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June 13, 2006
the nature of miracles
How would you describe what happens when a miracle occurs? I have often thought of miracles as instances where God intervened in His creation and suspended the rules it abides by. Unfortunately, to "intervene" implies that God wasn't involved before the miracle. It seems I've been defaulting to a mechanical, or deist view, of the natural world where God created it and then left it to run on its own. But, in fact, God doesn't intervene in the natural world when a miracle occurs. It can't be considered an intervention when He is already continuously involved in upholding and guiding it.
Since God is upholding and guiding the natural world, why does he do so in a highly predictable and orderly fashion? It seems to be described in Romans 1:20:
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.
The natural world is not chaotic and unpredictable because these are not attributes of God's nature. Just as the character of the painter flows into a painting, so does God's character flow into His creation. If the natural world was unpredictable there would be no way of knowing or understanding it. But God is knowable and desires for us to know Him.
It seems that to truly embrace the view that God is upholding all of creation to abide by specific rules every minute of every day, we may find the not-so-out-of-the ordinary, or the predictable, just as awe-inspiring as the miracle.
This molding of my thinking about creation, makes me think about how God interacts with me, His human creation. It's been reaffirmed to me that God doesn't intervene in times of trial, rather He is always upholding me in the seemingly mundane normalcy of every day life.
All of these thoughts (and others!) flow out of, and from, my reading of Science & Grace. It delves into the history of the philosophy of science and building a biblical perspective of science. I'm sure few of you will find it as intriguing as I do, but I encourage those few to take up the read!
processing | By charity | 07:51 PM
Comments
i saw this book at ruf summer conference...dr. petcher was my advisor while i was at covenant, and i remember him discussing his thoughts with us while this book was still in the making. interesting...
Posted by: sarah koenig at June 17, 2006 10:06 PM
also, (sorry, i had another thought) i was recently discussing the nature of miracles with a group of people, trying to put a definition to a "miracle." some offered that a miracle is something that happens that cannot logically be explained by man or by what man knows of the laws of science, etc. i suppose that's part of it, but then others said that if man does find some scientific explanation of it, was it never a miracle? i think that that's getting a bit too...i don't know...not considering God's involvement. i'm not sure we ever reached a good, conceptual idea of miracles. but maybe that's okay...
anyway, all of that to say that i was glad to read your thoughts on this subject, and that it was good to be reminded of the line that can/should be drawn from creation back to God's character.
Posted by: sarah at June 17, 2006 10:16 PM