Responses to Are Miracles Possible?:

A most excellent article, as have been most of your postings. However, it truly is incumbent upon us to remember that the kingdom of God is not word only, (argument), but power, and by the Holy Spirit (by revelation). Without the revelation of the Holy Spirit of God, all the rest is just wasted air. Before, during and indeed even after the debates and conversations there must be the prayer Father in your mercy grant them understanding so that they may come to your Son, Jesus. 1 Thess 1:5 For our gospel came not unto you in word only , but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. KJV Remember also that those who lacked understanding were the ones in the parable of the sower who had the seed (word) stolen from their hearts. Thank you for your work - William Lumry

A response to "Are Miracles Possible? God made all the laws of nature... and thankfully they remain consistent and true. But once in awhile God breaks His own laws we call that a miracle. That’s the thing about God He breaks the laws He made when and however He chooses. He acts like... “He is God”. - Steve Bressler

In dealing with miracles there is another way of going about it. From physics we know that there is an uncertainty on the very smallest level of nature. For example, there is an uncertainty about when a given radioactive (unstable) atom will decay. The only thing that seems to be true is that over all time and all space all the decays put together will balance out to form a perfect mathematical form. (God loves math!) So although each individual decay (or whatever we are talking about that is driven on a quantum mechanical level) is unpredictable, the entirety of all decays of that type follows a certain patters. This fact alone is an absolutely undeniable proof that a being outside the universe controlling all things within the universe (at least on the smallest level). Now the wonder of this argument is that while this allows pure physics and observations alone to absolutely proves the existence of an uncreated and timeless mind, it also allows that mind to manipulate the entire universe so that a highly unlikely event can occur in one spot but this is balanced out elsewhere in the universe. Hence, God can turn water into wine by manipulating small changes in the atoms, while keeping things balanced elsewhere. You could even say that miracles are no miracles at all if there is a mind behind all things subatomic. This is a complex argument that would take an hour to fully explain, but enough said to know that this world as we now know it allows for a supernatural involvement in our universe while allowing all things to follow a perfect mathematical model (and that's what science is all about). While the old Newtonian science may have driven God away, Heisenberg opened the door where God was hiding. - John Martens, Ph.D.

Dear Mr. D’Souza, I enjoyed reading your essay on proving the possibility of miracles. I wonder, however, whether your skepticism about the claims of science is really to the point. Your argument, in a nutshell, is that materialists who claim to have an all-encompassing knowledge (Dawkins and Hitchens, for example) are arrogant. They are making claims about miracles – namely, that they are impossible – and these claims are impossible to prove. Your argument persuades me about the limitations of the arrogant scientists, but it does not convince me about miracles. Catholic Christians (of whom I am one) do not have to take a position on the empirical phenomena behind this or that account of the miracles of Jesus. It is enough to say that the New Testament contains many stories that attest to his remarkable powers, powers that may or may not have involved a breakdown in the so-called laws of nature. I follow here the presentation in Karl Rahner’s 1976 Foundations of Catholic Faith, which analyzes the concept of miracle, questions whether the miracles of Jesus broke the laws of nature, and affirms a basic definition of miracle as a manifestation of God’s power. Rahner does not take a stand about whether the miracles broke the laws of nature. You are on firm ground when you question the wisdom of arrogant men. You are on less firm ground, theologically speaking, when you begin to speculate about the possibility of empirical phenomena that may or may not have been present at the miracles of Jesus. - Mark F. Fischer, Ph.D.

You gotta love that Dinesh. Clear. Logical. Persuasive. Balanced. Generous. Never nasty. Love ya, Dinesh! - Doug Griffin, Ottawa Canada

Dear Mr. D'Souza, It has been said, rightfully in my opinion, that argument alone cannot bring someone to accept Christ and ask for the gift of salvation. Equally though, one must ascribe proper value to the comfort a strong argument can bring to someone, whom having received the gift through revelation, still finds the rhetoric of unbelievers to be deeply unsettling and remains susceptible to intellectual doubts about the reasonableness of faith. Anthony Burgess referred to C.S Lewis as "the ideal persuader of the half-convinced, for the good man who would like to be a Christian but finds his intellect getting in the way." This is a meaningful and appropriate statement of the power of Lewis's work. Certainly I can identify with Burgess's feelings. Moreover however, having read your book, "What's So Great About Christianity" I feel obliged to recognize you, sir, as an exceptionally worthy successor to Lewis's role as a popular defender of the Christian faith. I have admired the work of many Christian writers - John Stott, J.P Morland, N.T. Wright and Dr. William Lane Craig, to name a few - and we are blessed to receive the gift of such persuasive theological voices in our post-modern age. Each deserves the praise and thanks of every Christian for their contributions to the Christian faith. For example, it was John Stott's work, "Why I am a Christian" that first grabbed my soul and propelled it onto a collision course with God. Your book however, touched me in a way that others so far have not. It stands apart from theirs due to your arguments being calibrated differently from any I have yet come across. The Darwinist world view makes claims that portray religion, particularly Christianity, as the bitter enemy of reason and that science has conclusively pushed God out of the picture. Instead of arguing like many before you, simply in defense of the Christian religion and world-view, your book goes on the offensive, demonstrating the Darwinist world-view's inability to defend its own claims both about itself and about the religious world-view. You approach each claim on the 'common ground' of reason and defeat each Darwinist claim on its own terms. The content of your book and the order in which it is presented is the most impressive effort I have seen to date. Never did you suffer from the 'pastor's problem' of using the Bible to defend the case against it. Instead you simply marshaled your intellectual resources and exposed atheism for the irrational world-view that it is. I have read your book once to digest its contents. I will continue to revisit its pages until I have mastered the arguments you present. I anticipate that this book will be my greatest resource for the foreseeable future when defending my faith against Unbelievers. It will also provide intellectual comfort when experiencing the inevitable existential doubts about my faith. That is not to say that it will replace the Bible or the works of saints as sources of God's Word. But in those times when the reliability of the Word itself is cast in shadow by the material world and the enemies of faith, your book will be a beacon lighting the way back to God. You have set a new benchmark in Christian apologetics. Thank you Mr. Dinesh for providing a new and unique voice that will assist Christians in their walk with Christ and, by Grace, bring many more onto the path. Please know that to one who attempts to follow Christ, your work is of truly incalculable value. - Stephen N, Bermuda

I think you miss the mark in calling scientific laws unverifiable. Yes, scientific understanding is always tentative in the sense that new data can force us to revise our understanding. However science provides more than just a summary of repeated experience, it provides a web of understanding of God's tightly interconnected creation at a deeper level. One doesn't get to pick and choose. Gravity is an observed property of matter that has lots of other implications - if a dropped ball didn't fall there would have to be a scientific explanation. Or a miraculous intervention. Writing such an occurrence off as a simply a transgression of some unverifiable scientific law doesn't confront the issue. - T.H.

Oops! You're reasoning is faulty. Just as atheists get it wrong when they insist that we believe in God because of a fear of hell, you have gotten it wrong when you say that there are "no known laws of nature" as well as wrong to say that "Einstein's theory of relativity contradicted Newton." Einstein's theory took into account factors Newton had not considered. They refined Newton's laws and did not contradict them. They affirmed that, on our planet and in our time structure, Newton's laws worked quite well, but that there are conditions in which Newtonian physics does not hold true. We might, in the same way, affirm God's laws of the Old Testament while understanding new laws instituted by Christ in the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament is the same God as the God of the New Testament. A much more interesting rebuttal to Hume's argument is to posit the possibility of the miraculous based on evidence and testimony. It's difficult to argue testimony, but it's easy to refute its existence when you continue to argue in the abstract as a philosopher. An empiricist will believe that the incident we call a miracle is simply the non-miraculous that we haven't figured out yet. But evolutionists believe that anomalies occur in nature, and that they do so randomly. How else could mutations occur that allow for phenomic development? Why not, then, admit the possibility of the miraculous and simply label it as anomalous? Christians believe that praying to Jesus can cause healings to occur, but they do not believe that all prayer for healing results in healing. Evidence shows this to be true. It seems to us that these prayers for healing are only randomly answered to our satisfaction. Christians have to agree that prayers to Krishna or Vishnu also result in miraculous healings because we know this to happen as well. An atheist has to agree that the anomalous occurs and can question the efficacy of prayer to cause this to occur. Christians can continue to believe that Jesus is our only hope and that praying to Him is the only way to The Father. Credo ut intellegam, - John White

The concept of God employing miracles to control events must be understood in light of the Bible’s description of God’s interactions in this world. For this I relate to my personal heritage, the Torah, The Five Books Of Moses. That God has the power to over-ride the laws of nature is a fundamental belief of all Biblical religion. God created the world and the laws of nature as part of the creation and therefore can "violate" them. But even the greatest of humans at times finds this hard to internalize. A case in point: when the Israelites during their trek through the desert in frustration cry out for a food better than the Manna that God was providing, God told Moses that he would give them meat for an entire month. Moses’ response was “the people among whom I am are six hundred thousand men of the army. ... If flocks and herds be slain for them will they suffice? If all the fish of the sea be gathered for them will they suffice them?” Moses, a person who had direct contact with God almost daily, still questioned God’s ability to interact with and over-ride the “laws” of nature. God’s reply was beautifully simple: “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Has the Lord’s hand waxed short? Now you shall see whether my word shall come to pass or not.’” God then used a wind to bring quails from across the sea and had the birds fall exhausted in heaps around the camp of the Israelites. (Numbers 11: 21 –23, 31). How the Lord chooses to accomplish His goals in this world is His option. In this case God used the wind and the migration of quail. An immature reading of the events would be, “well, what so amazing about this. It is just nature.” A deeper understanding sees the hand of the Creator actively involved in bringing those birds to the right place at the right time. As it is said in real estate: location, location, location. If Moses could have had a moment of doubt, I say then give these poor atheists a bit of slack. Blinded by their intellect they fail to see the wonder of the world. As Psalm 92 states so well. “How great are Your works Lord. How very deep are Your designs. A crude man cannot know. A fool cannot understand this.” - Gerald Schroeder Jerusalem