Miracles and Scholarly Skepticism

What follows is the last portion of a chapter on miracles and the gospels.

I've said that if you're a theist, then you can entertain the possibility that the gospels accurately portray the miracles of Jesus as they really happened. But if you're not a theist, if you don’t believe that there is a God who is active in human affairs and who can, as he wishes, do things contrary to the usual process of nature, then you have an insurmountable problem with the gospels. Sure, you can account for some of Jesus's so-called miracles by pointing to psychosomatic influence. But, at the end of the day, you're stuck with gospels that narrate events which you don't believe could have happened.

I'm not offended by the scholar who says, "I don't believe in God, and therefore I don't believe in the possibility of miracles, and therefore I don’t believe the gospel accounts are true." In good Humean fashion, this scholar has chosen to believe that something else must account for the miracle stories in the gospels other than the possibility that Jesus actually did such wonders. Of course I disagree with this scholar's presuppositions and conclusions. But I respect them as reasonable and forthright, given an atheistic presupposition.

I'm much less happy with scholars who don't acknowledge the impact of their functional atheism on their scholarship. They may be agnostics in theory, but they do scholarship with the assumption that God isn't miraculously involved in human affairs. During the last thirty years I've spent hundreds of hours reading scholarly works on Jesus that assume the gospels are full of pious fictions. Yet few authors admit openly that their bias against the trustworthiness of the gospels is fundamentally based on their faith that miracles don't happen, and therefore the gospels must be substantially fictional.

Many of these functionally atheistic scholars aren't intending to be deceptive. They operate in an academic culture where such atheism is simply assumed. It doesn't need to be debated or defended. So, for example, when many scholars evaluate the passages in the gospels where Jesus predicts his death, they naturally and without argument assume that these predictions reflect the creative work of the early church. Why? Because prophecy is out of the picture. It doesn't happen, or if it does, it doesn't belong in historical scholarship.

My plea isn't for all New Testament scholars to become theists, though I wouldn't mind if this were to happen, of course. Rather, I'd simply ask for more honesty and self-awareness on the part of all scholars. If you accept the possibility of miracles and therefore see the gospels as historically accurate, fess up. If you deny the possibility of miracles, and therefore necessarily deny on the basis of your a priori assumption that the gospel accounts could be truthful, say so. Let's all confess our faith more openly.

Readers of biblical scholarship, whether the academic or the popular variety, must be keenly aware of the philosophical presuppositions of the scholars. If a scholar approaches the gospels from a non-theistic perspective, then you will know in advance much of what that person will assume about the gospels. You can expect a high level of skepticism because that's what's demanded when the scholar's worldview confronts the data of the gospels.

I'm convinced that the presence of miracle stories do not undermine the historical reliability of the gospels for one who is a theist. If you are an atheist, either philosophical or functional, then the miracles in the gospels do in fact discount the possibility that these writings are historically reliable. Yes, you might find historical reminiscences among the supernatural legends. But your philosophical presuppositions require that many of the gospel stories, including the all-important resurrection narratives, are pious fiction or mythologized theology, nothing more.