When a Christian apologist appeals to the miracles of the Bible to prove the truth of the Christian revelation, it is futile to wave it all away with a simple denial: 'Come on! There’s no such thing as miracles!' A simple counter-assertion is no argument. The point to make is that, for the sake of argument, even if miracles are possible, historical analysis cannot verify them.

Historians don’t pontificate on what did and did not happen. They weren’t there, and they don’t have access to a time machine. Historical judgments are always and necessarily provisional, tentative, open to revision at the drop of a hat in case new evidence should turn up.

And that is always the way it is with history. To believers this seems absurd; in that case, we could never be certain about, say, Julius Caesar! Uh, I’ve got news for you: we can’t! Believers are disappointed because they feel a need for dogmatic certainty. They may not lose much sleep over new revelations about Caesar, but they know what’s coming. What if you have to maintain the same tentativeness about the 'history' of the Bible? They are not ready to greet Easter with the proclamation 'He is probably risen! There is a sixty per cent chance that he is risen indeed!' The believer in biblical miracles does not judge them 'probable.' The believer, the apologist, is saying, 'That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!'

But can you even declare a biblical miracle probable? No, you cannot. Historiography depends on the principle of analogy. When you read a story of a man walking on water, you have to ask, 'Is this more like attested contemporary experiences? Or is it more like various legends starring the Buddha, Pythagoras, and Orion?' You weren’t there. You don’t know. And you don’t pretend to know. But you have to say it’s probably another legend. This involves no belief whatever that miracles cannot happen.

And then you’d have to ask if there is any other way to 'access' miracles, any alternate route to certainty about them. 'Faith' is offered as that bridge. But if you take that path, you can no longer pretend it is more than an arbitrary leap. You can’t pretend miracles are evidence for belief. And you ought to face the question of intellectual honesty. Doesn’t your belief in miracles amount to wishful thinking? —Robert M Price