Why Miracles Aren't More Documented

Though I've given some examples of miracle accounts that are supported by a lot of evidence, people often ask why there aren't more such accounts. Why isn't there more documentation of miracles, especially miracles that supposedly have occurred in our era of widespread technology, political freedoms, and other advantages? Asking why there isn't more evidence doesn't explain the evidence we have. Still, why isn't there more?

Part of the answer is the mindset most people have. Most people don't have much concern about arguing for or documenting most of their beliefs, not just their beliefs about miracles. They have a lack of interest in such things, a lack of interest that cuts across many contexts in life. And the large majority of people are already convinced that miracles happen, which gives them even less motivation to keep the sort of records some of us would like to have. Those of us who live in highly prosperous and free nations, like the United States, often neglect the fact that most people live in an environment that's much less conducive to producing documentation. In many parts of the world, there are no hospitals, or hospital records are more difficult to attain. Most people don't carry a camera or some other such recording device with them wherever they go. Even those who do probably won't always think to record significant events they encounter, or they may fail to sufficiently record what they wanted to (their attempt to record the event was too late, the footage is unclear, etc.). In some cases, the nature of the miracle makes it less likely to be documented much. Some miracles involve issues people want to keep private, such as the healing of an embarrassing illness. And so on.

Craig Keener provides many examples of difficulties he and others have encountered in the process of trying to document miracle accounts. Here are some representative examples:

As Christiaan de Wet noted to me in correspondence (March 25, 2008), large numbers of miracles are being reported in Africa today, but few are "verified and recorded" to Western satisfaction "because of the nature and context of the miracles." In the cases I will mention later, where I was a witness (and not yet considering writing on the subject), I myself did not think to obtain medical documentation, did not know how to obtain it, and might well not have been granted access to it. In some cases, no doctor had been consulted, and in others it seemed too intrusive for me to ask or to press persons who were busy to go to the trouble of obtaining it after I had asked….

Whereas most cured people do not retain or even know how to obtain medical records, this man, being a physician, did so, and provided me extensive copies detailing his test results. (I leave him unnamed here at his request, to protect his privacy and that of his medical colleagues whose names appear on the records, but this information is in my possession.)…

Moreover, of the people I interviewed who had been examined both before and after their recovery, most had no idea how to obtain medical documentation or initially even what I meant by it….

Some people eagerly offered to supply me old documentation but subsequently failed to find it in their many boxes of old papers. Most people would not spend hours looking for it simply to help a professor writing a book; in one case, someone who knew me did spend more than a workday looking for it but had an entire garage full of boxes….

In their sphere of relationships [in some cultures], people take other people's word for what they have witnessed; to ask for documentation is to communicate hostile suspicion. I can eventually overcome much suspicion, but I cannot get them to re-create documentation they have long since discarded as irrelevant, even if they obtained it to begin with (which is usually not the case)….

The reporter [investigating miracle claims] also discovered that medical documentation could be difficult to procure for logistical reasons, such as one hospital destroying outpatient records after ten years, attending physicians having died, or particular physicians failing to respond to requests….I discovered that people often did not know that they had a right to access their medical records. In some other cases, people requested documentation several times and were not able to obtain it within the months before my book was due to the publisher. Obtaining records might be among patients' rights, but that does not mean that busy professionals will always hasten to their assistance (in some cases perhaps especially if they fear that they might be cited in support of a professionally unusual conclusion in which they have no stake, or if apparent irregularities could even be potentially cited legally against them). In some cultures, patients lacked access to medical records, as the hospitals refused to share them….

All this to say that while it is reasonable to expect that some cases will be medically documented (and they are), it is not reasonable to dismiss all firsthand testimonies that lack such documentation, especially in places where people cannot be expected to have access to it (or perhaps even to treatment)….

Given the unpredictability of substantial healing claims and their dominance in places where they are most needed (i.e., where medical treatment is least available), it is not surprising that doctors are not usually personally present when a nonmedical healing occurs.

(Miracles [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2011], n. 256 on 256, 439, 658, nn. 84 and 85 on 658, 659-660, 662)