No amount of evidence for miracles will convince the modern Sadducee: Part 1

By Bishop Dave Chikosi 

The Sadducees were members of a small Jewish priestly sect active during the time of Jesus. In their religious belief system, they denied the existence of spirits, the resurrection of the dead, and the immortality of the soul.

“For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor an angel, nor a spirit” (Acts 23:8). They were the anti-supernatural liberals of their day. This is why they were “sad-u-see.”

The Pharisees’ anti-supernatural bias comes out most vividly in the story of the healing of the cripple at the Gate of the Temple. Because this crippled man sat daily at the entrance to the Temple, he would have been well-known to everyone in that worshipping community.

And so when Peter and John get the cripple miraculously healed, the Sadducees were in theological sixes and sevens. “And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it” (Acts 4:14). This miracle shut them up.

It’s one thing to read or hear about a miracle report. It’s quite another to see the miracle standing right there in front of you like this man was. You would think at this point that the most logical step for the Sadducees to take would be to admit they were wrong in their anti-supernatural bias, repent of it and join the Church. Right? Wrong!

Physical evidence notwithstanding, the Sadducees continue clinging desperately to their religious prejudice. “What should we do with these men?” they asked each other. “We can’t deny that they have performed a miraculous sign, and everybody in Jerusalem knows about it. But to keep them from spreading their propaganda any further, we must warn them not to speak to anyone in Jesus’ name again.” (Acts 4:16-17). 

Folks, such is the obstinate nature of spiritual prejudice. Don’t believe that “seeing is believing” business. That old adage is simply not true in many cases. Seeing is not always believing. The Sadducees, by their own admission, could not deny that a miracle had taken place. But their prejudice was too deeply ingrained to allow them to believe what they were seeing with their very own eyes.

The same is true for the modern day Sadducee. Churches can garner or marshal as much physical evidence for miracles as they want, but don’t expect the Sadducean skeptic to buy it. He/she may loudly proclaim that all he/she needs in order to believe in miracles is to see one with their own two eyes. That, my friends, is a myth. The skeptic wouldn’t recognize a miracle if it slaps them in the face, much less acknowledge the possibility or probability of the occurrence of one.

But none of this neo-Sadduceeism, (even within the ranks of the church), should come as a surprise. The groundwork for modern arguments against miracles was laid in the 17^th and 18^th century by two prominent philosophers: Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) and David Hume (1711-1776).

Spinoza, a Jewish critic of Christianity, objected to miracles based on the following logic:

• Miracles are violations of natural laws
• Natural laws are immutable (or unchangeable)
• It is impossible to violate immutable laws
• Therefore, miracles are impossible

Spinoza believed that nature necessarily operates in a uniform manner. Therefore the laws of nature cannot be violated. Since miracles are a violation of the laws of nature, he concluded, they are therefore impossible.

But what Spinoza failed to realize is that natural laws (gravity etc) only describe, not prescribe, what happens. They are descriptive, not prescriptive. They describe regular events, but this does not rule out anomalies. There is nothing to say that because nature has acted regularly one way in the past, it will always act that way, especially when you introduce both the human and the God factor.

Spinoza is easier to debunk than Hume. David Hume, a Scottish skeptic, argued against miracles based on four premises:

• A miracle is a rare, not regular, occurrence
• The evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare
• Wise men gravitate toward things with the most evidence
• Therefore, wise men do not believe in miracles

Unlike Spinoza, Hume did not argue against the possibility of miracles. Instead, he argued against the probability of their occurrence. Miracles, he said, are improbable, not impossible. They are improbable because they are “a violation of the laws of nature.” So since miracles are improbable or unlikely to happen, the wise man is one who will never accept any evidence for a miracle.

The funny thing is that Hume’s second premise (regular vs rare) can be used to dismiss the entirety of his own argument. Hume’s own birth occurred only once (i.e. it was ‘rare’). Should we then doubt that a man named David Hume was never born and therefore never existed?

I think that the Sadducean skeptic today is closer to Hume than Spinoza. Today’s skeptic does not deny the possibility of miracles, only their probability. Most agree that God has the power and ability to cause instant weight loss, replace missing or damaged body parts, place money miraculously in someone’s purse or kick-start a dead home appliance.

While those things can possibly happen, they probably won’t. The skeptic believes that God is just too busy running the universe to bother with fixing your backed-up toilet. In any case how does the unclogging of one person’s bathroom pipes contribute to the salvation of souls in heathen lands? This is a shameful attempt to use God to solve our personal problems, the skeptic would argue.

Well Mr Skeptic, tell me this then: how is the turning of water into wine for a bunch of winebibbers at a wedding party salvific? How many souls do you suppose got saved when those party revelers became full of new wine? And when Jesus indulged Peter’s water-walking fantasy – what exactly had that to do with the salvation of souls in Jerusalem?

The fact is, none of us knows the full import and impact of any one particular miracle that God performs. None of us knows which miracles are salvific and which ones are not. Frankly, that’s none of our business.

God knows what He’s doing, while you, Mr Mere Mortal, often have no clue what you’re doing. So where do you get off trying to tell God what miracle He may or may not do? “Who is able to advise the Spirit of the LORD? Who knows enough to give him advice or teach him” (Isaiah 40:13)?