Miracles in Plain Sight

15 July 2025  Matthew 11:20-24

“Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of His mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented.” Matthew 11:20

Towns like Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum had seen the deaf hear, the blind recover their sight, and demons cast out in fantastic numbers. These were astonishing events, and Jesus clearly believed they were enough for them all to have repented with enthusiasm. It is often wondered why we don’t see healings like this today, but it is arguable that we do, and in far greater numbers. The Christian culture of medieval Europe created the university system, which in turn gave rise to modern science and modern medicine, which in turn, by our time, has given rise to astonishing acts of healing every day in far greater numbers than Chorazin, Bethsaida or Capernaum ever saw. You could say that in hospitals all over the world millions of mighty acts of God are hiding in plain sight.

Those acts, however, are harder for people to see as acts of God. Many people, in fact, see them as triumphs of science, and consider any talk of God to be irrelevant intrusions. For that reason, Christian witnesses have to make the case for God so that people can then see and appreciate His mighty acts that are still being done.

It is often overlooked that the existence of God has gained support by some remarkable discoveries in astrophysics over the last century. In 1929 Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding. He observed that galaxies are moving away from us, and the farther away the galaxy is, the faster it is receding. This provided the crucial evidence for what is known today as the Big Bang Theory, viz., that all space time and matter exploded into being in a massive singularity about 13.5 billion years ago. The mathematical order and the delicate balance of forces in the early universe that eventually permitted the emergence of life has persuaded many scientists that the emergence of the physical universe in space and time was not a random event, but bears all the marks of intentionality.

So, the cause of the universe was an intention, and the intention could not be a part of the physical universe because things can’t create themselves. The cause of the universe, therefore, must be outside the universe. It must be timeless and spaceless because space and time are features of the created universe, and the cause of the universe is outside that. It must be changeless also, because change implies time – something is one way and becomes another way; the x-factor is time. The cause must be personal as well – it is the only way you can get a temporal effect from an eternal cause, which is to say that it is the only way you can get an intention. Finally, the cause must be massively powerful, for it created the material universe without a material cause.

To talk about a cause of the universe that is timeless, spaceless, changeless, personal and massively powerful is one of the things it means to talk about God. Therefore, the existence of the universe proves that God exists.

This is one form of what is called the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God. It has been around for a very long time, and is very tight. So far, no one has successfully taken it down. Nor is it the only argument for the existence of God – there are in addition the Contingency, Moral, and Ontological arguments, and many others (see Two Dozen (or so)Arguments for God, Jerry Walls and Trent Dougherty, Oxford University Press, 2018).  Once people in our time have a good reason to think God is there, the way is clearer and straighter for them to see how He is behind things like modern medicine, and the millions of healings that take place every day.

And then, like Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, they will have an excellent reason to repent and believe.