief in the Son that really matters.
Conversely, in the end, miracles are not enough for belief. Jesus' first appearances following his resurrection were marked by the apostles' doubts. It was only when he opened their minds and explained everything in light of the Old Testament that they understood and put their faith in him. Consider also Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16: the rich man, in his torment, asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to warn them of the consequences of his actions:
But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And [the rich man] said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ [Abraham] said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ (Luke 16:29-31)
Though a man has now risen from the dead, many have attested to it, none have been able to explain it, and countless books have been written in defence of it (see Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morison or the detective novel, The Case of the Vanishing Corpse by Kel Richards), still people do not believe in Jesus. They deny that he rose. They deny that he was fully God and fully man. They deny that miracles can happen, and that they can happen at the hand of God.
You see, in the end, questions of rationality and belief in miracles all boil down to your starting premise: Do you accept that God exists? Yes or No? The answer will shape the kind of discussion (or, in some cases, argument) that you will then have.
But, remember, it is not through the wisdom of the world that God chooses to make himself known. In the words of Paul, “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” (1 Corinthians 1:21). The Jews of this world will demand signs; the Greeks of this world will seek wisdom. But we will continue to preach Christ crucified—“a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
1 If you are searching for philosophical answers to the question, “Can miracles occur?” then I strongly recommend Miracles: A Preliminary Study by C.S. Lewis. For a more detailed critique of Hume's essay, please see “Miracles and Rational Belief” by Roger White in Kategoria 1997 number 5, pp. 9-26.
For Karen, getting through C.S. Lewis' Miracles was a Miracle—she had to intersperse it with Joshua Harris.
Comments
Fantastic article. I’d second the recomendation of Miracles; Lewis does contend a few of Hume’s point within the study. Definitely worth the read.
Brian Hamilton on 15 December, 2002 7:03 AM