Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots with water." And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, "Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast." And they took it. When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom. John 2:7-9If you were at that wedding, and you saw Jesus carry out that miracle, no matter how simple your understanding of the universe, you would know that what had happened was out of the ordinary. Stuff like that just doesn't happen.
Some people say that when miracles happen, there is a momentary suspending of natures laws. This is the mechanistic view of the universe. This belief says that God is detached from the world, and only interacts with the world during creation, and miracles. Another view is the one that says that everything happens as God wills it at that moment. There is no real cause and effect, and God is recreating in a sort of “continuous creation” This is called Occasionalism, because every moment is an occasion for God to acts as He sees fit. But must we take sides? There must be another alternative. Because even the Occasionalist recognizes that there are regularities to nature that can be discovered and used for scientific predictions, and the Christian mechanist does not deny that God is upholding all aspects of creation, for to do so would be a denial of clear passages like Colossians 1 and Hebrews 1. But enough of these two opinions. We know that God established a regularity to Earth in Genesis 8:21-22, and He maintains that regularity. That's what a law is:
A law of nature is God's sustaining of, or man's description of, that pattern of regularity that we observe in nature as God works out His purposes towards His own ends in His covenant faithfulness, through His Son, the eternal Word, by means of His Spirit.God is working in His creation, He has not abandoned it, and because he is the creator of the law, the maker of and the one who moves every single electron, we can expect the world to work in a predictable, orderly manner. Therefore, it is impossible for God to “suspend” the laws of nature, because doing so is not doing anything different then what He has been doing all along. And when you have a God who is the controller everything from electrons to the rising and falling of nations, the story's he works out in history have got to be awesome! That's providence. The working of God in nature, our lives, history, and the future. And aren't you glad we serve a God who sets up regularities in His world that we can count on?
Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the name of the Lord; praise him, O ye servants of the Lord. Psalm 135:1
Occasionalism, as you defined it, is strictly un-Biblical in that it ignores the parts of the Bible that say God set up certain physical laws to run the universe. To have stars marking seasons you can't just make up laws as you go along.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if we turn to a strictly mechanistic view, are we required to say that because God has set these laws concerning matter into place, therefore He cannot suspend these laws as He wishes? I disagree entirely, since the Bible points out a few occasions where we cannot say the event occured following even advanced physics.
I used to think that the universe was run by a complex set of physical laws, and every miracle was done by God using "special physics", perhaps quantum mechanics. However, I don't see it as un-Biblical to say that God can suspend certain laws of physics when He sees fit. That is specifically, I don't think the point can be argued Biblically that God must be constrained to operating only within the parameters of physics He originally set up.
As a scientist, I study the laws of physics that God has put in place, believing that He is an orderly Creator. But in the case of miracles, I would not study them to see if I could see what laws of physics they follow. Miracles are "works of God", but since they aren't repeatable (in a carefully contrived manner) they cannot be studied beyond what the Bible says.
Thanks for the thoughts!