How do you know that?
I should have said âapparentlyâ. An dedicated atheist would deny that any had been broken, right?
I suspect that the episode is fictional, if thatâs what you mean. What are you trying to get at? And I have to say what?
Of course you do. But even if you would hypothetically allow that it is true, it didnât break any natural laws â there was a storm, a man in a boat said something during the storm, after a (very short) while, the storm was over. It was just a coincidence. (It became completely calm and they had to row all the way back, because of their lack of faith. )
Pretty much everything you said in the whole reply, since you deny the miraculous nature of providence. You have no choice but to frame it that way.
Youâre contradicting yourself. Was it lack of faith or just a coincidence? You canât have both.
If itâs miraculous, if violates physical law. If it doesnât violate physical law, it isnât miraculous. You are making no sense at all.
The parenthetical was some humor addressed to the Christians among us. Your âbothâ was two audiences â it wasnât clear enough, I agree, but I can have both.
Miraculous timing and placing violates no physical laws. Unbelievers like yourself merely convince themselves it was just an improbable occurrence, even if it was a whole set or sequence of multiple improbable occurrences, linked by only by their meaning, not by anything scientific or statistical.
But it was your only actual answer. Please try a serious response.
Timing and placing of what? If God inserts himself to begin a causal chain, that violates physical law, wherever and whenever he does it. I think youâre arguing against something Iâm not saying at all. Iâm saying that miracles violate physical law, and you are arguing against a claim Iâm not talking about, that they arenât miracles.
Itâs true that I donât think miracles actually happen. Iâm stating a hypothetical case: if they happened (as you claim they do) it would have to violate physical law. You need to argue against what Iâm actually saying rather than what you imagine I think.
Thatâs completely unclear. You seem to be saying that what looks like a miracle is just a coincidence. Are you saying what you think is true or are you putting words into my mouth? If the former, itâs incomprehensible. If the latter, itâs irrelevant.
You are not understanding about providence. There are two kinds of miracles â the supernatural, where it does violate physical law, and the hypernatural (you may recall a discussion about that word in the dim and distant past â I can find it, if you like), where it does not break any natural law.
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Of course, Godâs providence is beyond our understanding, how a timeless God (omnitemporal, I believe) relates to us who are bound in sequential time, and affects (and effects) events without violating anyoneâs free will.
Can you detect the cause of a coincidence? No. All you can do is talk about probabilities. Does a coincidence violate any natural law? No. What if God can cause a coincidence? Is there any violation of natural law detectable? No.
Iâm trying to figure out why you make that last claim. What can produce a miracle without violating a natural law? Natural law is all about causation. Divine intervention breaks causation. Please make a serious attempt to explain.
What does that even mean?
Whether we can detect a violation isnât relevant. Whether it happens is relevant. Logically, such a violation must happen in order for there to be a miracle, which is a disruption of worldly causation. Please try to make sense of all this for me.
That is where the problem is. Your working definition of âmiracleâ is too narrow. (Of course you could say mine is too broad. ) God can affect and effect events âcoincidentallyâ without any apparent disruption of natural causation and infuse meaning that is not there ânaturallyâ. It just looks like probabilities (no matter how improbable) to an unbeliever. That is why this is relevant to evolution, and guided evolution, and why I am an 'evolutionary providentialistâ.
(That probably didnât help much, did it, because I basically just repeated what I said before.)
I donât. I say itâs incoherent.
Again, this claim relies on the irrelevant word âapparentâ. Whether the miracle is apparent or not is not relevant to whether it violates natural law. And âcoincidentallyâ explains nothing about how you think miracles work.
True. When asked to clarify you should do more than just repeat.
Youâre welcome.
Pretend that God set this up:
 Timely RVs
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Incomprehensible? Good, because you are not going to get your head around Godâs omnipotence, his omniscience and his omnitemporallity. But it is not incoherent â it ties together nicely in a word that you have heard before, what Christians call Godâs providence.
The question, which you are either avoiding or entirely failing to notice, is âHow would God set that up?â
Again, the proper word is âincoherentâ. You canât just say that it isnât; you have to show.
âŚis how can God be God, capable of performing miracles which violate the natural order as well as those that donât, involving timing and placing.
Itâs considered poor form to alter someone elseâs words in a quote. And have we not already agreed that just repeating the same words is useless? I have to conclude that you are completely uninterested in communication.
That is your prerogative. It does not change who God is nor detract from his sovereignty.
But was I correct in my conclusion?