Miracles are events that cannot be explained by natural or scientific laws — suggesting that these inexplicable events may only happen because of divine intervention by a supernatural deity.
Therefore, it never occurred to me that an atheist might believe in miracles.
So when I watched an interview with Oprah Winfrey in which prominent atheist Dan Barker claimed that he had prayed in the name of Jesus Christ and as a result, a man was instantly healed of laryngitis, it frankly caught me by surprise.
Even more interesting was my discovery that former pastor Jerry DeWitt‘s autobiography Hope After Faith contained multiple claims of divine intervention that ranged from the mundane (“magnetically” led to find an allegedly special triangle-shaped rock) to the truly spectacular (the spontaneous healing of a brain aneurysm allegedly caused by his prayers for a miracle in the name of the Christ.) 
Both Dan and Jerry asserted that remarkable phenomena occurred as a result of their fervent prayers — in fact, they seemed to be bragging about it. Otherwise, why would they even mention that these alleged miracles took place, if these men didn’t want us to believe something truly inexplicable had occurred because of something they had done?
Yet when pressed to provide a rational explanation for such an incredible coincidence, if it was not an act of God, atheists can’t explain what happened.
Atheist scientist Jacalyn Duffin’s involvement in the verification of an alleged miracle healing was just as impressive as Jerry DeWitt’s aneurysm story because of the medical documentation in the case.
The Vatican had rejected the claim that the victim of acute myeloblastic leukemia had been miraculously healed of a relapse after appealing in prayer to Marie-Marguerite d’Youville for intervention on her behalf. d’Youville was under consideration to become the first saint from Canada at that time.
The extreme skepticism expressed by the Vatican about the claim meant that Duffin, the atheist, would have to confirm that the cancer had indeed relapsed and subsequently went into permanent remission after the alleged miracle occurred, if d’Youville was to be canonized.
The Vatican’s position was that the disease had never relapsed, but had been in remission the whole time. However, Duffin confirmed that the cancer had indeed returned, and then mysteriously disappeared after the “miracle” cure.
Duffin confirmed that patient had a very serious form of cancer, received treatment, the cancer went into remission, but then the acute myeloblastic leukemia had come back with a vengeance.
Then a miracle occurred.
photo of J. Duffin by Wieke Eefting
Duffin frankly admitted, “We speak of the medical possibility of cure in first remission, but not following a relapse.”
As a result of her contribution to the body of evidence that swayed the Vatican’s position to accept the claim as true, Duffin was invited to the ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica. Strangely enough though, as with Dan Barker and Jerry DeWitt, Jacalyn Duffin remains an atheist in spite of her participation in the verification of the inexplicable, miraculous healing of a woman dying from cancer.
She wrote, “Though still an atheist, I believe in miracles—wondrous things that happen for which we can find no scientific explanation.”
That simply doesn’t make sense to me. How can an atheist witness miracles that have allegedly been performed in the name of Christ and still not believe in God?
Isn’t that kind of like believing in magic without a magician, or creation without a Creator?
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