Questions I’d Ask God If I Could

Big Questions . . . Living Answers

“Since Miracles Contradict Science, Can They Be True?”

An atheist named Professor Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, who has been writing some popular books in the past several years, wrote, “The virgin birth, the Resurrection, the raising of Lazarus, even the Old Testament miracles, all are freely used for religious propaganda, and they are very effective with an audience of unsophisticates and children.”

On the other hand, prominent nuclear physicist Hugh Siefken wrote, “My faith can be summed up in this one paradox: I believe in science, and I believe in God. I plan to continue testifying to both.”

Who is right? Can a person be scientifically sophisticated and honest and still believe in the possibility of miracles? Does a person have to suspend their critical judgment in order to believe in something as improbable as miracles?

Before we can answer that question, we need to ask, “What is a miracle?”

A man was on his way back over the border. He had been in Mexico and was being checked by customs as he was coming back to the U.S. The customs official found a bottle in one suitcase and questioned the man what it was. The man said, “Oh, it’s just some holy water that I got from a shrine I visited. It’s supposed to cause miracles.” The custom official opened the bottle and smelled it. He said, “This is tequila!” The traveler replied, “Good heavens, another miracle!”

Video – Do You Believe in Miracles

The word miracle gets used pretty loosely today. So let’s define it first.

What miracles are not - incredible happenings.

1. Getting a front row parking place at the mall the day after Thanksgiving - incredible but not a miracle.

2. A baby being born - amazing - but not a miracle.

3. Stars in the sky on a clear night - beautiful, but not a miracle.

These are incredible - but not miracles, though people often use the word miracle to describe these and similar experiences. They are in fact “regulars.” They are things that happen because God has created the world with certain natural laws that govern it. These regular parts of creation are amazing, incredible and perhaps beautiful, but they are not miracles.

A miracle, by biblical definition, is an event which is not producible by the natural causes that are operative at the time and place that the event took place. Miracles therefore lie outside of science. They do not necessarily contradict science, but they lie outside of it. A miracle requires the intervention of a supernatural being.

For example, if an apple falls from a tree, natural law demands that gravity will cause it to fall to the ground, but if a person reaches out to catch it before it hits, you are not violating or negating a natural law. You are simply intervening. A miracle is when God intervenes supernaturally in the natural world.

For this reason, a miracle has not occurred just because something happens that we cannot explain with our current knowledge. A hundred years ago, a computer would seem like a miracle, but advances in science show us that a computer is incredible but follows natural laws. A thousand years ago, a modern jet would have seemed like a miracle, but we know that a jet operates by natural law. It’s just when it departs and arrives on time that it’s a miracle. Ok, sorry, I just violated my own definition!

So, a miracle is when something takes place that could not possibly happen naturally - according to the natural laws that operate in our universe - unless God intervened. So the question I used as the title of this message is really not valid. Miracles do not contradict science. Miracles are events which happen outside of the study of science.

Living Answer – Aaron and Amy Dorman

Which brings us to the true nature of the argument/objection is whether or not there is a God. You see, the real enemy of miracles and of Christianity in general, is not the scientist but the philosopher. The unbiased scientist does not say that miracles do not happen. Only the philosopher who denies the existence of a god can say that. The person who brings an unproven presupposition against the existence of God is prejudiced to deny any and every miracle by necessity. His presupposition demands that a supernatural explanation be taken out of the pool of possibilities.

In reviewing Carl Sagan’s writings, Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin showed his hand when he wrote: “We take the side of science in spite of the absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life . . . because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”

(Sounds most unlike a scientist - more like a frustrated philosopher or a frustrated sinner)

Think about this. If you believe that God exists, then there is no good reason to be skeptical about miracles accredited to Him in the Bible. In fact, if God exists, you would even expect that He can and would perform miracles. If He created the heavens and the earth by speaking them into existence out of nothing, then it would be no problem for Him to perform miracles. Natural law is contigent upon God, so God can intervene and suspend them those laws at any time.

I think the only problem in believing in miracles recorded in the Bible is that so many of them were witnessed by fisherman! (Hold hands close and then further apart)

Some would say that they question the historical record of such events. But truthfully, the Bible, when scrutinized like any other work of history, rises well above them all in terms of historical reliability. Others, like the noted 18th century philosopher, David Hume, reject miracles, mostly because they never saw one themselves. He reasoned that a miracle is not something many people see, and so was inclined to disbelieve the testimony of a few that ran contrary to the testimony of the overwhelming majority. But that misses the point that the whole nature of a miracle is that it is out of the ordinary, not an everyday event. Simply not witnessing one is a poor reason to reject the existence of miracles. It all comes down to this: do you believe in God? If you do, then there is no reason to reject miracles. If you do not believe in God, there is no reason to believe in miracles. So what compelling evidence is there to believe in God?

Arguments for God’s existence

1. God makes sense of the origin of the universe.

Scientists universally agree, the universe had a beginning. There was a time when some scientists or scientific philosophers thought that matter was eternally existent, but literally all evidence in the universe observed by man points to a beginning. Scientist Stephen Hawking said, “Almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang.”

Another scientist, Anthony Kenny, of Oxford University said, “A proponent of the Big Bang theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe that the . . . universe came from nothing and by nothing.” But of course, that does not make sense. Something cannot come from nothing. One of contemporary philosophy’s most prominent atheists, Kai Nelson once said, “Suppose you suddenly hear a loud bang . . . and you ask me, ‘What made that bang?” And I reply, ‘Nothing, it just happened.’ You would not accept that.”

Even an atheist recognizes the problems with attributing the beginning of the universe to nothing. There must be a cause. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. So the universe has a cause. It all points to a Creator.

Now some object and say, “then where did God come from? If everything has a cause, then what caused God?” The problem with that objection is that it is only what begins to exist that must have a cause. Since God never began to exist, He does not require a cause. If you are having a brain strain right now, that is ok. After all, if God is transcendent, wholly other, we cannot expect to wrap our heads around an idea like that.

The very existence of a universe that shows a beginning is evidence for God’s existence and creating work.

2. God makes sense of the universe’s complexity.

In the past couple of decades, secular scientists have been amazed to discover the incredible complexity of our universe, our world, even our human bodies. Scientifically speaking, they have found that it’s far more probable for a life-prohibiting universe to exist than a life sustaining one. Life is balanced on a razor’s edge.

This is an extension of the old argument of how something with obvious design must have been designed by a designer. Things of complexity don’t happen by accident. Messes happen by accident. The second law of thermodynamics states that things naturally (left to themselves) go from a state of order to disorder. For example, if you take a box of ping pong balls and roll them all at once down a flight of stairs, they will not organized themselves in a neat stack. They will be in a disorganized mess. In order for order to come out of chaos, someone must come and design and arrange the chaos.

The precision of our universe is so fantastic, so mathematically incredible, that it is absurd to think it could have happened by accident. Ryan shared with us a couple of weeks ago a little bit about the complexity of even the simplest plant cells. New research always points out more complexity, and then points to the need for a designer. In a couple of words, to believe that life in all its forms happened by chance would require blind faith. Secular scientists have come collectively to understand this.

- Robert Jastrow (physicist) - “According to the physicist and astronomer, it appears that the universe was constructed within very narrow limits in such a way that man could dwell in it . . . it is the most theistic result ever to come out of science.”

- Stanley Jaki - “Recognition of the anthropic principle was prompted by the nagging suspicion that the universe may have after all been specifically tailored for the sake of man . . . cosmologists were forced by their own findings to formulate the anthropic principle.” (this principle says that there must have been a designer to it all).

- British physicist P.C.W. Davies - concluded that the odds against the initial conditions being suitable for the formation of stars - a necessity for planets and thus life - is one followed by at least a thousand billion billion zeroes.

- Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box and other books on this complexity argument, takes a look at the complexity at the other end of the spectrum - the human eye for instance. The complexity there alone argues the same point.

The complexity of creation argues powerfully for a creating God, the kind we read of in Genesis 1-2. But some people will hypothesize anything to avoid reaching that conclusion.

3. God makes sense of our moral values.

We live by moral standards. We disagree on specific applications of them, but all humans universally agree that some things are right and some things are wrong - absolutely, objectively. Where does this standard come from? Is it arbitrary or is it real?

If there is no God, then there are no absolute objective morals. If we are here by chance, by a product of purely natural processes, then morality is non-existent. There may be personal taste, or means to personal survival or might makes right, but there is no real right and wrong. In this kind of world, Fredereich Nietzsche would have been right on target with his philosophy of nihilism. To say something is right or wrong is to measure it against something that is a standard - that measures a deed. It either conforms or does not conform to that standard, and so we get judgments like right and wrong.

(Ruler illus) – What is a foot? How do I know this ruler is accurate? At the National Bureau of Standards is THE foot. And if it corresponds with that, it is accurate.

For instance. I can say, Broccoli tastes good. Well, it tastes good to some, but not to others. There isn’t any objective truth to that statement. It’s a matter of personal taste - subjective. However the statement, “It’s always wrong to torture innocent children and then kill them” is different and we all recognize that. It’s not morally neutral. It’s really wrong. But that proposition admits that there is an objective standard outside of ourselves by which we judge by. We as humans have a moral compass that is instilled in us from the outside. Only God can account for it. Therefore, God exists.

4. God makes sense of the resurrection of Jesus.

If Jesus really did rise from the dead, then we would have a divine miracle on our hands that would give us evidence for the existence of the God who worked that miracle. The historical evidence for this miracle is overpowering.

- the empty tomb - acknowledged even by His enemies - no competing stories that said He was still buried.

- no body could be produced after the Day of Pentecost.

- the record of numerous (over 500) eyewitnesses who saw Jesus alive, ate with Him, talked with Him.

- the incredibly changed lives of the apostles who were predisposed against the resurrection and who became relentless to share the good news in the face of persecution and death afterwards.

- success of the Day of Pentecost. Why did a small sect, ridiculed weeks earlier and assumed extinct, have such incredible success on that first day of the church? The facts were being appealed to and given interpretation. No one disputed the facts that were known to all. They only needed to know what these facts meant and what to do with them. Acts 2:37 - “What must we do?”

There is simply no naturalistic explanation that fits all the evidence. Only a divine miracle fits - that Jesus in fact rose from the dead.

5.God can be immediately experienced.

Can you prove that the outside world exists? Perhaps you are simply a brain in a vat stimulated by electrodes by a mad scientist so that you just think everything you experience is real - e.g. Maybe something like The Matrix is real. But you would have to be crazy to think that. We trust that our experience is real. Experience is in fact a rational form of evidence.

In the same way, when we experience God by faith in Jesus, we come to know first hand that He is real. I have come to know God this way. These other forms of evidence show that a belief in God is the most reasonable view, but my relationship with Him by faith is first hand knowledge and is the most convincing of all. He has taken my life and changed it over and over. For nearly thirty six of my years, He has led me, answered my prayers, comforted me, sustained me.

Ultimately, this is the way a Christian really knows that God is real - through the self-authenticating witness of the Holy Spirit. In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says, “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.”

The best evidence for a miracle working God is to experience Him yourself. When that happens, all the others arguments for His existence take a back seat. They’re still valid and true, but no longer your focus. Now you knock and enter into His presence.

Conclusion:

You know, . . . people can see clear miracles and still not believe. Jesus experienced this many times.

Matthew 11:20 - “Then Jesus began to denounce the towns where he had done so many of his miracles, because they hadn’t repented of their sins and turned to God.” If your heart is already set against God or His existence, then miracles will not turn your heart toward Him or be for you any greater evidence that He exists.

The same is true of the Resurrection. As improbable as it might seem to skeptics, it has to be weighed against how improbable it would be to have all of the various historical evidence account for any other conclusion. But some people will exercise blind faith against the Resurrection. They see the same evidence but demand that it cannot possibly mean that Jesus in fact arose from the dead, or that He was God in the flesh. And that claim is made because they cannot allow for the existence of God no matter what the evidence. To allow for God would make them accountable to someone beyond themselves, would make them dependant upon someone else. Some people will never see God in all the evidence, because they choose not to.

Romans 1:20 - “Romans 1:20 – “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.”

Ecclesiastes 3:11 - “He has planted eternity in the human heart.”

Helen Keller was deaf and blind from infancy. Her tutor Annie Sullivan finally broke through and developed an amazing way of communicating with her through touch. She discovered that Helen Keller was brilliant, gifted and eager to learn. One day, Annie Sullivan said, “Helen, I want to talk with you today about God, our Creator. Do you know what Helen’s response was? This young woman, who had never communicated with another human being, now able to do so said, “Good, I’ve been thinking about Him for some time.” How is that possible? No one could ever communicate with her at all. She had no input from society from which to draw any knowledge of God. How could she know and wonder about God? Because God places eternity in our heart. He has given us a sense of Him and evidence all around us that should draw us to want to know Him. And that is exactly what He is after. He can’t get enough of it. And He wants this relationship with you so much, He sent his only Son here to take on skin and die for our sins so He could have that relationship. But relationship is a two way thing. We have to want it too. God will not force it on us, because that is not a good relationship.