The power of Christ...

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Thanks for the reply

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?

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.

If God answers prayers to ‘push the boundaries of His Kingdom’, how does that differ from doing so to generate faith?

Boru

[Bucky Ball]

As anyone who ever took Bible 101 knows, a "miracle" is something which is a completely natural event, in which a believer sees "the hand of their god working", and a non-believer sees no such action, and which can be explained by natural forces. A "miracle" is THE LAST possibly probable explanation, AFTER all other explanations are ruled out.

[Fake Messiah]

As anyone who ever took Bible 101 knows, a "miracle" is something which is a completely natural event, in which a believer sees "the hand of their god working", and a non-believer sees no such action, and which can be explained by natural forces. A "miracle" is THE LAST possibly probable explanation, AFTER all other explanations are ruled out.

Is this sarcasm? Who would explain a talking donkey or thousands of dead people rising from the grave with natural forces?

[Bucky Ball]

As anyone who ever took Bible 101 knows, a "miracle" is something which is a completely natural event, in which a believer sees "the hand of their god working", and a non-believer sees no such action, and which can be explained by natural forces. A "miracle" is THE LAST possibly probable explanation, AFTER all other explanations are ruled out.

Is this sarcasm? Who would explain a talking donkey or thousands of dead people rising from the grave with natural forces?

Not really sarcasm. 
They don't pass the smell test for a "natural event". "No such action" are events that are dismissed "out of hand". 
No rational person buys into talking donkeys and no one has ever risen from the dead. 
But on the other hand, believers buy into all sorts of crazy shit.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Boru

[FrustratedFool]

Believing in miracles and prayer and stuff was (in itself, taking away all other religious ideas), at first, comforting and exciting.

Sadly, as these promises kept failing to materialise in reality, the more the belief became a source of frustration (why not me?) or guilt (why doe God hate me?) or confusion (if He knows what I need why pray anyway? Why did Bob say God answered his trivial prayer about a new job, but Mary's kid hasn't been cured of cancer?)

Belief in miracles is only cool if they do in fact happen to you. And, of course, they don't happen.

[zwanzig]

Believing in miracles and prayer and stuff was (in itself, taking away all other religious ideas), at first, comforting and exciting.

Sadly, as these promises kept failing to materialise in reality, the more the belief became a source of frustration (why not me?) or guilt (why doe God hate me?) or confusion (if He knows what I need why pray anyway? Why did Bob say God answered his trivial prayer about a new job, but Mary's kid hasn't been cured of cancer?)

Belief in miracles is only cool if they do in fact happen to you. And, of course, they don't happen.

Very good thoughts and questions.

That whole confirmation bias, yeah? Where believers see significance because they're only counting the hits and justifying the misses. You never lose with the thumb on the scale that way!

[FrustratedFool]

It's quite tragic, really.

Many people want to believe in magic, they want their irrevocable problems to be fixable and fixed. And religion makes all kinds of outrageous promises.

It's painful to go through that. It's hard enough to have problems to begin with. To then be given false hope and slowly have it dawn on you that you've been sold a pup, and often be told its your fault in some way when their promises don't come true, is abusive.

[LinuxGal]

The NT makes it pretty clear that God will not do signs on request to generate faith (e.g. Matt 12:38-40).

Mark 16:17-18 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will be made well.

[Vicki Q]

That whole confirmation bias, yeah? Where believers see significance because they're only counting the hits and justifying the misses. You never lose with the thumb on the scale that way!

We seem to have moved on from God acting within nature, than from outside it, which is a good thing because so many corpses of straw men were strewn around the discussion that it was starting to look like an agricultural version of the Somme.

The key thing Jesus did with all that cross stuff is inaugurate the Kingdom of God. At some point, there will be no pain, no death, no delivery drivers lobbing parcels over the fence, no experimental jazz.
Unexpected signs are events where things that will be normal in this new world are starting to happen now. The new creation breaking through. Not radical abnormailities within the old creation, but normal service being resumed from the new.

Even allowing for confirmation bias, it's been my experience that prayer actually works. Not all the time (even Paul had fails 2 Cor 12:6-10), but more than enough to tie up my scepticism.