I'm not sure whether you intended this Loren, but your use of specific
examples above, presumably being pursued by a scientist with expertise in
the discipline each example comes from, makes a significant point: We tend
to look for natural causes in phenomena we are accustomed to investigating.
When we know what mechanisms act, we are confident in looking for natural
causes. That doesn't mean we are excluding divine interaction with nature.
It's just that we understand how things normally work well enough that we
know how to look for natural causes. In a field we don't understand, we
are more likely to be mystified about how one would investigate a puzzling
phenomenon. Then we are more prone to being persuaded that some divine
intervention may have occurred.
So if I could understand all mechanisms in nature, would I then have to
rule out any divine intervention? Not at all. Many of you are probably
familiar with a story about Dallas Theological Seminary. I believe it was
in the 20's, and the school was in serious financial difficulty. The
president of the school and some faculty members were praying in the
president's office, and one of them prayed something like this: "O Lord, we
know that you own the cattle on a thousand hills. We ask that you sell a
few of them to help us through this crisis." About that time a cattleman
came into the outer office. He had just sold some cattle and told the
secretary he had felt a strong conviction that he should give the proceeds
to DTS. He signed the check over to the seminary and the secretary took it
to the president's office. The check was for the exact maount the school
needed. The individual who answered the secretary's knock recognized the
acttleman's name and said, "It appears the Lord sold some cattle to help
us." So far as I know, no natural law was violated. Nevertheless, I would
call this a miracle.
Of course I'm not ruling out God setting aside natural laws -- or utilizing
capabilities in nature that are unknown to us. But "miracle" does not have
to imply the violation of a law of nature.
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Bill Hamilton, Staff Research Engineer
Chassis and Vehicle Systems, GM R&D Center
Warren, MI
hamilton@predator.cs.gmr.com / whamilto@mich.com (home)