Miracles Lesson 5

Miracles and Magic Part 1

Wednesday, August 3, 2005

Listen to Lesson Audio:

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Class Notes

The word “miracle” has a broad usage in our culture.

In general, the word is used to describe almost anything that is unusual.

• But not all unusual events are supernatural.
• Thus, it is necessary to be able to distinguish several kinds of events that are sometimes confused with miracles.

Natural Events.

Some natural events are unusual (anomalies) but are still natural events.

• A natural event happens in accord with natural law, even if it does not occur at identical intervals (e.g., meteors falling to earth).
• Natural law is a description of the way God acts regularly in and through creation (Psa. 104:10-14), whereas a miracle is the way God acts on special occasions.
• Thus, both miracles and natural law involve the activity of God.
• The difference is that natural law is the regular, repeatable and predictable way God acts, whereas a miracle is not.
• Natural law describes the gradual activity of God in the world, whereas miracles manifest his immediate actions.
• In this sense, although there is more to it, a miracle is sometimes a speeding up of a natural process.
• For example, water turns into wine naturally (gradually) as the rain goes in the soil, up the vine, and into the grape.
• It was a miracle, however, when Jesus did it immediately (John 2).

All usual events are natural, but not all unusual events are supernatural.

• At one time some classified hurricanes, tornadoes, meteors, earthquakes, and eclipses as miracles because they had no natural explanation for them.
• They were embarrassed when later explanations were found.

How, then, can a miracle be distinguished from an anomaly?

• It is not easy in all cases, because some anomalies are irregular or rare, such as eclipses, earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes, not to mention a tsunami.
• Though irregular, such events are predictable, at least in theory.
• Eclipses are absolutely predictable; hurricanes less so, and tsunamis still less so; however, scientists may increase predictability with increased knowledge.
• Even where predictability is minimal, the basic mechanism of scientific explanation is knowable.
• Miracles are absolutely unpredictable and no mechanism is knowable for a miracles since it involves a direct act of God in the world.
• Supernaturalists should not hold any event to be miraculous unless three criteria are met:
• It must be an irregular event.
• It must be at least presently unpredictable.
• "Divine characteristics must be present. (Miracles have theological, moral, doctrinal, and teleological dimensions. They presuppose the existence of God (theological); they bring glory to God in that they manifest the moral character of God (moral); Biblical miracles are connected directly or indirectly with truth claims (doctrinal); Miracles are never meant to entertain, but are intended to glorify God and to provide evidence for people to believe by accrediting the message of God through God’s messenger (teleological).

Thus we may conclude:

Magic.

By magic we refer not to the occult, but to normal illusions and sleight of hand, or trickery.

• The only things that miracles and magic have in common is that both are unusual.
• Magic is a kind of “wonder.”
• It is amazing to those who do not know the trick.
• Unlike an anomaly, there are known explanations for magical wonders.

Unlike miracles, magic as such is amoral.

• It does not bring glory to God and there are usually no truth claims associated with it.
• If there are supernatural claims they can be exposed by those who know the tricks or by scientific tests to discover the hidden wires or mirrors that create the illusion.

Danny Korem, well known illusionist and investigative reporter, has exposed a number of fraudulent claims to supernatural powers.

• One psychic who claimed mental powers to move an object beneath an overturned fish tank on a table was shown to be breathing on the table, the air moving under the tank and moving the fan wheel inside.
• A former new age warlock, John Anderson, finally disclosed how he did his so-called new age miracles, including fire walking and psychic surgery.

We expect trickery from magicians and even pay them to do it; the tragedy is when religious leaders use trickery to deceive their followers into believing they have miraculous powers.

• Jim Jones of poison cool-ade fame is a case in point. It was reported that people who were supposedly dead and “raised” in his services were Jones’ close associates in elaborate disguise, each one new for the occasion.
• These farces were so carefully contrived that even Jones’ photographers and others of his close associates did not realize that they were faked.
• It was later discovered that Jones’ bus was filled with makeup, wigs, crutches, and fake cancers.
• A number of years ago a faith healer in Houston announced that he was going to raise the dead. A man whose name you might recogize decided to attend. He made certain that he arrived early and got a front row seat. When the “corpse” was rolled out, the brother, thinking that he detected breathing, rushed up and “raised” the “corpse” with a pin. He spent a night in jail for this demonstration of power, but the audience, as well as the “corpse,” got the point (pun intended).
• Magician Andre Kole writes about his experience with a so-called psychic surgeon in the Philippines who supposedly performed incisionless operations.
• To the trained eye of a professional magician, however, it didn’t take long to discover that the doctor used a very clever form of sleight of hand.
• According to Kole, the surgeon performed his operations using some the most clever sleight-of-hand that he had ever seen.
• Investigation revealed that the psychic surgeon had used coagulated animal blood from his refrigerator.
• The removed organs were not human but were from chickens, goats, and cows.
• Under close scrutiny, psychic claims lose most of their luster.
• F.K. Donnelly, then associate professor of history at the University of New Brunswick, reviewed the psychic predictions of psychics in the People’s Almanac (1975), and discovered that "out of the total of 72 predictions, 66 (92%) were dead wrong. Among the favorites in this category were those that China would go to war with the United States (predicted 4 times) and that New York City would soon be under water (predicted 3 times). My favorite inept prognostication comes from the Berkeley Psychic Institute, which predicted a war between Greenland and the Soviet Union over fish. Since nuclear weapons were to be used, this was to be very sensibly fought in Labrador in May 1977.
• For an alleged supernatural power, this is an abysmal record.
• As one observed, when the psychics are right almost anyone could make similar predictions.
• For example, a number of years ago one psychic predicted that the United States and Russia would continue to be world powers.
• The “Amazing Randi” made a living at debunking so-called healers.
• Randi uncovered the technique used by televangelist Peter Popoff to accomplish his apparent supernatural revelations about members of the audience.
• Randi electronically intercepted the radio messages from the preacher’s wife to a receiver in her husband’s ear.
• The information was gathered from conversations with the audience before the meeting and later transmitted during the healing service.
• When asked by a Los Angeles television reported why he employed this method, Popoff replied that he “was told to use this technique by the Holy Spirit.”
• Reports of raising the dead came out of an Indonesian revival reported in 1971.
• Mel Tari tells of people who were “raised from the dead” in his book, A Mighty Wind.
• When George Peters went to Indonesia and carefully sifted through the evidence, he concluded: “I do not doubt that God is able to raise the dead, but I seriously question that He did so in Timor. In fact, I am convinced that it did not happen.”
• Peters interviewed people who were allegedly once dead and others who claimed to have raised the dead; he discovered several things:
• Their word for death may mean unconsciousness, coma, or actual death.
• Death in that culture was believed to be in three stages. In the first stage the soul is still in the body. In the second stage the soul is in the home or community. In the third stage the soul goes to the spirit world in the regions beyond. But not one of the dead persons believed his soul had completely departed to the region beyond.
• Many of the people who claimed to have died could hear people in the room near their body. Others admitted they were not totally dead.
• It seems clear from the evidence that these people were not really physically raised from the dead but were only reawakened from a coma-like state or went from an unconscious to a conscious state.

Thus we may conclude: