Featured Are miracles always instantaneous?

If God causes everything to happen, everything is supernatural, and a miracle. You need to distinguish between his seemingly habitual events (laws of nature), and those that do not depend on secondary causes. It's all supernatural.

 

I said those events that evade secondary causes are also miracles. But how can we deny the miracle of creation and all it includes?

 

Would you treat the feeding of the 5,000 the same way? The Bible does not offer details, but it would be extra astounding if Jesus instantaneously turned 5 loaves and 2 fishes into a gigantic mound of food sufficient to feed many thousands, with leftovers. We weren't there of course, but the mention of baskets would perhaps point to instantaneous filling of them, probably multiple times as the disciples distributed food throughout the crowd.

 

the scriptures clearly teach to us that God at certain times and for a specific reason invaded His creation and bypassed natural ways things operated!

 

Well, anything we say about how that miracle occurred is speculation, of course. I'm not against thinking of it as a continued miracle, taking the time of the whole meal. However, I've always thought of it as a series of smaller miracles. Peter takes some bread and fish out of his basket and gives it to a kid, then when he looks back in the basket there is the same amount. So that would be a series of 1000s of small miracles. So, I'm in agreement with the "multiple times" you mention, which would be a series of instantaneous miracles.

 

yes, as John was very specific to those miracles being a sign to who Jesus is!

 

Think that we are agreeing on that, as I just would have a hard time accepting that for example jesus would say to someone they were now healed, but took days or weeks to manifest itself!

 

But it doesn't mention the miracle of creation. What if something is a miracle without being called such? Paul gave us a deeper understanding than the gospels alone ever could.

 

John mentions the miracles jesus did as signs to himself, things that were outside the known and established physical laws!

 

Not a direct quote from John, but that has to be close to my own definition. That's why I don't care t o hear people calling a lot of things "miracles"... recovering quickly from the flu, getting a needed job with better than expected pay and benefits, finding out one has just enough money in the bank to go on an upcoming mission trip.... these kind of things are not at all outside natural laws and processes.

 

Agreed. We might do well to re-establish the reasons for making these distinctions. (Feel free to add to this.) Signs and wonders were purposeful, namely witness to God’s leading to a larger group. They often served a dual purpose by bringing a special blessing, e.g., limited deliverance.

Creation, including life, would be a special ongoing case of miracle. That it exists, that we exist, does point to God in a powerful way. While it may not directly witness to his word, it certainly does witness to him. You’d have to be a devilishly clever philosopher who just doesn’t want to see, or under such influence, to miss it.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” (Psalms 19:1-4a)

I well recall an evangelist telling of being in Africa. While retelling the story of creation, a woman who’d never heard it before spoke up, “I’ve always thought it must have been something like that.”

 

Well you don't like it how God speaks to His children and makes new ones through a book made with paper and ink is ironic coming from a man of your profession.

 

Then how about this, of course it's NOT a miracle:

For in him we live, and move, and have our being;
Acts 17:28

 

If creation is not a miracle, then do you agree with the atheists?

Paul expanded our knowledge so that God being the supernatural cause of all, all becomes a supernatural effect of his causing it.

 

Not at all. It's just a coincidence.