I am a little confused. Let us take the story of Jesus walking on water or raising a dead person to life or instantly restoring a withered hand.
My understanding is all these clearly fall under the heading of supernatural miracles. Do you agree with that classification? And do you think they actually happened? Or are these stories fictional?
Vinnie
The stories are not fictional. I think they really happened. As for whether they are supernatural miracles, that depends on what you think that means. Do I think they ultimately have a supernatural cause? Yes. Do I think they violate the laws of nature? No. None of these events were examined by scientific methods. Was Lazarus or the hand examined by a medical professional? No. Do we have any measurements or underwater cameras showing what was below Jesus’ feet? No. Have people been revived after being thought dead? Yes. Have people regained the use of their hand or otherwise had their hand healed of some illness? Yes. Have magicians walked on water? Yes, and that wasn’t during a storm and had many people watching. Were these events miraculous? Assuredly. Doesn’t mean anyone used supernatural powers or violated the laws of nature God created for the physical universe. It is a simple matter of what has been demonstrated over and over again. Miracles happen but nobody has seen any violation of the laws of nature.
Are we reading the same Bible?
Matthew
22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.(C) Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,”(D) they said, and cried out in fear.
Jesus isn’t walking on rocks or putting solid clear objects in the water like a modern day magician might. And he didn’t turn the Sea of Galilee into ooblek and stomp on the water.
This is the version in John:
“19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified.”
I can’t see how this story is either a supernatural miracle or fictional. Maybe it stemmed from something Jesus actually did (walking on some rocks in foggy weather or something) but as written in the Bible it is fictional if you reject supernatural explanations. Some Christian’s might think God is an extra dimensional being and this only violates the laws of the universe from our perspective.
“Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.””
Magicians don’t instantly fix withered hands. That is a miracle. The account doesn’t say the man went to rehab and physical therapy and gained the use of his hand over time. This happens in front of everyone on the spot.
So maybe I am misunderstanding you but how does one actually walk on water, without being a charlatan, and not violate the “laws” of physics as we understand them?
Rejecting supernatural powers and rejecting supernatural explanations are two different things. I believe in a supernatural/spiritual God. Thus when God is the cause of something then isn’t that a supernatural explanation? Or is your definition of supernatural explanations mean that not only the agent but also the means has to be entirely supernatural (whatever that supposedly means)?
How does one actually walk on water with supernatural powers?
Frankly, I think magic and supernatural powers really amount to no more than avoiding the need for an explanation at all.
Are you one of these peoples for whom magicians are charlatans and storytellers are liars? Please show me where in the Bible Jesus claimed to have supernatural powers?
I am not all that sure that your understanding of the laws of physics is the same as mine. According to your understanding, do all physical events have a physical cause to completely explain why they happened as they did?
That’s funny… I don’t see the word “instantly” in the text.
Mark 3:1 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand like the hand of a thousand year old mummy in an Egyptian tomb. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand glowed with a blue light as flesh regrew over the dry bones of the hand.
Oh wait…!!! That is the Vinnie magical fantasy translation… sorry… Here is the ESV.
Mark 3:1 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
Do we know what was wrong with his hand without examination by a medical professional? No. Then how can we know that stretching out his hand could not possibly have fixed the problem? We can’t!
So like me, you seem to accept that things are recorded in the Bible as having been carried out through supernatural means. Somehow, magically or whatever word you want to use, Jesus walked on water. I think it was supernatural and broke the laws of nature and that Jesus did not do it merely to show off but to show how he have strength over chaos and death since the waters represents “ Tohu wabohu “ .
So Jesus walked on water to showcase that. They also thought he was a ghost, and it kind of reminds me of the spirit hovering above the waters in the myth.
So with that said, do you believe that there are people who preform supernatural works through satanic powers? Like a black magic witch cursing someone and ect…
Miraculously is the word. And I am not like you. We are like everyone else except @mitchellmckain who see these accounts as narrating a miraculous occurrence. Jesus practically walked across/on top of a whole lake.
I am very skeptical of miracle claims. I don’t rule out spiritual beings but I am not inclined to imagine them running around causing all the evils on the world behind the scenes. As a matter of personal belief, I would just dismiss 99.9999 of all supernatural claims out of hand. By supernatural I mean nature defying.
But that tiny modicum of intellectually humility I possess won’t allow me to dismiss them all. I don’t know enough to do that. But in general I would dismiss them. Some Christians and non Christian’s are afraid of ouija board’s. Plastic made by Milton Bradley or whatever company produces them doesn’t do it for me. It’s mostly all nonsense in my opinion.
Are you a bad atheist troll? If it happened it is a miracle which means I can’t explain how it happened because it is supernatural.
It is clear we are talking about miracles specifically in the context of nature defying one’s and not just wondering about every experience with God. The title of this thread LITERALLY says “supernatural.” Your pet definitions don’t change this fact. Nor do I disagree with them. But I purposefully chose two nature defying miracles to discuss with you for this reason.
So you believe Jesus didn’t have supernatural powers but God did? I would be okay with that. God broke the laws of nature as we understand them to allow Jesus to walk on water? I don’t think you even accept that by your comments.
NRSV is hardly magical and your ESV says the flesh grew on his hand. Yeah, they just watched flesh grow.
Somehow you think this and a report of Jesus literally walking walking across a lake on top of the water are not portrayed as nature defying events.
Rather than simply dealing with what the text says since it contradicts your worldview, you are reading it as something else completely. You should just create your own version of the Bible, excise what you want and make it say whatever you want to because that is all you are doing here.
We can all disagree with the text when it says Jesus walked across the lake or accept it as a miracle because Jesus was God incarnate. But to suggest it doesn’t depict a supernatural event here because there were no underwater cameras at the time is absurd. Your exegesis on this passage is literally the worst I have ever encountered.
Vinnie
You make no sense. Like most I accept the story as is. I just don’t agree with the insertion of things which are not in the text – that this was accomplished by means of supernatural powers.
Probably because you define miracles differently than I do. You define a miracle as a violation of the laws of nature, and I do not. I define a miracle simply as an unexpected event which God has made happen. Life is full of miracles.
What I find utterly absurd is the idea that God would violate the laws of nature He Himself created just in order to impress ignorant savages who wouldn’t even know the difference anyway. ANY good magician can impress people without breaking a single law of nature SO WHY CAN’T GOD DO THAT TOO? Is God more stupid and less inventive than these magicians? God CAN do great things and do them WITHOUT using any supernatural powers.
Are you a bad atheist troll? It is the atheists (and creationists) who try to put scripture in opposition to science the way YOU are doing – NOT ME!
WHY?
There are only two possible reasons for doing such a thing. You want them to discard science or you want them to discard the Bible. I refuse the false dichotomy because there is nothing in the actual text which is opposed to science no matter what people have chosen to assume.
I asked you to explain how one walks on water with supernatural powers for a good reason. Because any attempt to explain so rationally is going to suggest ways to do this without any supernatural powers. Was Jesus walking on the surface of the water? In a storm? That doesn’t even make any sense. How can you walk on top of a rough changing surface like that? Or was Jesus jumping from one point to another? Like the idea of Jesus floating high in the water like beach ball, I don’t see how anyone would describe that as walking at all. The only sensible suggestion is that Jesus was walking on a flat surface below the surface of the water. But if there is a flat surface below the surface of the water then what was He walking on?
I have seen nothing in the Bible which forces us to believe that nature has been defied. The fact of the matter is that astounding things ARE POSSIBLE without breaking the laws of nature. I see NO CLAIMS in the Bible that Jesus has supernatural powers – quite the opposite. The only supernatural claim is that God is real and God interacts with events. And I certainly believe that. AND I think it is sufficient to explain the events described in the Bible.
With you it is like talking to someone after a magic show trying to convince us that either…
Clearly this choice is ridiculous, when the simplest explanation is that with a little ingenuity God or a magician can make astounding things happen without breaking a single law of nature.
Rather than simply dealing with what the text says since it contradicts your worldview, you are reading it as something else completely inserting your own text. You should just create your own version of the Bible, putting in what you want and make it say whatever you want, like the version of Mark 3:1-5 you like so much above. But the ESV simply says “the hand was restored” – and that is all it says. Because what you imagine of the story in your head doesn’t count for anything.
Would God reordering the atomic structure of water so Jesus could walk on it, count as a supernatural event?
@SkovandOfMitaze Was that Island that they were doing that ritual on one of the Barrier Islands of South Carolina? I’m from South Carolina and the Gullah people here do Hoodoo, or as many call it Lowcountry Voodoo. The fascinating thing about Hoodoo is that it originated from slaves synchronizing their magical practices from West Africa with Christianity. Most of them claim to be Christian and say their ability to do magic comes from the Christian God.
Why would God “reorder the atomic structure of water,” though perhaps you mean molecular structure since water is a molecule (or do mean reorder the atomic structure of oxygen and hydrogen, whatever that means)? The point was that nothing like this is in the text of the Bible, so we have no reason to believe God did anything of the sort. Anyway it makes about as much sense as using nuclear explosion to heal the man’s withered hand or the use of tachyon beams in Star Trek – little more than techno-babble. All God needed to do was put something under Jesus’ feet so Jesus could walk across the water, and there are thousands of sensible ways of doing so without changing the structure of the whole universe. Even if you believe the universe is just panentheistic dream world where nothing has to make any sense then it makes even less reasonable for God to do such a thing – but then I wouldn’t expect water to have any molecular structure in the first place.
Or here is an idea… The water just reshaped itself into a flat solid surface where Jesus walked. But… that is what ice is… the same stuff in a solid surface. So that would be Jesus walking on ice floating in the water. Again I can think of other ways to do that rather than supernatural powers.
??? I think it is supernatural when God does anything because God is supernatural. Water which can be walked on is called ice. And that happens all the time without God’s involvement. But yeah God could have supplied ice for Jesus to walk on and it would be supernatural and a miracle because God did it.
Have you considered how these explanations work with Peter getting out of the boat and then sinking as his faith wavered?
Sure. Faith affects our ability to do most of things which are in the least bit difficult. Even if there was ice under the water, that doesn’t mean it was easy to stand on – especially if you can’t even see it and there is a storm and rough waters.
First, believing in miracles is not equivalent to discarding science. That sounds like a personal world view problem on your end. Some of us drink too much enlightenment kool aid.
Second, I think almost every Christian who has ever read or listened to the gospel accounts since they were first written almost 2,000 years ago has realized that they attribute nature-defying, supernatural powers to Jesus (whether of his own accord or from the father). You are literally the first Christian I have ever met, and quite possibly the only one who ever lived that reads the gospel stories and thinks Jesus walking on water is not presented as a supernatural miracle because there were no underwater cameras at the time. If you want to claim God put rocks under his feet fair enough. Still classifies as a miracle. Where did the rocks come from? How did they move?
A magician puts on a show on purpose as an illusion. They are not liars. They are entertainers. Jesus is the Son of God, not a magician.
Vinnie
No matter what you claim God has to intervene and change nature here. This isn’t about timing things perfectly. Did Jesus have metal cleats on, walking on wet ice in a storm? Again, how does the water in the sea of Galillee just instantly lose heat and turn to ice under Jesus’s footsteps? Are you trading in Jesus for a Disney Princess? I saw that movie 100 times. Let it goooo…
I am sure you realize ice floats. Density, buoyancy, archimedes.
Are there now ice bergs in the Sea of Galilee?
there’s probably one that causes paper (remember that?) to get stuck in the photocopier!
I think there have been too many people with too many experiences to dismiss ‘supernatural’ realities. Personally I think God still works miracles such as healing, typically through His people. I think one’s belief in such things is largely based on your trust of certain individuals who have had such experiences, if you have not personally experienced it yourself. Having said that I tend to be quite sceptical and do not just believe such and such has happened simply because someone has claimed it.
If you look at just about any of the miracles of Jesus as reported in the Gospels, the difference between before and after tended to be pretty obvious. Which is why people came to believe because those with integrity couldnt deny that reality.
Guess what that reminds me of: Objective evidence for the Christian God’s providential interventions into the lives of his children.
And this of course as well:
…they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
Luke 16:21
Reminds me of the opera Porgy and Bess
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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