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Originally Posted by pianoperformer  ALG: I disagree. I think the whole thing with Jesus being God might help Him with some of these miracles. I think it's pretty clear that if He is God, He could do things that we cannot. He was both God and man, so had the abilities of both God and man. |
Your point is that although Jesus could perform miracles, this was because of his divine nature, and it does not follow that other human beings can also perform miracles.
I have two comments. Firstly, your point takes nothing away from my earlier point that if Jesus indeed performed such miracles, then the universe is definitely not as our normal five senses and our high school science textbooks tell us it is.
For if our normal five senses and high-school science textbooks are correct, then Jesus simply cannot have performed those miracles. They defy Newtonian physics and the Law of Gravity, among other things. If we do accept that those miracles did occur, then today, if a Christian comes across some reported account of a paranormal event (eg a channeling of some non-physical entity; or a "miraculous" healing), it would be actually ILLOGICAL for the Christian to say: "Oh that is impossible BECAUSE we know from science that things simply doesn't work that way."
Secondly, according to the same Bible, miracles were performed not just by Jesus, but by the other apostles as well. In fact, miracles were also performed by people like Saul / Paul, who never met Jesus in person at all. As a matter of fact, the same Bible tells us that before the time of Christ himself, there were already various interesting humans like Moses, who parted seas; transformed sticks into snakes; sent plagues of locusts etc.
So clearly, even according to the Bible itself, the bringing about of paranormal events was by no means limited to one human being, Jesus, alone.
The gospels end where they end, but they ended only because of the Church's canonisation (which you can think of as the Church officially declaring: "Ok, the story ends here"). If not for the canonisation, the story would just go on and on.
As a matter of fact, the story of God does go on and on, it hasn't ended, except that these parts of the story don't get recorded as part of the canonical gospels. You look at the story of the early Christian mystics, the paranormal events just go on and on, eg:
1. Joan of Arc and her visions of God;
2. bilocation (the phenomenon or ability of being, or appearing to be, located in two places at the same instant in time) exhibited by Saint Alphonsus Liguori; Saint Anthony of Padua; Maria de Agreda; Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria;
3. levitation by Saint Francis Xavier, Saint Gemma Galgani; Saint Ignatius Loyola; Saint John Joseph of the Cross; Saint Thomas Aquinas
4. the stigmata phenomenon (too many to name)
Etc etc etc.
It isn't as if reports of such paranormal events are limited to people strongly associated with Christianity. In fact, every religion has its fair share of such paranormal events. In the ancient Indian spiritual teachings for example, walking on water is quite commonly reported among the Indian holy men. Among their kind, it's not considered a particularly interesting ability.
All this suggests that
if God is the source of such paranormal events, He may not be very fussy or particular about whether you call him Jehovah, Brahman, Allah, Gaia or Kuan Yin .... or if you give him a name at all.
In more modern times, the paranormal events still go on. You get weird folks like Matthew Manning who reportedly do all the same stuff that the early Christian mystics did, except that Matthew isn't particularly religious. You go check out the churches and mosques and temples and synagogues and monasteries around the world today - the paranormal events go on and on. You have folks like Neale Donald Walsch who talk to God directly all the time (and supposedly He talks right back). You also have folks like Erin Pavlina who happily hold conversations with the souls of the departed on a regular basis. Etc etc etc.
No doubt some of these events are fraudulent or mistaken or fictitious. But is it logical to think that ALL of them are? Did Jesus say at the Transfiguration, "I'm the last miracle performer, after I go up to the sky carried by these shining angels, no other authentic miracles should occur?". Nope. And if we do accept that the miracles reported in the Gospels are true, what basis do we have to believe that miracles will cease to occur, right at the point that the Church decided to officially end the story?