Tusko writes:
you are quite right about this. However, It's pretty safe to say that whether we correctly ascribe apparently miraculous events to an omnipotent deity or not, if God wants miracles to be correctly interpreted and taken seriously, then he has the power to 'make it so'. After all, he's done it before.
See, we are now wandering into the realm of what god wants, and this is always an iffy subject. IFF there is a god and IFF he is omnipotent and omniscient, he could do whatever the heck he pleases. We can't really question why hasn't god done this or why hasn't god done that.
Here is a real life example. My wife just asked me if I am going to water the garden, and I told her "no". Well, why not? My wife couldn't care less because after all it's my garden and not hers. Hers is on the other side of the yard. So, right now to her I don't have any particular reason why I'm not going to water it today. My reason is that I'm pretty sure we're going to get at least a light shower sometime tonight.
Now, try to imagine it on a grander scale. God hasn't performed any major miracle, like raining down brimstone and fire onto the city of LA, but who's to say why he hasn't done it?
If you look at it from the point of view of someone who believes that the biblical miracles actually took place, then you have to find an explanation for why they got some, and none of the subsequent people really got anything impressive at all. You basically have to come to the conclusion that for whatever reason, God hasn't thought it appropriate to reveal himself to later populations in the way that he was doing circa 20 AD.
I don't have any answer, but I do have a hypothesis. Perhaps the people long ago needed something more than faith to go on. After all, they were persecuted constantly. I guess god thought that they needed some kind of a nudge to keep them going. But look at today. There are more christians than there are rabbits. Perhaps god sees no need to give them a nudge to keep going?
My initial reaction to this is - isn't that preferential treatment for a bunch of first-century sandal-wearers? My second reaction is - if faith without evidence is really such a virtue, then why was God allowing 'offical', 'authorised' honest-to-Himself miracles to happen in front of anyone?
This is like asking why I watered the garden yesterday but am not going to today? I have free will. God has free will. I have proposed this before, and I'm going to propose it again. What if god really has the mentality of a child... in the great scheme of things at least? Do we honestly expect too much consistency in the actions of a child?
We are BOG. Resistance is voltage over current.
Disclaimer:
Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.
He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!
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