Can Miracles Be Proved?
The importance of the question heading this article is seen in the vital role assigned to miracles in the divine revelation. Our concern here is with evidential miracles, i.e., miracles as signs of divine endorsement. God identified Jesus as his Son by miracles — "Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, even as ye yourselves know. . . ." (Acts 2:22). Jesus the son of God endorsed the apostles as his ambassadors and the preachers of the Word of the first century as being sent from God by signs — "And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. So then the Lord Jesus after he had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen." (Mark 16:17-20) Numerous other passages could be cited, which claim evidential miracles as proof of the deity of Jesus and the divine authority of the Word spoken by Jesus in person and through those selected by him to preach the Word in all the world.
Hardened unbelievers in rejecting Jesus, attempted to neutralize the force of the evidence of miracles by assigning the miracles to a diabolic source — by the power of Beelzebub, Matt. 12:24; Acts 2:13. Those who assigned the miracles to the devil were so far gone that no appeal could reach them — they had cut off communication with God by closing their eyes, stopping their ears and making hard their hearts.
Others demanded a sign of such character that none could resist. When they said, "We would see a sign from thee" (Matt. 12:38; 16:1) they were demanding a sort of direct operation. They had seen the signs performed by Jesus, yet in the fact of these miracles, they demand a sign. In this they were calling for something that would over-ride the human will and force them to believe. Of these Jesus said, "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign" — (the sort of sign they were demanding) — "and no sign" (such as that) "shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet." The climactic sign given by God was the resurrection of the Son of man after, "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." This was as close to what they were demanding as God in his justice and mercy could allow. If the miracle of the resurrection be rejected, then any thing which would gain acceptance of Jesus as the Son of God would have to be an arbitrary over-riding of the human will by the divine will. This would be to deprive man of will — he would be a creature without reason.
But the problem of all "who have not seen" is, how can the fact of the miracles of our Lord and his apostles be proved? The answer, of course, is by the testimony of the apostles — men who witnessed them. But in the first half of the eighteenth century, with David Hume as its original champion, "the principle that no conceivable amount of testimony can prove a miracle," was advanced and eagerly accepted as a ready-made weapon by those "whose convenience made them unbelievers." Hume's argument was effectively dealt with by M'Ilvaine in his day. M'Ilvaine's review is as up to date as is Hume's argument. Atheist and various levels of skepticism still rely on Hume so I recommend that the Christian today familiarize himself with M'Ilvaine's review.
This review is printed in a tract. Although condensed, it has all M'Ilvaine's arguments. I would like to recommend this tract especially to college students who are faced with Hume's old oft refuted assertions. This tract may be ordered from The Gospel Guardian Company.