In his recent paper presented at Sunstone, "The Book of Mormon as Inspired Scripture," David Bokovoy said the following:
Whether we're talking about the Exodus story as told in the Hebrew Bible, the resurrection narratives in the New Testament, or Joseph Smith's account of golden plates, the tools of scholarship employed by the historian do not allow scholars to explain miracles and supernatural phenomena as "history." This is not an example of an intellectual, antisupernatural bias. It simply reflects the fact concerning the limitations of historical inquiry. Because of the academic nature of the historical disciplines, historians cannot show whether or not miracles happened in the past. By definition, a miracle is the least likely thing to have transpired, ad historians are always trying to uncover the most likely thing that occurred in the past. Miracles are events we deem virtually impossible. A miracle is an event that violates the way nature always, or almost always works so as to make the event virtually, if not actually, impossible. The chances that a miracle has taken place, that someone walked on water, or that a 19th century treasure seeking farm boy from upstate New York translated an ancient record written on golden plates by means of a rock are pretty small. If that were not the case these things would not constitute a miracle. Now, these things may or may not be true, after all, miracles do happen, but historians can only establish what probably transpired, and miracles by their definition are the least probably occurences.
This is why being consistent in one’s worldview is important. As Latter-day Saints, a priori, we are not metaphysical naturalists. We must be open to the “miraculous” occurring in time and space. That is not to say that every alleged miracle must be accepted, but there must be some openness to the supernatural having happened in history, and can still happen in the present and future. Fortunately, as we will see momentarily, such a worldview allows for acceptance of certain historical events where a purely metaphysical naturalistic worldview (one Bokovoy accepts) results in utter nonsense.
For scholarly discussions on miracles in history, see, for instance, these tomes:
Stanley L. Jaki, Miracles and Physics
Craig Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (2 vols.)
In Defense of Miracles: A Comprehensive Case for God's Action in History, eds. R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas
Graham. H. Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker: A Historical and Theological Study
Idem. Paul and the Miraculous: A Historical Reconstruction
Gospel Perspectives, vol. 6: The Miracles of Jesus, eds. David Wenham and Craig Blomberg
John Earman, Hume's Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles
Now, onto a specific example: the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. To see the abject failure of metaphysical naturalism at explaining the overwhelming evidence for the historicity of this event, see, for example, Michael Licona’s debates against Richard Carrier (atheist) and Shabir Ally (Muslim):
For those who wish to delve into the historicity of this event, see, for example:
N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God
Michael Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach
And contra Bokovoy, it is due to an antisupernatural bias that such things are a priori precluded as possibilities. For David, who still identifies (in some liberal?) way as a Latter-day Saint, I do have some questions:
- Does God exist?
- Can, and has, God spoken to man?
- Can, and has, God acted in space and time?
- Can God reveal Himself and his future plans to humanity?
- Does God have the power to bring about the miraculous?
- Do you believe in a historical Jesus?
- Do you believe that not only that Jesus died, but he was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven, and that such events (and the following events mentioned) are not "nice stories," but happened/will happen in space and in time?
- Do you believe in the future return of Christ?
- Do you believe that God and Jesus appeared to Joseph Smith in 1820?
- Do you believe there was a historical person called "Moroni" who buried physical plates in modern day New York sometime in the fifth century CE?
- Do you believe this same Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith between 1823 to 1830?
I could go on; my answer to all of these is "yes," so not only can I be labelled a supernatualist, I am also a consitent, believing Latter-day Saint.
