Heat caused by a world-wide flood -- Answers in Genesis says the amount is too great for a natural explanation

A recent article in Answers Research Journal, the science publication organ of Answers in Genesis, states that Young-earth/world-wide flood models would mean that there would have been an enormously too great an amount of heat for the earth to have survived as we know it. Here's a quotation from the article:

"The main conclusion of this article is that the total amount of geological heat deposited in the formation of the ocean floors and of LIPs [Large Igneous Processes] is overwhelming: it cannot be removed from the biosphere within a biblically-compatible timescale by known natural processes. Using CPT-style [Catastrophic Plate Tectonics] Flood models as our theoretical framework, no more than a tiny fraction of the total could have been released into the atmosphere and oceans during and after the Flood."

The article indicates that this problem for Young-earth creationism has been known among Young-earth geologists for decades. I am not a geologist, and make no claim to understand the geology behind the article. I do understand, however, that a Young-Earth Creationist is stating, in a publication dedicated to the proposition that the earth is but a few thousand years old, that there are no natural processes that would explain the state of the earth's crust now, if a young earth explanation is attempted. Not surprisingly, the author suggests that there was miraculous intervention associated with the Flood.

Sunspots 574

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: Listverse reports on 10 amazing objects made from ice -- some small, some quite large.

Christianity: Philosopher Alvin Plantinga on why science does not rule out miracles.

Sojourners reports that Southern Baptists, Jews, Sikhs, and Hari Krishna worshipers have come out against a zoning ruling that a mosque couldn't be built.

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware points to a free web-based video studio.

Wired says that ransomware -- making a computer or network unusable, then demanding money to reverse this -- is becoming the most common type of Internet attack. The article discusses ways to avoid this.

Politics: Some reactions from important Christians to Mr. Trump: Sojourners reports on a "called to resist bigotry" statement, signed by sixty important religious leaders. The report includes a long excerpt from an article by Russell Moore, an important official of the Southern Baptist Convention, who signed the statement. Here's the Moore article.

Science: Listverse tells us about 10 organisms (not all are animals!) that may be as or more intelligent than we are.

Sports: Congratulations to Tim Duncan. His team, the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association, did not win the championship this year. (They have in the past.) But Duncan has won more games with the same team than any player in the history of the NBA.

Image source (public domain)  

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, 68

The sceptic always takes one of the two positions; either an ordinary man need not be believed, or an extraordinary event must not be believed. For I hope we may dismiss the argument against wonders attempted in the mere recapitulation of frauds, of swindling mediums or trick miracles. That is not an argument at all, good or bad. A false ghost disproves the reality of ghosts exactly as much as a forged banknote disproves the existence of the Bank of England—if anything, it proves its existence.

Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here. Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, 67

Suppose we were investigating whether angry men really saw a red mist before their eyes. Suppose sixty excellent householders swore that when angry they had seen this crimson cloud: surely it would be absurd to answer “Oh, but you admit you were angry at the time.” They might reasonably rejoin (in a stentorian chorus), “How the blazes could we discover, without being angry, whether angry people see red?” So the saints and ascetics might rationally reply, “Suppose that the question is whether believers can see visions—even then, if you are interested in visions it is no point to object to believers.” You are still arguing in a circle-in that old mad circle with which this book began.
The question of whether miracles ever occur is a question of common sense and of ordinary historical imagination: not of any final physical experiment. One may here surely dismiss that quite brainless piece of pedantry which talks about the need for “scientific conditions” in connection with alleged spiritual phenomena. If we are asking whether a dead soul can communicate with a living it is ludicrous to insist that it shall be under conditions in which no two living souls in their senses would seriously communicate with each other. The fact that ghosts prefer darkness no more disproves the existence of ghosts than the fact that lovers prefer darkness disproves the existence of love. If you choose to say, “I will believe that Miss Brown called her fiancé a periwinkle or, any other endearing term, if she will repeat the word before seventeen psychologists,” then I shall reply, “Very well, if those are your conditions, you will never get the truth, for she certainly will not say it.” It is just as unscientific as it is unphilosophical to be surprised that in an unsympathetic atmosphere certain extraordinary sympathies do not arise. It is as if I said that I could not tell if there was a fog because the air was not clear enough; or as if I insisted on perfect sunlight in order to see a solar eclipse.

Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here. Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, 66

But among these million facts all flowing one way there is, of course, one question sufficiently solid and separate to be treated briefly, but by itself; I mean the objective occurrence of the supernatural.

In another chapter I have indicated the fallacy of the ordinary supposition that the world must be impersonal because it is orderly. A person is just as likely to desire an orderly thing as a disorderly thing. But my own positive conviction that personal creation is more conceivable than material fate, is, I admit, in a sense, undiscussable. I will not call it a faith or an intuition, for those words are mixed up with mere emotion, it is strictly an intellectual conviction; but it is a primary intellectual conviction like the certainty of self or the good of living. Any one who likes, therefore, may call my belief in God merely mystical; the phrase is not worth fighting about. But my belief that miracles have happened in human history is not a mystical belief at all; I believe in them upon human evidences as I do in the discovery of America.

Upon this point there is a simple logical fact that only requires to be stated and cleared up. Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them. The open, obvious, democratic thing is to believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a miracle, just as you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a murder. The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant’s word about the ghost exactly as far as you trust the peasant’s word about the landlord. Being a peasant he will probably have a great deal of healthy agnosticism about both. Still you could fill the British Museum with evidence uttered by the peasant, and given in favour of the ghost.

If it comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimony in favour of the supernatural. If you reject it, you can only mean one of two things. You reject the peasant’s story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story. That is, you either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm the main principle of materialism—the abstract impossibility of miracle. You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are the dogmatist. It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence—it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed. But I am not constrained by any creed in the matter, and looking impartially into certain miracles of medieval and modern times, I have come to the conclusion that they occurred. All argument against these plain facts is always argument in a circle. If I say, “Medieval documents attest certain miracles as much as they attest certain battles,” they answer, “But medievals were superstitious”; if I want to know in what they were superstitious, the only ultimate answer is that they believed in the miracles. If I say “a peasant saw a ghost,” I am told, “But peasants are so credulous.” If I ask, “Why credulous?” the only answer is—that they see ghosts. Iceland is impossible because only stupid sailors have seen it; and the sailors are only stupid because they say they have seen Iceland. It is only fair to add that there is another argument that the unbeliever may rationally use against miracles, though he himself generally forgets to use it.

Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here. Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Augustine on Miracles, from The City of God

For we cannot listen to those who maintain that the invisible God works no visible miracles; for even they believe that He made the world, which surely they will not deny to be visible. Whatever marvel happens in this world, it is certainly less marvellous than this whole world itself,—I mean the sky and earth, and all that is in them,—and these God certainly made. But, as the Creator Himself is hidden and incomprehensible to man, so also is the manner of creation. Although, therefore, the standing miracle of this visible world is little thought of, because always before us, yet, when we arouse ourselves to contemplate it, it is a greater miracle than the rarest and most unheard-of marvels. For man himself is a greater miracle than any miracle done through his instrumentality. Therefore God, who made the visible heaven and earth, does not disdain to work visible miracles in heaven or earth, that He may thereby awaken the soul which is immersed in things visible to worship Himself, the Invisible. But the place and time of these miracles are dependent on His unchangeable will, in which things future are ordered as if already they were accomplished. For He moves things temporal without Himself moving in time. - Augustine, The City of God, Tenth Book, 12, public domain. Available from Project Gutenberg, and other sources.

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, 52

Of the fact and evidence of the supernatural I will speak afterwards. Here we are only concerned with this clear point; that in so far as the liberal idea of freedom can be said to be on either side in the discussion about miracles, it is obviously on the side of miracles. Reform or (in the only tolerable sense) progress means simply the gradual control of matter by mind. A miracle simply means the swift control of matter by mind. If you wish to feed the people, you may think that feeding them miraculously in the wilderness is impossible—but you cannot think it illiberal. If you really want poor children to go to the seaside, you cannot think it illiberal that they should go there on flying dragons; you can only think it unlikely. A holiday, like Liberalism, only means the liberty of man. A miracle only means the liberty of God. You may conscientiously deny either of them, but you cannot call your denial a triumph of the liberal idea. The Catholic Church believed that man and God both had a sort of spiritual freedom. Calvinism took away the freedom from man, but left it to God. Scientific materialism binds the Creator Himself; it chains up God as the Apocalypse chained the devil. It leaves nothing free in the universe. And those who assist this process are called the “liberal theologians.”
 
This, as I say, is the lightest and most evident case. The assumption that there is something in the doubt of miracles akin to liberality or reform is literally the opposite of the truth. If a man cannot believe in miracles there is an end of the matter; he is not particularly liberal, but he is perfectly honourable and logical, which are much better things. But if he can believe in miracles, he is certainly the more liberal for doing so; because they mean first, the freedom of the soul, and secondly, its control over the tyranny of circumstance. Sometimes this truth is ignored in a singularly naïve way, even by the ablest men. For instance, Mr. Bernard Shaw speaks with hearty old-fashioned contempt for the idea of miracles, as if they were a sort of breach of faith on the part of nature: he seems strangely unconscious that miracles are only the final flowers of his own favourite tree, the doctrine of the omnipotence of will. Just in the same way he calls the desire for immortality a paltry selfishness, forgetting that he has just called the desire for life a healthy and heroic selfishness. How can it be noble to wish to make one’s life infinite and yet mean to wish to make it immortal? No, if it is desirable that man should triumph over the cruelty of nature or custom, then miracles are certainly desirable; we will discuss afterwards whether they are possible.

Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here. Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, 51

In the few following pages I propose to point out as rapidly as possible that on every single one of the matters most strongly insisted on by liberalisers of theology their effect upon social practice would be definitely illiberal. Almost every contemporary proposal to bring freedom into the church is simply a proposal to bring tyranny into the world. For freeing the church now does not even mean freeing it in all directions. It means freeing that peculiar set of dogmas loosely called scientific, dogmas of monism, of pantheism, or of Arianism, or of necessity. And every one of these (and we will take them one by one) can be shown to be the natural ally of oppression. In fact, it is a remarkable circumstance (indeed not so very remarkable when one comes to think of it) that most things are the allies of oppression. There is only one thing that can never go past a certain point in its alliance with oppression—and that is orthodoxy. I may, it is true, twist orthodoxy so as partly to justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up a German philosophy to justify him entirely.
For some extraordinary reason, there is a fixed notion that it is more liberal to disbelieve in miracles than to believe in them. Why, I cannot imagine, nor can anybody tell me. For some inconceivable cause a “broad” or “liberal” clergyman always means a man who wishes at least to diminish the number of miracles; it never means a man who wishes to increase that number. It always means a man who is free to disbelieve that Christ came out of His grave; it never means a man who is free to believe that his own aunt came out of her grave. It is common to find trouble in a parish because the parish priest cannot admit that St. Peter walked on water; yet how rarely do we find trouble in a parish because the clergyman says that his father walked on the Serpentine? And this is not because (as the swift secularist debater would immediately retort) miracles cannot be believed in our experience. It is not because “miracles do not happen,” as in the dogma which Matthew Arnold recited with simple faith. More supernatural things are alleged to have happened in our time than would have been possible eighty years ago. Men of science believe in such marvels much more than they did: the most perplexing, and even horrible, prodigies of mind and spirit are always being unveiled in modern psychology. Things that the old science at least would frankly have rejected as miracles are hourly being asserted by the new science. The only thing which is still old-fashioned enough to reject miracles is the New Theology. But in truth this notion that it is “free” to deny miracles has nothing to do with the evidence for or against them. It is a lifeless verbal prejudice of which the original life and beginning was not in the freedom of thought, but simply in the dogma of materialism.

The man of the nineteenth century did not disbelieve in the Resurrection because his liberal Christianity allowed him to doubt it. He disbelieved in it because his very strict materialism did not allow him to believe it. Tennyson, a very typical nineteenth-century man, uttered one of the instinctive truisms of his contemporaries when he said that there was faith in their honest doubt. There was indeed. Those words have a profound and even a horrible truth. In their doubt of miracles there was a faith in a fixed and godless fate; a deep and sincere faith in the incurable routine of the cosmos. The doubts of the agnostic were only the dogmas of the monist.

Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here. Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 24

An imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that such and such a creed can be held in one age but cannot be held in another. Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century, but is not credible in the twentieth. You might as well say that a certain philosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed on Tuesdays. You might as well say of a view of the cosmos that it was suitable to half-past three, but not suitable to half-past four. What a man can believe depends upon his philosophy, not upon the clock or the century. If a man believes in unalterable natural law, he cannot believe in any miracle in any age. If a man believes in a will behind law, he can believe in any miracle in any age. Suppose, for the sake of argument, we are concerned with a case of thaumaturgic healing. A materialist of the twelfth century could not believe it any more than a materialist of the twentieth century. But a Christian Scientist of the twentieth century can believe it as much as a Christian of the twelfth century. It is simply a matter of a man’s theory of things. Therefore in dealing with any historical answer, the point is not whether it was given in our time, but whether it was given in answer to our question. And the more I thought about when and how Christianity had come into the world, the more I felt that it had actually come to answer this question.

Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here. Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 13

It is no argument for unalterable law (as Huxley fancied) that we count on the ordinary course of things. We do not count on it; we bet on it. We risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of a poisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet. We leave it out of account, not because it is a miracle, and therefore an impossibility, but be cause it is a miracle, and therefore an exception.
Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales—because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him.

Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth?

Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here.  Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 5

The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason. The madman’s explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of madness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours. Or if a man says that he is the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say that the existing authorities call him mad; for if he were King of England that might be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or if a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ’s. Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his error in exact terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhaps the nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this: that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is not so large. In the same way the insane explanation is quite as complete as the sane one, but it is not so large.

A Christian is only restricted in the same sense that an atheist is restricted. He cannot think Christianity false and continue to be a Christian; and the atheist cannot think atheism false and continue to be an atheist. But as it happens, there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism. Mr. McCabe thinks me a slave because I am not allowed to believe in determinism. I think Mr. McCabe a slave because he is not allowed to believe in fairies. But if we examine the two vetoes we shall see that his is really much more of a pure veto than mine. The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle.

Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here.  Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Lectures on Revivals of Religion, by Charles Grandison Finney, 8

REMARKS.

1. Revivals were formerly regarded as miracles. And it has been so by some even in our day. And others have ideas on the subject so loose and unsatisfactory, that if they would only think, they would see their absurdity. For a long time, it was supposed by the church, that a revival was a miracle, an interposition of Divine power which they had nothing to do with, and which they had no more agency in producing, than they had in producing thunder, or a storm of hail, or an earthquake. It is only within a few years that ministers generally have supposed revivals were to be promoted, by the use of means designed and adapted specially to that object. Even in New England, it has been supposed that revivals came just as showers do, sometimes in one town, and sometimes in another, and that ministers and churches could do nothing more to produce them than they could to make showers of rain come on their own town, when they are falling on a neighboring town. 

It used to be supposed that a revival would come about once in fifteen years, and all would be converted that God intended to save, and then they must wait until another crop came forward on the stage of life. Finally, the time got shortened down to five years, and they supposed there might be a revival about as often as that. 

I have heard a fact in relation to one of these pastors, who supposed revivals might come about once in five years. There had been a revival in his congregation. The next year, there was a revival in a neighboring town, and he went there to preach, and staid several days, till he got his soul all engaged in the work. He returned home on Saturday, and went into his study to prepare for the Sabbath. And his soul was in an agony. He thought how many adult persons there were in his congregation at enmity with God—so many still unconverted—so many persons die yearly—such a portion of them unconverted—if a revival does not come under five years, so many adult heads of families will be in hell. He put down his calculations on paper, and embodied them in his sermon for the next day, with his heart bleeding at the dreadful picture. As I understood it, he did not do this with any expectation of a revival, but he felt deeply, and poured out his heart to his people. And that sermon awakened forty heads of families, and a powerful revival followed; and so his theory about a revival once in five years was all exploded. 

Thus God has overthrown, generally, the theory that revivals are miracles.

The previous post in this series is here. Charles Grandison Finneyʼs Lectures on Revivals of Religion is in the public domain, as I understand it. It is available here. Thanks for reading. Seek revival.

Lectures on Revivals of Religion, by Charles Grandison Finney, 2

I. A REVIVAL OF RELIGION IS NOT A MIRACLE.

1. A miracle has been generally defined to be, a Divine interference, setting aside or suspending the laws of nature. It is not a miracle in this sense. All the laws of matter and mind remain in force. They are neither suspended nor set aside in a revival.

2. It is not a miracle according to another definition of the term miracle—something above the powers of nature. There is nothing in religion beyond the ordinary powers of nature. It consists entirely in the right exercise of the powers of nature. It is just that, and nothing else. When mankind become religious, they are not enabled to put forth exertions which they were unable before to put forth . They only exert the powers they had before in a different way, and use them for the glory of God.

3. It is not a miracle, or dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means—as much so as any other effect produced by the application of means. There may be a miracle among its antecedent causes, or there may not. The apostles employed miracles, simply as a means by which they arrested attention to their message, and established its divine authority. But the miracle was not the revival. The miracle was one thing; the revival that followed it was quite another thing. The revivals in the apostles’ days were connected with miracles, but they were not miracles.

I said that a revival is the result of the right use of the appropriate means. The means which God has enjoined for the production of a revival, doubtless have a natural tendency to produce a revival. Otherwise God would not have enjoined them. But means will not produce a revival, we all know, without the blessing of God. No more will grain. when it is sowed, produce a crop without the blessing of God. it is impossible for us to say that there is not as direct an influence or agency from God, to produce a crop of grain, as there is to produce a revival. What are the laws of nature according to which it is supposed that grain yields a crop? They are nothing but the constituted manner of the operations of God. In the Bible, the word of God is compared to grain, and preaching is compared to sowing seed, and the results to the springing up and growth of the crop. And the result is just as philosophical in the one case, as in the other, and is as naturally connected with the cause; or, more correctly, a revival is as naturally a result of the use of the appropriate means as a crop is of the use of its appropriate means. It is true that religion does not properly belong to the category of cause and effect; but although It is not caused by means, yet it has its occasion, and may as naturally and certainly result from its occasion as a crop does from its cause.

I wish this idea to be impressed on all your minds, for there has long been an idea prevalent that promoting religion has something very peculiar in it, not to be judged of by the ordinary rules of cause and effect; in short, that there is no connection of the means with the result, and no tendency in the means to produce the effect. No doctrine is more dangerous than this to the prosperity of the church, and nothing more absurd.

Suppose a man were to go and preach this doctrine among farmers, about their sowing grain. Let him tell them that God is a sovereign, and will give them a crop only when it pleases him, and that for them to plow and plant and labor as if they expected to raise a crop is very wrong, and taking the work out of the hands of God, that it interferes with his sovereignty, and is going on in their own strength: and that there is no connection between the means and the result on which they can depend. And now, suppose the farmers should believe such doctrine. Why, they would starve the world to death.

Just such results will follow from the church’s being persuaded that promoting religion is somehow so mysteriously a subject of Divine sovereignty, that there is no natural connection between the means and the end. What are the results? Why, generation after generation has gone down to hell. No doubt more than five thousand millions have gone down to hell, while the church has been dreaming, and waiting for God to save them without the use of means. It has been the devil’s most successful means of destroying souls. The connection is as clear in religion as it is when the farmer sows his grain. 

The previous post in this series is here. Charles Grandison Finneyʼs Lectures on Revivals of Religion is in the public domain, as I understand it. It is available here. Thanks for reading. Seek revival.

Dembski and Falk: Is Darwin Theologically Neutral? Falk's position

There has recently been an exchange of views between some Southern Baptist theologians, and members of the BioLogos Foundation, on the question posed by the title. I have posted on the views of William Dembski, a Southern Baptist theologian, and a prominent member of the Intelligent Design movement (ID), expressed in two posts, which was published on the BioLogos blog, and on responses to those views, from Todd C. Wood, a young-earth creationist whose views I admire and respect, which were published independently on his own blog. The last post in this series was here. It has links to the previous posts, and related matters.

I now turn to the response of Darrel Falk, president of the BioLogos Foundation, whose views on origins are often called evolutionary creationism. Like Dembski, Falk first puts forth his own position. There is a second part to Falk's response, in which he sets forth some disagreement with Dembski, and I hope to muse about that at a later date.

Falk shares considerable common ground with Dembski. But he parts ways with him on the matter of God's activity. ID advocates argue that God's activity, in the development of living things, including humans, must have involved a number of supernatural, miraculous acts, and that, furthermore, in principle, it is possible for scientific analysis to show that such miraculous acts were necessary. Falk disagrees, in at least two important ways.

First, Falk does believe in the miraculous, events which are not explicable by science, not ordinary natural activity. (Christ's incarnation and resurrection are two such.) But he claims that God's activity is not usually what we would call miraculous, and, furthermore, that God's ordinary activity is necessary for the maintenance of the universe. He writes:

The Law of Gravity, for example, is not something that God set up in the beginning, thereafter recusing himself from further involvement and exiting from the scene. Instead, the Law of Gravity works as it does because of the ongoing activity of God’s Spirit in the universe. So consistent is that activity that it can be described mathematically through scientific analysis. If God ceased to be active, however, then not only would the matter of this universe no longer function in a way which enables a mathematical description of gravity, matter itself would cease to exist.

Falk goes on to say this:

Put another way, the activity of God is not restricted to that which we call the supernatural; it is all God’s activity. It is just that some aspects of God’s activity are so consistently repeatable that we can develop laws which describe the regularity of the divine activity which “holds” and “sustains” the universe. This latter type of activity is no less magnificent just because God does it continuously.

He cites Hebrews 1:3 and Colossians 1:17 in support of his position. (Unfortunately, he gives the reference as Colossians 1:16, not 1:17, but he quotes 1:17)

Second, Falk says that we are too prone to think miracles were necessary, when perhaps they weren't:

Given the many examples of supernatural activity in Scripture, we human beings tend to expect that for something as special as creation of stars or new species, supernatural activity would have been required. But we cannot derive this from the scriptural account and, therefore, it is wise not to second-guess how God might have worked based on the Scriptures. . . . When the Psalmist describes the heavens as being the work of his fingers (Psalm 8:3), this does not negate astronomy’s description of the regular and ongoing processes that give rise to stars in God’s universe. Those processes are natural, but they are every bit as much God’s activity as if he were to take huge balls of matter and miraculously fashion sparkling stars with his hands.

I believe that Falk is correct on these two points, and that I have been guilty of confusing miracles with ordinary activity at times. I wish that Dembski had responded to this post, but, as far as I know, he has not.

Thanks for reading. Read Falk.

Water into wine

John 2:1 The third day, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. 2 Jesus also was invited, with his disciples, to the marriage. 3 When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no wine.”

4 Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with you and me? My hour has not yet come.”

5 His mother said to the servants, “Whatever he says to you, do it.” 6 Now there were six water pots of stone set there after the Jews’ way of purifying, containing two or three metretes* apiece. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the water pots with water.” They filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the ruler of the feast.” So they took it. 9 When the ruler of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and didn’t know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the ruler of the feast called the bridegroom, 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when the guests have drunk freely, then that which is worse. You have kept the good wine until now!” 11 This beginning of his signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. 

*2 to 3 metretes is about 20 to 30 U. S. Gallons, or 75 to 115 liters. (From the World English Bible, public domain.)

This is a remarkable story. Only John's gospel tells it. There doesn't seem to be any suggestion that this is to be taken any other way than as a history of something that Jesus did. Therefore, there are two possibilities. Either John (or someone else) made this up, or it really happened. I believe in the truth of the Bible, so I reject the first possibility. If it really happened, it was some sort of miracle.

I say some sort, because, of course, John didn't tell us exactly what Jesus did, presumably because he, John didn't know. What, then, did Jesus do? I certainly don't know, either. But I can muse about it.

Verse 6 apparently means that the capacity of these water pots was about 100 liters, not that they were filled with water already. It doesn't completely rule out that there was some water in one or more of these pots. Verse 7 indicates that the servants filled these pots, perhaps from the village well. Apparently, as the water was poured, the contents of the pots became wine.

How did Jesus do this? We don't know, of course, but however and whatever He did, it was miraculous.

The chemical formula for alcohol (ethanol -- there are many kinds of alcohol. Ethanol is the kind in alcoholic beverages) is C₂H₅OH. The chemical formula for water is H₂O. There are no carbon atoms in pure water, and, even if the water was impure, with some carbon atoms in it, they wouldn't be expected to be  incorporated into molecules of ethanol. Somehow, Jesus either created ethanol molecules, or transformed water molecules into ethanol. Such feats are beyond our ability, even today. (It is possible, I suppose, that Jesus, instead, acted on the taste buds and nasal passages of the ruler of the feast, and the other guests, but the text doesn't suggest that, and, even if it happened, it would be as miraculous as creating, or transforming, molecules.)

Some people of past times, including the alchemists of the West, believed that there is a philosopher's stone, that has the power to produce gold by transformation of other elements. Elements generally don't change into other elements, but this does happen, through some kinds of radioactive decay, and it is possible for humans to use nuclear reactions to change some types of elements into others. (See the Wikipedia article on Nuclear transmutation.) But don't expect to go to your friendly neighborhood university physics department and expect that they are capable of transforming hydrogen or oxygen atoms into carbon atoms, or water molecules into ethanol molecules. This is just not possible. (It is believed that several hydrogen atoms, through a long and involved processes, can be transformed into a carbon atom, in the heart of stars.)

How is wine made, normally? The process is carried out by yeast organisms, which require sugar to work on, and contain the appropriate enzymes for breaking the sugar down and making ethanol and carbon dioxide from it. (See Wikipedia article on ethanol fermentation) That normal process is remarkable enough that I consider the ability of yeasts to carry it out to be similar to a miracle, although it is a natural process -- somehow God has made it possible for it to be carried out, apparently with no divine intervention. But Colossians 1:16-17 indicate that Christ somehow sustains the universe at present, including sustaining yeasts, grapes, and ethanol fermentation:

16 For by him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things are held together.

There is more to wine than ethanol and water. There is a science, or art, of wine tasting, which I know very little about, but there are numerous chemicals in wine, besides ethanol and water, and the ruler of the feast must have detected a pleasing mixture of these, and ethanol, in what he tasted. Jesus would have had to create other substances, besides ethanol, in this wine.

I confess that I started thinking about this subject yesterday, and decided to write this post without checking the approximately 2,000 posts already published in this blog. I just now discovered that I had already posted on this miracle. However, I decided to go ahead and publish this post, which is a little more extensive.

Thanks for reading.

Prayers in the Bible: Gideon prays for guidance

One of the best known examples of looking for God's guidance, in the Bible, is the story of Gideon. Here's part of it:

Judges 6:36 Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken, 37 behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then shall I know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken.”

38 It was so; for he rose up early on the next day, and pressed the fleece together, and wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water.

39 Gideon said to God, “Don’t let your anger be kindled against me, and I will speak but this once. Please let me make a trial just this once with the fleece. Let it now be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew.”

40 God did so that night: for it was dry on the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground. (Quotations from the World English Bible, which is public domain.)

Note that Gideon prayed. He spoke to God, twice. And he asked God, basically, either if God knew what should be done, or, more charitably, if he had understood God correctly. It seems to me that the most important part of this story is that God didn't zap Gideon for his doubt, or for not paying close enough attention. He answered Gideon both times, with, apparently, a small miracle in each case.

The story is even more remarkable when we remember how God spoke to Gideon in the first place, and that God wasn't done speaking to him. Here's how God spoke to Gideon at first:

Judges 6:11 The angel of Yahweh came, and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained to Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. 12 The angel of Yahweh appeared to him, and said to him, “Yahweh is with you, you mighty man of valor!”

13 Gideon said to him, “Oh, my lord, if Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Didn’t Yahweh bring us up from Egypt?’ But now Yahweh has cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian.”

14 Yahweh looked at him, and said, “Go in this your might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Haven’t I sent you?”

15 He said to him, “O Lord, how shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”

16 Yahweh said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”

17 He said to him, “If now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who talk with me. 18 Please don’t go away, until I come to you, and bring out my present, and lay it before you.”

He said, “I will wait until you come back.”

19 Gideon went in, and prepared a young goat, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of meal. He put the meat in a basket and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out to him under the oak, and presented it.

20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.”

He did so. 21 Then the angel of Yahweh stretched out the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire went up out of the rock, and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of Yahweh departed out of his sight.

22 Gideon saw that he was the angel of Yahweh; and Gideon said, “Alas, Lord Yahweh! Because I have seen the angel of Yahweh face to face!”

23 Yahweh said to him, “Peace be to you! Don’t be afraid. You shall not die.”

In verse 14, Gideon got a clear command to lead the Israelites. It was accompanied by at least three miracles. God (or an angel) appeared to him, and spoke to him, in the first place. Second, Gideon asked for a sign, and was given one. Third, the angel miraculously disappeared. In spite of all of this, Gideon still wasn't convinced. That's why he made the requests about the fleece. That makes five miracles.

Actually, it seems that Gideon still wasn't sure. In a later passage, God showed him yet another miracle, shortly before he actually led the attack on the Midianites. The point seems to be that, even with people who are hard to convince, God does answer prayer for guidance. It also seems to be true that God doesn't despise honest (or maybe even somewhat dishonest) doubt. Probably the biggest miracle of the entire story is that Gideon, a man who didn't really want to do this, actually did lead the Israelites against the army of Midian, rather than running back home to the farm.

Here is a discussion of another case of honest doubt. These two aren't the only ones in the Bible.

This post is part of a series on prayers in the Bible. The previous one is here.

No Old Navy or Shoe Carnival.

Deuteronomy 29:5 I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet. (ESV)

Not only could they not go get new clothes and shoes, but they didn't have to. Could I live like that? I don't know. I get tired of some of my garments, and my wife gets tired of some of them before I do. (They also wear out, or don't fit any more.)

God clearly performed many miracles during the trek through the desert by the Israelites. I recently referred to one of them, namely a long fast by Moses.

God can supply our need! Thanks for reading.

Spiritual experiences would be expected to have some physical effects

He replied that as a medical man he was at a loss to explain these events, and he had to think of them in "spiritual" terms now. I countered that, with no disrespect to the spiritual, I felt that even the most exalted states of mind, the most astounding transformations, must have some physical basis, or at least some physiological correlate in neural activity. Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. New York: Knopf, 2007, p. 12. "He" is a doctor who was struck by lightning. As a result, he developed a love, even a craving, for classical piano music, and started to become a piano performer. He also had ". . . both a near-death experience and an out-of-body experience . . ." (pp. 12-13) caused by the lightning strike.

Sacks has some knowledge of research into near-death and out-of-body experiences. He does not reject their existence out of hand. And, most likely, he is right. When Jesus turned water into wine, the wedding guests drunk it. When Moses raised his rod over the Red Sea, the sea parted. These were two physical manifestations of miracles. Many others could be listed. So why not expect that, say, a revelation from God, as many of the prophets had, or a vision, or dream, or some sort of ecstatic experience, would also have physical effects, at least temporary ones, on the brains of the people that are experiencing them, just as we may be able to measure brain cell activity when other events are taking place? Surely, when we have any sort of experience, something (probably temporary, perhaps not) must be happening to at least a few of our brain cells?

Here's a recent report of some interesting research involving measurement of brain activity in response to beautiful images (No images of humans were included.)

This relates to what has been called the mind-body problem.

Miracles in Jonah

It strikes me that there are a lot of miracles in the four short chapters of the book of Jonah. I'm probably missing some, but I'll include a few.

1. God hurled a great wind on the sea (1:4) which soon led to the sailors on Jonah's escape boat throwing him overboard. ("Hurled" is the word used in the ESV)

One of my objectives in studying these miracles was to see if there was any evidence that some of God's special interventions in the story were long-standing, previously prepared. I am not any sort of Hebrew scholar, but a feature of the Blueletter Bible shows that the Hebrew word, tuwl, translated as "hurled" in the ESV is the same word used in verse 5 of Jonah 1 to describe throwing over the cargo, and in verse 15 of the same chapter to describe throwing Jonah overboard. This word use does not seem to suggest anything other than that that God reacted to Jonah's action in running away by sending this storm. God certainly could have moved at some time in the past to make this storm possible, but the word use sounds like immediate action in the present.

2. Jonah volunteered to be thrown overboard! That is amazing, in a man who was running away from God in disobedience.

3. The sailors worshipped God.

4. God had appointed (manah) a fish to swallow Jonah. Not only to swallow him, but to preserve his life for some or all of three days, including at least one entire day, and to vomit him up on land when Jonah repented (at least temporatily) of his hatred for the Ninevites, and agreed to follow God's plan for him. This word is used four times in Jonah. Once for the fish, once for the (5.) gourd plant that shaded Jonah, once for the (6.) worm that ate the gourd, and once for the (7.) east wind that made sitting in the desert watching what would happen (or not!) to Nineveh so uncomfortable for Jonah.

*(this paragraph was added after this post was first published.) Although there is no definite evidence to support the idea that God used a pre-existing water animal, gourd, or worm, He may have done so. Manah has a lot of uses. As you can see from the link in the previous sentence, that word is used in 2 Chronicles 5:6 as "number" for the animals that were sacrificed at the dedication of the temple built by Solomon. Surely those were pre-existing beasts! In Psalm 147:4, the psalmist says that God "numbers" the stars, using the same word. These stars must be stars already in existence.

The Bible does not use the word "whale" to describe this creature, in any version that I am aware of, although we can't rule that out, either. Was this creature a specially created being, or was it just one of a species that was found in the sea in this area, specially used by God? We don't know. See here for the Wikipedia's comments on the fish in the book of Jonah. I suppose it would be possible for the beast to have been an ordinary one, but when we consider that Jonah needed Oxygen for an extended period, there must have been some miraculous work at play.

Did this really happen? Well, Jesus apparently thought so, as he used the story of Jonah as a symbol of his own death and resurrection! (Matthew 12:38-41)

8. The people of Nineveh repented of their evil ways! This is the biggest miracle of the book, more important than the fish, the storm, the gourd, the worm. Jesus also took this seriously, warning some of his listeners that, even though they were Jews, the Ninevites in the time of Jonah would be treated better at the last judgment, because they did repent, while some of Christ's contemporaries persisted in the evil ways, and in rejecting Him. (Luke 11:29-32)

Was there another miracle, if and when Jonah realized that the Ninevites deserved a real chance, or did Jonah go off, bitterly disappointed that God had not destroyed them? We don't know. I guess that that's Jonah's story, not ours.

I found no firm evidence for anything other than God's special miraculous work in these miracles.

Thanks for reading.

Why didn't the Apostles raise James from the dead?

Jesus brought some people back from the dead to life. The early church did, too.

In Acts 9:36-41, Peter raised Dorcas from the dead.

Another possible instance is in Acts 20:7-10, where Eutychus fell from a high window ledge, and Paul either brought him back to life, or reported that he wasn't really dead.

There may have been other instances, that weren't recorded.

Clearly, however, such events were infrequent. In Acts 12:1-2, the Bible tells us that James, John's brother, was killed by Herod. He wasn't raised from the dead.

Why was Dorcas raised from the dead, when James, one of the inner circle of Christ's twelve special followers, was not? Obviously, I don't know. It is possible, however, that Dorcas's work with the poor was so important that God wanted it continued. That's only musing on my part, you understand!

Thanks for reading.