That would be a pseudo-intellectual. An actual intellectual would ask what turning actual water into actual wine signified in the context of Second Temple Judaism.
Besides which, “water of ritual cleansing” was not involved.
And regarding the ‘guy on the right’ (Einstein) - he built on the field equations produced by James Maxwell - another outspokenly orthodox Christian thinker (who himself had little patience for the similar retreat from real science and real thinking that he also saw in his day already.)
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Don’t forget the waffles!
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That reminds me of a sermon I heard yesterday. Our church believes that God listens and answers to prayers, gets involved in our lives, and ‘miracles’ happen even today. One part of the sermon pointed that what we call ‘miracles’ are road signs pointing towards the reality in the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is still mostly invisible but one day it will become visible reality. Almost instant healings and other ‘miraculous’ acts of God are like rare foretaste of the future reality.
Although we believe that God does act today in ways we call ‘miraculous’, we want to keep our feet on ground. Experience has shown that teachings like ‘just believe and God will heal you’ do not fit well to the observed reality - we cannot command God. Most people having advanced cancer, physical handicaps, or other serious health issues are not healed instantly despite many believers praying for them. Those who are healed often get healed when believers simply bless them or during the praise of the congregation, rather than during a devoted prayer that God would heal in that moment. Unrealistic promises and teachings are one of the reasons why scientifically oriented persons may have an aversive attitude towards Christian teachings.
‘Feet on ground and heart in heaven’ is an attitude that gives credibility. ‘Feet on ground’ includes that we accept observed facts and may believe scientific explanations, provided that the explanations are based on sufficient facts and convincing rationale.
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It is clear that many have a problem with a God or Jesus that is logical instead of magical.
Christianity based on the “supernatural” as in magic and wishful thinking is fake news, sponsored by the anti-christ. Is it incarnation because we dream to be an eternal self as a separate entity from God, to be a self that is equal to God? That sounds like the ultimate
act of selfishness.
supernatural means metaphysical, e.g. not physical, not unnatural. Miracles are signs pointing at God, not things that cannot be explained by logic. If you believe in a Jesus that came to life outside his followers as a physical entity you deny him to live inside you and that poses a problem. Consider life to be the ability to move energy and matter at will, so if you do his will he is still alive in you.
Like it or not, Christianity proclaims that some divine acts have really overcome the laws of nature (e.g., the bodily resurrection of Jesus). Does it contradict any science?
Sciences deal with reproducible phenomena or, at least, with regularly observable processes. To say that people are habitually resurrected, or that there may be some technique to resurrect dead people, would obviously contradict science as well as common sense. But to say that Jesus Christ has once returned to life after being dead doesn’t contradict any science because it’s a claim about a unique occasion. Natural sciences can’t explore unique occasions.
The bodily resurrection of Jesus is an anticipatory sign of the other, even greater event - the universal resurrection of the dead at the end of history. Certainly, the universal bodily resurrection would mean that the laws of nature were upended, and that the world as we know it has come to an end. But that’s exactly the context of universal resurrection anticipated by the Bible and the ecumenical Creeds. The same God who has been creating and sustaining the world may well transform it into something very different. There is nothing irrational or unscientific in this idea.
So, there is a principal difference between the creedal miracles and the YEC belief in six 24-hour days of creation and in the 6000-year-old Universe. The former may be true or not, but they are not irrational or incompatible with sciences, whereas the latter would require the Universe to greatly diverge from the world that natural sciences encounter and explore.
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It can still explore unique physical events (the Big Bang, abiogenesis, the formation of the earth, etc.), but it can’t explore things that are unique in ways that transcend physical reality.
I would say that the Big Bang and the formation of the earth are the consequential events (or processes) that may be explored because their consequences are literally around us - these consequences are the regular and observable traits of the world where we live. The exploration of these consequences enables scientists to model the earlier stages of natural history.
The bodily resurrection of Jesus is also consequential - but its eschatological consequences are yet to come. We are still waiting for them with faith and patience. Christian theology may show that our expectation is reasonable; but no theologian would scientifically forecast the probability or circumstances of its fulfillment.
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what helped my miraculous recovery was a lasagne. Whilst locked in and tracheotomised I could hear and worry about wife, and kids - as you have nothing else to do - what relaxed me was our vicar explaining to me that he had driven her to the hospital and that someone from the congregation had brought a lasagne round for her and the kids to ease the burden of managing that all and getting out to Cambridge to see me at Addenbrookes. The knowledge that they were supported made me relax and there is nothing more draining at the system than the main processor overheating running in the “worry loop”. Imagine your “worry loop” to be about yourself and the loss of self and you will get the idea what an eternity burning in hell is like. That peace of mind and the vibes of understanding that you are loved are a huge source of healing energy - and that is what you need either to come back or to go in peace.
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I thought about mentioning that, but this site has always been very light on the whole Protestant v. Catholic thing so I didn’t want to stir the pot. But you are right, not only is Lemaitre RCC but he is also a Jesuit which comes with its own baggage at times.
Nonetheless, he’s not an atheist. At least there is that.
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Belgian beer is also something to be quite proud of which was also a product of Christian clergy. Those monks can brew up a tasty beer.
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At least a supernatural Christianity is worth considering and accepting or rejecting. The thoughts of a Jewish sage who told people to look at the lilies of the field and flouted convention might be worth entertaining but a good moral teacher hardly merits a global following of people who dedicate their lives to him. There have been millions of “good moral teachers.”
I am not even sure what your version of Christianity looks like. How is it distinguishable from atheism and why should anyone care about it?
Vinnie
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I’ve seen thousands of prayers for healing that didn’t result in healing – but I’ve seen several instances of healing at the Eucharist when no one was asking.
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False dichotomy – this would be true only if His human nature overrode His divine nature.
We can’t know if it contradicts science or not. Even if the Shroud of Turin is the actual burial cloth of Christ, it doesn’t provide enough information to tell us how the image was put onto/into the cloth, and thus not enough to even give a tiny clue to how the Savior’s body was re-enlivened. It may be that there is a perfectly good physical process that could be described by science, with nice equations and all, but we cannot know that because we have insufficient data to even make a guess.
I think of it more in terms of the contrast between Newton and Einstein concerning gravity: Newton wasn’t wrong, he was just looking at a limited subset of the data. So I don’t think the laws of nature will be “upended”, I think they will be augmented – which goes along with Paul’s statement that the mortal will put on the immortal.
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On one overnight volcanology field trip some of the guys got into a dispute over which was better, German beer or Belgian. The result of this dispute was that those few bought enough of several types of each category that everyone could have a bottle, and we proceeded to compare.
Our professor took her assessment of the various beers and made a chart for them that looked like a geological structure chart.
Oh – the Belgian won by a mica crystal (geologists don’t use “by a hair”).
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It looks at God and Jesus in a logical framework, as a worldview demands logical coherence.
To me miracles are not events that can’t be explained but events that profoundly change reality. It shows us that we can create miracles and move mountains.
If you understand the power of love and logic that Jesus represents and how his life turned reality upside down it changes your life in a different way. It calls you into action and shows you the power in which the word of God can set you free like nothing else and how it hooks you up to eternal life again instead of hoping to be your eternal self. Most of all it allows you to overcome the cognitive dissonance created by the miracles that are in conflict with your perceived reality and defeat his adversaries emotional arguments with logic. After all, he is the logos.
The miracles proclaim the law of nature, which is why they show you that it is in control of reality and this law of nature will set you free, free from the desire of wanting to be like God (remember the core argument in the fall) by wanting to be part of God again. The eternal selfish existence is the apple offered by the church to keep you enslaved. The materialism of the bible teaching of today has long overcome the idealism behind its origins. We demand a physical resurrection because we want to be physically resurrected and therein lies the enslavement by the one who holds us to ransom over death, e.g. the fear of loosing our status as “self” When Jesus paid the ransom it was not to God but the devil - who ended up empty handed. Jesus sets you free from being a slave to the self - if het get’s you 
I doubt we can create miracles or move mountains (without technology).
I see miracles as acts of God. We can ask in prayer or possibly use authority given by God but the acts themselves are done by God, either directly by His Spirit or indirectly by those commanded to do the work, like moving or stopping something (by angels).
An interesting question is by what force does material move or change rapidly in a ‘miracle’. As we do not have enough of knowledge, we can only speculate.
Is there some kind of force that can operate between visible and invisible dimensions, assuming that ‘Heaven’ is like an invisible dimension?
Is it something that happen at the basic (quantum) level of material and if it is, what makes the particles take new positions rapidly?
Or is it something truly ‘supernatural’ where things just happen independent of known natural laws, simply by the force that is in the command of God?
I guess this kind of speculation may seem pointless, for some because they do not believe in miracles, for others because it is just wasted time and energy - the good news of Christianity is not knowing something interesting, it is being moved from darkness to the presence of God through Jesus Christ and thereafter, living with our Lord in a covenant with Him. Following and obeying Him are part of the covenant.
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Yes, it is quite possible.
As for me, the personal immortality has never been of particular interest to me. But there is a question of logical consistency: the spontaneous and intentional force that has been freely creating and sustaining the world must be able to transform this very world, to change even the most fundamental natural laws.
On the contrary, to deny the possibility of eschatological miracles is to suppose that the creative force has somehow dissolved in nature. In other words, the creative force has either stopped being intentional, or has never been intentional at all. Neither possibility makes much sense.
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