Here’s the latest in the series of questions from skeptics and atheists.
Question: Why have we not seen God reattach severed heads, restore someone who has been burned alive, or regrow amputated limbs? If God wanted us to know Him, He would be doing these miracles all over the globe. These would be miracles difficult to deny. Until I see this, I will remain an atheist.
First, the Bible has many such miracles. We see God save people who were thrown into a blazing fire (Daniel 3:23ff), grow a dead limb (Mark 3:3-6), stop the normal pattern of the sun and the earth (Joshua 10:13), and raise the dead (John 11:43-44). There were many eyewitnesses of these things, up to 500 at once (1 Cor. 15:6) and some of the most educated people of the day….people who would pass the witness test of the king of the skeptics, David Hume (see here). Yet even these eyewitnesses did not believe.
The passage in Mark 3 and John 11 tell us an interesting thing. The educated leaders of the day were eyewitnesses of these miracles, and many others, yet immediately after they saw the miracles they went out to plan Jesus’ death (Mark 3:6, John 11:53). Why would they do such a thing, rather than bow in submission? Because they were more interested in themselves than in the truth, and more interested in going their own way than in submitting to God. Therefore we have no reason to believe that even if God were to do miracles today, people would act any different. Indeed, Jesus did many signs and wonders, but people did not believe.
Further, as Richard Howe has pointed out, I seriously doubt if any skeptic or atheist would believe even if miracles were happening on a regular basis around the globe. Say, for example, that every time someone had a severed body part, God miraculously fixed it. Every time someone wanted it corrected, God did. We then go to the skeptic and say, ‘see, every time a limb is severed, it is God that heals it.’ The skeptic would then say, ‘But that happens all the time, as a regular occurrence. That’s not a miracle from God.’ Such denial would be a safe assumption, because greater miracles than severed heads happen all around us today. People that hate God are changed right before our eyes and become lovers of God (see here). Yet the eyewitnesses of such regenerated lives dismiss it routinely, acting the same as the eyewitnesses that saw the healing miracles of Jesus.
Lastly, saying that we know what God would do or what God ought to do is presumption at best. We cannot be so bold as to say, as finite and sinful creatures, what an infinite and holy Being would do.
If seeing miracles was enough to convince us, then the Apostles could have been dispatched at the Ascension. But they weren’t. Forty days after the Resurrection, Christ told his followers, who all had witnessed incredible miracles including the Resurrection, to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come upon them. He then ascended into Heaven. They still weren’t ready. One week later, Pentecost occurred, and the Apostles were fully charged and ready to accept the Great Commission. God knows that it takes more than witnessing miracles to convince us–it takes God within us, not merely God before us.
After all the evidence of love, power, and splendor that God puts around us, we still want more. We want some kind of customized sign. What does it take for us to get it? He gave us his son as an atoning sacrifice once and for all. To ask for more seems completely ungrateful. We have all we need from God–his blood in the form of a Savior, and his spirit within us. He doesn’t need to do any more for us.
Thanks for a great post, with much to think about!
Yes, Thank you for the post – This is actually a question I get a regular basis from my colleagues. I don’t know how powerful it would be due to the use of the Bible however, the words/power of the bible will never return void. And, if they don’t like the bible, tough
– Again, thank you.
Great post, like we have discussed before atheists are atheists not because of lack of evidence but because they choose not to believe in spite of the evidence. David