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In Defense of Miracles: A Comprehensive Case for God's Action in History

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Aptly named "A Comprehensive Case," this book builds from the foundational issues and works its way up to the crowning miracle of Christendom -- the resurrection of Jesus. However, if you are looking for explorations of modern miracles or similar evidence, this is not the book you want.

It is to the editors credit that their first chapter is given to two who deny the possibility of miracles (and/or their detection). Taking David Hume's infamous chapter, "On Miracles," as the opening salvo, In Defense adequately sets the stage for the debate. Hume's arguments continue today in full force. They have by no means lost their influence. But lest you think these Christian apologists are setting up an outdated strawman, another section is given to contemporary atheist philosopher Anthony Flew to voice his comments on Hume as well as miracles.

With the opposition in place, four Christian writers begin making the philosophical case for the possibility that miracles exist and can be detected. A section on defining miracles is a welcome narrowing of the issue. Then Norman Geisler persuasively takes Hume and Flew head on and Francis Beckwith wrestles with the possibility of detecting miracles in history. The closing chapter in this section deals with "Recognizing a Miracle" and is also helpful in narrowing the issue.

The next set of chapters provides additional philosophical justification for believing in the possibility of miracles as well as their detection, including an aggressive assault on metaphysical naturalism by Ronald Nash and a brief argument for the existence of God. The main goal of this chapter is to establish the existence of a God who can and is inclined to act in human history. In other words, a God who does miracles. Overall this section succeeds in establishing its arguments and provides one more link in the chain of argument.

The final section rests on the shoulders of the previous chapters. Given that philosophical objections to the possibility and detection of miracles are not sound, and that there likely is a God who can and is inclined to intervene, we now get the arguments that God has done just that. Which makes it somewhat odd that this chapter leads off with an argument about "Miracles in the World Religions." This chapter is more effective in showing that Hume's argument about competing miracle traditions in various religions is not necessarily a valid objection than it is in exploring the competition in detail. It probably belonged with the other chapters focusing on philosophy. Then follows a chapter on fulfilled prophecy that provides an interesting discussion, but is too short to convince fence sitters. After that, a chapter argues that the incarnation of Christ is not logically incoherent. Interesting, but not something that most of us have spent much time contemplating.

By far the best case-specific arguments for miracles in the book are William L. Craig's chapter on the empty tomb and Gary Habermas' chapter on the resurrection appearances of Jesus. Craig, used to having the whole argument to himself, adjusts well to tackling only the empty tomb. He takes Crossan to task for his ill considered insistence that no crucifixion victim would have been buried at all (an argument disproved by the archeological find of the body of a crucified first century man in a family burial chamber near Jerusalem). Habermas, who I have had less exposure to, does a good job discussing the resurrection appearances of Jesus by focusing on the earliest reports referenced in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. The book then ends with a conclusion wrapping up the case for "God's Action in History."

Overall, this book delivers what it promises -- a comprehensive defense of miracles. Of course, any single chapter could itself be a book (and in fact, many chapters are books by the very same authors). But this book clearly sets the stage, offers solid discussions of the underlying philosophy, and delivers some good arguments for believing that God has indeed acted in human history.

A number of the best Evangelical philosophers have worked together to produce a fine series of essays on the philosophical issues of miracles. Undoubtedly the strongest feature of this book is that the reader will walk away knowing the most important issues that are in play in a philosophical analysis of miracles. Despite the fact that each author writes an essay on each issue, I found that most of them only begin to scratch the surface. For example, one essay is a defense of the existence of God and another is a refutation of naturalism, both of which by the limits of lengths of the essays will be unconvincing to those who are not already convinced the author is correct. Many of the other essays (though, not all of them) have this exact same problem. Of course, this does not mean these chapters of worthless. Rather, they merely are the initial framing of arguments and ideas that deserve further exploration and study. After getting a basic grip of the issues, readers can pursue further details in more depth in academic journals or book-length works. Be that as it is, this book is commendable for containing so much information in so little space. I know of no other book that covers so much ground in specifying what the basic philosophical issues are on miracles. Some of the work is a little too quick, but even when the articles have weak arguments, I think they lay out the crucial issues for the topic. So, as a basic introduction to the philosophical problems of miracles, this is a great book. But as a convincing case that some miracles have occurred, I suspect some people may rightfully judge that some of the arguments are specious.

This is the finest presentation about the reality and possibility of miracles I have ever read. By miracles I do not mean your favorite football team pulling out a victory by a last second pass, or a near miss accident, or a remarkably quick healing of an illness. A real miracle is a violation or suspension of the natural laws of science. Some liberal theologians believe that God would be wrong to do this. Most agnostics and atheists as well as modernists do not believe in miracles at all. The miracles done by Jesus, as documented in the New Testament are often explained away by people with small faith and anti-supernatural agendas. For the rest of the review please visit it at CriticalReviews.com, an AMAZON Associate...

This is a well-composed defense of miracles which makes arguments that need to be addressed. However, it suffers from three major faults: with the exception of the long-dead Hume, who could not benefit from the advances in historical method of the past two centuries, none of the contributors are historians. Considering how crucial historical method is to the issue, the complete absence of contributions by experienced historians leaves much to be criticized. As a result, the Christians fail to adequately account for the historical context within which ancient Christian literature was written. Related to this is a lack of serious contact with scientific literature relating to hallucination and other relevant aspects of human psychology. Last but not least, at no point are actual miracle-accounts from the modern and middle ages ever addressed in any detail. Since this is what I expected the book to cover, I was disappointed to find it lacking. Nevertheless, the book contains a virtual treasure of bibliographical notes. Although this device is used by the authors to cite each other's works ad nausium, even this makes the book an essential reference, even for secularists. This is the very best that contemporary Christian apologetics can offer, and it martials the works and arguments of all the leading Christian scholars today. I will soon compose a more comprehensive critical review online, a link to which will be found on the Secular Web.

The co-editors of "In Defense of Miracles" have brought together a team of relevant scholars to argue for the actuality of miracles and the historicity of God's work in the world as reported in the Bible. Not only do the authors set forth their case, but have also allowed for two well known critics of miracles, David Hume, and Anthony Flew, to state their case. This book will engage the reader in a critical review of the facts and assist one in having greater epistemic justification for their beliefs concerning miracles and their relevance in this world.

This book was written as a way to refute David Hume's famous essay "On Miracles." Hume's essay captivated Western minds since the Enlightenment and seemed to offer an air-tight case against the possibility or probability of miracles. This book takes piece after piece of Hume's argument(s) apart and shows he did not put a lid on miracles after all. Written by some of the best Christian Philosophers of our time, it largely avoids circular logic (i.e. The Bible says it is God's Word so the Bible is God's Word) but put a hammer blow to Hume's argument all the same.

One of the best apologetic books I have read. I will buy another copy just to keep on my shelf so I can loan another out. This deals with one of the major stumbling blocks in our society today. By loaning it out one can open agnostic minds to the claims of Scripture and have the tools to engage them in productive conversations that reach beyond the walls of Scientism and Naturalism. It can also be of aid to your own faith if you are defending it in a University.

Hard to go wrong in a book with contributions by the ones in this book. There are a couple of contributions by skeptics (Hume and Flew). However, the majority of the contributors are theistic. An outstanding book if you want a single volume on the subject, or for the skeptic who wants an introductory explanation of what Christian philosophers believe.

Perhaps no single facet of the Christian faith causes more eyebrows to be raised by unbelievers than the subject of miracles. Unlike other religious traditions that might include miraculous feats that are not central to their beliefs, in Christianity (as in the religion of the Hebrews before them), miracles are front and center. In fact, without the miracles such as the Virgin Birth, Resurrection, and Ascension, we would be right in claiming Christianity would have no purpose.

The common arguments against the possibility of miracles are presented along with Christian responses in the book In Defense of Miracles. Editors R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas have compiled some of the best apologists in the Evangelical fold to respond to the challenge. The skeptical position is given in its classical form by David Hume and a more modern version by Anthony Flew. The remainder of the book consists of the responses to these challenges in three sections covering the possibility of miracles, miracles within theism, and specific miracles central to Christianity.

The quality and style of the responses will of course vary in any such collection but overall the responses point out the weaknesses of the position that allows no possibility for miracles a priori. Two whose writings appear have since changed their views to some degree: Anthony Flew now believes in the existence of a Supreme Being and Francis J. Beckwith has since joined the Catholic Church. Beckwith's change has no bearing on his belief in miracles and the arguments Flew offered are still echoed frequently among skeptics.

Overall, In Defense of Miracles provides a good overview of the issues and Christian responses to attacks on the miracles of the Christian Faith. It makes a solid reference for Christians seeking to respond to challenges on the matter of miracles by unbelievers.

Dr. Gary Habermas received his PhD from the University of Michigan with a speciality in the philosophy of history. Dr. Habermas is very devoted to historical methodology. He has shown this in class (being a student in his philosophy seminar entitled 'The Philosophy of History and the Historical Jesus'). In class Dr. Habermas spent several weeks on historical methodology, and his book on the historical evidence for Christ has an entire appendix on historical methodology.

The authors commit a very serious fallacy in this book: they assume their own conclusion. They start out by believing that there must be miracles, pick out certain historic events as representative "miracles", and then go on to explain why they must have been miraculous. This is a waste of time with which no serious and rational person should bother.