Evaluate the claim that miracles in the Bible are not a reliable form of experience.
Prior to discussing this, it’s important to understand what it means to read the Bible. There are two common interpretations of the Bible, a literal reading and a non-literal reading. Having said this, I will argue that miracles in the bible, on balance are not a reliable form of religious experience and will consider the case studies of Jesus’ resurrection, resurrection of Jairus’s daughter and the miracle healing of the unclean woman.
Literalists would see the Bible, quite literally, as the name suggests. This means that all events within the Bible, all accounts of miracles, stories, the Flood, Moses and the Burning Bush, the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter and the healing of the unclean woman, everything, is completely true. However, it’s worth noting that this only makes sense to the believer, thus reinforcing faith rather than introducing it.
In an era where logic and mathematical truth predominantly takes priority over unreliable accounts, many believe the events in the Bible to be completely true. Great thinkers such as Aquinas believe that miracle of Jesus’s resurrection is an infallible truth. If this is the case, many would ask “well, how can you prove he was resurrected and it wasn’t somebody who looked similar to Jesus and simply impersonated them or played a practical joke?”, well, to the believer, the miracles in the Bible is their understanding of how God interacts with our universe, and so demonstrating the theistic God that is Christianity. However if this is true, it brings many questions to the table, such as are miracles really a miracle for everyone, or more likely one mans blessing yet another mans curse?
In relation to this, Maurice Wiles commented that a God who performs miracles for some yet not others is an arbitrary and a partisan God, meaning he