Re: Signs of Scientism

--- David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:

It seems to me, then, that
> human beings in principle are capable at least sometimes of discerning or
> detecting that a "supernatural" event has occurred against the backdrop of
> "ordinary" or "natural" events. If that is true with respect to miracles
> such as the resurrection, why couldn't it be true for miraculous acts of
> creation?
>
It seems to me that the crucial missing component in detecting miraculous
aspects of creation is the presence of a human observer. As Dick pointed out,
the miracles of the Bible were performed to convince witnesses of God's
sovereignty or that God had ordained a given prophet's message (I think we
should also add that some of them were performed in response to the prayers of
the saints -- but again witnesses were a crucial part of the action)

But suppose we come upon the product of a miracle after it has happened.
Suppose for example we ome to the house where the wedding at Cana was held and
find some of the wine that Jesus made from water. I presume it would look,
smell and taste like any other wine -- no discernable difference from ordinary
wine.

Or take the big bang. By studying the expanding universe and detecting the
cosmic background radiation we can learn a great deal about it. But can we
detect (scientifically) that something miraculous was involved? Probably not.

Bill Hamilton
William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
586.986.1474 (work) 248.652.4148 (home) 248.303.8651 (mobile)
"...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31

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Received on Thu Jan 19 12:37:06 2006