Revisiting the Possibility of Miracles, and God and Evil

You'll notice that there is no question mark ending the title, because the original post already had potential proof of miracles. It is The Possibility of Miracles? Then there's the old "The Matter of an All-Loving God... and EVIL."

"It's always easy to scream 'anti-supernatural bias' when someone does not think that the miracles of one's own tradition can be historically established," (1) Bart Ehrman said in the beginning of his two chapter bit on the resurrection, explained in my extensive argument for Jesus rising from the dead. It was so true of my thinking at one point. Now I've come to soften my thoughts toward intellectually dismissing miracles, because it can be defended and it would be rude to assume someone is so biased, and especially try to intellectually shame them.  

William Lane Craig, in his debate with Ehrman, used "methodological atheism." (2) I find this very fitting. It's isn't philosophical naturalism, because the claim isn't miracles cannot happen. Rather Ehrman says because they are the least probable event, people who search for the most likely scenario can't believe them. Methodological atheism captures the indication that no one can ever rationally believe in God, because no intellectual could intellectually interpret things as His signs. The method is one that works to do away with any supernatural indications.

Originally, I was going to use "bias" in my first post, but decided to use naturalistic presuppositions and philosophical naturalism instead. Indeed, what matters is the argument. If I ignored all that, I would break the golden rule because I have an anti-anti-supernatural bias. I have supported and explained why in multiple posts (including the end of my original argument for miracles), but basically it is because I don't believe there can be any free will or objective evil without God(3).

I can think of two reasons for being skeptical toward a miracle claim, once methodological atheism has been dismissed. One is if the evidence isn't clear enough to necessitate the conclusion. Even though I have reason to expect that God, because He created conscious people in His own image(4), would verify a religion, I still want strong evidence. I do not agree that intellectually no one can possibly conclude a miracle happened, but do share with unbelieving scholars their skepticism that demands proof. So, I also would wonder why God hadn't given enough evidence if He wanted us to know something was true. 

Here I will borrow what the great Christian apologist J.P. Moreland said in concluding the creatively titled great debate "Does God Exist?" 

"These phenomena are danglers (i.e. unexpected and unexplained phenomena) for an atheist, and he or she must grant them as brute, albeit queer, givens in the universe or deny that they really exist or reduce them to naturalistic phenomena or hold that the evidence against God from, say evil, is sufficiently strong to overturn the evidence for God. I do not think these strategies work, and I have tried to give at least some reasons why I think this way." (5)

The other argument is if God works miracles, why does He allow so much suffering to happen and often doesn't supernaturally heal and save?

The post cited at the top is my first response focused on the subject. There is another major example of belief in God despite evil in "Are Humans Just Biologically Advanced Animals?" Yet, it is worth zeroing in on the specific question of whether or not anything could ever overturn the conclusion that a loving God isn't real because of a world full of strife. In short, my response basically is: I don't know everything but can think of some answers to the problem of pain, have an easy enough life to get arguments on other subjects and be an intellectual, and if people who suffered more than I can imagine ever suffering, like in the Holocaust, I can believe in God, too. 

Just earlier this month I concluded a blog project that had a question related to the subject(6). There I pointed out I consider myself to be an "intellectual." I came up with that title, and it is in quotation marks to distinguish from real Ph.Ds and the like (they should be "intellectuals" as well, but they worked much harder for their knowledge than me). What an "intellectual" does is determine something to be true based on which side has the most logic and evidence. Even if their heart burned against a conclusion, they would still see it as and believe it to be true. 

I was intrigued when thinking about my relationship with Jesus. The only miraculous events I remember experiencing that undeniably perfectly fit into my life as related to what's truly important (telling others about Jesus) are when I would be assisted in learning. One time I got 20% and then 20% off and then more off of Barnes and Noble books that was made possible by a "coincidental" sale from them and another from Bi-Mart. More often I have opened books, or been right about to close them, or one time even prayed to find information that was like finding a needle in a haystack, and God led me to a piece of information I had been looking for or could use, immediately landing on the page. 

However, the way my mind is now, this wouldn't persuade me that Jesus is real. I could dismiss it as coincidence, at least right now if all other evidence was lost. I rejoice in the fact that He loves me and so am able to talk to Him about hurt feelings and general emotional pain, and give thanks, because I sincerely believe in Jesus. And I sincerely believe in Jesus because of what I have presented on this blog: the matter of principle miracle mind-brain connection(4), the absoluteness of truth(4), the overwhelming implication of design in physics(7), and Jesus specifically found in evidence for Acts, Mark, and the Resurrection(6). I wrote in the original post on miracles that for an intellectual, it would be enough to become a Christian only with specific proof from the resurrection. Then one could advance on to other arguments for Jesus or just God in general.

Someone could say, "Well, why doesn't God perform a specific miracle in your life which is undeniably Him confirming the message?" The quickest response is I don't know and this doesn't bother me because it doesn't make any evidence go away. A sword crafted from Christians needing to know God loves them cuts both ways. It doesn't matter how they get there, just that they do. Then there could be some possible things like maybe one day I will not be able to keep up being an "intellectual" and He will do something which obviously my biology couldn't cause. Maybe I'm not making a big enough deal out of when He's shown me things in books (again, the only reason I'm not sure what that proves is because I don't need to focus on that). Maybe I should have catalogued more things that have happened to me that look like His intervention. Whatever.

Someone could exercise their ability to be a free thinker (not forced to think everything by their brain) and ask, "If miracles happen, why not in my life?" A Christian could respond by saying they also could use their ability to freely reason and act on evidence and believe. Here are some similar thoughts:

 

"I can't believe the Jesus people take refuge in is real because of pain." 

"But if He does exist, He is answering their pain with His comfort, and wants you to choose to follow Him as well." 

"I can't believe a loving God allows pain to happen." 

"But you still technically could believe, even if you thought doing so was stupid. But doing so may not be stupid. One factor in reasons God has for allowing evil is He wants you to not be comfortable with this life and instead use your free will to decide to be saved and enter Heaven one day. God lets you choose what to believe." 

Here is another illustration, which I think could be very powerful. I was fairly recently reminded of the question from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a humorous book with atheistic themes. I remember the first source that brought this bit of the other side to my attention was Rice Broocks' God's Not Dead. It goes, "Isn't it enough to see that the garden is beautiful, and not believe there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" 

I find it ironic that atheism tries to champion the fact that there is so much suffering in the world. You want my honest opinion? Our garden, Earth, is more ugly than beautiful. Much more. Even a comfortable life in first-world America has negative feelings and eventual traumatic events (death of loved ones, broken bones, loss of favored jobs, etc). So what about murder and rape and the Holocaust and wars? And let's not forget the moral atrocities of murder, rape, war, and the common specific example of the Holocaust. These are evil, and it doesn't matter if the villain disagrees (or even if the entire human race disbelieved).  

Now I'm not insisting arguing for both is necessarily self-defeating. On the contrary, with the former atheists are trying to focus on how people can enjoy (even be in awe of) the natural world and learn about it with no need for God anywhere, and the latter zeroes in on it being impossible for a loving God to allow for a world full of hurt. This is what I can take advantage of. If someone's life is full of suffering and they are at the end of their rope, and this leads them to cry out to Jesus, they made a decision at least reasonable to their situation. As for the life of an "intellectual," with formal schooling or not, they could believe if evidence and logic overturns the argument against Jesus from evil. 

For tenth grade I read the first eight chapters of Christopher Hitchens book god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I wanted to get the perspective from this late influential atheist, but had to stop after his bit on the Old and New Testaments. Still, I got the emotional feel behind atheism. They can rant and harp on all the evil things God has let happen! Oh, how we're supposed to take it all in as if it all happened to everyone at every time! Instead of being spread out over thousands of years! As if it's the only part of the world that could testify to God, as if there can't be evidence for God in evil itself or a way to rationally minimize the issue! My hope is that atheism allowing for no free will and no real evil makes the challenge of pain ring hollow. 

Pain hurts, and I'm sorry, and I am not nearly as skilled on the subject as, say Randy Alcorn(8). That's why I didn't address this question in the original post on miracles! But you are reading this post, and that exercises the ability to be an "intellectual" like me. Lee Strobel, a prominent Christian apologist, believes in a God who loves his wife, and lets her suffer from fibromyalgia. He begins the specific chapter "When Miracles Don't Happen" with that and interviews Douglas R. Groothius, who also suffers because his wife does(9). The entire book is bent on defending God acting in our world, and actually about two-thirds of it is an offense from evidence. 

Something I have absolutely no doubt about is that I'm supposed to love people, to show them Jesus's kindness, to do the best I can. I'm obligated to be a response to the problem of pain. All Christians are. And belief in Christ fuels me.

Will you come to really realize that this life, no matter how long it is for you, is temporary, and choose to go to a perfect place for all eternity full of friendship? Will you get a foothold beyond feelings that the bad things people do to each other are really bad, no matter what any mere human says? Will you believe in the One who will give you the highest meaning? Will you see how your life, no matter how comfortable it may be, is not perfect and your soul needs to cry out "Yes! Yes! When I was bullied and when I broke my ribs and when I lost my grandma does not show how the world was supposed to be. It is only proper after the world has been overrun with evil, to draw me to the Highest One who loves me with all His self." Jesus can give you all this(6). 

Citations:

1. Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperOne: 2014), 144.

2. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/debates/is-there-historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-craig-ehrman

3. See under the heading "The Emotional Aspect Between Evil and God" in "The Matter of an All-Loving God... and EVIL"; the beginning of this post from a blog project responding to a philosophy of ethics textbook on free will, and part 3 arguing even if we had free will there couldn't be right or wrong without God; my provocative argument in "Is Religion a Curse? My Personal Thoughts on the Moral Implications of Jesus-God and no-God";

4. "Revisiting the Non-Matter of Consciousness and Intelligence" concludes with this and cites two other posts specifically on the subject; the conclusion to my major blog project on the resurrection applies how I can be more confident in the resurrection because of my conscious experience than, for example, Abraham Lincoln was anti-racist.

 5. J.P. Moreland and Kai Nielsen, Does God Exist? The Debate Between Theists and Atheists (Prometheus Books: 1993), 240.

6. "Where Does Jesus Get His Authority? Where Does His Followers Get Theirs? Conclusion" For how to believe in Jesus, start reading under the heading "The 'good life' according to the Bible." For citations of defenses of Jesus from history, see under "Suggested reading."

7. "That Great Guy Paul Davies and His Buddy, the Universe"

8. Randy Alcorn's big book has 494 pages worth of considerations of Heaven, reasons God would allow for pain, lots of examples of when people who faced great hurt could believe in Jesus, and more. The back of it says at the top, "Suffering is, in the end, God's invitation to trust Him." Randy Alcorn, If God is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil (Eternal Perspective Ministries: 2009).

9.  Lee Strobel, The Case for Miracles: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for the Supernatural (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI. 2018), 235-53.