Phil Cook

According to a recent Pew Research study, about 35 percent of our population will say, yes, miracles occur today; I’ve experienced them and rely on them and hope to see more. Most physicians (59%) pray for the health of individual patients and say that they have seen miraculous interventions.

The middle 45% sort of believe that miracles are possible but seem somewhat apathetic.

Then there is the stubborn type who will not just resist the idea because it is anti-science, brushing it off as simple-minded wishful thinking for the gullible, they also tend to mock anyone who does believe that miracles once happened or even still happen today.

Let’s talk about this third group. These make up just 20 percent of our population but have very loud voices.

What is a miracle?

Richard Purtill, a professor at Western Washington University, said, “A miracle is an event brought about by the power of God that is a temporary exception to the ordinary course of nature for the purpose of showing that God has acted in history.”

The modern skeptic holds to Scottish enlightenment philosopher David Hume’s comment from 1748 about science disproving anything miraculous. He claimed that miracles are a violation of natural law and natural laws are unalterably uniform. Therefore, in a great feat of circular reasoning, we must assume that miracles have never happened.

The modern insistence (crutch?) on holding unalterably to the scientific method gives acceptance to a hypothesis only after it is tested credible and repeatable. As a test of truth claims, however, many find this inadequate and prejudiced. God is not on a leash, performing on cue at the whim of a skeptic.

Dr. Candy Gunther Brown was accepted into Harvard University and graduated with top honors. She then stayed at Harvard for her Masters degree and PhD and is currently a professor at a major secular university. She knows how to do rigorous academic research.

Intrigued by claims of the miraculous, she decided to do empirical research to better understand what is happening.

She first had to set up the parameters for investigating claims of supernatural physical healing. “The most rigorous criteria for a miracle would be that it is a condition that is organic. It’s not just functional. The diagnosis is unquestionable, the prognosis is incurable, the recovery is instantaneous, complete and permanent. And there’s no possible medical or natural explanation.”

She led a study that went to Mozambique where Iris Ministries was reporting countless miraculous events as they served the needy, orphans, and the poorest of the poor. They invited the deaf and blind.

The researchers did preliminary tests to determine the current state of eyesight and hearing of individuals before they received PIP (Proximal Intercessory Prayer). Then the researchers tested them after. The results were astounding.

Virtually all had improvements; the average improvement in visual acuity was tenfold.

One woman couldn’t see fingers held up a foot in front of her face. And after about five minutes of prayer, she had a huge smile on her face. And in her own language, she said, “before I couldn’t see, but now I see everything.”

Another was so deaf she couldn’t hear a jackhammer. “After a 10-minute prayer in the name of Jesus, she could hear normal conversations,” said Brown.

To see if they could replicate the study, they went to Brazil where a group called Global Awakening was working. They encountered the same results!

Her conclusion: “I think that there actually is an abundance of evidence that there are healings that take place today all over the world, including in the United States, that the most reasonable plausible explanation is that God answered prayer.”

Findings like these are published in many peer-reviewed academic journals and in Brown’s book, “Testing Prayer,” published by Harvard University Press.

So how does the skeptic internet atheist react to this? If it is true, Why don’t you go empty out all the hospitals?

Dr. Frank Turek responds to this with, “I understand psychologically why it’s hard to believe in miracles, especially when you’re taught materialism. Miracles, by definition, have to be rare if they’re going to get our attention. The only way to recognize a miracle as a special act of God is against the backdrop of natural laws which do the same thing over and over again. If miracles happened all the time, they wouldn’t be miracles.”

God’s plan is to restore loving relationships with people. We won’t have a meaningful relationship with a vending machine that obeys every time we plug in a nickel.

The gospels discuss how Jesus healed all who came to Him. They came to Him. But in His hometown, He didn’t do many miracles; for whatever reason, they didn’t come to Him.

“And He was amazed at their unbelief,” (Mark 6:6).