The Tension of Faith

I reject the idea of fog in the case of the miracles of Jesus, as I already explained.I'm so beyond doubting the clear testimony of scripture I just can't understand how anyone manages to deny it. You have to imagine people being amazingly stupid or evil to think such a thing. Pretty simple people too, not the Machiavellian geniuses they'd have to be.It's actually funny to think you believe the miracles of Jesus were not electrifying enough to make an impact on history, when Christianity grew to dominate the western world for two thousand years, fully embracing all the miracles as reason for us to believe in His salvation as John intended. Paul of course was a major agent in its spread but all Paul did was teach Christ anyway. Christianity does not worship Paul no matter how hard people try to make him the leader of the religion. Oh and Paul could be credited with one miracle, shaking the viper off his hand into the fire though it normally would have killed a man.Just stories about witnesses?. Oh my aching head. Again you have to imagine people evil enough to invent witnesses to invented miracles and able to succeed with such a subterfuge in transforming the western world from paganism to Christianity. And agreeing enough with each other to avoid major conflicts. The world does not work that way. What reason would they have to invent a new religion anyway? And why pick Jesus who failed to save them from the Romans which so many had expected the Messiah to do? And was so critical of the Jewish establishment? Why not one of the other wannabe Messiahs who showed up around that time? Oh and they had to invent such interesting characters as John the Baptist and Simeon and Anna who prayed constantly in the temple and so on. All you guys who think you know what reality is come up with the weirdest fictions. How pathetic.Yes I have faith that the gospels passed the tests, but as I've said, I could not possibly have faith in anything that didn't pass such tests. Sheesh. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

As you just pointed out, I DIDN'T say He changed the meaning of the commandments, He revealed their true spiritual depths.

I knew Paul had done miracles but couldn't remember specifics. So I found this reference:Paul heals a cripple Lystra Acts 14:8-10
Paul casts out a spirit of divination Philippi 16:16-18
Paul and Silas's prison doors opened by an earthquake Philippi 16:25, 26
Paul communicates the Holy Spirit Corinth 19:1-6
Paul heals multitudes Corinth 19:11, 12
Paul restores Eutychus to life Troas 20:9-12
Paul shakes off a viper Malta 28:3-6
Paul heals the father of Publius and others Malta 28:7-9

While I may very well choose not to reply to posts I think are stupid, that isn't my reason at the moment. I moved to a new location at the beginning of this month and have not been able to get some things set up, such as my computer. So I've written whatever I've managed to write in that time on public computers in my new apartment building. But I don't spend more than a couple hours at a time here.Mod is doing an impressive job of explaining my point of view I must say. He's right that Jesus did not change the commandments but, as I said, showed that they are far deeper than had earlier been understood. The Jews stuck to an interpretation of the commandments as mostly external and God allowed that, but now Jesus, God Himself in the flesh, is revealing many things the Jews did not fully understand, such as the actual spiritual depths of the Mosaic Law. Jesus also now revealed that God had been lenient to the Jews in their standards for divorce, since they were inclined to divorce a woman for the equivalent of burning the toast, but when Jesus came He showed that God abhors divorce for any reason at all.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'd love to think Mod is a convert but unfortunately it's pretty clear he's not; he's just a clearheaded thinker. That alone is remarkable at EvC however.Well, you are making up your own view of all this, but against you we have two millennia of theological commentary on my side. Lust in the heart is adultery and jesus is God so He can say so."External" sin or obedience refers to outward behavior, spiritual or internal sin or obedience refers to the disposition of the heart. I said "mostly" because the tenth commandment against coveting is clearly internal by its nature and the Jews weren't entirely committed to mere behavioral obedience.abe: Loving the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength is also primarily internal. All the comandments have outward expression as well of course..Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oh how I hope we get to see the expressions on some people's faces at the Judgment Seat when the truth finally slaps them upside the head.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You are pointing out things that in your curmudgeonly imagination are likely to happen; in other words you are making it all up.

It's hard enough having a discussion of views within one theological system but now you are creating the debate not just within Christian orthodoxy or even different Christian systems but between Christianity and Judaism. Christian orthodoxy doesn't recognize Judaism. The Old Testament is all about God's plan of redemption through the promised Messiah. Now that He's come many things are understood differently. But also, the Jews never did get it right anyway as the New Testament clearly shows in Jesus' conflicts with the Pharisees, so they aren't getting it right now either. You are wrong about the meaning of the commandment against adultery and the deeper meannig was in force in the OT as well as the NT, because Jesus is God who inspired all that too. Jesus is the God of both Old and new Testaments so of course the commandments always had the broader and deeper meaning He reveals in the NT. Giod unfolded His revelation in stages because people couldn't absorb it all at once. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

First one could point out that there has never been an eyewitness account of Santa Claus (except obviously fictional ones of course: "the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave a lustre of midday to objects below..."). Next one would point out all the references to Santa Claus as fiction, the story's origin in a legend for instance, the embellishments that can be traced to various cultural sources. There is evidence for all these things I believe. It shouldn't be terribly hard.But the miracles of the Bible are reported by very serious witnesses. John's very statement that he wrote what he did as evidence so that people might believe is very strong evidence in itself, something nobody would ever say who was not being honest, yet you deny it based on your own personal prejudice against the possibility of miracles and absolutely nothing else, and by making John out to be a liar or a writer of fiction. I'll refrain from describing the kind of mind that would make up such stuff.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Unfortunately that isn't true at all. You have many times said that you don't believe John's evidence simply because you know miracles can't happen, since they violate the laws of physics. John's statement that he wrote down descriptions of miraculous acts of Christ in order to give good reason for people to believe in salvation through Him, is the kind of thing only an honest real person wouild say, and the evidence he gave is more than sufficient for belief, and yet you don't believe it, because your belief is not based on evidence but on personal prejudice.

Yeh yeh yeh but we know Santa Claus exists as a fiction at least and there is lots of evidence for various versions of such a character in Europe down the centuries. There is plenty of evidence for the endurance of this character in various cultural contexts. Yes this fiction may have been based originally on the fourth century Greek Bishop Nicholas but that;s the extent of any correspondence with reality. In any case we're not proving a nonexistence, we're proving the existence of an enduring fiction, in many guises in such a way as to clearly distinguish it from the Gospel of John's reports of miracles. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You have to give up this ridiculous absurdity. You are saying that you would never believe anything anyone told you about what they claim to have witnessed or experienced that you yourself haven't experienced, or what they were told about what others have seen or experienced. If that were true you'd be reduced to the level of brain-dead. Most of what you think you know came to you through people telling you about it. Probably 99.9999%A of what you think you know about science came this way, and some of it can sound pretty impossible at first too. Most of our knowledge of anything comes from secondary sources. This is what formal education gives us, hardly any direct experience, all knowledge from books. This is why John IS giving us evidence, and why your dismissal of it is just pulling the rug out from under yourself and making it impossible for you ever to know if miracles are real.In other words, in reality you have just about NO evidence of the direct sort you think you need to believe in the reality of something. YOU are defining John's descriptions as "impossible," but the whole point of his presenting descriptions is to show that they aren't impossible, that they characterize the ministry of Jesus Christ. That way you define out any possibility of ever learning anything you've never personally experienced, but if you did that with everything you think you know you would, as I said, be as good as brain dead.Yes you consider miracles to be impossible, but again that is just a personal prejudice that makes it utterly impossible for you ever to find out whether they are possible or not. One-time historical events perfomed with the purpose of validating Christ's claim to deity are not going to be repeated, so you've cut yourself off from the knowledge so many of us have who recognize John as honest and his revelations therefore true.Calling them "stories" is nothing but arrogant prejudice based on your own personal bias, Percy. You are free to disbelieve it all, but as objective argument you have no leg to stand on, it's just your own imagination dictating something you are not in a position to know. And at the cost of distorting our normal judgments of people's honesty too.Amazing but I guess this is one of the ways God keeps some people away from His revelation, in just another example of how Pascal was right about the Bible's being open to some but closed to others.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Could you please describe how a miracle could ever be evidenced in a scientific way or "real world" way? Because I don't think it's possible. I think miracles can only be known by testimony of witnesses, except of course to the witnesses themselves. Meaning: If written testimony isn't acceptable evidence of miracles nobody could ever believe in a miracle even if there are many real miracles.

People saw Lazarus alive, then saw him dead, saw him wrapped for burial and buried, smelled him when he started to stink, saw Jesus come and command him to get up, saw him walk out of the tombwhen Jesus raised him.People saw the water pots at the wedding, saw them filled with water, saw Jesus cause one to change to wine, saw the wine immediately after they saw the water and Jesus turning it to wine.there were thousands of hungry people listening to Jesus. A few loaves of bread and a few fish were all anybody had to feed them. All the people saw thousands of loaves and fishes being passed to the people when Jesus commanded it.People saw dead people and then saw them raised to life by Jesus.People saw very sick people and saw them cured by Jesus.People knew a certain man had been blind from birth, and then saw that man able to see after jesus cured him.People knew a certain man had beenlame from birth, and then saw that man able to walk after jesus cured him.All the Israelites saw the pillars of cloud by day and fire by night.All the Israelites and a bunch of Egyptians too saw the Red Sea separate and expose dry land that the people walked on completely across the sea.\There were people watching when Elisha poured water all over the meat sacrifice and the altar and prayed God, who them sent fire down from heaven to consume it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm not sure I believe in healing miracles today. I believe they could occur but I don't believe God has any reason to grant them. However, if they did occur, as long as you have that caution in your statement about how organic illnesses may spontaneously reverse we couldn't have the kind of evidence that would prove there was a miracle to your satisfaction. I don't know why but amputated limbs are never claimed to be healed.Paranormal abilities aren't miracles, properly speaking, and my impression is they are not predictable enough to be tested.The problem with Biblical prophecy is that it IS vague, but also even when it's completely clear, such as in the Book of Daniel, even though it makes a logical mess of the text, and makes Daniel out to be a liar Metzger could just claim the prophecy was made after the event.These aren't really relevant examples in context anyway. The question is about the kind of miracles Jesus did where you wouldn't have medical records, and wehre any written attestation is easily dismissed as everybody has been doing on this thread. The question is how there could aver be acceptable evidence of that sort of miralce, for Percy or you or whoever. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.