About Me

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I am a born-again Christian, who is Reformed, but also charismatic, spiritually speaking. (I do not speak in tongues, but I believe glossalalia is a bona fide gift not given to all, and not as great as prophecy, for example.) I have several years of college education but only completed a two-year degree. I was raised Lutheran and confirmed, but I didn't "find Christ" until I was in the Army and responded to a Billy Graham crusade in 1973. I was mentored or discipled by the Navigators in the army and upon discharge joined several evangelical, Bible-teaching churches. I was baptized as an infant, but believe in believer baptism, of which I was a partaker after my conversion experience. I believe in the "5 Onlys" of the reformation: sola fide (faith alone); sola Scriptura (Scripture alone); soli Christo (Christ alone), sola gratia (grace alone), and soli Deo gloria (to God alone be the glory). I affirm TULIP as defended in the Reformation.. I affirm most of The Westminster Confession of Faith, especially pertaining to Providence.

Friday, March 18, 2022

Do You Believe The Almighty Performs Miracles?

 I could've asked if you believe in miracles at all. But I decided to bring God into the equation. He is the issue, not nature.  If you say that you do not  believe the sun stood still for Gideon or that Moses parted the Red Sea or that God provided manna in the Wilderness for Israel, or that Jesus calmed the storm and walked on water or particularly healed the sick, those are other questions. The whole point is miracles per se.  Are they defined by the laws of nature? Are they violations of the laws of nature? Who can perform miracles then? How common are they? What are they defined as? 

First things first: miracles are supernatural or unusual events that happen contrary to the natural order of things and are not producible by what is naturally occurring and present at the time and place of the event. It is not a miracle that you found that parking spot at the shopping mall, or some Hail Mary pass won the game, though you may feel that way. Therefore, miracles must be supernatural, but all supernatural events are not miracles; we see the supernatural every day if we look for it.  

No supernatural powers were needed for some events for that and no laws of nature suspended, it was just timing!   Sometimes, it's just seems coincidental that makes it a miracle.  We should not use the term loosely to include spectacular or unusual events that require no act of intervention by God.  As far as the laws of nature go, the law of gravity says that if an apple falls from the tree and you catch it, you have suspended the natural order of things that it should hit the ground.  Don't you realize that the Almighty God who is the Lawgiver of the laws of nature has every right to suspend his own rules? 

Science cannot forbid miracles then. It merely describes what happens according to what normally and customarily occurs. Science depends upon the uniformity of the laws of nature and if miracles happened all the time they'd be called "regulars" and science would be impossible!   David Hume described miracles as violations of the laws of nature as if nature itself is sovereign and controls events, not God. What he is doing is personifying and deifying nature, not God. What I'm saying is that the belief in miracles is necessitated if one believes in God Almighty.

If you believe in a Creator, for example, it is no leap to believe God can do the lesser miracles of the Bible narratives. Secular Humanists deny any supernaturalism and will not let a Divine Foot in the door but adhere strictly to materialism or that only matter/energy exists and there is no spirit and in particular no soul of man to be "saved." To believe in miracles is a profession of faith then. It is the logical conclusion when one believes in God Almighty.  You cannot profess faith in God and deny His miracles or take them out of the Bible narratives. 

Of the views on miracles: that they do not occur; that they only happened in the biblical times; and that they still occur even today, or that they happen by other forces, all depend upon one's belief in the God of the Bible and how to interpret it. They occurred for certain reasons in the Bible at three basic times: Moses and Joshua; Elijah and Elisha, Jesus, and the early church period. If you remove miracles from other religions, they remain intact, but if you remove the miraculous from the Bible, it is disemboweled and neutralized and of not consequence.  

They were performed for basic reasons too: to give authority and credentials to the prophet, priest, or apostle;  to be a sign from God; to intervene in human affairs; and for merciful reasons to show pity.  The basic reason is that miracles are supernatural or even unusual events caused by God directly to bring glory to God and to attest to God (Heb. 2:3-4) .  We must realize that faith doesn't come from miracles, but miracles from faith! 

Jesus did perform miracles and they were well-known in His time and not denied; the skeptics just attributed them to Satan!  He never did a biggie or showy miracle though to force belief by some "smoking gun" evidence. He never did them on demand.  They were not for show!  Jesus did not want to be known merely as a miracle worker but if you remove the miracles, His story has little credence, and if He had never performed them, He would've been but a footnote in history, even forgotten. 

In sum, God performed miracles for His people and they did not believe, except the remnant: Psalm  78:32; John 12:37 say that although God performed multiple miracles, they would not believe and kept sinning (note that it doesn't say "could not") but became hardened and stubborn in their hearts. Soli Deo Gloria!