Iain,
You raise a number of very interesting points. First off, though, Vernon may be getting a "lot of flack" not so much because his YEC views, but because, IHMO, he tries to explain geological evidence on miracles. Maybe that's a bit of an understatement, but he and I had an e-mail exchange going that dealt with the temporal place of the Flood. When I (and others) asked him about the continental drift, he explained that the continents had moved at a pretty good clip. Others have pointed out that the high velocities, necessary to move the continents over that distance in 500 years, would have generated too much heat. When I asked him then about the magnetic reversals evident in the basalt on either side of the Mid-Atlantic ridge, Vernon invoked miracles.
I don't, for a minute, discount the possibility that God could have used miracles to shove the continents apart and to lay down strips of basalt with alternating magnetic signatures. However, that explanation is not a scientifically satisfying one and does lead one to wonder why God would do this. Not that one questions God as to His motives, but it's sort of us expecting God to be a gentleman and and "play by the rules." Whatever that means.
I think that Vernon would argue why should we expect God to "play by the rules". When it came to a choice between compromising a straightforward understanding of the biblical text, and compromising on having a "scientifically satisfying" solution, he would prefer to stick to the bible. However, I agree one should not give up too easily on the science, and invoke a miracle every time there is something we do not understand. But equally, I think that one cannot discount the possibility of miracles.
After all, God promised to be faithful and constant to the point that he promised Noah that we could count on the season to follow one another. If we cannot count of God to be faithful and constant, we might as well give up on science which, after all, is based on constancy in the universe.
Having thought about this subject quite a bit recently, I think that the reason we have a universe in which for the most part science "works", is so that we can discern the presence of God when miracles do happen. The universe is God's to run as He wishes, and perhaps the real miracle is that it does indeed run on predictable mathematics. But I feel that if everything were "miraculous" in the sense that it is not repeatable or predictable then we should have extreme difficulty in discerning the presence of a Creator, because we would live in a chaotic, quite unimaginable universe, where everything was a miracle, and hence nothing was a miracle (if that makes sense).
If God chose to make the earth look old (and there is an awful lot of that; from the movement of tectonic plates to the K/Ar and Sr/Rb ratio in rocks to the remnant of fission products in the Oklo uranium deposit, he could just as well have created all of us with a memory five minutes ago.
I'm not really enough of an expert to comment on this area. I'm aware that the YEC people have addressed this issue without invoking miracles. It has been said a lot on this list that YEC people ignore evidence that doesn't fit their theories, but from my reading of it, the YEC people accuse conventional scientists of much the same thing; that when radioactive dating procedures give the "wrong" dates, these are conveniently ignored. From a neutral position it could be said that I'm looking at two camps each accusing the other of ignoring the evidence. However, I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable to comment on this any further.
Perhaps it would be good start to define a "miracle." My guess is that one would define a miracle as some event that does not seem to follow the "laws" of nature as we understand them. In addition, one could argue that a miracle (performed "through our hands" as you mentioned) is not repeatable.
Yes, I particularly like the "non repeatable" aspect of the miraculous. We cannot explain why or how they occur, or what God's motives are when it happens.
As to your experience with the lady with the advanced case of arthritis, one has to give God the glory and be thankful that he used you as the instrument of his grace. I have no difficulty accepting what you wrote. Why God healed this person is not for use to ask; all we can do is be thankful. Nor should we expect that God sets a precedent and that more old ladies can expect to be healed through your hands. Let's just hope that the lady went home and fell on her knees to thank God and that she used her newly healed hands to help other and to tell others what great things God had done for her.
I'm agreed with all of this; thanks for the encouragement.
In one of the courses I teach (on a part time basis, because I have a full time job doing research into nuclear waste disposal), I ask my students to write a paper on their views on science and religion. One student wrote a paper on miracles and we discussed that topic at some length. One of the things that cam up is that it seems that these miracles invariably involve some internal disease: chronic arthritis is healed, a cancer disappears, a lame walks, a blind person receives sight again. Yet, we seldom see miracles that involve the regrowing of a severed hand or severed arm. This particular student was in a bad motorcycle accident that had resulted in the amputation of one of his legs. Yet, in spite of all the miraculous healing that we hear and read about, to my knowledge, there has never been the miraculous reappearance of a severed limb. I trust that any member of this forum will correct me if I'm wrong. That ought to tell us something: either God chooses NOT to generate new limbs, or these miracles are limited to the internal parts of the body.
Now, as it happens, this very morning our vicar gave an example like this in the sermon. He didn't see the event, but it happened at a church where he had a curacy, shortly before he joined, so he only had second hand reports, and so you're getting it third hand. However, apparently a woman born with a withered arm was miraculously healed in church in a spectacular fashion, and as it was happening people in the church all rushed over in a huge circle and watched the arm growing back to its normal shape. It's not replacement of a severed limb, but it is certainly "external". However, much as I found myself doubting and questioning my own experience, the vicar noted that he had not personally seen the miracle; wished he had, and all these questions went through his mind; "How withered was it really?" and so forth. It seems it is human nature to doubt the miraculous, and this is well illustrated by the passage being preached on (John 9 - the healing of the man born blind). The Pharisees must have clearly seen that the man was healed, but ducked the issue all the time "Is this really the same man, or someone who looks like him? What was Jesus doing, healing someone on the Sabbath?" etc).
Thanks again for your comments,
Iain.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Feb 11 2001 - 17:16:39 EST