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  • Writer's pictureBible Brian

Are miracles impossible?


Picture, if you will, a standard clock. I don't mean a modern, digital clock like you might find on your phone or laptop. I mean a genuine clock, with all its little gears, and those two or three hands on its face. This clock, assuming it is not broken, has a function. Over time, each of those three hands moves across its face, indicating the passage of every second, minute, and hour. This, it does with little to no help from us. If we leave the room, it continues its normal functions. While we sleep, it continues ticking away. Tick, tick, tick.


Because of how it is designed, it will continue its course uninterrupted. At 12:00, all of its hands will point upwards at 12:00. It will not spring forward an hour, nor will it fall back. However, Western tradition holds that every year, clocks must be altered. A whole hour must be either skipped, or added. This is not an automatic process. Unlike on a digital clock, it must be done manually, and it is easy to do manually.


Now let's imagine an alternate version of Pinocchio (oh no, not another one...). In this story, Pinocchio is still brought to life, and still meets Jiminy Cricket. However, rather than proving himself brave, truthful, and unselfish, the condition for him becoming a real boy is that he must confess the existence of his father, Gepeto, whom he is unable to perceive directly, even while he is in the room. So he and Jiminy debate the existence of Gepeto, until one day, all of the clocks in Gepeto's shop skip forward one hour. So Jiminy points to all of the clocks and says "you see, Pinocchio? Clocks don't just skip forward like that. That was your father" But Pinocchio, who was asleep while Gepeto adjusted the clocks, disputes this. Rather than admitting the skip is evidence of Gepeto, he denies that the skip ever happened. After all, as there is no Gepeto, it is impossible for clocks to skip ahead one hour.


In the above analogy, Pinocchio may well believe he has sound reasoning, but he is actually being very irrational. The skip did happen, and is evidence of Gepeto's existence, as are the clocks themselves. After all, a clock cannot make itself any more than it can skip ahead on its own. This, however, is unconvincing to Pinocchio, who believes Jiminy is actually the irrational one for believing in the skip.


There are many parallels between Pinocchio and atheists (and no, I will not cave to the temptation to make a long nosed liar joke). Just like Pinocchio is unable to perceive the man who created both him and the clocks within the shop, atheists are unable to perceive God. God, after all, is spirit, and it is as absurd to believe physical eyes should see spiritual things. Just as Pinocchio was not present for his, or the clocks' creations, neither were modern atheists present at the creation of our universe. Just as Pinocchio believes he is rational, only believing in what he perceives, and relying on his own faulty reasoning, so also do atheists believe themselves to be rational for only believing in what they perceive, no matter how sound the reasoning that points to other conclusions. And just as Pinocchio takes issue with Jiminy trying to guide him to Gepeto, atheists have a problem with Christians trying to guide them to God.


However, just as the clocks are evidence of Gepeto, so also is there evidence for God in creation. And, just as the skip is only possible with Gepeto's help, so also are miracles only possible with God's help.


The first major problem atheists have is that their own worldview is actually locked against certain conclusions. A miracle could happen before their eyes, and they would invoke the "God of the gaps" argument. That is, they would insist that to claim a miracle as a miracle is an argument from ignorance. A more Naturalistic answer could, and in the atheist's mind certainly does exist, we just don't know what that is yet. Therefore, even a miracle for which an atheist is physically present may be dismissed.


Ironically, this could even include the resurrection of Jesus! As long as you approach it with the assumption that even the most apparently miraculous occurrence must have a Naturalistic explanation, and that to suggest a miracle has occurred is an argument from ignorance, you can invent a time machine, travel back to the very day Jesus declared "it is finished!", monitor His vitals from that very minute until the moment He rose, and say "well, I don't know how it happened, but there's just so much we don't know about science, for all we know there could be a way a man can rise from the dead."


But of course, most atheists will simply deny the resurrection. Resurrection, after all, does not happen. Even modern science cannot bring people back from the dead. Thus, atheists reason, neither did God. There was never a time, they say, when someone was dead, and God raised them. Science akbar!!!


But in the face of positive evidence for the resurrection, a more reasonable approach isn't to say "resurrection is impossible, therefore it didn't happen", but to say "resurrection is impossible, therefore only God could make it happen!" And indeed, this is the very question atheists always love to ask us. "How do you know your God is the real one?" Because my God is the only one who verified His existence with real miracles throughout history...


It is my God who brought the Jews out of Egypt. It is my God who scorched the alter in the fight against Baal. It is my God who brought the Ark of His covenant back to His people from the Philistines, carried by their own cows because He kept knocking over their idols. My God slayed the giant with a stone slung by a shepherd boy. My God foretold history so accurately, atheists try to change the dates His books were written. And it is my God who, having been brutally murdered, handed the Grim Reaper his notice of termination. No other so-called god has performed even half the feats of the God you will one day meet.


To be clear, miracles are impossible. Not in the sense that they can literally never happen, but in the sense that there is only one way they could. If miracles were possible, they would be possible to dismiss. But because they are impossible, they are impossible to credit to anyone else but the Sovereign of our world. Jesus wasn't just some magician, performing cheap tricks for the gullible masses. As if, in a culture filled with such sorcerers, a mere carpenter would even be that impressive. Nor was Jesus some super scientist, capable of curing the incurable in ways we, ourselves, have yet to replicate. No, the entire reason Jesus is so impressive is because miracles, which are also named "signs" in Scripture, are effectively God showing His Holy passport. They are how God proves He is God. Thus, of course they are impossible for anyone but Him. Just like clockwork, however, the rest of the time, God just leaves the world to work as normal.


But the resurrection was more than just Jesus proving His divinity. Rather than just showing off, His death and resurrection accomplishes something. It accomplishes our path to becoming God's "real boys". See, every time we have rebelled against our God has earned us His everlasting wrath. But this displeases Him. He didn't design us as firewood, He designed us as children. Thus, in order to buy us back the right to call ourselves children of God, Christ was sent as a substitute. He was punished for our sins in order for us to be rewarded for His good deeds. All we have to do is surrender whatever flawed logic keeps us from perceiving Him as imaginary, and us as the ultimate arbiters of truth. We must instead repent of our sin, and confess Jesus as Lord, believing in our hearts that neither nature, nor narrator, but God, raised Jesus from the dead. Since it actually happened, this isn't too hard to do.

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