God’s sovereignty does not mean that he has to intervene in everything, it means he can in anything and is never surprised.
Since he is free from the constraints of time and “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day”, then he is at the same time present in the present and in the future. To orchestrate whole sets of providential interventions also involves innumerably many necessary precursor events (think “the butterfly in Beijing” effect, actually multiple butterflies ; - ).
For me this is indistinguishable from control of everything. Regardless of whether such a God intervenes or not He is the one making all the choices and deciding what will happen. Choosing not to act is still an action responsible for the result if you know what the results will be. And I don’t believe consciousness is possible unless one is making a choice between possible futures.
Freedom from the constraints of a particular temporal ordering does not free one from the constraints of logical coherence, except in a dream world. A conscious person, who is not just a character in an already written story, must choose between participating in the writing of a story and knowing its ending.
Maggie and Rich Stearns were puppets and not free to make any choices, nor were any of the others involved? Whose free will was countermanded? No one’s, but all of the events and sequences, their timing and placing, were by design.
Why should this be symbolic?
I know that some people have a problem with supernatural miracles but, having had experience of such things in real life I do not have any problems at all. God is sovereign of HIs universe and therefore free to make or break whatever He wants. Besides, many of the Biblical miracles that were deemed “impossible” can now be explained by modern science, so who is to say that other things might not have an explanation as our knowledge increases?
Since you mention it that way, I had an intense month long discussion with a person who claimed to be a PhD physicist last year. At one point in the discussion, quantum fluctuations were used as an explanation for recombination in the heat death of the universe.
My response, “but it’s still not an infinite number of future events”
I agree that there is no need that all miracles in the OT are symbolic.
I also agree that experience helps crossing intellectual barriers caused by speculative interpretation of the biblical scriptures or the universe. Naturally also experienced phenomena need interpretation, so there is a need to be cautious in both types of interpretation.
Lets say 100 million people report witnessing miracles by God, either personally or within their close family. Probably the real number is currently larger than 100 millions but 100 is a nice number to play with.
Then assume that 95% of reported miracles are either misunderstandings (good luck) or partly fake reports. With this sceptical assumption, that would leave 5 million real miracles.
Even rising the 95% to 99,9% would leave 100’000 real miracles.
There are people who have decided that miracles do not happen, partly because they have not experienced any, partly because their philosophy excludes interventions by God. People like the famous Hume with his faulty assumptions/logic. Nothing could convince these people.
For a person with an open mind miracles are a real possibility, based on the numerous reports of miracles. Some miracles have been listed in the books by Keener, as noted above. Countless others in other books that are not academic.
Believing that miracles happen is not dependent on being a cessationist or non-cessationist because even cessationists believe that God can and have made miracles. Miracles are only problematic for persons that are convinced that there is no God or gods who are interested in the life of humans and willing to help.
If miracles happen today, there is no reason why the miracles told in the biblical scriptures cannot be true. The reports might be told from personal viewpoints, with no scientific knowledge, but that does not mean that the events reported would be false.
I don’t see why you would have to believe everything is a miracle or everything is natural as a binary choice. A mix of the two would seem to fit the bill. When there is mountains of evidence that a natural process was involved, then just accept that it was a natural process. When there is no evidence available then it becomes a matter of faith.
One miracle mentioned in the OT which I do not see reason to believe happened as described is the sun and moon standing still in Joshua 10:12-14. It makes reference to a book of Jashar, which best guess refers to a book of poetry. This suggests poetic license describing a prolonged battle, and so many Jewish scholars have long understood it. Others interpret this as describing a solar eclipse (though I cannot see how they come to such a conclusions), but some are enthusiastic in using this to pinpoint the battle in 1207 BCE on October 30, when such a solar eclipse is calculated to have occurred in the area.
I do like to point out as a matter of amusement that it is quite possible for the sun to stop in the sky of a planet as well as turn around and move backwards for a while. And this does happen in the sky of Mercury when its orbital speed exceeds it rotation speed for a short time during its orbit around the sun. But of course for the sun and moon to actually stop in the sky of the earth is not only an impossible violation of the laws of nature (conservation of angular momentum) but implies catastrophic consequences (tidal waves of water, rock and earth) making Noah’s flood look trivial.
Another interesting theory… but still not supporting a literal understanding of the text (which claimed the sun and moon stayed in the sky a whole extra day) since this effect cannot last quite that long (30 min is the most we have observed). …unless the “inversion” is not even in the atmosphere of the earth. LOL …it really is amazing what is possible even within the laws of nature, and I think that is the more important lesson of your suggestion.
Exceptional timing, placing and degree is the suggestion. I’m not committed to it, being neither a meteorologist nor knowing the topography, but it still remains a possibility and not so quickly dismissed with a hand wave and a ‘usually’.
We certainly agree there. You may recall my mentioning a man in a boat during a storm on Galilee. He said something and the storm suddenly stopped. What natural laws were broken? None, but the disciples were awestricken! (It became completely calm and they had to row all the way back because of their fearful lack of faith. )
I read once an interpretation of the narrative where sun ‘stopped’ (Joshua 10:12-14). Unfortunately, I do not remember the writer (possibly John Walton??). A detailed analysis of the text showed that the apparently simplest YEC-style explanation (sun and moon stopped) was unlikely. The style and genre of the text, the way how ANE people wrote about events during that time, the described position of the sun and the moon, etc. suggested an alternative interpretation. No stopping of the sun and moon, just a description of an exceptional victory in the language of the ANE people.
From the described position of the sun and moon, it was even possible to calculate the timing of the event. Not the year but approximately the month and hour.
The key theological error to avoid is a god of the gaps. The Bible consistently identifies God as being at work in non-miraculous as well as miraculous events. Seen this way, a natural law explanation versus a miracle are simply different possible ways for God to do something. There seems to be a trend to minimize the amount achieved by a miracle, besides the specific admonitions against demands for a miracle. For example, crowds were fed with a few loaves and fish, but the leftovers were saved; water turned to wine, but had to be served in the ordinary manner; an axe head floated just enough to grab it and then fasten it back on better. Some miracles do have plausible natural-law explanations for the physical event; the miracle is mainly in the timing and anticipation. For example, there is a fish in the Sea of Galilee known for picking up shiny stuff, but Jesus knew that Peter would catch one carrying exact change. However, there are also ridiculous attempts t provide a natural-law explanation for many miracles, such as the suggestion that Elijah was actually pouring kerosene rather than water over the altar (centuries before the invention of petroleum distillation) or that walking on water could have happened because springs produce varying salinity in the Sea of Galilee and a bit of fresher water might freeze when most of the water was still liquid (ignoring the difficulties of surfing in a storm on a tiny chunk of melting ice).
Young bluefish also snap at shiny stuff. The lure to catch them is simply a piece of shiny metal with hooks. (Of course, my fishing and fish-eating days are long gone)
Have you ever read Heavenly Man by Brother Yun. Miracles abound, especially where persecution abounds. It’s like reading the Book of Acts. I sometimes wonder that I must be a poor Christian because the Lord has done a few miracles in my life. When I have shared them, people try to explain them away. If you don’t want to believe in miracles, even after you see them you will reject them. I don’t know if I am correct here, but I think it requires ‘eyes to see’ which is a gift. If you would like I will share one of the miracles with you
Frank
Or … you could see it as people trying to authenticate the miracle claim. It is a natural instinct for us to try to ‘explain’ things, right? So I wouldn’t be too harsh on your friends who share in that reaction as well.
That said, you still have a point. It seems to me that eyes of faith shouldn’t be dividing the world into an “acts of God pile” kept separate from a “we’ve explained this stuff” pile.
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