Book Review: A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles

J P Moreland’s new book is quite remarkable. I’m not a fan of the book’s title. It sounds a bit “off the wall” to me. The book content, however, is anything but.

JP has chosen to speak cogently to a couple of audiences. First, to an audience of Christians who may have lost the expectation that God would ever intervene in the natural world in a supernatural and measurable way. Maybe because they think bible kind of miracles ceased a long time ago. And at the same time, Moreland also challenges the natural presuppositions of atheists who roll their eyes at such a notion to begin with.

Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

JP speaks to his audience by addressing fundamental matters of philosophy and worldview. What is epistemology, and what does it mean to know something? What should we make of the common atheist response to miracle claims – “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?” Spoiler alert – when you are talking about the activity of an agent (God) you cannot expect agents to always behave the same way. You need to judge their activity on a case-by-case basis. Appealing to natural law in an attempt to refute miracles is just wrong headed. So – the improbability of an event does not require extraordinary evidence to establish it. Further – the probability of the evidence for the event and the reports of the event occurring must also be factored in given the scenario that the event did NOT in fact occur. And in the miracle cases given in this book (and countless others) the likelihood of this is vanishingly small. You don’t need extraordinary evidence (whatever that is) to sustain belief that the miracle occurred.

Why Should People Pray?

JP addresses some common struggles believers and non-believers face when it comes to prayer. If God knows everything anyway, then what is the point of praying about something? This common conundrum misunderstands the issues of free will and the omniscience of God. Here, JP points to de ray and de dicto distinctions. The bible’s view of this problem is misrepresented if we assume we must take the de ray line – which leads to hard determinism. This is incorrect because our evidence suggests human beings have free will – we are not determined. If you need to try to convince me otherwise then – I am sorry – you tacitly assume I have the free will to choose to believe or reject your argument! Returning to the issue of God knowing everything, the de dicto distinction is the most adequate approach to understanding this. De dicto says it is not God’s knowledge that leads to the event. Rather, the event that occurs is the one God foreknows. Also, wouldn’t a perfect good God prevent evil occurrences whether we pray or not? This misunderstands God’s purposes – God is working toward a greater good in all circumstances. This will often be at odds with our limited view of the good outcome, and often involves our relationship with him.

Veridical Miracle Claims and the ID Principle

He also devotes a large chunk of the book to veridical claims of a supernatural nature. These stories are not just recycled from unknown or remote sources. Rather, before including them in the book, J P has done the work of tracking down the people involved, hearing their stories first-hand, and establishing confirmatory evidence where he can. Some of them are taken from his own life. Others are from the lives of others. For example, he recounts an instance experienced by the parents of his friend Ruth Henderson. Having spent many years as missionaries in Venezuela and Spain, they returned home to San Diego. Unfortunately, their low financial income meant they had no pension to draw from, and so they were broke. They lived in a small apartment and worked low paid teaching and pastoring jobs. Yet they dreamed of living in a proper house with a white picket fence. So – they prayed about this. They visited a nice property that had just lowered in price and found it to be perfect for their needs. While visiting the property, they had to admit to the real estate agent that they had minimal funds for a down payment. So, the agent phoned the sellers there and then to ask whether they would reduce the price again. While they were all standing in the property, there was an unexpected knock at the door. The agent opened the door. A man stood there from a cell phone tower company. He had been knocking on doors in the area because he needed to build a tower in this area and was willing to pay the house owners 10,000 dollars a year for thirty years for the privilege of using their back yard. A deal was done, and the bank agreed to give the couple a mortgage based on the commitment of the tower company. Miraculously, they got the house they asked God for.[1]

This example is like many of JP’s miracle stories. Its amazing and it sounds like God might be providing in response to a real need. But we have also to ask – how do we know this wasn’t just a coincidence? Here – JP applies a principle first put forward by Bill Dembski, and this ID principle is used today in many fields (not just biology) like insurance, law enforcement, and forensic science. The ID principle states that whenever two factors are present, investigators are rational to conclude that the event is the result of an intelligent agent.

1. There was a small probability of the event happening
2. The event is special, it is remarkable for reasons other than the fact that it actually happened.

Such an argument applies not only to human agents, but also divine ones. And – given the context of the events, it would point to the story with the cell tower guy paying the broke couple’s mortgage as an intentional, divine miracle. I have a similar story in my own life, and this ID principle suggests to me that I too experienced a miracle, not merely a coincidence. I wrote about that event here:

https://respondblogs.wordpress.com/2021/10/18/was-it-a-miracle-that-saved-our-lives/

Conclusion

JP focuses on many more examples of God’s supernatural intervention in people’s lives. He looks at instances of miraculous healing, guidance, evidence for the activity of angels and demons in the world, and the veracity of near-death experiences and what they may tell us about what comes next after we die. He also provides a reading list at the end of the book that points to many other sources like his own that can build our hope and expectation in the existence of divine miracles today.

Many Christian believers are embarrassed by miracle claims. And – many claims made by people can sounds pretty dumb or unlikely. But not all of them fall into this category. When one is armed with the resources JP brings, this mistaken embarrassment can be set aside. We can know – not merely believe – that God is real and still performs miracles today.

---

[1] J. P. Moreland, A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles Instruction and Inspiration for Living Supernaturally in Christ, (Grand Rapids:Zondervan Reflective, 2021), 76 – 78.

Advertisement

Was It a Miracle That Saved Our Lives?

At 2:52pm on October 21^st, 1971, a gas explosion destroyed Clarkston shops in Scotland, killing 22 people and injuring 100.[1] Eighty-two minutes prior to this event, at 1:30pm, my mother May Gray strapped my sister and I into our new car. She didn’t realise it, but that day she intended to visit the dress shop at the epicentre of the looming explosion. Unexpectedly, our car refused to start. For 30 minutes, May made multiple failed attempts to start the car. Finally, she gave up and abandoned her shopping trip.

Later that day, my Dad returned home from work. He checked the car, and it started first time. The following day, May started the car without any trouble. Prior to October 21st, and at all times until we sold the car three years later, it never failed to start that way again. The only known exception to its reliability record occurred between 1:30pm and 2:00pm on the day of the Clarkston explosion. If the car had started during that period of time, we would have probably died at the shopping centre. I attached a picture of me and my Dad with the car to this blog. It was a light blue, 1970 Vauxhall Viva.

Miracles and Natural Law

Was the car’s temporary failure a curious coincidence, or can I reasonably claim that God miraculously saved our lives that day? I will use Richard L. Purtill’s definition of “miracle”. Miracles are events caused by God’s power that are temporary exceptions to the ordinary course of nature to show God has acted in nature.[2] Did a miracle occur for us on 21^st October 1971? Scottish philosopher David Hume would resist this conclusion, viewing miracles as violations of unalterably uniform natural laws.[3] Hume, and contemporary skeptics with him, may suppose the car’s failure to start prior to the explosion was merely a coincidence.

However, Hume’s skepticism is problematic. Hume had an empiricist approach to epistemology. He thought people only experience sense impressions, “a constancy in certain impressions [and so] … perception of the sun … returns … as at its first appearance.”[4] Natural laws don’t exist to Hume. Rather, human custom leads us to identify sense impressions as objects. He is therefore skeptical of inductive inference. Scott Smith summarises Hume’s position; we may see three black ravens, but to infer therefore all ravens are black, is knowledge we cannot justifiably hold on Hume’s empiricism.[5] Consequently, because he only experiences discrete sensory input, and rejects induction, he cannot know natural laws exist. Hume is therefore inconsistent to observe inviolable natural law when arguing against miracles.

Today, natural laws are believed to describe what nature does, they do not prescribe what nature must do. Craig Keener observes that, when I drop a pen with one hand and catch it with the other, I am not breaking the law of gravity. Rather, I am intervening in its operation.[6] Purtill defined a miracle as a temporary, divine exception to the normal flow of natural law. It seems reasonable to assume that, if God created nature, he could choose to intervene if necessary. C S Lewis builds on this idea noting that if God fed new information into a natural system, the system would simply react in predictable natural ways.[7] Perhaps our car’s failure to start was a natural response to an intentional exception to natural law.

Anti-Supernatural Bias

Hume’s second problem is that his argument against miracles appears to be circular. Because he defines natural law as inviolable, and miracles as violations of natural law, he rules out the possibility of miracles axiomatically. Consequently, no amount of evidence is sufficient to prove a miracle occurred; Keener says Hume rejects any evidence contradicting his thesis or his anti-supernatural bias.[8] He therefore assumes what he intends to prove; there are no miracles. Arguments like this are logically fallacious by begging the question. Also, Hume may disagree that eyewitness testimony from 1971 supports a miracle claim. He might also suggest my family are ignorant or false witnesses for positing the miraculous.[9] Hume possibly never experienced a miracle himself, but it does not follow my family are therefore ignorant fabricators for supposing occurrence of a divine miracle.

Scientific Proof of Miracles

Contemporary skeptics may follow Hume and challenge me to prove scientifically the miraculous nature of the events from 1971. If I cannot prove a miracle, I cannot claim a miracle; “a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.”[10] But their challenge fails to meet my definition of miracle. How can one scientifically prove a one off, temporary exception to the normal flow of events? Miracles are non-repeatable, so I cannot use scientific methods to investigate them. Miracles are also exceptions. Michael G. Strauss imagines aliens studying traffic lights to understand how humans control traffic, and they figure out what red, amber, and green mean. Suddenly, an ambulance appears blaring its siren as it zooms through the junction, breaking all the rules. This doesn’t make the traffic law void, rather it shows that rules can sometimes be broken in urgent circumstances, like when people’s lives are at stake.[11] Consequently, if I remain open to the possible occurrence of one-off exceptional events, and I do not trap myself in Hume’s circular anti-supernatural argument, then I can employ scientific tools to explore the evidence from 1971. Having gathered all the data about the motor car’s history, the people involved, and the timing of the events, one can use this data to draw an abductive inference. It is possible that an exceptional event overruled the normal operation of the car.

Is there a God Anyway?

Skeptics may claim we experienced a coincidence of events because no God exists to do miracles.  But it is not clear how the skeptic can prove God’s non-existence. I would suggest the Bible argues convincingly when it says God’s invisible qualities are not primarily seen through miracles, but through nature;[12] the heavens declare the glory of God.[13] If the natural universe we inhabit makes God likely, it seems possible that in certain circumstances, God could make exceptions to nature for his own reasons. Given the powerful, creative, and generous God revealed by nature, it seems reasonable to suppose that as our lives hung in the balance in October 1971, God was able and willing to influence the natural function of the car at the right time to save us.

I am Warranted to Claim God Miraculously Saved Our Lives

I think I am warranted to claim knowledge of God’s miraculous intervention on October 21st, 1971. I am rational, and there are good natural arguments for God’s existence. I cannot, however, prove the events were not a coincidence. This remains a possibility. Yet James L. Garlow and Keith Wall observe two helpful points. First, God’s intervention can occur through natural or supernatural events that fulfil his purpose. If the event is also improbable, and is spiritually significant, this suggests God’s possible involvement.[14] Our car’s behaviour seemed highly improbable, and our lives were at stake. Second, Garlow and Wall observe miracles show God’s involvement in nature, and demonstrate his character, resulting in increased faith in God.[15] Following the event in question, my family has experienced this increased faith. Consequently, given the improbability of the event, its spiritual significance, and the increase in faith that has resulted, this suggests our survival that day may have been a divine miracle.

---

[1] Magdalene Dalziel, Remembering the Clarkston Toll disaster of 1971 – a day Glasgow will never forget, Glasgow Live, 21^st October, 2020, https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/history/remembering-clarkston-toll-disaster-1971-19143705.

[2] Lee Strobel, The Case for Miracles A Journalist Investigates Evidence for the Supernatural, (Grand Rapids:Zondervan, 2018), 27.

[3] David Hume, “Of Miracles,” in R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R Habermas, In Defence of Miracles A Comprehensive Case for God’s Action in History, (Leicester:Apollos, 1997), 33.

[4] David Hume, “A Treatise of Human Nature,” in R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge Overcoming the Fact-Value Dichotomy, (Downers Grove: IVP, 2014), 85.

[5] Smith, 87.

[6] Strobel, 88.

[7] C S Lewis, Miracles Do They Really Happen?, (London:William Collins, 1947), 93 – 95, summarized.

[8] Strobel, 88.

[9] Geivett and Habermas, 36.

[10] Geivett and Habermas, 30.

[11] Strobel, 167.

[12] Romans 1:20.

[13] Psalm 19:1.

[14] James L. Garlow and Keith Wall, Miracles are for Real What Happens When Heaven Touches Earth, (Grand Rapids:Bethany House Publishers, 2011), 119-121.

[15] Ibid., 64-65.