November 23, 2008
Try to believe that 2 + 2 = 5...
From chapter five of Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua...
...People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible to imagine, I grant--but how is it difficult to believe?......
Newman is getting at an important point. (Just in case anybody out there in "the audient void" is repelled from faith because various things are "hard to believe.")
In general, Christian doctrines are not hard to believe, they are hard to imagine.
If someone told you that 2 + 2 = 5, now that's hard to believe!
On the other hand, that a god created the universe is unimaginable (ie: You cannot imagine what the event might have been like), but at least as believable as any scientific explanation I've encountered.
(Scientific explanations such as this: "The creation of the universe itself involved information processing: random fluctuations in the quantum foam, like a random number generator in a computer program, produced higher-density areas, then matter, stars, galaxies and life...").
Likewise, once you believe in a creator god, it's not unbelievable that he might be interested in us, if only on the analogy that we can be very interested in microbes and insects.
Likewise, if there is a god who created the universe, he presumably is outside the realm of this physical universe which we apprehend by our senses. Therefore it's believable that there are realms where god and other beings can exist that our five senses cannot perceive. Ie: the Supernatural.
You can apply this down the line, and find that it works...
Posted by John Weidner at November 23, 2008 08:55 AMI am not sure I get your point. Why
"that a god created the universe is unimaginable".
I meant that you cannot picture the event in your imagination. You can't think about what it might have been like.
I will revise that sentence.
Something about this post bothered me, John, and after much thought I believe I know what it is.
I think you are implying that the supernatural and the natural are separate realms, when, in fact, the natural world is suffused with the supernatural. I believe Fr. Neuhaus wrote on this subject in First Things not long ago.
Actually I agree with you.
I was trying to make the point that it is logical to suppose that there is a supernatural, if you accept that there is a creator god. But it's hard to do that without separating the two.
I think it was Neuhaus who pointed out that the division into natural/supernatural is a product of Enlightenment thinking, and even if one is a fanatical "supernaturalist," one is still trapped in 18th Century thinking.
The bible really doesn't have "miracles." That's our modern term. It speaks of wonders and signs, and the term most often used for what we would call miracles translates better as "the unexpected."
Here's a question for you: Can scientific observation ever detect and pin down "the supernatural?"
Simple answer: No. Science can not account for a phenomenon that cannot be encompassed by language.
Account no, but can things be detected? If God speaks to my heart, probably my brain-waves are affected. One imagines that scientific data could show that something is happening...
My own suspicion is that it won't--that there is a sort of reverse "observer effect" that provides that this won't work. The more subtle and acute the hypothetical scientific experiment is, the more uncertainty and squirrelyness the data will exhibit.
Posted by: John Weidner at November 26, 2008 08:30 AMWhy is Virgin Birth not a miracle?
Posted by: Bisaal at November 27, 2008 08:15 PMI would like to understand the point you are making better.
As I read CS Lewis's Miracles, he says that one can have a Creator God without being miracles. Miracles, defined as an interuption of the Supernature into Nature. Of course, in one sense, there are no miracles (defining Supernature as a part of Nature).
Bisaal, I don't have a copy of Miracles, and I'm not sure what Lewis is referring to. Perhaps to Deism, which is the idea that God created the universe and then leaves it alone? There is no logical reason why God would have to break into nature in any way, if he didn't want to.
The birth of Jesus to a virgin is explicitly a miracle, an act of God working against the laws of nature.
My point in the post was only about what people find believable--most people are not really logical in this. People tend to think that a miracle is "unbelievable," but a concept like, say, Dark Matter is "believable." This is not really logical, it is more an act of faith in science. Something we just pick up from our culture.
The kind of argument in my post is not going to lead anyone to Christian faith or belief, but possibly it might be of use to someone in clearing away obstacles to faith. We all tend to have a lot of "conventional wisdom" in our heads that we have never scrutinized. Just things our culture takes for granted.
The process of actually coming to have personal faith in God is a different thing entirely. It's not a matter of deciding what's believable. More like making a friend or falling in love--a lot of things coming gradually to fit together into a pattern that makes compelling sense...
