Can a Virgin Give Birth?

I’ve been having internet conversations with folks who call themselves atheists. These are interesting people, but after a while, they all start sounding the same (But in their defense, I’m sure they think the same of Christians). The thing that seems to bother them the most about the Bible is all the miracles, the biggest one being the virgin birth. They can’t understand how or why anyone can believe in something that is so “obviously false”. They usually begin and end their argument saying something like this: Can a virgin give birth? No! The Bible lied. You’ve been duped! Case closed.

I don’t think that what I’m going to write here will change their minds, the people I’ve been talking with are all pretty sure about what they feel they know is true. But I want to maybe help someone out there who has still not made up their mind and has an honest question about this.

These folks have made an error in their reasoning. They begin by thinking that nature would not allow for a virgin birth to happen – and they’re right; naturally speaking, this would never happen. But then they think that God is limited by nature and, therefore, He couldn’t cause the virgin birth to happen SUPERnaturally. The prefix “super” means “above”. God is above nature, not controlled by it or even equal to it, but ABOVE it. How did I come to that conclusion? Because the Bible says God created everything, and that includes nature. God is not controlled by the natural laws of His own creation.

So HOW did the virgin birth happen? That is something these atheists are asking as sort of a “gotcha” question. But again, they’ve made an error in their reasoning. They think that if something can’t be explained, then it must not be true. Do you understand all the details of how you are there reading what I wrote from over here? Our grandparents would have thought an “online blog” was impossible. But this is an even bigger question, because in 3 or 4 generations, we still won’t understand HOW the virgin birth happened.

That sounded a little smug, didn’t it? How can I be so certain that we won’t understand it? Well, I guess there’s a possibility that we will, but I seriously doubt it, and here’s why: The God of the Bible is infinite, His thoughts are infinite, and His methods are infinite. The human mind is finite. There are going to be things about God and God’s methods that no human can possibly understand. And it has to be that way for Him to be the Creator and us to be His creations.

Think of God as being the ocean and your mind is an 8 ounce drinking glass. Can you pour the ocean into the glass? No. Does that mean the ocean does not exist? No! Then when I say you can’t understand everything about God because He is too big, why does the atheist leap up to say then that God doesn’t exist? Just because we can’t explain all that He is, does not mean that He does not exist! If anything, it proves that He IS the Creator and not something made up in a finite brain belonging to a human being. And then why would I choose to worship something so small that I could fully comprehend it?

So let’s revisit the atheist’s arguments I gave you earlier: Can a virgin give birth? Yes, because God created nature and is not controlled by natural laws. Then how did the virgin birth happen? We will probably never know the answer this side of heaven because our finite minds cannot fully comprehend the infinite wisdom and methods of an infinite God.

Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”