Saturday, May 29, 2010

Chapter 1.1-Miraculous Claims and the Critical Mind (Can Intelligent People Still Believe in Miracles) Point 1

Before you read this post, think about how you feel about miracles, do you think events ever occur that can't be explained by the laws of science or nature? Your answer will have a big impact on your opinion about Jesus.

The gospel accounts of Jesus include descriptions of Jesus performing many miracles and rising from the dead. This causes many scholars to dismiss the gospels as innacurate because they hold to a naturalistic worldview. Naturalism holds that the laws of nature explain everything that happens and therefore any ideas about miracles are only legends. There are five points the authors of the book we are looking at ask us to consider before making such an assumption.  The next 5 posts will look each of those points.

Objection #1 to the Assumption of Naturalism
It is  common for people to reject the idea of a miracle working Jesus, because of  they believe that the laws of nature explain all that happens on earth. (Naturalism) But we must consider whether there is enought evidence to support an  absolute rejection of miracles. That position is  rather an assumption or presuppostion of the naturalistic worldview. Is is consistent with scientific inquiry to base ones research on assumptions? Certainly natural laws explain most events, but does that mean that we can just assume that this is true for all events? Would it not be more logical to say that if natural laws can't explain something we should consider other explanations?




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