Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: crf@ginger.princeton.edu (Charles Ferenbaugh) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Miracles (was Re: Transubstantiation/Power of God) Message-ID: Date: 29 Nov 89 04:13:56 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Princeton University Lines: 29 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu [In article nanovx!news@gatech.edu (Network News) commented on the difference between Protestants and Catholics in their approach to Communion. The posting concluded that Protestants give only lip service to the power of God, since they don't believe he can change bread into the body of Christ. --clh] Two comments/clarifications I think need to be made: 1. When we start talking about miracles in general (as opposed to the specific context of transsubstantiation) the Catholic/Protestant split no longer holds. It seems to me that most evangelical (Protestant) Christians put more stock in miracles than the more liberal Protestant branches (and maybe even some theologically liberal Catholics as well...). 2. Note that there is a big difference between saying that "miracles can happen" and " is a miracle." As the author of the above letter rightly points out, there are a lot of people running around nowdays who pay at most lip-service to the idea of miracles happening at all. Suffice it to say that any halfway serious view of Scripture leads one to the conclusion that miracles do in fact happen. BUT this doesn't mean that God always does a miracle when he can. To take transsubstantiation as an example: any serious Christian would believe that God could, IF HE CHOSE, cause the bread and wine to physically become the body and blood of Christ; Catholics then believe that this is the way God chooses to operate, while Protestants believe that he chooses otherwise. - Charles Ferenbaugh