Thread: Purgatory: Non-literal interpretation of miracles? Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Emma Louise (# 3571) on
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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 ]
Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on
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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.
Posted by Seeker963 (# 2066) on
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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.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
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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....
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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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.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
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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?
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on
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And what are those two ways?
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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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.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
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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.
Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on
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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.
Posted by doubtingthomas (# 14498) on
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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.
Posted by wilson (# 37) on
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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
Posted by no_prophet (# 15560) on
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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.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
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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.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
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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.
Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on
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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)
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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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.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
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I don't have problems with miracles (biblical or otherwise) occurring. My problem is that they don't happen nearly often enough.
Posted by Boopy (# 4738) on
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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.
Posted by Birdseye (# 5280) on
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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 ]
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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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?
Posted by Birdseye (# 5280) on
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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...
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
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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.
Posted by anteater (# 11435) on
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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.
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
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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.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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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.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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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 ]
Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on
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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.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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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)
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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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?
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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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."
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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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.
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
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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".
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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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.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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Okay. I'm talking about the 'impossible by natural means' kind of miracle. What kind are you talking about?
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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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?
Posted by Birdseye (# 5280) on
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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 ]
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
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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.
Posted by Birdseye (# 5280) on
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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 ]
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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Reminds me of Babel Fish.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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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.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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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.
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
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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 ]
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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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.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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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.
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
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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.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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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
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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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.
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
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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.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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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.
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
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CS Lewis came up with a nice name for it, which I've forgotten, but anyway, my biggest problem with "people don't believe in miracles any more" is this: it assumes that people a couple of millenia ago were imbeciles.
2000 years ago, people didn't know as much as we do today about obstetrics - but they knew perfectly well that virgins didn't get pregnant in the normal scheme of things, for example. So "we know about science these days" doesn't work for me. The claims that were being made were just as extraordinary then as they are now. For Luke (a medical doctor) to write a story in which a virgin gets pregnant is extraordinary.
"Miracles" come in different shapes and sizes. IIRC Lewis also says that it seems logical to him that the most spectacular ones would be associated with the incarnation and the earthly ministry of the Son of God Himself. So if we don't see miracles on that scale any more, it kind of stands to reason. The incarnation was a one-of-a-kind event.
(Incidentally, doesn't he also say that the "great miracle" is the incarnation, not the resurrection? Has anyone read the book more recently than me and want to set me straight?)
On leo's point - "I am more interested in what they mean" - this has always left me a bit perplexed. ISTM that "meaning" can't be separated so easily from whether or not they actually happened. If we are talking about a metaphor, the lessons that can be drawn about the nature and the action of God are rather different than if we are talking about actual historical events. If the miracles actually happened as historical events, then surely part of the "meaning" of them is to do with God turning up in our real experience and interfering with it (for want of a better word)? Seeing them as metaphorical stories changes that more than a little.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
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.
Come on. Miracles aren't really real. They might be nice stories that teach us a bit about God, or legends that help to strengthen our faith, but they don't actually happen. Saying St John rose from the floor surrounded by light is a nice way of saying he was a really holy person, but it didn't actually happen, did it?
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
...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.
Good for you, Freddy. I really do personally admire the honesty and integrity of your faith, even though I have contrary beliefs.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
People have always preferred knowledge of the created world to knowledge of the Uncreated God.
I’m not sure what that actually means, but it seems unlikely to me that you wouldn’t prefer to believe in those miraculous stories about St John Maximovitch levitating, etc. (which preference rather gives the game away, IMO).
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Is "who's to say it's impossible" now the standard for accepting religious statements as true?
No.
quote:
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?
I was making a logical point, not an empirical one. Even so, what well-established theoretical framework of our understanding is overthrown in the first case?
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Come on. Miracles aren't really real.
If I'm reading you correctly it sounds like you doubt that miracles are real.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Come on. Miracles aren't really real.
If I'm reading you correctly it sounds like you doubt that miracles are real.
Well deduced.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
...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.
Good for you, Freddy. I really do personally admire the honesty and integrity of your faith, even though I have contrary beliefs.
Thanks Yorick. The important thing is that we know that there is an objective reality about this. There are also ramifications that are inherently connected to whatever that reality is.
So figuring it out, and getting the answer right, may be worth the effort! ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Come on. Miracles aren't really real. They might be nice stories that teach us a bit about God, or legends that help to strengthen our faith, but they don't actually happen. Saying St John rose from the floor surrounded by light is a nice way of saying he was a really holy person, but it didn't actually happen, did it?
Is this the five minute argument, or the full half hour?
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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Just stating fact.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
Is this the five minute argument, or the full half hour?
That's not an argument, it's just contradiction!
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Just stating fact.
*ding* Thank you, good morning!
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
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quote:
originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Come on. Miracles aren't really real. They might be nice stories that teach us a bit about God, or legends that help to strengthen our faith, but they don't actually happen. Saying St John rose from the floor surrounded by light is a nice way of saying he was a really holy person, but it didn't actually happen, did it?
Don't know wasn't there. I believe in the existence of a God I can't prove. I believe in Christmas and Pentecost without proof they happened. If I'm willing to accept those tenents which are essential to my understanding of Christianity, why not believe it all? I don't know if the miracles are literal or not and have no way of reaching a conclusion one way or another.
I find the whole the modern world is too smart to believe all that nonsense a bit arrogant. We know people who die don't come back from the dead. People in the ancient world had noticed that people who died tended to stay dead as well. They had also figured out the birds and bees.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
If I'm willing to accept those tenents which are essential to my understanding of Christianity, why not believe it all?
Because if you want to believe that miracles really do happen then you have to have some explanation for why they don't happen to you. You have to explain why some prayers are answered but not others.
I guess I find it easier to believe God doesn't answer prayer at all than to believe that He just doesn't answer mine.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I find it easier to believe God doesn't answer prayer at all than to believe that He just doesn't answer mine.
Since when did finding something easier to believe make it true? That's no different from finding it easier to believe in saints levitating in rays of light.
God either answers prayers or He doesn't, but how 'easily' you find which of these is true certainly doesn't make any difference to which is in fact true.
Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on
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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 bet you don't really exist - that your name is not marvin nor do you have any connection with mars.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
If I'm willing to accept those tenents which are essential to my understanding of Christianity, why not believe it all?
Because if you want to believe that miracles really do happen then you have to have some explanation for why they don't happen to you. You have to explain why some prayers are answered but not others.
I guess I find it easier to believe God doesn't answer prayer at all than to believe that He just doesn't answer mine.
"No" is an answer. Even that assumes I'm capable of saying God didn't answer my prayer because what I wanted to happen didn't. I explain "unanswered prayers" by believing in an omniscient and omnibenevolent God who knows my needs and the needs of the world more than I do.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
I bet you don't really exist
Shortly before dawn Marvin went out to them, walking on the lake. When the Shipmates saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
But Marvin immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
“Marv, if it’s you,” Yorick replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”
“Come,” he said.
Then Yorick got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Marvin. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Marv, save me!”
Immediately Marvin reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Immediately Marvin reached out his hand and caught him.
You see that's the really unbelievable bit.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
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.
That kind of reply has never made sense to me at all.
How (without begging the question) can you begin to tell what a purported event in a narrative really "means" in the absence of knowing whether the narrative claims the event actually happened? How can that not be a part of what it means?
Before we can talk about the "real meaning" of an event or story, surely we have to ask, amongst other things:
1. Whether said event actually happened (if it is possible to determine that);
2. Whether the story is seeking to be believed as a claim that the event really took place;
3. Whether the teller of the story actually seems him/herself to believe the event happened;
Example: suppose my Auntie Mabel said that her husband George had appeared to her shortly after his death. Why is she telling me this? Is it just her way of reassuring me that Uncle George "lives on" in our lives and our memories in such a way that he never really "died" to us? Is it a genuine and reliable attempt on her part to report an event which actually happened? Is it an hallucination, in the very reality of which Auntie M really believed? Is it a test of my faith in her? Is it a cry for emotional support or attention?
I won't go on.
But the meaning of Christ's miracles - the gretaest and most important of whcih was His resurrection - depends hugely on wether they actually happened or not. How this could be a matter of indifference to someone who claims really to care about the meaning of the story/event just baffles me.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
How (without begging the question) can you begin to tell what a purported event in a narrative really "means" in the absence of knowing whether the narrative claims the event actually happened? How can that not be a part of what it means?
It could be a parable, which doesn't have to actually happen to have meaning.
I don't believe that the early Genesis stories of the Seven Days of Creation, the Garden of Eden, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel are literally true. They are intended to be understood as a parable. But I do believe that all the rest of the Bible is literally true, including the miracles.
But still, I can see doubting that Jonah really lived for three days inside of a whale and yet still buying the story's message.
[ 14. March 2011, 17:30: Message edited by: Freddy ]
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
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.
Including the fear about 'he stinketh'! Now that's what I call imagination. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Immediately Marvin reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
Go on, I don't believe you. You made that part up. In the real story, Marvin would have left you to drown in your own chatter.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
How (without begging the question) can you begin to tell what a purported event in a narrative really "means" in the absence of knowing whether the narrative claims the event actually happened? How can that not be a part of what it means?
It could be a parable, which doesn't have to actually happen to have meaning.
I don't believe that the early Genesis stories of the Seven Days of Creation, the Garden of Eden, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel are literally true. They are intended to be understood as a parable. But I do believe that all the rest of the Bible is literally true, including the miracles.
But still, I can see doubting that Jonah really lived for three days inside of a whale and yet still buying the story's message.
Of course, Freddy. My only point was that you need to come to some sort of conclusion about what sort of narrative you're dealing with before you can work out what the author meant by it.
I just cannot understand how being indifferent to whether a) the Resurrection physically happened, or b) was just a parable to emphasise how important Jesus was to the post-crucifixion community of His followers is compatible with a claim to really care about the meaning of the Resurrection. Whether or not it really happened really affects the story's meaning!
Posted by HCH (# 14313) on
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I think some of this thread would be easier to follow if we had a set list of miracles to discuss. Are we looking at only Biblical miracles or also contemporary ones?
On other threads, some Shipmates have talked about speaking in tongues. Is that a miracle?
There have at times been extensive conflicts over transubstantiation. Is that a miracle?
Is it a miracle when a career criminal repents?
By the way, is there a concept of "anti-miracle", that is, a bad event that defies reason?
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
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My problem with miracles is the idea of God breaking the rules. However, I don't have a difficulty with the healing miracles because it seems to me that the placebo effect demonstrates that we still don't know much about psychosomatic stuff and my guess is that spiritual healing works on that level. So that really only leaves Lazarus as a problem,... but people do wake from comas.
Walking on water? My guess is that that was a dream or vision of Peter's. I suspect water into wine was non-literal, though (as an alternative) I'm prepared to believe that people genuinely experienced water as wine.
The feeding of the thousand is particularly interesting in that one of the temptations in the wilderness was to do party tricks with food and Jesus refused - so I'm guessing it was a matter of persuading people to share, as others have said.
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
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I am confused too, or confuzzleheaded anyway.
It seems that most interpretations are non-literal, even those in conservative evangelical preaching.
I will take the feeding of the 5000 seeming as that is where this thread started. Well you can say that Jesus produced food for 5000 people but the second you ask "so what?" you are into non-literal interpretation, that is reading something into the story that is not there in the straight text. Does this:
- imply that God will provide,
- foreshadow the heavenly banquet,
- demonstrates the power of God,
- suggest how God will work with the little we have,
- does it talk about community and sharing.
None of these are literal interpretations from the text, they all build on different insights but conservative evangelicals are likely to draw on them as much as any other sort of Christian.
Jengie
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
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Of course, Adrian Plass has some wonderful "spoof" explanations for the miracles in "A Year at St. Yorick's" - e.g. Jesus walking across the lake on specially-trained shoals of fish positioned just below the surface.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
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quote:
originally posted by QLib:
My problem with miracles is the idea of God breaking the rules.
Why does God have to be limited by the rules of nature or of the rules of nature as we currently understand them?
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
My problem with miracles is the idea of God breaking the rules.
Why does God have to be limited by the rules of nature or of the rules of nature as we currently understand them?
Why do we have to define miracles with reference to the 'rules' of nature at all? Apart from their perceived departure from these 'rules', does any of us really know what a miracle is? I certainly don't. We don't really know what miracles are in relation to the "well-established theoretical framework" of science; indeed, to change the order of priority, we don't know what that framework is in relation to God's interaction with the world.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by leo:
[qb] [QUOTE]Originally posted by Yorick:
[qb] How (without begging the question) can you begin to tell what a purported event in a narrative really "means" in the absence of knowing whether the narrative claims the event actually happened?
As with all scripture, you pray for guidance, meditate on the story and see what it reveal;s to you.
Other people will see different meanings.
That's because it's inspired.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by QLib:
My problem with miracles is the idea of God breaking the rules.
Why does God have to be limited by the rules of nature or of the rules of nature as we currently understand them?
Because God is consistent - He cannot break his own rules. There could be no science if he did.
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
God is consistent - He cannot break his own rules. There could be no science if he did.
That assumes we know what the rules are.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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The thing that intrigues me about Isaac David's story about St John levitating is that I've heard almost identical stories within Pentecostalism. Indeed, I knew a bloke from South Wales who grew up in the Apostolic Church, a small Pentecostal denomination. A friend of his told me that he'd once been in a meeting where the 'glory fell' (in Pentecostal parlance) and the congregation found themselves walking around a few inches off the ground.
Now, I've not heard that from the man himself, but I have met people who claim to have been in services when the 'glory cloud' came down and so on.
My own brother-in-law claims to have once been heard reciting part of the Lord's Prayer and snippets from one of the Psalms when 'speaking in tongues.'
Ok, so he only had someone's say-so for that ... and this is where all these things get tricky.
I had an experience once where I heard (or felt I heard) angelic singing in the air late at night at a campsite for a Christian gathering. It felt very, very real. I may have been mistaken, of course ... and I don't hang my faith upon it being 'real' or not.
I do have a problem with reports of healings and miracles and so on as they tend to have an alternative or 'rational' explanation and so often don't live up to the claims made for them.
My brother once drove some friends to a healing meeting in an otherwise conservative evangelical church - a meeting where there was very little hype and froth. One of the girls in the party he'd taken had a pronounced squint and, following prayer from the healing-evangelist, this apparently corrected itself before everyone's eyes. Much rejoicing.
The very next day she got up only to find that her squint had returned.
What was going on? Was God playing games with her? I don't think so ... but I do think there was some suggestibility or something going on - the muscles relaxing temporarily or something.
A lot of these so-called healing miracles don't 'stick' - they tend to wear off. Even some of the most powerful ones that are apparently recorded can be ascribed to the placebo effect.
I've noticed that many of them appear orthopaedic in character - you don't hear about withered arms being restored or genuine healings of blindness or deafness.
There's a dilemma here. Either we say that God doesn't answer prayer at all and Marvin is right - God is non-interventionist. Or we say that he can and does do these things, but not very often - which lays God open to the charge of being capricious.
Mind you, even in the Gospels we find that these things don't happen willy-nilly. Jesus reminded his hearers that Elijah was sent to only one widow - the widow in Zaraphath - not all the widows that there were in Israel at that time.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
God is consistent - He cannot break his own rules. There could be no science if he did.
That assumes we know what the rules are.
Well, physics is ahead of theology on this one.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
.. I knew a bloke from South Wales who grew up in the Apostolic Church, a small Pentecostal denomination. A friend of his told me that he'd once been in a meeting where the 'glory fell' (in Pentecostal parlance) and the congregation found themselves walking around a few inches off the ground.
Now, I've not heard that from the man himself, but I have met people who claim to have been in services when the 'glory cloud' came down and so on.
My dad had a running joke that he'd danced Cossack style on the sideboard at a works dinner. Ten years on, he was starting to meet people who'd claimed they'd been there and seen him do it.
What Leo said about the rules thing (eta: and the physics thing).
Though I am prepared to accept there might be some rules we don't know about (the Blessed Clive's "Deep Magic"). But if miracles obey rules we don't know about, perhaps they are not really 'miraculous'. The thing is though, if we are positing that there are rules that we don't know about, I don't see it as reasonable to require people to believe in the events posited to be consequent upon these hypothetical rules.
[ 14. March 2011, 21:42: Message edited by: QLib ]
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by QLib:
My problem with miracles is the idea of God breaking the rules.
Why does God have to be limited by the rules of nature or of the rules of nature as we currently understand them?
Because God is consistent - He cannot break his own rules. There could be no science if he did.
Says who?
I don't find that concept in either scripture or tradition. When did the human ability to do science become the preeminent concern of God. Besides, science can still figure out how the world normally works absent a miraculous divine intervention. How else are we to know when a miracle occurs?
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
My problem with miracles is the idea of God breaking the rules.
Why does God have to be limited by the rules of nature or of the rules of nature as we currently understand them?
Why do we have to define miracles with reference to the 'rules' of nature at all? Apart from their perceived departure from these 'rules', does any of us really know what a miracle is? I certainly don't. We don't really know what miracles are in relation to the "well-established theoretical framework" of science; indeed, to change the order of priority, we don't know what that framework is in relation to God's interaction with the world.
So your answer to Emma Louise is:
"How do you know you don't believe in miracles when you don't even know what miracles are?"
I guess thats something.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by QLib:
My problem with miracles is the idea of God breaking the rules.
Why does God have to be limited by the rules of nature or of the rules of nature as we currently understand them?
Because God is consistent - He cannot break his own rules. There could be no science if he did.
Says who? I don't find that concept in either scripture or tradition. When did the human ability to do science become the preeminent concern of God.
The idea of the universe as a place with rules that God just doesn't break ever has become AFAIK the standard explanation for why God allows terrible things to happen to innocent people - earthquakes and tsunamis, for example. It's also about allowing an arena in which created beings can exercise free will. It's nothing to do with God's concern for human science and neither is it that God is in any way limited by this. One way of looking it is that it is simply God's will that things are the way they are.
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
:
Ok, rules. What kind of rules are we talking about?
This makes me think of the "rules" of something like poetry, or musical composition. These supposedly must be observed in order to write the poem or the music correctly.
The major exception to this is if one happens to be a genius. Shakespeare breaks off pentameters in the middle. Beethoven plunges straight into the third movement of the Emperor Concerto without the expected, "correct" transition section. They don't do it often, but when they do, not only is there a compelling artistic reason, but the moment of genius stems precisely from their bending of the "rules". They do it very rarely, but always exactly the right place. It doesn't ruin the music or the poetry, but instead transfigures it.
I couldn't get away with ignoring the "rules" of musical composition like that, but that's because Beethoven was a genius, and I'm not.
I think God is up to something much more like writing a symphony than building a machine. And now and then He shows off His artistic genius by bending the rules a little.
Posted by anteater (# 11435) on
:
Yorick: quote:
They're impossible by definition. If they're merely improbable (to any measure) they're not miracles.
OK. We can all do argument by assertion. And it is entirely possible that your definition of miracle, makes this true. I.e. "A miracle is somethings that is impossible" would do it.
Since I suspect your argument is more sophisticated than that, please explain? Is it the classic Humean refutation? I don't think that stands up to examination, but since you may have a different argument, I won't go into that now.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
How come there's an element of choice in whether or not to believe in miracles? Is there a choice about other factual sort of beliefs?
I'm sure you can choose whether or not to believe in democracy, not whether it exists or not, but whether you want it. But belief about claimed facts, that a saint levitated or that God turns fillings to gold, how come people feel there's a choice about this?
I can't decide to believe that nuclear power is safe or risky. I look at the evidence, read the arguments, and my opinion is pushed this way or that. I have little control over what I believe (though I could scroll past Alan's posts if I chose to).
When it comes to miracles I can't help thinking that something very strange is at work. People who believe in them seem to me almost to be behaving defiantly. Unlike other fact type beliefs there is a wilfulness involved; I believe and you can't stop me.
I wonder if belief in miracles is a way of claiming that the world is more wonderful than the boneheaded scientific rationalists would have us believe, more exciting, more personal, more fit for humans, in fact the world of a God of love. And I wonder if it isn't the wrong way of making that essential claim.
Posted by anteater (# 11435) on
:
Yorick:
OK Should've read all the posts after mine.
Then I would know that you are treating miracles as "Events which have no natural explanation within the limits of current knowledge".
You still do not explain how you know them to be impossible unless you just use argument by definition. Hume's argument, of course, is that if we observe them with any frequency then they get incorporated into our view of what is possible by natural means and so cease to be miraculous. But that is just circular reasoning until the mechanism whereby it happens is identified and can be repeated under lab conditions.
Anyhow, maybe I'm being a bit argument-for-arguments-sake in this, since mostly I agree with your scepticism, and I know more believe in people floating in the air surrounded by light as you do.
Where I differ is that I do not believe there is any a priori case for saying that miracles, like the Bodily Resurrection, cannot occur.
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
It seems that we either proceed from an enunciation of principle, i.e. that miracles are a violation of some rule, and that therefore any account of miracles cannot be true and must be explained in some other way, or we proceed from an acceptance of miracle stories, basing theology on experience.
When I say that we don't know what miracles are, I don't mean that it isn't obvious that the raising of Lazarus, the feeding of the 5000, walking on water and floating above ground surrounded by light are all events which appear to defy the 'rules of nature'. What I do mean is that we don't really know what's going on when a miracle occurs - we don't know for certain what rules, if any, are actually being violated.
When Jesus healed on the Sabbath, was He breaking the law? I can think of three possible answers:
- Yes, He definitely broke the commandments
- No, he was applying the underlying principles of the law, fulfilling the higher commandment of love
- Healing on the Sabbath was not the 'work' envisaged in the Sabbath prohibition
Analogously, when a miracle occurs, is God breaking the laws of nature? Again, I can think of three answers:
- God suspends or breaks the laws of nature
- God fulfils a higher law
- Miracles do not violate the rules, as the rules do not exclude the possibility of miracles
Leo confidently asserts that physics is ahead of theology. But the rules of nature are generalisations derived from human observation of the natural world. Science depends on these rules being consistent, coherent and universally applicable and, generally speaking, they are.
Science usually accommodates genuine* exceptions by revising its theoretical frameworks, making them no longer exceptions. Who knows, maybe miracles are among those exceptions which science has not yet accommodated, because they have not been investigated. Or maybe they are exceptions which cannot be accommodated - God really does 'break' the rules of nature, though He may be fulfilling a higher law in doing so, just not a law of nature. Or maybe miracles come in both kinds.
*by 'genuine' I mean those exceptions not caused by experimental or observational error.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
:
I think the question to be asked of the miracles is not "could Jesus do them?" but "would Jesus do them?"
If "God was in Christ" then it is logically possible that Jesus could have done all the miracles attributed to him.
But would he? What purpose did the miracles serve? The question is especially pertinent in view of the fact that one of the Temptations which Jesus resisted was to do a miracle to elicit faith.
For instance what was the purpose of Feeding the 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish? To demonstrate his divinity? But Elijah did much the same and nobody called him divine. To feed the starving multitude? But nobody was starving; at best they were a touch hungry.
I am also wary of the God of the Gaps theology which attributes to God anything we dont understand - yet. Its a matter of time before we do understand and then what need of a God hypothesis.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
I do not believe there is any a priori case for saying that miracles, like the Bodily Resurrection, cannot occur.
Sure. We cannot know they’re impossible, so we may only take a position of belief (aside from the Humean logic that when a miracle becomes ‘possible’ it ceases to be miraculous), but ain’t that the way? We may of course apply reason, though that's of little use unless it may be found true upon testing, and historical miracles are annoyingly unavailable for testing. For myself, I happen to believe that miracles do not happen, and until a testable one comes along, I feel this is the safest belief position to take.
(It’s much the same as my belief that gravity will always move things from up to down- there is no a priori case for saying that it always must, but I find the very reliable absence of upwards free-falling objects sufficiently compelling).
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
until a testable one comes along
A testable one would not stay a miracle for long, in the sense that if we had data to investigate (basketfuls of crusts and fish bones, say, and excellent video footage of the distribution) we could begin to understand what had happened, how the miracle had occurred. (Perhaps the loaves divided like amoeba, or perhaps extra ones popped into existence when no one was watching - but the video camera was!) We would be able to give a good description of the event and begin to speculate about why it had this form and not another. It would become a natural phenomenon for science to work on - and therefore not really a miracle at all.
If, though, the event was clearly unique, and we couldn't analyse it in terms that made sense within our understanding of any other natural processes, then the 'god' who 'did it' would be a huge and horrible challenge. A god who usually allowed things to happen according to the patterns and regularities that science has discovered, but occasionally did something completely bewildering to honest investigators would be a nasty god.
To quote Jengie Jon's sig, such a god, would be committing the epistemological equivalent of rape on us.
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
A god who usually allowed things to happen according to the patterns and regularities that science has discovered, but occasionally did something completely bewildering to honest investigators would be a nasty god.
What, like creating interference patterns from individual particles projected through a double slit?
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
A god who usually allowed things to happen according to the patterns and regularities that science has discovered, but occasionally did something completely bewildering to honest investigators would be a nasty god.
What, like creating interference patterns from individual particles projected through a double slit?
That's pretty whacky, but in a stimulating and entertaining way! And, more important it's repeatable.
I think we should just get a lot more cctvs and stamp out miracles once and for all.
(Edited for typign]
[ 15. March 2011, 12:47: Message edited by: hatless ]
Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
For myself, I happen to believe that miracles do not happen, and until a testable one comes along, I feel this is the safest belief position to take
I think this is a sensible option.
How your worldview might change, however, if one did come along, would be interesting.
For someone who believes in miracles, no amount of miracles not happening is going to change their mind - miracles by definition are unexpected and 'break the rules'.
However, for someone who doesn't believe in miracles, it can take just one, tiny miracle to change their mind.
This is what I found most ludicrous about the Why won't God heal amputees argument. The argument goes:
- amputees don't get healed
- therefore no healings actually happen
- therefore God doesn't exist
A flawed logic if ever there was one. And I think that even the initial premise (that amputees don't get healed) is on very shaky ground. Unless every single amputee in the whole of history can be shown not to have been healed then it's an empty assertion. Just one in the whole of human existence is enough to shatter the argument. And just one person defeating death is enough to shake the world.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I think we should just get a lot more cctvs and stamp out miracles once and for all.
Yes, or maybe just be sensible and take a pragmatic view of miracles in the round. Given what is (and can) be known about them, it seems clear we may reasonably remove them from our philosophical picnic hamper and chuck them into the nettles, like salmon paste sandwiches, viz.
· They don’t happen nowadays.
· Even if they did, they would invoke paradoxical violations of the natural laws of the universe and this would imply a bad God (and, even worse, it would be the end of life as we know it).
· They only ‘happened’ in ancient times because God could get away with these unfortunate adverse effects (and he couldn’t today, even with all His almighty might), but, since we cannot know whether they actually happened or they’re merely non-literal metaphors, this is in any case irrelevant.
All in all, I think it might be philosophically expedient to ignore these frankly daft miracles altogether and get on with more pressing, non-miraculous, concerns- like enjoying our al fresco luncheon while the sun shines upon us.
[ 15. March 2011, 12:58: Message edited by: Yorick ]
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
I think that even the initial premise (that amputees don't get healed) is on very shaky ground.
Not so fast, batman. The initial premise is in a remarkably robust state of health, since it doesn't have to prove anything. The onus is on a healed amputeee to show up, not the non-healed amputee to remain unhealed.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
:
I can't say that the thought of miracles / expectation of miracles really impinges on my day-to-day life as a Christian anyway. Perhaps there are certain types of churches which place more emphasis on them. I'm more concerned with the right funding and support by the government to ensure that modern medicine can continue unhampered.
[ 15. March 2011, 13:09: Message edited by: Chorister ]
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
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.
I concede your argument is possible Ingo but for two caveats:
1) The idea in the John passage you and I both quoted.
2) There is extra biblical evidence that shows lots of miracle workers around at the time of Jesus.....
They could quite easily have been mistaken for the messiah if that was the only evidence required.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
They don’t happen nowadays.
Yes they do. You just can't see them.
quote:
Luke 11.29:
When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, ‘This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
. [Miracles] don’t happen nowadays.
· Even if they did, they would invoke paradoxical violations of the natural laws of the universe and this would imply a bad God (and, even worse, it would be the end of life as we know it).
· They only ‘happened’ in ancient times because God could get away with these unfortunate adverse effects
What 'paradoxical violations' do you have in mind, Yorick? And why do they imply a bad God? Or a 'nasty' god, as hatless claims?
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
:
I was referring to comments made upthread. Scroll up, and ye shall find.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
Considering we don't even know all the laws of the universe, that's a very, very weak argument.
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
:
People who want to maintain miracles don't happen should spend five years amongst a community that really does believe in what we term miracles (they nearly always don't maintain that discourse around them). It takes about that time to absorb the culture well enough.
That is not to say people so doing become believers in miracles it just means that they start experience things that are concomitant with the culture, there are records of this. Those tend to be reported as aberrations, and the data discounted when translated into western thought.
The non-occurrence of miracles has as much to do with modern cultural disbelief (well weird framing of them) as anything else. We make them aberrations and the tend not to occur, other societies make them part of the natural world and they seem to happen. The fact that sceptical westerns can and have experienced them when exposed to alternative cultures should at least make us ask some questions of our own society.
Jengie
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
Yorick, I take it you mean this:
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.
Not all miracles are "repeated, large-scale, unassailable demonstrations of the divine existence." And I don't see any reasoning to support the assertion that miracles (i.e. any miracles) "would have catastrophic social consequences" (which you appear to have morphed into "paradoxical violations of the natural laws of the universe").
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
:
I think a single proven supernatural event would change the world, however trivial, in a disastrous way. Hell, just look around. If the world shits itself when a Japanese nuclear plant goes pop, what’s it gonna do when the Fuckme Almighty Creator God of Infinite Power and Psychotic Caprice turns out to be real after that party we went to last weekend?
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
Miracles tie you to a view of God as an entity apart from the world, which carries on according to natural laws, until God decided to stick his finger in. A God, in other words, who is usually inactive and absent. Exactly the sort of God who is impossible to square with suffering.
The world becomes untrustworthy, on this view. All human endeavour is trivialised, as anything we think we know can be brushed aside at a moment. It's like a game where one person can change the rules at a whim.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by QLib:
My problem with miracles is the idea of God breaking the rules.
Why does God have to be limited by the rules of nature or of the rules of nature as we currently understand them?
Because God is consistent - He cannot break his own rules. There could be no science if he did.
Says who?
I don't find that concept in either scripture or tradition.
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
If Jesus is God's son....
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
Also "Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above, who created all heaven's lights. Unlike them, He never changes or casts shifting shadows" (James 1:17).
Malachi 3:6 For I am the Lord, I do not change.
Psalm 102:27 But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.
This orthodox Christianity teaches that God is immutable. No change is possible in God, because all change must be to better or worse, and God is absolute perfection.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
:
Yeah, and then there are all those miracles.
God doesn't change.
What does that have to do with miracles?
Saying God doesn't change and works miracles is not mutually exclusive.
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I think a single proven supernatural event would change the world, however trivial, in a disastrous way.
What does 'proven' mean? If this supernatural event was as undeniable as an Independence Day style planetary invasion, how could it not change the world? But a miraculous healing? I think Jengie Jon's point about cultural paradigms is apposite here - I think most people would reject it without considering the evidence, because it doesn't fit in with their world view.
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Miracles tie you to a view of God as an entity apart from the world, which carries on according to natural laws, until God decided to stick his finger in.
Or it ties you to a view of God as a Being involved with the world.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
The non-occurrence of miracles has as much to do with modern cultural disbelief (well weird framing of them) as anything else. We make them aberrations and the tend not to occur, other societies make them part of the natural world and they seem to happen.
So basically, if you're part of a culture that believes miracles happen then you'll claim to have experienced them, and if you're not you won't?
Well duh.
quote:
The fact that sceptical westerns can and have experienced them when exposed to alternative cultures should at least make us ask some questions of our own society.
Do you have any examples of such "miracles", by any chance? I imagine they all boil down to an increased level of credulity regarding explanations for unexpected events, but if not I'm willing to be convinced.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
:
Proven means proven to a sufficiently compelling degree. (Obviously enough, I should have thought.)
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
The non-occurrence of miracles has as much to do with modern cultural disbelief (well weird framing of them) as anything else. We make them aberrations and the tend not to occur, other societies make them part of the natural world and they seem to happen.
So basically, if you're part of a culture that believes miracles happen then you'll claim to have experienced them, and if you're not you won't?
Well duh.
Sorry, I completely gobbed that code. The last paragraph of "quoted" text is of course my own comment. Blame careless editing and a lack of Preview Post usage.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Miracles tie you to a view of God as an entity apart from the world, which carries on according to natural laws, until God decided to stick his finger in.
Or it ties you to a view of God as a Being involved with the world.
No, it ties you to a view of God as a capricious bastard who heals some and lets others die in agony for no good reason. A God who farts around making people glow and hover while children starve. A God who thinks shit like making a statue cry blood is more important than stopping a tsunami from destroying half a country.
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Miracles tie you to a view of God as an entity apart from the world, which carries on according to natural laws, until God decided to stick his finger in.
Or it ties you to a view of God as a Being involved with the world.
No, it ties you to a view of God as a capricious bastard who heals some and lets others die in agony for no good reason. A God who farts around making people glow and hover while children starve. A God who thinks shit like making a statue cry blood is more important than stopping a tsunami from destroying half a country.
Of course, if you believe Jesus was God incarnate at a particular time in history, you are left with these same problems (even if you don't believe he did any "miracles" at all).
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
God doesn't change.
What does that have to do with miracles?
Saying God doesn't change and works miracles is not mutually exclusive.
I agree. However, the point is an interesting one. It suggests an understanding of God as one whose influence is constant and unchanging, never more or less.
I think this is right.
This suggests that it is an anthropomorphism to imagine God as someone who looks at situations and goes "I think I'll do a miracle right here" but looks at another similar one and says "I don't think this is the right spot for a miracle."
I prefer to see God as completely constant and His presence as absolutely universal. Everything then happens according to His reception by the world.
Not that this puts us in charge, but it means that He responds perfectly and with perfect fairness to every situation.
Sometimes that Divine action manifests itself as a miracle when the conditions are right. Other times it manifests itself as Divine Revelation, when the conditions are right. But God's influence is always the same and always constant.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Of course, if you believe Jesus was God incarnate at a particular time in history, you are left with these same problems (even if you don't believe he did any "miracles" at all).
If the incarnation effected salvation for all people throughout time then it doesn't matter when it occurred. And it was very much something that was done for all people, not just the specific ones that happened to be there at the time.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
People who want to maintain miracles don't happen should spend five years amongst a community that really does believe in what we term miracles
I’m sorry, Jengie, but this is nonsense. Either miracles happen or they do not. The fact that your alternative communities more readily believe that certain events are miraculous does NOT mean that miracles more often happen there. In fact, it persuades me strongly against it, for the same reasons that I disbelieve in reports of miracles in ancient times- because such people were more likely to believe in an event being miraculous.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Not that this puts us in charge, but it means that He responds perfectly and with perfect fairness to every situation.
I find that claim to be completely at odds with the observable world.
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Proven means proven to a sufficiently compelling degree. (Obviously enough, I should have thought.)
Actually, not so obvious, as it is not at all clear for whom it should be "sufficiently compelling" and why. You are treating evidence apart from those who receive it.
Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
I think that even the initial premise (that amputees don't get healed) is on very shaky ground.
Not so fast, batman. The initial premise is in a remarkably robust state of health, since it doesn't have to prove anything. The onus is on a healed amputeee to show up, not the non-healed amputee to remain unhealed.
Nah mate
It does have to prove something - what it says on the tin, that God doesn't heal amputees. That's unprovable in practice.
If he was saying "I've never seen an amputee healed, and I've never heard of one being healed, so I don't think that it's likely that God, if he or she exists, heals amputees" then that would be fine.
He's not doing that though. He's actively disputing the idea that any amputee ever has been or ever could be healed, when there's no way of proving that.
His next step is bigger, that because of that no healings can happen. Again, he's arguing backwards from his conclusion.
If someone else was saying "I think God does heal amputees", then yes, the onus would be on them to get hold of one.
This whole idea of miracles is completely shaped by one's prior worldview. Arguing someone in or out of their worldview is pretty futile. When it comes to miracles, people are much more likely to change their worldview through experience. A non-miracle believer may change their mind if they experience a 'miracle', and a miracle believer may change their mind if, despite those beliefs, they have never experienced a 'miracle'.
If someone doesn't believe in miracles, their response is going to be "miracles don't happen, so of course amputees don't get healed". If someone does (or has even experienced something miraculous themselves), their response is going to be "if X happened, then why the heck can't an amputee get healed?"
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
I think the public response to the climate change debate provides a fruitful analogy for the way that compelling evidence can fail to convince large numbers of people.
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
The non-occurrence of miracles has as much to do with modern cultural disbelief (well weird framing of them) as anything else. We make them aberrations and the tend not to occur, other societies make them part of the natural world and they seem to happen.
So basically, if you're part of a culture that believes miracles happen then you'll claim to have experienced them, and if you're not you won't?
Well duh.
Sorry, I completely gobbed that code. The last paragraph of "quoted" text is of course my own comment. Blame careless editing and a lack of Preview Post usage.
No a person from a non-miracle believing culture will experience miracles if immersed in a believing one. This is without changing their views.
Jengie
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
No a person from a non-miracle believing culture will experience miracles if immersed in a believing one. This is without changing their views.
Well, if it happens often enough to be so confidently described there must be dozens of examples. Can you provide one?
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Of course, if you believe Jesus was God incarnate at a particular time in history, you are left with these same problems (even if you don't believe he did any "miracles" at all).
If the incarnation effected salvation for all people throughout time then it doesn't matter when it occurred. And it was very much something that was done for all people, not just the specific ones that happened to be there at the time.
Although it seemed to have rather an amazing effect on the people who were there, and who followed shortly after, which it doesn't have on the whole world now.
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
:
Right a couple of famous ones. E E Evans Pritchard, who documented seeing a light buzz around the village, where he was staying, while he was relieving himself at night, then go into a house. He was not surprised to learn the next morning that a person in that house had died.
Then there is V.W Turners account of Ihamba and his wife later account of a similar rite Edith Turner (in E.E Young and J-G Goulet(eds) "Being Changed by Cross Cultural Encounters" where the 'spirit' exorcised is clearly visible.
It is strange, strange reading the second because while they are clearly different events yet there is so much cross referencing.
Jengie
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Yeah, and then there are all those miracles.
God doesn't change.
What does that have to do with miracles?
Saying God doesn't change and works miracles is not mutually exclusive.
He does not change in that he doesn't create a universe with natural laws one minute and then break those laws another.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
Which implies what, precisely, about the Resurrection?
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
He does not change in that he doesn't create a universe with natural laws one minute and then break those laws another.
Who is this god?
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Not that this puts us in charge, but it means that He responds perfectly and with perfect fairness to every situation.
I find that claim to be completely at odds with the observable world.
No it's not.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Right a couple of famous ones. E E Evans Pritchard, who documented seeing a light buzz around the village, where he was staying, while he was relieving himself at night, then go into a house. He was not surprised to learn the next morning that a person in that house had died.
Then there is V.W Turners account of Ihamba and his wife later account of a similar rite Edith Turner (in E.E Young and J-G Goulet(eds) "Being Changed by Cross Cultural Encounters" where the 'spirit' exorcised is clearly visible.
What, and even if their accounts of the events are accurate (which is by no means certain in the absence of independent verification) there are no rational explanations?
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Not that this puts us in charge, but it means that He responds perfectly and with perfect fairness to every situation.
I find that claim to be completely at odds with the observable world.
No it's not.
Oh really? One person lives, another dies - is that perfect fairness? One person is cured while another is not - is that perfect fairness? One person recieves gifts in abundance while others do not - is that perfect fairness?
If it is, then the working definition of either "perfect" or "fairness" is so far out of whack as to be completely useless.
Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I think a single proven supernatural event would change the world, however trivial, in a disastrous way.
What does 'proven' mean? If this supernatural event was as undeniable as an Independence Day style planetary invasion, how could it not change the world? But a miraculous healing? I think Jengie Jon's point about cultural paradigms is apposite here - I think most people would reject it without considering the evidence, because it doesn't fit in with their world view.
Or to put it another way, When someone is healed of something (or apparently healed - there are all too many cases where someone's "healing" apparently "didn't take"), many people immediately and instinctively proclaim it as a miracle without considering the evidence or alternative explanations, because it does fit in with their world view.
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Right a couple of famous ones. E E Evans Pritchard, who documented seeing a light buzz around the village, where he was staying, while he was relieving himself at night, then go into a house. He was not surprised to learn the next morning that a person in that house had died.
Then there is V.W Turners account of Ihamba and his wife later account of a similar rite Edith Turner (in E.E Young and J-G Goulet(eds) "Being Changed by Cross Cultural Encounters" where the 'spirit' exorcised is clearly visible.
What, and even if their accounts of the events are accurate (which is by no means certain in the absence of independent verification) there are no rational explanations?
I know of none provided within the literature and none of my class mates and my suggestions account what is described.
EE Evans Pritchard is particularly difficult to explain away, it appears his notebooks but is ignored in his interpretation. He is very much the British Colonialist aimed at being rational about what he would have seen as native culture. Why would he keep a record that undermines his rationality in others eyes.
With the Turner one the problem is that it does not fit any Western category for spiritual being. It is not a light, an angel, a fire, it is described like a tooth. It neither matches our expectation for spiritual nor the material. This contrasts remarkably with the psychological which suggest people experience spiritual events in the form favoured by their own culture.
No explanation has been offered as far as I know in the tradition. Both work in the tradition of Western Ethnography. If you want a fuller exploration of this phenomena although it does not include miracles as the culture is village Buddhism then try Southwold's Buddhism in Life. He talks of himself as Buddhist in some sense during his fieldwork even though his conversion was later.
Jengie
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
He does not change in that he doesn't create a universe with natural laws one minute and then break those laws another.
Who is this god?
The God of Christian orthodoxy.
Not the god of the inaccurate translation that is the NIV. See
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
Sure, God is immutable. But, leo, you haven't established any relevant connection between His immutability and his not "breaking natural laws". It's not as if he made some covenant with His people never to do stuff we hadn't seen before and then changed His mind.
To be clear, you don't think He broke any laws of nature at the Resurrection? This sounds like one of Matin PC's "parsimony" objections to me...
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If it is, then the working definition of either "perfect" or "fairness" is so far out of whack as to be completely useless.
That must be it.
My point is that God's influence is constant and unchanging. He doesn't decide "Hey, it's time for this person to die. But I'll save this one over here."
Instead He immerses everyone in a world of constant and unchanging laws. There is always gravity, oxygen is fairly evenly distributed, cold and heat work in predictable ways, things grow or fail to grow according to understandable cycles and rules.
This is fairness.
The fact that this means that some people get crushed by falling rocks is not unfair. This is how randomness and universal physical laws operate.
Maybe randomness isn't fairness, and maybe universal physical laws are not fairness. Maybe only nothing bad ever happening is fairness.
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
He does not change in that he doesn't create a universe with natural laws one minute and then break those laws another.
Who is this god?
The God of Christian orthodoxy.
No it isn't. See
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
Interesting - I need to think about that.
[ 15. March 2011, 19:50: Message edited by: leo ]
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Which implies what, precisely, about the Resurrection?
Depends what 'the Resurrection' is. Historical? Eschatological? Mythological? Subjective?
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
Since the usual suspects are busy turning an interesting faith-internal discussion of the interpretation of biblical miracles into yet another boring faith-external battle with materialism and atheism, briefly some STFU comments:
- Modern natural science cannot tell us much about miracles, since it basically restricts itself to investigating regular relationships between material entities based on repeated observations, but (Christian) miracles are irregular, one-off and involve incorporeal entities.
- The question whether miracles occur to these day hinges on the difference between "so far unexplained" and "inexplicable". It is philosophy, not science, to claim that there is none of the latter. It is rhetoric, not fair definition, to equate the latter with "unimaginable".
- If it were the case that supposed miracles have become less frequent and striking, and if it were the case that our ability to detect miracles has grown, then it follows not that there never were any miracles. Correlation is not causation. Furthermore, both assumptions can be challenged.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
There is extra biblical evidence that shows lots of miracle workers around at the time of Jesus..... They could quite easily have been mistaken for the messiah if that was the only evidence required.
Firstly, there were other claims to the title of Messiah, e.g., those leading to the bar Kokhba revolt. I don't have too much of a clue about Jewish history, but I would be surprised if there weren't several more.
Secondly, I reckon the particular type of miracles Jesus chose to demonstrate his Messiah-ship were rather unique (or at least He was the pioneer, others might have copied His "style" later). Blasting some Roman legions with fire from the heavens would have been much more according to Messianic expectation... So I expect your average faith healer would have been considered as exactly that: a faith healer, maybe a prophet, but not the Messiah. Furthermore, Jesus worked other miracles as well, and as far as healing goes, I think it is the sheer scale and quality that would have supported His unusual claim.
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Miracles tie you to a view of God as an entity apart from the world, which carries on according to natural laws, until God decided to stick his finger in. A God, in other words, who is usually inactive and absent. Exactly the sort of God who is impossible to square with suffering.
While God definitely is an entity apart from the world (in classical theology), it does not follow that the world is an entity apart from God. In fact, the classical statement is just the opposite, namely that the world is an entity only with God, and immediately becomes a non-entity without God. Hence it is entirely false to claim that the classical God is "inactive and absent", it is rather His unceasing activity and presence that makes anything be at all. This means that the "natural law" vs. "miracle" dichotomy is human, not Divine. If I drink coffee in the morning most every day, except very rarely when I feel like black tea, then for an outside observer (who knows nothing about coffee, tea or tastes other than through observing me) this may well appear as a "miraculous break of the coffee law". However, for me it is nothing of that sort. Yet it is true that miracles remain God's decision. Your assertion about theodicy is wrong as well, but not really something I think we need to discuss in this context.
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The world becomes untrustworthy, on this view. All human endeavour is trivialised, as anything we think we know can be brushed aside at a moment. It's like a game where one person can change the rules at a whim.
This is right if purely reckoning "power": God is omnipotent and hence in principle all human power is insignificant compared with that. However, this becomes a problem only if one thinks of some kind of superhuman: If one considers God to be yet another "player" just like us, but infinitely more powerful in his manipulations of the world, then clearly we are just pawns in whatever game he likes to play. This however is not the classical view. Firstly, God is not a player but the game developer and manufacturer. No God, no game - at all. Secondly, the real game God is providing to us is about our relationship with Him, not about the world: the world acts merely as a physical mirror of that relationship. This gives God in all His glory into our hands: when we break the relationship in Genesis, He cannot fix it as God (and consequently the world remains broken). God can fix the human relationship with Himself only by becoming human - but again He delivers this relationship, Himself incarnate, into our hands for us to decide. Turns out we can kill that Relationship again, but it just will not stay dead. Anyway, my point here is that caprice and tyranny only can be used to describe this when one focuses exclusively on "what God could do to the world", whereas God focuses on how we can come into a good relationship with Him.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Yeah, and then there are all those miracles.
God doesn't change.
What does that have to do with miracles?
Saying God doesn't change and works miracles is not mutually exclusive.
He does not change in that he doesn't create a universe with natural laws one minute and then break those laws another.
Which simply isn't the claim made by scripture, tradition, or reason. Whatever God you are describing is not the God of orthodox Christianity.
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
When someone is healed of something (or apparently healed - there are all too many cases where someone's "healing" apparently "didn't take"), many people immediately and instinctively proclaim it as a miracle without considering the evidence or alternative explanations, because it does fit in with their world view.
Of course. But that has nothing to do with miracles being real or not.
I was actually addressing Yorick's claim that a "proven" miracle would have disastrous consequences. Proof in the real world is not like proof in science (and even there it can encounter difficulties). Evidence which works for the scientist can sometimes fail to convince a wider public because of factors like world views. Hence my reference to the climate change debate.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
Jengie:
I think there's something in the social reality of miracles, even if I'm not sure what it is.
Marvin:
May I direct you to a passage I quoted here recently, the bit in Matthew 11 where John the Baptist plaintively asks Jesus (in effect) why he's not getting out of jail? Jesus' answer lists all the usual "Isaiah 61 spirit of the Lord is on me" type miracles - with the pointed exception of setting the captives free! He concludes "blessed is he who does not fall away on account of me". I'll leave you to meditate on whether this statement is further evidence that God is a sadist or whether there might actually be an encouragement in there.
The lesson I take from this passage is that our theology needs a place for the miraculous plus a place for disappointment and the having to cope with the paradox that God appears capricious or unfair. It's the test Job faced: do we love God disinterestedly, for his own sake?
Posted by Jessie Phillips (# 13048) on
:
So far, it seems that this thread has centred around a debate of two possibilities:
- The miracles described in the Bible occurred exactly as they are described, due to supernatural agency
- There was a natural explanation for what seemed to occur
However, I think it's false dichotomy. I think that a third possibility is that something miraculous did happen - but perhaps not exactly as described in the narrative. And the narrative has perhaps been exaggerated for dramatic effect.
After all, it's generally better to overstate a miracle than to understate it. Because if you understate it, people might not realise it was a miracle at all.
We're talking about devotional literature here, and not critical histories. If a person who thinks that God deserves to be worshipped writes about it, but is not sure about the exact details of some miracle that has been said to occur, then, generally speaking, they'll give God the benefit of the doubt. It would be rude not to.
But does that mean that all miracle accounts are inherently unreliable? I don't think it does. After all, supposing someone did think God was worthy of praise - such that he deserves the credit for an otherwise doubtful miracle. Why would they think God deserves that praise in the first place?
So the fact that miracles might not have happened exactly as described is not important, in my opinion. What is important is that whatever did happen, someone appears to have found it inspiring.
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
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.
I agree that comprehensive knowledge of the natural universe doesn't explain ultimate purpose and meaning - but then again, neither does God - at least not in the way that God is portrayed by modern Christianity.
In my opinion, ultimate purpose and meaning is actually a function of the afterlife, heroism/sainthood, the hope for future progress and/or renewal, and the question of whether history is linear or cyclical. "God" is only of secondary importance to that, and is only relevant to the extent that people find they can't talk about eschatology without also talking about "God".
I could be wrong on this - but I suspect that when the New Testament was written, it was assumed that whenever anyone was talking about God, they were also implicitly talking about eschatology. For example, God is contrasted with us humans in that we are mortal, but God is eternal, thereby creating a relevancy for resurrection hope. But modern Christianity seems to have de-eschatologised its concept of God - so much so, that people think that whether scientific explanations for natural phenomena exist or not actually makes a difference!
I don't think it makes any difference whether a phenomenon can be explained or not at all - because we still have pretty much the same fears and uncertainties about the future and death that people have always had.
I think the whole point of a story of a miracle is that it gives you hope; the point is that if it looks as though something really good but unexpected happened at least once, then perhaps it will happen again. Regardless of whether you can explain it or not. Indeed, if you can explain it, that's even better, because it means you might be able to make it happen again on your own initiative.
Mind you, it depends what is being explained. It's better to explain how it might be possible to repeat the apparent miracle under controlled circumstances, than to explain how the people who thought they saw it first time round might have been deluded. The first of these two types of explanation affirms and enhances the hope of the miracle story - but the second type defeats it.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
:
No, we are fully aware of the third possibility.
I don't think it matters. The miracle stories were part of the New Testament and church tradition. The Jesus proclaimed by the Church performed miracles. Whether or not the historical Jesus performed actual miracles is both unknowable and inconsequential.
If one accepts what orthodox Christians teach in the Creeds, it makes no sense to question the miracles scripture claims He performed. Others who are not orthodox Christians can pick and choose whatever parts of scripture and tradition they like. Apparently, some of it is more rational to them than other parts. It doesn't really make sense to me. Divorced from the whole, no Christian distinctive is altogether rational.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The miracle stories were part of the New Testament and church tradition. The Jesus proclaimed by the Church performed miracles. Whether or not the historical Jesus performed actual miracles is both unknowable and inconsequential.
The inconsequence is purely a matter of opinion, I suppose, except that surely it does matter whether these things happened in history. Sounds a bit like your coming over all 'Sea of Faith' on us. quote:
If one accepts what orthodox Christians teach in the Creeds, it makes no sense to question the miracles scripture claims He performed.
This does sound a bit like; "Why swallow a horse and strain at a gnat?"
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
IngoB, perhaps I could put it another way.
Even if you do believe in miracles, is it not true that we should mainly be concerned with understanding how God is to be found in the 'normal' and natural events of the world. God may or may not intervene in special and dramatic ways, but God is certainly to be understood as the creator and sustainer of the world.
If we over-emphasise miracles we are likely to struggle to understand this. We will think something is of God if it leaves scientists scratching their heads. Perhaps it is, but that is never going to be the norm or the most common thing. We ought instead to learn to see God in the daily wonders of kindness, beauty, generosity, etc.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
:
Shame its of consequence because you'll never know one way or the other unless you base your opinion on some unprovable presupposition.
You either have faith or you don't.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Shame its of consequence because you'll never know one way or the other unless you base your opinion on some unprovable presupposition.
You either have faith or you don't.
This site provides very clear evidence that there are differences in faith and different understandings of what faith is. I have faith in a God who doesn't fuck with His creation. YMMV.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
:
That's a belief called Deism. Deism is popular enough but incompatible with orthodox Christianity. Some deists identify as Christians. I don't understand that. They like what the Gospels claim Jesus said while ignoring the stuff it says He did. If the authors of the Gospels were wrong about what he did, why believe they were right about what he said? Most of the stuff Jesus said isn't unique to Jesus. The stuff that is defies reason. Doesn't make any sense to me why they would link themselves to Jesus as opposed to any other religious teacher who offered helpful hints for living.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
Do you really think in such simplistic terms, Beeswax? I'm not a deist. If you think that I don't think Jesus performed acts of healing, then you misunderstood what I posted earlier. You've got an interesting line of arguments on the matter of what divides Christianity from other religions. Basically, you seem to be saying, if we didn't believe all the stuff that the Church has added in, and made pretty much compulsory, then there would be nothing to separate us from followers of other great religious teachers. Well, I can quite see why that would be a problem - shit, we might end up with world peace or other crazy stuff like that. Good job we've got you people of the One True Faith™ to keep us straight.
Seriously though, I don't have a problem with people whose faith leads them on a more O/orthodox path, but I do have a problem with your patronising dismissal of the beliefs of others. What, people only have 'faith' if they believe what you believe? Think again. The fact that you don't understand why some people would rather follow the teachings of Jesus than Church teachings about Jesus is your problem, not theirs.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Which implies what, precisely, about the Resurrection?
Depends what 'the Resurrection' is. Historical? Eschatological? Mythological? Subjective?
Take your pick. Pick 'em all. But if God conquered death by it (which I presume you believe), that seems to be pretty "law-breking" to me.
What about the general resurrection of our bodies? Will that too be perfectly aligned with hitherto universally observed regularities in nature (i.e., natural laws)?
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Marvin:
May I direct you to a passage I quoted here recently, the bit in Matthew 11 where John the Baptist plaintively asks Jesus (in effect) why he's not getting out of jail? Jesus' answer lists all the usual "Isaiah 61 spirit of the Lord is on me" type miracles - with the pointed exception of setting the captives free! He concludes "blessed is he who does not fall away on account of me". I'll leave you to meditate on whether this statement is further evidence that God is a sadist or whether there might actually be an encouragement in there.
Maybe not a sadist, but certainly capricious and liable to abandon His people in their time of need.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
If we over-emphasise miracles we are likely to struggle to understand this. We will think something is of God if it leaves scientists scratching their heads. Perhaps it is, but that is never going to be the norm or the most common thing. We ought instead to learn to see God in the daily wonders of kindness, beauty, generosity, etc.
I have no problems with that. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that miracles are the milk not the meat of faith: miracles strengthen baby faith, but faith should be weaned of them when it grows up. And perhaps that's pretty much what happened within the former Christendom (though I remain entirely unconvinced of the assertion that "no miracles occur anymore", even for the West).
Personally speaking though, there is a level of "seeing daily wonders" that while not operating at the level of miraculous spectacle shares some "irregular" characteristics thereof. Simply put, I now see many happenstances of my life as not so random after all. And I would say that that is important to faith, or at least I find it important for my own faith (perhaps that means I have toddler faith - I can live with that judgment).
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I now see many happenstances of my life as not so random after all.
Couldn't this simply be because you're viewing them with a particular filter now, through which things would naturally appear different?
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
:
quote:
originally posted by Qlib:
Do you really think in such simplistic terms, Beeswax? I'm not a deist. If you think that I don't think Jesus performed acts of healing, then you misunderstood what I posted earlier. You've got an interesting line of arguments on the matter of what divides Christianity from other religions. Basically, you seem to be saying, if we didn't believe all the stuff that the Church has added in, and made pretty much compulsory, then there would be nothing to separate us from followers of other great religious teachers. Well, I can quite see why that would be a problem - shit, we might end up with world peace or other crazy stuff like that. Good job we've got you people of the One True Faith™ to keep us straight.
You mistake how much actual religious belief leads to violence. Absent religious differences humans would find other reasons to kill each other. Look at the Communists. Philosophers managed to distill the moral teachings of their culture's religious teachers from the metaphysical system. With that, many justify the moral teachings with completely secular reasoning. That's not the issue. The question becomes how important are the things discarded by the philosophers namely the metaphysical system and moral teachings not easily supported by human reason. Those who believe in what is left of any religion have faith. If I believe that Christianity is a way to God, the way to God, or the best way to God, then keeping a good portion of the stuff discarded by the philosophers and scientists is very important.
quote:
originally posted by Qlib:
Seriously though, I don't have a problem with people whose faith leads them on a more O/orthodox path, but I do have a problem with your patronising dismissal of the beliefs of others. What, people only have 'faith' if they believe what you believe? Think again. The fact that you don't understand why some people would rather follow the teachings of Jesus than Church teachings about Jesus is your problem, not theirs.
No, I've decided you do have a type of faith. You have faith that the authors of the gospel accurately recorded the teachings of Jesus but not his actions. You have faith that the same evil church which suppressed the authentic esoteric Christianity managed to recognize and disseminate those wonderful teachings you like. You have faith that the Church added all the things you don't like but the authentic followers of Christ actually agreed with you. You have faith that people alive today based on their own cultural presuppositions are better able discern what was authentic Christianity than the early Church.
Why that is easier for you to accept by faith than orthodox Christianity I'll never know.
What I suspect is that you believe incorrectly your rejection of orthodox Christianity in favor of this more enlightened version (what I call Neo-Gnosticism) is based on objective reason.
It isn't.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
(though I remain entirely unconvinced of the assertion that "no miracles occur anymore", even for the West).
The way that I would put it is that no grand-scale obvious miracles, like those recounted in the Old and New Testaments, occur. But genuine miracles go on continuously.
It might depend on what a miracle actually is.
I define a miracle as an instance of things that happen normally in the spiritual realm appearing in this world in symbolic fashion. The manna in wilderness, for example, is a physical representation of the good that is constantly coming from God. The physical healing at Christ's word or touch is a physical representation of the spiritual healing of God's truth and love. Every biblical miracle works on this principle.
The everyday miracles that happen today are not dramatic, but they also work on this principle. The main one is simply that life is imparted to living things moment to moment. Science has no idea how life works, or how the myriad physical processes actually get moved forward. They simply do, from properties that seem to be inherent in them. But they aren't inherent, everything flows in from God because He is the only source of life. At least that is what religion traditionally teaches.
In any case, the actual animation can be called miraculous, if you buy that argument.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Personally speaking though, there is a level of "seeing daily wonders" that while not operating at the level of miraculous spectacle shares some "irregular" characteristics thereof. Simply put, I now see many happenstances of my life as not so random after all. And I would say that that is important to faith, or at least I find it important for my own faith (perhaps that means I have toddler faith - I can live with that judgment).
So true. I would call that providence. You look back at the coincidences that led you to love your spouse, or find your job, or live as you live and you think "God did this!"
But it is all hidden in that incredible concept called "randomness". It's almost spooky that randomness is random, and yet it follows absolute laws.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Couldn't this simply be because you're viewing them with a particular filter now, through which things would naturally appear different?
What do you mean "couldn't this simply be"? Of course it is so. And you also view the world through a particular filter by considering it as a place (more) filled with coincidence and chance (than I do). The question which filter is better or more true is however not unequivocally answerable from everyday observations. That's more the job of full-fledged miracles - which is precisely why you must maintain that there are none... Cognitive filter preservation isn't just a pastime of the religious.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
:
Oh, I totally agree, and I wasn’t trying to insinuate anything. I’m sure I’d be automatically sceptical about any event that might be called miraculous, though I hope I’m open-minded enough that I’d admit I’m wrong if I were ever sufficiently convinced of one. Miracles (and therefore the existence of God) are things that I’d secretly be very pleased to be proven wrong about, though through my filter I cannot see that I ever shall be.
So. Does anyone know of a 'full fledged' miracle that is at least moderately plausible?
[ 16. March 2011, 14:01: Message edited by: Yorick ]
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Does anyone know of a 'full fledged' miracle that is at least moderately plausible?
I consider for example Christ's miracles, the Fatima miracle of the sun, and the miracles "approved" by the International Medical Committee of Lourdes (C.M.I.L.) as plausible. You presumably don't. I'm sure this is worthy of discussion, but I do not think that this is the right thread. I think this thread is really about the different ways in which Christians interpret the (biblical) miracles that are their shared heritage, a faith-internal discussion.
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on
:
Yes, you're right. Point taken.
I'll keep me nose out.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
You look back at the coincidences that led you to love your spouse, or find your job, or live as you live and you think "God did this!"
But if you accept that then you have to come up with some reason why God didn't do it for those who aren't as fortunate.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
You mistake how much actual religious belief leads to violence.
You mistake how serious I was being. The fact that the next bit began with “Seriously,...” was intended to be a clue. quote:
The question becomes how important are the things discarded by the philosophers namely the metaphysical system and moral teachings not easily supported by human reason. Those who believe in what is left of any religion have faith. If I believe that Christianity is a way to God, the way to God, or the best way to God, then keeping a good portion of the stuff discarded by the philosophers and scientists is very important.
That seems an odd set of priorities, but that's up to you - the problem is that, in passing, you seem to think you get to define who has faith – and, by implication, who doesn't. quote:
No, I've decided you do have a type of faith. You have faith that the authors of the gospel accurately recorded the teachings of Jesus but not his actions.
it's always a bad idea to tell other people what they think – and in this case I have already said you are wrong about this – and that's leaving aside the gross-over-simplification which ignores, for example, legitimate questions about literal and non-literal truth. quote:
You have faith that the same evil church which suppressed the authentic esoteric Christianity managed to recognize and disseminate those wonderful teachings you like.
I don't believe the Church is evil – though it has done evil things (any dispute on that?) but I do believe that it is fallible. I don't think authentic Christianity was esoteric. I like the teachings of Jesus – by and large – and I don't think the teachings of that Church have the same status as the teachings of Jesus, whether I like them or not. quote:
You have faith that the Church added all the things you don't like but the authentic followers of Christ actually agreed with you. You have faith that people alive today based on their own cultural presuppositions are better able discern what was authentic Christianity than the early Church.
I have faith that neither you nor I get to say who are authentic followers of Christ. I think that members of the very early church made the best sense they could of what they had experienced and I believe that we have both the duty and the right to do the same. quote:
What I suspect is that you believe incorrectly your rejection of orthodox Christianity in favor of this more enlightened version (what I call Neo-Gnosticism) is based on objective reason. It isn't.
Well, some improvement here in that at least you don't claim to know me better than I do myself but, even though my faith is largely your invention, I don't think you get to name it, so I'll pass on neo-Gnosticism thanks all the same. And I quite accept that faith cannot be based on reason and that nobody can be entirely objective about anything - to talk of objectivity in the context of faith is pretty meaningless.
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
:
quote:
originally posted by Qlib:
I don't believe the Church is evil – though it has done evil things (any dispute on that?) but I do believe that it is fallible. I don't think authentic Christianity was esoteric. I like the teachings of Jesus – by and large – and I don't think the teachings of that Church have the same status as the teachings of Jesus, whether I like them or not.
However could you know that? The followers of Jesus, what we call the Church, wrote the gospels. The Church decided which gospels were canonical and which weren't based on how well they agreed with what they had received through tradition. Why believe them about the words Jesus spoke but not about what he meant or what he did in between saying them? Why assume they recorded the words literally but his actions metaphorically? The Church believed his actions were as literal as his words. There is no reason besides the assumption that we modern people are smart enough to know miracles don't happen but those poor benighted ancient people didn't.
quote:
originally posted by Qlib:
I have faith that neither you nor I get to say who are authentic followers of Christ. I think that members of the very early church made the best sense they could of what they had experienced and I believe that we have both the duty and the right to do the same.
What we have is scripture and two thousand years of tradition saying miracles occured and can occur. What we have contrary to that is a newly found assumption that because we haven't seen what we would call a miracle therefore miracles never occured and never did occur not even when God walked the earth. St. Paul did foresee this when he wrote, "They will have a form of Godliness but deny the power thereof." Don't know if that was prophetic or a keen insight into human nature.
quote:
originally posted Qlib:
Well, some improvement here in that at least you don't claim to know me better than I do myself but, even though my faith is largely your invention, I don't think you get to name it, so I'll pass on neo-Gnosticism thanks all the same.
Well, if I invented it, I should get to name it. If you don't actually believe it, why do you care what I call it? At this point, I'm not sure what you believe or why you believe it.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
You look back at the coincidences that led you to love your spouse, or find your job, or live as you live and you think "God did this!"
But if you accept that then you have to come up with some reason why God didn't do it for those who aren't as fortunate.
Yes, this would be hard to do if your life was unrequited suffering.
In my experience, though, attitude plays a significant role here. I know wealthy successful people who see their lives in negative terms. I also know people in poverty and who have experienced enormous hardship who somehow see themselves as fortunate and blessed.
So in my view this isn't about physical well-being. In the long run it is about how God has pointed you away from evil and towards good.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Marvin:
May I direct you to a passage I quoted here recently, the bit in Matthew 11 where John the Baptist plaintively asks Jesus (in effect) why he's not getting out of jail? Jesus' answer lists all the usual "Isaiah 61 spirit of the Lord is on me" type miracles - with the pointed exception of setting the captives free! He concludes "blessed is he who does not fall away on account of me". I'll leave you to meditate on whether this statement is further evidence that God is a sadist or whether there might actually be an encouragement in there.
Maybe not a sadist, but certainly capricious and liable to abandon His people in their time of need.
I think it boils down to entitlement. If we think we're entitled to miracle x, y, z, we will be disappointed, in fact the warning in this passage is that Jesus will become a stumbling block. Those are hard words, but I think the passage holds out a much stronger message: hope in the absence of miracles.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
:
One of my grandmothers, who had quite a hard life all told, was always to be found singing under her breath 'count your blessings name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done'. She didn't actually go to church, but believed you should, whatever life throws at you, be grateful to God for whatever blessings you have. I think she willed herself to happiness, if that makes sense.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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Eutychus, ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Tonight at worship we had the story of the prophet's widow who went to Elisha for help when the creditors were going to take her sons for slaves. She got her miracle, but I can't help wondering if she didn't ask why God hadn't prevented her husband's death in the first place. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Looking back at my own life, I can see that quite a few people would call it a life of almost-unrequited misery; and yet I can see God's hand in it, and all things considered, would put my happiness at a 9 out of 10 (as Mr. Lamb says he would too).
Maybe Christians ain't logical.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
What we have is scripture and two thousand years of tradition saying miracles occured and can occur. What we have contrary to that is a newly found assumption that because we haven't seen what we would call a miracle therefore miracles never occured and never did occur not even when God walked the earth.
I think you're misrepresenting the complexity of teh debate here. quote:
At this point, I'm not sure what you believe or why you believe it.
That's because you are too busy making assumptions to pay attention.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
She got her miracle, but I can't help wondering if she didn't ask why God hadn't prevented her husband's death in the first place.
I also wonder what all the people with dead relatives who Jesus had passed by thought about Lazarus. And what all the weddings that could have done with more wine before Canaan thought.
Indeed, what Jesus himself thought about the first 30 years of miracle-less incarnation.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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Could it be that the significance of miracles (for those that believe in them) is that they represent gift or grace, that which doesn't come from us, but which breaks into our experience from outside?
Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
So. Does anyone know of a 'full fledged' miracle that is at least moderately plausible?
I've experienced a few interesting things, but I accept the argument that they could just be down to coincidence or psychosomatic factors.
Perhaps the most obvious experience of the supernatural was from the darker side however. A friend's colleague approached her because she knew she was a Christian, and didn't really know where else to go. She and her family been experiencing weird things in her house - noises, objects moving (and these weren't the usual creaks and bumps in the night) culminating in hearing a whispered voice right in her ear. She'd discovered that the guy who had lived their before was an occultist who'd lived there most of his life.
My friend and I went to her house and prayed for her, and after that all the weirdness stopped. I had no reason to doubt her, and it wasn't just her experiencing these things - her son, husband and a friend and her daughter did too.
I'd say that was moderately plausible - I don't have any other explanation for the specific details she told us (which I don't think it's right to go into here). It wasn't like she became a Christian or anything afterwards. She was just a normal agnostic person who had some weird shit going on in her house that was affecting her family, and she wanted it to stop.
That the most 'obvious' supernatural goings on I've encountered are from the evil side, rather than God is interesting. Perhaps it says something about the different ways God and Satan operate, and that God is more interested in wooing rather than wowing.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
This is the kind of area in which I feel it's meaningful to talk in terms of social reality. The affected family believed there was an occult connection, sought a 'spiritual' solution and were satisfied.
I'm not saying this means evil spirits don't exist, but that the degree to which they exercise activity in this way seems to be dependent to some extent on the belief space they can inhabit.
I have to say that my main theological/sociological work of reference in this instance is Douglas Adams' The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (which explores the idea of what might happen to the gods of Norse mythology once people stopped believing in them), but it certainly makes sense of some experiences I've had.
[ 17. March 2011, 10:22: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
You look back at the coincidences that led you to love your spouse, or find your job, or live as you live and you think "God did this!"
But if you accept that then you have to come up with some reason why God didn't do it for those who aren't as fortunate.
Yes, this would be hard to do if your life was unrequited suffering.
It doesn't have to be unrequited suffering. To give just one example, every time someone says "God blessed me by giving me a baby", it's a kick in the teeth to those who cannot concieve. It's saying that God doesn't want them to have a baby. And telling the childless people to count their other blessings is not exactly going to make them feel better about that, is it?
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I think the passage holds out a much stronger message: hope in the absence of miracles.
So we love and worship a God who does miracles, who provides for His people and who answers prayer. And we're supposed to continue with that love and worship even if He refuses to do a miracle, declines to provide for us and is deaf to our prayers?
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Could it be that the significance of miracles (for those that believe in them) is that they represent gift or grace, that which doesn't come from us, but which breaks into our experience from outside?
That would be a fair summary of one of the ways I perceive miracles. The unusual miracles, e.g. walking on the water or floating in light, show that God, like C.S.Lewis' Aslan, isn't 'tame'. The Kingdom of God is not of this world.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I think the passage holds out a much stronger message: hope in the absence of miracles.
So we love and worship a God who does miracles, who provides for His people and who answers prayer. And we're supposed to continue with that love and worship even if He refuses to do a miracle, declines to provide for us and is deaf to our prayers?
Marvin, I don't know what if any painful experience lies behind your posts on this thread, so please be aware I'm dealing with the issue as dispassionately as possible, not passing judgment on what you personally may have suffered. This is a hard topic and I fear discussion is not going to directly alleviate suffering. That's the way it is.
I think we are called to love and worship God because he is God, full stop. Yes he may provide for his people, do miracles, and answer prayer the way we would like, but that's all grace. It's added extras.
If our love for God is contingent on what he does for us personally, I don't think it's really love and I don't think he's really our God.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Could it be that the significance of miracles (for those that believe in them) is that they represent gift or grace, that which doesn't come from us, but which breaks into our experience from outside?
That would be a fair summary of one of the ways I perceive miracles. The unusual miracles, e.g. walking on the water or floating in light, show that God, like C.S.Lewis' Aslan, isn't 'tame'. The Kingdom of God is not of this world.
I think that for me, I get much the same sense of the the world being transparent to grace from words, the language of faith. I think it's a necessary part of faith, but I suspect that miracles do it for some people, but not for others.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I think we are called to love and worship God because he is God, full stop. Yes he may provide for his people, do miracles, and answer prayer the way we would like, but that's all grace. It's added extras.
Well I simply can't do that. I can't love someone for no reason - even my wife is someone I love because of who she is and what she does, and in no small part because she also loves me. And I can't love God for no reason either, it has to be on the basis of who He is and what He does.
I'm just not wired for unconditional love.
quote:
If our love for God is contingent on what he does for us personally, I don't think it's really love and I don't think he's really our God.
Imagine a father of three boys. He's a decent father to them all in most ways, except for one thing: he regularly gives great presents to one son, but he never gives the other two anything. Would the other two be justified in resenting that fact, or should they just love him anyway and hope that one day he'll see fit to give them a present as well?
I mean, it's not like God is limited in how many gifts He can give, is it? He's fucking omnipotent. There's nothing stopping Him from giving us all manifest blessings except the lack of desire to do so.
[ 17. March 2011, 11:30: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It doesn't have to be unrequited suffering. To give just one example, every time someone says "God blessed me by giving me a baby", it's a kick in the teeth to those who cannot concieve. It's saying that God doesn't want them to have a baby.
That hits very close to home. I guess people really do need to figure out how a good God can allow bad things to happen. Interesting that this connects so quickly to miracles, and why if God can do them He doesn't do them for me but instead allows me to suffer.
For the record, the God I worship loves everyone, good or bad, wants only good and happiness for everyone, punishes no one. At the same time, He created a stable and orderly world that operates according to constant principles, both spiritual and physical, within which people can freely do as they wish.
Accordingly, we experience success, failure, good fortune, bad fortune, suffering and happiness, according to the fixed laws. This is a good thing, even though we get squished when heavy things fall on us. But the much better thing is that after death only the spiritual laws apply, and they are all about moral and spiritual fairness in a way that physical laws can't be.
In this system miracles operate according to spiritual not physical laws, and take the forms that they do because of the correspondence between the two worlds.
That makes sense to me, but I understand that it may not make sense to everyone.
In any case, the point is that a perspective like this allows a person to rejoice in the way that God has led them without being resentful of the ways that this benevolent guidance does not appear to be in evidence.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
And I can't love God for no reason either, it has to be on the basis of who He is and what He does.
I think that since God is gracious, over and above our calling to love him for his own sake, we will have our own reasons to love him. They might start with "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us"...
I think that problems set in if we attempt to dictate how God's love should be expressed to us (and in fact I think I would have problems if I approached my relationship with my wife this way too!).
Similarly, with regard to your illustration, I think you're confusing miracles with expressions of love, or at least confining the latter to the former. The closer I look at many miracles, the less I find this to be straightforwardly the case.
(For instance, if you look at the resurrection of Lazarus from his point of view, I think it must have been a thoroughly traumatic experience. What's more he rose to the knowledge that he would have to go through the whole dying thing again some day).
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I think that for me, I get much the same sense of the the world being transparent to grace from words, the language of faith. I think it's a necessary part of faith, but I suspect that miracles do it for some people, but not for others.
Oh, language does it for me too. Part of my reading includes Lives of Saints, so miracles do tend to come with the territory, but one of my favourite Lives is St Silouan the Athonite by Archimandrite Sophrony, about a 20th century Athonite monk. In language terms this is a beautiful book, though it would be hard to put my finger on exactly what it is that makes it so. However, apart from one or two visionary experiences there are no miracles at all.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
For the record, the God I worship loves everyone, good or bad, wants only good and happiness for everyone, punishes no one. At the same time, He created a stable and orderly world that operates according to constant principles, both spiritual and physical, within which people can freely do as they wish.
Accordingly, we experience success, failure, good fortune, bad fortune, suffering and happiness, according to the fixed laws. This is a good thing, even though we get squished when heavy things fall on us. But the much better thing is that after death only the spiritual laws apply, and they are all about moral and spiritual fairness in a way that physical laws can't be.
Yes, I have no problem with any of that.
The problems start when, having set that system up and decided that the best policy is to allow the fixed laws to operate even though some of us will get squished, God then decides to completely abandon that rationale and save some people from being squished. But not all. And those that still get squished cry "Oi! What's up with that then? Why them and not me?"
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The problems start when, having set that system up and decided that the best policy is to allow the fixed laws to operate even though some of us will get squished, God then decides to completely abandon that rationale and save some people from being squished. But not all. And those that still get squished cry "Oi! What's up with that then? Why them and not me?"
That doesn't happen. Everything plows along according to the laws.
It's just that the laws are very clever and complex.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The problems start when, having set that system up and decided that the best policy is to allow the fixed laws to operate even though some of us will get squished, God then decides to completely abandon that rationale and save some people from being squished. But not all. And those that still get squished cry "Oi! What's up with that then? Why them and not me?"
That doesn't happen. Everything plows along according to the laws.
If that doesn't happen then miracles don't happen! A deliberate alteration to the "fixed" laws is exactly what miracles are!
quote:
It's just that the laws are very clever and complex.
But if they were truly fixed then anyone would be able to avail themselves of certain miracles (healing, for instance) by following the same processes. But that doesn't happen. God shows partiality and favouritism at every turn. And those on the losing side of that partiality and favouritism are still supposed to love and worship Him?
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That doesn't happen. Everything plows along according to the laws.
If that doesn't happen then miracles don't happen! A deliberate alteration to the "fixed" laws is exactly what miracles are!
It depends on how you understand miracles. In my understanding miracles are not deliberate alterations of fixed laws. They proceed according to the rules. It is constant and unvarying. God is everywhere the same. It's just that the rules are pretty amazing!
It's true that sometime miracles happen and sometimes they don't. But the logic is the same as the fact that sometimes rocks fall on people and sometimes they don't. What appear to be discrete events are actually part of a huge interconnected system, in which butterflies in India cause tornados in Kansas.
[ 17. March 2011, 13:48: Message edited by: Freddy ]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
It's true that sometime miracles happen and sometimes they don't. But the logic is the same as the fact that sometimes rocks fall on people and sometimes they don't.
No it's not, because whether a rock falls or not is determined by physical laws whereas whether a miracle happens or not is by definition determined by a conscious decision made by God.
If whether one person gets or doesn't get a miracle is decided by random chance then I don't mind. That's not personal. But because miracles are allocated based on the (presumably) free decision of an omnipotent God, that decision is personal.
The fact that it's personal rather than random matters. It means God chooses not to bestow blessings on some people, presumably because He just doesn't like them as much as the others.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
To give just one example, every time someone says "God blessed me by giving me a baby", it's a kick in the teeth to those who cannot concieve. It's saying that God doesn't want them to have a baby. And telling the childless people to count their other blessings is not exactly going to make them feel better about that, is it?
I'm not sure where you get the idea that God is a wish-fulfilling machine that provides an equal level of enjoyment to all and sundry in this world. Certainly not from the Jews, who have had more trouble coming their way than most. Certainly not from Christ, who "... said to all, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it." (Lk 9:23-24)
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
So we love and worship a God who does miracles, who provides for His people and who answers prayer. And we're supposed to continue with that love and worship even if He refuses to do a miracle, declines to provide for us and is deaf to our prayers?
Yes. Because this is the broken world of Genesis, the one where God gets crucified for us, remember? God has promised to His people that "he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." (Rev 21:4) But this will be in the next world, not in this. In this world you can expect some signs to guide you and sufficient grace to keep you moving towards God, and that's it.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Because this is the broken world of Genesis, the one where God gets crucified for us, remember? God has promised to His people that "he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." (Rev 21:4) But this will be in the next world, not in this. In this world you can expect some signs to guide you and sufficient grace to keep you moving towards God, and that's it.
Yay. Pie in the sky when you die.
Posted by dyfrig (# 15) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
In this world you can expect some signs to guide you and sufficient grace to keep you moving towards God, and that's it.
I would hazard a guess that the NT writers viewed the impact of the Resurrection as being slightly more immediate.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
It's true that sometime miracles happen and sometimes they don't. But the logic is the same as the fact that sometimes rocks fall on people and sometimes they don't.
No it's not, because whether a rock falls or not is determined by physical laws whereas whether a miracle happens or not is by definition determined by a conscious decision made by God.
No,the definition is contentious. Anyway, Jesus doing random stuff while he was alive is different and IMHO less of a problem. Though I still think that healing "miracles" probably just obey laws that we don't know about yet, but may do one day.
And then, you know, maybe it's a miracle that we're here at all, on this third rock from the sun, arguing about stuff. Every healthy birth is a miracle. Chocolate is a miracle.
I'll stop before I make everybody sick.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Yay. Pie in the sky when you die.
Beats no pie ever, if you ask me.
quote:
Originally posted by dyfrig:
I would hazard a guess that the NT writers viewed the impact of the Resurrection as being slightly more immediate.
As far as Marvin's "cashing out worldly benefits" goes? Do tell.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
It's true that sometime miracles happen and sometimes they don't. But the logic is the same as the fact that sometimes rocks fall on people and sometimes they don't.
No it's not, because whether a rock falls or not is determined by physical laws whereas whether a miracle happens or not is by definition determined by a conscious decision made by God.
Miracles are not by definition determined by a conscious decision made by God. At least, that's not how I understand miracles. Miracles are not a conscious decision made by God. They originate in what God is and happen when they are triggered by conditions that take more into account than any of us could imagine.
Do you really think that God is a big powerful man making a lot of conscious decisions very quickly? It's important to be able to shift your thinking up a notch.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If whether one person gets or doesn't get a miracle is decided by random chance then I don't mind. That's not personal. But because miracles are allocated based on the (presumably) free decision of an omnipotent God, that decision is personal.
There is no such thing as random chance. Everything is caused, but the causes are too complex to attribute, and that is what we call randomness.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The fact that it's personal rather than random matters. It means God chooses not to bestow blessings on some people, presumably because He just doesn't like them as much as the others.
God does not choose to bestow blessings on some and not on others. He loves everyone equally and bestows blessings with absolute fairness and equity.
In the physical world this equity isn't apparent because the physical equivalent of equity, namely the universality of physical laws, interferes with it. This is one of the reasons why physical things aren't permanent, but are merely the temporary backdrop against which permanent things are freely developed. It's genius, really. ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Miracles are not by definition determined by a conscious decision made by God. At least, that's not how I understand miracles. Miracles are not a conscious decision made by God. They originate in what God is and happen when they are triggered by conditions that take more into account than any of us could imagine.
Do you really think that God is a big powerful man making a lot of conscious decisions very quickly? It's important to be able to shift your thinking up a notch.
Well, it's been a fundamental part of my understanding that miracles are caused by God deciding to make something happen that wouldn't (or couldn't) otherwise have happened. What you're describing sounds like just another natural process that we just haven't come to understand yet.
I mean, surely the whole point of believing in miracles is to believe that God deliberately chooses to intervene in the world?
quote:
God does not choose to bestow blessings on some and not on others. He loves everyone equally and bestows blessings with absolute fairness and equity.
I don't see how that can be true and it also be true that miracles happen only to a select few people.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Every healthy birth is a miracle.
Which surely means every stillbirth is God choosing not to bestow that miracle for that family.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
I think we're wandering from the kind of miracle Emma had in mind in the OP, which I think was about things that are exceptional and not immediately normally explicable.
If birth is seen in theological rather than scientific terms, I would classify it as an expression of grace rather than a miracle as outlined above.
And yes, it's the maddening nature of grace that it's indiscriminate by definition. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, but we still have drought and tsunamis. And I'm with IngoB here that this is just part of the human condition.
I don't think the word "bestow" is helpful. I'm not sure "blessed by a miracle" is helpful either. Very ChristianSpeak but not (I don't think) expressed that way in Scripture. I don't think God opts to "bestow" miracles to "bless" people. I think any immediate benefits are ancillary to the symbolic significance of the miracle and I would venture to add that Scripture has quite a lot to relate about people who went wrong by seeking the miracles rather than what they were pointing at.
I realise this is small consolation in the depth of keen suffering, but on balance I think it's better than the decompensation that I fear will follow being taught one can get miracles on demand.
[ 17. March 2011, 17:43: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I mean, surely the whole point of believing in miracles is to believe that God deliberately chooses to intervene in the world?
Well, not for me it ain't. I don't think God can choose in the sense that you mean it. I think that Incarnation might just possibly be the only form of intervention open to God. And a choice that is/was not a choice, because God cannot choose not to Love.... Maybe. Perhaps.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I mean, surely the whole point of believing in miracles is to believe that God deliberately chooses to intervene in the world?
That's not the way I look at it. I think that God continually intervenes in the world. He is continuously present everywhere, and without the continual "flow" of His life into the material universe it would cease to exist. He is the "life" that is pumped moment to moment into living things. Yet the universe appears to have independent existence and life appears to be inherent in living things.
So it isn't that God chooses to intervene. Rather, sometimes that intervention takes different forms for specific reasons. It's not so much a choice as a consequence of the way that the whole system is set up.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
God does not choose to bestow blessings on some and not on others. He loves everyone equally and bestows blessings with absolute fairness and equity.
I don't see how that can be true and it also be true that miracles happen only to a select few people.
It's true for the same reason that rocks only fall on certain people. It is a spiritual form of randomness, meaning that the causes are too complex to describe.
God's unceasing goal is the freely chosen happiness of the entire human race. His efforts in that direction are constant and universal. It is only an appearance that some are blessed and others aren't.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I mean, surely the whole point of believing in miracles is to believe that God deliberately chooses to intervene in the world?
That's not the way I look at it. I think that God continually intervenes in the world. He is continuously present everywhere, and without the continual "flow" of His life into the material universe it would cease to exist. He is the "life" that is pumped moment to moment into living things. Yet the universe appears to have independent existence and life appears to be inherent in living things.
Yes, I think the continually sustaining idea is fine, but I don't see that as intervention, which surely implies a departure from some kind of norm.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Yes, I think the continually sustaining idea is fine, but I don't see that as intervention, which surely implies a departure from some kind of norm.
I guess that's right. But that's only from our point of view. From God's point of view the effort is continual, as I understand it. Sometimes that results in what we call miracles.
Posted by pimple (# 10635) on
:
I've been away and not had time to read all the above posts yet so please forgive mr if everything I post has been said before.
One of the chief difficulty in discussion about whether miracles can be taken literally seems to me to be that there are a number of quite discrete understanding - even among believers -
of what a miracle is.
The common factor among the faithful is that miracles are supernatural events. The mighty ones of the Old Testament are done by God to impress his chosen people or their enemies.
(This does not mean that OT people were not impressed by the wonders of creation and the "natural" world - but then creation itself was seen as the first miracle of all. There was then no supernature, because there was no "plain and simple" nature, in the modern sense).
The idea of miracles being supernatural then appears to be a fairly modern idea, as is the idea of a God who "intervenes" in the natural world.
Biblical miracles are performed sometimes by God, and sometimes by lesser beings. All miracles, the writers profess, are signs of God's activity, regardless of who performs or triggers them. Thus the healing of the woman with an unstoppable flow of blood and the killing of Ananias and Sapphira share the same basic purpose.
But nobody in his right mind would suggest that these two miracles are of equal significance. The healing of the woman is a sign not only of God the Father's activity but also of God the Son's (Jesus') divinity. The killing of Ananias doesn't indicate any particular holiness on the part of Peter. It might, of course, have made people fear God more (another common purpose of miracles), but it also made them fear Peter - unless they were incredibly stupid.
The main thing about miracles is that they point to something far bigger than the the people involved in them. Those healing miracles, for instance, are not - well, not always - rewards for good behaviour, but impressive examples of God's power and love and mercy. Nowadays we have the lottery, which operates in much the same way, (statistically speaking, of course).
Since, like all believers and once-upon-a-time-believers, I tend to create God - especially Jesus - in my own image, I have a small problem with the idea that individual sufferers don't matter very much - in the large divine scheme of things. I do get the very strong impression that when Jesus healed people, he was utterly focussed on those individual people and their problems and situations. While everyone else around him was weeping and wailing, or praising and cursing, and praying so loud it's a wonder God ever heard anything, Jesus looked, and listened, and looked again, and asked questions, and listened to the answers, and saw and heard sometimes the smallest of whispers that told him what to say and do. And amid all that hubbub that sure as hell was a fucking miracle.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
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.
Thomas Merton treated the story as a metaphor He compares the false self to the dead Lazarus. When Lazarus emerges from the tomb in response to the summons of Christ he also emerges from the protection of the grave to face the uncertainty of God. The bandages around his hands and feet and over his face are, to Merton, the symbols of the captivity of the false self. Jesus commands that Lazarus be unloosed:
‘Unbind him, and let him go.’ The true self is hidden beneath the bandages we wind around the soul to protect it from the radical uncertainty with which it was born and which is the carrier of God. For the point about this true self is that it is not our possession. It is God’s, or, more correctly, it is God abiding within us. Merton writes: The true inner self, the true indestructible and immortal person, the true ‘I’ who answers to a new and secret name known only to himself and to God, does not ‘have’ anything, even ‘contemplation’. This ‘I’ is not the kind of subject that can amass experiences, reflect on them, reflect on himself This inmost self is beyond the kind of experience which says ‘I want,’ ‘I love,’ ‘I know,’ ‘I feel.’ It has its own way of knowing, loving and experiencing which is a divine way and not a human one, a way of identity, of union, of ‘espousal,’ in which there is no longer a separate psychological individuality drawing all good and truth towards itself, and this loving and knowing for itself. Lover and Beloved are ‘one spirit’
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
And this is a part of a sermon (the preacher gave permission) from an LGBT perspective:
The story is one of the longest in the New Testament.
A powerful story with deep resonances for anyone who has lived a closeted existence.
A story of new life after confinement and deadliness.
Jesus commands,’Unbind him. Let him go.’
That commandment stands today
for all those who would stunt other people's development
deprive them of the abundant life Jesus came to bring.
Where some translations read, ‘Lazarus come forth.’
others read ‘Lazarus come out.’
That’s not lost on gay people.
Matthew Fox sees coming out as a sacrament like baptism
dying to the cramping images straight society has of us
rising to fullness of life.
He describes this sacrament of coming out as…
a kind of letting go, a letting go of images of personhood, sexuality and selfhood that society has put on us in favour of trusting oneself enough to be oneself.’
His (John's) book tells us not to fear.
Mary and Martha were both afraid that Lazarus would die if Jesus did not come.
Many gays are afraid - rightly so
The brutal murder of Matthew Shephard and countless other gay men and lesbians shows the frightening reality for many.
The disciples are afraid that Jesus will be stoned if he goes to Judea.
The Pharisees are afraid of the trouble that Jesus will cause.
The story tells us to move beyond fear.
Take courage.
if we don’t have courage Lazarus will still be dead
The in-breaking kingdom of God will be quashed.
The story tells us to commit ourselves to love.
See how he loved him
Perhaps said with a sneer.
Our love will meet with derision from the born again types
Jesus makes a risky journey because he has made a commitment of love.
We are called to journey through life taking risks.
And the reward is newness of life, resurrection.
The story tells us not to doubt.
Mary and Martha said, Lord if you had been here our brother would not have died.
They doubted his power to transform the situation now that it was at its worst.
People who have struggled against racism, sexism and all forms of oppression have had those doubts.
But Jesus assures us, as he assured Mary and Martha, that God’s glory will be shown
And, in the words of early father Irenaues; The glory of God is a man (or women) fully alive.’
The miraculous happens.
Life bursts forth from death and hopelessness
Now, not in some distant future.
Martha believed the dead would rise at the last day.
But Jesus’s call is urgent.
Little resurrections can happen every day.
We can let go of some fears, some doubts – and get new life back
As we venture to take bigger steps, so we receive greater blessings.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
From the sermon leo just posted (the relevance of which to the topic in hand I completely fail to see) :
quote:
Where some translations read, ‘Lazarus come forth.’
others read ‘Lazarus come out.’
That’s not lost on gay people.
This is a some kind of spoof, right?
Also, leo, you are aware that one can make the kind of analysis of the meanings contained in the Lazarus episode that Merton did whilst still believing in its literal truth, right? Because one can, and I think Merton himself did.
Finally, can I just ask once more: what about the (death-conquering) Resurrection of OLJC and the general resurrection at the end of the world? Both entirely in accord with the hitherto univerally observed regularities of the natural world?
[ 18. March 2011, 17:32: Message edited by: Chesterbelloc ]
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
From the sermon leo just posted (the relevance of which to the topic in hand I completely fail to see)
Apologies: having re-read the OP, I suppose any gloss of any miracle could be relevant to the question, so I take that bit back.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
Leo - I'm really grateful for those metaphorical readings, thank you.
Chesterbelloc - if we're talking about literalism, don't we have to bear in mind that Jesus said Lazarus wasn't dead, but only sleeping? As for the end of the world - I think miracles (whatever they are) that haven't actually happened yet can't really be interpreted.
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib
if we're talking about literalism, don't we have to bear in mind that Jesus said Lazarus wasn't dead, but only sleeping?
Really?
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
Oh yeah, sorry - mix up with Jairus's daughter. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Posted by Isaac David (# 4671) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Oh yeah, sorry - mix up with Jairus's daughter.
It can happen to any of us.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
What Isaac David said, obviously. But also:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
As for the end of the world - I think miracles (whatever they are) that haven't actually happened yet can't really be interpreted.
Hold on, though. What leo and others are saying is that God "breaking laws of nature" in a big problem for them. Whatever happens at the general resurrection (for those who don't dismiss that as mythical/metaphorical too), it's going to involve the very dead - and very decomposed/disintegrated - very much coming back to life.
Pretty natural-law-breaking, no?
Would that too be God being quixotically inconstant and "nasty"?
Posted by no_prophet (# 15560) on
:
quote:
God does not choose to bestow blessings on some and not on others. He loves everyone equally and bestows blessings with absolute fairness and equity.
In the physical world this equity isn't apparent because the physical equivalent of equity, namely the universality of physical laws, interferes with it. This is one of the reasons why physical things aren't permanent, but are merely the temporary backdrop against which permanent things are freely developed. It's genius, really. [/QB]
I've never heard this way out of weak anthropicism. It is probably too strong for me to accept equality of blessings. The randomness of death, e.g., the recent tsunami, or the obvious cruelty, e.g., a cat with a mouse being a classic example, suggests a God who at minimum has backed away from interventionism or has characteristics by definition he does not possess. Waiting for heaven to get blessed doesn't quite cut it, and has seemed to me often to be an apology for current social conditions and status quo. But maybe you didn't mean this.
On a tangent, I think we'd have to chuck the idea of saints if God bestows equitably.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
leo, you are aware that one can make the kind of analysis of the meanings contained in the Lazarus episode that Merton did whilst still believing in its literal truth, right? Because one can, and I think Merton himself did.
I doubt very much that Merton believed it literally in his final, Zen phase.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Hold on, though. What leo and others are saying is that God "breaking laws of nature" in a big problem for them. Whatever happens at the general resurrection (for those who don't dismiss that as mythical/metaphorical too), it's going to involve the very dead - and very decomposed/disintegrated - very much coming back to life.
Pretty natural-law-breaking, no?
Would that too be God being quixotically inconstant and "nasty"?
And very unlikely. My Dad's ashes were scattered at sea - they will be all over the place by now. Part of a fish/shrimp - eaten by you?. Which of you will then lay claim to those molecules as part of your body.
Nope - we have all been a part of the stars and will be a part of each other in the fullness of time. Physical resurrection as you seem to invisage it would be plain crazy imo.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
chesterbelloc -Are we back to the problem of the dead rising from their graves and hunting for their false teeth? I don't know what's going to happen when the world ends and I'm pretty damn sure that the writer of Revelations didn't either. The wretched book should have been shredded.
If there is life and death, then it's part of the law of the universe, presumably.
I don't know what happened to Jesus's body, but we know, as David Jenkins said that it wasn't "a conjuring trick with old bones" - the body that appeared in a locked room, the body that the disciples failed to recognise on the road to Emmaus, was clearly a new kind of body and not merely the old body revivified. Was the resurrection a miracle or simply something like the Blessed Clive's 'Deep Magic'? I don't know.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Hold on, though. What leo and others are saying is that God "breaking laws of nature" in a big problem for them. Whatever happens at the general resurrection (for those who don't dismiss that as mythical/metaphorical too), it's going to involve the very dead - and very decomposed/disintegrated - very much coming back to life.
Pretty natural-law-breaking, no?
Would that too be God being quixotically inconstant and "nasty"?
And very unlikely. My Dad's ashes were scattered at sea - they will be all over the place by now. Part of a fish/shrimp - eaten by you?. Which of you will then lay claim to those molecules as part of your body?
Nope - we have all been a part of the stars and will be a part of each other in the fullness of time. Physical resurrection as you seem to invisage it would be plain crazy imo.
Revelation shredded - yes please! Why it was ever included I'll never understand.
<punctuation>
[ 18. March 2011, 19:32: Message edited by: Boogie ]
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
quote:
I doubt very much that Merton believed it literally in his final, Zen phase.
Why?
Posted by pimple (# 10635) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Oh yeah, sorry - mix up with Jairus's daughter.
It can happen to any of us.
Indeed. One could think the girl and the man had the same disease (one that no longer exists, possibly). Jesus didn't "correct" himself in the case of Jairus' daughter, of course.
But what is easier, and better, to say - "Thank God for the return of your daughter live and well" or "See! I told you see was only asleep!" The latter would have turned the father's joy to hatred and probably have got Jesus lynched.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
I've never heard this way out of weak anthropicism. It is probably too strong for me to accept equality of blessings.
I think that it is a strong argument because equality of blessing is easy to accept on principle - if you believe in a good God. It is just hard to understand how it works.
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
The randomness of death, e.g., the recent tsunami, or the obvious cruelty, e.g., a cat with a mouse being a classic example, suggests a God who at minimum has backed away from interventionism or has characteristics by definition he does not possess.
Yes, these things do suggest that. I think that the advantages of a stable physical world, however, account for these issues.
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
Waiting for heaven to get blessed doesn't quite cut it, and has seemed to me often to be an apology for current social conditions and status quo. But maybe you didn't mean this.
I didn't mean this. Inner peace is a subjective state in any circumstance. The important thing is to differentiate spiritual blessings and material ones. Religion has always prioritized spiritual blessings, both on the grounds that they rise above material conditions and also because they are potentially permanent ie. eternal.
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
On a tangent, I think we'd have to chuck the idea of saints if God bestows equitably.
Absolutely.
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
chesterbelloc -Are we back to the problem of the dead rising from their graves and hunting for their false teeth? I don't know what's going to happen when the world ends and
...neither do I. But if God is true to His word - and that I don't - we shall all be "raised incorruptible" just like OLJC. With real bodies and everything.
The alternatives are purely disembodied selves - and that's not what human beings are created to be - or no kind of life after death at all, which makes of God a liar.
But precisely how He accomplishes it? We don't know.
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
If there is life and death, then it's part of the law of the universe, presumably.
Yes. But that's not in dispute.
If there is fully embodied life after death, that cannot be fully explained in terms of what we (yet) know about the physical world. Any more than we can understand in purely natural terms Jesus' resurrection.
If there is to be a general resurrection that would certainly involve God "breaking natural laws". And that's my point. If one chooses to believe in Jesus' physical resurrection and in the general bodily resurrection of the dead, then one is somehow committed to believing God can and does/will consistently transcend the natural laws of the universe as we understand them.
But if God "cannot" so act in the case of miracles (Lazarus, multiplication of loaves and fishes, Wedding at Cana) there is no warrant to believe in bodily resurrection either - and that's a credal tenent.
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
The body that appeared in a locked room, the body that the disciples failed to recognise on the road to Emmaus, was clearly a new kind of body and not merely the old body revivified.
Indeed. But we have it on pretty good authority that it was no ghost either. Exactly its relation to Christ's crucified body we don't know - but it bore the scars.
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Was the resurrection a miracle or simply something like the Blessed Clive's 'Deep Magic'? I don't know.
What on earth would make you think it was the latter?
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
If there is to be a general resurrection that would certainly involve God "breaking natural laws". And that's my point. If one chooses to believe in Jesus' physical resurrection and in the general bodily resurrection of the dead, then one is somehow committed to believing God can and does/will consistently transcend the natural laws of the universe as we understand them.
Your point seems to me an assertion rather than a point. Is saying God is transcendent the same as saying He can/will transcend? If he consistently transcends the natural laws then surely that's just another law? Here are my assertion/points: God is the way He is. Things are the way they are and either the dead will be resurrected or they won't. Either it's all miraculous, or nothing is. quote:
..if God "cannot" so act in the case of miracles (Lazarus, multiplication of loaves and fishes, Wedding at Cana) there is no warrant to believe in bodily resurrection either - and that's a credal tenent.
Well, the credal bit is your problem. But I don't agree with your assumptions here. God intervening in the world is different from what happens after death. We don't know what the laws are then - and that's what I understand Lewis to mean about 'Deep Magic' (tho' I don't care for the term 'magic' myself) but I think he meant that there could be other laws at other levels of reality. quote:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
The body that appeared in a locked room, the body that the disciples failed to recognise on the road to Emmaus, was clearly a new kind of body and not merely the old body revivified.
Indeed. But we have it on pretty good authority that it was no ghost either. Exactly its relation to Christ's crucified body we don't know - but it bore the scars.
You seem to think we disagree on this and I don't see that we do. I said "body" - I didn't say "ghost".
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
The alternatives are purely disembodied selves - and that's not what human beings are created to be - or no kind of life after death at all, which makes of God a liar.
Those are the alternatives if we limit ourselves to extrapolating from what we experience through our senses. Given what we know about the astounding nature of the physical world itself, is it hard to believe that God might have another alternative that is not a simple extrapolation of what we've already experienced?
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
I have personally seen literal miracles, which thanks to my science background, I tend to think of as "paranormal occurrences I have witnessed."
Science is also trying to grasp certain aspects of "paranormal occurrences," at least in America -- there is academic study of the efficacy of prayer for the sick, collections and analysis of near death experiences (NDE) spiritual narratives -- what people saw of the afterlife when in a state of clinical death from which they then returned, etc.
I have known other people who have witnessed miracles. But because modern society tends to dismiss who report these experiences as "crazy" or "drunk" or "must have been on drugs" or sufferng from an "optical illusion" or "was receiving adequate medical help which would have saved them anyway" or "deceived self into believing saw odd occurrence," they are reluctant to come forward.
Fortunately, at least in America, the last twenty years have seen a relaxation of the immediate condemnation of people reporting miracles as "nuts," so more accounts are being published.
Now those miracles are things than contravene various natural laws.
There are also -- just my opinion -- miracles that work with natural laws. For example --
many past Biblical miracles, have, thanks to skeptical scholars and archaeologists, been verified. For example, the "Jewish Study Bible," an English translation of the Old Testament with massive notes by mostly secular, clearly non-religious Jewish scholars, suggests that some OT miracles actually took place. For example:
1. Crossing the Sea of Reeds -- the Biblical account states that a wind had been blowing in one direction all night, creating a dry (well, probably muddy) passage for the escaping Hebrew slaves -- when the wind shifted, Pharoah's army drowned -- this was computer modeled by some mechanical engineers;
2. The manna eaten in the desert -- turns out there is an insect in the Sinai peninsula that eats a certain type of fruit and excretes small, white fragments that have a sweet flavor, and these fragments are still eaten by nomands;
3. Moses striking the rock with a rod and causing water to flow out -- the Sinai is full of limestone rocks that 'hoard' water and when a knowledgeable person strikes them, water flows out.
4. Moses summoned quail to feed the wandering Hebrews -- turns out flocks of quail fly migratory patterns over the Sinai peninsula, and collapse from exhaustion on the ground on their way north and south, making them easy to catch.
I had always thought all these stories had to be complete myths. But Moses had spent decades in the Sinai as a wandering shepherd and could make use of that knowledge. He is shown as a person who prayed, and presumably it wasn't hard for God to show him the nearest water-filled rock or flock of migratory quail.
I also had been very skeptical of the Jewish story that all persons named "Cohen" are descendants of Aaron, the High Priest. But one Jewish DNA study tentatively suggests that half of the men surnamed "Cohen" who participated in the study seemed to be descended from the same very remote -- as in 10,000 years ago? -- Middle Eastern male ancestor.
Now, with regard to New Testament (NT) miracles -- some scholars have been looking into the question of the claim in the Gospels that an earthquake occurred during Christ's crucifixtion and also some type of eclipse. We can use computer data to "back cast" eclipses, and there was a lunar eclipse during one Passover on -- modern calendar -- Friday,April 3, 33 A.D. This possible date was first suggested by Isaac Newton, a pleasing example of a 17th mathematician being backed up by a modern computer.
(The eclipse may have been mistakenly reported as a solar eclipse in the NT, but the only eclipses during Passover are lunar eclipses, because Passover is held under a full moon.)
The Gospels also indicate that there was an earthquake on the day Christ was crucified. There are records of earthquakes in cities near Jerusalem in that era -- the Romans, Jews and Greeks were records keepers -- so the claim that there was an earthquake that day is not implausible.
I think -- just my opinion -- that both "paranormal" miracles that violate natural law and miracles that work with natural law continue to happen. But people are actively discouraged from believing in them, praying for them, or reporting them, which I would hypothesize then gives the appearance that miracles are not occurring in the modern era, unlike past eras.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
:
One possible miracle I witnessed was when a teenage friend had a very painful slipped disc. She went forward for healing at one of those high-powered youth services that our youth group used to go to in those days. During the prayer for healing, she fainted(?) and slipped to the ground like a rag doll. When she woke up all the pain was gone and, to all intents and purposes, her back was healed. Now it's quite possible that the fall was what put it back in place, but why did she fall and who ensured she fell in a way to make it better, not damage it further? Such apparent miracles raise more questions than they answer.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Now it's quite possible that the fall was what put it back in place, but why did she fall and who ensured she fell in a way to make it better, not damage it further?
People faint all the time, and maybe it was just good, old fashioned dumb luck.
Posted by Jessie Phillips (# 13048) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by pimple:
One of the chief difficulty in discussion about whether miracles can be taken literally seems to me to be that there are a number of quite discrete understanding - even among believers -
of what a miracle is.
The common factor among the faithful is that miracles are supernatural events. The mighty ones of the Old Testament are done by God to impress his chosen people or their enemies.
(This does not mean that OT people were not impressed by the wonders of creation and the "natural" world - but then creation itself was seen as the first miracle of all. There was then no supernature, because there was no "plain and simple" nature, in the modern sense).
I think this goes some way towards explaining why religion and science have traditionally been thought to be at odds with each other.
If the religious mindset starts from the assumption that everything good that ever happens is a miracle bestowed upon us by God, then they might regard science as blaspheming against that, by trying to spot patterns behind the circumstances that cause those miracles, in the hope that those miracles can be performed on the initiative of man. In short, religion has tended to be suspicious of science because it used to think that science puts man in God's place.
But if religion thinks it can defend itself against science by accusing science of blasphemy, religion will inevitably find that it loses the argument. As a result, religion tries to backtrack and defend itself, by redefining what constitutes a "miracle" so as to make it narrower and more picky.
I think this is a process which goes back at least as far as the Renaissance and Reformation; one of the things that both Foxe's Book of Martyrs and Butler's Lives of Saints have in common is that they are both pitched as being more plausible than the Jacobus de Voragine Golden Legend that went before them.
However, I'm of the opinion that the Golden Legend played a part in the development of the late medieval archetypal chivalric hero legend, that we also see reflected in Arthurian legend, crusader legend, Dante's Divine Comedy and John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, as well as being spoofed in Cervantes Don Quixote.
Both the Divine Comedy and Pilgrim's Progress are regarded as allegories; they don't have to be thought of as literally true in order to draw meaning from them that is relevant to Christian spirituality. And because I think the Golden Legend was influential on these works, I think the far-fetched miracle stories in the Golden Legend can be read as allegories too.
In particular, the legend of St George seems to contain two parallel stories; one of St George slaying the dragon and rescuing the king's daughter, and the other of St George's martyrdom. And there seems to be obvious and deliberate allusions between the two, that Jacobus de Voragine plays up for rhetorical effect. That's why I think that at least some of the miracles in the Golden Legend are intended to be interpreted non-literally. Those who thought that the fabulousness of the stories posed a problem, and that the Golden Legend needed to be replaced by either Foxe or Butler, simply missed the point. Not that I'm criticising Foxe or Butler; it's just that I think the Golden Legend has just as much merit.
Point is - if it's safe to assume that at least some of the Golden Legend miracle narratives were originally intended to be interpreted non-literally, then perhaps the same is also true of the Bible. Why not?
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
If there is life and death, then it's part of the law of the universe, presumably.
Yes. But that's not in dispute.
If there is fully embodied life after death, that cannot be fully explained in terms of what we (yet) know about the physical world. Any more than we can understand in purely natural terms Jesus' resurrection.
If there is to be a general resurrection that would certainly involve God "breaking natural laws". And that's my point. If one chooses to believe in Jesus' physical resurrection and in the general bodily resurrection of the dead, then one is somehow committed to believing God can and does/will consistently transcend the natural laws of the universe as we understand them.
Yes but there's a caveat. Belief in a future resurrection is not a case of believing that God's simply just going to chuck out the rule book and be completely capricious. After all, if you did believe that God was completely capricious, how can you be sure of future resurrection? Seems to me that you can't be any more sure of future resurrection than you can be that rocks won't suddenly randomly appear out of the sky and squash you.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ship's Stowaway:
-- there is academic study of the efficacy of prayer for the sick, collections and analysis of near death experiences (NDE) spiritual narratives -- what people saw of the afterlife when in a state of clinical death from which they then returned, etc.
Thanks for mentioning those things. I'm not big, personally, on the efficacy of prayer studies, but I do think that the NDE studies are truly amazing. The studies are large and consistent, both cross-culturally and over time. They are credible evidence, in my opinion, of what a person can expect their subjective experience of death to be like - regardless of whether you think the reported results are due to the existence of an actual afterlife or just a physical phenomenon associated with a lack of oxygen.
quote:
Originally posted by Ship's Stowaway:
There are also -- just my opinion -- miracles that work with natural laws. For example --
I have a problem with natural-law explanations of biblical miracles.
While many of them are perfectly reasonable and possible, they don't really answer any question. If they suggest that there is really no such thing as divinely produced miracles, then all of the so-called miracles have to have natural explanations.
If even one miracle is accepted as a true divine miracle then why can't they all be divine miracles?
It also suggests that some of the miracles had physical explanations and therefore actually happened, and all the others are apocryphal.
It is certainly possible to say that some of the reported miracles were natural events and others were actually miracles, but what is the point of that? Alternatively, you could say that the natural events were also sent by God, so they are really all miracles.
In the end, though, you still need to decide whether supernatural events are actually possible or have ever really occured the way that the Bible reports them.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
In the end, though, you still need to decide whether supernatural events are actually possible or have ever really occured the way that the Bible reports them.
I've never liked the word "supernatural". If the spiritual is, in some sense, real - and I believe it is - then what is a supernatural event?
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
In the end, though, you still need to decide whether supernatural events are actually possible or have ever really occured the way that the Bible reports them.
I've never liked the word "supernatural". If the spiritual is, in some sense, real - and I believe it is - then what is a supernatural event?
I don't like the word "supernatural" either. But if you believe that both spiritual things and natural things are real then I don't see the problem. Spiritual things are normally invisible, so when a normally invisible angel, for example, appears it is miraculous.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
... if you believe that both spiritual things and natural things are real then I don't see the problem. Spiritual things are normally invisible, so when a normally invisible angel, for example, appears it is miraculous.
Arguably, there are ways of opening the doors of perception (if that's what seeing angels involves) that are non-miraculous.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
... if you believe that both spiritual things and natural things are real then I don't see the problem. Spiritual things are normally invisible, so when a normally invisible angel, for example, appears it is miraculous.
Arguably, there are ways of opening the doors of perception (if that's what seeing angels involves) that are non-miraculous.
I guess it depends on the definition of a miracle.
My understanding is that a miracle occurs when spiritual realities and processes are translated into this world into their corresponding forms.
That may not be the dictionary definition.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
My understanding is that a miracle occurs when spiritual realities and processes are translated into this world into their corresponding forms
That's interesting - how does that relate to ideas about the sacraments, particularly transubstantiation?
Posted by no_prophet (# 15560) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
I've never heard this way out of weak anthropicism. It is probably too strong for me to accept equality of blessings.
I think that it is a strong argument because equality of blessing is easy to accept on principle - if you believe in a good God. It is just hard to understand how it works. [/QB]
The understanding of how it works. That says a very great amount.
I frankly don't even when to start in that understanding. I do get God's presence on occasion (too infrequent for my desire, but I suspect the frequency/deficit is of my doing somehow). I accept the personal nature of God in people's lives as indicated by Jesus' actions, as best as we know of them from the inperfectly recalled stories The demo of this seems pretty clear, even the attendance on the welfare of the the other crucified men shows it.
Would the argument be that God does not bother intervening sometimes? Allows the obviously cruel behaviour of the world to just on its own way? I guess I'm asking versions of Job's questions.
I come to it with the several generations of family history where random deaths en mass from war seems to be of this, like the bombing run in 1944 which killed 3 of 5 families of my cousins in one quick go. Sure, we've picked it up, and the two families remaining are probably unusually close and deliberate about our relationships with eachother even though we don't completely speak the others' language and are a continent away. My point is that the outcome might have become okay or even good, but the thing that happened cannot be thought good just because of a 60 year later outcome. Like the old joke that lots of good music came out of ww2 though it was not primarily a musical.
For me, these issues are probably among the more pressing for people of faith to address. It is what the average person is concerned about.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
My understanding is that a miracle occurs when spiritual realities and processes are translated into this world into their corresponding forms
That's interesting - how does that relate to ideas about the sacraments, particularly transubstantiation?
I don't believe in transubstantiation, but if there were such a thing that would be how it worked.
The similar version of the same principle that I do believe in is that the ordinary bread and the ordinary wine involved in communion represent God's love and truth, which is also what is meant by His body and blood.
The bread and wine don't miraculously become anything different than what they are, but since they represent love and truth they make it so that the sincere worshiper actually receives God's presence, His love and His truth, when they take the sacrament. The spiritual reality isthe love and truth, and the external symbol is the bread and wine, and its reception.
It's not exactly a miracle, but there is something miraculous there.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
I've never heard this way out of weak anthropicism. It is probably too strong for me to accept equality of blessings.
I think that it is a strong argument because equality of blessing is easy to accept on principle - if you believe in a good God. It is just hard to understand how it works.
Would the argument be that God does not bother intervening sometimes? Allows the obviously cruel behaviour of the world to just on its own way? I guess I'm asking versions of Job's questions.
The argument is that God and His influence is constant because He loves everyone. He continually intervenes in exactly the same way, but that intervention is received differently depending on many factors.
The key is that whenever we talk about good or bad there is always a hierarchy of good and bad. Some goods are more important, and so lesser goods must be sacrificed in order to serve the more important good.
It is simply very important to have a stable, consistent world with constant physical laws. It is very important that humans as physical beings have physical needs and so there is self-interest as they compete for scarce resources in the physical world. It is very important that people be allowed to think and do as they wish, within limits.
All of these things are more important than preventing sickness, accidents, pain and death - at least in the short run.
So it's not that God does not bother intervening. It is that God sees the value of gravity, so He allows falling rocks to fall on whatever happens to be beneath. He sees the value of free choice, so He allows people to do what they want, even if it hurts other people.
Nothing that hurts people is good, but pain is permitted for the sake of a more important long term benefit.
quote:
Originally posted by no_prophet:
I come to it with the several generations of family history where random deaths en mass from war seems to be of this, like the bombing run in 1944 which killed 3 of 5 families of my cousins in one quick go....
My point is that the outcome might have become okay or even good, but the thing that happened cannot be thought good just because of a 60 year later outcome.
So terrible about your family history! I have similar things in my own family - a brother killed in the war, a grandfather and uncle dying on the same day in the flu epidemic when they were both young. These tragedies have long term effects.
These things are bad not good. Good can come out of any bad thing, but that doesn't make it good. But the bad thing is permitted by God because of the supreme importance of the things I mention above.
To get back to miracles, the miraculous solutions to trouble and hardship that are described in the Bible are simply representations of the spiritual solutions to humanity's troubles and ills.
The real solutions to all unhappiness are spiritual and have to do with love to the neighbor and love to God. If people can willingly come to accept and practice these solutions, then the world "miraculously" becomes a better place.
Posted by no_prophet (# 15560) on
:
I can intellectually understand your well ordered words and thoughts Freddy. It just feels nasty I guess.
I can accept the mystery of faith and that I'm not in any control. But the nastiness and wantonness of the destruction of people and the pain, just doesn't suggest an actively engaged God very much. And sometimes, insensitive. Like God has backed off, a lot.
If there is a question and answers time, and if there's a post life opportunity, I suspect I will be asking a fair number.
The deaths of apparently 17K in Japan all of a sudden is the same issue, writ large.
I generally proceed with the understanding that there are probably not miracles and we are simply supposed to be as best as able, followers and hopeful. With the alternative that God is more spectator than actively involved. I guess the debate might be the level of direct interest in terms of any action in the world, and anything beyond spiritual contact being pretty much a rarity or not happening.
Posted by Jessie Phillips (# 13048) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Ship's Stowaway:
-- there is academic study of the efficacy of prayer for the sick, collections and analysis of near death experiences (NDE) spiritual narratives -- what people saw of the afterlife when in a state of clinical death from which they then returned, etc.
Thanks for mentioning those things. I'm not big, personally, on the efficacy of prayer studies, but I do think that the NDE studies are truly amazing. The studies are large and consistent, both cross-culturally and over time. They are credible evidence, in my opinion, of what a person can expect their subjective experience of death to be like - regardless of whether you think the reported results are due to the existence of an actual afterlife or just a physical phenomenon associated with a lack of oxygen.
Thanks - but I think that the sensations experienced by the dying person isn't the only thing that counts. To my way of thinking, the fact that people put stones in the street, and carve names on them, and put flowers round them, and say "these people were great warrior heroes", counts for far far more than the subjective experience of the dying.
Indeed, the grief experienced by the immediate relatives counts for more; as does the development of fear of their own deaths. If you wanted to minimise that grief and fear, you could do a lot worse than dose the dying up with morphine so that they don't scream too much.
For that reason, the idea that the subjective experience of the dying can be thought of as "miraculous" is ludicrous; it strikes me as a way of trying to pretend that the death isn't actually happening, and ensuring that death remains a taboo topic that no-one talks about.
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
It is simply very important to have a stable, consistent world with constant physical laws. It is very important that humans as physical beings have physical needs and so there is self-interest as they compete for scarce resources in the physical world. It is very important that people be allowed to think and do as they wish, within limits.
All of these things are more important than preventing sickness, accidents, pain and death - at least in the short run.
So it's not that God does not bother intervening. It is that God sees the value of gravity, so He allows falling rocks to fall on whatever happens to be beneath. He sees the value of free choice, so He allows people to do what they want, even if it hurts other people.
Interesting argument, and one that I'm largely sympathetic to.
But only to a point. Because it sounds like you're saying that God actually prevents miracles sometimes, in order to ensure that people have confidence in the continuity of the natural scheme of things - or what you might call "God's laws" or "natural laws" or "laws of physics". A freak event that one person might call a "miracle" is something that potentially undermines another person's faith in the idea that there's any kind of law at all. Especially if it looks like the benefit of that "miracle" only went to some people, but not others.
And I think it's only a short step from there to arguing that God should not have allowed Jesus to rise from the dead - because, by raising Jesus from the dead, God has cleared the path for us to be tormented by zombies and vampires. Whoops.
[ 20. March 2011, 09:27: Message edited by: Jessie Phillips ]
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
Jane Phillips says: "but I think that the sensations experienced by the dying person isn't the only thing that counts. To my way of thinking, the fact that people put stones in the street, and carve names . . . .counts for far far more than the subjective experience of the dying."
Ship's Stowaway replies: We may be off-thread --"Non-literal interpretation of miracles" -- but as someone who has almost died several times, I think that the sensations experienced by the dying person, including any perceptions of NDEs or the miraculous -- and experiences that are exactly the opposite -- are the most important thing, if we are interested in understanding death and spirituality and the afterlife better. Who better to ask than the dying themselves?
Believe me, if you are on what may be your death bed, street stones, flowers and other peoples' posthumous opinions, though nice and much appreciated, are not the primary thing on one's mind.
Getting that next hit of oxygen is what is on one's mind. Plus dealing with spiritual messages, if you are receiving any, because the veil between the worlds thins at that point, hence the Near Death Experiences. I've had some myself.
Jane Phillips: "Indeed, the grief experienced by the immediate relatives counts for more; as does the development of fear of their own deaths."
Ship's Stowaway replies: I would respectfully disagree that the grief experienced by immediate relatives counts for more than the dying person's experiences.
As someone who nearly died twice, I can assure you that there are few things more burdensome than lying in a bed gasping for air, trying to survive, dealing with everything that dying involves, while your Nearest and Dearest want you to Take Care of Their Grief and Fears About Death.
I can remember returning to consciousness after surgery to meet the panic-stricken faces of the Nearest and Dearest and thinking: "Oh no, I've got to cheer them up! They're afraid I'm croaking!But I'm too tired and frightened to cheer them up!"
Being a good sport, I rallied to the flag, summoned a feeble smile, and uttered some consoling phrases, so that everyone calmed down and cheered up, but I couldn't help but feel that it should have been the other way around.
When I had an NDE experience a few days later, I hastened to share it -- as soon as I recovered a bit more -- with the Nearest and Dearest as a way of decreasing their anxiety and fear. They were relieved to hear it.
Jane Phillips: "If you wanted to minimise that grief and fear, you could do a lot worse than dose the dying up with morphine so that they don't scream too much."
Ship's Stowaway replies: I am 300 percent in favor of giving morphine to dying patients who are in pain -- for the sake of the patient.
But doing things to make the patient comfortable should be for the sake of the patient -- minimizing the grief and fear of the relatives should not be the primary objective --
Jane Phillips says: "For that reason, the idea that the subjective experience of the dying can be thought of as "miraculous" is ludicrous; it strikes me as a way of trying to pretend that the death isn't actually happening, and ensuring that death remains a taboo topic that no-one talks about."
Ship's Stowaway: Speaking as someone who almost died twice, I would suggest that any experiences and ideas we "almost died" folks bring back and ones reported by people who are dying, whether categorized as "miraculous," NDEs or reports of experiencing nothing of the kind -- these experiences should be listened to as part of ending the "taboo" status of death as a topic.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
Thank you for sharing that, SS. I agree completely. I have never talked to anyone who had that kind of experience and think that it really puts things in perspective.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
For that reason, the idea that the subjective experience of the dying can be thought of as "miraculous" is ludicrous; it strikes me as a way of trying to pretend that the death isn't actually happening, and ensuring that death remains a taboo topic that no-one talks about.
Yes, I wouldn't call the subjective experience of dying "miraculous" - although someone going through that process might disagree. Certainly the awakening into a new life in heaven - if that is what happens - can't be anything less than a miracle.
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
Because it sounds like you're saying that God actually prevents miracles sometimes, in order to ensure that people have confidence in the continuity of the natural scheme of things - or what you might call "God's laws" or "natural laws" or "laws of physics". A freak event that one person might call a "miracle" is something that potentially undermines another person's faith in the idea that there's any kind of law at all. Especially if it looks like the benefit of that "miracle" only went to some people, but not others.
I don't think that God prevents miracles. My point is that God never changes, that He is infinitely present and infinitely loving, that He loves and blesses everyone everywhere equally.
This doesn't mean that everyone ends up being equally blessed. All of the subjective and objective differences that we perceive are based on two things: - 1. Most importantly it depends on our free reception of God's love - that is our willingness to hear and obey Him.
- 2. Secondarily, in this life, tangible "blessings", or the lack of them, are dependent on the stable, consistent physical laws of the universe.
A miracle is when the received blessings inherent in "1." appear tangibly as "2." In that case the believer is healed, the bread falls from heaven on God's obedient people, the enemies of God's obedient people are destroyed, etc.
But the first set of blessings are the ones that are most important and most permanent. Worldly success, riches, beauty, comfort, etc. are consistently labelled in the Bible as being of secondary importance. This is why the Biblical miracles are always about "1." and only seem to be about "2." They consistently appear as value judgments, and are never random.
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
And I think it's only a short step from there to arguing that God should not have allowed Jesus to rise from the dead - because, by raising Jesus from the dead, God has cleared the path for us to be tormented by zombies and vampires. Whoops.
Ha-ha. Jesus is God Himself.
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
Dear Freddy and Jessie:
Jessie: I apologize for writing your name as "Jane" -- I was very tired when I typed my post addressing your interesting points.
Freddy: I am pleased that you found my NDE experiences of interest. As I have mentioned on a few threads, I had developed an interest in NDE experiences as an atheist/agnostic with a heavy science orientation, but being young and healthy I thought it unlikely that I would ever have any. I gradually started journeying back into faith partly because of this scientific interest.
Fast forward several years to the onset of middle age, and several ugly health incidents! Oops!
I know that many scientists regard NDEs as hallucinatory or the product of carbon dioxide increasing in the blood, etc., etc. -- there is a new suggested rationale every few years -- but --
If one is hallucinating, why is it necessarily a religious hallucination about the afterlife? It could just as easily be a nice trip to a vacation hotel or returning to one's job. But people with NDEs are not reporting secular visions.
Also, people who are not religious at all or leading actively non-religious lifestyles report having NDEs.
A famous case in point is militantly atheist Victorian novelist George Gissing, who had repeated NDE visions of what seemed to be Heaven during the last three weeks of his life. He also reported to his astounded wife and friends that he saw heavenly beings around him and had realized that we are surrounded by that other world in our daily lives but often do not 'see' it.
His friend, writer H.G. Wells, a super-militant atheist, attributed Gissing's visions to fever delirium and the fact that he was working on a historical novel about Rome and Christianity when he became ill.
But Gissing was such a committed atheist that I doubt even a high fever would have convinced him of Heaven's existence. He was a real "show me" type of guy.
So I think NDEs may be valid.
It is true that many people don't have NDEs in extreme medical situations. On the other hand, maybe that is just as well. They are not always warm and fluffy visions -- some people report very life assessments for misconduct. Others report visions of demons and hell.
Plus, many people report not wanting to leave Heaven, and asking to die. If everyone had NDEs, that could raise the emergency room casualty rate quite a lot!
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
Great points SS, although far from this thread's topic.
quote:
Originally posted by Ship's Stowaway:
A famous case in point is militantly atheist Victorian novelist George Gissing, who had repeated NDE visions of what seemed to be Heaven during the last three weeks of his life. He also reported to his astounded wife and friends that he saw heavenly beings around him and had realized that we are surrounded by that other world in our daily lives but often do not 'see' it.
I believe that is true. Certainly there is plenty of biblical evidence to support the idea.
Posted by Ship's Stowaway (# 16237) on
:
Dear Freddy:
I am pleased that you found my thoughts of interest! I agree that the Bible seems to have recorded a lot of NDE experiences.
However, you are correct that I am wandering off the topic's thread, so I will curb my enthusiasm for my tangent.
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