About the blog

Does Anybody Read This Blog?

15 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Rarely do I comment on the readership of the blog, but for those of you who are regulars, I thought you might be interested to know what the numbers are.  After all, we’ve been at this for almost four years, and if we’re writing, but nobody is reading, what’s the point?!

There are a few statistics that are worth mentioning.  First, the blog, over the last 6 months, has averaged about 11,000 unique visitors per month.  That means that something like 11,000 different people are visiting the actual blog site each month.

Second, over the last 6 months, there have been an average of 23,000 page views per month.

About 75% of the blog site traffic is referred by search engines, where people type something into Google and they are referred to one of the blog pages.  These people typically read one blog post and then move on.  I am gratified that so many people come to the blog for an answer to a question they have, but what I’m even more interested in are the people who come back over and over again.

There are two metrics I track that I think are better indicators of how many people are loyal to the blog, who read it regularly.  These are the people I can count on to return post after post.

The first metric of this type is the number of people who subscribe to the RSS feed.  This number has been steadily growing year after year and now stands at about 400 subscribers.  If you are one of these 400 people, thank you so much for taking time to read the blog on your RSS reader.

The second metric that tracks loyal readers is the number of email subscribers.  Generally, if you subscribe to something by email, you find it valuable.  After all, it’s hitting your inbox 3 times a week, and you can opt out whenever you want.  The current email subscribers stand at 356.  They are the most loyal group of readers, in my estimation, and that is why I encourage anyone who regularly reads the blog to subscribe by email.  You are the group who is the most encouraging to me.

The blog also has hundreds of readers from Facebook and Twitter.  Every blog post is re-posted on Facebook and the title of every blog post is tweeted.  Thanks to @plsconvinceme and @JohnAnkerberg and several others who regularly retweet blog posts.

The blog readership grows by search engine traffic and, of course, other websites linking to it.  There are several websites who regularly link to posts, including apologetics315.com, thepoachedegg.net, winteryknight.wordpress.com, and godresources.org.  I am so grateful for each and every time these sites link to a Tough Questions Answered post.

We’ve come a long way, and our prayer is constantly that we are glorifying God by giving answers to seekers who have tough questions about Christianity.  If you think this blog is successful fulfilling its mission, then please tell your friends about the blog!  Send them the web address today.  May God bless all of you!

Will of God

How Do We Find God’s Will?

1 Comment

Post Author: Bill Pratt

One of the most insightful books I’ve ever read is Garry Friesen’s Decision Making and the Will of God.  Friesen tackles an important practical need that every Christian has.  When I am making an important decision, how do I find God’s will in the matter?

Friesen documents and builds his case in 500 pages, but I want to give you his basic approach in fewer than 700 words.  Early in Friesen’s book, he lays out his “way of wisdom,” which consists of four principles:

1. Where God commands, we must obey.

In the Bible, the term “God’s will” most often refers to all the commands, principles, and promises that God has revealed in the Scriptures. This first biblical meaning of “God’s will” is best described as God’s moral will. It is fully conveyed in the Bible and so does not have to be “found”—just read, learned, and obeyed. . . .  Yet this simple truth cuts deeper into real life than we usually realize. Every action, thought, motive, attitude, and plan is affected by God’s moral will because its commands go beyond outward actions to search the motives and intents of our most secret desires (1 Samuel 16:7).

2. Where there is no command, God gives us freedom (and responsibility) to choose.

The second principle . . . starts to answer the question, “What do you do when there is no specific command in the Bible to determine your decision?” Where there is no command, God gives us freedom (and responsibility) to choose. The principle actually is not as radical as it may sound. It does not say that God does not care what we decide. It does not mean that there is no further guidance from God (there are two more principles). It does not say that our decision does not matter or that we can do our own selfish thing. It does say that we are morally free to decide. This freedom is God-given. But alongside that freedom is a God-given responsibility to decide.

Grasping the reality of freedom and responsibility has resulted in a very common response to the first edition of the book: “This book is both liberating and sobering. With freedom comes relief that I am not missing God s will. At the same time, being responsible for my decisions means that I cannot blame bad decisions on God.”

3. Where there is no command, God gives us wisdom to choose.

We are never free to be foolish, stupid, or naive. The freedom in the second principle is limited by the guidance God gives through wisdom. Put differently, wisdom is commanded of believers by the moral will of God and must be applied to all non-commanded decisions. I will support this principle by citing numerous biblical commands that exhort believers to act and choose wisely. I will also illustrate it with scriptural terminology and examples. The wisdom books of the Old Testament make a great contribution and can be taken at face value as models of God’s primary method of guidance.  In the area of freedom, it is God who promises to give wisdom when we ask.

4. When we have chosen what is moral and wise, we must trust the sovereign God to work all the details together for good.

God’s sovereign superintendence of all the particulars assures that after we have followed His guidance in the first three principles, God secretly works all the unknowns and details together for good. He is involved in the smallest particulars even when He does not tell us exactly what to do. This work of God gives the peace of mind that God is guiding in everything.

There they are, the four principles for finding God’s will.  I hope I have whet your appetite enough so that you will buy Friesen’s book.  I assure you that you will not be disappointed.

Religion

Are Kids Born with Belief?

11 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

That is the title of an interview with author Justin Barrett in the June 2012 issue of Christianity Today.  Barrett recently released a book, titled Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Belief, which “builds upon previous research on cognitive development to show that children naturally intuit design—and a Designer—when exposed to the natural world.”

This type of research is important because of the occasional refrain that children must be brainwashed into belief in God, because without brainwashing children would not believe in God.  Put another way, belief in God is unnatural to children and must be forced upon them.  Is this correct?

Barrett’s research leads him to conclude that “virtually all humans are essentially born believers—they have a natural receptivity to religious belief.”  Barrett adds:

We are not starting with unformed blobs that can be shaped into anything we like. Research from developmental psychology suggests children learn some things more easily and are attracted to some ideas more than others. There are certain kinds of ideas that children can learn more easily and rapidly than others, and internalize more deeply, such as believing in gods.

Children have a natural disposition to see the natural world as having purpose. Research has shown that children have a strong inclination to see design in the world around them, but they are left wondering who did it. They also know design doesn’t arise through random chance or mechanistic processes. In fact, children (and adults) automatically look for a person behind purpose or design. By five months old, infants already make the distinction between things that are acted upon and those things that do the acting, that is, intentional agents (like people). And preschoolers’ default assumption is that these agents are super-knowing, are super-perceiving, and are not going to die. If a child is exposed to the idea of a god that is immortal, super-knowing, super-perceiving, the child doesn’t have to do a lot of work to learn that idea; it fits the child’s intuitions.

In response to the argument that belief in God is just another childish belief that children grow out of, Barrett reminds us that

there are all kinds of childish beliefs, such as the idea that other people have minds, that there is a real world out there, that the laws of nature are stable, that my mother loves me. All these ideas are rooted in children’s early developing intuitions. If that is someone’s claim, I accept it; religious belief is in awfully good company.

It seems that the brainwashing runs the other way.  Children have to be inculcated with non-belief, not belief.  Belief in God comes easily and naturally for children.  Telling a child that there is no “immortal, super-knowing, super-perceiving” agent goes hard against the grain.  It seems that God has designed the human brain to be receptive to belief in him.

Atheism, Morality

Can Atheism Lead to Nihilism?

3 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

The arch-atheist Friedrich Nietzsche certainly believed so, but atheists nowadays have largely disavowed their atheist fathers.  Atheists want to shake their reputation as depressing nihilists and instead tell the world how happy they are.  Freedom from religion is your ticket to joy and fulfillment.

In the UK, atheists paid for a bus campaign that featured the following message: “There’s probably no God.  Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”  What a cheerful campaign!

Some in the atheist community, however, disagree with this dressing up of the atheist message.  Julian Baggini, writing for the Guardian, said recently, “Yes, life without God can be bleak. Atheism is about facing up to that.”  Baggini, to his credit, thinks that atheists who tell people to forget God and just enjoy their lives are completely missing the point of atheism.

Baggini writes:

Atheists have to live with the knowledge that there is no salvation, no redemption, no second chances. Lives can go terribly wrong in ways that can never be put right. Can you really tell the parents who lost their child to a suicide after years of depression that they should stop worrying and enjoy life?

He continues:

Stressing the jolly side of atheism not only glosses over its harsher truths, it also disguises its unique selling point. The reason to be an atheist is not that it makes us feel better or gives us a more rewarding life. The reason to be an atheist is simply that there is no God and we would prefer to live in full recognition of that, accepting the consequences, even if it makes us less happy. The more brutal facts of life are harsher for us than they are for those who have a story to tell in which it all works out right in the end and even the most horrible suffering is part of a mystifying divine plan. If we don’t freely admit this, then we’ve betrayed the commitment to the naked truth that atheism has traditionally embraced.

Baggini finishes his essay by reminding atheists of the ever-present threat of nihilism that Nietzsche warned of.

Even more disturbing, perhaps, is the threat of moral nihilism. Atheists are quite rightly keen to counter the accusation that life without God cannot be moral. The British Humanist Association, for instance, claims that “Right and wrong can be explained by human nature alone and do not require religious teaching”. But, just as with happiness, there is a need to distinguish the possibility of atheist morality from its inevitable actuality. Anyone who thinks it’s easy to ground ethics either hasn’t done much moral philosophy or wasn’t concentrating when they did. Although morality is arguably just as murky for the religious, at least there is some bedrock belief that gives a reason to believe that morality is real and will prevail. In an atheist universe, morality can be rejected without external sanction at any point, and without a clear, compelling reason to believe in its reality, that’s exactly what will sometimes happen.

Read that last section carefully, because Baggini is arguing, as we have argued here many times, that atheists have a hard time grounding morality, much harder than the religious do.  Speaking to his atheists friends, he says, “Anyone who thinks it’s easy to ground ethics either hasn’t done much moral philosophy or wasn’t concentrating when they did.”

Baggini also admits that “in an atheist universe, morality can be rejected without external sanction at any point, and without a clear, compelling reason to believe in its reality, that’s exactly what will sometimes happen.”  In other words, on atheism, the ability to rationally reject morality is built into the system.  There is nothing that ultimately guarantees that morality can be grounded, and so an atheist who decides that morality is simply optional is within their rational rights to do so.  And, according to Baggini, that is exactly what sometimes happens.

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

How Do You Tackle Obscure Bible Passages?

2 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Many passages in Scripture are relatively straight-forward to understand.  A person of even minimal intelligence can read and understand much of the Bible.  The greatest obstacle that faces readers of the Bible – the fact it was written in ancient Hebrew and Greek – is largely mitigated by the hard work of Hebrew and Greek language scholars who translate the words of the Bible into modern English.

However, even though we are able to read the contents of Scripture in our own language, we are still faced with obscure passages that seem to elude our understanding.  Why is this? 

The eighteenth century philosopher Johann Martin Chladenius pointed out that the problem is usually a lack of background knowledge.  Jean Grondin, in his book Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics, explores Chladenius’s insight:

The obscurity to which Chladenius here refers is that due to insufficient background knowledge. It is indeed often the case, especially with older texts, that the language seems completely clear, though the texts still remain unintelligible because we are lacking in historical or factual knowledge. In other words, we are unacquainted with the subject matter or with what the author really wanted to say.

At first, as I noted above, this kind of obscurity may seem rather trivial. Yet Chladenius here touches on an absolutely fundamental phenomenon of language. Language always tries to express something literally, but this “something” often enough remains in the dark, because the words do not occasion the same meaning or effect in the receiver as intended by the speaker. Chladenius views this as a purely linguistic process, as he explains while introducing his idea of hermeneutics as a universal science: “A thought that is to be conveyed to the reader by words often presupposes other conceptions without which it is not conceivable: if a reader is not already in possession of these conceptions, therefore, the words cannot effect the same result in him as in another reader who is thoroughly knowledgeable about these conceptions.”

When we read the Bible, we must remember that the individual biblical authors are assuming that their readers share a common background knowledge.  This background knowledge can include geography, political rulers, folklore, religious texts, poetry, agriculture, worldviews, and more.  As a modern reader, what hope do we have of knowing these things?

This is where good commentaries and Bible dictionaries come in.  These books provide the background information that enables a modern reader to better understand the ancient biblical writings.  They can provide us with keys to unlock the meanings of obscure passages.

When I sit down to read a difficult biblical passage, I will first read the passage, and then consult several commentaries or dictionaries to gain the needed background knowledge.  Several years ago, I bought the Logos Bible Software package, which enables me to consult dozens of commentaries on my PC.

Even though I have access to so many commentaries, I find myself going back to three of them over and over again:  The New American Commentary from Broadman & Holman Publishers; The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament by Craig S. Keener, from InterVarsity Press; The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures from Victor Books.  All of these commentaries do an excellent job of teaching the background knowledge needed to interpret Bible passages.

Whether you have these particular commentaries or not, it is imperative that you invest in resources that can teach you the background information you need to understand your Bible.  The serious student of the Bible cannot get along without them.

Bible Interpretation

Are All Interpretations Equally Valid?

13 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Relativism is a constant and ever-present danger these days.  Today I’m speaking, in particular, about the interpretation of biblical texts.  When we open the Bible and read, what happens if we interpret the text differently from those around us?

There are scholars today who claim that nobody has the correct interpretation of a text, because there is no single correct interpretation.   In his book, Objectivity in Biblical Interpretation, Philosopher Tom Howe quotes writer James K. A. Smith as an example of this position:

To privilege one reading as normative (the one correct interpretation) would be to privilege one contingent situationality or tradition over another— a move that would be impossible to justify precisely because of the locatedness of any such justification. There is not a reading that is the reading of the world or a text.

Smith is saying that the tradition and situation in which a reader resides colors his interpretation.  Since each of us lives in a different situation and tradition, then each of our interpretations of a text are different, and none of them can claim to be the one correct interpretation.

Is this true?  Howe strongly disagrees:

According to this approach, conflicts are generated because of the differing “situationality” and “traditionality” that indicate the impossibility of a “privileged reading” or of the very existence of “the one correct interpretation.” . . .  Is there no such thing as the correct or the right interpretation of a text? If there is no “right” or “correct” interpretation, then the problem of conflicting interpretations seems to lose its meaning.

Conflicting interpretations create a problem only if there is an interpretation that is the right one. The fact of conflicting interpretations seems to create difficulty only if one attempts to judge between them in order to arrive at the meaning of the text. In fact, everyone who comments on this question believes that his own interpretation of the problem is the correct one. Even those who claim that differing historical, cultural, and linguistic situations render the notion of a privileged or normative or correct interpretation impossible believe that they have correctly interpreted the state of affairs.

They confidently declare that their interpretation of the problem of interpretation is the correct one, namely, that no one can claim to have “the one correct interpretation.” Those who claim that it is impossible “to privilege one reading as normative” privilege their own reading as normative. When, in the above quote, Smith declares, “There is not a reading that is the reading of the world or a text,” he presents his own reading of the world as the reading of the world.

Smith’s view ultimately self-destructs and, therefore, cannot be true.  Smith wants us to believe that his interpretation is the correct one, all the while arguing that no interpretation can be the correct one.  This is illustrative of the inner rot of any relativistic theory.  By denying objectivity, by denying that absolutes exist, the relativist always wants an exemption for their position.  They seem to be saying, “Every view out there is relative, except mine.  I am the only who has a privileged and absolute position.”

Interpretation of the Bible can be difficult, and there are cultural, linguistic, and historical barriers to overcome, but to throw in the towel and say that no interpretation is correct is simply self-defeating.  The correct interpretation is there, but we have to work for it.

Philosophy, Theology

Does God’s Mercy Cancel Out His Justice?

Leave a comment

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Christians claim that God is both merciful and that he is just, but how can both of these be true?  Doesn’t mercy cancel justice, or justice cancel mercy?

Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest church fathers, addressed this very issue in his monumental work, Summa Theologica.  Thomas’s approach in Summa Theologica was to present an objection, and then answer the objection.  Here is the objection:

Further, mercy is a relaxation of justice. But God cannot remit what appertains to His justice. For it is said (2 Tim. 2:13): If we believe not, He continueth faithful: He cannot deny Himself. But He would deny Himself, as a gloss says, if He should deny His words. Therefore mercy is not becoming to God.

In other words, God is just and God cannot deny himself.  If God is just, and mercy is a relaxation of justice, then God cannot be merciful.  How does Thomas answer this objection?

God acts mercifully, not indeed by going against His justice, but by doing something more than justice; thus a man who pays another two hundred pieces of money, though owing him only one hundred, does nothing against justice, but acts liberally or mercifully. The case is the same with one who pardons an offence committed against him, for in remitting it he may be said to bestow a gift. Hence the Apostle calls remission a forgiving: “Forgive one another, as Christ has forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32). Hence it is clear that mercy does not destroy justice, but in a sense is the fulness thereof. And thus it is said: “Mercy exalteth itself above judgment” (Jas. 2:13).

Philosopher Peter Kreeft, commenting on Thomas’s words in his A Summa of the Summa, adds that

Mercy is expressed in forgiveness.  In the word “forgive” is the word “give.”  For forgiveness is not primarily an attitude or feeling, but a gift,  remitting of debt, and therefore it costs the giver something.  God’s forgiveness of human sin cost him dearly on Calvary.  Both justice and mercy were satisfied there.

Further building on the interaction of mercy and justice, Kreeft explains that

mercy, as a property of love, is more primordial than justice.  Justice [as God applies it to mankind] is finite, and proportioned to desert; love can be infinite.  Our very existence is due to love and generosity, not justice, for we were not even there to deserve anything, even existence, before God gave us the gift of existence.

In summary, mercy is more basic than justice, and mercy can therefore complete justice.  To be truly merciful is not to negate justice, but to fulfill it.  Nothing better illustrates this concept than what God did on the cross for mankind.

Books of the Bible, Church History

How Did Canonization of the New Testament Happen?

7 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Canonization of the New Testament did not happen overnight.  The books of the New Testament were written over several decades, with the final books probably being completed just before A.D. 100.  However, documents traveled slowly 2,000 years ago, and it took many years for the books, later to be recognized as the New Testament, to circulate throughout the Roman Empire.  It was a long and gradual process.

The early church, using several criteria, worked through the process of recognizing the inspired books of the New Testament during the first few centuries after Christ’s death.  For a brief summary of the process, I quote church historian J. N. D. Kelly from his book Early Christian Doctrines:

The main point to be observed is that the fixation of the finally agreed list of books, and of the order in which they were to be arranged, was the result of a very gradual process. . . . Three features of this process should be noted.

First, the criterion which ultimately came to prevail was apostolicity. Unless a book could be shown to come from the pen of an apostle, or at least to have the authority of an apostle behind it, it was peremptorily rejected, however edifying or popular with the faithful it might be.

Secondly, there were certain books which hovered for long time on the fringe of the canon, but in the end failed to secure admission to it, usually because they lacked this indisputable stamp. . . .

Thirdly, some of the books which were later included had to wait a considerable time before achieving universal recognition. . . . By gradual stages, however, the Church both in East and West arrived at a common mind as to its sacred books. The first official document which prescribes the twenty-seven books of our New Testament as alone canonical is Athanasius’s Easter letter for the year 367, but the process was not everywhere complete until at least a century and a half later.

Not only did the process take a while due to practical communication obstacles, the early church was trying to be extremely careful about recognizing the canon.  Their desire was to get it right, and for that reason alone, we should be thankful for their approach to this process.

One final comment about the canon.  For some of you, this information may seem dry and even boring.  After all, you might be thinking, how does this impact my Christian walk today?  Aside from the fact that you should just want to know about the origins of the Bible, there is another more practical reason.  If you don’t know what really happened, then you won’t be able to recognize revisionist historians who grossly distort or outright lie about Christian origins.

When The Da Vinci Code was published, one of the biggest misrepresentations of Dan Brown was the claim that the church Council of Nicaea voted on which gospels (he claims there were 80 or so to choose from) to include in the New Testament, based on the council’s desire to make Jesus a god.  First of all, this never happened, and secondly, it completely fails to accurately portray the actual process of canonization.  Brown got it completely wrong, but the Christian ignorant of church history would never know that.

C. S. Lewis once said that good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, to counter bad philosophy.  Likewise, true church history must exist, if for no other reason, to counter false church history.

Books of the Bible

Is the Biblical Canon Closed? Part 2

Leave a comment

Post Author: Bill Pratt

This is a profound question for the Christian church.  Every year, there are new cults that emerge where a charismatic leader claims that he or she has received a revelation from God that must be added to the biblical canon.  In fact, this is exactly what happened almost 200 years ago when Joseph Smith claimed to have received revelation from God which became the Book of Mormon.

In part 1, we examined why the canon is theologically closed.  In this second post, we will look at why the canon is historically closed, and then why the canon is still only hypothetically open.  Here are Geisler and Nix again from their book A General Introduction to the Bible:

Historically the canon is closed. For there is no evidence that any such special gift of miracles has existed since the death of the apostles. The immediate successors of the apostles did not claim new revelation, nor did they claim these special confirmatory gifts. In fact, they looked on the apostolic revelation as full and final. When new cults have arisen since the time of the apostles, their leaders have claimed to be apostles in order that their books could gain recognition. Historically, the canon is closed with the twenty-seven books written in the apostolic period. They alone are and have been the books of the canon through all the intervening centuries. No other non-apostolic books have been accepted since the earliest centuries, and no new books written by the apostles have come to light. In His providence, God has guided the church in the preservation of all the canonical books.

The canonical books are those necessary for faith and practice of believers of all generations. It seems highly unlikely that God would inspire a book in the first century that is necessary for faith and practice and then allow it to be lost for nearly two thousand years. From a providential and historical stand-point the canon has been closed for nearly two thousand years.

But is the canon hypothetically open?  If so, what does this mean?

Hypothetically the canon could be open. It is theoretically possible that some book written by an accredited apostle or prophet from the first century will yet be found. And what if such a prophetic book were found? The answer to this question will depend on whether or not all prophetic books are canonic. If they are, as has been argued, then this newly discovered prophetic book should be added to the canon. But that is unlikely for two reasons. First, it is historically unlikely that such a new book intended for the faith and practice of all believers, but unknown to them for two thousand years, will suddenly come to light. Second, it is providentially improbable that God would have inspired but left unpreserved for two millennia what is necessary for the instruction of believers of all generations.

Geisler and Nix, therefore, leave open the possibility that a first-century book could be found that belongs in the canon, but they think it is highly unlikely to occur.  Given the death of Jesus’s apostles in the first century, and given that Jesus was supposed to be the final revelation of God, Geisler and Nix reject the possibility that a new prophet will produce a new work today.  A new prophet would first have to make the case that the canon was not closed in the first century, and then demonstrate the miracles that go along with being a legitimate representative of God.

It is important to note, in closing, that neither Muslims, nor Mormons, nor any other religious group that has its roots in Christianity, has ever had a prophet who successfully performed miracles to prove that they were truly from God.  Hasn’t happened.

Books of the Bible

Is the Biblical Canon Closed? Part 1

2 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt

This is a profound question for the Christian church.  Every year, there are new cults that emerge where a charismatic leader claims that he or she has received a revelation from God that must be added to the biblical canon.  In fact, this is exactly what happened almost 200 years ago when Joseph Smith claimed to have received revelation from God which became the Book of Mormon.

Norman Geisler and William Nix tackle this very question in their book A General Introduction to the Bible.  To the question of whether the biblical canon is closed, Geisler and Nix answer, “To this one should respond that the canon is closed theologically and historically, and is open only hypothetically.”

Theologically the canon is closed. God has inspired only so many books and they were all completed by the end of the apostolic period (first century A.D.). God used to speak through the prophets of the Old Testament, but in the “last days” he spoke through Christ (Heb. 1:1) and the apostles whom He empowered with special signs (miracles). But because the apostolic age ended with the death of the apostles (Acts 1:22), and because no one since apostolic times has had the signs of a true apostle” (2 Cor. 12:12) whereby they can raise the dead (Acts 20:10–12) and perform other unique supernatural events (Acts 3:1–10; 28:8–9), it may be concluded that God’s “last day” revelation is complete (see Acts 2:16–18).

This does not mean that God’s visitations are over, because there are many other things yet to be fulfilled (see Acts 2:19–20). Nor does it mean that there will be no new understanding of God’s truth after the first century. It simply means that there is no new revelation for the church. Indeed, this does not necessarily imply that there have been no miracles since the first century. Supernatural acts will be possible as long as there is a Supernatural Being (God). It is not the fact of miracles that ceased with the apostles but the special gift of miracles possessed by a prophet or apostle who could claim, like Moses, Elijah, Peter, or Paul, to have a new revelation from God. Such a prophet or apostle could back up his claim by dividing a sea, bringing down fire from heaven, or raising the dead. These were special gifts bestowed on prophets (apostles), and they are not possessed by those who are not the recipients of new revelation (Acts 2:22; Heb. 2:3–4).

It is interesting to note that both Muhammad and Joseph Smith were rejected as prophets by most Christians of their day because they were unable to perform miraculous feats such as dividing seas, bringing down fire from heaven, or raising the dead.  Their miraculous claims centered around supernatural visitations from God or angels, who allegedly gave them new revelation.  This was not sufficient to back up their claims of being prophets of God.

I have often been asked how I would deal with someone who claimed to have a brand new message from God.  I would say this to the person: “Show me the miracles.  Show me the signs.  Heal the deaf and blind.  Raise some people from the dead.  Until you do those kinds of things, I won’t even consider your new revelation from God.”  Muhammad and Joseph Smith were likewise asked to do those things, and they could produce nothing of the kind.

In part 2, we will look at why the canon is historically closed.

A Christian Apologetics Blog