Contextsentientsynth said:skeptech said:Sure you do! The Bible claims miracles as fact, but I'll bet that your experience is that "miracles" can't occur. Would your first reaction be that they must be divine, or that they must be a nut-job?
The statement "your experience is that miracles can't occur" is meaningless in that one never experiences truth, yet one ascertains what is true by examining the evidence, what really occurs. A priori knowledge must be complemented with a posteriori knowledge. A priori rules out as untrue what is mutually exclusive, that is, self contradictory. A posteriori determines what is actual. It is the knowledge we acquire through our experience in the world (e.g. "whatever goes up, must come down.")
Before one can rule out the potential of miracles, one must rule out the possibility of the potential existence of a theistic God who possesses omnipotence as logically possible.
From here, we get into the deep waters.
To declare as untrue the proposition "God exists" (atheism) is logically fallacious. For to do so would be to say, "I, in my infinite knowledge, affirm the inexistence of any being with infinite knowledge." And that is exactly what the atheist must say! (Or, I guess, he may use the phrase "I hold no belief..." which neither affirms nor disaffirms the proposal, and scuttles him "out of bounds" for truth-tests.)
Atheism does not hold water. Agnosticism is a more respectable stance (and only a "soft" agnosticism, at that.) I have more respect (and I say they are on better philosophical grounds) for the person that says "I haven't experienced any evidence that God exists" than I do for the one who outright denies the very possibility of God's existence. Yet it would be logical for this person to honestly investigate any such acclaimed evidence, and, after careful consideration, come to a conclusion. He may say 'yea'; he may say 'nay', but he may only say "I have yet to find any such evidence credulous." The statement "God does not exist" is fallacious.
So to make the claim that because you have never witnessed what you may call a "violation of the natural order" does not make it logically impossible that such "violations" have not actually happened. Therefore, there is no a priori reason to deny the existence of miracles.
There is nothing logically contradictory, however, to the affirmation of the proposition "God exists." You may argue that God may not actually exist, but you cannot affirm that it is logically impossible that "God exists."
So, once again, what is self-contradicting here is to make the statement, "I affirm that God does not exist."
It may be likened to making the statement, "In this universe, there is not anywhere a naturally-occurring green, glassy rock with blue and white swirly polka-dots." The problem is that this person doesn't yet have exhaustive knowledge of the universe. Therefore he may not rule out its existence prior to investigation (a prior.i) (He may, however, only after the investigation of the entire universe. And the nature of the GOD? debate is of the existence of a being who very well may exist outside the universe, and who on occassion acts within the universe. The rock example is only an analogy. Yet even here the foolishness of atheism is exposed, because we do not yet possess exhaustive knowledge of universe. The author of Proverbs saw this thousands of years ago when he said, "The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.")
The nature of a priori knowledge is a tough philosohical issue. I hope I've been clear, though, and that you understand my stance.
What would you think if somebody came along and said that they had walked on water?
I would do just as the disciples did: I would have followed him, to see if he produced more such wonders. The Apostles went to suffering and death affirming by knowledge and experience that Jesus Christ did perform these miracles and did, in fact, raise from the dead, as was predicted centuries prior by more than one of God's prophets, and as He Himself predicted.
Perhaps, I venture, the missing link for you or for someone else is the spiritual truth of the message of Christianity. It is by the spirit that we discern spiritual truths. To compare things that are worldly to things that are spiritual is to hold up incommensurables, so that from the perspective of the one the other is foolishness. Christ is foolishness to the world. Yet the world is foolishness to Christ.
So when we find in our lives that the world seems foolish, look to Jesus Christ and He will be wisdom for us. No matter what we find in the historical documentation about the person of Jesus of Nazareth or what we find in the words of the philosophers, it is not until we see that we are lost in our sins that will we ever be able to affirm that Christ is our Savior. Only when the wisdom of this world fails us will we even consider the proposition.
I can't talk anyone into the kingdom, and I'm glad that I don't have that responsibility. But I will happily defend the truth. It isn't enough to possess good philosophy, but it is necessary to thwart the attempts of vain and foolish philosophy to lead away the simple.
In Love of Truth,
SS
:BRAVO: :BRAVO: :BRAVO:
Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant!
Just an outstanding post!
