THE ARGUMENT FOR GOD'S EXISTENCE FROM MIRACLES
The Handbook of Christian Apologetics says as
God is not living in his own dimension and uninvolved with ours, he
shows he is interactive by doing miracles. So this leads to
its argument for God number 9, "Miracles show that God exist but they must take place in some
religious context to show this.
Miracles are not a proof for God but a sign or clue."
Reason replies:
Is a clue enough when people follow a faith that demands that you be willing to
die for it and tell people they are at risk of going to eternal hell for it?
The Roman Catholic Church doesn’t investigate and declare
authentic, miracle claims outside this Roman Catholic context so for it to say
that miracles show its teaching is from God is for it to lie for it ignores
anything that doesn’t fit what it wants to believe. So miracles are going to be
ignored if they fall outside the God context or religious context according to
this Handbook. This translates as, “Miracles are not evidence for what we
believe unless they fit what we believe”. That is a totally bigoted and
dishonest and even approach.
Thankfully the Handbook shows us that it is up to us to decide if a miracle is a
sign or not. In daily life, we all interpret signs and clues differently from
others. It is a natural and nice thing about being human. It follows then that
Christians should not make as much of the resurrection of Jesus as a sign as
they do.
Miracles, changes in the law of nature such as a statue
coming to life, are said to prove that God exists.
But it is more likely that the witnesses are lying or deceived than that such a
change really happened because making mistakes and telling lies is commoner. So,
it seems that a miracle may only be believed if it is irrefutable.
When a miracle is accepted as a true miracle it is only accepted because there
is no evidence against it. But once you do that you have to believe all miracles
and it is not that hard to create a fake but irrefutable one. One could be done
to prove that there is a weak devil but not a God.
God cannot do miracles to prove his existence for then he would be stupid for it
won’t work. He would be doing silly miracles if he does them so we would not
know what to make of them and their implications. Moreover, when belief is not a
free act God would not need to present miracles as evidence for religion.
The Handbook of Christian Apologetics claims that though it gives a proof from
miracles for God that there is no proof from miracles for you have to believe in
God before you can interpret the miracle as a sign from him (page 65). From this
it follows that there is no evidence that God has spoken even if God exists. Yet
this incoherent book devotes some chapters to proving that God has spoken in
Jesus and in the Bible! It could be that God is not all-powerful and has only
very limited power left to change nature and so he uses it sparingly though he
has the power to change hearts which is a different power. In that case,
miracles are only intended to steer the domino effect of events in the world in
a new direction and are not meant to be messages of what doctrine is true though
they are taken to be messages. The Church just guesses that miracles support it
and is lying when it uses them to pull in the converts. This argument counts
against any argument for God from religious experience. It is extreme blasphemy
to say that Jesus was God if you deny that miracles are proof for anything for
then you might as well say your grandfather was God and you need very good
evidence before you can make such an assertion.
Nobody tells you that if miracles happen then this happens. "I have ten workers. I know one of them is a thief. I do not know which one. There is a report that a man rose from the dead. Is the miracle that the man rose? Is the miracle that the report holds up though it is false?" Miracles are ideological and arrogant.
