Family dies holding hands, praying

[_Hoops]

First, let's remember what miracles are for. Miracles are the evidence to prove Jesus is the messiah - which Israel rejected, of course. Miracles are not to have God be a magic genie in the sky, they have a specific purpose.

And one wonders why some of us (or mayber it's only me) don't often willingly offer up our positions on serious matters.

[_Ceeboo]

And one wonders why some of us (or mayber it's only me) don't often willingly offer up our positions on serious matters.

BINGO!!!!

Peace,
Ceeboo

[_Panopticon]

I would like to hear Hoops' theory about why God doesn't do anything too obvious, e.g., heal amputees.

I'll do my best.

Just as His miracles was evidence for who He is, the power He gave the apostles was evidence for their authority to establish the church. Once the church had been established, by authority of the apostles and where miracles were evidence of their authority, miracles of the kind you're looking for stopped (generally). I'm not prepared to say they never occur, but this is my understanding of the whole witness of the Bible.

Let me make sure I understand. So Jesus and the disciples performed miracles for people to establish their authority because the Bible did not yet exist. Today, we have the Bible, which is self-authenticating. In other words, like the Koran, the language of the Bible is so sublime, and its history is so accurate, that it must truly be the word of God/Allah.

I guess I have read too much higher criticism to have any faith in the Bible. Nobody knows who wrote the gospels, certainly not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The gospels were anonymous, and later church fathers guessed at who wrote them. Many of the books of the Bible are pseudepigraphical (i.e., pious lies).

Current archaeology casts doubt on many of the traditional stories of the Bible, including the Exodus, Joshua's conquest of Caanan, the empire of David and Solomon, etc. If you haven't read this book by two Jewish scholars, I found it very interesting:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-ancient/dp/B0078XQSPI/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1331593530&sr=8-7

Also, there are many questions among scholars whether the Biblical Jesus even existed. See, e.g., Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus, Jesus Interrupted, and Forged.

As a lawyer, I'm mystified by the reliance upon the Bible as evidence for anything. The Bible is layer upon layer of hearsay to the n-th degree. In all of the telling and retelling of the stories, the reliability of the document is effectively zero. In the law, hearsay, whether written or oral, can't be used to prove the truth of the matter asserted, yet that is precisely what believers attempt to do.

My point is that the Bible is not self-authenticating any more than the Book of Mormon. We need the divine miracles today every bit as much as the people of the Old and New Testament. Like Thomas, I have to feel the prints of the nails for myself. Some bloke named Peter telling me that he did it is meaningless. He could be lying. He could be insane. For some reason, it was okay for God to show flashy miracles then, but now, in the age of the science, God has become strangely silent.



What you are left with is your subjective spiritual experience upon which you base your faith. However, I respectfully decline to give such experiences any weight because I am aware of many of the ways in which people, myself included, have mistaken the mundane for the miraculous. See these excellent books for a discussion of some of the ways people are fooled.

http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331594656&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Believing-Brain-Conspiracies-How-Construct-Reinforce/dp/0805091254/ref=pd_sim_b_1

[_Hoops]

Well, it's been fun. I would caution you that what seems to your grounded opinion is really mere flights of fancy.

[Guest]

And one wonders why some of us (or mayber it's only me) don't often willingly offer up our positions on serious matters.

Hoops is like the Mormon Holy Ghost - never out past midnight, offended by crying children, barking dogs, less than fawning statements about Jesus, etc.

Any excuse to run away from discussion. :)

[_Ceeboo]

Hey Panopticon

Let me make sure I understand. So Jesus and the disciples performed miracles for people to establish their authority because the Bible did not yet exist. Today, we have the Bible, which is self-authenticating. In other words, like the Koran, the language of the Bible is so sublime, and its history is so accurate, that it must truly be the word of God/Allah.

I guess I have read too much higher criticism to have any faith in the Bible. Nobody knows who wrote the gospels, certainly not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The gospels were anonymous, and later church fathers guessed at who wrote them. Many of the books of the Bible are pseudepigraphical (i.e., pious lies).

Current archaeology casts doubt on many of the traditional stories of the Bible, including the Exodus, Joshua's conquest of Caanan, the empire of David and Solomon, etc. If you haven't read this book by two Jewish scholars, I found it very interesting:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-ancient/dp/B0078XQSPI/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1331593530&sr=8-7

Also, there are many questions among scholars whether the Biblical Jesus even existed. See, e.g., Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus, Jesus Interrupted, and Forged.

As a lawyer, I'm mystified by the reliance upon the Bible as evidence for anything. The Bible is layer upon layer of hearsay to the n-th degree. In all of the telling and retelling of the stories, the reliability of the document is effectively zero. In the law, hearsay, whether written or oral, can't be used to prove the truth of the matter asserted, yet that is precisely what believers attempt to do.

My point is that the Bible is not self-authenticating any more than the Book of Mormon. We need the divine miracles today every bit as much as the people of the Old and New Testament. Like Thomas, I have to feel the prints of the nails for myself. Some bloke named Peter telling me that he did it is meaningless. He could be lying. He could be insane. For some reason, it was okay for God to show flashy miracles then, but now, in the age of the science, God has become strangely silent.



What you are left with is your subjective spiritual experience upon which you base your faith. However, I respectfully decline to give such experiences any weight because I am aware of many of the ways in which people, myself included, have mistaken the mundane for the miraculous. See these excellent books for a discussion of some of the ways people are fooled.

http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331594656&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Believing-Brain-Conspiracies-How-Construct-Reinforce/dp/0805091254/ref=pd_sim_b_1

So you're agnostic leaning heavily toward belief in God?



Peace,
Ceeboo

[_Chap]

I would like to hear Hoops' theory about why God doesn't do anything too obvious, e.g., heal amputees.

I'll do my best.

First, let's remember what miracles are for. Miracles are the evidence to prove Jesus is the messiah - which Israel rejected, of course. Miracles are not to have God be a magic genie in the sky, they have a specific purpose. So miracles are Jesus' evidence of his messiah-ship and the miracles of the apostles were to show that they have the authority to establish the church and scripture.

Before Jesus death and resurrection, there was no church. There was no such thing as a Christian church and there was no scripture. Only after Paul preached to the gentiles that we got the establishment of the church and we began to formulate the Bible (based on the authority of the apostles). And it was the apostle's miracles that established their authority to institute the church age and gave them evidence that what they wrote might be considered holy scripture. If you'll remembeer, apostles power could only be conferred by laying on of his hands, it had to be done this way, in my opinion, so that the apostles could approve of that apostle. They had to be in the same room with him.

14 When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. 15 When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16 because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

18 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money 19 and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

But I think your more pointed question would be where Jesus said, " 21 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. 22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

11 I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong

Jesus is talking to the disciples right after withering the fig tree, so he had just destroyed something that would not bring forth fruit, or, in other words, would not help His mission. But He is asking for faith, but faith in what? Or whom? All this time Jesus had been performing miracles as evidence and now He is saying that the apostles must have faith in who He is to fulfill their commission - though it has not been fully expllained to them yet. That they will perform miracles to fulfill their mission - which, in fact (biblically), they did.

3 how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

Just as His miracles was evidence for who He is, the power He gave the apostles was evidence for their authority to establish the church. Once the church had been established, by authority of the apostles and where miracles were evidence of their authority, miracles of the kind you're looking for stopped (generally). I'm not prepared to say they never occur, but this is my understanding of the whole witness of the Bible.

Thanks for explaining your position at length. It would be helpful if you did that more often.

So far as I can see your basic position is that miracles ceased very soon after the death of Jesus. (You seem to leave the door open to the possibility of exceptions, but let that pass for the moment).

Is there not a problem here, in that there is no sign at all that the Christians of the early Church had noticed this? If your account is true, it must have been quite obvious at some time in the first century that the leaders of the church could no longer do more show than sympathy when faced with a dying child, whereas a little while before they could pray and bring it back to health. But nowhere in the writings of the Fathers of the Church is there a sign of this cessation of miraculous power being noticed. They continue to record miracles as the result of Christians praying.

Were they just over-credulous? But if you can say that of them, why not of their predecessors?

I hope Hoops has not exhausted herself by her venture into continuous prose. It would be interesting to hear her response to my comments.

[_Chap]

While we are waiting, here is a classic passage from Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that is relevant to the present discussion:

From the first of the fathers to the last of the popes, a succession of bishops, of saints, of martyrs and of miracles is continued without interruption, and the progress of superstition was so gradual and almost imperceptible that we know not in what particular link we should break the chain of tradition. Every age bears testimony to the wonderful events by which it was distinguished, and its testimony appears no less weighty and respectable than that of the preceding generation, till we are insensibly led on to accuse our own inconsistency, if in the eighth or the twelfth century we deny to the venerable Bede, or to the holy Bernard, the same degree of confidence which, in the second century, we had so liberally granted to Justin or to Irenaeus....Whatever era is chosen for[the Cessation of Miracles]...the insensibility of the Christians who lived at that time will equally afford a just matter of surprise. They still supported their pretensions after they had lost their power. Credulity performed the office of faith; fanaticism was permitted to assume the language of inspiration, and the effects of accident or contrivance were ascribed to supernatural causes.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. J.B.Bury (London: Methuen, 1896) II, 30-31

Or see the whole passage here.

[_Hoops]

So far as I can see your basic position is that miracles ceased very soon after the death of Jesus.

Um, after His resurrection, and it depends on what you mean by very soon, but yes, this is a position that explains why there are no more miracles of the kind described.

(You seem to leave the door open to the possibility of exceptions, but let that pass for the moment).

I do indeed.

Is there not a problem here, in that there is no sign at all that the Christians of the early Church had noticed this?

Absolutely there is some controversy on what the ecf believe regarding continuation of miracles. I take the testimony of the ecfs very, very seriously but that does not mean what they have to say rises to the level of scripture.

If your account is true, it must have been quite obvious at some time in the first century that the leaders of the church could no longer do more show than sympathy when faced with a dying child, whereas a little while before they could pray and bring it back to health.

Considering just the gist of your point, yes.

But nowhere in the writings of the Fathers of the Church is there a sign of this cessation of miraculous power being noticed. They continue to record miracles as the result of Christians praying.

They do indeed. But according to the Bible, the purpose of miracles was to establish the church. That leaves a lot of wiggle room, I know.

Were they just over-credulous? But if you can say that of them, why not of their predecessors?

I'm not sure that's the only option. I take their words as presented, given that it took some time for the church to be firmly planted. Yet, it would seem that all of Christianity today are cessationists - closed cannon, gift of apostleship - so as a practical matter, and a biblical perspective, cessationalism is on fairly firm ground. I'll grant that this is a matter that I haven't spent a great deal of time on, so, yes, I'm kind of hedging here. Still, the thread is about why these intercessions into the natural world do not occur with frequency (assuming that's true) - cessationalism does a nice job of explaining that.

I also agree that my RCC friends will disagree, and that's fine. A wonderful debate I say, because either stance has no impact on core doctrine that we share.

[_Hoops]

I hope Hoops has not exhausted herself by her venture into continuous prose. It would be interesting to hear her response to my comments.

You might be surprised at my ability to churn out prose. I won't comment on its quality - I'm sure you're at the ready to do that.