One other thing that gets me doubting is the whole book of Acts and the other "signs" that the apostles speak of. If these kinds of things were possible by believers...why don't these things happen anymore? Why have I never seen or felt the holy spirit come upon the way it is described as coming onto the converts of the early church? Did they mean what they said more than I do? Why doesn't anyone honestly expierence these things anymore? Why don't we ever hear about people being healed miraculously by other people? Why don't we see people coming back to life? If the things that were true then are supposed to be true today...why are things so different?My response is this:
First of all, I think we need to escape from the Modern mindset that reason defines reality. Reason is a facutly of man, and as such God is not subject to it. Therefore we can never reasonably draw the conclusion that something God is supposed to have done must be untrue soley because it is unreasonable. Ironic, huh? Instead we have to approach all things about God and His nature with the mindset put forth in Isaiah 55:8-9 :
8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
It is the height of human arrogance to believe that we can understand why God does what He does, or presume to say that He should act a different way than He does.
Furthermore, I don't think that the apparent lack of miracles, assuming that it really is universal and not just in my life and yours, is not unbiblical. Look at the old testament. It is full of people preforming miracles, but they are all years apart. What happened between Elisha and the other major Prophets? What happened between Hosea and Jesus? I'm sure the people then were also saying "Where are all these miracles people are always talking about? How come no one is doing miracles now?" It may be that God only preforms such miracles through people at certain times -- specifically times when they will achieve some end that we cannot understand. It may well be that a time may come again when there are many miracles happening often.
Finally, there are people today that claim that such miracles do still happen. As I'm sure you are, I am always skeptical of these claims. Especially by certain groups. However, it may be that such miracles occur where they are appropriate, according to the mind of God. It may simply be that your life and mine have never intersected those times. There were plenty of people in Israel, as small a country as it is, who never saw one of Jesus' miracles. Yet that doesn't mean they didn't happen. Now we're talking about a global scale. Just because neither you nor I ever comes in contact with a miracle or even someone who has seen one (although, as I said before, I have heard a few first-hand accounts, at least one that is mostly credible) does not imply that they are not happening. That would be a wholly unreasonable conclusion to come to. It is notable to mention that there isn't really a sense in Acts that every Christian was able to preform the miracles, mostly only Apostles. An apostle is, literally, "one who is sent." It is also important to note that The 12 Disciples were not the only apostles. Barnabas and Silas are both specifically called apostles. Apostles are people with the highest "calling" in the church who are specifically sent by God to do some work -- not all who are called to evangelism or missions are necessarily apostles. It would not be unreasonable to believe that only Apostles, as those with the highest calling, are given the gift to preform miracles all over the place. That is just my own conjecture, I have no further reason to believe that than it seems like they account for the majority of the miracles in the new testament and it makes at least a little sense.
All that being said, I think that it is unreasonable to use reason as a measurement of truth when God is involved. God can do things that seem unreasonable, or even are unreasonable. Furthermore, the lack of miracles around you may not be so unreasonable at all. The experience that you and I have had does not warrent the conclusion that the accounts in Acts are false. One final point concerning the fear that the Bible has been significantly altered is that the Dead Sea Scrolls were very close to the current manuscripts we were working with at the time they were found, so any significant changes to the old testament were done before 200BC. I suppose that you could claim that people since then changed the new testament letters and not the old since the old were already canonical, but the fact that they didn't change the old provides at least some hope that they left the new generally in tact -- at least enough that they didn't take the truth out of them.
3 comments:
I don't know - I spent a lot of time struggling with issues like this and have to say I identify with the drifter here. And I know all of these facts and arguments....that God doesn't have to make sense, and that it's reasonable that miracles won't always happen, etc. And they make sense. They're good arguments.
The problem for me is, these arguments aren't very satisfying. They don't do anything to assuage the feeling that either God was more involved in the past and is God's ignoring us now, or that the Bible is full of lies, and really THAT's the thing I'm really worried about. I don't really care about the miracles. It's more the frustration of seeing something I want to be true sounding so false.
The bigger issue I deal with that this is just one part of is the topic of God's silence. I don't feel "spoken to" in Church, I don't feel "called" to any purpose, I don't feel that God has ever spoken to me and I've never seen a miracle.
I don't think answers like those listed here do much to address the silence. It stands looming over your evangelical quasi-charismatic faith like a tomb stone, daring you to try and believe in anything you don't experience. I don't have answers for the silence, and I don't know if there are any this side of heaven. The question I'm lead to, inevitably, is this: do I believe that God is good? If I do, then I pray "I believe - help my unbelief", and I trust in his goodness despite my expectations.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47062
No miracles?
If those are the only miracles we get then I don't really want to have anything to do with it. When did God become so obssesed with grilled cheese?
But seriously. I am sick of hearing the excuse that "you just have to believe". While that might very well be the answer...it just seems like a cheap cop out or way to get around saying "I have no idea and neither does anyone else".
Obviously I believe that there will be things that can't be explained...I know there are things that will never be understood. But like redhurt is saying...I've never felt anything or seen any evidence. And when I am around people who claim to...it's so fake.
God gave us logic for a reason. He's not always going to completely defy it. Our logic is a lot more sound than our emotions which are so easily swayed. So why wouldn't God work in that arena? He has to make some sense somewhere. If the only reason you ever get from any question is "because I'm God and I'm bigger and better than you and I said so"...why is that something I want to dedicate my life to?
I can convince myself that I hear God, or that I feel God pulling me in one direction or the other. But I'm never really sure. I feel like people who claim God told them to do something just convince themselves of it...I dunno.
Sure there has to be trust. Sure there has to be faith. But you can't be honest with yourself and build that faith and trust on nothing but stories. Or can you? That's my problem.
PS...not that it has much to do with any theology...but the book of Esther was completely different in bibles before the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The Septuagint version (Hellenistic Greek Torah) was totally totally different.
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