Reason #24 The Evidence for the Christian Faith from Modern-Day Miracles
Credible reports of modern-day miracles strongly discredit the
anti-supernatural worldviews of atheism.
Of course, by definition, miracles don’t
happen “all the time.” If they did, they would no longer be miracles, they
would be commonplace. But neither are miracles so rare as to be unheard of among
honest and intelligent human beings.
Author Craig Keener has researched miracle
reports from around the world and can address the medical documentation and
Social Security disability reports behind Greg Spencer’s blindness from severe
macular degeneration which was suddenly and completely healed at a Christian men’s
retreat. Drs. Thomas Marshall and Harold Adolf can provide first hand
documentation for Barbara Snyder’s sudden healing in 1981 from a 15-year battle
with severe Multiple Scleroses (involving the Mayo clinic at one point) which
had progressed to the point of causing her hands and extremities to curl in
atrophy and requiring a tracheostomy and oxygen to help her breathe. Her
doctors say there is no medical explanation for Barbara’s overnight healing. In
fact, Dr. Keener’s book on miracles includes dozens of recent and credible
miracle accounts from the U.S. and elsewhere.
The simple truth is that improbable happenings
do indeed occur, and sometimes the improbabilities behind these happenings are
so astronomically high, that naturalism and atheism are simply less
intellectually satisfying than faith. It is possible to spend so much energy
searching for escapes from the obvious—ways to explain away these
phenomena—that we become more like zealots than scholars.
What is the probability, for example, that
Paul Rader’s experience should be fully accounted for by coincidence? He had a
banker friend in the 1920s who always professed to be too busy for religion.
Eventually, the banker came down with a health problem that required him to be admitted
to a health resort for complete rest and recovery. While he was there Rader was impressed by the
thought that he should catch a train and pay a visit to his friend.
As soon as the banker saw him, he said, “Oh, Rader, I am so glad to see you.”
Rader greeted
him humorously, “I received your telegram.”
The
banker answered, “That’s impossible. I wrote a telegram begging you to come,
but I tore it up. I didn’t send it.”
Of
course, Paul had no idea that his friend had almost sent him a telegram, and
then decided against it, but he again retorted in good humor, “That may be, but
your message came by way of Heaven.”
By this time, Rader’s banker
friend was very ready to accept Christ’s offer of rescue from sin, and he did
indeed accept it with a prayer of gratitude. Talking a few minutes later, the
banker asked Paul, “Rader, did you ever see the sky so blue or the grass so
green?”
Paul replied, “Sometimes we
sing a song that has these words: ‘Heaven above is softer blue, Earth around is
sweeter green; Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen.'"
Suddenly the banker leaned against Paul Rader, fell into his arms, and
died, a brand new convert to the religion of Jesus, and just in time.
Again,
what probabilities were standing against John G. Paton’s rescue from agitated
and violent islanders in New Hebrides (now Vanatu) in the late 1800s? Two of
their former missionary colleagues had already been attacked and killed, and
now Paton and his wife were left in similar circumstances for an entire terror-filled night. When daylight
finally came, the Patons were astonished that they had not only survived the
night, but also that their attackers had simply gone away.
A year later, the chief of that tribe was
converted to the Christian faith, and Paton, remembering what had happened on
that dark night, asked him what had kept him and his men from burning down the
house and killing them. The chief replied in surprise, "Who were all those
men you had with you there?" The missionary answered, "There were no
men there; just my wife and I."
The chief argued that they had seen many
men standing guard—hundreds of big men in shining garments with drawn swords in
their hands. They circled the mission house, making the islanders afraid to
carry out their attack.
Or what
sort of improbabilities stand behind the reports of captured and astonished
Nazi pilots who reported being engaged by “hundreds” of fighter aircraft during
the Battle of Britain when only a very few airplanes were anywhere near them?
Or what
sort of probabilities stand behind Charles Ryrie’s story of an exhausted friend
who was obligated to drive all through the night on one occasion, and who
prayed for someone who might ride with him to help him stay awake, preferably a
Christian?
The
hitchhiker he picked up turned out to be a delightful person, one who actually
knew some of the driver’s friends. Early in the morning, the hitchhiker asked
to be dropped off at a roadside coffee shop where the two men chatted a few
more minutes over a cup of coffee before parting.
A few
minutes down the road, the driver regretted that he didn’t get his new friend’s
full name and contact information, so he did a quick U-turn hoping to catch the
hitchhiker before he got away. Back in the café, he asked the cook if he had
seen which direction the man who was with him had gone. The cook replied, “What
other man? I thought it was unusual that you would order two cups of coffee. As
a matter of fact, the other cup is still sitting there on the table, hasn’t
been touched. I thought you were maybe just sort of talking to yourself there.”
It is a fact that credible
reports of hopelessly improbable occurrences do exist—many, many credible
reports from honest and intelligent individuals. And if even one of these
supernatural accounts is true, then the worldviews of naturalism and atheism
are deficient and false. Zealots may be motivated to avoid miracle stories in
general, and to appeal to loopholes they claim to find in each miracle story
they ever encounter, but in doing so,
they will be required to exercise greater faith in their naturalism, and less
sheer reason, than devout Christians exercise when they believe in miracles.
Credible reports of modern-day miracles strongly discredit the
anti-supernatural worldviews of atheism.
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