In the previous article we observed how atheists have great faith in their opinion and presumed ability to know what cannot be known. We’ll now examine how that same faith underlies the claim that the miracles of the Bible are unscientific, illogical, and impossible. Can unbelievers really know that the great and supernatural works of God recorded in Scripture are untrue? As we will see, all arguments against the historical reality of the biblical miracles, regardless of their sophistication, rest on simple and unjustified assumptions of blind faith.
To begin, have you ever noticed the contradiction of appealing to fixed and universal laws to deny biblical miracles in order to affirm a universe built and operating according to random chance? Uniform “laws of nature” can only exist because God designed, created and sustains them, apart from whom no such laws are possible. A world founded on random chance gives no basis for uniform laws of anything (to be discussed in part four). In short, the appeal to uniformity in nature to deny miracles affirms God’s existence in order to deny it. Besides, if the universe is founded on and operates according to random chance, how could anyone know how the universe operated at the time of the biblical miracles, or presume that it existed and operated the same way “millions and billions of years ago” as the evolutionists claim to know? To assume that things have always behaved the same way contradicts their explanation of a random chance universe.
How, then, can the atheist know that the miracles of the Bible are impossible? If a God of infinite power exists, He can do whatever He wants. Indeed, the miracles of Scripture pale in comparison to God’s ongoing exertion of His might to arrange and sustain every particle in the universe at every moment. God the Son “upholds all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3 NAS). God’s power displayed in His plagues on Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, or Jonah’s cruise in a whale are relatively small compared to His ongoing work of ordering and upholding all things. Every miracle of Scripture is reasonable in light of God’s infinite power. And as God created and sustains the laws by which atheists deny the possibility of miracles (laws that are nothing more than how God chooses to order the universe for a particular period of time), He cannot be limited by them.
God tells us, “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9 NAS). Given the limits of our human understanding before a God whose ways are infinitely higher than ours, mysteries and miracles should be expected. Thus, to deny the possibility of the biblical miracles, the atheist must first demonstrate that the biblical Maker and Sustainer of all things does not exist.
How, then, can the atheist know that the biblical God of infinite power does not exist, and that miracles are therefore impossible? As we saw in part one of this series, complete knowledge of everything in the universe and beyond is required to legitimately deny the existence of God, an impossible task. And if atheists cannot possibly know that God does not exist, they cannot possibly know that the miracles of Scripture are impossible. Lacking the evidence and ability to justify their claim, atheists must presume what they cannot possibly know to deny the possibility of God’s miracles. Swimming in a sea of evidence for His power, genius, and goodness, they use their God-given reason and blessings to deny the obvious and place their faith in personal opinion and a presumed ability to know what they cannot possibly know. Rightly Scripture tells us, they are “foolish” (Psalm 14:1) and “without excuse” (Romans 1:20).
In the next article I will discuss the unwarranted faith behind the atheist’s denial of God based on what they view as illogical teachings of Scripture.
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© 2016 Craig Biehl, author of God the Reason, The Box, The Infinite Merit of Christ, and Reading Religious Affections
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