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On Surrendering and Miracles
This was dashed off in response to Western Chauvinist’s excellent article entitled: On “Surrendering” without Giving Up, which begins:
A Response to Susan Quinn on her post, If They Try Harder, Do We Roll Over?
“My title sounds oxymoronic, I know. But, perhaps my favorite Catholic convert, G.K. Chesterton, was entranced by the seeming paradoxes of the faith that turn out to be simultaneously true — Christ is fully God and fully man (the hypostatic union). God is One in three Persons (the Holy Trinity as a Communion of Love). My little paradox isn’t anything as profound, but I contend it is possible to both “surrender” and to not give up.”
This makes me think about expertise, specifically the inerrant (read: provable) science of physics and the by-definition logical domain of mathematics. Some people, I believe, focus so hard on logic and materialism that they can’t bring themselves to accept that some paradoxes and logical impossibilities do exist.
This makes me think of miracles. Do you believe, can you believe, that Jesus raised the dead girl back to life? Do you believe Jesus really raised Lazarus from the dead after three days in the tomb? Do you believe that Jesus raised himself from the dead? And went on to commune with his disciples for weeks after that? Thomas wouldn’t believe until he put his hands in Jesus’ wounds, even the wound in his side that went straight to his heart. But Jesus said blessed are you because you saw and believed, blessed are those who believe without seeing.
And this leads me to thinking about credentialism, and to the even more powerful persuader, expertism. Elon Musk recently gently scoffed at exactly how Jesus fed 4,000 with a few loaves and fishes; to the effect that, he’d never seen it, and can’t imagine how it’s done. Well, I’ve only read of one account when this was done in modern times, by a missionary woman in I think South America who had to feed a dozen or so hungry volunteer workers on just a few tortillas. She prayed that this would be enough to satisfy all the men, and she broke the first tortilla into two and looking over put it on the first man’s plate and when she looked down again the tortilla was whole in her hand. She did this over and over until all the men were fed and satisfied. The story doesn’t say that she sneaked her eyes down to watch the reconstitution, and I doubt she did. But this was recorded for readers to believe, or not to believe. It’s just a book with an incredible anecdote, but I tend to believe it rather than not.
My point is that God makes the rules that matter has to follow, but He is not bound by any credo not to act outside these physical rules.
Life is magic, or “magic” if you prefer. Life is a matter of the Spirit, which supersedes the material, which actually brought the material into being in the first place. Life itself is magic compared to the physical world. One can try to explain it away as the workings energy and randomness controlled and responding to the laws of physics, as we currently obliquely understand them, and as such is even destined to be. But Life itself is not restricted to man’s current understanding or philosophy of physics. But what of the incorporeal? A materialist explains that consciousness is the result of, is produced by, physical laws and chance over time. How then does a materialist explain his own consciousness; and moreover, how does he explain his awareness of and acceptance of my consciousness, which he can’t test for apart from his own perceptions? What does he really believe about the nature of the universe? But to believe that the modern conceptions of the creation of the universe can be proven by modern experimentation and theorizing, and moreover will likely be understood by human minds some day, is a level of faith comparable to the faith in the non-material, the spiritual, realm of existence.
If you believe only in the material, the provable here and now, then you can’t believe in the Resurrection. If you can’t believe in that which defies the material world, then you can’t believe in God. If you don’t believe Jesus can be both fully God and fully man, a logical paradox, how can you believe in anything that isn’t easily parsed and understood? The human mind is not all-knowing, and never will be in this life.
In short, if you don’t, or can’t, believe in the resurrection of the dead, apart from some completely unknown physical and material means — if you can only believe in that which is possible according to modern thinking, then you can’t believe in God. And if you don’t believe Jesus is both God and man, then you can’t be believing in God. For to be saved you must believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that God raised him from the dead.
Life is more than bread.
Published in General
Yes.
No.
Yes.
You don’t believe that you can have free will and God can have absolute sovereignty over your will at the same time?
Correct.
But you believe in the Trinity and the dual nature of Christ. Okay. We disagree on whether logical impossibilities do exist. Sometimes I think man puts too much confidence in his own abilities.
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
I don’t want to have to argue whether logical paradoxes and seeming contradictions exist.
Not being able to control a free choice is a logical necessity.
Now I don’t actually think it’s a limitation on the power of God that God cannot violate the rules of logic.
But even if it is, which would be a bigger limitation:
Not being able to violate the rules of logic?
Or not being able to make a creature with free will?
Yes.
Perhaps someone who thinks he can find a contradiction in orthodoxy is thinking far too much of his own mind.
Yes. Those doctrines may indeed be great Paradoxes, and they may be seeming contradictions.
And they are certainly beyond human reason.
The rule of logic are human mental constructs. What is the depth of the understanding of this sentiment?: You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.
So it all depends on what the meaning of “contradiction” is. Okay.
The rules of logic are like the laws of physics: They are not human mental constructs. We just use our minds to know them.
I don’t know. I’m not sure I even understand the question.
Yes, of course.
Yup.
Perhaps it is because He has absolute sovereignty over your will that He can grant you free will
In this case, what does “absolute sovereignty” mean?
There may be things over which I have complete control over in regard to my child but out of love, wisdom or “whatever” I allow them the freedom to experience both the rewards and dangers of making their own decisions on that certain matter. Hopefully, they will use what I have taught them to make good choices, or be smart enough to realize when they made bad ones (after a certain amount of pain that naturally come from them) or …..
But I would probably always have a safe place to return when they have completely realized “their lesson” and there would be some element of “home” waiting for them when they learn in a way that can only be accompished thru experience first hand and not pure instruction, corrected mistakes are perhaps the best teachers. In that case, always presence salvation waiting to be accepted might well be that “home”
And because of the absolute sovereignty only He can grant free will
In that sense of “over,” I do believe I agree.
Just because He knows how you will use (or misuse) your free will and built it into His plan from the beginning doesn’t mean you don’t have the freedom to choose.
I need to consider this.
This post wasn’t intended to be about free-will, but about the limited knowledge and understanding of even the greatest human minds compared to the knowledge, understanding and creative power of God. Perhaps the question is not Can Science Find God?, but Is God Hiding?
That is to say, from what I infer from some people’s writing, science is a co-equal but distinct from of knowledge parallel to divine revelation. While God is reasonable, His reason is superior to ours, in that He knows everything; He knows what will happen, what could happen and what won’t happen. The best we can do is conjecture. And God didn’t just create the universe, time and space and all in it, open-endedly but determined the end from the beginning. This is in my view a logical necessity of the act of creation.
Nonetheless, since free-will is tangential to just about everything, I will attempt to address it. There are two point of view: destiny and free-will. The former is often called fatalism or informed providence, and the latter is, it seems to me, to be taken for granted as a starting point for just about everything related to how God conducts Himself within His creation; it is said that God foregoes or sets aside His will and sovereignty and imbues each person with his own free will and limited sovereignty. And that each person has his own free will is very probable.
But at the same despite the fact that human free will is inferred from the Bible throughout, it is only referred to once that I’m aware of. For example, God refers to a free-will offering without explanation, and He says that when we give we should do so ungrudgingly or pecuniously. The former is vague, but stated, and the latter does not necessarily say that human will is free at all, but that only a certain attitude in giving is wholly acceptable.
I think God does speak about predestination here:
(Continued in next comment)
(Continued)
These are pretty strong words, and are quite clear if taken as written. However, it is said that this explanation is predicted on God’s knowing who will repent and be saved, as in:
But in this case foreknowledge is not prevision or providence. This knowledge is the same as the knowledge that Jesus referred to when He said, “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Of course God had intimate knowledge of the future and what each person would decide in life, but this is not what He is talking about. It is the deeper timeless acceptance (or judgment) of that person as in: Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.
So I believe that both reason and the Bible teach predestination, and at the same time teach that limited free-will does exist, and that they must exist in contrast to one another, in a way that defies human understanding.
Yes. If we could fully understand Him, he would not be God, would he? He is not subject to human reason.
Yes, but He engages humans in reasoned debate. Spoiler: He always wins.
As a lazy Catholic this is way over my head. But one pal was a priest wanna be who eventually bailed but is a religion expert and lecturer at Georgetown (and Rome) on this stuff. Will get him to translate.
That which defies human understanding may do so by being unreasonable or by transcending reason. It may be beyond our ability to comprehend, or it may be simply, and comprehensibly, ridiculous.
It may be beyond human understanding, or below it.
Good theology is one of those things. It is not the other.
(I may not be disagreeing with anyone here on this. But clarity matters.)
Right on.
Yeah, some people talk that way. They’re wrong; you’re right.
Yes.
Yes.
Flicker, do you want to talk about predestination here (based on reason, Scripture, or both)? I reckon if you prefer we can leave it for another day.
I agree with you. All I can say is that after reading and considering it, and stewing over it for quite a long time — because the prospect of the predetermination described in Romans 9. And taking into account that if free will never existed, I don’t think God would have mentioned a free-will offering.
So I consider both to be true and I can, and have here on R>, described it more fully. But everyone is free to believe as they are convinced.
My prefontal cortex is having a muscle spasm. Another day, please.
But come to think of it, I can’t resist. Can you given a good summary and not expect a response? At least for a day or two? Would that be okay?
Boethius