The Sean McDowell Show - How to Investigate the Supernatural (w/ Lee Strobel)

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Lee Strobel has a new book out called Seeing the Supernatural. He takes readers on a journey talking with various experts about the evidence for angels, near-death experiences, miracles, demon possessions, and more. Don't miss one of his first interviews on the subject. He takes us through how a seasoned journalist might investigate the supernatural.READ: Seeing the Supernatural, by Lee Strobel (https://amzn.to/3Fo2yoX)*Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf)*USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM)*See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK)FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowellTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=enInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

How might someone investigate the supernatural? What kind of evidence is required to reasonably believe in the quote, world beyond what we can touch and see? Our guest today is a former award-winning editor for the Chicago Tribune, New York Times bestselling author and frequent guest on this program, Lee Strobel. He has a new book out in which he argues that there's good evidence for angels, visions, near-death experiences, miracles, and other supernatural phenomena. Lee, thanks for coming back.

Hey, thanks, Sean. I appreciate it. Good to see you. Yeah, the moment I saw this book, I showed it to my wife and she's like, Oh, why is this called seeing the supernatural rather than the case for the supernatural? Well, that's a good question. Dog gone and I wish I thought of that. No, actually, I don't want to wear my wreath with case nomenclature. I thought I'd try something a little new. Plus, you know, there's a great story

in second Kings chapter six, where Elisha is being pursued by the Syrian army and his servant is freaking out because he's afraid they're going to get killed and everything and the servant wakes up one morning and he sees the Syrian army surrounding them and so forth and he doesn't know what to do and Elisha says, hey, basically he said don't freak out, you know,

greater is, there are greater forces with us than with them. But in order to really placate and ease the anxiety of the servant, Elisha prays and says, God open his eyes. Let him see the supernatural, in a sense. And then God opens the eyes of the servant, and he sees the chariots of fire, the angels who God sent to protect them. So I love that God opened the eyes

of that servant to see the supernatural and to, and through that, to bolster his courage, to bolster his faith, to remind him of the love and protection of God. And so I just love that he got that opportunity to actually see the supernatural. So that's why I chose the title. You know, Lee, 15 years ago, I had my first public debate with this high school teacher who's a PhD and I prepped for months. And I can't remember if it was- I remember that.

Oh, you saw that, interesting. Well, it was the day before that morning, my mom shared that passage with me from 2 Kings chapter six, and it was exactly what I needed to hear, that the supernatural realm is real. Now, there's a lot of people sitting here going, I'm not convinced, I don't buy it.

Let's talk to them, but before we get there, just a few questions to kind of set us up. You've written a ton of books. I wanna know why you wrote this book now. And by now, I mean two things. Now, why this cultural moment? But second, the older I get, the more I weigh the cost of writing certain books.

And let's just say you've got a few years on me. So clearly every book that you write, it's like, I'm only going to write something that I think will make a difference. So why now in your journey and why now culturally a book on seeing the supernatural? I think the cultural moment is appropriate for this. Eight out of ten Americans believe that there is something beyond the physical world. So there's a lot of agreement on that.

But what is that other world and how do we know? And you see a lot of wacky stuff online and on television and on YouTube about just crazy stuff that people claim is true about the supernatural realm. And I think there is, we're seeing a moment in which a lot of the new atheists passing away. a moment in which a lot of the new atheists are passing away. And people are looking for something beyond the idea that there is no God, there is no thing beyond the material world. And I think they're hungry to find out, is there really something? Is this all there is or is there a life beyond this? Is there a world and a realm beyond this? And I think, you know, as someone who started as a skeptic,

like your dad did, you know, and a doubter, an atheist, I wanted to kind of apply some of those techniques to investigate, how do we know? That's kind of the thrust of the boat. How can we be confident that there really is this supernatural realm, that angels really exist, that demons we be content that there really is this supernatural realm, that angels really exist, that demons really exist, that there is a heaven, that there is a hell.

And so I was kind of looking for things beyond just stories, but documented cases, documented miracles published in peer-reviewed secular medical journals, things like that, that I could really communicate to people who are me skeptics, but also Christians who, even though they believe that there's a supernatural world, sometimes there's that reservation they have. It's like, yeah, sure.

Yeah, sure, I kind of believe it, but they're not totally convinced, just like that servant until he had his eyes opened up. We're going to get to some of those documented cases, but when I pick up any one of your books, one of the things I know is there's just going to be compelling stories. So I was going through it again last night, and one story I stopped, Lee, and I read it to my wife, and I got goosebumps,

and I literally almost got a tear. I thought, oh my goodness. Now I know Kirk Cameron, like you do, been on a show, real treat, good friend going back years. I had never heard the story about his sister. So will you just share that as one example of the kind of supernatural phenomena that you're trying to document in this book?

Yeah, his sister was pregnant and she was at home and she had a miscarriage and she's devastated. She's you know, she calls her mother and says, Mom, I've just lost the baby. And her mother said, Well, go to the hospital. But whatever you do, not let them take you into surgery without first doing an ultrasound. So she didn't know why she said that. So she goes to the hospital, they're going to take her in and deal with the remains of this miscarriage. And she said, no, no, no, I need to have an ultrasound before I leave this room. So they're doing an ultrasound. And as they're doing it, this look upon the technician of puzzlement, she's confused. And she says, there's a baby in here.

There's still a baby. It turned out she was pregnant with twins. And she didn't know it. And one of the babies had miscarried. But the other one was still in utero. So, my goodness, the doctor couldn't believe it. Oh, my goodness. So So she gives birth to this one child later on, a couple months later, and the child is healthy and child is fine. But when the

child is little, you know, a few years old, she comes up to her mom and they never told her that that she had, you know, been a twin and so forth that she was too young. They figured they'd wait until she was older to really explain everything. Her daughter got in her lap one day and said, Mommy, do I have a sister? And I'm like, what do you mean? Well, in my dreams, this girl comes to me and she says she's my sister and she wants to play and she wants to talk and we have a great time together.

And the funny thing is she looks just like me. And, you know, this is a kid that did not know that she had a twin, had never been told. And yet something was going on. And her mother said, does this happen often? She said, all the time. So what do you do with that? I mean, you know, this is one of those spine tingly things that you hear about and but it comes from incredible sources and

You have to kind of weigh what what could they explain that kind of thing? So you write this is one of the early stories in the book that a Bridget This is Kirk sister was at home when she miscarried, but she feels God, you know, gently saying, this is your daughter, you need to say goodbye, which she did through tears. And my wife had a miscarriage. I know how just painful that would be. I couldn't imagine having that.

But then, you know, she has this sense, the doctor says, you're still praying. She's like, how does this work? Okay, the identical twin. But that moment, this is when I got the tingly eye you described that she's four years old and says you know I see her all the time this twin and she looks just like me. Now if this were an isolated case I would not remotely be convinced. You know there's a lot of I used to joke about having a twin when I was a kid

and I would just now and then name him Scott, which is the name of my son, interestingly enough. I don't know why. Did you name your son Scott after your other twin? Well, it wasn't named after... That's interesting. Yeah, I didn't name him after that. I just used to do that when I was four or five and you know six years old

I don't know why so if this was an isolated case. I could totally see why Somebody would be skeptical, but when you have so many cases from people Resisting sharing this not trying to make money or yeah, you know get popularity out of it Comes to them at a cost, and then near death experiences that people see a former twin, it's enough to pause and say something's going on.

Now we're gonna come back to how we investigate the supernatural and at what point we say, this is reasonable, there's a case here, but I wanna read you a line from your book that I think if a skeptic Read this they'd probably say Lee you're crazy. Here's what you wrote You said the supernatural realm is as real as the physical world you see all around you Maybe even more so so what do you mean by the supernatural realm?

And how can you possibly say it's as real, more so than I could touch, taste and feel? You know, I think we live in a world where we do see, touch things, we put things into test tubes, and we think that documents that this is reality, and this is the only reality and so forth. When we get these peaks into the supernatural world

that are corroborated, that have, you know, this is not things that people are seeing and experiencing that's coming out of a subconscious mind, but we have external corroboration of these things. When that's true, then the idea that there is a realm beyond what we can see and touch comes much more convincing. And that opens up what the Bible talks about, you know, is the Bible telling us the truth? Or the Bible tells us about all kinds of things in the supernatural realm. You know, it's interesting in Revelation chapter five,

when Jesus is on his throne, the post-resurrected Jesus, it says there are 100 million angels worshiping him. 100 million angels worshiping him. 100 million angels. And you go, that's beyond what we have in this world. I mean, this is a realm that is more, I don't want to use the word magical, but more super normal than what we experience in this world.

So I always go, you know, I'm a journalist. I'm trained in journalism and law. So I'm always looking for how do I know? What's the corroboration? Could this be something that is just a product of wishful thinking or dementia or all these possibilities? Well, when you look at studies that have been done, when you look at studies that have been done, when you look at studies that have been done

into the miraculous that are published in peer-reviewed scientific secular medical journals that are scientifically rigorous studies that indicates something from beyond this world is influencing our realm. When you look at the pre-death visions that people have and how, you know, one study of 3,000s of those indicated that these are not hallucinations,

they're not fantasies, they're not memories caused by grief, they're not projections of the subconscious mind, they're not products of an overactive imagination, but there is external corroboration of them. When we looked at mystical dreams that take place in the Islamic world, this is phenomenal, sweeping the countries that are closed to the gospel. And yet Jesus' dreams are happening among Muslims,

but they're not products of people's subjective subconscious minds. How do we know? Because people are not going to sleep as a Muslim, having a dream about Jesus, of people's subjective subconscious minds. How do we know? Because people are not going to sleep as a Muslim, having a dream about Jesus and waking up as Christians. These dreams are pointing them to something external corroborative experiences

in which they learn about the gospel of Jesus. So that's what I'm looking for is something that is beyond just stories that can be explained away as being fantasy, wishful thinking, dementia. I know you've had interviewed J. Steve Miller, the expert on pre-death vision several times. And I interviewed him for my book too, as well as seeing the supernatural. And he reports the case of this huge hospice facility in New York state where they said to the people who were dying, because a lot of people were dying who have these kinds of experiences

don't want to talk about it. These deathbed visions like, you know, Stephen in Acts chapter seven, where Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, the Bible says, before he's stoned to death, he sees heaven's opened up and he sees Jesus next to the Father. And so many people, this is so common. There are tens of thousands of documented cases

in which people have visions of what is to come just before they die. Well, they went to this huge hospice facility in New York State and they said to the people, if you have a vision like this, not just a dream, but something that's beyond that, so vivid, tell us about it, we would like to know. Because people get embarrassed, they think they're going

to be accused of having dementia or something, so a lot of people don't talk about it. But they said, okay, 88% of them had a pre-death vision, 88%, and many of them are corroborating. I'll give you a funny story. I'm talking to Leslie about this, my wife, you're doing this research. And I say, man, this stuff about these pre-death visions

is unbelievable. I said, if there were just a few of them, you could write them off as an anomaly. But there are literally tens of thousands that have been investigated. And she said, well, you know about Al, don't you? I said, Al, father-in-law. No, what happened?

She said, Lee, don't you know what happened to Al? She said, just before your father-in-law, Al, died, he was in hospice. I went into his room. And he's all agitated. And he said, where's Marge? Where's Marge? And she said, what are you talking about? he said, where's Marge? Where's Marge? And she said, what are you talking about?

Said, where's Marge? And Marge was his sister who had died a couple of weeks earlier. Nobody told Al because he was so ill. They didn't want to push him over the brink and kill him. So they kept this from him. But Al was all agitated because he had been talking to his sister Marge,

who was dead in his room prior to his own death. And to me, that's the kind of corroboration. We have people who are seeing not just a vision of what's to come, but actually either seeing or conversing with someone who has predeceased them, but they didn't know it. That's corroboration. I thought your point in that chapter was really interesting about why should we trust people who are dying? Maybe they're losing their minds. And you said you got nothing to gain when you're about to die. This is not about like trying to get something.

So even legally, there's a way that a testimony can be given and written down that's used in a court of law That's not when other kinds of might be considered here say in other circumstances So I thought that's right the court of law, you know, I near near death experience somewhere between 4 and 10 percent I've heard different studies but deathbed experiences 88% and some of these people like Mark Twain reporting them and others who are skeptics and taking place exactly, like it's the norm to have these kinds of experiences. And so we need to shift the dialogue. Now, before we push into how we investigate this,

you know, for me, we sometimes just think of the supernatural like angels, deathbed visions, miracles. Even if there were not the kind of evidence you're laying out in this book, I would still believe in the supernatural because the supernatural is that which is above or beyond nature. Morality is not natural. Behaviors might be, but the kind of oughts and commandments of how we should believe is not material.

Consciousness is not material. You cannot describe pain in purely natural physical phenomena. There's an experience and a sensation tied to it. You could argue that the beginning of the universe and the origin of the universe and the origin of life, even scientists describe it as a kind of miracle, that alone would be sufficient to convince me.

When you start to add all of these testimonies of these kind of dramatic supernatural accounts, that's what I think makes the case even stronger. Now, let me ask you this if I can. How do you investigate the supernatural? Like what does this look like? Because we often hear, I think it goes back to Sagan, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

What is a reasonable explanation that maybe even a skeptic would say, okay, I disagree with your conclusions, but that's a fair way to approach this. Yeah, I first of all, I think it's not a reasonable test to say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's just not true. Extraordinary claims require sufficient evidence. What I mean by that, and I use this in the book, I said if I am told that a spaceship just landed in Washington, D.C., in front of the White House, a spaceship landed, well that would be an extraordinary event, right?

But I would believe it if I had credible sources reporting this. If I had reliable news media reporting it, I had eyewitness accounts and so forth, then that's sufficient to establish as something credible is taking place. So I think this, we need extraordinary evidence. It's just a way that atheists like to push us into demanding documentation that goes beyond what's reasonable. I remember one atheist writing in Skeptic Magazine said,

what would it take for me to believe that a miracle had taken place? She said, well, if a chicken learned how to read and then beat a grand master chess, then maybe I'd start thinking for him. Well, you know, it's like they set the bar unreasonably high. For me, it's credible to believe in a supernatural miracle or supernatural existence if we have documented cases

with corroboration, we have witnesses or eyewitnesses who have no motive to deceive if it is something that can be confirmed through medical tests, if it's a healing of some sort. We have the famous test that was done in Mozambique where supernatural healings were supposedly taking place. And we see this around, I talked about this in the. And we see this around, and I talk about this in the book, we see this around the planet that often miracles take place in clusters.

And they're often where the gospel is just breaking in. So there was a cluster of miracles in Mozambique. And they said, these researchers, scientists said, let's go check it out. So they go to Mozambique and they go to the remote areas of Mozambique and they say, bring us all your deaf and blind. So they bring them and these are people with severe hearing

or visual loss or deaf or blind, and they test them scientifically right then. What is your level of vision? What is your level of hearing? And they get that documented. Then they are prayed for in the name of Jesus Christ by people who tend to have a rack record of God using them this way.

And then immediately after that, they're tested again. Is there any difference in vision, in their hearing? And guess what? Virtually everybody improved, often to extraordinary extents. In fact, there was one woman named Martine, when they first encountered her, she couldn't hear the equivalent of a jackhammer next door. After 10 minutes prayer in the name of Jesus,

she could hear normal conversations. Well, then they go to, and by the way, the average improvement in visual acuity was 10 fold. So then they go to Brazil to see if they could replicate this study. They do the same study. They get the same results. In fact, there was one woman who could not see somebody holding

up three fingers nine feet away. And then after prayers in the name of Jesus, she did the name tag and the person praying for her. Well, this is a rigorous scientific study that was accepted for publication in a secular, scientific peer reviewed medical journal conducted by a PhD from Harvard university, a professor at a major secular university. That's the kind of documentation I'm looking for something that's tested,

something that that's that withstands scrutiny. You know, Lee, I don't get surprised a lot at this stage in my life, but the idea of a chicken learning to read or read a set is one I did not see coming. And by the way, I'm guessing, you know, atheists and agnostics and skeptics watch this. They probably think that's about as ridiculous as you and I do, and that certainly doesn't represent all atheists. I took a group of high school students to Berkeley. This is probably a dozen years ago.

And we had a public forum with three students and graduate students from Berkeley with three of my high school students. And one of my students asked, what would convince you that there's a God or the supernatural? And the students said, well, if I just called down fire, kind of like the Elijah test in first Kings

and God burned something up or did America right here, I believe. And then he paused and said, well, then I probably reflect later and think that maybe I was on drugs. And I thought, wow, this is an impossible standard. Now, again, I don't think all atheists are there. I don't wanna mischaracterize that,

but I have a theistic worldview, so I'm open to this. And the downside is that maybe I could be led into believing supernatural accounts that didn't happen. I'll concede that, but on the flip side, there could be some atheist agnostics that are so critical. Don't follow the evidence when it's actually there. I think in reading your book and engaging this stuff, really the key is we all have to check our own biases

and ask how they're shaping this investigation. Christian or not, we should do that. Now, speaking of bias, I'm really curious because you know, I did my dissertation on the death of the apostles. So I had to read a ton about history. I wrote a book with Dempsky on intelligent design. So I had to really wrestle with the question

of can science and history investigate the supernatural? And there's something you know called methodological naturalism that often rather than just being skeptical the supernatural, rules it out at the beginning. But a question that's never crossed my mind is what are the rules in investigative journalism? Is it the same traditionally as history and science? Is there an openness to this?

Tell me, I'm really curious. Well, I think it varies according to who's doing the investigation. Okay, that's fair. You know, when I was an atheist at the Chicago Tribune, I was more closed off. I was more of a methodological naturalist and materialist, and it would not crack open the door

to the possibility of the supernatural. But having said that, it was the supernatural event of the resurrection of Jesus that ultimately brought me to faith. The historical data, the nine ancient sources in and out of the New Testament confirming a corroboration of the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the risen Jesus. You know, as someone trained in law, I went to Yale Law School, I learned what is evidence, what can you trust, what can't you trust, what is corroboration and so forth.

Intercorporate journalism training taught me how to interview people, ask questions and probe and see what can be documented, can't be documented. I think using those tools, I would have to approach things with the conviction that there is no supernatural realm to come to the ultimate conclusion that indeed nothing points to it. In other words, I think an open, what I tried to do is that I tried to be like an umpire in a baseball game. You know, I'm a Chicago Cubs fan and And I was earning eggs when I was two years old,

kissed me on the cheek. So I had to be a Cubs fan my whole life. And so when I investigated, even as an atheist, I said, I'm gonna call a ball a ball and a strike a strike. If the evidence points towards something uncomfortable, there is a supernatural realm, like there is the possibility of the miraculous or resurrection.

I want to be open to it if the evidence is clear and convincing, if it's powerful and if it's persuasive. And I certainly found it to be the historical data for the resurrection, for instance. The scientific data, I just mentioned this rigorous scientific study from Mozambique and Brazil, and I footnote in the book, you can look up the article yourself on the internet from this the Southern Medical Journal, which is a major medical journal that published this case,

Documented Miracles that are published as case studies in peer-reviewed medical journals. That you throw up your hands if you're open enough to consider the evidence, you got to throw up your hands and say, I can't explain this other than there's something supernatural going on. I'll give you a case study of a woman who was blind for a dozen years. She learned how to read Braille.

She went to school for the blind. She walked with a white cane. And she married a pastor, a bachelor. And one night they're getting ready for bed and she's in bed and he comes and he's crying. And he puts his hand on her shoulder and says, it begins to praise God. I know you can heal my wife.

I know you can restore sight. And God, I pray right now tonight that you heal my wife. And she opened her eyes to perfect eyesight. She said, I was blind when my husband started praying for me. And then all of a sudden, I boom, I could see I could see it was a miracle. And her eyesight remained intact for 47 years and published again for 47 years. And published, again, for medical researchers, research it. By the way, she had a medical condition that there had never been a recorded case of anybody recovering from this.

It was an incurable condition, and yet she was completely healed from it. What do you do with that? And again, I foot notice that people can look up the case study themselves from the medical journal. A lot of scientists will stop short of saying it's a miracle, but they will say something's going on. We can't explain it. We can't dismiss it. But something is going on. That's a really interesting line that you draw there because there's a difference between saying, you know, we don't have a natural explanation for this.

This goes beyond what we can measure and definitively saying this is the God of the Bible who did that. Science can only take us so far. And you, I think, point out a few times that there's something supernatural going on here. Scientists put up their hands and suggest something else is at work. I appreciate that not overstating the evidence when the scientists themselves seems to conclude that. Now, I know you've thought about this

and some people have pushed back on your other books and said things like, Lee, why don't you interview a skeptic for this? Why don't you interview somebody on the other side to cross examine? And you know, on my channel, I interview mostly Christians, but maybe six months ago, I invited Michael Shermer on, and we had a two hour debate about morality.

And I thought about inviting him to have a debate on near death experiences. I haven't done it yet, but he's smart and savvy and just a great conversation partner knows his stuff. Why not interview somebody like that for this book? Yeah, great question and the answer is I did. Yeah, I did a previous book called The Case for Miracles and I took the first three chapters of that book and I had a day-long interview with Michael Sherman, number one skeptic in America,

editor and founder of Skeptic Magazine. And I cross-examined him and got his, and then the rest of the book, I kind of responded to his objections to the supernatural and miracles and so forth, with case studies and so forth, the kind of show that, I think, I don't think his stuff really holds up. Interestingly though, he did have a supernatural, I'll use that term, experience that he cannot explain. And it bothers him to this day.

So I talk about that in the book. And I also interviewed for another one of my books, Charles Templeton, who was the number one skeptic in Canada. He was the former partner of Billy Graham, went to a liberal seminary, lost his faith, wrote an ugly book called Farewell to God, My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith, became renowned in Canada as our number one agnostic or atheist.

I interviewed him for my book, The Case for Faith, and we became friends. And I actually sent him the manuscript before it was published. And he was quite appreciative of it. But what people don't know, and it's in this new book, is that he appears to have come back to faith before he died. And we have good reason to believe that Charles Templeton either returned to faith or came to faith the first time before his death. And interestingly, when we talk about these deathbed visions, in Luke chapter 16, Jesus talks about the story of the beggar and the rich man who both die, and the rich man goes to a place of torment and the beggar to a place of bliss. But interestingly, Jesus said the angels carried the beggar

to the place of bliss. And so often in these deathbed visions, people see angels coming for them. And that's what happened to Charles Templeton, this number one skeptic of Canada who returned to faith before he died, who, and I quote him in the book, in fact, it was in the Toronto newspaper. Really? Just before, yeah, just before he died, who, and I quote him in the book, in fact, it was in the Toronto newspaper.

Just before, yeah, just before he died. Madeline, his wife was Madeline. Madeline, can you see them? Can you hear them? They're here for me, the angels, their eyes, they're so beautiful. They're coming for me. I'm going to heaven. And he saw these angels coming for him just before he died.

And that's extremely common. In fact, one of the most interesting things is children who are dying will see angels coming for them, but they don't look like angels that you would think a child would expect to see. Because children's cartoons and caricatures of angels have big wings. But that's not often what these children see.

And the Bible doesn't say that all angels have wings. We have one case in a doctoral dissertation of a woman who became a professor at a major university. She reports a case of a young girl who was dying. And she said, mommy, mommy, can you see the angels? They're here for me. They're singing. It's so beautiful.

Can you see them? And her mother lied because she felt bad. She couldn't see them. So she said, oh, yeah so beautiful. You see them. And her mother lied because she felt bad. She couldn't see them. So she said, oh, yeah, yeah, I see them. Look, they're big wings. And the daughter said, oh, mommy, you don't have to lie. They don't have wings. She went on to describe them in vivid detail.

Well, if the expectation of a child, if this is just coming from their subconscious, you would think that a childhood caricature of an angel would be what would impress them to imagine the angels as having wings, but that's not what I see. So there's these fascinating kinds of corroboration, that and seeing people who they didn't know had died.

There's a famous case of a woman named Doris who was dying in England, and she saw angelic beings coming for her. they didn't know had died. There's a famous case of a woman named Doris who was dying in England and she saw angelic beings coming for her. She saw her father, her father kind of beckoning her from this world beyond. And then she got puzzled. She said, wait a minute, Vita is with him.

What's Vita doing with him? And she's confused and then she dies. Turns out Vita was her sister, who had died a couple of weeks earlier, but no one had told her because they were afraid it might kill her because she was, her health was fragile. So she didn't know that Vita had died,

and yet she saw Vita in this supernatural realm to come. That to me is corroborative, and that's not a isolated case. I mentioned my father-in-law had the same experience. It's shocking how, and I would encourage people who are listening, you know, you had J. Steve Miller on, who's an expert on these, and I interview him in my book. And I went to your YouTube site after he was on your show, because I wanted to see the comments that people left.

I expected to see a bunch of skeptics scoffing at it. You know what I found case after case after case and say, yes, you know, this happened to my married happened to my brother, this one after the other. A people say, yes. And I would encourage people next big holiday gathering you have or your family bring this up and I bet you there's a family story about someone who had a similar experience. You know, one of the things that shifted me on your death experiences, I don't know, maybe six, eight years ago, I decided to read Steve's book because JP, yes, more than suggested it. And I just read it skeptically,, I, you know, I already believe Christianity is true, believe in the afterlife.

This is probably hokey. Like I really was biased against it and was just blown away by the evidence going, wait a minute, there's a lot of like incredible doctors like Michael Sabom and Jeffrey Long. I mean, these are leading cardiologists and surgeons who've studied this and I've interviewed them in depth

and these are like doctors who care about the evidence that are not easily persuaded otherwise. But what I started to do is I started to do the very thing that you said, is I started to just listen when somebody shared something that I thought might be tied to a near death experience. It's amazing how many conversations I've had with people since that, including one student

in our apologetics program joined because of a near death experience she had that transformed her life. And so you're right, even asking people, being willing to listen, telling people, you're not crazy. I believe you. If there's a hundred people, somewhere between four and 10 of them in the room had a near death experience. So this goes back to your point, you know, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Deathbed experiences are not extraordinary.

Near-death experiences are not extraordinary. Encounters where people think that they've seen the demonic are not extraordinary. Experiences where people think they've witnessed or, you know, been one who's received a miracle is actually not extraordinary. One of my favorite points in your book, as you said in response to this,

it's actually extraordinary to not believe in the supernatural. I hadn't quite thought about it like that. Yeah, when you think about it, over 90% of all the civilizations that have ever existed on the planet believed in some supernatural realm. So if you're telling me you don't believe in a supernatural realm,

that's an extraordinary claim. Because everybody else virtually in history is saying you're wrong. So if you're going to make an extraordinary claim, why don't you give me extraordinary evidence that there is no supernatural realm? Make that affirmative case, which is difficult to do. But you know, like you, I was very skeptical about the near-death experience thing, because I thought it was a new agey kind of a thing.

And it gets caught up in some of that weird occult psychic kind of world sometimes. And I thought, no, no, no. But then when you have respected people like J.P. Moreland, Gary Habermas, and others, John Burke, who wrote a tremendous book called Imagine Heaven. And I interview him for this book. And I've known John for 30 years.

John's been a friend of mine for 30 years. He investigated 1,000 cases of near-death experiences. And, of course, his breakthrough finding was that if you stray How people interpret these experiences just focus on what actually took place It is consistent with the Bible That was his breakthrough because what happens is people see things through their worldview and they interpret things according to their worldview Strip that away. Just tell me what actually took place. And when you look at that,

it's consistent with what scripture teaches. And that was, to me, a breakthrough conclusion that he reached in his book, Imagine Heaven. To a point you made earlier, I remember I interviewed you on the case for miracles, but I forgot that you had interviewed Shermer in that. So good for good for sitting down Engaging his thoughts and of course he tells a story about like this radio playing music at a certain time that was dead and just

The nature of the music and the timing and the last it's just like what do you explain with this and it kind of? mildly haunts him and I kind of look at these have just like mildly haunts him. And I kind of look at these as just like hints of the divine that God has put around us. If we have eyes to see and ears to hear, the supernatural is far more present. Now, one of my favorite things in your book, I hadn't put this number together, I'll probably start using this and try to give you credit if I can remember, but chances are I'll forget, is that you cite that Keener has compiled 350 accounts of deaf people gaining back their hearing.

350 accounts. Now this is just one person investigating this. He doesn't have a research team, by the way. He did this himself, which makes me wonder that the books he produces might in themselves be a miracle, but that's a separate argument how productive he is. I would love to hear from you. And of course he has his two volume, I think 2010, 2011 case on miracles that's academic. His book, Miracles Today, maybe three years ago,

but you read those volumes, you interviewed him. Maybe one or two examples that you find most compelling. Yeah, in fact, I interviewed for this book, seeing the supernatural. One of the cases, well documented. What I love about this case, it's rare that you have someone who is scientifically tested and then has a miraculous restoration of the hearing and then is immediately again scientifically

tested. That often doesn't happen immediately like that. And so we have a case of a woman, a young girl in England, and she's stricken by a virus. Her hearing is gone, virtually totally gone. They fit her with hearing aids, they gave her some hearing, but it's an incurable condition. It's not going to get any better.

But with these hearing aids, it was very annoying for her. She didn't like the hearing aids, you know, and she couldn't hear very well anyway. Well, one day, the hearing aids, you know? And she couldn't hear very well anyway. Well, one day, the hearing aids got damaged at school. So her mom brought her to the audiologist. They redid the hearing aids and tested her again

to make sure that where her hearing was, and it's virtually nil. They tested her again, put the hearing aids on. That night, she comes running down the stairs and she says, mommy, mommy, I can hear, I can hear. And her mother said, what are you talking about? And she's, wait a minute, I'm talking to my daughter. She's hearing me.

She can hear. She tested her. And the next day they called the audiologist, say my daughter can hear. And they said, well, that's impossible. I said, well, I'm telling you, she can hear. Well, bring her in. So they are in immediately.

So this is, you know, so she's tested, she's deaf. She has a supernatural experience where she's healed. She, and by the way, her parents have been praying incessantly for her hearing to be cured. And then she's immediately tested the next day. She goes back and they test her again. Her hearing is normal. She has normal hearing.

And then we cannot explain this. This is inexplicable. And they said mark it down as a miracle. I mean, we can't find any other explanation for this. What I love about that case is she's tested, she's cured, she's tested again. And there you have the documentation that something in the interim took place, something supernatural

to cure an incurable hearing condition. Just like the woman I mentioned earlier who had an incurable blindness. And the only case in history that's ever been written about in a medical journal of anybody recovering is one who happens to recover after immediate prayer on her behalf. So I'm looking for those kinds of things

and the hearing stuff is amazing. My favorite case involves Barbara Snyder, who I became, I was so intrigued by her. I interviewed her. I traveled all the way to Virginia. Oh yeah, I've got her on video telling her story. Barbara was stricken with multiple sclerosis when she was a teenager, 16 years old.

It was a bad case. She went to the Mayo Clinic, so we have all the records from the Mayo Clinic. She has multiple sclerosis. Over the next couple decades, she just deteriorated. It was terrible, just deteriorated, multiple hospitalizations, breathing problems, all these difficulties. Finally, they said, Look, we're just going to let her die the next time she

gets the moment because it's just prolonging the inevitable. So she's in hospice, she's curled up in her bed, her fingers are touching her wrists. She's curled up in her bed, her fingers are touching her wrists, she's curled like a pretzel, her feet are extended, she's blind, now all she can see is vague shapes, gray shapes. She has a tube in her throat so she can breathe. She has a tube for her bowels and so her urination is not controlled anymore.

And she's dying. But somebody called up WMBI, which is the Christian radio station in Chicago, and said, could you ask people to pray for poor Barbara? She's dying. And so we documented that 450 people began to pray for her. And the reason we know is they wrote her letters saying, I am praying for you to be healed.

On Pentecost Sunday, she's in her room and three of her friends are there and they're reading her some of these letters of people who wrote to say, I'm praying for you, encourage her. It was a day like any other day for me. That was one spent confined to bed, unable to breathe on my own, hooked up to machines,

a tracheostomy tube in my neck, my arms curled up, my legs curled up. I lay there trapped inside my own body is really how it felt. So while they were there, I still remember exactly what they were reading when all of a sudden I heard a booming, authoritative, loud voice over my shoulder over here

say, my child, get up and walk. Well, she hadn't walked, by the way, in seven years. Her legs had had three months lost. She immediately says, she pulls out the thing in her throat so she can talk, says, go get my parents. I just heard God tell me to get up and walk. Well, they ran out, but she couldn't stop herself. She jumped out of bed.

And I literally jumped out of the bed. This is where you'd almost have to have known me to see how totally impossible that was. So this time I remember reaching up and pulling my oxygen off my neck. I remember that. And then I jumped toward the voice. My friends are over here, but I jumped towards the voice.

And as I jumped up, the first thing I remember isn't what I would think I would remember, but I jumped out of the bed and I looked and I saw my feet. They were flat on the ground, just like everyone else's, which sounds normal, but not for me. I had foot drops so badly, I couldn't even wear slippers on my feet. They were so curled.

So when I jumped up to have feet flat, I was amazed and stood staring at my feet. So when I jumped up to have feet flat, I was amazed and stood staring at my feet. And when I did that, I jumped like this, and then I saw my hands. And they were open, and they never opened. And so now they were open, and I stood staring at them, and then it dawned on me I could see me.

She said, you'd think that'd be the first thing I'd notice. That was the third thing I'd notice. Well, she was instantly, totally, completely healed of multiple sclerosis in that moment. In fact, that night she went to a Wesleyan church, Wheaton Wesleyan church in Wheaton, Illinois. Her parents took her to church that night. It was Pentecost Sunday.

And they're late and the pastor is up there and the pastor says, anybody have any announcements? And Barbara walks down the center aisle and nobody had seen Barbara outside of a wheelchair in seven years. And the whole room exploded into people singing, I was in grace. I once was blind and now I see. Wow. And the next day she goes to one of her doctors and he said, later, I saw her walking down the corner toward my office.

My first thought was, oh, that's a ghost. She died because this is impossible. This is medically impossible. Two of her doctors ended up writing about it in books, saying one of them said, what a rare privilege was to see the hand of God perform a true miracle in a patient he had described earlier as being the most hopelessly ill patient he had ever seen. I didn't understand anything except where once I was real sick, I was well again and it has to be God. That's all I knew. When I interview people for my books,

I always compensate them because I'm taking their time and I'm telling their story and so generally I'll give them something to compensate, like a scholar who I interview, I always compensate them. And I offered to compensate her and she said, no, no, I couldn't do anything. This is a miracle of God. I can't. She ended up marrying a Baptist or Wesleyan pastor, by the way. And they had a little church in Fredericksburg, Virginia. What do you do with that? What do you do with that? If you were skeptic, you explain it. Oh, it's a coincidence that she heard this voice that she can't account for. She jumps out of bed completely healed in an instant. Um, it's a coincidence. It's an anomaly. anomaly? You know, how do you explain it?

And if it were the only case, then maybe, okay, I get you. Maybe it's something bizarre that occurred. But when you have so many of these kind of documented cases taking place, another one of a kid, I tell him my book, being cured of a stomach paralysis that he was born with, and incurable conditions, and nobody had ever been cured of this. And yet, he was prayed for. When he was a teenager and in terrible conditions that nobody had ever been cured of this. And yet he was prayed for when he was a teenager,

they had tubes in him so he could digest his food. He was prayed for, he felt something electric in his body, he said when he was prayed for, boom, healed of the condition for which there is no medical record of anyone ever being healed of it. And he's fine to this day. I don't know how a skeptic deals with that Sean unless you have this methodological naturalism that says I'm ruling out the supernatural at the beginning and I'm

just gonna kind of hold this intention because it contradicts my worldview. This question is in their mind in particular skeptics and I think it's completely fair. It's a question about those who God does not heal and I think it's completely fair. It's a question about those who God does not heal. And I think what's pressing about this is some of the very people in your book, like Craig Keener, not so much not healed, but I think his wife, if I remember, had a half a dozen or more miscarriages and they prayed that God would give them a child.

I still think to this day, they're childless. I mean, Nabil Qureshi, talk about a vision that he had, but talk about somebody who prayed for healing. And if there's anybody, from my perspective, God should heal its Nabil. My dad said years ago, he goes, son, he goes, why didn't God take me? Why didn't God take me?

What, how do you respond to that challenge about unanswered prayers and a lack of healing? Yeah. I, in my own life, my wife, Leslie has an incurable medical condition, a, um, a neuromuscular condition that has her pain every single day. So she has been for 20 years. She will be in pain the rest of her life, unless God intervenes with a miracle and hasn't chosen to do that So this is very real to us. I

Did an interview with Douglas Groteis the philosopher? PhD in philosophy from the University of Oregon And his wife was dying Of a brain condition. And indeed, she did die. And I interviewed him on this topic of why doesn't God heal everybody then? Why not your wife?

Why not my wife? And I have a chapter on that in my book, The Case for Miracles. And he's actually, at my encouragement, wrote a book about it called, I think it's called Trudging Toward Twilight by Douglas Grothuis. That is one of the most powerful books about, oh, amazing book. But he's a guy who lived it. And, you know, he said several things to think about. Number one is healing was not automatic in New Testament days The Bible says Jesus didn't do many miracles in Nazareth. Paul has thorn in the flesh that apparently was never resolved. Paul left Trophimus behind.

Trophimus was sick and it's the healing him. Paul left on a missionary journey and left Trophimus behind. In one chapter in the Gospels, the disciples are given the authority to heal, and then seven chapters later they can't heal an epileptic child. So, no, not everyone is healed, and God will do as God will do. God is sovereign. We don't understand in this life yet why he does some things that he does or does not do. But I started to think, you know, what if God did heal everybody instantly?

I believe he all will be healed who come to him. You know, maybe not in this world, but in the world to come as we leave this world will be healed. My wife will spend eternity of joy in heaven without pain. But what if everybody were healed just by praying a prayer? We couldn't do science. Science relies on predictability. Science depends on repeatable things.

And if God were intervening right, left, here, there, everywhere with these miraculous healings, we'd throw up our hands and say, we can't even do science because it's unpredictable what is going on. So I think to some degree, the laws of nature that God has put into place need to continue for us to be able to function as a culture.

You know, that's a really interesting question about what if God did heal everybody in one sense, who would have implications for science, the very nature of science is that these kinds of healings are rare on one level to get our attention that this isn't the norm. I know we talked about being extraordinary earlier But what we mean by that is they're not just one-off events, but these things are happening with some regularity But they're not the course of nature there has to be a regular course of nature that when people die they stay dead I mean people are sick they die for science to function. So there's a tension that's there.

But I also wonder, you know, if God just healed everybody, would it affect why people come to Christ to get something out of it rather than because of their brokenness and their reliance upon the Lord? I mean, even when Jesus does miracles and like he's feeding the 5,000, you see him teaching in parables in some way which was weeding out like who's gonna stay around

and ask me what does this mean? How does it affect my life versus people that are just there for the food? And so I think that could be a piece of it as well. Could be. As we think about it. I mean, this stage we're only, you know, we're somewhat speculating,

but our other dear friend, Clay Jones, who I think you've interviewed as well. Yes. He's just finished a book on suffering. Probably a year out before it's published, he wrote with his wife, Jeannie, and he was profoundly suffering during it, just bouts of cancer and pain.

And in some ways like you know that's gonna be a different book because of the suffering he went through but he also said one thing about Nabeel he said you know what Nabeel even if you don't ever come to believe I'm sorry even if you don't ever get healed. Your belief to the end testifies to your confidence that this is true and what Christ has done through me. And I thought that's right. It is when Christians suffer well that testifies to the depths of our belief and what you're writing in this book that there is a resurrection. There is a heaven, there is a soul. Now, honestly, leave for me, I go,

good, that's another Christian's job. I'm gonna be an apologist over here, but I know it doesn't work that way. That this is one of our greatest testimonies amidst persecution, amidst pain, that when we suffer differently. And so I think God does enough miracles to give us pause and know that he's real, but not too many to overturn science,

not too many to just believe for what we get out of it. That's my sense. You agree with that? Would you add anything to that? I think that's a great insight. I was actually with Nabil just before he died and prayed with him in his hospital room. I remember putting my hand on his head.

It was covered up, of course, but I remember putting my hand on his leg, and it was just bone. It was just skin and bone. And yet, he kept his faith to the end, and it was a great testimony to the depth of his conviction that this is true, and that ultimately God will and did heal him as he transitions into the next life.

So God will heal us, but the question is, is it gonna be right now when I want it, or is it gonna be at some future date in a realm to come? So I think, no, I think that's a very good point. And you talk to people whose lives, well, you think of Johnny Erickson Tata, you know, paralyzed in a diving accident as a teenager, been in a wheelchair for what now? 50, 60 years and has cancer and just has had a life of suffering.

But she is a dear, sweet woman who said to me once, you know, I would rather be in this wheelchair knowing God than walking around, not knowing Him. And you know, God used that experience to bring her to a profound faith. And you think of the thousands of people she has ministered to who are disabled and who come to her for insights and wisdom. And she has encouraged them and prayed with them and brought God into their lives and so forth. God does cause good to emerge ultimately for those who believe in him and who follow him that you see how he can actually cause good

to emerge from the suffering that we do go through. I see that in my wife. I see she's a different woman that she wouldn't have been had she not gone through the suffering. And it's a good thing that I see she's a different woman than she would have been had she not gone through the suffering. And it's a good thing that I see she's more empathetic, she's more loving, she's kinder toward others and so. So she's probably saying, Lee, we need to get you some suffering. No, I'm just kidding.

Yeah. Yeah, totally kidding. Just had to throw that in there. Okay. Last question for you is, it occurred to me as I'm reading this, there's been increased evidence for near-death experiences. People talking about that, even though I think we still haven't talked about it enough. There's increased evidence for miracles people I'm talking about, but there's far more YouTube videos and books

arguing for the demonic than there are for angels. What do you think? Do you sense that as well? And what do you think is the best evidence for angels? This is so funny because I just spoke on angels at an event recently, a couple days ago. And people came up to me and said, I've been at Chris for 40 years. I've never heard a sermon on angels in my life. I think about it.

I've never heard a sermon on angels. Isn't that interesting? But yeah, there is external corroboration again for angels. I give two examples real quick. One is the year-death visions that I talked about where people see angels coming for them, just as Jesus said in Luke, I believe it's chapter 16. And that's a corroborative experience. But also we have encounters with angels in this world.

You know, the Bible in Hebrew says, you know, give hospitality to strangers because some people are actually ministering to angels unbeknownst to them when they provide hospitality to strangers. In other words, the Bible anticipates that we might interact with angels. And indeed, we have compelling cases of that. I'll give you one example that Billy Graham documented, a case involving a guy named John Payton, P-A-T-O-N.

He and his wife were missionaries to the New Hebrides Islands in the South Pacific. They lived in a little cottage there. They were trying to spread the word of Jesus, and the local tribespeople didn't like that. And one night a mob came to burn down their house and kill them. And so here they are in their home. This mob is forming, and they're scared, and they begin

praying, God protect us, God help us, you know, and they prayed all night. And by dawn, the mob dissipated. They couldn't figure it out. A year later, the head of that mob became a Christian. And so they're talking to him. They said, Hey, you remember that night when y'all came to kill us and down our house? Why didn't you do it? And he said, well, who are all those men you had with you? And he said, there were no men, it was just my wife and I. There

were all these men, hounds of them in shining garments with drawn swords who were encircling your house. And the missionary and the guy who had been converted both agreed what other explanation other than God had sent angels to protect them. It was interesting, I was interviewing a scholar once, very prominent scholar, he's a Baptist and at a major university. And we're talking about the supernatural. And he said, I grew up in a Pentecostal home. And in this Pentecostal, charismatic home, there was an expectation

that God was going to intersect with us in supernatural ways. And I said, give me an example. He said, Oh, I remember a case from our church. He said, this is way back before seat belts. He said the family from our church was driving to the car about 70 miles an hour. And their son, 10 year old son, opened the back door and fell out of the car at 70 miles an hour. And they thought, oh my gosh, our son is killed. Our son is dead. They stopped. They turned around and went back. And there's their son standing in the middle of the street. And they said, what happened?

And he said, didn't you see the man who caught me? And this stayed professor, PhDs, major university got out his handkerchief. And he began to dab his eyes. And he said, you know, I miss that. Growing up in a home where we had an anticipation of God intersect with us in a supernatural way. It's a very poignant moment for me. It wasn't just a story from his life. It was something that you could see

had registered deeply with him. And he said, I miss that kind of thing. I think sometimes in my book, so I'll see supernatural. I think sometimes we need to open our eyes and we'll see evidence of the supernatural that we otherwise walk on past or just choose to suppress. I agree with that.

I think that's true in the soul. You have a chapter on the evidence for the soul, even without near-death experiences and miracles and afterlife visions. I think that evidence itself is compelling. I think morality is supernatural of a kind, the origin of consciousness, life, fine tuning, these things are not explained by science

or material causation. And yet on top of that, people in our lives have experienced and seen the supernatural for open our lives to it. You know, you share the story of angels protecting. I know some people are thinking, well, why didn't angels protect another story? Other people, we heard recently about 70 people

who were beheaded because of their faith. Why didn't God protect them? And partly I say, I don't know the answer to that. I'm not sure, maybe in heaven we'll know someday. I don't wanna pretend there's an easy answer for that. But'm not sure. Maybe in heaven we'll know someday. I don't want to pretend there's an easy answer for that. But in some sense, God's not bound to do any miracles. He's not bound to protect anybody. But I think out of His goodness, He shows us that He's with us and invites us to consider the supernatural. You know, Leal's just giving

you a hard time earlier about your wife wishing you went through some suffering for your character. You've actually been really open about suffering that you've gone through and I appreciate that in your book on... Sure. Heaven, yeah. The book on heaven where you share the story of where

you were going through a lot of pain and your son Kyle, who's a friend and colleague of mine, Yes. praying for you through that is one of my favorite stories you've ever shared. And that may or may not be supernatural, but in one sense it is. There's a goodness that's there.

There's a love that is there. That's as powerful of a story to me as any of the supernatural accounts that fill this book, which show as Christians we need to live this and model this and proclaim the supernatural and you do both of those. So I want to encourage people to pick up not the case for the supernatural, but seeing the supernatural. As always, it's got great stories, it's entertaining. You're such a good writer, skeptics, and I think Christians will both enjoy it and wrestle with it.

So always appreciate when you come on. Always appreciate you taking the time to lay out your case and just share with us what you're writing and working on. I appreciate that. And I really appreciate what you're doing. I can't think of anybody else who's doing exactly what you're doing. You've got a unique ministry of interviewing people and doing the podcast and YouTube videos and so forth.

You're filling a need that we have for ongoing exposure to reason that we believe what we believe. Cutting edge stuff, you're open to critiques from skeptics and so forth. You're telling both sides of the story, but you're, you're getting out there. Such great material. And I honestly, I can't think of anybody else who's doing it as well as you're doing it.

So I thank God for you. And, and, uh, I'm always pointing people toward your stuff and retweeting your stuff, because I just think it's awesome. Well, thanks for being a cheerleader of others. My dad was and is still that way and I hope I'm that way in my life towards other people. So appreciate that folks. Pick up a copy or pre-order copy of Seeing the Supernatural. Make sure you hit subscribe because we've got some further interviews coming up on the supernatural, on angels, further issues on near-death experiences when atheists and children have near-death experiences, and a lot of

the other stuff we've talked about today. And if you thought about studying apologetics, we have whole classes on this stuff in depth. Think about joining us at Biola. We've got information below. We've got an on-campus and distance program. Would love to partner with you. Thanks my friend for hanging out with us and we'll do it again soon.