The Big Questions About Salvation and FaithSample

Are Miracles Real or Not?

One of the reasons people laugh at Christianity is the idea of miracles. The Bible tells many stories of miracles, and many people can’t see how they can be real. How could the sea part and let people through on dry land? How could someone walk on water? How could water turn into wine? And here’s the ‘biggie’: how could someone rise from the dead?

Whether you call it a miracle or something else, I have a hunch we’ve all secretly wished for a miracle in our lives. Like when someone we love has received terrible news from a doctor.

So how about miracles? Can they be real or not? Whether you logically believe in miracles goes hand in hand with whether you believe in a higher power – specifically, a higher power that intervenes in this world against the ordinary course of events and even against the laws of nature.

It becomes an issue of whether you believe in God. If you believe in God, you believe in miracles. If you don’t believe in God, you don’t believe in miracles. People are divided into these two camps.

It doesn’t help us answer whether miracles are real or not. The way to deal with this question is to look at the evidence. That makes sense.

The English philosopher G.K. Chesterton once said that believers in miracles accept them, rightly or wrongly, because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them, rightly or wrongly, because they have a doctrine against them. The fact that you’ve never seen the miracle doesn’t mean there’s no evidence for it.

The fact that someone in the middle of India may never have seen snow doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You have to look for the evidence. Things that generally happen a certain way don’t mean they will always happen that way. For example, a massive solar flare would suddenly change things dramatically on earth, but it’s not a regular event. You have to look at the evidence.

Let’s look at the evidence for what are probably the most important miracles in the Bible: the miracles of Jesus. The proof of his miracles is solid.

We have the historical testimony of the gospels. We have the many witnesses of Jesus’ miracles. Nearly all were done publicly, including when Jesus fed 5,000 people out of the few loaves and fishes and when Jesus raised Lazarus in front of hundreds of people.

There are more than 500 people who saw Jesus alive after his resurrection. If these reports of miracles were false, the gospels couldn’t have been written within these people’s lifetimes as they were since they would have been easily disproved and dismissed.

Yet, the miracles of Jesus couldn’t be dismissed because there were so many eyewitnesses. There was evidence. So, are miracles real? The evidence is there. The eyewitnesses thought so. So much so that they staked their lives on the one who did them.

I believe you can, too.

– Eliezer Gonzalez