This week we’ll finish discussing objections to Miracles:

We’re using the “Handbook of Apologetics” by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli to go over the arguments for the existence of God.  Today, we will be covering the above question in relation to God.  Dr. Kreeft teaches logic in two major universities, so his arguments tend to be clear, concise and very helpful.

How can we ever know that it is God and not a mere god (or even demon) who is responsible for this or that striking intervention in the natural order of things?

Reply: Here again context is crucially important. When we consider, for example, the extraordinary deeds attributed to Jesus, and the special relationship he claimed to have with “the Father” (i.e., God), it is difficult to avoid one of three conclusions. Either Jesus was a sincere lunatic, or a demonic fraud, or he really was the Son of God—and his extraordinary deeds were in the fullest sense miracles. This triple possibility arises not merely from the deeds considered by themselves; it arises primarily from the life, character and message of the one who performed them.

And so, in the following chapters we will ask you to consider carefully and honestly the character of Christ, as well as the character of the testimony left behind about him. We will try, on the basis of the evidence, to make a case for the miracle of the Incarnation (that, in Jesus, the divine Word became flesh; cf. chap. 7), and the resurrection (that three days after his crucifixion Jesus really did rise from the dead; cf. chap. 8).

Kreeft, P., & Tacelli, R. K. (1994). Handbook of Christian apologetics: hundreds of answers to crucial questions (p. 114). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.