In our day and age, it has often been asserted that we need miracles to show evidence of God. What happened 2,000 years ago is not enough. Now I will not point to modern miracles as those have more than enough skepticism, but the age has nothing to do with miracles. A man who will not believe miracles today would not believe them 2,000 years ago either.
However, I have pondered that what if we are missing the boat entirely? What if we are forgetting that the miracle is the natural system itself. The atheist prides himself in speaking about all that the natural system can do. Very well. Can he explain though what brought about the natural system?
It sadly seems to say that something has been brought about through naturalistic processes does not increase our wonder but often only kills it. This does not prove naturalism false of course, but the atheist does often ask about why God doesn’t seem to do miracles for him today. (I am one who claims I haven’t ever seen or experienced a miracle of the biblical type where God directly intervenes in the laws of nature that I can point to without doubt. I believe they happened in Scripture, but I have not had personal experience of them.)
It seems to me that we are like the story of the follower of the Christian Science movement who woke up in Hell along with some others and when asked what he thought about being in the fire for all eternity simply answered with, “It is not hot. I am not here.” He is thus denying the reality that he is in.
We are like people in the fairy-tale who are saying that no magic is happening around us. We are like people in the Star Trek series who are saying that there is nothing worthwhile to explore out there. We are denying the reality of the world we are in all the while asking for some example of that reality.
Yet look at so many simple things and see if they can be explained in naturalism that we all seem to believe in. Can we explain beauty in naturalism? How about morality? Has anyone really succeeded in morality apart from God? How about the existence of love? Dare I say it, how about thinking itself, for if all thinking is the result of naturalistic processes, then so is that thought.
And what of we Christians who do believe this? Are we going to wake up? Are we going to realize that naturalism has put a spell on us so that we deny the reality we are in? Are we going to come out and realize the joy and beauty of life that fills each and every day and realize that we should celebrate it.
We are Christians. We are not naturalists. We live in a Christian world and not a naturalistic one. Let’s live accordingly.
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