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(August 25, 2023 at 12:40 pm)HappySkeptic Wrote: Either miracles are rare, or they are common.
Either miracles break natural order, or are indistinguishable from natural events.
Rare + Breaks Nature: God's existence can't be often tested, but surely "big" events like the Holocaust would result in miracles, but none are seen.
Rare + Natural: Why imagine a God at all?
Common + Natural: How is God distingushable from nature?
Common + Breaks Nature: God's existence is verifiable, and would have been verified. God would be part of science. Magic would be real.
____________
Miracles are nonsense given the type of world we live in.
Thank you for the reply. Your analysis would be excellent on the classic understanding of miracle as an intervention from God from outside the natural world, but not with what I outlined. This is why I (in company of Borg, Wright and others) avoid the term 'miracle'.
God acts from within the natural order. Mostly you don't notice His action, occasionally you do. There is no natural/supernatural distinction. There are very surprising things that happen, things that signpost God, that imply a power at work. But these are nature aligning itself with God's purposes, pointing us to God, not magic tricks.
As such, they neither break the natural order, nor are indistinguishable from natural events. They are God's actions in the world, which are both common and rare.
An example. A close relative of mine had a recurring back condition which became excruciating after she got pregnant, which also meant the NHS couldn't do anything much to help. She went to a healing service at the church and the following day the pain was gone, and has stayed away.
Now granted, this could be psychosomatic or something 'normal'. But it doesn't matter if it was. We asked God for healing, and we got it.
As Temple said, “When I pray, coincidences happen; when I don’t, they don’t.”
If prayer is sooooo powerful then why don’t you all get together and pray to your god to stop starving 20k children each and every day?
Or how about praying to you god to stop giving the gift of painful cancer?
“We asked God for healing, and we got it. “
Don’t you think other believers pray to your godthing for relief for something more painful then a back ache with no relief?
(August 27, 2023 at 11:09 am)Vicki Q Wrote: An example. A close relative of mine had a recurring back condition which became excruciating after she got pregnant, which also meant the NHS couldn't do anything much to help. She went to a healing service at the church and the following day the pain was gone, and has stayed away.
She could have prayed to Mephistopheles and got the same result. It's ludicrous to use such an event as proof of some supernatural being. It ALL prayers were answered there wouldn't be a living human on this planet.
(August 25, 2023 at 12:40 pm)HappySkeptic Wrote: Either miracles are rare, or they are common.
Either miracles break natural order, or are indistinguishable from natural events.
Rare + Breaks Nature: God's existence can't be often tested, but surely "big" events like the Holocaust would result in miracles, but none are seen.
Rare + Natural: Why imagine a God at all?
Common + Natural: How is God distingushable from nature?
Common + Breaks Nature: God's existence is verifiable, and would have been verified. God would be part of science. Magic would be real.
____________
Miracles are nonsense given the type of world we live in.
Thank you for the reply. Your analysis would be excellent on the classic understanding of miracle as an intervention from God from outside the natural world, but not with what I outlined. This is why I (in company of Borg, Wright and others) avoid the term 'miracle'.
God acts from within the natural order. Mostly you don't notice His action, occasionally you do. There is no natural/supernatural distinction. There are very surprising things that happen, things that signpost God, that imply a power at work. But these are nature aligning itself with God's purposes, pointing us to God, not magic tricks.
As such, they neither break the natural order, nor are indistinguishable from natural events. They are God's actions in the world, which are both common and rare.
An example. A close relative of mine had a recurring back condition which became excruciating after she got pregnant, which also meant the NHS couldn't do anything much to help. She went to a healing service at the church and the following day the pain was gone, and has stayed away.
Now granted, this could be psychosomatic or something 'normal'. But it doesn't matter if it was. We asked God for healing, and we got it.
As Temple said, “When I pray, coincidences happen; when I don’t, they don’t.”
Yeah, this feels really incoherent. Like cognitive dissonance. "It's indistinguishable from natural events but when I pray for stuff, I get it." You need to better define your terms. I'm not entirely certain what your purpose or desire is when defining god's will as coincidence. I mean, I'd agree, but I don't know why you're in here saying it.
I agree with what someone else said. You sound like a deist.
(August 25, 2023 at 12:40 pm)HappySkeptic Wrote: Either miracles are rare, or they are common.
Either miracles break natural order, or are indistinguishable from natural events.
Rare + Breaks Nature: God's existence can't be often tested, but surely "big" events like the Holocaust would result in miracles, but none are seen.
Rare + Natural: Why imagine a God at all?
Common + Natural: How is God distingushable from nature?
Common + Breaks Nature: God's existence is verifiable, and would have been verified. God would be part of science. Magic would be real.
____________
Miracles are nonsense given the type of world we live in.
Thank you for the reply. Your analysis would be excellent on the classic understanding of miracle as an intervention from God from outside the natural world, but not with what I outlined. This is why I (in company of Borg, Wright and others) avoid the term 'miracle'.
God acts from within the natural order. Mostly you don't notice His action, occasionally you do. There is no natural/supernatural distinction. There are very surprising things that happen, things that signpost God, that imply a power at work. But these are nature aligning itself with God's purposes, pointing us to God, not magic tricks.
As such, they neither break the natural order, nor are indistinguishable from natural events. They are God's actions in the world, which are both common and rare.
An example. A close relative of mine had a recurring back condition which became excruciating after she got pregnant, which also meant the NHS couldn't do anything much to help. She went to a healing service at the church and the following day the pain was gone, and has stayed away.
Now granted, this could be psychosomatic or something 'normal'. But it doesn't matter if it was. We asked God for healing, and we got it.
As Temple said, “When I pray, coincidences happen; when I don’t, they don’t.”
(August 27, 2023 at 11:09 am)Vicki Q Wrote: God acts from within the natural order. Mostly you don't notice His action, occasionally you do.
Perhaps you think this makes sense, but it really doesn't.
If God does miracles according to prayer, then such things would be testable. We would have proof of God as a verifiable scientific phenomenon.
Perhaps you would benefit from science training. The "natural order" means that a model can predict (either deterministically or statistically) how the state of a system will change with time. If a model can predict what will happen, there is no room for God.
There are only two "outs" that I can think of:
1) to a Deist, God designed the natural order in such a way that we exist, and that both good and bad things can occur (though we have agency to find the good things).
2) to a Christian madly trying to justify prayer: God works at the subtle quantum-mechanical level, skewing the "dice rolls" to help believers, but is very careful to never be caught being "tested".
The first is just a reverence for existence, and is not a type of God worth prayer to. The second is just self-delusion, IMO, that God is subtly playing with nature in a way that He isn't caught.
Obv not a scholar here but Brewer's point is sparking some neurons.
The OT god is a petulant jerk. It effs with people from the start. It demands sacrifices, murders humanity, sends plagues, screws with poor Job to win a bet with Satan...
Then the NT appears to try to cleanse all of that stuff, replacing the jerk-god with the love-god who is still the jerk-god but with more personalities.
(August 28, 2023 at 10:09 am)HappySkeptic Wrote: Perhaps you would benefit from science training. The "natural order" means that a model can predict (either deterministically or statistically) how the state of a system will change with time. If a model can predict what will happen, there is no room for God.
I don't see what you're saying here. Perhaps you could clarify?
Quote:Perhaps you think this makes sense, but it really doesn't.
If God does miracles according to prayer, then such things would be testable. We would have proof of God as a verifiable scientific phenomenon.
Perhaps you would benefit from science training. The "natural order" means that a model can predict (either deterministically or statistically) how the state of a system will change with time. If a model can predict what will happen, there is no room for God.
There are only two "outs" that I can think of:
1) to a Deist, God designed the natural order in such a way that we exist, and that both good and bad things can occur (though we have agency to find the good things).
2) to a Christian madly trying to justify prayer: God works at the subtle quantum-mechanical level, skewing the "dice rolls" to help believers, but is very careful to never be caught being "tested".
The first is just a reverence for existence, and is not a type of God worth prayer to. The second is just self-delusion, IMO, that God is subtly playing with nature in a way that He isn't caught.
Again, the M word...
I am using the model for paradoxa, dunameis and thaumasia as used in the NT ('signs' etc). Hopefully this will clarify things a little:
The NT makes it pretty clear that God will not do signs on request to generate faith (e.g. Matt 12:38-40).
Also, the Kingdom of God, promised in the OT and the process for rolling it out described in the NT, is the locus where the problem of evil gets sorted out. It is where nature is truly itself, where this rather unpleasant invasion is removed.
Where God acts in response to prayer, it is to push the boundaries of His Kingdom. As such, He is acting within natural processes, not from outside them, and He can use many methods to do it, which can be ordinary or powerful evidence of His activity.
Why it doesn't happen all the time is known as the problem of evil, but this will end.
So it is entirely consistent that He would avoid being caught, as you put it, but that things would happen which enable nature to align itself with God's plan, which also happen at times to be strong signposts to His reality.
