Jesus's motives for performing miracles.

"That ye might believe" says John. Believe that He is God for one thing. They demonstrate that He is in fact God. "Pseudonatural?" What does that mean? Is it just a way of denigrating the events? Who could possibly transform plain water into wine other than God Himself? Ditto healings. People get very strange ideas about what faith is. You can't have faith unless you have evidence. You have to believe that what was said happened did in fact happen, and it gives a foundation for believing the gospel of salvation. What would there be to have faith IN in that case? The miracles give evidence on which to build faith. To demonstrate that He is indeed God and that one should put trust in Him. See above. Far from it. See above. Most of us creationists and Biblical Christians have argued all along that we DO have evidence, that the Bible is evidence. The Bible is chock full of reports of the miracles and character of God, all of which is evidence. Evolutionists and atheists deny that it is good evidence, but we don't. Glad you recognize that it is at least evidence.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.

Um, not sure this ... is true: And etc.It's an off-topic point though, and I agree with your general message.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The miracles were done for us as well as them. We are to believe the written reports of the demonstrations, all of them back through Moses' reports. As Jesus told the rich man in Hades, even if one rose from the dead to inform his brothers, they would not believe if they hadn't already believed Moses. He also told his disciples that those who rejected them as witnesses also rejected Him. He also told Thomas that those who hadn't needed to see in order to believe were blessed. That includes all who believe the reports now, never having seen. That's how it works, Legend. You want it to work some other way, as most of us would have it, but we aren't God.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The ability some have to make something evil out of something good is astonishing. It had everything to do with the suffering of the people, as it frequently states He was moved by compassion. But He didn't have to help in a miraculous way, and He also didn't and doesn't heal all suffering people either. The miracles were to demonstrate that He possesses the power of God so that we might believe and be saved -- which is ALSO about the suffering of the people He helps -- those of us He saves. That's correct, either they are hucksters or they have the power of God and a major clue is that nobody charges for the power of God. Nobody can turn water into wine but God, nobody can heal lameness or blindness but God, nobody can raise the dead but God. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, but this shows that we do respect empirical evidence, as we have always claimed. Simply saying you are something or other means nothing, nor should it. People do lie. There are hucksters in the world. False Christs, false saviors galore. Of course. God respects that we need empirical evidence and therefore He provided it, both in His first calling of His people, and in His new covenant, when it was crucial that His identity be established. And we have it all in the Biblical reports. Many witnesses, many details to support the claims, etc. etc. etc. He never gave such a principle. You are adding things to it from your own imagination. Those "audiences" were those of the very first generation He called out of the world to be His own people. He established His identity and ratified the calling of the Israelites out of Egypt with miracles, and did the same with the calling out of the first followers of Christ to form the New Creation. Of course He could have. He could also have refused to save even Noah and family and let the whole human race perish. He could also have struck Adam and Eve dead on the spot when they disobeyed. Or He could have made it impossible for them to disobey. He has no intention of saving all or condemning all. His ways are above our ways, and His objectives beyond what we are capable of imagining. He has a different plan, a better one than we are capable of imagining. They needed faith too. People can disbelieve their own eyes and many did. Many witnessed the miracles of Christ who did not become His followers, or fell away after a while. Same in the generation of Moses. They saw amazing miracles, but many of them nevertheless fell into disbelief and disobedience soon after. It's a mystery to all who won't simply believe.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I didn't mention it first because it WASN'T the most important reason, but that didn't mean it wasn't always part of the motivation, as you were implying. The most important reason was that we know that He is God. That's also the most compassionate reason. I already said this. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, I guess you can make up your own definitions if you want, but then I guess I can just dismiss it all as unrelated to anything people of faith actually believe too, no? Two things here. 1) Faith is in what God SAYS to us, His promises, His statements about His character, His warnings, while the miracles are merely to confirm that He is who He says He is and that He does have the authority to require our obedience and to deserve our trust, that is, they are part of the basis on which we should invest our faith in His word.2) The second thing is that you are leaving out the part about how those who saw the miracles wrote about them so that the rest of us could have the same foundation for faith in Him they had.So you seem to be saying only the usual, that it's evidence if you see it, but not if others who saw it tell you about it. This is in fact what many people say. Thomas required to see it himself, but Jesus said believing His witnesses is a blessed thing, and that's what faith is.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So all of us are insane then. No matter to me. The Bible is self-authenticating to us crazy people.And its authority falsifies everything that contradicts it, from science to history to archaeology to all the pretensions of Reason. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

Everyone is different. I don't know. Faith implies trusting a person to the point of being willing to act on it, to trust that God is good and will do you good even if He asks you to sacrifice your only son as He did Abraham; even if He tells you to give up your own life rather than deny Him, etc. etc. etc. If what you believe leads to that kind of faith in a person then that's faith.

Well, I believe I've answered this. I did not confine the definition to believing something. Belief leading to trust to the point of acting on it is faith. Didn't I say that? I didn't say that. I said we have evidence for our faith in God. I have no idea. I'm only explaining Biblical faith. This has nothing to do with faith as far as I can see. Belief in what? Faith is in a person, it is trust in that person's promises and so on. Believing that person is God gives a basis for such trust. I consider the evidence of the miracles that establish who God is to be conclusive evidence myself. That it is faith in the greatest possible, in God.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The millions who have had only the written testimony to the miracles have not suffered any inferiority in the quality of their faith. I believe God disagrees with you about that. That's right, obviously he chose to do it the way he did it, and he's smarter than us so don't fight it. It isn't extra evidence. We have the same evidence through their witness. I quoted some passages of scripture itself that say that seeing is no more believing than hearing about it. You simply insist on doing it your way instead of God's way. That's your prerogative, of course.

He chose to demonstrate things that only God could do. Things that only God can do isn't a matter of standard or substandard. He did things only God can do to prove that He is God. Some did. Some believed. Same as today, people are marvelously able to rationalize away evidence for the supernatural. Some did, some didn't. We have them, in the Bible. The believers were Jews. A few hundred thousand to judge from the complete NT record. Some Jews believed, some didn't. Today some people believe, some don't. There are always more atheists than believers. We can describe the practicalities of faith all we want, it's still ultimately a supernatural gift of God.

I don't understand what point you are trying to make. I don't think the mere facts, the miracles in particular, are enough to produce faith, as that takes supernatural intervention, but they are the material we make faith out of.The disciples did not easily put two and two together, but then neither do most of us. We rationalize away the uncanny, come up with alternate explanations, anything but recognize the unnerving implications of unusual phenomena. Happens all the time. EvC is a great place for watching how this is done.So, it takes the gift of the Holy Spirit for us or for the disciples to put it all together, but it IS nevertheless all there to BE put together.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But they did believe he was the Messiah, and the miracles would have been God's authentication of that fact, just not that he was God himself, isn't that so? What a lot of the cults believe. But then with his death everything was thrown into doubt, because death wasn't in the equation for them. Well, it did do that, but as John says at the end of his gospel, these things were written "that you might believe." They had all the facts for review, and to become the substance of their preaching. Well, I disagree but this won't go anywhere so I'm going to drop it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.