Im afraid that this is the problem.Weve come to a point where MIRACLES dont need to be unexplainable.Whats next ?God couldnt have become a human?It seems to me that we are taking something here and there for the bible to suit our view and sound "smart"to the YECERS.Why do we need to “explain” eveyrthing in the bible and not just go with the story as its suppoed to be.The writting style here is literal.Miracles BY DEFINITION are not explainable
One thing to remember, and sometimes I struggle to remember this myself, posts often only have a fraction of responders. Like on here there is only a few people responding. From similar previous answers there Is a lot of different opinions in here, and doubt from various positions.
While reading through this I seem to see mostly this.
There is you who is wondering why we don’t see them anymore and believe that are supernatural.
There is Mitchell who seems to be certain that they were not supernatural, and that they still occur nowadays we just have different answers for it. Like people considered dead and then pop back to life scaring nurses and stuff. He’s probably not answering every single example because like all of us he’s not 100% certain of how it all worked out. Just like I have no idea what happened to Jesus when he ascended.
I think Mervin is just stating why someone can draw a conclusion that’s not heavily influenced by the supernatural.
Then there is me ( ehhh ) who believes that they were supernatural and they ended because I believe in cessationism.
So it’s fairly diverse already.
If I’m wrong, not intentionally trying to mix up others thoughts. Either way it’s a diverse response and just a few of us.
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THese are the three views.Theres not a 4 one i think.Mitchell hasnt answered even one so … I get it if the question was asked to me i wouldnt have answered either
Cessationism might make sense though .Now that i think about it im leaning more into it since it actually asnwers my question in a way or another.
Not possible.
Actually Mervin and I are pretty much on the same page in this discussion so far. We don’t agree with the categories you and Nick are dividing things into, where there is only natural = science and supernatural = magic breaking the laws of nature. I would divide things quite differently into physical = the mathematical space-time laws of nature created by God, spiritual = outside the mathematical space-time structure, and magic simply doesn’t exist except as the tricks done by magicians and a literary device in used in storytelling for entertainment. BTW, the Biblical source for this division of things into physical/natural and spiritual is 1 Corinthians 15.
All physical things inside the mathematical space-time structure of the universe happens according to mathematical laws. But as I explained these are probabilistic and not causally closed, which means the ultimate cause of events need not be physical at all. The physical universe was created for a relationship with God, which you cannot have without both separation and interaction. The separation from God is in the mathematical space-time laws which operate automatically. The openness to relationship is in the fact that these mathematical laws are not causally closed. Thus God participates in events all the time as He chooses. But this is according to the laws of nature and not by the magic of fantasy stories or any kind of alteration or exception to the laws governing the universe.
The difference is that while you keep looking fruitlessly for miracles as one after another is proven to be explained by the laws of nature, I know that none of these explanations means they are not miracles. Yours sounds like a God of the Gaps version of reality itself. The birth of a newborn baby, the growth of a flower, the healing of the sick by scientists and doctors – all explained by science apparently means by your way of thinking that they are nothing but victories for the atheist worldview (while the Bible and God become no more than a fairy story with nothing to do with reality). But it seems to me you have simply made yourself blind with some bizarre idolatry worshiping a fantasy necromancer rather than the real God who created the laws of nature to accomplish His will.
Does that mean they are not the work of God, or does it mean that God is not an explanation for anything?
I consider your definition absurd.
My definition of a miracle is a highly improbable or extraordinary event, development, or accomplishment with very welcome consequences, which comes about by the work of God. You just have to accept that you can never prove that it is from the work of God so you cannot shove your religion down the throats of other people, which (aw shucks) means tossing the intolerant religions into the garbage bin.
Reminds me of that movie “Time Bandits” which had a time of legends when all the magic and creatures of fairy tales existed. Doesn’t have to make any sense or agree with any evidence because you change change the laws of nature to make it work. That is what the creationists do too, don’t they? Why don’t we tack on a time of future for Star Trek and Star Wars, then everyone can be happy living in whatever movie or fairy tale they want with no need to pay any attention to evidence or the laws of nature – no reality at all only a dream world, what fun!
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Oh… but right… that wasn’t from any mud on his face so the guy in the story is perfectly natural but if there is mud involved that must be necromancy… got it!
As I read the story…
John 9:13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14 Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. 15 The Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the sabbath.”
I frankly hear another Pharisee Christian legalist saying… Oh but that man didn’t use mud to cure his blindness therefore it must be the work of the devil and not a miracle at all.
I don’t feel like you even remotely indicated you understood my position. Since I’ve had this same debate, several times, I’m just going to respond this once and then ignore it. Ive lined out many verses in other threads, such as those specifically about the war of heaven, the laying on of hands, and the handpicked apostles by Jesus who was there at Pentecost, and Paul later on.
So the first thing to make clear is what is the thread about when it mentions miracles. It’s obviously not about births or flowers opening up for rain and so on. That’s such a silly thought to develop in the conversation.
So what’s being discussed. The types of things being discussed as miracles, as in supernatural events that have no natural explanation if taken as true.
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Walking on water. Walking on water without sinking durning a storm.
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Raising a dead body. Reanimating a corpse. Not just Lazarus, but also how Jesus came back from the dead , conquering sin and death, and being able to give his people eternal life.
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Speaking in tongues. When someone fluently and suddenly without any training learns a whole new language and is able to preach using it.
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The gift of prophecies. The ability to accurately and definitely foretell the future.
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The ability to cast out supernatural beings from living men that possessed him. These possessed men had super strength. The same things inside of them was cast out and took over the body and minds of pigs and drove them to suicide.
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The ability to pick up venomous snakes and not be harmed by them. They can inject you with all the venom they have and it has zero affect on you.
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The ability to walk past someone and your shadow heals them. Or you lay your hands on them, and heart disease, cancer, snd wounds instantly hill. Like Jesus placing a cut off ear back on the soldiers head as if it never happened.
Those several examples are distinctly different from a woman giving birth. Unless you’re talking about Mary who was a virgin and gave birth. Outside of that, your wife giving birth is not defying natural laws. The seven things I mentioned though defy natural laws. That’s why you dance around it without answering it because you’re musings so little concerning it. Instead, you have to create a false
Connection of dots to “ childbirth” and pretend like it’s the same.
You mentioned 1 corinthians 15. I have no idea what you were trying to prove it disapprove with it.
You mention God of Gaps. I think it’s more like you’re trying to completely ignore everything there because you think that things only work naturally.
So what was the natural process of those seven things? Then show me how you get those seven things from scripture.
Show what natural laws Jesus was following to walk on water. Show me the context of the gospels saying Lazarus was not dead. Explain to me what was the definition in use when Paul said “ our brothers as sisters about are asleep, waiting for the resurrection”.
But again regardless of what you say, to be honest I’m not reading it. Because we’ve had this same conversation several times, in several threads. We have even discussed classifications like three times.
If anyone wants to know more. Get some books, or listen to some podcasts, about cessationism of miraculous gifts through the laying on of hands. There are 2,000 years of works on it.
The supernatural as in metaphysical still occurs on a daily basis. The unnatural - what most people confuse with the supernatural - does not.
miracles as signs of God to understand / challenge our perception of reality, not acts of magic
No laws of nature were ever created, God or no God, and miracles aren’t natural, which is why they don’t happen and never did apart from the possible exception of some associated with Jesus.
Certainly laws of nature, from our POV, are descriptive and it is we who do the the describing. We are in no position to know whether what they describe was fashioned by any divinity’s intent nor do we have any reason to think it could all have been otherwise. We may be smart enough to speculate wisely regarding what other cosmological constants would have to change in order to accommodate a hypothetical change in any one of them. But I doubt we will ever know whether it is possible for any of the constants to actually be changed by anyone including God. Anyone who holds that God can do anything He likes will want to give Him the benefit of the doubt. But no one has the first clue how to fiddle with reality itself so as to change the constants we use in the laws by which we describe what we observe in the cosmos. So we’re simply in no position to say if it can actually be done by anyone at all. In other words I believe I am agreeing with you.
We are in every position. They cannot vary. Even the notes c, G and h crystallize out at the vertices. God has no choice whatsoever to use what works naturally. Like morality.
Amen to that. That is exactly what I’m trying to do [just go with the story]. But when you add …
That is, ironically, a way of shutting miracles off into some category now under your control. I.e. … You have this box labeled “unexplainable” and all miracles get safely stowed away there. Everything else is kept out of that box. I do not follow you in doing that - and despite the label ‘unexplainable’ that you bestow upon it, it is still your way of, at least in part explaining and controlling the stuff in there. That may not be a bad (or even inaccurate) thing necessarily. I’m not trying to talk you out of thinking that way. I’m just saying I don’t think that way. And if thinking that way leads you to distress or disturbing questions about faith or reality, then I feel free to point out that some Christians think on other ways too that you might consider.
As I’ve already told you and will repeat here, I don’t feel obliged (or able) to explain all the miracles listed in scriptures. This isn’t the same as saying that explanations don’t or can’t exist; nor is it the same as saying that if an explanation did exist - God must therefore be excluded.
I don’t even need to try to come up with examples of this on my own. Scriptures do it for me. Would you agree that the locusts sent on Egypt as one of the ten plagues qualify as a miracle (in their timing - and foretelling by Moses at least)? And yet in Exodus (10:13) we are also told that an east wind blew all night and that is what brought the locusts the next day. So the bible itself (in that particular instance) already wrecks your thesis that no miracles can ever have any explanation. [For that matter, the dividing of the sea also involved a prolonged east wind too - all night in fact. Nobody imagines Charlton Heston having that much patience; but there it is … I’m just showing how scriptures don’t consistently follow the modern imagination in all this.] Note once again: I’m not here claiming that all miracles can or will or have been explained by us or scriptures. Certainly the resurrection itself involves a whole lot of stuff that we can only speculate about - whether accurately or not.
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I agree with all this too. Happy Easter!
Indeed! We cannot know what the explanation is for these events. All we can do is show that explanations are possible. And the point is that we don’t have to believe in magic or the violation of the laws of nature, because it simply isn’t true that these are the only explanation. The reason for not believing in such things are legion. One is pretty simply logic in theology which cannot see a reason why God would not have the integrity to abide by the laws of nature which He Himself created especially for the ridiculously inane reason of impressing a bunch of people who would not know the difference anyway. Another reason is that we simply don’t see such things happening in the world around us and it is the very reason why science works. It creates a very reasonable division between reality and the things of fantasy and dreams. The question for the Christian is on which side of this division are we to put the Bible and Christianity? It is pretty bizarre that fundamentalists and atheists agree with putting putting them on the side of fantasy – atheists to dismiss Christianity and fundamentalists to dismiss science. Such are the people who want a war between them and one side destroying the other.
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- “Cessationism”, although currently used by some Protestants to explain why the “Apostolic spiritual gifts” no longer occur, didn’t originate with Christians. Judaism has had its own proponents of cessationism, for its own reasons including the rejection of New Testament stories of “supernatural” events. E.g. the Bat Kol "i.e. heavenly voice) was not heard in Israel after the last of the Prophets, which–of course–is disproven if one accepts its presence in:
- New Testament mention of “a voice from heaven” occurs in the following passages: Matt 3:17; Mark 1:11;[32] Luke 3:22 (at the baptism of Jesus); Matt 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35 (at the transfiguration); John 12:28 (shortly before the Passion); Acts 9:4; Acts 22:7; Acts 26:14 (conversion of Paul), and Acts 10:13, Acts 10:15 (instruction of Peter concerning the clean and unclean). Bat Kol
- Islam, meanwhile, has its proponents of cessationism.
- Cessationism, in Christianity, has its counter-opinion among Continuationists: Cessationism versus continuationism.
- Personally, I am a Continuationist. Chalk it up to my version of childhood events, and to experiences among the Charismatics in the mid-1970s, and oddly enough to the “worldview” of an agnostic atheist, now deceased, whom I became acquainted with in a now-defunct physics forum.
- The usefulness of the agnostic atheist’s worldview was in his ability to describe a universe in which remarkable and surprising things have occurred, do occur, and will continue to occur due its nature, and no law of physics that any human can come up with is valid and broken.
My God .There was a white fog in my eyes all that time"A person born blind CANNOT SEE COLOUR.HE CANT DISTINGUISH BETWEEN COLOUR.The post is as dull as your sense of irony.Now go ahead and claim all you want .You believe in a supernatural God that cant act supernatural.Great analogy.My God what a mind .So tell me .I recently completed my pc build.Will i be able to make any changes to the software of it because you know there are some stuff that need to change.Or you would consider that “violating the laws” as well?See how it doesnt make sense?
My definition?Well the whole Cambridge must be based then .Why is ti so hard to admit that theres no alternative to a topic and need to mumble about other ways or something?Miracles by worldwide linguistic definition are what i posted above/
What I hear you asking above is: “Why is it so hard for me to simply accept that miracles are, by definition unexplainable things?” Is that an accurate understanding?
So are you suggesting that scriptures are just wrong about this then? Or that the plague of locusts on Egypt were not a work of God, then? … a miracle? Because the Bible sure attributes it to God. And then goes on to explain how an east wind was used to bring them. Why is it so hard for you to accept that at least some miracles obviously do have explanations on offer - from the Bible itself! You never acknowledged this example.
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How many of those are there Mervin.Maybe one or two.I can think a max of 5 at least "explainable:miracles in contrast to the dozens of the other category .Soo are we gonna give answers to insignificant miracles like a wind that brought locusts?Or are we actually gonna do ground breaking work and focus on the rea deal .Healing of people by laying only their hands.speaking in tongues etc etc
All I need is one counter-example, to show that your insistence that “all miracles cannot be accompanied by any [ ‘natural’ ] explanation” is a thesis that falls apart already in scriptures themselves. You’re right - there would be more. But one is enough.
Great.You have silenced me i must say .Now unto the question
Unless you are suggesting these are explainable as well.If so well ive already wasted my energy answering to mitchell