POINT: We cannot be right about everything. If there is one thing it is worth being wrong about, it is the validity and truth of claimed miracles. Treat such claims as if miracles effectively do not happen.
THE ARGUMENT
Sherlock Holmes famously said: “When you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the
truth.”
Some reply: “If miracles are possible, then nothing is impossible.”
This reply exposes the central problem with belief in miracles: once
miracles are admitted, rational elimination of explanations
collapses.
What Is a Miracle?
A miracle is typically defined as a divine act that overrides, suspends, or transcends the laws of nature. If God exists and performs miracles, then such events are, by definition, naturally impossible.
Believers often try to soften this by claiming miracles do not break natural laws but merely suspend them. However, this distinction fails. Whether gravity is “turned off” or remains “on” while a brick floats in mid-air, the result is the same: an event that contradicts how nature operates. Saying gravity still exists but has no effect is not less magical—it is more mysterious.
If gravity remains operative and the brick floats anyway, the miracle is not preserving natural law but contradicting it outright. This does not protect divine rationality; it obscures it.
Are Miracles Compatible with Divine Intelligence?
If God creates the laws of nature and then regularly interferes with them, this implies either:
The laws were insufficient in the first place, or
God contradicts his own design
Both undermine divine wisdom. A god who must continually intervene against his own laws appears incoherent, not transcendent.
The Appeal to Humility
It is often said that skepticism about miracles is arrogant: “We
don’t know everything.”
But this argument cuts both ways.
It is arrogant to say miracles definitely happened without decisive proof.
It is arrogant to say miracles definitely never happened without decisive proof.
It is also arrogant to claim no one knows, unless one knows that for certain.
We must choose the least arrogant position. That position is withholding belief, because miracles are, by definition, unprovable. No event can be conclusively shown not to be a mistake, deception, coincidence, or unknown natural phenomenon.
Inconsistency Among Believers
If humility requires openness to miracles, why do religious institutions selectively reject them?
For example, Roman Catholic authorities dismiss fortune-telling, mediumship, alien abductions, and miracle claims from rival religions—sometimes calling them frauds, delusions, or demonic fabrications. Yet they insist Catholic miracle claims deserve belief.
This reveals a double standard:
Skepticism is praised when applied to others.
Skepticism is condemned when applied inwardly.
If it is arrogant to deny miracles, it is equally arrogant to affirm only the miracles that support one’s own theology.
Strange Events vs. Miracles
An unexplained event—such as a bleeding wafer—does not automatically count as a miracle. For it to be a miracle, God must be shown to be the cause. That cannot be established. Therefore, even witnessing a strange event does not justify belief in a miracle.
Misunderstanding Natural Laws
Some claim that ordinary actions—like throwing a ball—are miracles because they “defy gravity.” This is false. The ball moves because of gravity, not in spite of it. Gravity enables motion; it does not prohibit it.
Calling normal physical interactions “miracles” empties the concept of meaning.
Free Will and Selective Miracles
Believers often say God allows suffering because he respects free will. But this explanation collapses if God performs selective miracles—curing one person while leaving countless others to suffer.
Why heal one and not all?
Why appear at Lourdes and not everywhere?
Why temporary relief instead of permanent happiness?
Selective miracles are morally worse than no miracles at all. A being who intervenes arbitrarily would be unjust, not benevolent.
Finite Miracle-Workers and Eternity
If a finite being could perform miracles by entering eternity—where no change occurs—then it could act without losing power. This would grant it effectively infinite power. The distinction between finite and infinite collapses.
Thus, either:
Miracle-working beings do not exist, or
Any being capable of miracles would be indistinguishable from God
Either way, the concept is incoherent.
Miracles and the Problem of God
Miracles depend on God. If God does not exist, miracles do not occur.
God’s existence is undermined by unnecessary suffering and the incoherence of free will. Therefore, miracles—defined as divine acts—are already ruled out.
Hume and Rational Belief
David Hume argued that belief in miracles is irrational, even if miracles are logically possible. Rational belief depends on evidence, and the evidence overwhelmingly supports the regularity of natural laws.
He noted:
People lie or are mistaken
Humans enjoy sensational stories
Every religion claims miracles, and they cancel each other out
Even if laws of nature were found to be less rigid than once thought, this would not help miracle claims. Such events would simply become natural phenomena, not miracles.
Miracles never occur under controlled conditions. They never submit to testing. Hume’s position remains intact.
The Real Issue: Evidence
Skeptics are often accused of saying miracles are impossible. This is false. The actual claim is simpler:
Miracles may be logically possible, but we have no good reason to believe any have occurred.
This is not dogmatism. It is intellectual responsibility.
Conclusion
Miracles, defined as divine acts that transcend nature, are
impossible if God does not exist—and incoherent if he does.
Miracles defined as unexplained events provide no justification for
belief.
Reliance on miracles has led religious institutions to:
Special pleading
Selective skepticism
Misrepresentation of evidence
Calling miracles “acts of God” is not pious—it is intellectually reckless. Belief in miracles is not a mark of humility, but a refusal to apply consistent standards of reason. It is not a believer's own business for others are drawn in. Nobody supports a miracle alone.
Further Reading ~
A Christian Faith for Today, W Montgomery Watt, Routledge, London, 2002
Answers to Tough Questions, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press,
Bucks, 1980
Apparitions, Healings and Weeping Madonnas, Lisa J Schwebel, Paulist Press, New
York, 2004
A Summary of Christian Doctrine, Louis Berkhof, The Banner of Truth Trust,
London, 1971
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Veritas, Dublin, 1995
Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, San Francisco,
1988
Enchiridion Symbolorum Et Definitionum, Heinrich Joseph Denzinger, Edited by A
Schonmetzer, Barcelona, 1963
Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993
Miracles, Rev Ronald A Knox, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1937
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969
Lourdes, Antonio Bernardo, A. Doucet Publications, Lourdes, 1987
Medjugorje, David Baldwin, Catholic Truth Society, London, 2002
Miraculous Divine Healing, Connie W Adams, Guardian of Truth Publications, KY,
undated
New Catholic Encyclopaedia, The Catholic University of America and the
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc, Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
OCR Philosophy of Religion for AS and A2, Matthew Taylor, Editor Jon Mayled,
Routledge, Oxon, New York, 2007
Raised From the Dead, Father Albert J Hebert SM, TAN, Illinois 1986
Science and the Paranormal, Edited by George O Abell and Barry Singer, Junction
Books, London, 1981
The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Headline, London, 1997
The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996
The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000
The Encyclopaedia of Unbelief Volume 1, Gordon Stein, Editor, Prometheus Books,
New York, 1985
The Hidden Power, Brian Inglis, Jonathan Cape, London, 1986
The Sceptical Occultist, Terry White, Century, London, 1994
The Stigmata and Modern Science, Rev Charles Carty, TAN, Illinois, 1974
Twenty Questions About Medjugorje, Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D. Pangaeus Press,
Dallas, 1999
Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer, Freeman, New York, 1997
THE WEB
The Problem of Competing Claims by Richard Carrier
www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/indef/4c.html