How do Miracles Authenticate Divine Revelation? A Sketch of a General Framework for Evaluating Rival Miracles
But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Luke 11:20 The Difficulty on Rival Miracles throughout History It seems almost like a self-evident truth that miracles of course authenticate theological truth claims. The link is pretty obvious throughout the Bible, Jesus's message concerning the kingdom of God is confirmed by his exorcism, if Christ is not risen our faith is in vain, etc. However throughout the history the link between miracles and divine revelation has not always been that straightforward. We can distinguish between the "soft" difficulty, as to whether we can believe in reports of miraculous occurrence, and the "hard" difficulty, where we need to determine what the miracles mean when we are confronted with miracles by rival theological traditions with conflicting theological truth claims. The "soft" problem has never posed a significant difficulty. The hard difficulty had always existed thr...