(May 5, 2015 at 2:50 pm)alpha male Wrote: Here's the problem with miracles.
Suppose you see an amputee's limb grow back, and you believe. What's special about you? Shouldn't all people in all times have the same opportunity as you? So, all people would need to see a limb grow back.
But, if limbs have been growing back as far back as anyone remembers, and are still growing back now...there's nothing miraculous about limbs growing back. People would just label it as spontaneous regrowth.
You could say that it doesn't have to be a limb growing back each time. It could be different signs for different people. But imagine such a world - nothing could be miraculous, as there wouldn't be supposedly inviolable physical laws to begin with.
Miraculous signs must necessarily be seen by few and communicated by mundane means to the masses.
Good point, as always. I think that's roughly what CS Lewis said in the book Miracles.
But it doesn't change the fact that I'm just wired to doubt anything I don't see with my own eyes. I really can't help that.
If it has to be communicated to me I will always doubt it. A case in point, a Christian friend of mine who's been a friend of the family all my life, told me a story about her son - who's a missionary - he was living in some sort of commune. They needed petrol for their car and the story goes that the tank miraculously filled up including the gauge going up before his very eyes. Now the thing is I trust her and I trust her son, because I've grown up with them and I care about them very much. I know they're not lying to me in their own eyes, but I still don't believe it. There's something wrong somewhere but I don't know what and don't feel the need to know what either.
