The Plausibility of Miracles in a Materialistic Age,

25th September 2019, Laidlaw College

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTWlCkA0NLg

1 – People may reject miracle claims – “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence”

But surely all we need is sufficient evidence? Evidence that is sufficient to show that a natural explanation does not account for the event in question?

2 – David Hume said because miracles violate natural law we must reject miracles

But natural law doesn’t prescribe what MUST happen, it only observes what we have observed USUALLY happens.

3 – David Hume said we have not ever seen a miracle so miracles do not occur

But this argument is circular and so is invalid.

4 – God might do miracles to get people’s attention.

But it’s the Christian gospel message that saves people, not the miracles.

5 – Some Documented Miracle Accounts

Stuart Gray

Lisa Laurios

Barbara Kamiski-Snyder

Flemic Laughlin

Dr. Rex Gardner

Bruce van Nauta

Dr Chauncy Crandal

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Andy Gatt

Is God really that hard to find?

1 – Scripture is Full of People Trying To Find God:

“If only I knew where to find God, I would go to his court. I would lay out my case … I go east, but he’s not there. I go west, but I cannot find him.” Job 23: 2-4, 8-9 (NIV)

“O God my rock … why have you forgotten me? Why must I wander around in grief, oppressed by my enemies? Their taunts break my bones. They scoff, “Where is this God of yours?” Psalm 42:9-10 (NIV)

YET – these people do not give up on God.

“The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21 (NIV)

“I will put my hope in God. I will praise him again – my Saviour and my God.” Psalm 42:11 (NIV)

2 – I’m Not Convinced God’s That Hard to Find:

There are compelling reasons to think God exists (the Cosmological Argument, the Fine-Tuning Argument, the Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, etc)

3 – I Don’t Think God Making Himself More Obvious Would Help:

People are skilled at avoiding evidence for facts they dislike.

Right now, God may wish to protect our free will and not compel us to bow the knee to him.

4 – God Doesn’t Want People To Believe He’s There – He Wants People Who are Disciples

5 - God provides enough evidence for those who WILL choose to believe and follow Christ

“The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn’t live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn’t take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don’t make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us. He’s not remote; he’s near. We live and move in him, can’t get away from him!” Acts 17:24-26 (The Message)

Christian thought has understood evil as the absence or corruption of good.

1 – There are two types of evil:

Moral evil – drunk driving, lying and murder, for example.

Natural evil – tsunamis, and cancer, for example.

2 – There are two ways people wrestle with evil:

The Emotional Problem of Evil – are you there, God? If you are, do you care?

The Intellectual Problem of Evil – does it make sense to believe in God given human suffering?

3 – The Logical Problem of Evil

Is it logically impossible for God to exist in the face of suffering?

No, because:

· God can’t make a world without suffering, because he made humans with free will.

· God can use human suffering for our good, e.g. 1 Peter 3:18

So – God can have good reasons to allow suffering to exist in the world.

4 – The Evidential Problem of Evil

Is God improbable given evil and suffering?

No, because:

· Humans are limited – why should we expect to know specifically why God allows instances of suffering?

· God’s not improbable given all the natural evidence for God’s existence PLUS the evidence for suffering.

· Christianity teaches the likelihood of suffering increases for Christian believers to grow our characters.

5 – The Natural Problem of Evil

Humanity’s rebellion against God has led to a breakdown in man’s relationship with God, and a breakage of the natural world. Opening the opportunity for storms, cancer, and human death.

This points to the serious consequence of man’s rejection of God.

Christian thought has understood evil as an absence or corruption of good.

1 - Why do bad things happen to good people?

Maybe people are not naturally good? There’s evidence we aren’t.

· Genocides from the past – normal people saying, “I’m just doing my job.”

· Abortion rates today

Maybe we aren’t good. We are really just self-interested?

2 – We find the explanation for our problem in the Bible

Genesis 1 – 2 presents the story of mankind (Adam and Eve) freely deciding to reject God and attempt to become God themselves.

Geneticists identify limited set of ancestors 50/60,000 years ago – mitochondrial Adam and Eve.

3 – We Do Have Free Will – Right?

Libertarianism – I’m free to do other than I do

Hard Determinism – I’m not free, my life is pre-scripted

Compatibilism – I’m not free, but I am able to act according to my desires and values (which are determined by something / someone outside of us)

Only Libertarianism makes sense of life and the Bible

4 – T2 and Blade Runner Show Human Free Will is IMPORTANT

Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution, Holocaust Encyclopedia United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution.

Abortion statistics for England and Wales: 2018, National Statistics, published 13th June, 2019, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/abortion-statistics-for-england-and-wales-2018

.

Answering the Problems of Evil with Dr. Clay Jones, Capturing Christianity, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQlrClxwL0w.

Clay Jones, Why Does God Allow Evil, (Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 2017).

The beginning of the universe qualifies as an example of God’s supernatural intervention.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God says:

This is a plausible conclusion given the evidence we have.

You need a personal first cause to get a temporal effect from a timeless cause.

A maximally great being.

This sounds like the Bible’s idea of God.

John C. Lennox, Can Science Explain Everything?, (The Good Book Company, 2019), 387 – 388.

William Lane Craig, The Kalam Cosmological Argument William Lane Craig at Georgia Tech, 14th March, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ58aloF7Bc.

William Lane Craig, Why Must the Cause of the Universe Be Personal and Not Impersonal?, 31st October, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2mFogzBO-Y.

William Lane Craig, First Scientific Argument: The Expansion of the Universe, CBN.com, https://www.cbn.com/special/apologetics/articles/first-scientific-argument.aspx.

Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to Big Questions.

There are at least five possible explanations of the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection:

Only option 5 properly accounts for all the evidence.

William Lane Craig, On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision, (Colorado Springs:David C. Cook, 2010), loc 3610 - 4399.

There are three occurrences that need to be explained.

1.1 Reported in the earliest sources. (1 Corinthians 15:3-8, Mark’s gospel)

1.2 The story is simple and lacks legendary development.

1.3 Christianity was birthed where the tomb was.

1.4 The earliest Jewish reactions presuppose the empty tomb.

2.1 Reported in the earliest sources (1 Corinthians 15:3-8, Luke’s Gospel)

2.2 James, the brother of Jesus, moves from skeptic to Christian leader (Acts 1, 21)

2.3 Saul turned from persecutor to Christian evangelist (Acts 9)

3.1 The apostles understanding of “Messiah” was changed after the resurrection

3.2 The Christian church was launched.

All the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus agree on these three facts.

Sean McDowell, The Fate of the Apostles Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus, (NewYork:Routledge, 2015).

Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection Of Jesus A New Historiographical Approach, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2010).

1.1 They were written very close to the events compared to other documents of antiquity

1.2 Every author has a position of bias, and so it does not make them an unreliable source of information

1.3 The Gospels get historical details right:

1.4 The Gospels record undersigned coincidences

Subtle agreement between Gospel texts on trivial details

The evidence shows:

Our Old Testament

He set things up for the writing of the New Testament

Gospel Truth, John Dickson, Undeceptions Podcast, episode 7, https://undeceptions.com/podcast/gospel-truth.

Jonathan Morrow, Questioning the Bible 11 Major Challenges to the Bible’s Authority, (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014), 215 – 224.

St Augustine, De Civitatis Dei, Book XVI

Geraint F. Lewis and Luke A Barnes, A Fortunate Universe Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Darwin’s Corrosive Idea John West at Dallas Science Faith Conference 2020,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWKKVL_Pkf8.

Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards, The Privileged Planet How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2004).

Matthew 6:26-27.