|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Purgatory: Non-literal interpretation of miracles?
|
Emma Louise
Storm in a teapot
# 3571
|
Posted
I'm not sure I'm really into seeing miracles as literal anymore - and now I'm curious. How do people interpret miracles? What about feeding 5000? What are other interpretations?
[ 05. January 2015, 01:07: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
Posts: 12719 | From: Enid Blyton territory. | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
|
Posted
The way I've heard the feeding of the 5000 explained is that it turned out that a lot of the people had bought their own food, so when Jesus encouraged people to share by handing out the loaves and fishes that the boy offered, everyone suddenly got all generous and shared. The problem with this is the claim that after it the people sought to make Jesus King, and so he had to calm the situation by withdrawing into the mountains (Jn 6 v 15); to suggest that people were so excited by a shared picnic reflects a remarkably low view of the ability of the people of the time to tell when something special had happened.
My favourite story on this however is the liberal preacher attempting to explain how the escape of the Israelites from Egypt had been through the sea of reeds, so only some 18" of water. "Hallelujah, what at miracle", came a cry at the end of this explanation. The preacher - somewhat disappointed by this reaction, tried again: "there wasn't a miracle, the people just escaped through a shallow sea". "Indeed, what a miracle" came the reply "the Egyptian army was drowned in 18" of water".
Although I've seen relatively few dramatic miracles in my life, I've seen enough occasions when there have been striking coincidences that make me confident that God has been at work. And the logic of I Corinthians 15 where Paul jumps up and down making it clear that Christianity stands or falls on the absolute physical reality of the Resurrection makes me highly unwilling to play the 'Oh but it's got a natural explanation' game; at some point Christianity stands or falls by the reality of the prospect of some form of life after death whose truth is demonstrated by the resurrection - otherwise - to quote Terry Pratchett - it's "just being nice. And a way of keeping in touch with the neighbours".
The full quote is (and this the words of a character in a novel by an atheist author) quote:
Now if I'd seen him, really there, really alive, it'd be in me like a fever. If I thought there was some god who really did care two hoots about people, who watched them like a father and cared for them like a mother... well, you wouldn't catch me sayin' things like "There are two sides to every question" and "We must respect other people's beliefs". You wouldn't find me just being ge'rally nice in the hope that it would turn out right in the end, not if that flame was burning in me like an unforgiving sword. And I did say burnin' Mister Oats, 'cos that's what it'd be. You say that people don't burn folks anymore, but that's what true faith would mean, y'see? Sacrificin' your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin' the truth of it, workin' for it, breathing the soul of it. THAT'S religion. Anything else... is just being nice. And a way of keepin' in touch with the neighbours.'
From Carpe Jugulum p.349
That's the sort of faith that Paul demonstrated; that too few of us do so gives the likes of Terry Pratchett every reason to be sceptical about our beliefs.
--------------------
Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
Posts: 5018 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
|
Posted
I was once called to pray at the bed of a teenager with her parents because she was expected to die. A number of her vital organs had shut down and she was bleeding from her ears and eyes.
I asked her parents what they wanted to pray for and they said "a miracle". I prayed for a miracle.[1]
About a month later, she walked out of the hospital. The doctors and nurses said that she should have died.
That's a miracle, as far as I'm concerned. I have other stories in the same vein. Some would say it's not a miracle because she continued to receive medical care. The doctors have no idea why she didn't die. Supernatural? I have no idea. The power of God? Most certainly. Non-literal? Very factual.
[1] I'm not attributing her healing to my prayer. I'm attributing the fact that I was able to pray for a miracle wholeheartedly to the fact that I don't believe I know what God will do in any given circumstance. And that includes not knowing that someone will die.
--------------------
"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
Posts: 4152 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
|
Posted
There can be some fairly rational explanations about some miracles, but I'd love to know what was going on with the raising of Lazarus....
--------------------
Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Ay up Emma Louise. All rationalization turns wine in to water. Don't you want the re-enchantment of reality ? My miracles are personal and subjective and risible. But if you'd have been there, they'd be yours too.
The only miracles I don't HAVE to believe in any more are the Mythoses denied by the Logos but assumed by Him. The Flood so far:
Jesus Himself may well have believed in miracles He never performed as God.
Not a problem.
If we posit that no miraculous claim is literal, then as well as having no pragmatic killer God we have no incarnate one. No creator. No God apart from a pantheistic one at best, if at all.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
There can be some fairly rational explanations about some miracles, but I'd love to know what was going on with the raising of Lazarus....
Would you prefer the old way of explaining away miracles or the new way?
--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
|
Posted
I'm with you, Emma Louise. I think you have to re-interpret them by working out what purpose the story is serving in the gospel where you read it. In other words you ask why did Matthew (or whoever) write this? What did it mean for him? That meaning then leads you to the meaning of the story today, which is often far more powerful than the literal story, even if you could make yourself think it was true.
The feeding of the 5,000 is very reminiscent of Moses and the manna in the wilderness. Jesus is often presented as a second Moses. Food in the wilderness is not just a helpful trick, it's also a way of saying that Jesus makes the difficult landscapes of life into places where we can go and not be starved, rather as he took the disciples into foreign lands and showed himself at home there.
Jesus and his disciples often seem to launch out on their journeys, trusting the uncertain hospitality of villages, hoping someone will invite them to dine, occasionally reduced to eating grains from the growing corn, ready to be like the birds of the air and trust that there is an alternative to home, family and work.
--------------------
My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
The old way was to find a rational explanation for what was winessed. The new way is to make the miracle a metaphor for psychological healing, reconcilliation or something of the like.
Lazarus must not have been dead. He was just in a deep sleep. While in the tomb, he recovered. When Jesus shouted, "Lazarus, come forth," it woke Lazarus up and he walked out of the tomb. Something like that.
When Jesus came to comfort Mary and Martha, he began to share fond memories of Lazarus. His doing so encouraged others to share memories of Lazarus. So present was Lazarus in their memories that it was like he came back from the dead.
I haven't read those exact explanations. But, I'm sure you'll find something along those veins. The first method was popular in the mid part of the last century and before. The other is more recent. Perhaps, scholars interested in explaining away miracles have developed new interpretations since I last cared what they were.
--------------------
Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
|
Posted
Why does anyone assume that spin, exaggeration and downright mendacity originated with printing?
Lying to unbelievers in order to save their souls has a long history of acceptance and promotion within religions.
--------------------
The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
doubtingthomas
Shipmate
# 14498
|
Posted
I'm quite happy to find rational explanations for miracles, but that does not necessarily make them any less miraculous. Timing for instance can be crucial, or just the consistent defeating of odds. God to me seems quite capable of manipulating his own creation as required without having to override it (which does not mean he couldn't).
I also admit that there is likely to have been some input by the storytellers, e.g. harkening back to Old Testament precedents. After all, the evangelists were only human, and they were trying to get a point across.
However, the Gospel also contains the parables, which are explicitly labelled as metaphorical, so there is a deliberate contrast between the allegedly literal and the openly metaphorical in the narrative, and the miracles appear to belong to the former.
Posts: 266 | From: A Small Island | Registered: Jan 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
|
Posted
quote:
Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been Fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events : the oil just spilled there, the safety fence just broke there : that must also be a miracle. Just because its not nice doesn't mean its not miraculous.
Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times, p9
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
I have a copy of Jerome Frank's Persuasion and Healing and even though published in 1961, it is well thought out, assigned reading for some university courses, and it certainly taught me something. What Frank compares is the persuasive aspects of psychotherapy, medical care, religion and shamanistic practices. This more that placebo because something active and sometimes even painful and difficult is provided. "Non-specific therapeutic effect" seems to be the terminology that is used. The person's belief plus the active ingredient provides the cure.
Thus I would understand the miraculous bedside prayer and cure described above as: the medical care + belief that medical care is helpful + prayer + belief that prayer is helpful.
Could we ever tease apart which of these and in what proportion are effective? Jerome Frank's point was that it is not possible to do so without destroying whatever curative or therapeutic effect is present.
Of course it is my tendency to try to fuse everything together and find peace among all of it, so a combination really does appeal to me. The Jesus miracles are not the same though: I don't see bringing people back to life and feeding the crowd as having these in combination.
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Emma Louise:
I'm not sure I'm really into seeing miracles as literal anymore - and now I'm curious. How do people interpret miracles?
The function of miracles in the gospel of John seems to be proving Jesus is who he says he is and make people believe in him.
In Mark as well:
quote:
Mark 16.17:
And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues;
Mark 16.20:
And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.* ]]
And yet, it's quite possible to generate great miracles/signs and be a false prophet:
quote:
Mark 13.22:
False messiahs* and false prophets will appear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the elect.
So the belief in the miracles/signs of Jesus per se does not make him extraordinary.
If you don't like them, you can still affirm what they are trying to say: (i.e. Jesus is rather more than just a normal bloke - he's got authority).
But don't dismiss them all out of hand because each one will say something different about Jesus and his ministry. (i.e. I think the feeding stories have Moses and gentile connotations and I think the Lazarus story is a prefigurement of Jesus' own resurrection).
On the flip side, there is that lovely line:
quote:
29Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’
The line (IMO) kind of says signs/miracles are kind of necessary for some people (otherwise they won't believe) but really, that's not as good as coming to belief in other ways.
Personally, I don't have too much trouble with a literal understanding of miracles, but I can understand how they can be a stumbling block for others.
--------------------
a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by wilson:
quote:
Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been Fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events : the oil just spilled there, the safety fence just broke there : that must also be a miracle. Just because its not nice doesn't mean its not miraculous.
Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times, p9
Nice one wilson.
Interesting vid in your sig too.
--------------------
a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
PaulBC
Shipmate
# 13712
|
Posted
I wouldn't say the miracles of Jesus can be rationalized away. However a miracle can be a MD using his skills to aid in curing or easing pain. It is also when things are going so bad for a person that the miracle is that person dying. I know whereof I speak, my father died of cancer 30 years ago and that was ugly to watch and my mother of dementia +
infecton that was 3 years ago. The me of 30 years ago would have wanted a healing, and I would have been wrong Dad was too sick . The me of 3 years ago knew that the most IO coul;d do was to commend her to Gods care which I did every time I left the hospital. Sorry if I go off but to me once one passes into" the far green country" TY prof, Tolkien , after that we are all young again and fit again
and that is the true miracle the life to come. ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif) ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif) ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
--------------------
"He has told you O mortal,what is good;and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice and to love kindness ,and to walk humbly with your God."Micah 6:8
Posts: 873 | From: Victoria B.C. Canada | Registered: May 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
And yet, it's quite possible to generate great miracles/signs and be a false prophet: quote:
Mark 13.22:
False messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the elect.
So the belief in the miracles/signs of Jesus per se does not make him extraordinary.
You are parsing that one quite wrongly, IMHO. The point is much the same as is generally made concerning the miracles of Jesus, namely that they show him to be the Messiah. The idea here is that even the elect may be shaken in their belief, precisely because "signs" have the power to make us believe, so false signs have serious power to lead us into false faith. I think there is a power hierarchy here of the type "normals less than magicians less than prophets less than the Messiah", see for example Moses vs. the Egyptian magicians (Ex 7:10-12). So Christ is busy showing us that He is more than a prophet, with a series of specifically meaningful miracles, and a magician may try to appear as a prophet with a series of well-placed tricks. This is rather explicit in his answer to John the Bapist:
quote:
Matt 11:2-6
Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?" And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offense at me."
Am I the Messiah? Heck, just look at my miracles!
And that's for me the interesting bit about non-literal belief in miracles. Where it coincides with belief in Jesus as Messiah, it is in some sense a stronger faith - belief in the absence of evidence, like "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." (John 20:29) but one removed (because we all believe in what we have heard, not seen). However, where this coincides with the rejection of Jesus as Messiah, it ceases being Christian. It's an "all or nothing" approach. I wouldn't feel save with that myself, it's too easy to slip from the former to the latter. I'm quite happy with reading spiritual meaning into Christ's miracles, but I also think that He did perform them in fact, and precisely so that we may believe.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
|
Posted
I don't have problems with miracles (biblical or otherwise) occurring. My problem is that they don't happen nearly often enough.
--------------------
Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Boopy
Shipmate
# 4738
|
Posted
Emma for a fairly recent look at different ways of understanding the miracle stories, The Meaning in the Miracles (Jeffrey John) is well worth a look.
Posts: 1170 | From: UK | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Birdseye
I can see my house from here!
# 5280
|
Posted
If you believe that God created everything out of nothing, and that his Son, the divine Word through which all creation came into being was incarnate here on earth, and that this Almighty Creator not only keeps everything from supernovas to single-celled sea creatures in existence but also still has time to involve himself in the affairs of individuals and their feelings. Then it's really not a big deal to believe that he fed people with bread that came into existence as he blessed it.
He has conquered death you know... so extra fishpaste sandwiches should not completely blow our minds but be just about imaginable... dontcha think?
I didn't always think this way: for a lot of my life I tried to work out ways in which our current understanding of science -rules which I thought God had to obey... (coz I'd imagined God as starting things off and then standing back to watch... which has no basis in scripture and is also very narrowminded) could give us some clue of how God managed to pull off this neat trick...
Prior to the 'God did it using science or timing' (coz I thought he was omniscient but somehow not omnipotent) idea, I had also thought, 'It didn't happen literally, but is a metaphor for something'... well if it's a metaphor for anything in it's scriptural context, it's a metaphor for Jesus being God and feeding people miraculously as his power is unlimited, a metaphor that meant the 'imaginary crowd' wanted to crown him saviour... I thought for a fairy story that it was a bit weak... but that was when I believed Jesus was just a good bloke or idea that people told lies about to try and get his message across... what his message was at that point, I didn't know -something about being nice to people)... which of course is at odds with the whole 'lies' bit.
When I was very little I thought it was a story about how there was a huge crowd of people and they wouldn't do anything to help... but a little boy did... just a little boy -and God was more pleased with his small act than with any of the sensible selfish people in the massive crowd -and that little boy went down in history... I think that's still a valid interpretation.
[ 14. March 2011, 09:38: Message edited by: Birdseye ]
--------------------
Life is what happens whilst you're busy making other plans.
a birdseye view
Posts: 1615 | From: West Yorkshire | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
|
Posted
The fact that miracles don’t happen these days is extremely interesting. As a non-believer, it obviously indicates to me that there’s no such thing as a miracle, and there never was. The reason they ‘don’t happen’ nowadays is simply that we have developed the capability of understanding that such events are non-miraculous, because we have better explanatory knowledge of the natural processes involved. We know what happens in solar eclipses and in medical recoveries from coma, and events of the kind that would once have certainly been considered miraculous are now known to be natural.
Furthermore, events that would even nowadays seem to be miracles can be examined in the light of our better understanding, in ways that were not possible in past times- and so it is that the rate of apparently miraculous incidents is inversely proportional to our improving understanding of the natural world. There’s nothing left that you can call a miracle now.
It’s very telling that theology has had no choice but to adapt to modern understanding by abandoning its previous claims about miracles. All these ‘non-literal’ reinterpretations are clearly nothing more than the vain hangings on by fingertip to myths that would once have been relevant and powerful in influence to those who had no understanding, but are now seen for what they are.
But anyway, can anyone suggest why God would not produce miracles in the modern world? Why would He only reveal Himself by miracle when miracles were only credible because people didn’t know better? For, surely, you believe He could, if He so wanted, continue to cause miracles in ways that would defy our understanding today? If your answer is that He cannot prove His existence today because that would remove the need for our faith in His existence, why then would He have caused miracles during a time in which man would have viewed them as certain proof of His existence, beyond doubt and faith?
--------------------
این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Birdseye
I can see my house from here!
# 5280
|
Posted
Yorick said quote:
The fact that miracles don’t happen these days is extremely interesting.
Firstly, I'm not sure that's a 'fact' you can actually prove. That's akin to the prosecutor's 'when did you stop beating your wife?' question...
'The national office for statistics reports a 100% decline in the number of miracles recorded this year'... can you see the problem with your framework jester?
It's quite amusing... but particularly in the context you've set it... that of increased understanding meaning we are now no longer foolish enough to mistakenly attribute things to God. Indeed I have no doubt that given enough laboratories, bridge rolls and enough small boys with jars of shippams paste, we could eventually recreate the atmospheric and topographical requirements that lead to the spontaneous increase in provision first recorded and then mythologized by those thickies of two millenia ago, as the 'miracle of the loaves and fishes'... never forget that science is just the sensible art of asking questions over and over again to make sense of things... I have a feeling that the answer 'God, who creates and sustains all things, did it' is the true answer, and 'how' is not always going to be attainable.
And even when we know how to do something, and have knowledge of our world as great as God's, we still won't be able to look into the human heart and KNOW that what you needed to see at that moment of despair was the butterfly that God sent, which was a miracle TO YOU, and just a butterfly to the rest of the world...
--------------------
Life is what happens whilst you're busy making other plans.
a birdseye view
Posts: 1615 | From: West Yorkshire | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Isaac David
Accidental Awkwardox
# 4671
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
There’s nothing left that you can call a miracle now.
I've just finished reading an account of the life of St John Maximovitch, an Orthodox bishop who died in 1966. There were many eye-witness testimonies of miracles, including one by a nun who, when St John was celebrating the Liturgy, saw him surrounded by light and floating above the ground. Ah, but of course, it was an optical illusion! A vision. She dreamed it. She was drunk. She made it up because she was devoted to his memory. I'm inclined to the simplest explanation: it really happened.
--------------------
Isaac the Idiot
Forget philosophy. Read Borges.
Posts: 1280 | From: Middle Exile | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
|
Posted
Maybe as a tangent, and partly in reply to Yorick, I know of no philosophical or scientific argument that can show miracles to be impossible, or to connect any measure of probability to them.
What we are trying to do is attach a probability to the chance that the regularity of natural laws is sometime violated. I know of no basis on which this could be attempted. I'd be interested to here one.
Of course, you can give reasons why it is prudent to disbelieve claims of things that have happened, when you have never seen any convincing evidence. That applies to the non-miraculous as well, as in the long running argument over whether any Bridge hand has been dealt in which each player had 13 cards of one suit. The international expert Terence Reese looked into this and decided against, even though it is plainly possible.
As I've said before, rationalism guards you from quacks, but if the universe does have oddities, it is likely to filter them out.
--------------------
Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Emma Louise:
I'm not sure I'm really into seeing miracles as literal anymore - and now I'm curious. How do people interpret miracles? What about feeding 5000? What are other interpretations?
There seem to be two discussions going on on this thread. One is about explaining miracles (and even if you assert "they happen", you're still explaining them). But I notice one or two people, like me, read Emma Louise's OP as referring to the meaning of miracles.
Myself, I'm not really into explanations. I don't much care of some blind bloke in 1st century Judaea got better when Jesus poked him in the eye with a muddy finger. I acknowledge the argument that the miracles might be "signs" that Jesus is the Messiah, but I think even if you construct this argument carefully, as for instance IngoB does upthread, it's quite a fragile one. What would people at that time have recognised as a magician's trick, as opposed to a prophetic act, as opposed to a Messiah's miracle? Answer: we don't know.
I'm much more interested in discovering what God might be saying to the world, the Church, and me, right here and now, through a careful, imaginative reading of the miracle stories. And I think that question can only be answered by prayer.
--------------------
"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
But anyway, can anyone suggest why God would not produce miracles in the modern world? Why would He only reveal Himself by miracle when miracles were only credible because people didn’t know better?
The answer is right there in the question.
I believe in miracles and believe that God could do miracles at any time. But there is a specific reason why He did them in ancient and biblical times and not now. It is because the people were ancient and biblical.
The ignorance, superstitiousness and credulity that characterized ancient people created the circumstances that made miracles, and magic, possible. They were not surprised by them. They didn't rock their world. They took them in simplicity as divine signs.
By contrast documented miracles today would force belief in God in a system-wide and permanent way that would leave the average person with no choice. Text-books would need to include them, and there would be no alternative but to also include the ramifications for human behavior as absolute rules.
The effects on human civilization would be immense, and not as positive as you might think.
A proven God that was opposed to adultery would mean absolute human regulations prohibiting it, and anything approaching it. The same would be true of everything "good" or "bad." You would have no choice. You would be utterly constrained in every area of life.
But ancient peoples didn't work that way. Proof was a meaningless concept, and ramifications were seldom explored. In ancient systems knowledge doesn't spread the way that it does in modern ones, and "truth" is a much hazier concept.
So miracles did no harm in ancient times. But today they would be utterly disastrous in spiritual terms.
It is very convenient to say that God made it so that people can choose to believe or not believe. People need to be free to say that all the biblical miracles were fabrications. I know it is convenient, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
--------------------
"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
|
Posted
quote:
Beeswax Altar: The old way was to find a rational explanation for what was winessed.
However, I very much doubt that this would be the reaction of First Century Jews. They seemed to approach "miracles" very differently than our logical-rational-scientifical thinking. So this raises the question if we can really call this way of thinking "the old way".
(ETA: Crossposted with Freddy who seems to be saying more or less the same.)
[ 14. March 2011, 11:20: Message edited by: LeRoc ]
--------------------
I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Beeswax Altar: The old way was to find a rational explanation for what was winessed.
However, I very much doubt that this would be the reaction of First Century Jews. They seemed to approach "miracles" very differently than our logical-rational-scientifical thinking. So this raises the question if we can really call this way of thinking "the old way".
The way that Paul goes on about the resurrection and the basis for believing it quote:
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20cor%2015:3-8&version=NIV
Leaves me certain that he was addressing as sceptical a world as today's.
Christianity stands or falls on the truth of the resurrection. For me there is no doubt it's the best explanation for the facts that we are faced with. And once that's allowed, everything else becomes possible IMHO.
--------------------
Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
Posts: 5018 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
(ETA: Crossposted with Freddy who seems to be saying more or less the same.)
You said it more succinctly. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
--------------------
"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
|
Posted
Freddy, are you saying that:
a) people today would be harmed by being utterly convinced of the truth of God’s existence by way of miracles because we’re not ‘ignorant, superstitious and credulous’ enough to accept that they’re true (even though we would presumably accept it if the miracles were actually proven), and therefore we would be deprived of free choice in believing in Him,
but, on the other hand,
b) ancient people were unharmed by miracles, because, despite being utterly convinced by them of the truth of His existence (because they were ‘ignorant, superstitious and credulous’ enough to accept they were true), they still somehow had free choice in believing in Him.
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
How does that work?
--------------------
این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
|
Posted
quote:
Ender's Shadow: The way that Paul goes on about the resurrection and the basis for believing it
Leaves me certain that he was addressing as sceptical a world as today's.
I think it is more or less accepted that in 1 Cor 15:3b-6a, Paul was reciting a creed that was already in existence among Christians at that time.
My guess is that when a First Century Jew would hear the phrase: "He appeared to five hundred", his first reaction woudn't be: "See? We have proof now." More likely, his reaction would be something like: "See? It must be really important then."
--------------------
I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
I know of no philosophical or scientific argument that can show miracles to be impossible, or to connect any measure of probability to them.
They're impossible by definition. If they're merely improbable (to any measure) they're not miracles.
--------------------
این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
I know of no philosophical or scientific argument that can show miracles to be impossible, or to connect any measure of probability to them.
They're impossible by definition. If they're merely improbable (to any measure) they're not miracles.
Point of order: Thomas Aquinas defines three kinds of miracle, only one of which might be called "impossible by natural means".
--------------------
"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
leo
Shipmate
# 1458
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
There can be some fairly rational explanations about some miracles, but I'd love to know what was going on with the raising of Lazarus....
That is to assume that 'something happened' in the first place. Maybe it is a symbolic story about spiritual deadness and the call to freedom from all that binds.
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
|
Posted
Okay. I'm talking about the 'impossible by natural means' kind of miracle. What kind are you talking about?
--------------------
این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
That is to assume that 'something happened' in the first place. Maybe it is a symbolic story
Well sure, but you could say that about the whole shebang, right? Or do you believe some miracles actually happened?
--------------------
این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Birdseye
I can see my house from here!
# 5280
|
Posted
Can I just put in a word of defence for those people Freddy keeps calling 'ancient peoples'... it is a mistake to believe that people 'back in the day' were less intelligent than they are nowadays... beam one into the present and they may not be able to text-vote in an X-factor final, or rate their recent purchases in a five-point system with smiley faces for added emphasis... but don't underestimate their actual intelligence -though subsistence farming and hard manual labour may not leave time for extra-curricular learning, they require an amount of understanding and ability that very few of us on these boards happen to have... and don't get me started on the incredible memory power required for learning oral traditions... most of us can hardly remember our own mobile numbers and national insurance ID...so don't diss the ancestors!
[ 14. March 2011, 12:27: Message edited by: Birdseye ]
--------------------
Life is what happens whilst you're busy making other plans.
a birdseye view
Posts: 1615 | From: West Yorkshire | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Okay. I'm talking about the 'impossible by natural means' kind of miracle. What kind are you talking about?
Any kind you like. But note my previous post in which I said I'm not really interested in analysing them in terms of "real events" anyway.
--------------------
"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Birdseye
I can see my house from here!
# 5280
|
Posted
NB: I don't think 'impossible by natural means' is a good definition for a miracle... since I think God is the most natural means, and end and beginning, of all.
Usually people want miracles to be nice things for human beings... when people are surprisingly helped not to die or suffer... but if human beings help them (even if they help because of their faith in God), then unbelievers say -well that's not a miracle, a person did that.
And if the miracle isn't written down and recorded scientifically then unbelievers say -well it didn't happen -which again is silly, because a lot really does happen that never gets written down anywhere -I'm thinking particularly of a medical example I know of personally... only slightly miraculous coz no-one knew how dangerous it was in advance and no-one wrote down how it was 'very very lucky' (the midwife's words) afterwards -coz she would have got into trouble.
And if it IS written down, and DOES seem miraculous, but nobody in the world admits to praying about it (people don't necessarily ask) then unbelievers say it was just lucky.
And if it IS written down, and DOES seem miraculous, and people ADMIT publicly to praying for it... (eg the Chilean miners' escape -they prayed, we prayed, everybody prayed)... then the next time something happens and there is NOT a miracle -then unbelievers say -well there you go, if the first one was a miracle then why didn't God act THAT time too... even though if He HAD, unbelievers would have said -aha - there is a correlation there, lets start assessing the data and seeing what the real reason was.
And when God has acted enough for science to start noticing, they ignore data that doesn't seem to correlate with their hypothesis...
And that's because this world is still in the power of the father of Lies... and you have to get used to working with that, and not mind that people can't see, and pray that they do -coz ultimately it's up to God if you 'get it' or not.
Which renders my post fairly redundant!
[ 14. March 2011, 12:42: Message edited by: Birdseye ]
--------------------
Life is what happens whilst you're busy making other plans.
a birdseye view
Posts: 1615 | From: West Yorkshire | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
|
Posted
Reminds me of Babel Fish.
--------------------
این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
There were many eye-witness testimonies of miracles, including one by a nun who, when St John was celebrating the Liturgy, saw him surrounded by light and floating above the ground. Ah, but of course, it was an optical illusion! A vision. She dreamed it. She was drunk. She made it up because she was devoted to his memory. I'm inclined to the simplest explanation: it really happened.
But that's not the simplest explanation at all. People simply do not - cannot - float above the ground while surrounded by light, while people do, regularly, have dreams/visions, get drunk, or make up bullshit.
It's like Chorister's "well how do you explain the raising of Lazarus then?" question. The simple answer being that it never happened and the writer just made the whole thing up.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Freddy, are you saying that:
a) people today would be harmed by being utterly convinced of the truth of God’s existence by way of miracles because we’re not ‘ignorant, superstitious and credulous’ enough to accept that they’re true (even though we would presumably accept it if the miracles were actually proven), and therefore we would be deprived of free choice in believing in Him,
Yes. But not just believing in Him, but everything that follows from absolute certainty. It would necessarily result in laws and social regulations that would bind human populations in ways that would be very unfortunate.
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
but, on the other hand,
b) ancient people were unharmed by miracles, because, despite being utterly convinced by them of the truth of His existence (because they were ‘ignorant, superstitious and credulous’ enough to accept they were true), they still somehow had free choice in believing in Him.
How does that work?
I guess that you haven't spent much time hanging around with ancient people.
Ancient people, in my considerable experience, aren't systematic. They don't follow out the logical consequences of things that have been demonstrated to be factual. They lack both the technology and the vocabulary to preserve and communicate proof to large populations. They lack the sophistication required to distinguish between miraculous things and things that are merely hard to explain.
While ancient peoples were certainly impressed and probably convinced by miracles, these things didn't have the civilization-wide ramifications that similar events would have today. They fit into what they already believed, they were communicated imperfectly to others, and they were, amazingly, easy to forget, as the Bible indicates.
So they didn't interfere with the free choice of ancient peoples in the same way that they would interfere with ours.
I think that the main point I'm making here is that miracles today would have catastrophic social consequences today that they simply did not have in ancient times. Repeated, large-scale, unassailable demonstrations of the divine existence and power would effectively end life as we know it on this planet.
--------------------
"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Isaac David
Accidental Awkwardox
# 4671
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
I'm inclined to the simplest explanation: it really happened.
But that's not the simplest explanation at all. People simply do not - cannot - float above the ground while surrounded by light
Given the many other well-attested miracles associated with St John, both before and after his death, I still think it the the simplest explanation. As for people floating while surrounded by light, it's true they can't do it unaided, but who's to say it's impossible? Are all swans white?
[ 14. March 2011, 14:25: Message edited by: Isaac David ]
--------------------
Isaac the Idiot
Forget philosophy. Read Borges.
Posts: 1280 | From: Middle Exile | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
...miracles today would have catastrophic social consequences today that they simply did not have in ancient times. Repeated, large-scale, unassailable demonstrations of the divine existence and power would effectively end life as we know it on this planet.
Right, so if God revealed His existence by miracle today (or, presumably, by any other means), it would be the end of life as we know it, and that is why there aren’t any miracles these days. It was however okay to do miracles in ancient times (because people couldn’t tweet about it, and in any case they were more credulous in general about these sorts of things), since that would not have meant the end of life as they then knew it.
It seems like God’s miraculously revealed existence is pretty much contingent on the state of development of civilisation- the more we know, the less evident He must make Himself, in order to avoid the ending of life as it is known at that given time. General ignorance meant He could be more actually existent.
Interestingly, this is eminently compatible with my atheistic worldview, in which belief in this God-of-the-gaps and all things supernatural are gradually being displaced by more comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the natural universe.
--------------------
این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
leo
Shipmate
# 1458
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
That is to assume that 'something happened' in the first place. Maybe it is a symbolic story
Well sure, but you could say that about the whole shebang, right? Or do you believe some miracles actually happened?
I don't find that question interesting or necessary. I am more interested in what they mean, not whether they happened.
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Isaac David
Accidental Awkwardox
# 4671
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
my atheistic worldview, belief in this God-of-the-gaps and all things supernatural are gradually being displaced by more comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the natural universe.
It's not just an atheistic worldview, it's also a theistic worldview. People have always preferred knowledge of the created world to knowledge of the Uncreated God. It doesn't, however, follow that belief in the Uncreated is untrue.
--------------------
Isaac the Idiot
Forget philosophy. Read Borges.
Posts: 1280 | From: Middle Exile | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
As for people floating while surrounded by light, it's true they can't do it unaided, but who's to say it's impossible? Are all swans white?
Is "who's to say it's impossible" now the standard for accepting religious statements as true? Do you really not recognize any difference between violating the laws of nature and finding a previously unknown item like a black swan? What well-established theoretical framework of our understanding is overthrown in the second case?
--Tom Clune
--------------------
This space left blank intentionally.
Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
Given the many other well-attested miracles associated with St John,
I bet none of them really happened either.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Isaac David
Accidental Awkwardox
# 4671
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
Given the many other well-attested miracles associated with St John,
I bet none of them really happened either.
I hope you didn't put money on it.
--------------------
Isaac the Idiot
Forget philosophy. Read Borges.
Posts: 1280 | From: Middle Exile | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
It seems like God’s miraculously revealed existence is pretty much contingent on the state of development of civilisation- the more we know, the less evident He must make Himself, in order to avoid the ending of life as it is known at that given time. General ignorance meant He could be more actually existent.
That's it.
Except that there is another part to it. That other part is that as human society develops the superstitious, credulous, miraculous understanding of God is replaced by one that is rational and explanatory. That's the theory behind Swedenborgianism.
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Interestingly, this is eminently compatible with my atheistic worldview, in which belief in this God-of-the-gaps and all things supernatural are gradually being displaced by more comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the natural universe.
Yes, that works fine. Except that in my opinion it can't explain everything, as we have discussed before, such as ultimate purpose and meaning. For me it works to have a belief in something that explains God in a way that I think makes sense.
--------------------
"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
