RESPOND blogs: Why I Believe in the Supernatural

It has been said – Miracles are simply the stuff of fiction.

Belief in Miracles – or the Supernatural – can be traced back to an ancient, pre-Scientifically enlightened world. A world where Vikings looked at the sky and believed a wolf chased the horses that dragged the chariot that contained the Sun across the sky. Great imagination there, guys!

Thanks to the work of David Hume in the 1800’s, many people today think everything that happens MUST be the result of natural processes. Because the Supernatural does not exist.

Someone who claims a Miracle is frowned upon in our culture today.  Because the claim is understood simply to be the result of us not understanding the natural processes involved in the event.

In other words – people who believe in Miracles are simply ignorant.

But here’s a thought – it IS possible to embrace and be inspired by the wonder of Scientific discovery (cosmology included!) while still believing that God can do Miracles if he sees fit.

Now our culture may cock a condescending wink at me as I say that. But you’ve got to admit…there are some pretty amazing historical events that are difficult to explain by natural processes. Take the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, for example.

Now miracle cynics don’t claim to have all the answers. So they usually cover their bases by saying this. If a Miracle WAS to take place…then that event should have MUCH MORE evidence for its Supernatural cause than we would normally expect from any other mundane event. Show me that amount of evidence and you might convince me.

How does that work? Well – take the milk that appears on your doorstep every morning. It’s a recurring mundane happening. We don’t need much evidence to believe that the milkman delivered it! But say someone claimed to see their milk carton appear out of thin air on their doorstep one morning. That would be Miraculous, wouldn’t it? And very, very unlikely!

The point is – a Supernatural event is SO unlikely  that in order to be treated seriously…our culture expects vast amounts of evidence to back it up. For a start…who saw the milk appear with their own eyes? We need more than the one witness…who might have been drinking in the pub late the night before. We need a crowd of witnesses to verify the suddenly appearing milk!

So – let me question the prevailing wisdom in our culture today. Is it reasonable to demand extraordinary levels of evidence before we claim Miracle?  It sounds reasonable. But in actual fact – the people who use this argument against Miracle are extremely selective with how they use it.

Take Jesus’ Resurrection again.

Christians believe, based on the interlocking historical accounts in the New Testament, that God Miraculously raised Jesus from the dead. He was really dead on Good Friday – but he was physically raised from death as part of God’s plan and purpose the following Sunday. God stepped into the normal flow of natural processes that unfold in our Universe and he fed a very special event into our reality. Jesus…back from the dead.

And we might think to ourselves…well that’s not very likely…is it? So we expect masses of evidence to prove it beyond doubt.

Well, hang on. Just because something is unlikely…does not mean that the proof for that unlikely event requires in feasibly large amounts of evidence. Not at all. We don’t actually use that standard in our everyday lives. So it’s unfair to take that approach with Jesus’ Resurrection.

What do I mean? Well – take the UK National Lottery as an example.

It has been estimated that the odds of winning the National Lottery are 1 in 14 million.  In other words, take the entire population of Scotland, 3 times over. One of them has a winning Lottery ticket that…if you find it…wins you a million pounds. Now – you’ve got just one chance to select a person at random. What are the chances you will choose the Scot with the ticket? (not to mention your chances of prising it out of his hand) It’s very, very unlikely that it will happen! Yet this one unlikely event happens for someone most weeks in the UK. Someone wins the National Lottery and becomes extremely wealthy. It’s an unlikely event…but it is frankly a routine event! You can almost set your watch by it.

My point in this. We don’t demand extraordinary evidence to prove that a person has won the Lottery. If the Camelot Group announces this week’s winners on TV, their website, and on Twitter…then we just believe it! Why? Because we have extraordinary evidence? No! We have no evidence beyond Camelot’s say so. We believe it because we have good reason to TRUST the Camelot Group. We trust what they are telling us. Even though the National Lottery win is extremely unlikely for the winner.

We don’t doubt the TV when it announces the winner.

I don’t doubt the historical reports in the Bible when it tells me Jesus was supernaturally raised from the dead. I don’t need extraordinary evidence. I trust the Bible; and God for that matter.

But even though I don’t need it…God has already given extraordinary evidence for Jesus Resurrection. How about the multiple billions of people who have believed in Jesus down thru the centuries, and seen Him transform their lives?

That’s pretty compelling and consistent and repeatable evidence for a single unlikely event…don’t you think?