Miracles, Evolution, and Faith

The debate between scientific and religious communities on the function of the natural world is ultimately not a disagreement on biological processes.  It is a disagreement on worldview.  It is a debate between those who believe in a Designer and those who purport philosophical naturalism -- that is, the belief that everything has a natural (as opposed to super-natural) cause and organic life is solely the product of random forces.  Even non-religious scientists recognize the problems inherent to this view.  Furthermore, faith does not deny scientific reason, nor does it completely deny evolutionary theory.  However, it does deny a worldview that says, in sum, "None of this matters because it is all the result of chance."

I've written previously about faith as a worldview and the legitimacy of traditional, conservative beliefs.  I also intend to write a more extensive post on the topic of scientific reasoning.  For now, however, I wanted to briefly share something that I found immensely encouraging.

For those who wrestle with this debate, for those who have doubts about Jesus, or for those who have difficulty rationalizing scientific reasoning with the miracles of the Bible, the following passage from Timothy Keller's The Reason for God is a wise and precious analysis of God's operation in the natural world.

In Matthew 28, we are told that the apostles met the risen Jesus on a mountainside in Galilee.  "When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted" (verse 17).  That is a remarkable admission.  Here is the author of an early Christian document telling us that some of the founders of Christianity couldn't believe the miracle of the resurrection, even when they were looking straight at him with their eyes and touching him with their hands.  There is no other reason for this to be in the account unless it really happened.

This passage shows us several things.  It is a warning not to think that only we modern, scientific people have to struggle with the idea of the miraculous, while ancient, more primitive people did not.  The apostles responded like any group of modern people -- some believed their eyes and some didn't.  It is also an encouragement to patience.  All the apostles ended up as great leaders in the church, but some had a lot more trouble believing than others.

The most instructive thing about this text is, however, what it says about the purpose of Biblical miracles.  [They are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts.] They lead not simply to cognitive belief, but to worship, to awe and wonder.  Jesus' miracles in particular were never magic tricks, designed only to impress and coerce.  You never see him say something like: "See that tree over there?  Watch me make it burst into flames!"  Instead, he used miraculous power to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and raise the dead.  Why?  We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order.  The Bible tells us that God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger, and death in it.  Jesus has come to redeem where it is wrong and heal the world where it is broken.  His miracles are not just proof that he has power, but are also wonderful foretastes of what he is going to do with that power.

Jesus' miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts -- a promise that the world we all want is coming.

Come, Lord Jesus.