> Many of the events described in Scripture as the actions of God were
> accomplished through supernatural processes as well. If special acts of
> God are no more special than natural acts, then why are supernatural
> miracles used as "signs" to point to the divine person and message of
> Christ rather than natural processes? The only way that a natural
> process will do is if it is very unlikely and/or the timing very unlikely
> (of which some of the special acts of God were), but it seems that the
> turning of water to wine, and the resurrection of Jesus were not of this
> type.
>
However, many events described as miracles in the Bible were natural
phenomena that were miraculous in their timing and/or degree.
Should we, perhaps, find a possible natural process by which the
Resurrection could have taken place would not remove its status as a
miracle. Even if there were a natural process by which it could have
occurred, it still would be exceedingly (to say the least) unlikely. Jesus,
however, predicted that it would happen (as well as when). To say all this
does not necessarily imply that all the miracles of the Bible have
as-yet-undetermined naturalistic explanations. I am saying is that they
would still remain miracles due to the circumstances of their occurrance.
Also, Bube (for instance) does not merely say that Because we understand
how a phenomenon happens does not imply that the phenomena is not the
action of God. He says something more like, It's still God, but now we have
more insight into how He does it.
Bill Dozier
Scatterer at Large
dozier@radix.net