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From: cjh@petsd.UUCP (Chris Henrich)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Marchionni to Rosen: open note
Message-ID: <451@petsd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Feb-85 19:58:07 EST
Article-I.D.: petsd.451
Posted: Mon Feb 18 19:58:07 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Feb-85 07:17:15 EST
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[]
	The subject of miracles interests me, and seems to be
just right for this group; so I will respond to some of
Vince's remarks. (Apologies if I duplicate someone else's
comments: articles do not get to me in chrono or any other
kind of logical order.)

>  The Roman Church goes to GREAT LENGTHS (it's in N.Dakota) to
> prove physically that a miracle took place.  We do this by trying to prove
> that no known physical laws could have accounted for said miracle.

...
> We agree that science explains the natural and it does so COMPLETELY.

I don't agree... having watched scientists in action and
(for a while) been one, I think this states an ideal goal, very far
from being realized.  Something like saying "Lubrication
eliminates friction and does so COMPLETELY."  There are always
uncertainties, unfinished business, and apparent
contradictions on the fringes of science.  At least once (in
the late nineteenth century) it seemed to some scientists that
all the basic principles had been discovered and what remained
was merely refinement of what was already known.  Then
relativity and quantum mechanics busted it all up.  Count on
surprises.
	This is relevant to the question of miracles because
an event that science(1985) cannot deal with at all may be
understandable to science(20??) or even science(1986).

> There are two planes of existence the natural and the supernatural.
	
	This picture makes me very uneasy.  Not that I wish to
lose the distinction between natural and supernatural, but
just that I don't believe the implications of "two planes" 
capture that distinction at all well.  Two "planes" after all
are two of the same general kind of ideas; I think "natural"
and "supernatural" are  not so symmetrically related. If the
latter plane stays above the former (that's what "super" means
after all) then they are parallel and don't meet: the God of
the Philosophers is away off there, thinking about pure
thought or something, and utterly beyond any interaction with
the "natural."
	The image of the two planes seems to me to go back to
Plato, and to originate in his cosmology which was very
strictly divided at the orbit of the Moon.  Down below all is
changeable, imperfect, irregular, subject to decay; up there,
all is eternal, perfect, regular, and sublime.  There is no
way for the two realms to meet.  
	If we let this image rule our theology, then we cannot
account for God's deigning to notice mortal creatures at all -
much less _become_ one of them. There are two ways of dealing
with this difficulty:
	(A) Kludge around it.  Say that God really didn't create this
world, He created a subordinate being called the Demiurge,
which then (more or less by mistake) created the material
world.  Once you start "multiplying entities" like this it is
easy to go overboard. I once read something by Jung (the
psychologist) in which he arrived at a three-by-three array of
intermediate beings.
	(B) Admit that it doesn't make sense (within the
limits of this image) - hoorah! it makes something much
better.
	Maybe the natural plane is embedded in the
supernatural space?

> Our God rules all of existence (this is one of His properties above).

	Right on.  This is a crucial principle, whether we're arguing
about miracles, creationism, or evil and suffering.

> We observe an occurrance that science CANNOT explain therefore it is not
> in the natural plane.
	
	Does "CANNOT" mean "CAN NEVER"?  If so, that's a long
time to wait before making up our minds.  At some point, we
must make an Act of Thought (not to mention an Act of Faith)
and make up our minds that we recognize God's presence in an
event.  

Peace,
Chris

--
Full-Name:  Christopher J. Henrich
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