The following are posts by a young man, Nathan Apodaca, who I have had the privilege of discipling over the last few years. He has a passion for making a case for Christianity wherever he can. In this series he will talk about sharing on a college campus.
In my last post, I discussed whether or not evil done in the name of religion is a good excuse for rejecting that particular belief as true. I also dealt with whether or not science is at war with religion. As we saw, evil acts done by adherents of a religion do not disprove the claims of that belief system. Here I will discuss the second objection a bit further. Is science at war with religion? And can we trust a miracle claim?
Recently, I heard an argument against the supernatural from one of my professors. The argument went like this:
“We cannot prove a supernatural event, because if we could, then it wouldn’t be a supernatural event, right?”
Phew, at face value that sounds powerful! If this is correct, then no supernatural event that someone has ever claimed to have witnessed in history, could be shown to be true. This includes events like the resurrection of Jesus or Joseph Smith’s visions or any other miraculous claims. This has huge implications on supernaturally based religious beliefs. After all, if there is no real reason to believe something, then why bother believing any religion that makes miraculous claims?
Fortunately, there is an answer. When I heard the above statement, my initial reaction was to ask “Well, why not?” After all, if there is evidence to support a supernatural event, doesn’t that make it possible?
Plus if supporting evidence exists, then there are further implications. After all, if miracles can and did happen, then the idea that only the physical world exists (naturalism) is therefore false. This seems to be the motivation many naturalists have for trying to dismiss the supernatural.
Many books and articles have been written that provide a good defense of miracles. However, rather than review their work, I will instead briefly give a quick argument in defense of miracles themselves. It goes like this:
1. If God exists, then miracles are possible.
2. God exists
3. Therefore, miracles are possible.
Beginning with the first premise it seems obvious that if God exists, then He can interact with our world as He sees fit. Also, if God can create a world, then He should, by definition, be able to interact with the world. After all, His creating a world would, by definition, be a miracle in itself. Thus, the first premise is true. Now, the question remains, is the second premise true? I will discuss this in my next post.
Go to part 4
