A note on the argument from miracles

12 September 2026 · miracles, epistemology, protestantism

Miracles do not, by themselves, adjudicate between churches. What they attest to is God — and to whatever the miracle itself declares.

The claim goes: there are miracles in Rome, therefore Rome is the true Church. But this proves too much and too little at once. Too much, because miracles have been claimed in nearly every corner of Christendom, and outside it. Too little, because a genuine sign from God vindicates only what the sign itself declares — a healing at a shrine vindicates that God healed there; it does not, without further argument, vindicate the whole ecclesial apparatus around the shrine.

The New Testament sign-miracles were tightly bound to a public message: this Jesus, whom you crucified, God has raised. The evidential chain ran from the sign to the specific claim the sign was given to confirm. Modern shrine-miracle claims, whatever their status, are rarely of that order. To move from this happened to therefore this communion is the one true Church takes several silent premises that are doing all the work.

None of which is to be dismissive. The world is stranger than the disenchanted think. But the argument from miracles, taken by itself, is not the trump card it is often played as.