Ep 2.7: Can You Be a Christian Without Believing in Miracles?

Do Christians have to believe that the miracle stories in the Bible literally happened in order to be faithful followers of Jesus? 

In this thought-provoking episode, Richard Randolph explores one of the most challenging questions at the intersection of science and faith. Drawing on biblical scholarship, theology, and his own spiritual journey, Richard argues that Christians can remain deeply committed Christians, while understanding the miracle stories as profound expressions of spiritual truth rather than literal suspensions of the laws of nature. 

Along the way, he examines miracle traditions from several of the world's religions, considers the historical work of Elaine Pagels, reflects on the theology of physicist-priest John Polkinghorne, and explains why he believes the Resurrection belongs in a fundamentally different category than the other miracle stories found in Scripture. 

Whether you agree or disagree with Richard's conclusions, this episode invites listeners to think more deeply about what miracle stories were intended to communicate—and why they continue to matter today. 

In this episode you'll discover: 

• That miracle stories appear in virtually every major religious tradition. 
• Why Richard no longer interprets biblical miracles literally. 
• Why he believes science and authentic Christian faith need not be in conflict. 
• How trust in God shapes his understanding of Divine Action. 
• Elaine Pagels' historical insights into miracle stories in the ancient world. 
• Why the Resurrection is fundamentally different from other biblical miracle stories. 
• Insights into miracle stories from John Polkinghorne and John Dominic Crossan  
• How miracle stories may become even more spiritually powerful when we read metaphorically, rather than literally. 
• A moving reflection from physicist and theologian Robert (Bob) Russell on praying for a healing miracle during his battle with prostate cancer. 
• The Buddhist insight that the greatest miracle is the transformation of human consciousness—and how Christianity expresses a similar vision of transformed life. 

Books and Authors Mentioned 

• Elaine Pagels, Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus (2025) 
• John Polkinghorne, "The Credibility of the Miraculous" (Zygon) 
• John Dominic Crossan (quoted in Miracles and Wonder) 

Additional Reflections from Richard Randolph on the Resurrection 

• Podcast Episode 2.3: “Science and Resurrection” 
• Substack Reflection on “Science and Resurrection,” available at https://scienceandspiritualityblog.substack.com  

Connect with Science and Spirituality  

Website:
https://www.scienceandspirituality.org 

Support the Podcast:
https://www.scienceandspirituality.org/support 

Email Richard:
richard@scienceandspirituality.org 

To financially support this podcast series, go to www.scienceandspirituality.org/support  

To access Richard’s new Substack reflections, https://scienceandspiritualityblog.substack.com  

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of Science and Spirituality for the Curious. For more information on this podcast series, check out our website at www.science and spirituality.org. I am Richard Randolph, the founder and director of the Science and Spirituality Institute, and also your host for this podcast series. Before we begin, I'd like to ask for your support. My goal with Science and Spirituality for the Curious is to keep these conversations open, thoughtful, and freely available to anyone interested in exploring the fascinating relationship between science, spirituality, and faith. Every financial contribution helps create a space where science and spirituality can meet in thoughtful, respectful conversation, a space that is increasingly needed in our culture today. Producing each episode costs about $200 for editing and production. If you find value in this podcast, and I hope you do, I invite you to support it through a monthly contribution of $5, $10, or $20. You can learn more at www.scienceandspirituality.org forward slash support. You can also sponsor a complete episode for $200. Sponsors are recognized at the beginning of their sponsored episode and may share a brief message with the listeners. If you'd like to learn more about sponsoring a particular episode, please email me at Richard at science and spirituality.org. If financial support isn't possible right now, please consider sharing this podcast with a friend. Personal recommendations are one of the most important ways that podcasts grow, and your recommendation can help someone else discover these conversations. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing, and thank you for supporting science and spirituality for the curious. In this episode, I want to explore religious miracles. Let me begin by describing exactly what I mean when I use this term miracle. For me, a miracle is the suspension of the normal workings of nature in order to produce an extraordinary or supernatural event that is beneficial or revelatory for individuals or a community. It is important to acknowledge that miracle stories are part of most religious and spiritual traditions. For example, in Judaism, Moses parts the waters of the Red Sea, allowing the Israelites to escape from slavery in Egypt and the Egyptian army which is hotly pursuing them. Buddhist tradition contains miracle stories as well. One story describes the Buddha teleporting across the Ganges River. And yet Buddhism offers an intriguing insight. In the Buddhist scripture called Kevata Sutta, the Buddha says that supernatural feats are not the greatest miracles. Instead, he says that the greatest miracle is the transformation of human consciousness from ignorance to wisdom. In Hinduism, Krishna protects an entire village by lifting the Govartan mountain and sheltering the people beneath it during a devastating storm. In Islam, the prophet Muhammad journeys from Mecca to Jerusalem and then ascends through the heavens, encountering earlier prophets before entering the divine presence. And in Sikhism, Guru Nanak is said to have stopped a massive boulder with his hand, leaving his hand's imprint in the stone. Among Native American spiritual traditions, the Lakota people tell the story of the white buffalo calf woman, a woman who brings sacred teachings, ceremonies, and instructions for how to live in harmony with one another and with the great mystery. When she departs from the Lakota people, the woman transforms into a white buffalo calf before disappearing. Examples could easily be multiplied. Miracle stories appear in most spiritual traditions. In this episode, I will be working within the Christian tradition because it is there that I feel qualified to offer my own reflections. At the same time, I want to acknowledge that this conversation can very much be a two-way street. I am certain that persons at home in Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, and Native American spiritualities, as well as other spiritual paths, have insights into miracle stories. Insights that I could learn from as a Christian. If you're one of those listeners, I genuinely enjoy hearing your perspective. Feel free to email me, and again, my email address is Richard at science and spirituality.org. Now before I continue any further, I need to share three caveats. First, I've decided not to discuss the miracle of the virgin birth in this episode. That story is so profound for many Christians that it deserves its own standalone discussion in the future. Secondly, I do not consider the resurrection to be simply another miracle story. Instead, I understand it as part of God's larger work of creation, redemption, and new creation. I'll explain what I mean later in this episode. And thirdly, I am not trying to convince anyone to adopt my understanding of miracles. Many faithful Christians believe the miracle stories happened exactly as they were written, and I respect that conviction. However, as will become clear in a moment, I simply do not believe that the miracle stories are literally true. Further, I do not believe that accepting miracle stories as true is required for Christian faith and discipleship. Instead, I believe that a person can be a devout Christian while rejecting the miracle stories as literally true. In other words, belief in the miracle stories is not an essential component of the Christian faith. Let me begin with a bit of my own story. I grew up in a devout Protestant Christian home in North Carolina. As a kid, I accepted the miracle stories of the Bible as literally true. There were accounts of God interrupting the normal course of nature through extraordinary and supernatural acts of divine power. I also had friends who attended other churches where miracle healings were a common component of their worship experience. In the world in which I grew up, almost all people accepted the miracle stories as literally true. As I matured and continued my education, however, I reached a point where I could no longer accept miracle stories as literally true. Eventually, though, I began to see that even though miracles are not literally true, they do contain important insights into healing, liberation, faith, hope, and love. One of the principal reasons I no longer interpret miracle stories literally is because doing so requires me to set aside my rational capacities and the scientific understanding of the world. My concern is not that God acts in the world. I actually believe God is continually creating throughout history. Rather, I struggle with the idea that God arbitrarily suspends the very order of creation which God has already established. This question takes on additional urgency when we reflect on what it means to be human. Every human life includes at least five core dimensions: the physical, the social, the emotional, the rational, and the spiritual. We can truly flourish as human persons only when we successfully integrate these five dimensions together. I cannot believe that a loving God would create us in such a way that two of those dimensions, the rational and spiritual, are forced into permanent conflict. Yet that is precisely the dilemma that a literal interpretation of miracle stories creates for us. A God who genuinely loves us would not put us into that type of internal conflict. Instead of forcing us to choose between rationality and spirituality, a loving God will so structure reality that we are able to integrate both of these dimensions in our lives. There is a second, even more profound consideration. Trust is an essential component of a genuine relationship. We trust those whom we love, and as love deepens, so also trust deepens with it. When trust begins to erode, the relationship itself is threatened. Christian faith is comprised of different kinds of love love for God, love for neighbor, love for creation, and even a healthy love for ourselves. Yet all of these relationships of love ultimately rest upon one conviction, that is that God is trustworthy. As I have discussed in previous episodes, it is perfectly reasonable to affirm that God created the universe out of nothing and established the laws of nature by which it operates. Those laws point to God's consistency and trustworthiness. Every day we live with the confidence that those laws will continue to hold. We trust the laws of nature because we trust the God who established them. We trust that God will not arbitrarily and unexpectedly override or suspend them. Physicist and Anglican priest John Polkinghorn captures this conviction when he wrote, quote, the real problem with miracles is theological. It is theologically inconceivable that God acts as a capricious magician or conjurer, doing something today that God did not think of doing yesterday and will not be bothered to do again tomorrow. So the question of divine consistency is the central problem to address in relation to the credibility of the miraculous. By definition, a miracle requires an apparent suspension of the normal working of nature. That raises an important theological question. Why would a loving and trustworthy creator arbitrarily suspend the very order that makes the world dependable and trustworthy? There is also another important question we need to consider. Why would God arbitrarily suspend the laws for one person but not for others? Consider this hypothetical situation. Imagine I have two friends who are both suffering from the same excruciatingly painful, ultimately terminal disease. Both friends are devout Christians. Both pray to God asking for a miracle cure. I also pray asking for a miracle cure for both of my friends. Now imagine that one friend experiences what appears to be a miraculous cure. Her physicians are at a loss to explain what happened. But she experiences a full recovery to health. Meanwhile, my second friend's fervent prayers go unanswered. Despite equally sincere prayers, she gradually declines and eventually dies. How should we understand God's actions in this scenario? Why would God suspend the normal order of creation for one faithful friend, but not for the other who was equally devoted and equally deserving? Of course, I would rejoice with my first friend who experienced what appears to be a miracle cure. But at the same time, I would also grieve deeply for my second friend. More importantly, I would find myself in a position of asking a difficult theological question. Can I still trust God? For me, that question of trustworthiness lies at the heart of the discussion about miracles. My faith rests upon a conviction that God loves me and that God is trustworthy. That conviction makes me very cautious about attributing isolated suspicions of the created order to God's selective and apparently arbitrary intervention into the laws of nature. Let us focus for a few moments on just the miracle stories of Jesus found in the Christian scriptures. Whenever we read scripture, one of the most important questions that should guide us is this What would the original audience have understood when they first heard this particular passage of Scripture? Let me begin with the obvious. The first Christians lived in a pre-scientific world. To be sure they possessed remarkable wisdom, but they did not understand bacteria, galaxies, genetics, or the concept of an expanding universe. They interpreted extraordinary events differently than we do today. Consider a hypothetical time traveler from the 21st century describing microscopes, bacteria, or distant galaxies to one of those early Christian communities. Their listeners would almost certainly conclude that the time traveler had lost touch with reality and was insane. Not because the early Christians lacked intelligence, but because they inhabited a very different intellectual world. Remembering their historical context helps us understand how the early Christians would have heard these miracle stories, and it can keep us from projecting our modern scientific worldview back upon them. There are some additional considerations about the historical context of the first Christians and how they would have heard and interpreted miracle stories. In her book, Miracles and Wonder, the historian Elaine Pagels notes that many of the miracle stories about Jesus share distinct commonalities with stories from the Jewish Hebrew scriptures as well as Greek and Roman literature. For instance, Pagles cites a biography of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, which includes stories of the emperor restoring sight to a blind man and healing another man's paralyzed hand. These miracle stories about the emperor bear a striking resemblance to the miracle stories of Jesus, restoring sight and healing people that are found in the Gospels of John, chapters 5 and 9, Mark chapters 2 and 10, Luke chapters 5 and 18, as well as Matthew chapter 20. Even more dramatic are stories of Jesus resuscitating the dead. Perhaps Jesus' best known resuscitation story is the raising of Lazarus, described in the Gospel of John chapter 11. In this story, Jesus is so moved by the grief of Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha, as well as others, that he begins to weep. Then he is taken to the sealed tomb of Lazarus. There he prays before shouting, Lazarus, come out. Whereupon Lazarus comes stumbling out of the tomb, resuscitated from the dead. There are additional resuscitation miracles reported by the Gospels of Luke and Mark. In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 7, Jesus resuscitates a young man. In Mark chapter 5, Jesus resuscitates the daughter of Jarius, a leader of the synagogue. In Mark's account, Jesus arrives at the house and tells the mourners that the girl is not dead, but simply sleeping. Then he takes the little girl's hand and softly says, Little girl, get up. Mark records that the girl got up and immediately began to walk. As Pagles notes, Mark's story of the little girl's resuscitation resonates richly with a resuscitation story in Greek literature. In this Greek story, an itinerant holy man and miracle worker named Apollonius of Tyana is said to have resuscitated a teenage girl who appeared to have died just before her wedding. The grieving fiance follows the funeral procession with all of the lamentations of an unconsummated marriage, and the whole city mourns with him. According to his biographer, Apollonius was moved by the grieving entourage, so he reassured the grieving crowd that he could end their crying. After Apollonius touched the corpse and said something secretly, the young bride woke, began speaking, and returned to her father's house. Similarly, in the Old Testament book of 1 Kings, there's a story of the prophet Elijah performing a resuscitation miracle. In this account, the prophet is staying with a widow when her son dies. At first, the grieving mother believes Elijah is the cause of her son's death. However, Elijah resuscitates the child and returns him to his joyful mother, who then confesses that Elijah is truly a man of God. Now, Pagel's point here is that in the culture of the early Christians, it was common to hear of powerful rulers and devout holy men performing supernatural miracles, including the resuscitation of someone who had died. These supernatural miracle stories about the powerful and holy were just part of the broad culture surrounding the Christians. When combined with their pre-scientific worldview, it is not at all surprising that miracle stories concerning Jesus would have been accepted at face value. As Elaine Pagles concludes, the miracle stories, like so much else in the Gospels, reflect an ancient cultural perspective that many contemporary people miss. At this juncture, I would like to elaborate on my earlier claim that Christ's resurrection is not the same as the other miracle stories about Jesus. In fact, there's a categorical difference between the resurrection and these other miracle stories. Perhaps a metaphor will clarify my position. There are many similarities between the games of ping pong and tennis. They both require a ball, a playing area that includes a net, as well as instruments for hitting the ball. However, the two games are fundamentally different. Similarly, there is a fundamental difference between the miracle stories and the resurrection. Both do indeed describe an extraordinary suspension of the normal workings of the laws of nature. However, there is also a fundamental distinction. On the one hand, the miracle stories are mere accoutrements for accounts of powerful leaders and holy men in the cultural context of the New Testament. In the 21st century, accepting the miracle stories as true is completely optional for Christian faith. The miracle stories are not at the core of Christianity. There is no reason a person cannot be a devout and faithful Christian while also rejecting religious miracles as literally true. On the other hand, the resurrection of Christ is not an isolated event, such as a miracle story. Instead, the resurrection is part of the larger story of God's creative work from the Big Bang throughout his. History and ultimately concluding at the end time or eschaton. This larger story forms an overarching arc describing God's ongoing, loving, and faithful creative activity. Think of this creative story arc as a symphony in three movements. In the first movement, God brings the universe into existence out of nothing. In the second, God continues to be active within creation, not distant, not absent, but still at work in creation. And in the third movement, God brings creation to its fulfillment. This final movement is not about abandoning the world, but redeeming the world, healing it, transforming it into what the Bible calls a new creation. This new creation at the end time will be both continuous and discontinuous with our current universe. For instance, it will be continuous in that human persons will continue to be the same as who they are today. For example, Richard Randolph will have the same personality in the new creation that I have today. But the new creation could be discontinuous in important ways as well. For instance, in our present context, resurrection is diametrically opposed to the laws of nature and common sense. In the new creation, the laws of nature could be so transformed that bodily resurrection is completely consistent with them. In the new creation, resurrection could be as natural as waking up from a refreshing sleep. Modern physics provides the foundation for this hope because it already suggests that reality may be more complex than we currently experience, and it shows that the laws of nature that we experience could take on different forms in other contexts. From this perspective, the resurrection of the individual person, Jesus, serves as God's promissory note, foreshadowing the general resurrection of all in the new creation. John Pulkinghorn provided a helpful summary of this perspective when he wrote, the Christian understands Christ's resurrection as being the seminal event from which God's great eschatological act of the new creation has begun to grow. What is seen as being truly exceptional in Christ's resurrection is that it took place within history as the foretaste and guarantee of a post-mortem destiny that awaits all other people beyond history. As an aside, let me just share that I have developed these ideas more thoroughly in a previous podcast episode and in an accompanying Substack reflection. You can access my more detailed discussion by checking out Podcast Episode 2.3 and Substack Episode 1.3, both carrying the title Science and Resurrection. I will include the link to my Substack account at the end of this podcast. A few minutes ago, I suggested that accepting miracle stories as literally true is not essential for Christian faith. There is no reason a person cannot be a devout and faithful Christian while rejecting religious miracles as literally true. This does not mean, however, that I regard miracle stories as unimportant. Quite the opposite. Elaine Pagles claims that the miracle stories effectively serve in the same manner as Jesus' parables. She cites John Dominic Crawson, who suggests that the significance of Jesus' healing stories, especially the ones about Jesus healing incurable diseases such as leprosy, lies in the fact that Jesus reached out to lepers and other marginalized people. Crawson concludes that what the miracle stories convey is Jesus' compassionate response towards sick people, helping them to recover from illness, which Carlson describes as the social isolation and rejection that they often suffer because of their sickness. In my own spiritual journey, when I stopped asking whether each miracle literally happened, this freed me up to ask a deeper, more important question. How was this story intended to teach the community of faith? The miracle stories became powerful when I stopped trying to reconcile them. Letting go of reconciling miracles with science created this freedom for me to search for the deeper meaning of each story. When I looked deeper, I discovered that the miracle stories contained powerful insights into Jesus and his teachings. Ironically, miracle stories became more powerful for me when I stopped trying to take them literally. Now not everyone reaches the same conclusions that I have. For many Christians, miracles can actually happen. One of those Christians is the physicist and the ordained clergy person Bob Russell. Bob has been my teacher and mentor in exploring the intersection of science and Christian faith. Bob has also profoundly influenced my thinking as well as my vision for the Science and Spirituality Institute. Bob is also a dear friend. Yet Bob and I disagree about miracles. Bob believes that God works miracles in the literal sense, while I do not. Yet our disagreement has never diminished my respect for him as a person and as a theologian. Still, I think Bob has some important insights regarding miracles. I'd like for you to listen to a story about what happened when Bob prayed to God for a miracle cure and what he discovered when the miracle he prayed for did not occur.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

As you know, I've had prosthy cancer for 20 years, and it was supposed to happen frosty surgery. You know the challenges to a guy with that. And I was terrified, but I wanted to live. And Charlotte went off and had a cup of coffee by the ocean, washed the waves, and talked about it. And of course, there's no question I would I would do that. But I got uh to the Friday before with the Mondi surgery, and on Friday they had me do a blood test, a lot of work for the surgery. And while I was actually there on the table getting this blood test, I realized I had forgotten because it was so powerful. But a year earlier I'd been at the Vatican for a conference that the Vatican Observatory put on, and we'd actually been in Vatican St. Peter's and we'd been given communion by the priests. And the priest who gave it to me knew who I was, knew I was a Protestant. And as he gave me the communion, I had this sense of um I would have a miracle in my life. I was gonna have a miracle, and I would know when it happened. And that memory flashed back to me when I was laying having my blood taken. And I said to the nurse, I said, Look, I hope you don't think I'm nuts, but can you test for prostate cancer from the blood you're taking before Monday's operation? I said, sure. I'll have the results for you when you go in for your operation. So I went in for the results and I was all prepared for the surgery. And I asked them, Well, do I what how's my PSA level? Said, Oh, it hasn't changed, you still got it. And I flashed back to the observ the Vatican where I was convinced I'd had a miracle. And for a second, this cold, you know, voice, even uh when I first was getting my PhD and I was doing it in uh cosmology. And after two years the guy I was working with, who was a rabbit atheist, said to me, Well, Bob, you'll make a pretty good cosmologist if you give up that Christianity bullshit. And that comment flashed back from mind, and I thought he was right. I had thought for sure I had a miracle and there wasn't one. And then in the same moment I thought, no, he's wrong. I have had a miracle. I just don't know what it is yet. It wasn't the miracle I wanted. It's the miracle God wanted. It took a long time, but I began to realize that having to go through prostate surgery gave me a vulnerability to other men I knew who had various kinds of cancers and a way of being open to their struggle and having an attitude of healing, even though I was I found a way to talk to men, it wouldn't be very often, but you know, at the gym one time about cancer and being encouraging and talking about healing. Um and I realized I had trans transformed that event about my surgery into an event about a um fraternity, a fraternal feeling with men who were suffering like I had suffered, and I had found my way through it and they would too. That I wouldn't have thought of if I had been scared. It was because I wasn't cured that I was cured. So it really was that God did answer my request for healing, but not for healing of my prostate cancer per se. It was for healing of me.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Bob did not receive a miracle cure for his cancer, but God did show Bob a way to use his experience as an avenue for bringing emotional healing to other men suffering from prostate cancer. Although not a literal miracle, Bob's miracle story is powerful. It points to a deeper spiritual truth. God's deepest work is not found in suspending nature, but rather in transforming human lives. Perhaps the Buddhist tradition offers an unexpected point of wisdom for Christians. As I noted at the beginning of this episode, in the Buddhist Kavata Sutta, the Buddha says that the greatest miracle is the transformation of human consciousness from ignorance to wisdom. As a Christian, I would express the same insight a little differently. The greatest miracle is the transformation of the human heart, from fear to trust, from self-centeredness to love, from despair to hope. Whether we understand the miracle stories literally or figuratively, my hope is that they will do what they were always intended to do, not necessarily astonish us, but definitely transform us. Thanks for joining me on this episode of Science and Spirituality for the Curious. If you would like to continue reflecting on miracles, I invite you to read my forthcoming reflection on my Substack blog, which you can access at HTTPS colon forward slash forward slash science and spirituality blog.substack.com. Thanks for listening to this episode of Science and Spirituality for the Curious, the podcast series of the Science and Spirituality Institute. To find out more about SSI, check out our website at www.science and spirituality.org. I hope that this episode has stimulated your thinking and perhaps raised some new and interesting questions to think about further. Please send your comments, questions, and suggestions to me using the comment link. Also, I really want to hear what subjects you'd be interested in for future episodes. If you have a suggestion for a future podcast topic, please put that in the comment link as well. Please share this podcast with people who would be interested in the science and spirituality interface. You can significantly help grow our audience by simply sharing this podcast through your network of friends and acquaintances. Thanks again for listening. This is Richard Randolph, the founder and director of SSI, and your host for this podcast. So long for now, and let's continue to explore the interface between science and spirituality together.