In talks on university campuses, Christian physicist and MIT professor Ian Hutchinson asks “Can a scientist believe in miracles?” (He’s also written a book with the same title.) Hutchinson sometimes begins his talks by jokingly saying, “Can scientists believe in miracles? We can answer that question pretty easily—I’m a scientist, and I believe in miracles. So the answer is yes.”

He notes that most of us don’t understand the Bible’s view of miracles. He says, “We tend to view God as mostly hands-off, standing on the sidelines, letting nature look after itself, but then on rare occasions reaching in to tweak things by the odd miracle here and there.” But Hutchinson argues that according to the Bible, “[God] continuously holds the universe in the palm of his hand … It exists because of his continuous creative power and will: If he were to stop exerting that upholding power, stop paying attention to every part of the universe, it would instantly cease to exist.”

Thus, he defines a miracle this way: A miracle is “an extraordinary act of God” by which God “upholds a part of the universe in a manner different from the normal.” He adds, “Yes, we know more today than people did long ago, but what we know today makes the universe seem, if anything, even more open."

Source:

Rebecca McLaughlin, “4 Reasons to Believe in the Christmas Miracle,” Christianity Today (December 2018)