Terry says,
>I, for one, don't believe that this is the way God works. His involvement
>in a falling leaf or in the motion of hydrogen in a star in a distant
>galaxy is just as intimate as his turning water into wine at the wedding of
>Cana.
The "mechanism for God's action" may be the same (we don't know enough
to say, one way or another), but psychologically (and in how God expects us
to react psychologically, which connects with theology) they are very
different. A falling leaf makes no impact on anyone's life, but the
wine-miracle did -- due to this, people said "wow" and perceived Jesus
differently. Similarly, the lame man in Acts 3 was affected differently
(physically, psychologically, and spiritually) by his healing, compared
with a falling leaf.
If God makes a distinction between a falling leaf and MATA, so should
we. MIRM and MATA are obviously different, in important ways, and I think
it also makes sense to distinguish between MIRM and NATA. {but in terms of
mechanism they may be identical, and I assume this is what you're saying}
>The examples that Craig brings up are all special case miracles that
>are not really what we study in science anyway.
....snip.....
>As long as we believe that the
>world operates by regular processes that are accessible to human
>investigation then believers and unbelievers can work side by side. We
>will each have different beliefs about the ultimate origins and
>significance of our investigation of the world, but we will be
>investigating the same processes based on similar mid-level presuppositions
>about regularity in the universe.
There are enough regularities for science, and enough irregularities
for God to make his "theistic action" presence known in the world. In the
Bible, miracles are numerous and theologically important; if our view of
nature doesn't include the possibility of miraculous action, it is
inadequate.
On the other hand, since there are enough regularities for science, we
(both Christians and non-Christians) can do science satisfactorily. But if
we assume that *everything* in nature occurred due to regularity (so
ID-type theories are automatically wrong -- not just unscientific, but
wrong) this is not OK. Maybe "special-case miracles" also occur in the
non-human part of nature; and maybe they don't; I don't think any of us
knows for sure, now.
Craig R