November 10, 2009

It's Amazing!

Nah, this doesn't have anything to do with anything. I just decided to post about my beliefs mainly considering modern-day out-and-out miracles. By this, specifically, I mean something happening that absolutely has no possible physical explanation whatsoever, and that is obvious enough for one to firmly come to such a conclusion.

Quite simply, I don't believe they happen. To be more clear, I believe they did happen, and could happen. I just believe God isn't working that way these days. I believe he's entirely capable, and could raise someone from the dead at any time if he wanted to. I just believe he doesn't, as relates to this specific definition, do anything of the sort that we hear of. Why did I ad those four last four words? I believe it's much more likely for God to do something so obviously supernatural when there's no chance any large body of people will ever hear of it than on television in front of several million viewers and attendees. This is a majorly flimsy belief, and you can probably count on defeating it, in my mind, without a whole lot of effort.

All that rot said, I believe God can and does work in ways supernatural, here and now, except, basically, without us seeing. For instance, I believe God could heal someone of their cancer, if he so planned, but we wouldn't be able to rule out, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it didn't happen in a more natural way.

Again, I believe with all my heart in the virgin birth, the resurrection, etc, etc, etc. I really believe all those things really did happen. I do not believe just about any account you could come up with these days, that claims that someone was healed, in front of millions, of a serious physical ailment. I believe that God does heal serious ailments all the time, but in ways that it takes faith to actually believe that they happened.

One way of reasoning this is that Christianity is a religion that requires faith. Proving that something miraculous happened entirely eliminates one necessity for those who wish to be saved. As our Lord said, "...but blessed are those who do not see, and do not hear, yet believe." (wickedly mangled paraphrase) We are those who do not see, and cannot hear. We are those called to believe even though we can't see Jesus rise from the dead. We're those who have to believe that someone vaguely familiar to us was healed by God in a way that wouldn't otherwise happen.

That said, there's also the argument that, quite simply, everything is supernatural. Without God, the universe wouldn't merely fall apart, or explode, it would merely cease to exist. In fact, theoretically, it couldn't even do that. It'd just kinda not be there. Annnyyyyway.

Basically, everything, from the least miraculous event you can imagine, to the Resurrection, is necessarily and intrinsically miraculous, not only because, without God, nothing would exist, but because this world is necessarily and universally sinful. God not only continues to guide the universe, and all those in it, through the troublesome trial of life, but he loves us. He loves the greatest sinner among us to the most innocent you could imagine, as long as they find their first and greatest love in him.

That's another thing. Selecting out from the everyday miracles those that seem truly miraculous to us is actually degrading God's greatest miracle. He loves us! No, I haven't said that enough, and I've only said it twice.

To say being healed of the greatest ailment humanity has ever seen (even if I was forced to believe it is happening here and now!) is a miracle, and forgetting, somehow, that God lets us live on, let alone loves us...that is a path of cruelty those in the New Testament only barely walked down.

In the end, elevating modern-day miracles like they have been is no less than this. A greater miracle by far is the miracle of God's love. Nothing in time, nothing that does not last, is as great as this.

To be healed of, for instance, rabies, or your sins forgiven...which is greater?
It may be obvious to Christians, but, in the end, who would actually choose the former over the latter?

Ok, I'll quit asking you questions and making incredibly superlative statements and let you start yelling at me about whatever.

*bright smile*


!Noah!

5 comments:

The Tolkienist said...

So, your belief effectively is that miracles don't happen in a manner that we can see in the world, yes? I'm afraid I must say otherwise: my best friend's dad once twisted his ankle really badly, so the said best friend prayed and boom, it was healed. Granted, I did not see it, but that is, as you have said, what the essence of faith is.

SDG

Lilly said...

I read half of this, and I'm just wondering, were you ever born, by chance?

Иơαħ said...

Lilly...

I figure I was, but I'd have to ask someone just to make sure.

Nathan...

Basically, yeah. It's convoluted, contrived, and probably downright wrong, but given the amount of "miracles" I have decided not to believe actually happened. Yeah. I'm probably wrong.


!Noah!

Lilly said...

Was that not a miracle?

You know, each human being having a different thumb print is a miracle.

At the age of 7, I was very mad because my sisters got to watch Aurthur (that TV show about the aardvark), and I had to clean our bedroom. I ran outside, climbed a fifty foot pine tree, broke a branch on the way up, and sat up there, scowling. I decided to sneak inside to see if anyone had noticed my absence. Down the tree I went-literally. I was not 10 down when I stepped on that branch I had broken. Dooooown, doooown, I went. I may have been knocked out, I don't remember. All I remember was being at the foot of the tree, less than two feet away from a stone wall. I ran inside, and told my mum. She took me to the hospital.

We told the doctor what had happened. "No, that didn't happen, no way would you have survived without at least a broken neck." This doctor, apparently, did not believe in miracles.

I am, however, if you had not noticed, still alive. My skull was fractured, but my neck was not broken.

(I considered telling the doctor that someone threw a piano at my head, if that'd be more believable XD)

Now, do miracles happen?

-Lilly

Lilly said...

"A greater miracle by far is the miracle of God's love."

But, keep in mind, Noah, miracles don't happen, according to you...