Observations on life; particularly spiritual

Are miracles scientific?

Can the Bible’s miracles be explained away by science? Many people who refuse to believe in God think they can explain away His existence and miracles using scientific explanations.

This post comes from a children’s book by Hughes and Cosner (2018).

What is a miracle?

A miracle is an unusual event from God that He uses to tell us about Himself. Examples from the Bible include healings, raising from the dead, and displays of power over nature. This is different from God’s providential care over creation, which can be described scientifically (Col. 1:15-17; Heb. 1:3). For instance, the laws of physics partially describe how God is upholding creation in an orderly way (1 Cor. 14:33).

Why does God do miracles?

Miracles can have several different reasons. They can deliver people, such as God parting the Red Sea (Ex. 4:1-9; Dt. 6:22). And they can judge people. Like when Elijah asked God not to send any rain to Israel for three years. One of the main purposes for miracles is to prove that a person was God’s chosen messenger. When God did miracles through Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and Jesus, that meant that God was really with those men (Mt. 11:4-5; Acts 2:22-23; 17:31).

Do miracles make people believe in God?

Sometimes, but not always (Ex. 7:8-13). The Pharisees and Jewish leaders saw many of Jesus’ miracles, but they hated Him and refused to believe in Him (Jn. 12:37). Jesus taught that even someone being raised from the dead would not be enough to make people believe in God (Lk. 16:31; Lk.24:1-12). The Bible teaches, rather, that the Gospel – the good news about Jesus’ death for our sins and His resurrection on the third day is what people need to be saved, not miracles. But sometimes miracles in Scripture helped people believe in God (Acts 9:35, 42).

Some people say that because we can’t test miracles, they can’t be real. Are they right?

People who say that assume that God either isn’t real, or that He can’t do miracles. Everyone agrees that miracles don’t normally happen – that’s why they’re called miracles! But we have lots of trustworthy accounts of miracles in Scripture, and we should trust them because that are God’s Word (Lk. 1:1-4; Jn. 21:25; 1 Cor. 15:3-8). There are lots of historical accounts about other things, such as ancient kings and battles, that we trust on a lot less evidence. Also some of the same people that say we can’t trust miracles because we can’t test them believe in evolution, which is a claim about history that can’t be tested either.

But if I’ve never seen a miracle, should I believe that God did them according to the Bible?

We believe in all sorts of things we’ve never seen – if a source is reliable, we tend to trust it. In fact, we have to trust sources for what they say about most of history before we were born! The Bible is God’s Word, so we should believe it (Gen. 6:11-22; Jn. 20:24-31).

Can science explain the Bible’s miracles?

Science can’t test the Bible’s miracles, because miracles are by definition unusual events that scientific laws can’t describe (Ex. 16:4-7). We cannot re-create a miracle to test it. So the best way to determine whether a miracle is true or not is to see whether the source is a reliable one (Lk. 1:5; 3:1-2). The Bible was inspired by God, so it’s completely true, so we can thrust it when it tells us about miracles.

Did people in the Bible believe in miracles just because they didn’t have science?

That’s like saying that people weren’t as smart in ancient times because they didn’t know as much as we do. But ancient people were smart enough to build pyramids and other huge monuments using very precise mathematics. They also knew about astronomy and other facts about the natural world. They knew that miracles were unusual, that’s why they could be special signs from God (Jn. 11:28-44). If people thought that the Red Sea parted every time the wind blew a certain way, it wouldn’t be a special sign of deliverance for Israel like it was (Ex. 14:21-31).

Do scientists really disbelieve in all miracles?

A funny thing is that both Christians and atheists have to believe in miraculous things at the beginning of time. Both Christians and atheists believe there had to be something to cause everything at the beginning of time. Christians believe God was the cause (Gen. 1:1), but atheists must appeal to something outside the laws of science, because something had to cause the laws of science! So both Christians and non-Christians have to appeal to things that science can’t explain.


Science can’t explain miracles. But scientists depend on miracles to explain how we got here!

Science doesn’t invalidate miracles and miracles don’t invalidate science. So we can believe in both operational science and in the miracles reported in the Bible.


Hughes E and Cosner L (2018), Creation answers for kids, Creation Book Publishers, p.34-37.

Posted, August 2019

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