Almost everyone here agrees with this.
I also agree with this. It is obvious, but just not in the language and tools of science.
How does this apply to expectations of an actual signature in Hebrew in the cell?
Or claims that scientists don’t see it because God could have given more evidence.
I am reminded of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. When the rich man said his brothers would believe him if he was allowed to go back from the grave and testify tot he truth… He got an unexpected reply. If they don’t believe with evidence of Moses and the prophets. They won’t believe even if a dead guy comes back from the grave… history is witness to how that proved to be true post Jesus’ ressurection. The problem is not lack of evidence. It’s a heart issue. If science has a language with no place for God… it’s a choice … not a necessity.
Again we come down to philosophical compulsions.
I keep thinking of the claim that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Who decides what is an extraordinary claim? The only thing that can decide that is a philosophy. This is why practically no evidence is required to assume unbelievable things happened by accident, whereas saying “God did it” is an extraordinary claim that cannot be entertained.
That’s a wrong philosophical view which I reject outright.
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These are legitimate theological questions that Scripture answers. The hiddenness of God is an important theological discourse that began long before science, and is vividly engaged in the Book of Job, Esther, and Nehemiah.
Do you remember what Jesus taught about this?
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I mentioned one thing Jesus taught on this from the parable of Lazarus and the rich man…
That it’s not the evidence that is lacking…
I am sure you referring to some other point.
And again we are being hijacked into the sideshow of ID’s position that God’s presence is detectable to science.
It is not.
However, if God wrote something coherent in my DNA… that would be enough for me to change all my views.
You are a unique living being… that’s not coherence enough?
Wow.
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I can be personally convinced of some thing… without presuming to say SVIENCE has convinced me.
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Sure…
But science involves interpreting data. And you. An say, that you see the data pointing to God even though scientists don’t interpret it that way. And that is not a presumption.
Here’s one @Ashwin_s :
John 14:10-11 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.
Jesus admitted that to consider that he could be God and God could be him was a very difficult and challenging concept. So, he continued, we should see what he does to prove that he is God and then we know that we can believe what he says about his, and God’s, nature.
So, Jesus, it seems to me, was big on evidence! I think that this fits quite well with the scientific method and discussions herein. If I can see zero to eyeball occur, materialistically, then it is easy enough to extrapolate the rest. But Jesus set the bar very high when he said to “believe on the evidence of the works themselves.”
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Yes but he offered only one sign to skeptics. What was that sign?
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Well, sir, he beat death!! (See the nails in my hands? Put your finger into my side… it is me! The one whom you saw dead and buried three days…)
That’s pretty darn compelling!!
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Yes that is true, and consistent with the one sign he offered. Do you remember what he taught?
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He said, “Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.”
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Yup but do you remember where he called it a sign?
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No sign will come to you except for the sign of the Prophet of Jonah… for as he was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the belly of the earth. Matthew 12:40
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This is so stressful… did I win the toaster oven or not!!!
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If you look at those passages, especially the last one, it seems clear that Jesus does point to evidence for the Ressurection, and this has higher importance than any other evidence. The evidence in nature is fundamentally different. Jesus emphasises that the evidence of the sign of Jonah is greater than the evidence that the Queen of Sheba and Ninevah could see. He is greater.
We have more clarity because of the Ressurection than they could ever have had. It is important because Jesus was not an evidentialist precisely. He was a limited evidentialist, pointing skeptics to only to evidence for this singular event.
Of note this is the same evidence to which Peter points at Penecost, Paul points on Mars Hill, and the same Gospel he received and passed on to us in 1 Cor 15. The only evidence for skeptics is the evidence of the Ressurection, the Gospel message.
With this in mind, I am unwilling to add to the evidence of the Gospel. My arguments from creation do not compare with Gods work to reveal himself. The effort to work out signs in nature is, at least for me, a rebellious idolatry from Jesus’s confident example, offering just one sign to skeptics.
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A theological conversation! My speculation is that he pointed skeptics only to this one sign because:
a) It was the only thing that mattered, and,
b) As I said with 14:10-11, when you are confused about who I am, see what I do (the resurrection being the ultimate sign.)
This is the same reason why I reacted so strongly over the simple evolution of the eyeball conversation. Once you show you can raise yourself from the dead, an impromptu banquet for 5000 is nothing. If you begin with the resurrection, everything falls into place. In the conversations here, similarly, it no longer matters if the drug resistance of malaria cycles every ten years. What matters is whether or not a trilobite eyeball can evolve on its own. At that point malarial drug resistance is a no brainer. As you said, you will explain the evidence for such on a later post.
I respect your opinion in this regard, but mine differs. I think that there are passive signs and there are active signs. The active sign, clearly, is the one that you mentioned. However, Jesus passively also initiated other signs that developed over time. The behavior of the apostles is my personal favorite, because it is what was convincing to me. It was Jesus who warned Simon Peter that he would deny him three times, only to have it take place the same day (or next morning). Luke records that Jesus looked straight at him when this occurred and Peter wept bitterly. Jesus, after the resurrection, met with Peter and three times asked if Peter loved him, and responded to him, “Feed my sheep.” The zeal with which these friends of Jesus lived and died in the aftermath of the resurrection vs. how they lived prior is undeniably significant in my mind. I would also include the transformation of Paul in that same category of significance.
I agree with you that arguments from creation as evidence of the Gospel (assuming we mean the same thing here, the Good News that Jesus has arisen from the dead) are not as significant as the sign you mention and the ones I mentioned too. That said, I don’t see that arguments from creation as evidence for the existence of God are a bad thing.
I’m guessing I don’t get the toaster oven, though.