Are miracles really possible?
I’m not talking about how some describe a baby being born as “the miracle of life.” I’m talking about biblical reports of Jesus walking on water, healing the blind, and physically rising from the dead. Atheists sometimes say miracles overturn the laws of nature—and that’s not possible. Before considering the evidence, however, many skeptics have already decided that naturalism is true. But what about this? Do miracles—by definition—really overturn the laws of nature?
In the foreword to The God Conversation, Lee Strobel notes how J.P. Moreland responded to this challenge with a simple defense (p.7):
The laws of nature are the way we describe how the world usually works. If someone drops an apple, it falls to the floor. That’s gravity.
However, if someone were to drop an apple and I were to reach over and grab it before it hit the ground, I wouldn’t be overturning the law of gravity. I would simply be intervening. In a similar way, God is able to reach into the world that he created by performing a miracle. He isn’t contravening or overturning the laws of nature. He’s simply intervening.
Let’s Get Practical
Apologetics doesn’t have to be dry and boring. You can have a lot of fun illustrating this concept with a tennis ball. Drop it from a ladder and let it hit the ground. Do it again, but this time, have a student catch it. You could use a basketball, a stuffed animal, a banana creme pie—OK, maybe not a pie. But you get the idea. Take J.P. Moreland’s defense and increase it’s impact with an actual object lesson!