His sworn enemies are attempting to justify their rebellion by bad logic.
Using the existence of natural order to deny God's role is like saying that
E equals mcc eliminates the need to invoke the existence of mass and
energy. The natural order is merely a description of God's normal method
of running the universe. Sadly, a lot of Christians seem to be fooled by
this bad logic and try to attack our understanding of God's natural order.
God has given us the role of stewards over creation (Gn. 1:26, etc.).
Unless it behaves in a predictable manner, we cannot take care of it
because we cannot tell what impact our actions will have. Also, miracles
are significant because they are rare; otherwise, we would not notice.
Additionally, the pattern we observe is a very limited use of miracles in
nature. They only occur at occasional points in the Biblical accounts and
are also rare in history and our own experience. Also, the Biblical ones
seem to minimize the non-natural component. For example, in the Flood, God
tells Noah to build an ark rather than miraculously producing a boat or
giving him immunity to drowning, hypothermia, etc. Likewise, he is
supposed to gather up the animals and food. The water apparently comes
from pre-existing sources, rather than miraculous creation. The advance
notice and provision of building plans is clearly non-natural, but what
could be done naturally was done naturally.
David C.