A Logical Argument for the Supernatural

Back in 2004, I spent a month in Munich as part of a German academic exchange program for American science and engineering college students. A handful of other students and I were crowded in a youth hostel dorm room when a young man hailing from Brazil took out a small quartz crystal on a lanyard. Dangling the pendant over the table, he appeared to concentrate and said, “My mother, she can make things move with crystals. The priests don’t like it and say that she shouldn’t do it.” After a brief moment of awkward silence, another Christian exchange student and I interrupted him and urged him not to continue.

The most surprising aspect of my first brush with the occult was not so much the supernatural claim itself, but the person who was making it. In my mind, either Christianity had to be completely true, or it was all nonsense. If the latter, then nothing was real but “molecules in motion,” a philosophy called materialistic naturalism. No other worldview even came close in explanatory power and consistency.

I naively assumed that all other science-type people were the same; they would either adhere to an established religion or else adopt hardcore atheism. To find a non-Christian engineer who not just believed in the occult, but claimed to have witnessed the supernatural, was outside the clear dichotomy of my logic.

Taking It on Faith

Personally, I have never seen anything unmistakably supernatural, and I suspect that is true for many other Christians. God has answered prayers in my own life – one or two in ways that seemed mysteriously providential – but never by obviously supernatural means. My trust in God rests on much more than supernatural signs, though. The testimony of the Holy Spirit, classical apologetic arguments, the resurrection accounts, archaeological evidence, and the amazing perspicacity of the Bible are just a few of the foundations available for a rational Christian faith.

Nevertheless, I have heard firsthand accounts of healing, visions, demonic possession, and angelic visitation from pastors and missionaries. Both believers and nonbelievers have also recounted ghost and UFO stories to me. The people narrating these experiences usually strike me as well-balanced, trustworthy individuals. Like the Brazilian engineering student, they cannot be easily dismissed as simpletons prone to confusing the supernatural with the natural.

While my highly analytical nature sometimes struggles with these stories (‘Why haven’t I seen something like this?’ it asks), their accounts remind me that Christians live in a “magical” world – a world that can’t always be explained by molecules in motion. Apologist Gregory Koukl puts it this way: “The Story makes it quite clear that man’s conflict in the visible realm is tied to a battle going on in a realm that is not visible, but is still completely real.” In other words, supernatural entities and events are expected if Christianity is true.

A Solid Argument

This key feature – the existence of the supernatural – is an apologetic argument just waiting to be harnessed. In highly secularized Western society, 28% of Americans identify as having no religion whatsoever – the largest single group eclipsing both Catholics (23%) and evangelical Protestants (24%). Yet at the same time, Christianity is experiencing a philosophical resurgence. An argument for the supernatural can be used as a persuasive tool for people who are on the fence between Christianity and naturalism. In that respect, it is a bit like Pascal’s Wager, suitable for those who waver between a full-blooded Christian worldview and abandoning faith altogether. And even for those firmly in the atheistic camp, the argument can prod them into considering a supernatural worldview.

Like most philosophical arguments, it has several premises followed by conclusions that logically follow. Here is one possible formulation:

1. If even one supernatural event has ever occurred, then naturalism is false.
2. Eyewitnesses have reported supernatural events throughout recorded history up to the present.
3. It is extremely improbable that every eyewitness account of supernatural activity is false (e.g., a hoax, an unknown natural phenomenon, a hallucination, psychological distress, etc.)
4. Ergo, it is extremely likely that at least one supernatural event has occurred.
5. Thus, it is extremely likely that naturalism is false.

It is obvious that only premise #3, the existence of at least one genuinely supernatural event, is open for serious debate. The other premises are definitions (#1), statements of fact (#2), or simple reasoning (#4, #5). But what can a critic truly say about #3? Are all of his friends and relatives wrong? Are all of the celebrities and modern religious leaders wrong? Are all of the historical accounts from dozens of different cultures wrong? It takes an enormous amount of confidence, perhaps even arrogance, to discount the testimony of so many other humans.

Glaring Omission

Despite its simplicity, I have never seen an argument like this in any apologetics literature. Perhaps that omission is because it can’t provide 100% logical certainty that the supernatural exists, much less that God exists or that Christianity is true. But virtually no apologetic argument offers conclusive proof, and certainly all arguments have at least one premise that a nonbeliever might deny.

A critic once compared the various arguments for God’s existence as “leaky buckets,” implying that they have holes and are therefore inadequate. In a way, the critic is right. There is no 100% foolproof argument that convinces every person and precludes all objections. Instead, when Christians stack more than one of those “leaky buckets,” the various “holes” in each argument can be plugged. While the critic may be unconvinced by a single argument in isolation, the weight of evidence for each aspect of the Christian worldview is much more potent.

I like this argument because it deals with personal experience rather than abstract philosophical concepts. Our job as Christians is to show our nonbelieving friends the implication of those experiences. In a highly secularized society, any tool that can shake the foundations of a naturalistic worldview should be welcomed by the well-rounded apologist.

Brandon Aldinger is a chemist with a doctoral degree who works in an industrial research laboratory. He’s had lifelong interest in issues of science and faith, and he is passionate about training fellow Christians to think clearly about and stand firm on their beliefs within a hostile culture.