As a believer in the Supernatural I have no problem icorporating it into my faith and world view. It does not bother me if something seems to be supernatural or beyond the normal expectations of science, but it seems that it does matter to others here
many of the biblical miracles have been “explained” although the resurrection defies natural explanations. But, perhaps, Jesus (and some of the prophets) were exceptions?
It seems that much of Creationism relies on the supernatural whereas any sccintific view will err against it.
Does it matter?
The “signs” indicated bby the Gospels are more to do with the power og God than His existence, whereas anything Supernatural tooday wors against the “invisibility” that Christianity often encorages and is therefor self defeating..
Is this something worth chewing over?
Richard
Very interesting topic, really, but I believe it contains a fundamental flaw, that is, when you write “the scientific view goes against it” (l’ill try to articulate my view as best as i can, english is not my native language and I don’t use translators).
It’s not the scientific view per se, it’s the materialistic cult of death and insignificance which has hijacked most mainstream science (or at least the perception that common people have of science) that goes against the supernatural.
To make an example: isn’t it ridiculous how the multiverse, a theory which (unlike evolution, which i don’t think conflicts with my faith, I’ve never had a problem with it, even the Catholic Church, which I’m part of, accepts it) offers no proofs whatsoever, is accepted as a respectable(unproven as it is) scientific theory while believing that the big bang was in fact the moment of creation is seen as religious nuttery?
When the evidence for the big bang arose, meaning our universe had a beginning as the Bible had claimed, materialistic metaphysics was inserted into science to kill off that conclusion. The interest in inflation (with another unobserved metaphysical particle, the inflaton) rose. Inflation claimed that pocket universes were being created in higher dimensional space forever into eternity, and that again there are an infinitude of other universes out there in ‘inflation space’. This is the lucky lottery view which says that there are so many universes out there that one universe by chance would have the values finely tuned for life we see (which, in this case, they wouldn’t be finely tuned at all, we would have just gotten lucky with the perfect roll of the dice) and voila we are in that universe. It wasn’t due to design. And, most importantly, there was no creation.
But let me ask you: in what why is the multiverse view more scientific than the “creationist” view in this case? In no way, it’s just that one of the aforementioned “unprovable” theories goes against the existence of God and a meaningful life, the other one doesn’t, but the materialistic sect tries to make us believe that one is a respectable theory and the other one isn’t.
Also I believe that the supernatural is indeed essential to Christianity as most beliefs we held are supernatural: the resurrection, the virgin birth of our Lord, the existence of an immortal soul (which I believe is strongly implied even by scientific and phylosophical observations such as the hard problem of consciousness and the qualia, and the cases of terminal lucidity, all things which go against materialism and reductionism), these are all supernatural beliefs.
Many, if not most, scientists believe, the problem is that the materialistic sect has managed to gain the upper hand in the mainstream debate and in the mainstream perception of science (especially in western Europe which is the most heavily secularized place on the planet, even countries like Italy and Portugal, which are the less secularized countries in Western Europe, are still more secularized than then less religious States in the Usa, for example, let alone South America or Africa), and today many people wrongly believe that science and religion are at odds when they are not and, in fact, there are things that we learn through that strongly imply the existence of a supernatural realm (like human consciousness, as I said).
Furthermore, the supernatural is essential for another reason: while it’s true that God doesn’t give irrefutable proofs of his existence, it is nontheless true many conversions happen, even today, through miracles. If literally everything was explicable under the worldview held by the materialist sect (namely that literally everything can be explained without any involvement of God and the supernatural, and that which seems unexplained today will be explained in the future) which has hijacked mainstream science, having faith would be as dignified as believing in the tooth-fairy. Pascal said that God gives enough light to those who want to believe and enough obscurity to those who don’t want to believe. But there has to be light. Not a blinding light (otherwise there would be no possibility to disbelieve), but light nontheless.
Loving Spoonful, “Do You believe in Magic”.
They were meant to authenticate and reveal the identify of Jesus as God’s Son. As for this topic. If there is no supernatural then there can be no God unless you define the natural world as God (pantheism). Fortunately, reason tells us otherwise and while a lot more can be said, I think Paul answers this question already:
1 Cor 15:14: If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.
I agree. Science is deeply entrenched in a materialistic culture and understanding. YECs are only half the problem. This scientific culture is the other half. If we really want to advocate “Science is good” — which it most definitely is—we need to address both extremes. Scientists know less and less about the philosophy of their own discipline and philosophy in general as time moves forward it seems. Philosophy is just word games as it is to many Christian on this forum. Science gives us the real truth. You might as well sign up for the atheist march with that attitude. If science gives us the real truth, and academic philosophy is just word games, where do you think that leaves us delusional religious folk believing in our contradictory sky daddies?
One guy on here keeps telling us parsimony and Occam’s razor disproves our beliefs because we can’t find a God fossil. It sounds absurd but that argument if steel manned (meaning Klax learns there isn’t a 250 character limit here) comes from deep down. At its root, this is the deep seated materialism many modern people are trapped in and lots of Christians suffer from Stockholm syndrome.
Vinnie
I think that might justify an Ouch.
I do not see how you or anyone can just dismiss Philosophy as “just words” (games?)
And to say that science gives the real truth is to limit what truth is.
Would seem to be deliberately going off at a tangent from the OP., which is not about the total existence of the Supernatural at all but the presence or necessity of it in this Natural (Scientific?) world.
Richard
I think he was mocking the view of the materialist sect (which is not the whole science as many if not most scientists believe) I was talking about, with those words
For me, the natural world is sustained and created by God from nothing at every instant. That is what classical theism teaches and that is what classical arguments for God’s existence metaphysically demonstrate. Many people today are plagued with “occasional deism” which imagines God as a mechanic that has to step in to fix a broken part from time to time. I don’t think such an understanding is correct and I have tried to address it here.
Read a little more slowly. That is not what I said, that is what I critiqued.
Vinnie
That is very Scriptural but hard to prove one way or the other. I thnk it is as much about what we can perceive and / or identify as it is whether it happens or not.
Richard
I agree that scripture teaches this. That is important to me but personally, I have been convinced by a host of classical arguments outside the Bible that it is also true. Yes, it’s hard to convince some people of it .
But philosophy being word games to some puts them beyond reach. Hard to disturb someone busy worshipping at the altar of science.