Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

The events predicted in the Bible have so far all come to pass, except of course for the ones yet to happen in the future. However, some people are upset that every detail of the predicted events is not made available to us in the Bible. This is true that every detail is not available. But that does not mean the Bible is false. The Bible tells us that something will happen, but does not usually tell us how or exactly when. There is good reason for this. As mentioned in a previous post , if every detail of every predicted event were to be revealed, the Bible would wind up as a lengthy tome which no-one could reasonably manage to read in their lifetime. Instead, just the parts that are important for us to know are in there.  When a prediction is made, it does not make it any less true if it happens by highly unusual means. Likewise, it also does not make it any less true if the prediction occurs via what might seem like "ordinary" or "explainable" means. One...

Every Christmas season, I reflect on the great faith of Mary. She was told by the angel Gabriel that she was to bear Jesus. In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”  The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon y...

The issue of God intervening by miracles is a big point of contention between Christians and atheists.  Are miracles the bound between the natural and the supernatural? And if so, why even have a 'supernatural'? Is it because God has to 'jump in' occasionally and 'save the day' to prevent things form getting out of hand?  Or maybe (as other atheists might suggest) miracles are simply Christians conveniently attributing to God mysterious phenomena which we can't yet explain? C.S. Lewis had pondered this question and written an entire book on it called 'Miracles'.  In this book, he argues that what we call miracles (which some would call the 'supernatural') are 'not exceptions nor irrelevancies'.  Instead, miracles are simply God's usual powers used in accordance with the 'rules behind the rules' (C.S. Lewis, Miracles 1947, Chapter 12 'The Propriety of Miracles').  C.S. Lewis likens God's use of miracles to art...

Here we'll find out what miracles mean for the big picture of God's work.  In Miracles Part 1 , we studied the argument put forward by C.S. Lewis in his book 'Miracles' that miracles are a form of artistic license used by God (and not a device to rescue out-of-control situations), and they are not exceptions to nature, although they occur infrequently.  C.S. Lewis puts forward the notion that if God is using artistic license for miracles and it is an infrequent event, then this evidence should tell us that these are the parts of his work that he wants to emphasize, which in turn lets us know that these parts of the story are hugely important.  In his book 'Miracles', C.S. Lewis goes on to have us question what we think of the big picture.  In Chapter 12 "The Propriety of Miracles", he states: "If you have hitherto disbelieved in miracles, it is worth pausing a moment to consider whether this is not chiefly because you thought you had discover...