I often hear a version of this quip from atheists: “If you accept the Bible’s miracles, why don’t you accept that Muhammad rode a flying horse?” The assumption lying behind the question is this: if you accept one miracle claim, why don’t you accept them all? Sorry to burst your balloon, but that’s like asking “If […]
miracle
If You Call a Natural Event a Miracle is that “God of the Gaps”?
Some people think any description of a natural event as miraculous should automatically be censured as “God of the gaps”. That’s just wrong. Here’s an example. The land is locked in a devastating drought and forecasts all say there will be no rain in the next two weeks. But if Farmer Brown doesn’t get rain […]
A Miracle isn’t a Violation of the Laws of Nature, so What is It?
The Resurrection of Jesus as a Historical Miracle
A simple way to rate the skepticism of atheists and agnostics
Ask your atheist or agnostic friend to consider the following scenario and then consider at what point she would conclude that God had answered the prayer and thus that God exists. So here’s the scenario. Your friend calls you up to say that she just received an unexpected bill for $4353.43 which must be paid […]
Miracles, Resurrections, and Historical Explanation
This morning, I had an exchange with CounterApologist on Twitter regarding the question of whether the historical resurrection of Jesus is a datum open, in principle, to historical explanation. In this article, I’d like to expand a bit on one of the points I made in our exchange. I begin, however, with one of CounterApologist’s […]
God, deliver us from skepticism! (Then again, maybe not.)
The other day somebody on Twitter asked me how I manage to write so many articles. My response included noting the many sources of inspiration … like Twitter. As a case in point, consider this tweet that Michael Brown posted yesterday: When a reliable, trusted friend shares with you how God has worked a miracle […]
Everyday Miracle, or A Divine Sign in Douala
In chapter 17 of God or Godless I argued that “God best explains the miracles in people’s lives.” My focus in the chapter was not on the concept of “miracle” as a violation in natural law or an event with no secondary cause or a gap in natural explanation. Rather, it was on the biblical concept of […]
Was Dennis Jernigan miraculously delivered from homosexuality?
In my article “Gays don’t become straight. So what now?” I proposed that Christians ought to set aside the pursuit and promise of deliverance ministries for those who are homosexual. Instead, they ought to refocus on exploring the following two alternatives: abstinence or acceptance. In other words, they can retain the traditional ethical prohibition on homosexuality […]
Finding Divine Signs: A response to Jonathan Pearce
In chapter 17 of God or Godless I argue “God best explains the miracles in people’s lives.” It should be stressed by “miracle” I don’t mean “a violation of natural law” or “an event with no secondary cause” or anything else of that sort. Rather, I mean something like this: that for a subset of […]
The case of the miraculous eclipse
In the midst of our ongoing discussion of miracles the creatively named Physicsandwhiskey (henceforth P&W) pressed me on my equivalence of “miracle” with whatever passes through the design filter: “If someone prayed for an expected eclipse to occur in order to convince people of God’s power, and it occurred, would that be a miracle? It […]
Miracles and context
In the discussion thread to “Responding to comments from ‘Are self-described skeptics reliable to evaluate miracle claims?‘” Jeff asked “what further criteria have you added that could distinguish between divine and non-divine intelligent intervention?” I replied: “Context. Isn’t this obvious? If I pray for a healing and a healing occurs which other intelligence should I […]
Should miracles be defined as events that persuade skeptics?
The conversation on miracles continues with a question from David: “I recognize the weakness you [that is, Randal] pointed out in that God does not have to operate outside of the natural laws he created to cause a miracle. On the other hand, I’m thinking it may be difficult to convince people that God acted if […]
Responding to comments from “Are self-described skeptics reliable to evaluate miracle claims?”
I wrote the article “Are self-described skeptics reliable to evaluate miracle claims?” just as I was leaving for a conference. Consequently I wasn’t able to engage with the comments. And so I will be doing so in this aptly titled follow-up. The first comment comes from Erroll Treslan who writes: “I would like to object […]
