Let’s define a
miracle as an event that requires action from God because it defies the natural
laws or scientific explanation within His creation. One of the best pieces of
evidence for the truth of Christianity is the sheer number of miracles
experienced in the world. But unbelievers aren’t convinced, largely because
they simply have no experience of miracles, and even when they do, they reject
them as dubious if they think they cannot explain them.
Yet once you start to walk among Christians, you’ll see that there are miracles everywhere. Most Christians you meet have either experienced miracles themselves (and many, multiple miracles) or they know other Christians who’ve experienced them. Even if you just take miraculous healings that defy modern science, most Christians have either experienced some kind of miraculous healing (I have experienced two myself, and witnessed several others) or know other Christians who have. And when you consider that there are over 2 billion Christians in the world, that is a stupendous weight of evidence for the miraculous, with millions, perhaps even billions, of miracles experienced.
Every objection to the above - and they are frequently offered - simply collapses under honest examination. To the “But other religions also claim miracles” objection, I say, these almost never happen, and when they do, we already know that not all supernatural activity is divine. The Bible itself warns that supernatural signs can arise from sources opposed to God (as per Matthew 24:24 and 2 Thessalonians 2:9). Moreover, the scale and frequency of reports among Christians is so much overwhelmingly higher than the false religions, it is like measuring the size of an ocean compared to the size of a few small puddles.
The other objection I hear frequently is “But miracles could all be coincidences or placebo effects” - to which I say, most of these miracles go far beyond what placebos or coincidences could explain, especially when you factor in the timing of prayer and the miraculous results thereafter. I’ve seen before my eyes blind people given their sight back, deformed limbs regenerate, a lady confined to a wheelchair standing up and walking - and I’ve experienced two miraculous healings in my own body too. These are not coincidences or placebos.
Some people merely brush all this off with the cliched “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” But this is exactly what most Christians have experienced; we are offering extraordinary testimony of extraordinary events.
Finally, many sceptics protest with the classic “If miracles are real, why doesn’t God heal everyone?” - to which I say, He has all sorts of complex reasons that we cannot possibly understand. But, even given that God is selective in His outward demonstrations of the miraculous, it still doesn’t undermine the abundant stacks of evidence when the miraculous does occur, just as rare diamonds don’t cease to exist simply because they are not found in every handful of sand.
No, the upshot is, there is an abundant existence of miracles in the world from Christian experience and testimony, and the existence of those miracles is one of the strongest arguments there is for the truth of Christianity. In fact, it strikes me as strange that Christians don’t present the argument for miracles as one of their primary apologetics, as there are not many stronger arguments for Christianity within the domain of everyday, accessible, lived experience.
