Miracles and their Effect of Faith

If God is like Monet (and they certainly both have big beards), then the Lord appears to be in the equivalent of a water-lilly phase at the moment i.e. you really have to squint to make out his miracles amongst the murk.It seems strange to me that he used to be really enthsiastic about doing miracles. You couldn't stop him, like a boring person at a party. When Jesus was kicking around, he'd make the lame walk, the blind see, and the tone-deaf play the ukelele. Now? Nada.My question to believer and non-believer alike is this: why has he gone so... subtle?Now, you might argue that this is all about faith, and that if we are made to believe through our eyes etc... then that totally goes against what it is that God is trying to achieve by making people have faith. Fine. But, if this is the case why did he ever do miracles at all?A few things come from this. For instance - were all those people who where converted to Christianity by seeing a loaf and a carp feed thousands of people (and if I'd seen it, I probably would have been converted too, credulous type that I am) somehow denied 'proper' faith like subsequent generations of Christians have enjoyed? After all, their belief was only born from the evidence of their own eyes, not from some purer, deeper, less tangible faith.I guess this topic could lean over into the actual desirability of faith as we understand it. I'm easy really, as long as people can help me to address this problem. Although I've couched it in slightly facetious terms, its a serious question.Any takers? I don't really mind where it goes, but would Faith and Belief be appropriate?Clearly, this topic assumes that God exists, and that the contents of the Old and New Testement are totally kosher, so to speak, so its going to be more rewarding if we just take these things for granted.

You're completely right; they only seem to happen in a big and impressive way when there's a major prophet strutting around. Yes, there is a necessity for saints to do miracles (I think) to get the nod, but if you want seas cleft in twain or mountains moved, then someone like Jesus or Moses or someone has to be around.I guess my question was prompted by the feeling that there is some kind of double-standard being applied by some modern religious types. On the one hand they say that God's performance of miracles to gain worshipers would today be somehow unseemly. I briefly ran through an argument that might concievably be made by a theist who thought this in the OP. Yet on the other hand - at least for those who believe the miracles reported in the gospels actually happened - they think it was pretty cool for the Lord to go drumming up support among the 'grass roots' with gratuitous displays of miracleworking.So why is this? Was the middle-east two thousand years ago an inherently more cynical time, which required a heavier hand than today's folk need?One obvious alternative, and the one I subscribe to is that the gospel writers were telling porkies or had porkies told to them and these miraculous things didn't actually happen.Edited by Tusko, : No reason given.Edited by Tusko, : No reason given.

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.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.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? Finally - did this exposure to certifiable miracles (in the eyes of a believer) compromise the faith that the very founders of the faith might have had?Just a thought!Edited by Tusko, : No reason given.Edited by Tusko, : After all, he's done it before.

Yes, perhaps I have mischaracterised the gospels somewhat. I agree about the relationships being of greatest significance. However, I think in relative terms what I says might still stand: Jesus was doing a lot more miracles than anyone I've ever met, or even heard existed for two thousand years (assuming I'm a Christian who believes the miracles happened).I'm glad you brought up Thomas yourself, because that's actually a really interesting example. As with all the other miracles described in the text, its at least second-hand. We obviously have to take his word for it. But Thomas, and a few of his associates if they wanted to, got the chance to actually stick their hands in the wounds, and see that a dead man was alive again. Fantastic. But doesn't there seems to be a fundamental difference here between the spiritual 'servicing' Thomas got from his deity, and the resultant faith that Thomas and his friends experienced (for the purposes of this thread we must assume the biblical Thomas actually existed, and was to all intents and purposes one of the first 'Christians') and the servicing and faith that all subsequent generations have experienced?Speaking as a non-Christian, if I got the chance to experience miracles of a sufficiently impressive magnitude, then I'd probably believe. To ask for proof is unreasonable, according to scripture, but is it unreasonable for the subsequent generations to expect to freely recieve the 'witness' that the first lot had?Why did the rules change?

It's what God wants it to be. I'm assuming for the purposes of this thread that a Christian who believes the usual kind of things and thinks that the miracles in the bible actually happened, as they were discribed, is correctly interpreting the gospel accounts - in the sense that they were true as written and true as understood by folks today. For the purposes of this thread I'm thinking about miracles from a particular angle: as God's supernatural interventions that bring forth or to galvanise belief in said deity.From what I've heard of the apparently terrible "Left Behind" books, I actually find their peculiar brand of millenial angst comforting. When all the chosen ones get raptured, then I for one, like the book's hero (I think), am going to start praying very long and very sincerely. I will have been given some pretty impressive miraculous evidence that the evangelical, catastrophist Christianity as favoured in many parts of the States is perhaps actually true. But until I see this, and because I wasn't around in the early first century to see some other cool miracles, then I'm not really in much of a position to believe. I don't think it's necessary, but assuming that God exists and can do them, its very significant when he chooses to make known that he has done a miracle. Lets call these parting of the seas, feeding the however many, and walking on water miracles 'loud' miracles for the purposes of this thread. God's not ashamed of those. He approved their inclusion in the official biography of his prophets, and today I as a God-fearing Christian I read about them and I'm impressed.So the question is - if you do happen to be someone who believes that these miracles happened in the first century CE, what kind of rationalisations can you offer to explain why these kind of flashy, faith-provoking miracles aren't happening any more. Well, I guess that's how it looks to me too, although I'm hoping that someone can at least make me reassess my thoughts on this issue.This disjunction (between 1)the explanation for why miracles don't happen now and 2)the fact that loads happen in the bible and we're meant to be impressed) is probably the central question of this thread for me.

I was thinking of 'Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the proof.' (Matthew 4:7 according to google). Perhaps that isn't relevant to the discussion?I agree that the gospel miracles are prosaic in the way that I think that Marvel superheroes are prosaic. However, if my eternal soul is at stake, and if Thomas was made to believe only on first-hand miraculous evidence, I somehow feel short-changed as a non-believer to not get the same customer service that the doubter enjoyed.Also. If I, as a fervent 20th century Christian (who believes that miracles happened as described in the bible), think that it would be a bit tacky for God to perform some really kick-arse miracle today, (like making the sky a new colour or whispering in everybody's ear in a new language that we can all understand that Christianity is the one true faith) because that would stop it being an issue of faith any more - why don't I feel similarly that the biblical miracles were similarly tacky, showy or misguided?(sorry - offically the worst constructed sentence of all time)

I think Jar's example of Thomas the Doubter is very aposite. Tom is a fairly sensible chap who thought that the idea of Jesus' resurrection was a load of old codswallop. But this doubt wasn't treated with the indifference that subsequent generations have had to deal with. Instead he was given pretty intimate, conclusive evidence of the miracle(in the terms of the day, anyway). To me this seems pretty unfair, because no-one get's that kind of service these days. Clearly, however, it doesn't bother modern Christians much because they're still Christian. I was wondering how they squared that particular circle.By the way: what do you think miracles are for if they aren't to impress (and implicitly effect belief)? Disregard the miracles as allegory for a moment, because to me these extra layers have been added by miracle starved later generations. If you believe they actually happened then you can't escape the fact that they would have impressed the hell out of a load of people at the time, and God being a canny fellow would have known this.Imagine the reality of the situation, which I imagine you do if you believe the gospel accounts bear any resemblance to the truth. If you were a first century peasant who saw someone doing things that were, in your pretty limited terms of reference, totally incredible and miraculous, then you would be impressed. You might also think that the bloke who was doing these miraculous things should probably be listened to. You would have been swayed by (in your terms) the rock solid evidence of your eyes and ears. People who were affected in this way - and I assume if you are a Christian who believes the accounts, you believe there were at least some - came to the Christian faith in a very different way from anyone else since. Now. As a modern Christian, do you consider the people who were converted in this way lesser because they came to their faith through empirical evidence rather than faith without evidence?That seems weird to me.However, maybe you're right and maybe God didn't intend his miracles to impress anyone. If God didn't arrange the biblical miracles to impress then I guess this thread is actually a waste of your time and mine. Whoops!Moving swiftly on, I agree that it would probably be best if he did show up once in a while to allow us to bask in His glory - it would save a lot of fretting. We probably have to look at the miracles from the perspective of the times in which they occurred. So although I think the technical miracle of being able to watch Doogie Howser, M.D. whenever I want on DVD is in many ways cooler than turning water into wine, it wouldn't have impressed a first century person terribly much to give them a Doogie Howser DVD. They would have no frame of reference or understanding of the technology involved and how cool it is. (But they might have used it as a nice mirror.) I think God is canny and tailors his miracles to the audience. If he were to do any today, they'd have to be a lot more impressive. For the purpose of this thread, I'm not interested in the rational. I want to try to understand how people justify this apparent (to me anyway) disjunction. I have already suggested one - which you described as laziness. I'm inclined to agree, but it facinates me nonetheless. I want to have an answer to the obvious next question - "If it's tacky to do miracles to impress people - how do you feel about the ones in the bible - which if they actually happened would almost certainly have impressed people?"

So just to get this straight, you are saying that there isn't necessarily any tension between someone today believing God doesn't do miracles now because it prevents people making the free choice to believe on the one hand and on the other the fact that Jebus worked public miracles according to the gospels.To me that still seems at least a little contradictory. Whatever the reasons for miracles (and you may well be right, winning converts might not be on the list), the often used rationalisation to explain God's much less hands on approach in the modern era is precisely that miracles do affect people in this way, and do force belief from them.I'm willing to concede that maybe I've flogged this one a bit hard.Edited by Tusko, : No reason given.

I agree with Jar when he said that the bible's 'laser show' miracles are, in our terms, prosaic. I agree with you when you say that miracles don't have to be flashy to be impressive; if one interprets an event as a miracle then by definition you have been impressed, regardless of what it actually is.The intended focus of this topic - and I'm starting to wonder whether it is really worthy of discussion - is outlined in the post I just wrote to Ringo.If I was to address this to you I would ask:As a person with faith, what do you think of the rationalisation that God doesn't do stadium gig miracles as described in the bible because it would force people into faith?I was under the impression that this was a fairly commonplace idea, but it seems from the responses I've been getting that I might actually have made it up. Whoops!

I think I've figured out where this has gone wrong here.I don't think I have any beef with what you say. I was prompted to start this topic because I'm interested in the rationalisation that God doesn't do any really big miracles today because this would force people into faith. Seen from this viewpoint, which assumes that miracles must to some degree influence people to believe (which personally I don't believe), then it seems odd that God ever 'did' miracles.I'm interested in whether anyone could explain what rationalisations people who believe God doesn't do miracles 'to allow people the free will to chose' might use to explain his use of the miracles in the bible. After all, if it is undesirable for God to do miracles for this reason, then every time he did one back then he scored a bit of an own goal by depriving the viewers of their ability to choose to believe.Note that I myself don't believe that miracles could in force people to believe - unless the true God physically bent the brains of all humanity to believe in Her. Otherwise events are merely signs open to conflicting interpretation.ABE: Now it might be that I've made up the idea that some people rationalise the absence of 'loud' miracles today through the means outlined above. However - I'm sure I've heard it used on several occasions. I thought it was something of a stock answer. Whoops if it isn't!Edited by Tusko, : No reason given.Edited by Tusko, : cleared up the first sentence of the third paragraph.

What a beauty!

I could be wrong, but I don't think that I disagree with you. I think that in retrospect my OP must have been terribly unclear. Or possibly, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to talk about until other people started talking about something else.The fact of whether God does miracles now or not isn't the issue, although I see that I formulated the whole OP suggesting that it was. Actually what its about is asking what reasons people might give for God doing miracles at all if they believe the rationalisation that he doesn't do miracles because he doesn't want to take people's free will to choose to believe away.I was very confident that I'd heard people advance this suggestion before. To be honest, I'm a bit surprised too! I'm starting to think that if you've never heard it used before I must either have misunderstood someone at some point or I must have dreamt it. Ah well, sorry- so much for this thread!So in summary, sorry if I've wasted your time with a pointless question! By the way, I'm going to the fine city of Norwich for the weekend and so won't be around for a couple of days. Wish me luck as I drink myself around my old university haunts.