Abraham asks for a sign in Genesis 15:8, and God gave it to him. Jesus tells us to ask God for what we need in Matthew 7. So I don’t think Matthew 16 means any request for a sign means a denial of faith.
Matthew 16 And the Pharisees and Sad′ducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather; for the sky is red.’ 3 And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.
So when we ask for a sign we need then a sign will be given. It is demanding more than this which is the problem of an evil generation. The problem is that people do tend to demand a change in the rules by which life works – demanding something that makes faith unnecessary. And that is what God will not do.
So no, God will not provide proof. Nor will God provide evidence according to scientific standards. That would be a change in rules by which the world works – a change in the very laws of nature He created to make life possible. The miracle is always exceptional – the exception to the rules in order to inspire faith (and I am talking about statistical anomalies not magic).
Yes even if Jesus was walking on ice, it doesn’t make the events non miraculous! The point is that, whether we are talking about Biblical events or healing events today, just because we find a scientific explanations for things doesn’t mean it wasn’t a miracle. Demanding that miracles violate the laws of nature in a way which makes doubt impossible is the demand of an evil generation.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
125
Show me. Or must I take your statement on faith?
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
126
Don’t call me a liar mate. You don’t pay me enough to lie.
Actually, it was more like 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1, wasn’t it, and the binary inference from the least significant digit was most significant: God or no God. Or just take the average. Junior high school math teachers should understand.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
129
OK mate. You didn’t no. The apology is mine. I’m a tad sensitive to that word.
No lie.
Nobody is lying to me. Nobody is lying period.
No lie.
If He wants me to know Him, it’s entirely up to Him. Second to 77th hand won’t do it. And neither will, can He. And none of those hands deal divine intelligence.
No lie.
When He walked the Earth, believing was easy. Believing wasn’t the problem. Believing rightly was the problem. Since the Scientific Revolution catalysed Enlightenment, believing became problematic overnight. Philosophy took off like the music, like a rocket.
I don’t think that much has changed with the particularity of those who believed and those who didn’t.
The revelation of Jesus hits people in rather unique ways. I appreciated how Keener recognized in his comments of the Asbury outpouring that those who waited and sacrificed the most were not the ones who received as much as those who happened by chance upon the work of the Spirit.
Another subject for another day and I’ve yet to read Hamann on this. However, having said that, I do like how the coequal value of fairness and desert squash whatever pipedreams anyone might have for ordering society on a single principle of reason.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
131
No. I cannot know Him until I die. At best. If He were to perform an impossible, consilient, BBC level miracle, I still wouldn’t know Him. But I’d know of Him for certain. I’d know all is well for all forever. That there is transcendence. It would certainly make our conversation more nuanced. I suppose He could blind me off my horse on the road to Damascus, but that wouldn’t be consilient. I wouldn’t trust such an experience. I want it too much.
Culture has changed completely in that it has been augmented incalculably. I believed and now I cannot, because my believing mechanism was faulty. Because I caught up with culture. Such culture did not exist in His day. There is no comparison. Science changes everything.
For me Jesus is the revelation. But that story could be entirely natural, in all good will, by all concerned, starting with His mother. And if He is the revelation of transcendence, of purpose, of Love, I don’t see any other revelation at all.
Asbury looks entirely natural to me, like all ‘revival’. Which caught me up once upon a time. And had no substance whatsoever.
Injustice remains.
All rhetoric hinges on acknowledging our complicity in that.
Should that be surprising when you have forty-seven different ways of calling him impotent and dictate what he may and may not do? That rather belies desire.