I’ve heard it before. I can also find plenty of places in the Bible where such tests were performed, such as when fire came down from the sky for Elijah. Following a pillar of smoke or fire through the desert for however many years would also have been a daily reminder of an ongoing and probably unmistakable miracle.
That’s why I think the workable middle ground is that it is a matter of faith.
The so-called “middle ground” seems to be this: on both sides, the folly lies in trying to prove what isn’t provable.
The inconsistency can be a bit frustrating at times, but I guess that’s part of being human and trying to understand one another. At one moment we atheists are told of these unmistakable miracles that only a fool would deny, and not soon after we are told that God would never take away our free will be performing an obvious miracle. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. If someone tells me that they witnessed a miracle but could understand why I wouldn’t be convinced . . . that I can understand and get my head around.
In an age where every human being on the planet has a cellphone with a video recorder, no one has video-taped a “miracle” which could not have a natural explanation. Not one.
-quadriplegics are never healed.
-amputees of major limbs are never healed.
-bombing victims (blown to pieces) are never healed.
-beheading victims are never healed.
-yet if one Christian recovers from “incurable, stage 4 cancer” it is viewed as undeniable proof that Jesus lives and is our omnipotent creator.
Get real yourself. Where are the medical miracles in the statistics?
Everyone should be required to take a course in statistics. Statistics teaches you that very, very rare events do occur. It also teaches you that recovery rates from “incurable” diseases is approximately the same for persons of all religions and atheists of the same social class.
So the fact that Aunt Betsy recovered from Stage 4 lung cancer after your church prayed for her proves nothing. Odd recoveries occur.
What part of the word private do you not understand?
There are no statistics. There is no data.
Richard
Sirach: 38 Honor physicians for their services, for the Lord created them; ² for their gift of healing comes from the Most High, and they are rewarded by the king.
³ The skill of physicians makes them distinguished, and in the presence of the great they are admired.
⁴ The Lord created medicines out of the earth, and the sensible will not despise them.
⁵ Was not water made sweet with a tree in order that its power might be known?
⁶ And he gave skill to human beings that he might be glorified in his marvelous works.
⁷ By them the physiciand heals and takes away pain;
⁸ the pharmacist makes a mixture from them.
Ever heard of Miracle drugs?
Richard
What part of the word miracle don’t you understand?
A private one isn’t one.
Since when was part of the definition of miracle that it had to be assessed publicly. Rather wrecks many of Jesus’ miracles then.
Richard
Which is worse:
I am not God. Ask Him
Richard
Forgive me if I am reading into this but seems clear that my previous comments are implicated here.
From my short time here on Biologos, I’ve come to see just how varied people’s perspectives are, especially in terms on various theological opinions. I totally acknowledge that my and @Vinnie comments might feel like tonal whiplash. I do struggle honestly to know when it’s best to offer a different opinion within the Christian umbrella, especially when I believe certain might be more harmful than beneficial to non-theists. I guess part of it is understanding we all have our own perspectives and when encountering the Christian “opinion”, it’s difficult when 6 Christians are giving 6 answers. My goal wasn’t to confuse you more, but trying to find a middle ground belief and non-belief. Maybe my intentions were lost in that. And sometimes it’s just good to have multiple opinions out there. I’m mostly here to learn rather than make assertions.
If it’s any consolation, I would have no problem with this assertion. Any “miracle” or spiritual expierence most often seems beneficial to the person experiencing that and maybe any witnesses. If I expierenced a miracle, I don’t believe that’s a smoking gun for any atheist to start believing in God.
What? The ones no one knows about?
It’s always amusing when people announce million-dollar challenges to “prove the supernatural under scientific conditions.” That’s like offering a cash prize for anyone who can photograph ultraviolet light with a camera that only captures red. The result doesn’t expose the world’s limits — only the instrument’s.
Science works beautifully within its lane, but its lane isn’t the whole landscape. Confusing methodological naturalism with metaphysical naturalism is a category error dressed up as rigor. The inability to detect the transcendent with tools built to measure the material is no more surprising than failing to taste music with a thermometer.
Criticisms of metaphysics include its perceived irrelevance and futility due to a lack of empirical verification, making it seem vague and detached from experience. Other critiques argue that metaphysical claims are potentially meaningless, are a product of “sickness” or irrationality, or fail to account for being itself, instead focusing on individual entities. Critics like the logical positivists argue that metaphysical statements are unfalsifiable and lack literal meaning because they cannot be verified through observation or scientific methods.
Gary: Metaphysics is mental masturbation. It serves no real purpose whatsoever except to make you feel better.
Dismissing metaphysics as “mental masturbation” just turns unexamined philosophy into pretend science. Metaphysics isn’t a failed version of physics — it’s what makes physics intelligible.
I am not alone.
Stephen Hawking famously declared, "Philosophy is dead" in a statement that was a critique of metaphysics and other branches of philosophy that he felt had failed to keep up with scientific progress, particularly in explaining the universe’s origin. He argued that science, not philosophy, now answers the fundamental questions about existence and that the universe can be explained by its own laws. He once quipped, “A physicist can’t allow his calculations to be muddled by a belief in a supernatural creator”.
Agreed. It’s like wondering why a metal detector isn’t detecting wood under the sand.
Well, I for one would never describe such events as unmistakable miracles. My issue is the idea that because we can offer a potential naturalistic explanation for a very rare healing that involved a lot of prayer, we should axiomatically assume that is true for all of them or that God could not have acted here. I mean, that is just an irreconcilable difference between being a Christian and an atheist I suppose. I follow Jesus in thinking supernatural miracles are possible and that sometimes our faith leads us to think they occurred. I wouldn’t tell you a rare remission of cancer is an inexplicable proof of God that you cannot honestly deny. Never. But I feel free in believing it from time to time and feel even freer to call out a philosophy that denies it universally going in.
I think why anything bothers to exist at all is the real and unmistakable miracle. The existence of every single thing in the entire universe is a supernatural miracle. That is what creation ex nihilo and metaphysics entails from a being that is pure act. I personally don’t need to lower my standards and look for limbs regrowing or impossible diseases curing to prove God. Everything in the entire universe is unmistakable proof of God at all times. The Christians always looking for supernatural proof are the ones who have fallen into a deist trap and embrace a mechanistic and regrettable model of God. Supernatural miracles are simply rare instances where we think God goes beyond the natural order of things. I simply cannot agree with a carte blanche denial of them. Again, because of Jesus.
My trust in Jesus is greater than my trust in men with extreme intellectual gifts, but also with-- dare I say, frail intellectual egos, that try to put all of reality in a small box they can control and master and have ownership over. And that is not meant to be an insult. I think we all have a desire to control things and by explaining things we psychologically can give ourselves power over them. The sin or certainty doesn’t apply only to believers. That is how I see philosophical naturalism.
Vinnie
“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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