Will wonders never cease?

ED: Whoa. "Proof" for supernatural occurences? That's a tall order to fill, not to mention categorically impossible.

How would one determine if something is "supernatural" or not in order to further decide that it should or should not be reported? This, of course, is the sticking point, and makes the conversation really quite irrelevant. No one will ever be able to prove that a miracle happened, nor that a miracle could happen, nor even that a miracle has the potential to happen--an affirmation in favor of either of these options would require the ability to precisely quantify the nature of a miracle. However, if such identification is possible, one is suddenly no longer dealing with the "supernatural," but rather with phenomenological oddity (if there is such thing).

SH: Other issues aside, this objection fails to distinguish between determining the occurrence of an event, and determining the identity of an event.

ED: This doesn't really provide evidence, but merely pushes the issue back another step. After all, appealing to Scripture as an "infallibly reliable source" would require the ability to determine not only the nature of infallibility, but also to show that the Scriptures obtain to such a determination. However, as such proof of infallibility would seem to be beyond the scope of any formal sets of criteria available to human epistemology, an appeal to the Scriptures does not function in the way that you intend them to in response to my objection.

SH: ED acts as if we need a “formal set of criteria” to know something. Do we?

1.One problem is a failure to distinguish between tactic knowledge and proof. There are times when we may need a criterion to prove that we know something, but it doesn’t follow that we cannot know anything apart from a formal set of criteria.

For example, human beings are capable of voice recognition, facial recognition, and pattern recognition generally without having a formal criterion at their fingertips.

A man may need a map to find a new address for the first time, but once he’s driven there he remembers the route without having any formal criterion.

We can tell the difference between milk and bourbon without a formal criterion. We can tell the difference between rain and snow without a formal criterion. We can tell the difference between a man and a woman without a formal criterion. We can tell the difference between a tidal wave and a forest fire without a formal criterion.

Some of these distinctions are capable of formal delineation. But we don’t apply a formal criterion to know them. Rather, we take them in at a glance.

So where does ED draw the line on the need of a formal criterion?

2.For that matter, unless we enjoyed an informal, prereflective knowledge of many things, we would be unable to formalize some of our intuitive, pretheoretical knowledge of this or that.

ED: Probably not. However, "not being dead" is not what the Christian belief of resurrection is all about, at least not entirely.

SH: True, but irrelevant. Once again, ED fails to distinguish between a miraculous event qua miraculous and a miraculous event qua event.

It would be quite possible for a witness or set of witnesses to tell that Jesus died, and that Jesus came back to life.

ED: The Christian doctrine of resurrection is not about mere recusitation--it is about Christ entering into a completely transformed mode of existence, a mode of existence that is entirely beyond the scope of human experience, epistemology and--therefore--criterion for proof.

Several problems:

1.The witnesses to the Resurrection did experience the Risen Lord. They could see him, hear him, and touch him. They could eat with him.

He entered into their experience, and they entered into his experience.

2.How does ED know what the glorified body is not like unless he knows what it is like?

I know that a cat isn’t a dog because I know what both are like. I only know that a cat is unlike a dog to the degree that I know what a dog is like—as well as a cat. One needs a knowledge of both relata to know the relation.

3.No doubt a glorified body is more than a resuscitated corpse. This doesn’t mean that it’s entirely discontinuous with the mortal body. Indeed, the primary distinction between the mortal body and the glorified body is that a mortal body is, indeed, mortal and disease-ridden while a glorified body is youthful and immortal.

But the glorified body doesn’t belong to a whole other continuum of existence. It isn’t some alien-mutant body cooked up in a laboratory.

4.Let us recall that according to Scripture, death (at least human death) is what is unnatural.

The contrast is not between natural death and supernatural life, but between unnatural death and natural immortality.

Death is a penal sanction for sin. Had Adam never fallen, God would have granted him immortality.

ED: Therefore, I have always thought that it is curious that so much effort is spent to try to "prove" that Jesus was resurrected. As such cannot be objectively determined, what exactly is it that is trying to be proven?

SH: Whether his corpse was still rotting in the tomb or not is of fundamental importance to the Gospel.

ED: If this is true, then you are not talking about resurrection, but only reanimation.

SH: The fact that the glorified body may have some properties (like youth and immortality) which distinguish it from the mortal body which was put to death doesn’t change the fact that witnesses could observed the Risen Lord in his glorified body.

Once again, ED is failing to distinguish between evidence for the event and evidence for the nature of the body.

It isn’t necessary to have direct evidence for the distinctive properties of the glorified body to have evidence for fact that Jesus returned from the grave in a tangible body and recognizable form.

A body which was cable of eating and drinking. A body which occupied real space and time.

ED: In order to determine whether or not a miracle has occured, one must first have criteria in place by which to measure such a thing. However, as human epistemology can only measure that which is proper to itself, the categorizing of the "miraculous" from the "natural" is merely double-speak for "natural phenomenon of which we have a reasonable understanding" and "natural phenomenon which we don't understand." The point is not that the miraculous does not exist, but rather that our ways of talking about it and "defining" the miraculous inevitably deceive us. The moment one has proven a miracle is the same moment that the miraculous-so-called ceases to be miraculous.

SH:

1.If the glorified body of Christ had certain public, audiovisual and tactile properties, then there’s nothing “deceptive,” much less “inevitably” deceptive about describing those tangible attributes.

Jesus could speak and be heard. Be seen by one or many. He was solid. He could touch and be touched. He could eat, drink, and walk.

His voice was recognizable.

2.ED contradicts himself. On the one hand he says that we can’t identify a miracle apart from a set of formal criteria. And he denies that any such criteria are available.

On the other hand, he says that such criteria are unavailable because the glorified body belongs to a completely different order of existence which is inaccessible to human experience.

i) But if that were so, then how would he be in any position to know that that were so? If our natural categories cannot adequately capture the qualities of the glorified body, then how does he know that the glorified body is different than it appears to be? How does he know so much about the unknowable? How can he speak about the unspeakable?

ii) Likewise, what are his objective, formal criteria for measuring the glorified body and determining that the glorified body belongs to a completely different order of existence?

How does he “precisely quantify” the “completely transformed modality” of the glorified body?

iii) There are certain criteria for the miraculous. For example, a miracle may (although not always) make use of natural means, but the timing and/or scale of the event is unnatural, viz. the plagues of Egypt.

Prophetic miracles. Providential answers to prayer.

iv) Then there are events which strike believers and unbelievers alike as simply impossible if left to the ordinary forces of nature, viz. levitation, metamorphosis, a talking donkey, fireproof skin, astronomical portents and prodigies, restoring a dead man to life after several days of necrosis.

Both believers and unbelievers view these events the same way. The difference is that an unbeliever will deny these events because he will deny any superhuman agency beyond the ordinary forces of nature, whereas a Jew or Christian will affirm them because he will affirm a superhuman agency beyond the ordinary forces of nature.

v) Likewise, the Bible identifies certain events as “signs” and “wonders.” And one can classify like events by analogy.

3.Ultimately, it’s unimportant if we classify a Biblical event as a miracle as long as we affirm the occurrence of the event, and affirm it as described in Scripture. Did it happen? Did it happen the way the Bible says it happened? And by whom? Those are the questions we must answer in the affirmative.

4.The very reason for having a distinction in Scripture between word-media and event-media is because the word-media interpret the event. We learn the theological significance of the event from the editorial gloss supplied by the Biblical narrator or preacher or correspondent.