Questions About Miracles – Part 3

By: Dr. Norman Geisler; ©2000

This article asks “Are Miracles Mythological? And begins a discussion of the question: “Are Miracles Definable?”

Questions About Miracles—Part Three

ARE MIRACLES MYTHOLOGICAL?

One of the most influential theologians of this century, Rudolf Bultmann, has said:

Man’s knowledge and mastery of the world have advanced to such extent through science and technology that it is no longer possible for anyone seriously to hold the New Testament view of the world—in fact, there is hardly anyone who does…. The only honest way of reciting the creeds is to strip the mythological framework away from the truth they enshrine.^[1]

For Bultmann, modern science has eliminated miracles. The only way to reconcile this with faith is to recognize all supernatural elements as myths that have grown ‘up around the kernel of truth that we must live by. To understand the Bible and Jesus’ real message, we must weed out the myths to find the truth. If we can get behind the minds of the early Christians, we might even be able to understand what circumstances and needs were present that caused such a myth to arise. That would lead us to a truth on another level which we can accept by faith. His argument might be stated like this:

1. Myths are by nature more than objective truths; they are transcendent truths of faith.
2. But what is not objective cannot be a part of a verifiable space-time world.
3. Therefore, miracles (myths) are not part of the objective space-time world.

This not only eliminates the need to believe in miracles, but makes it impossible to evaluate them in any sense. But does this argument hold up? Are miracles only myths?

First, it does not follow that because an event is more than objective and factual that it must be less than historical. Certainly miracles point to something beyond the world, but that does not mean that they don’t happen in the world. If they are more than objective and factual, then they must be at least objective space-time events.

Also, Bultmann has clearly concluded beforehand that miracles cannot occur. He would make the same conclusion no matter what the evidence says. He calls miracles “incredible,” “irrational,” “no longer possible,” “meaningless,” “utterly inconceivable,” and “intolerable.” These are not the words of a man open to looking at the evidence. This is the language of someone who does not want to be “confused” by the facts.

But if miracles are not objective and historical, then they are neither verifiable nor falsifiable. You can’t prove they happened, but no one can disprove them either. This appeals to some Christians because it removes the need for defending their beliefs and calls people to “simply believe” without evidence. However, it also makes us fall victim to a valid criticism from Antony Flew.

Now often it seems to people who are not religious as if there was no conceivable event or series of events the occurrence of which would be admitted by sophisticated religious people to be a sufficient reason for conceding “There wasn’t a God after all.” … What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of, God?^[2]

In plain language, if a belief could never under any circumstance be false, then how can you say that it is really true? It has left the realm of true and false and simply exists as opinion. For Bultmann, someone could deliver the corpse of Jesus Christ to his office in a wheelbarrow and it would not falsify his faith in the Resurrection. The Apostle Paul, on the other hand, said that “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17). This religious attempt to preserve Christianity from attack by modern science has left us with an empty faith that prevents us from ever calling our beliefs true.

ARE MIRACLES DEFINABLE?

There are a lot of religions that claim to be “proven” by miraculous deeds. Moses’ rod became a serpent in Judaism; Jesus walked on water in Christianity; Islam’s Mohammed moved a mountain; and Hindu gurus claim to levitate themselves and others. This is no less true today when some pantheistic groups claim that they are performing miracles daily. New Age prophet Benjamin Creme has said this of what he calls “the Christ,” meaning a spirit of power and divination which “overshadowed” Jesus and is now available to the followers of “the Christ”:

It is this which has enabled them to perform what at that time were called miracles, which today are called spiritual or esoteric healings. Daily, all over the world, there are miracles of healing being performed…. these miracles are now being performed by men and women in the world all the time.^[3]

And to make matters more complicated, there are many Christians making very similar claims today and, while some are valid, some have been exposed as frauds. Even the loose way we use the word shows our confusion. Some say it’s a miracle when a baby is born and some say it’s a miracle when they pass an examination.

How can you tell what is truly miraculous and what is not? Is it possible to define a miracle in such a way that false claims and other kinds of unusual events are eliminated from the definition?

The main threat to defining miracles today comes from the pantheistic New Age move­ment. Pantheists say that there is no God beyond the universe. They agree that all events in the universe must have natural causes. As Jesus supposedly said in the Aquarian Gos­pel, a psychically obtained account of Jesus’ alleged psychic training, “All things result from natural law.”^[4] Even Christian Science says that a miracle is “that which is divinely natural, but must be learned humanly; a phenomenon of Science.”^[5] So instead of saying that there are no miracles, pantheists redefine miracles as a manipulation of natural law, much like Luke Skywalker had to learn to use the Force (natural law) to do his incredible deeds. Pantheists have even tried to incorporate advanced physics into their framework to explain the supernormal. Fritjof Capra’s book, The Tao of Physics, is an updated version of the pantheistic doctrine that all matter is at heart mystical.

The basic oneness of the universe is not only the central characteristic of the mystical experience, but is also one of the most important revelations of modern physics. It becomes apparent at the atomic level and manifests itself more and more as one penetrates deeper into matter, down into the realm of subatomic particles.^[6]

This then, not an all-powerful God beyond the universe, is the source of pantheistic miracles. They are not really supernatural; they are only supernormal.

Now Christians don’t deny that such supernormal events take place, but we do deny that they fit the definition of a miracle. That definition has three basic elements that are reflected in the three words associated with miracles in the Bible: power, sign, and wonder. The power of miracles comes from a God who is beyond the universe. The nature of miracles is that they are wonders, which inspire awe in those who see them because they are astonishing. The word sign tells us the purpose of miracles: they confirm God’s message and His messenger. The theological dimension of this definition is that miracles imply that there is a God beyond the universe who intervenes in it. Morally, because God is good, miracles only produce and/or promote good. In their doctrinal dimension, miracles tell us which are true prophets and which are false. And teleologically, miracles are never performed for entertainment, but have the distinct purpose of glorifying God and directing men to Him.

Pantheistic miracles, however, don’t meet this definition because their power is not from God. In fact, New Age writer David Spangler has identified the source of miracles for pantheists when he wrote, “Christ is the same force as Lucifer but moving in seemingly the opposite direction. Lucifer moves in to create the light within… Christ moves out to release that light.”^[7] So the power for supernormal events in pantheism comes from Lucifer, or Satan, even though it is called Christ when it goes out from the individual.

(to be continued)

Notes

1. ↑ Rudolf Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. by Hans Werner Bartsch, trans. by Reginald H. Fuller (London: Billing and Sons, 1954), p. 4.
2. ↑ Antony Flew, “Theology and Falsification” in The Existence of God, ed. by John Hick (New York: Macmillan, 1964), p. 227.
3. ↑ Benjamin Creme, The Reappearance of Christ (Los Angeles: Tara Center, 1980), p. 136.
4. ↑ “Levi,” Levi H. Dowling, The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ (Santa Monica: DeVorss & Co., Publishers, 1907 and 1964), p. 227.
5. ↑ Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1973), 591:21-22.
6. ↑ Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics (New York: Bantam Books, 1984), p. 117.
7. ↑ David Spangler, Reflections on the Christ (Findhorn Lecture Series, 1978), p. 40.

Read Part 4