Cold Case Christianity: Dear Mr. Wallace, luck does not constitute "miracle"

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity: Woman Says It’s a Miracle Her 

Wallet Blocked Bullets – Why Not Believe Her?

Posted: 28 May 2018 01:34 AM PDT

In a recent incident in Tennessee, a woman claimed her purse and wallet were used miraculously by God. As the woman and her husband were pulling into the parking lot of their apartment, they heard “popping” sounds. After getting out of their car, they saw several bullet holes on one side of the vehicle. A few minutes later, the woman discovered a hole in her purse and a bullet lodged in her wallet. When reporting the incident to the press, she told them she believed God used her wallet as a shield: “Just by the grace of God. It`s a miracle to keep me or him from getting hit.”

When I was an atheist, I would roll my eyes at statements like this.

You were correct to do so.  In this case, the women is not reporting a phenomenon for which it is difficult to find a naturalistic explanation.  She is reporting something that is on the order of "luck".  I've also been shot at and managed to avoid the bullet. 

In my mind, Christians were always attributing accidents, coincidences, and chance events to the “miraculous” work of God.

That wasn't just in your mind.  They do.  If they lose $50 at the casino, God must have wanted them to do without that $50.  If they win $50, surely the creator of the universe wanted them to have the extra $50.  There's no talking to committed religious freaks like you, who insist God is the basis of all "luck", but who are still unwilling to embrace 5-point Calvinism.

I rejected such nonsense. I was a “philosophical naturalist,” and as such, I believed that every event (including this one in Tennessee) could be explained with purely “naturalistic” explanations. The bullets that entered the car took a trajectory that was dictated by the material properties of the vehicle and the laws of physics. Nothing more. The bullet just happened to land in the woman’s purse. Unusual – perhaps – but no big deal, and certainly not an act of God.

Now, many years later, I’ve reconsidered my position.

Why?  Do you suppose that perhaps something more than naturalistic laws were responsible for the causes that led to the bullets finding their way into her purse?  How much time do you suppose a non-Christian should spend checking up on this story?  5 minutes?  One hour?  Several days?  Your Fox News source even admits

The woman, who was not identified, was on her way back from the hospital with her husband on Thursday, when the couple suddenly heard gunshots.

 You don't understand why a skeptic would have difficulties believing the miracle explanation provided by an anonymous source?

Your Fox News source has her being intentionally ambiguous about whether or not the bullets that hit her purse would have hit her had the purse not been in the way:

"I was like, 'Oh my God, honey! Here's another hole that came through my purse!'" she told the station. The woman's bag was sitting in the back seat, and she credits the location with possibly saving her life.

But most people would expect that if the woman wishes to make a miracle-connection, she would provide a bit more detail, such as her body being in line with the purse, so that the purse did, IN FACT, prevent the bullets from hitting her.

I admit that I also believed in miracles – of a sort – when I was an atheist. Dictionary.com provides the following definition of a “miracle”:

“An effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.”

They also provide this definition of “supernatural”:

“Of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.”

Given the way these terms are defined, nearly everyone believes in one kind of miracle or another, including those who reject the existence of a supernatural God. Even as an atheist, I too accepted the reasonable reality of at least one supernatural event.

I embraced the Standard Cosmological Model offered by physicists to explain the origin of the universe. It is known as the “Big Bang Theory,” and it proposes that all space, time, and matter (the attributes we typically think of when describing the natural realm) had a beginning.

That's where you went wrong.  The Big Bang is total bullshit.  The universe and matter have always existed.  But regardless, most physicists who accept the Big Bang, do not think it points to god. 

And the bigger problem for you is that the originally intended audience of Genesis 1-2 were mostly illiterate Israelite farm hands.  Moses' story of creation neither expresses nor implies some giant cosmic explosion, and it is highly unlikely the original Israelites under Moses would have read such a concept into the text, or added an explosion to the story in their mind as they heard a storyteller speaking the story to them.  If you must be a Christian before being a detective or scholar, you need to worry about how the Big Bang contradicts your own bible, before you pretend that it refutes atheism.

And one of fundamentalist Christianity's most vocal "creationist" think tanks, ICR, who require their members to uphold biblical inerrancy, entirely deny the scientific validity of the Big Bang theory.

Everything came into existence from nothing at a point in the distant past.

That's illogical.  Zero wouldn't have the function in math that it does, if it could ever produce anything.

"From nothing" is nonsense.  Yes, the Copenhagen school of quantum mechanics says virtual particles can appear from nothing and disappear out of existence, but that's just one school.  There are several schools of quantum mechanics, and not all of them espouse indeterminism.

I accepted this model of the universe’s origin, even though it presented me with a problem.

If all space, matter and time came into existence at some point in the past, whatever caused them to leap into existence cannot (by definition) be spatial, temporal or material.

That's also foolish, the explosion of the singularity in the alleged big bang did not create dimensions.  Dimensions were the necessary implication of there suddenly being at least two bits of matter separated by some distance.  You may as well say time didn't exist until clocks were invented.   Worse, you posit the existence of the "immaterial" by denying the cause was material, when in fact you couldn't demonstrate the existence of any non-physical thing to save your life.

The same with your "temporal" word: you are implying that what set off the big bang set it off from within the realm of eternity, when in fact your own bible represents the passing of time in heaven no less than it represents time passing on earth, in fact, it always presents the acts of God as having a before and an after, up there in heaven:

 24 Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven, (Gen. 19:24 NAU)

What?  Was God throwing down fireballs on Sodom from the realm of eternity, and somewhere along the way down, those fireballs switched dimensions and continued coming down in the realm of time?  No, the author, obviously not concerned about biblical inerracy or systematic theology, felt free to talk about God as if his abode were in the same dimension, just higher in the sky, as man's.

In other words, the cause of the natural universe does not possess any of the attributes of the natural realm (i.e. space, time or matter). See the dilemma? My naturalistic belief in “Big Bang Cosmology” required an extra-natural “Big Banger.”

Then perhaps you were a stupid atheist and you didn't know what any fool knows, that plenty of scientists who accept the big bang, do not think it implies god.  You simply characterize it that way because of how easily such a childish view can be sustained (i.e., the bumper sticker "The Big Bang Theory:  God spoke and *bang*, it happened").   Like the toddler who thinks an invisible person causes the car to move forward.

The non-spatial, a-temporal, immaterial first-cause of the universe clearly fits within the definition of “supernatural” we’ve described. The cause of the universe is, by definition, “above or beyond what is natural” (in that it does not possess the attributes of the natural realm) and cannot be explained “by natural law.”

After becoming a Christian, I eventually wrote about this in a book called God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe. The beginning of the universe from nothing is actually evidence for the existence of an all-powerful, non-spatial, a-temporal, immaterial God.

Dream on.  Being omniscient or "all-powerful" is refuted by the question "Can God make a box so heavy that he cannot lift it?".  People make boxes too heavy to lift every day, so doing this does not require a logical contradiction, therefore, if God can do all logically possible things, he should be able to make a box so heavy that he cannot lift it.  Furthermore, God regrets his own choice to make mankind in Genesis 6:6-7, and since you think everything else in the immediate context there is real and not figurative, you cannot escape this problem by pretending that God's remorse is mere anthropomorphism.  The originally intended audience for that passage were illiterate Israelites around 1300 b.c.  They would have no contextual, historical or linguistic reason to think God's regretting his own prior choices was any less literal in v. 6 than the wickedness of men mentioned in v. 5, or Noah's finding favor with God in v. 8.

And the more you talk about things non-spatial and a-temporal, the more you justify the skeptic to write you off as babbling incoherently. I don't listen to such talk any more than I listen to desperate idiot scientists who talk about "dark matter" or how worm-holes area shorter distance between two points than a straight line is.

The most spectacular and impressive miracle recorded in the Bible is recorded in the opening line of Genesis, Chapter 1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Christians believe the beginning of the universe was a supernatural event.

And Christians like you add a gigantic "explosion" to the biblical record of creation, which the record itself neither expresses nor implies, and explosion other inerrantist creationist Christian scholars insist is wholly fictitious and unbiblical.  But you live in a day where religion is dismissed if it doesn't account for scientific truth.  So apparently you've chose to adulterate the biblical creation account just to make the bible sound more impressive to modern day people.

As a skeptic investigating the claims of Christianity, I eventually had to admit that I also accepted the origin of the universe as a supernatural, miraculous event, and if God had the power necessary to create everything from nothing, he could probably pull off the miracles described in the New Testament. In fact, He might even be able to use a wallet to stop a bullet.

But the claimant didn't claim anything that couldn't be accounted for by naturalistic explanations.  She didn't claim the bullet bounced off her skin, for example, or that it created a fatal wound which immediately healed because she immediately prayed over it.

What's next, Wallace?  If a Christian credits God with their winning the lottery, will you write a blog piece asking why we shouldn't believe them?

Why don't you ascribe to God's miraculous doings, the opposite type of events, that is, where poverty and injury are created?

For example, when a foreign power invades and they rape the women and beat the children to death.  After all, Isaiah 13 says it is God who will stir up the pagan Medes to do all these things to the Hebrews.

Here's the entire chapter for your convenience.  Maybe someday you can tell the Christians why it is that you refuse to speak as bluntly about God's causing evil as the biblical prophets did.  Common sense says you so refuse because you don't agree with what those prophets taught:

 1 The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.
 2 Lift up a standard on the bare hill, Raise your voice to them, Wave the hand that they may enter the doors of the nobles.
 3 I have commanded My consecrated ones, I have even called My mighty warriors, My proudly exulting ones, To execute My anger.
 4 A sound of tumult on the mountains, Like that of many people! A sound of the uproar of kingdoms, Of nations gathered together! The LORD of hosts is mustering the army for battle.
 5 They are coming from a far country, From the farthest horizons, The LORD and His instruments of indignation, To destroy the whole land.
 6 Wail, for the day of the LORD is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty.
 7 Therefore all hands will fall limp, And every man's heart will melt.
 8 They will be terrified, Pains and anguish will take hold of them; They will writhe like a woman in labor, They will look at one another in astonishment, Their faces aflame.
 9 Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning anger, To make the land a desolation; And He will exterminate its sinners from it.
 10 For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not flash forth their light; The sun will be dark when it rises And the moon will not shed its light.
 11 Thus I will punish the world for its evil And the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless.
 12 I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold And mankind than the gold of Ophir.
 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of hosts In the day of His burning anger.
 14 And it will be that like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with none to gather them, They will each turn to his own people, And each one flee to his own land.
 15 Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
 16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished.
 17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.
 18 And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children.
 19 And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
 20 It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there, Nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there.
 21 But desert creatures will lie down there, And their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches also will live there, and shaggy goats will frolic there.
 22 Hyenas will howl in their fortified towers And jackals in their luxurious palaces. Her fateful time also will soon come And her days will not be prolonged.  (Isa. 13:1-22 NAU)

 If Wallace wishes to be "biblical", he would have to add "rape" and "child massacre" to the "miracles" that God does.

And because all of God's judgments are good and righteous, Wallace would not see the slightest sign of psychological problems in the fools who praise God for ALL of His works....which would thus mean praising God for his causing of rape and child massacre.