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  • Writer's pictureBible Brian

Miracles aren't magic


I have heard some atheistic magicians claim that real miracles don't exist, and that all miracles are simply magic tricks. There are two main problems with this philosophy. The first is that it is a closed philosophy, i.e. one that can never be proven wrong, even with verifiable evidence. If these magicians were to see a real life miracle, they would assume it was a magic trick, even if they could not explain how it was done. They would examine it from top to bottom, find no evidence of tricks and still assume it was a magic trick, just one beyond their abilities.

The second problem is that magic tricks, unlike miracles, are extremely limited. They're confined to the abilities of current human knowledge and technology. There is a saying that you don't see faith healers working in hospitals for the same reason you don't see psychics winning the lottery. The same applies to magicians, such as Penn and Teller. You see them performing in Vegas because their tricks are tricks, and they acknowledge that they are tricks. They're illusions, which is why you'll never see Penn and Teller running around hospitals giving sight to the blind, lifting the lame, and giving life to the dead. And I believe if it was within their powers, those two particular examples would. Penn and Teller, at least publicly, seem like great guys, so they would almost certainly heal people if they could. But they don't, because these are all things which are beyond the powers of a magician. Yet Jesus did all these things, and more.


For example, in John 9, Jesus finds a beggar, blind since birth, and he gives him the ability to see. The Jewish leaders questioned him about it, and he confirmed Jesus had healed his blindness. So the Jews summoned his parents, who also confirmed he had been blind since birth, but out of fear they refused to confess Jesus' hand in his healing. So the Jews asked him again, and he again confirmed that he was always blind, but now could see. He even mocked them for repeatedly harassing him after he'd told them repeatedly about what had happened. Then the Jews excommunicated him.


So, the question is, if all miracles are magic tricks, why do atheistic magicians never visit hospitals to pull this off? Why don't faith healers, who would obviously find great profit in this ability, never heal the blind (or any other serious illnesses, for that matter)? The answer is because they can't. In the modern day, we have very powerful equipment, effective machines, and high quality healthcare (at least in rich countries). Yet even with all this, there are some things we just can't cure. Certainly not with the wave of a hand, the touch of a robe or the word from our mouths. Yet you want to argue that Jesus, an unschooled carpenter from a supposedly "primitive" time, could do instantly, and without the aid of any technology, what even the greatest doctors in the world can barely do with the use of technology?


If you can create a drug, machine, or anything at all that can perform Jesus' miracles in exactly the way Jesus did it, you will make enough money from selling that ability to feed an entire continent. Modern magicians can achieve many great illusions, but until I see them with stethoscopes around their necks and white coats on their backs, I will never be able to take the argument that Jesus was a magician seriously. Neither should you.


So the question you have to ask is, if Jesus was not a magician, what was He? If you're extremely stubborn, you can claim that the miracles He performed were not as spectacular or common as found in scripture. This still leaves you with the problem of why even His detractors admitted His power, merely chalking it up to Satan's power. You could say Jesus was just ahead of His time, but that would raise a whole bunch of other questions, like, once again, how did an unschooled carpenter completely outclass the entire modern medical community in an era before germ theory? You could even go the route of claiming that Jesus was actually visited by aliens, or that He actually was one, but there's only so far you can stretch your credibility before it breaks. All I'll say is if you're going to talk about aliens, you should at least prove the existence of a habitable planet within realistic travel distance from Earth.


The most sensible explanation for Jesus' miracles is that He really is, as He claims, God. Only God could realistically command demons, diseases, the elements, the weather, and even death itself, as Jesus did. Therefore, it makes sense that Jesus is God.

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