Re: Miracles and Science

From: gordon brown (gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 12 2001 - 18:29:30 EST

  • Next message: Iain Strachan: "Re: Miracles and Science"

    Iain,

    Exodus 14:21 clearly indicates that the Lord used wind to divide the
    waters of the Red Sea, and so the timing was what I would consider to be
    miraculous. A few years ago two Israelis did a computer simulation to see
    what a sustained very strong wind would do at the presumed site of the
    crossing and concluded that it would do what Exodus said it did. I don't
    believe that God's involvement in an extremely unusual meteorological
    phenomenon has to be any different from his involvement in what we would
    consider to be normal weather.

    I once visited the Neusiedlersee (if I correctly remember the name), a
    lake on the border between Austria and Hungary. Although this lake has a
    large area, it is only 1.8 meters (about 6 ft.) deep at its deepest point.
    The residents of that area say that when there is a very strong wind in
    the right direction, all the water is blown to the Hungarian end of the
    lake. There have been occasions when people wandered out onto the dry part
    of the lake bed and were drowned when the water suddenly returned. The
    resemblance of this phenomenon to that of the Red Sea crossing supports
    the idea that it was the timing that should be regarded as the most
    remarkable aspect.

    Gordon Brown
    Department of Mathematics
    University of Colorado
    Boulder, CO 80309-0395

    On Mon, 12 Feb 2001, Iain Strachan wrote:

    > I'm kind of inclined to think that the two are really no different. Take
    > the parting of the Red Sea example. Actually I find it a little bit hard to
    > believe that meteorological conditions could naturally cause the sea to
    > part, but suppose that was possible without "miracles". We still have to
    > understand how God caused the "coincidence" to happen. It is often said of
    > chaos theory (I believe?) that the flapping of a butterfly's wings can cause
    > a tornado the other side of the world three weeks later. So it's possible
    > that the small, subtle change of an event might cause such a thing to
    > happen. And clearly the calculation of the consequences would be easy for
    > an omnipotent creator. But when it comes down to it, there is still a
    > violation of the natural order, where God "intervenes" and causes the
    > butterfly, or whatever, to flap its wings in just the right direction to
    > cause the wind that parted the sea. Thus, information is planted in from
    > outside that makes the course of history change. The information is
    > ultimately the firing of electrical pulses in a set of neurons, and
    > therefore is still "miraculous"; God had to change the electrical signals
    > from what they were going to be; and conceptually I can't really see the
    > difference between that, and a miraculous parting of the sea by unnatural
    > causes (except in scale).
    >
    > Hope that makes some sense!
    > Iain.
    >
    >



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