For the purposes of this post, the term "supernatural" means, "pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law"
dictionary.com
An atheist has boldly claimed, “The resurrection of Jesus was no miracle (i.e. a supernaturally induced event) but a perfectly natural occurrence.”
If that doesn’t make you blink I don’t know what would!
It leads one to ask at least three questions:
1. Are there ANY naturally or physically impossible events in atheist-world? Asked differently, are there any events that can’t be produced by natural causes operating at a certain time and place?
2. Isn’t it true that a resurrection of a truly dead person (not resuscitation but resurrection) at every time and place would be an example of something that is beyond the ability of natural causes? Especially when the resurrection is NOT to a normal earthly life but to a powerful, glorious, imperishable, Spirit directed life? 1st Cor. 15:42-44.
It would seem to me that over the last 2,000 years everything that science has learned about life has confirmed that a true resurrection is naturally impossible.
3. If there IS a naturally or physically impossible event - like a true resurrection - YET exacty this historically verified event has taken place, what could have brought about such an event?
It seems to me that for someone to say that a true resurrection is a perfectly natural occurrence, that person must truly be a desperate and deliberately obstinate atheist. I mean, if a resurrection is a perfectly natural occurrence then why only Jesus? Why the singularity? Why not, “Oh look, uncle Harvey is back from the dead! Just like WEM’s great grandfather did last week.”
Of course there are theories of natural law which attempt to cover / explain such events. Whether it’s Regularity theory or Nomic Necessity or Causal Disposition theory, in reality these theories are nothing but statements that claim that EVERYTHING that happens has a natural explanation. Because these people limit themselves to a very narrow band of evidence, in atheist-world, it really can't be any other way.
These theories are nothing but more Christopher Hitchens-like statements where someone says that the ministry and miracles of Jesus, including His resurrection from the dead was just a three year long, 24/7 "natural anomaly." The only difference between that and what the atheist in question says is that this atheist says it wasn’t an anomaly. What we call the resurrection is actually a natural event. "We just don't understand how it works at this point."
In fact the resurrection was not an anomaly. It took place within a religio-historical context that possessed meaning and purpose. Jesus’ resurrection was the predicted culmination of a ministry chock full of events pointing to Jesus as God incarnate.
For an atheist to say, “The resurrection of Jesus was no miracle (an event with a cause from outside of nature) but a perfectly natural occurrence,” is a statement that comes naturally from the atheist line of logic that goes:
If it’s historical, it’s natural.
If the only explanation is supernatural then it can’t have been historical.
After three years of listening to atheists, nothing surprises me anymore.
That's what these people are like. It's how they think.
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"pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law"
ReplyDeleteFINALLY. Some intellectual honesty. Note that the two definitions listed are radically different. The first implies that the supernatural can not have a natural component, whereas the second implies that if our understanding were better, the supernatural might be explainable by natural law.
Sadly, Rod went right back to lying after this definition:
An atheist has boldly claimed, “The resurrection of Jesus was no miracle (i.e. a supernaturally induced event) but a perfectly natural occurrence.”
A) I'm not an atheist
B) I never said what was quoted in your post.
Rod, why don't you consider lying to be a sin?
According to the definitions you listed, Rod, the resurrection could have been a natural event for which we lack the understanding to express.
ReplyDeleteThanks for debunking yourself so much more effectively than I could have managed.
Sure, dead people come back to life all the time. The real problem, at least in WEM-world, is that we just don't understand how that happens.
ReplyDeleteEvery single thing we've learned and experienced as a race suggests that "supernatural" is merely a placeholder for "ignorance of natural law".
ReplyDeleteAssuming it actually happened (and that's an awfully big assumption), the resurrection of Jesus would have been a natural event by a Being capable of manipulating those laws in ways we do not understand.
. The tomb was indeed empty.
ReplyDelete. The attitude of Jesus' followers from cowards hiding behind locked doors to men who stood boldly before the most educated and powerful leaders of the country proclaiming the risen Christ
. The conversion of the sceptic and brother of Jesus, James.
. The rise of the Christian faith.
. The conversion of the sceptic and Christian killer, Paul
. The disciple’s willingness to go to their deaths proclaiming the truth of the risen Christ.
All these historical events took place not for the reason described (the resurrection of Jesus) but for reasons that were purposely hidden from us by the authors of these documents.
That makes sense - NOT!
Non-sequitur
ReplyDeleteWell, apparently the discussion concerning ‘supernatural events being possible or not’ derived toward a definition fight, and ended up with Rod justifying the so-called supernatural events as being “true” because soooo many people believe in them… sigh…
ReplyDeleteCan I go back to my question then… because for once it was properly answered, and I have to admit that it should have been formulated differently…
I asked: “So is there more evidence than a book to support the extraordinary claims presented here? The evidence presented by Jesus were recorded how exactly? anything else than a book?”
To which Thesauros replied:
“Yes actually, there were six independent sources who wrote six accounts regarding the life, death and resurrection of Jesus…”
Right there we see that my question was misunderstood, at least partially. The point is not that there is ONE book, or MANY. The point is that to believe things like a resurrection to be true, I require more evidence than just text, be it one book or many books.
Yes, this is a repetition, I always go back to that, but that’s the problem I have with all these arguments Thesauros make… eye witnesses cannot be trusted, and books are not sufficient.
Moving on anyway… Thesauros said:
On their own, independently viewed, these documents may have had more credibility with sceptics. However, for sceptics, once any document from antiquity has been inluded into the Bible it is immediately labeleld as lie, myth, legend.
No, no and… no. You like to say that after 3 years you are never surprised, but you also appear to have never unsderstood the point of view, which is not surprising either since you ALWAYS misrepresent the others’ point of view…
So, again….. NO, it’s NOT because the texts are part of the Bible that they are hard to believe, it’s the freaking content that is insanely improbable and not proven by anything else than texts.
Just to be sure to expose his misunderstanding, Thesauros continued with:
They don't have ANY means or tests that they apply to determine if an account from antiquity is accurate or reliable. None. They just label it a lie, lengend or myth IF this document has been included into the Bible.
No, no and… no. Whatever happened during antiquity is irrelevant. If something is supposed to have happened back then that would not be believable NOW, I have no reason to believe some text that claim to explain it.
Give me 100 different versions of the New Testament written by a 100 different people and I will still not believe it. Period.
Late in another comment, Thesauros went on to compare something claimed by people like me:
ReplyDeleteOr like when you throw a tarp over a pile of garbage and a week later you say, "Oh look! Life really can rise spontaneously from non life."
Obviously this has nothing to do with religion, or belief in a god, and that’s why I wrote ‘people like me’ in the sense that yes, I do believe that it is POSSIBLE for life to arise from non-life. Just like I believe that we share on or a few common ancestors with all living things, just like I believe that the Earth have formed by natural means. There are solid explanations to all these phenomena, based on years of research that we can LOOK at, analyze, discuss, test, re-test, etc…
Concerning life from non-life in particular, I wrote a very detailed comment before with quotes and a video. It’s really amazing that you could discard the work from Nobel prize winners just like that…
I guess the problem is that you think that some people do not believe in God, they will automatically discard the Bible, which is false, then in turn, you will discard any research that claim to explain possible ways to form life from non-life. Heck, you do not even understand what life means…
None of these makes the Jesus story impossible, so I don’t get why it always goes back to that. I guess it shows a lot of insecurity…
OK, 1:45 here in Oslo, now that the last piece of work I had to wait after is done I can go to bed. Hopefully that text above written in one shot wont be too terrible. Oh wait, nothing to be worried about, since I cannot be worse than Rod, and even if it would be a message worse than his, I would gladly correct my mistakes!!
Cheers everyone