A question for accommodationalists

Faith & Science Conversation
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I will agree with you except for the fact that earlier we had this exchange.

I wrote:

Mitch wrote: you suggest this as the right approach: God can do everything. So you should ask God after science and medicine have tried.

I replied: But you have clearly stated that God doesn’t violate natural law, several times. It would seem to me that my cancer is following natural law of unconstrained division and growth. Since god doesn’t violate natural law, asking him for anything at this point would be an exercise in futility according to what I understand of your views. Why ask if he can’t do anything, e. g. He can’t violate natural law?

He replied:

Correct. And I don’t think he has. The point is that a lot more is often possible within the laws of nature than we often think. Simply consider what medicine can do now compared to 2000 years ago and without breaking a single law of nature. Now consider comparing this with what medicine will be able to do 2000 years from now, again without breaking a single law of nature. Yes God can do a lot without breaking the laws of nature. And one of the reasons God will not cure everyone’s cancer is because God will NOT break the laws of nature.

We have established that in a case like mine, which the cancer is about to kill me, God can’t help me because as Mitch said, “the laws of nature are more important than you getting whatever toy, candy, comfort, or easy answer you happen to want at any moment.”

How comforting that is to a terminal patient. lol. Knowing that God cares more for his natural laws than he does for me. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a whingey whiney guy and am perfectly comfortable about what is going to happen. All I am doing is analyzing what he says. He has a heartless God who leaves us on our own.

In that same post 225 I also asked:

Why ask if he can’t do anything, e. g. He can’t violate natural law?:

and He replied:

Because turning to God is the best answer to desperation compared to other kinds of things people often turn to.

If the only reason we turn to god is for comfort when we get desperation, that isn’t much of a God. It is an imaginary useless cosmic psychologist. Needless to say, he doesn’t like this comparison, but if he doesn’t like it he should stop saying things like Natural law is more important than us getting any toy, candy or comfort. lol He has created an uncaring God, or at least a God who shows us no sign of caring about our struggles here.

Given what I learned from him in the Wigner’s friend thread, that he believes that our consciousness arises from matter alone, then I see little difference between his view and that of the atheist in so far as God’s activity in this world is concerned. A mind/consciousness which arises from matter would seem to me to have zero chance of being created by God (because God doesn’t violate natural law). Thus, we humans are not creations of God but creations of our parents only.

It would seem to me that if God can’t violate his natural law, he can’t even twiddle with my immune system to make it go against the cancer–twiddling would be violating natural law of how my immune system works. He can’t do anything to stop my cancer at this stage where science’s ability is ending.

Mervin, I stand with my interpretation of Mitch’s view. It seems not only will God not be used by me; he won’t lift a finger beyond what this materialist universe offers me in the way of help to us in any situation. We are totally on our own. What a God! It would mean the fulfillment of my prayer years ago for a Turkish translator, to come to a 10 sq foot area in 10 min about 1 am in a Dallas Texas hotel, had nothing to do with God’s activity. It would violate natural law for God to send messages/impulses or whatever to that short order cook to make him go into the hotel. That would be an utter fluke, nothing more.

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Not unlike my request for a co-instance.

 
He did heal my cancer… by a surgeon’s excision, after revealing himself once again as the Sovereign of time and exquisite timing. It would have been okay by me if he had not,* not that I want to leave my wife relatively alone. So it was better for her, at least in the near term, and maybe a few others as well, hopefully even in the ultimate long term.
 

*I don’t mean at all by that that I’m not enjoying this life – it’s been long enough (I’m a septuagenarian) and interesting. I was a reactor operator on a nuclear submarine for three years, I have a degree in mathematics and enjoyed teaching (Applied Calculus was fun because all of the students were pre-professional and motivated!), and I spent what turned out to be most of my career in medical electronics. (I discovered design flaws in two kinds of internationally marketed IV infusion equipment, one of them serious enough that the manufacturer had me flown to their facility the next day after my phone call.) Oh yeah – I went to med. school for two months when I was 43. :slightly_smiling_face: God’s providence has been evident throughout, and I’m very much looking forward toward an embrace with my Sovereign King, Friend and Brother.

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Actually that is kind of my point. What would it matter to the Hebrews what God told them? They knew no science, so God could have told them something simple and true rather than what so many here think God did, tell them something false and silly. If you really analyze this situation, there is no necessity for God to tell them an ‘accommodated’ fable. The Hebrews couldn’t know what they were being told was true or false, so why did God tell them something false, when they would have accepted whatever God told them I know they say they wouldn’t have accepted it, How do they know that? The burning bush concentrates the mind towards listening carefully to what that bush says. It prepares the mind to accept what it says. God could have taken advantage of that attention by telling a simple but true account.

Compare, for example, ancient local creation myths of Egypt with Genesis; they’re remarkably similar. Neither the Hebrews nor the Egyptians were stupid, but neither Genesis nor the Egyptian parallels evoke our scientific myths…

Again, if what we have is Egyptian creation myths, then our God has nothing to do with the creation of those stories. That makes those stories the product of the likes of Khnum or Maahes rather than Jehovah. As such why should we believe anything in Scripture? It is just another false evolutionarily evolved religion of no particular value.

Edited to add. Since it has been a long while since I looked at the Egyptian creation stories, I looked on Wiki and what they have there has very little resemblance to the Biblical stories. Ancient Egyptian creation myths - Wikipedia

I know there are some similarities to the Babylonian creation accounts, but, since Abram was called from there, maybe God was working with part of that population over time.

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That raises a good question, Glen. If I fall off a cliff, I would sure be happier at that moment if God would put a temporary suspension on gravity - I would greatly benefit with my very life even if God just wouldn’t be so persnickety about being so constant all the time. Would you agree with me though that such interference is nearly unheard of? Not saying it couldn’t happen, but it hasn’t been God’s normal operating procedure for nearly all (if not all) death by falling all through history.

Some would say that even within natural law, God could (being outside of time) know what people were going to pray for, and have already engineered answers to their pleas into the very fabric of unfolding events so that answers to prayer could still be woven into the very fabric of reality itself. Not sure if that is correct, but it is one possibility.

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Because he feels entitled to make up lies about anyone he disagrees with.

Mervin simply stated the facts. But gbob has no interest whatsoever in the facts.

How comforting it is to self-righteous ideologues that God cured them because they prayed hard enough and believed enough while everybody else died of cancer because they just were not good enough. These are entitlement filled Pharisees who have tamed God and made this their justification for whatever robbery, slavery and abuse they feel they have a right to dispense to everyone they deem inferior just because of some delusion of divine favoritism.

Because of course nothing could possibly be more important to God than these people who think they are entitled to God’s obedience to their every desire.

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His normal providential M.O. definitely does not look like that. Many Christians can attest to it, that the way he usually intervenes in lives is by extraordinary timing and placing, breaking nothing in the natural order that would look unusual to science, except on occasion the degree or the amplitude, shall we say. (Several miracles in the Bible are of that sort – even the crossing of the Red Sea and Jesus calming the storm.) Don’t forget Maggie. :slightly_smiling_face:

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lol, or conveniently place a giant pile of hay for you to fall into. lol Go look up Velna Volovic, who fell 33,000 feet out of an airplane and was the sole survivor of a plane blown apart by a bomb. It is an interesting story and the explanation for her survival leaves a bit to be desired.

I would agree that miracles are rare, very rare. If they are non-existent, then we have a real problem with the falsity of several things claimed in the Bible. like 2 Kings 4:1-7. Is that a true event or a false tale?

The resurrection is a miracle as well. I won’t go round with Mitch again on the nature of the resurrection but I will call attention to Luke where Jesus made it clear to his disciples that he was a body, not a ghost. Mitch cites St. Paul (added for fairness).

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There is a good case to make a distinction between supernatural miracles that interrupt the natural order and providential miracles that don’t. (That latter are usefully labeled ‘hypernatural’ miracles, IMO.) I would not say that providential miracles are very rare – I keep a log, and more than one Christian whom I’ve told that have wished they had been keeping one over the years, as well. We forget, and we have been instructed, by example, to remember – I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old.

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Dispensationalism is a disappearing dragon in the garage theology where you simply change the rules when anybody is actually looking. It’s saying God breaks the laws of nature only in ancient times when nobody is keeping secular records, or on other planets before we develop telescopes or any other means to see what is happening on those planets. The point seems to be about making sure the stories in the Bible have nothing whatsoever to do with real life as we experience it. That is a version of the Bible which is indistinguishable from comic books and Walt Disney movies.

So yeah, I prefer a Bible which doesn’t go in the fictional section of the library so the rules of life then are the same as the rules of life now. God doesn’t break the laws of nature which He Himself created just to impress a bunch of ignorant savages who wouldn’t know the difference anyway. Which is not to say that any of the events described in the Bible did not happen but only that you cannot expect things written 2000 or more years ago to be acceptable to modern scientific journals.

And why would people imagine a God without integrity who cannot stick to His own rules? Is it made in their own image perhaps? Is it because they only want rules to apply to other people and not to themselves?

And NONE of this means that miracles do not happen. I most certainly think they do. I just don’t think that they are defined by violations of the laws of nature. Unexpected, sure. A work of God, definitely. But if it does save someone falling out of a plane without a parachute (like Vesna Velovic) it is because of very unusual circumstances and not because the law of gravity stopped working. Thus I will always expect a scientific explanation and deny that such an explanation means that it wasn’t a miracle after all.

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This comment appeared in my inbox. I have never been part of the discussion, and was going to discard it, but feel impressed to share a Biblically miraculous experience I had a few years ago. When it happened, I thought “I will never tell anyone God did this. No one will believe me.” I have many Christian friends; a dozen of them in full-time ministry. All believe in and have experienced miracles from God, but I never told even my closest friends. I might even think it was delirium, except that I had proof.

An old friend in ministry whom I had known for 30 years, had been overseas for ten years, returned to a neighboring town and started a church. It was a long drive from my home, but I started attending on a regular basis. The pastor in my previous church had moved on; there had been a lot of turmoil and I was looking for the new “right place”. It was a joy to be reunited with my old friend and his wife who were both dear to me. The word spoken was always right on, but a few things were unsettling to me; nothing like false doctrine, just uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I continued to attend, praying, telling God I wanted to be in the “right place”. I have been in ministry myself for more than 50 years, mostly as a Christian counselor and writer, but also as a pastor-teacher or evangelist. Arising out of pastoral counseling, a special ministry had developed several years ago, so that I had “adopted” a young woman, mid-20’s; an orphan; recovering drug addict; desperately clinging to God, fighting mental illnesses and the effects of long term sexual, physical and psychological abuse. She was unemployably ill, penniless and had no place to live but the streets. She had been living with me for about two years then. I prayed and counseled with her daily helping her experience Jesus’ love to heal memories of gang rapes, beatings from a boyfriend etc. I taught her scripture and how to build her own relationship with the Lord. She studies the Bible and reads theology books, books but wrestles frequently with episodes of schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and PTSD. I had been particularly concerned for her sake, that we be in the “right place” for spiritual fellowship, teaching and worship. Her name is Lilia; she is now 29; poised, beautiful and radiant with the love of Jesus.

Anyway, wrestling with what would be best for her, and enjoying the renewed friendship with my friends, I was concerned that Lilia was uncomfortable in the services; her mental illnesses made it difficult to cope with more activity, more people, and louder sounds. She often had to get up and leave. The location of the church was rural, where the roads were all a mile apart. One Sunday I had taken the turnoff from the main road onto a side street, and saw the driveway of the church 30 feet ahead when a voice in my head said “YOU’RE IN THE WRONG PLACE”… At the same instant I read the odometer: something like 69577.0. The clarity of it startled me. Again, instantly, the driveway to the church I saw was no longer in front of me; I was on a road I did not recognize; I was in front of a large empty building, and did not have the slightest Idea where I was. I kept driving to the next cross road, saw a sign, and realized I was two then full miles away from where I had been two minutes earlier; one mile further West, and one mile further North. Utterly baffled, I turned right to head back to the familiar road I had taken West from home. I reached it in one mile, turned right and saw the turnoff that led to the church. At the intersection where I heard the voice, I glanced at the odometer again: 69580. The car had driven three miles, but by the map, it had traveled four miles. When I turned into the parking lot the words came back to me “you’re in the wrong place”. Lilia had not come with me. She had said she didn’t like it there and wasn’t going anymore. I realized God had answered my prayer in part, this church was not the “right place”, and since I was apparently hard of hearing he showed supernaturally by actually translating the car with me in it, the distance of one mile, just as he translated Philip. Then I had to drive three to get back to the church.

I know some people will say I am lying. People who know I would not lie, and know I am stable person, but who do not want to believe God is real in exactly the same way he was in the Bible, will say I was confused. Some others who do not know me at all, will say I am a lunatic. Nevertheless, every word is the truth, and someone reading this needs to know God is who he says he is; his power is real; and we can know him through a close, personal relationship with Jesus. For those who want to know more about both the real power and nature of God, I encourage you to look up my profile and content at quora.com. where hundreds of my writings have been published on theology, the Bible and Jesus, but also botany, biology, global warming and a few other areas of expertise. I would also encourage you to purchase my book of meditations, The Still Small Voice of Jesus, from Xulon Press, if you are interested in developing a personal relationship with Jesus, as such a relationship is the essence of Christianity.

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Yeah - I remember reading about that. As I recall it was an extraordinary set of circumstances that allowed her survival from the 30,000’ fall (involving an impact cushioned by steeply angled snowy slope - your proverbial ‘haystack’ if you will.) That’s the reason she is remembered here and others aren’t. I agree with you that miracles are rare. I also agree that God can make them happen whether it is within the confines of ‘natural’ law or not.

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Hi Maggie, I certainly won’t say this didn’t happen. I believe in miracles and I believe in a God who can do whatever the heck he wants to do and he doesn’t need my permission to perform a miracle.

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I agree with you as well, miracles are real and have happened in my life and in the lives of family and friends. God is all-powerful and isn’t bound or limited by anything. Some are small and minor while others are big. In fact, I believe that God does miracles all the time even in the smallest of ways but we just don’t see them. Sometimes they are in flow with nature in that they are unnoticeable while at other times they are game changing and seem to us at least, breaking the laws of nature. I’m sure that if God made the universe and knows how it works and set all the laws in motion, I bet you He knows how to work around them without having to rip reality apart.

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The key phrases in that which had my approval are these…

And yet if you define miracles as violations of the laws of nature then God only does miracles long ago, in old stories, and in Walt Disney movies.

Kind of like what we see magicians do on a stage, right?

Exactly! The laws of nature are the frabric of reality and no God does not have to contradict Himself and tear that fabric of reality in order to answer our prayers let alone impress a few ignorant savages.

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Thanks, gbob. God did, indeed do this, and the other miracles I wrote about.

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On this we can agree, and happily so.

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And yet he DOES work miracles “all the time”, because it in his interest and ours that we be reminded he is omnipotent, and we are limited. NOTHING is impossible with God. Thousands of things are impossible for man. Trillions of ordinary events happen every day. God does SOME miracles every day; we have no way of knowing how many. But even if only ten % of Christians experience a miracle in any given year, that would be 200,000,000 miracles a year out of say 3,650,000,000,000,000,000 non-miraculous events. Percentage-wise the amount is not high, but in real numbers it is.

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Yep, because miracles are NOT a violation of the laws of nature. The laws of nature are themselves the work of God and they were designed to do His work while allowing Him to interact with His creation. While criminals would prefer a God who breaks the law just like they do, the rest of us who work within the law would naturally worship a God who also abides by the laws which He created. And we see this in all the miracles which happen everyday.

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I think that’s a fair statement. However:

The Ten Commandments
Exo 20:11 - For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Said in the middle of The Ten Commandments as an echo from Genesis 1.

How else should the ancient Jews understand this as a confirmation of 6 literal days? And if they understood it that way, why shouldn’t we?

puzzled…

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Because we have a more evolved epistemology.