Miracles

Recap: Apologeticcs

Hey yall, We’ve been three weeks since our last meeting in our aoplogetics study called Advocates. So as such I want to give you a couple reminders on what we’ve discussed last semester, before we jump right into this weeks topic of miracles.

1st What is apologetics? - Apologetics is the practice of defending your beliefs. The Bible talks about being able to give a defense for your faith. So we have been discussing the idea of using logic and evidence to craft a reasonable argument for the Christian Worldview.

Which brings me to the second thing I want to remind you of, “What is a Worldview?”. A Worldview is the mental map that we use to navigate reality. or if you will it is the lense in which we view reality. There are three main worldviews that we’ve been discussing

Naturalism- which holds to the fundemental belief that only what can be seen and observed with our five senses or “proven” by science exists. Basically anything supernatural or spiritual is simply a myth.

Pantheism- This worldview holds that everything that exists is divine. That everything either is a god, or that the totality of the universe as a whole is god. This mean that you and the tree are equally divine.

Monothesism- God is a personal and transcendent being with thoughts and a will he can carry out. Christianity is Monotheistic.

This concludes our recap and brings us to today’s lesson, Miracles.

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What is a Miracle? A violation, or suspension, of the laws of nature.

1 Kings 18:20–24 (ESV)

So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word. Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal’s prophets are 450 men. Let two bulls be given to us, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. And you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.” And all the people answered, “It is well spoken.”

Elijah makes this deal with the prophets of Baal to find out which was the real god, The LORD, or Baal. They each made an offering but they were going to let the miracle of fire from the heavens determine which was real. Why would this wager be fair? How could it prove one god over the other?

Because a miracle proves God. Contray to pop culture and tv spontanious combustion is not scientifically proven. Therefore to the naturalist this account is impossible and therefore must be mythological because of tonights misconception.

Misconception: Science can explain away miracles.

A miracle by definition goes against the normal observable laws of nature. So a naturalist will immediatly discount and ignore miracles, because it doesn’t fit thier assumptions about the world. So when your loved ones cancer just disappeared, the naturalist might claim that there must have been a misreading of the earlier tests or else not even offer an explianation, because it can’t be miraculous.

Stephen Hawking said “Religion believes in miracles, but these are not compatible with science.”

John Macquarrie in the principles of Christan Theology, “The traditional conception of miracle is irreconcilable with our modern understanding of both science and history.”

Illumination: Miracles are evidence of the supernatural - that cannot be adequately explained away by science alone.

Here’s the kicker, The Bible records many miracles like the story of Elijah, whom by the way did manage to call down fire from heaven where the prophets of Baal could not.

Instead of rejecting the Bible because of miracles, lets think about where miracles come from. The God who created the universe and “wrote” the natural laws, by definition is greater than those laws. The theological word is He is Transcendant. Above, beyond, greater than those laws.

What are some of the “Natural/scientific laws”?

My favorite is Newton’s third law of motion. An object in motion will stay in motion or an object at rest will stay at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force.

The reason i love this one is 1. its logical and accurate, 2. That last part is awesome. Unless acted upon by an outside force. Gravity will always try to pull you down, unless something like the floor, or the lift from a plane’s wing is holding you up. You exert force onto the floor lifting you up out of the chair. The car’s brakes exhert a force to stop your truck from plowing through Bambi’s mom. Outside forces can change the expected trajectory.

That’s effectivly what a miracle is. The world is going about its normal stuff, then God exerts some of his power and boom unexpected things happen.

Matthew 8:23–27 (ESV)

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”

I’ve never seen someone rebuke a storm and it stop in its tracks, But God can! As Sean mentioned in the video, miracles didn’t stop when the diciples died. Miracles still happen today, and even though we can’t quantify how they happen, the fact that they do points to God.

Why don’t we see miracles all the time?

honestly I don’t have a perfect answer for this question, because I’m not God. He doesn’t promise to always act according to our prayers, sometimes his answer is no. But I can tell you this everything he does is good and according to his plan. Remember he is trancendent, meaning he knows the big picture. Sometimes the hard part is trusting when we don’t know the outcome.

But I will add this as a final thought, I think the reason we don’t see Miracles as often is because we don’t look for them. We’ve been trained and conditioned to look for the man behind the curtian. Even believers have been conditioned to look for natural reasons for the miraculous. Yet the Bible talks about childlike faith. If you start praying intentionally, and looking for God to answer those prayers, you might just be surprised when he shows up in a big way.