Jesus and Miracles

[FallentoReason]

...do you literally mean that a supernatural event could be explained such that there's no violation of nature, and thus there's a naturalistic explanation *of a supernatural event*?

I cannot speak for Fr0d0, but I can see that many miraculous events could be both natural and providential. For example, God times the opening of a sinkhole with Joshua blowing a horn. Or a shower of meteorites strike Sodom and light the town on fire, etc.

Did the "timing" of the sinkhole have anything to do with underground pressures shifting so as to form a sinkhole just like any other sinkhole in the world? Were the meteorites an unlucky coincidence of collisions in outer space which led to those meteorites having a velocity vector such that in t hours/years/decades they were going to bombard that particular strip of earth?

Where along the line of causal relations does the next natural event N happen as a consequence of supernatural event S i.e. where along the line does God stick his hand into the universe? Since you and I believe *every* event to be naturally explainable (as far as I'm concerned) then it means the answer to the above must be "God interfered *indirectly* when he set the universe in motion". If we're still on the same page, then doesn't that mean that certain people such as the examples you gave were deterministically doomed?

If you were to say that God made it rain today, would that be synonymous with saying that meteorologists have noticed over the last 48 hours that a storm was brewing and the chances of rain were extremely high today?

Sure. Why not. The universe behaves in a certain way. Modern science began as a means for understanding how God governs the universe through the natural world.

So is this also the stuff of miracles? If so, then I finally understand what.. well.. what you personally mean Chad by a "miracle". Then I would have to agree (with what fr0d0 originally said in another thread) that it's a matter of faith to believe that a natural process is the "cause" of a supernatural entity. I say "cause" with 66 and 99 because the event is a *closed* event governed directly by how the universe works, as understood by science. But of course we're supposing that God created this universe which means that in a deterministic sort of way, God's responsible. Either way, I don't think this is a sensible application of faith. I don't see any reason to think that a particular "miracle" of nature is the doing of a supernatural agent any more than you think it's the doing of Allah.

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I take it your answer is then A, which would be the more plausible out of the two.

Then again, you might believe in the traditional miracle where the supernatural violates nature.

I asked a simple question to find out what grounds we can argue on so I could make a choice to debate, that's all, and what happens the same old childish nonsense.

GC

My apologies for giving a serious answer before...?

I'm leaving it up to you. I want to hear your account of what a miracle is and how exactly it plays out in reality.