If you do not then you belong to the anti-supernaturalism class. There are those who claim Christianity as their faith/religion yet do not believe in the Supernatural/miracles. I just can’t wrap my head around this, for the very God, Son, Holy Ghost they espouse are supernatural beings.
Invisible
To start, God is the invisible God: “Now He is the exact likeness of the unseen God – the visible representation of the invisible; He is the Firstborn – of all creation.” -Col. 1:15, Amp. Bible. This text is speaking of the Son. Jesus, before His birth as a human being, was with His Father in Eternity, the Christ, invisible also. Please read vv. 16-20, see if these texts do not describe the “Supernatural.”
“Now to the King of eternity, incorruptible & immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor & glory forever & ever – to the ages of ages.” -1 Tim. 1:17, Amp. Bible; see also Heb. 11:27.
Invisible: Greek, aóratos (Strong’s #517), from #3707, horatos, the opposite of 517, “to appear, behold, perceive.” So, the “invisible God” can be perceived; He can be seen (as written in Jn. 10:30; 14:9).
Anti-Supernaturalism
The definition of Anti-Supernaturalism is disbelief either in God’s existence or HIs intervention in the natural order of the universe.
Did you know that in the O.T. (Pentateuch) we read where God SPOKE to Moses, as He COMMANDED Moses to do something; it is explicitly stated no less that 235 times (according to Strong’s). Other men/women were spoken to by God (or an angel) as well. The invisible God SPEAKS = supernatural in itself, not to mention the miracles alone He performed.
Even men/women of the world defines the “Supernatural” as info., theories, beliefs, & practices claiming origins other than verifiable experience & thinking, or events contrary to known processes in nature.
I can understand those who do not believe in a God, but I can’t understand those who claim to be “Christian” and have Bibles. How can any Christian NOT BELIEVE in the “Supernatural” (“S”)?
Fact!
I believe in miracles, the “S”. I read where Prof. J.W. Montgomery had commented on the issue of unsound presuppositions, it went something like this:
“If you hold unsound presuppositions with sufficient tenacity, FACTS will make no difference at all, & you will be able to create a world of your own, totally unrelated to reality & totally incapable of being touched by reality.” He said that such a condition (which the philosophers call “autistically psychotic,” & lawyers call “insane”) is tantamount to death because connections with the living world is severed.
The very salvation of a soul is a miracle/supernatural; Jesus’ blood washing away sins!!!
The whole book of Acts is accounts of the “S”/ “miracles.” “Be healed,” “Arise and walk” – words spoken in BELIEF: WORDS performing miracles; Spirit Words! The resurrection of Jesus from the dead = Supernatural miracle. There are “great men of God” who do not even believe in the resurrection of Christ Jesus. Case-in-Point: Prof. Rudolph Bultmann, one of the foremost proponents of Form criticism has written, “The historical method includes the presupposition that history is a unity in the sense of a closed continuum of effects in which individual events are connected by the succession of cause & effect. This does not mean that the process of history is determined by the casual law & that there are no free decisions of men whose actions determine the course of historical happenings. But even a free decision does not happen without cause, without a motive; and the task of the historian is to come to know the motives of actions. All decisions & all deeds have their causes & consequences; and the historian method presupposes that it is possible in principle to exhibit there & their connection & thus to understand the whole historical process as a closed unity.”
He went on to write that this closedness means that the continuum of historical happenings cannot be rent by the interference of “supernatural,” “transcendent powers” & that therefore there is NO MIRACLE in this sense of the Word. Such a MIRACLE would be an event whose cause did not lie within history. He also stated that it is in accordance with such a method as this that the science of history goes to work on all historical documents. And, he adds, there cannot be any exception in the case of Biblical texts if the latter are at all to be understood historically.
So says this UNBELIEVING “Christian” professor. He believes /presupposes that 20th/21st century men & women take it for granted that the events of nature & of history are nowhere interrupted by the intervention of “supernatural powers.”
It gets WORSE. Bultmann has put in print that an historical fact which involves a resurrection from the dead is UTTERLY INCONCEIVABLE! He also writes that miracles cannot be contemplated. Really dude? I can not only contemplate them but have seen plenty of them in my 53 years of Christian service; raising the dead is one of them in which I saw with my blue eyes in Mexico City in the mid-1970s. (see Bultmann’s anti-supernatural book, Jesus Christ & Mythology – he disbelieves because miracles do not fit into his twisted theology.) Bultmann has a hissy fit over raising the dead, which is clearly in the Bible, even spiritual raising of the dead (read Eph. 2:1: “And you [He made ALIVE], when you were DEAD by [your] trespasses & sins.” Amp. Bible… “And He RAISED (resurrected) us up together with Him & made us sit down together,” v.6
Who do you believe, UN-believers or the Bible?
The God of Heaven, the pre-existent Christ (God also) & the Holy Spirit (also God) are Heavenly Beings… and the raising the dead (human beings), the removal of a dead male/female into a Heavenly sphere/realm/kingdom of LIGHT, LOVE & LIFE is not impossible with Them!!! NO sin! The clothing of a man, woman, child in a Heavenly body is “miracle-working-power.” Unbelievers like Rudolph Bultmann, who claim it is not only rationally unthinkable but also is meaningless. Meaningless? Tell me, professors of Satan, why did Jesus come to earth (as a human being, God in flesh), die on the cross & resurrect from the dead IF He/They did not have the will & power to CHANGE a sinner to a saint?
So, rationalist criticism is not of God but of Satan. Period! These “smart/learned” theologians/Bible experts are DUMB as HELL!!! Their philosophic theories are merely verbiage garbage. Most of their propaedeutics (set of introductory ideas or principles required for the study of a subject or subjects) are founded upon Unbelief in the “Supernatural.” All their studies on the supernatural, e.g. feeding of the multitudes with very, very little, the healing of bodies, the raising of the dead, the casting out of demons et al. are all scrutinized by their UNbelief. The question of the “Supernatural”/ “Miracles,” then, must be solved in the realm of historical investigation –did they actually happen? – not in the realm of philosophical speculation.
Are miracles (“M”) a violation of the laws of nature? Nothing is esteemed a “M” if it ever happens in the common course of nature, some believe.
One author wrote (in his review of “The Historian & the Believer”): “If God exists, miracles are not merely logically possible, but really & genuinely possible at every moment.” Thank you, brother.
Prof. Ron Sider (whom I read some of his anti-Christ writings) clearly states that the historian qua historian of course could never PROVE that an unusual event was inexplicable in terms of natural causes, much less that it was due to direct divine activity… But he could never rule out the possibility that future scientific knowledge would be able to EXPLAIN the event as one instance of a regularly recurring pattern… But the historian’s inability to PROVE that the unusual event is a “Miracle” does not preclude his ruling on its facticity. He goes on to say that in the case of the ALLEGED resurrection of Jesus, the historian qua historian could never demonstrate that God raised up His Son, Jesus but he might, if he found the evidence adequate, conclude that Jesus was PROBABLY alive on the third day.
Well, for your info. Mr. UNbeliever, Jesus was resurrected. Not only this miracle but His body was changed. Furthermore, Mr. UNbeliever, Jesus was seen for 40 days after His resurrection.
A.H. Soyce, author of Monuments, facts & Higher Critical Fancies, wrote, “if there was no record of miracles in the O.T./N.T., it may be questioned whether so much zeal would have been displayed in endeavoring to throw doubt on the authenticity of their contents.”
Fin
“The anti-supernatural bases his/her thinking on the presupposition that God has not intervened in history. Therefore he/she reject evidence indicating the supernatural no matter how convincing,” so writes Josh McDowell in his book Evidence That Demands A Verdict, vols. 1 & 2.
The Scripture Witness
Jesus Himself declared that He worked miracles: “Go & report to John what you have seen & heard; the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, & the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the Gospel preached to them.”-Lk. 7:22.
Need more proof that Jesus was God (Emmanuel = “God with us.” -Mt. 1:23; Mal. 5:2. Jesus was Emmanuel, literally, “The Strong God with us.” The same as what John wrote in Jn. 1:1,14 – “The word which was God – was made flesh…” 1 Tim. 3:16 says, “And God was manifest in the flesh.” All these imply God incarnated – God in human nature (a miracle!). (These ought to be read in Heb./Gk.)
Divine & human nature united in ONE, a miraculous union. Jesus’ conception was a miracle – Mary was a virgin, impregnated by the Holy Spirit: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself…” 2 Cor. 5:19, hence, God with man – God in man – God with us. When we have Jesus the Son, we also have the Father & the Holy Spirit. Both the Father & the Son are called God: Greek, theos, “the supreme Divinity” God: Hebrew, ’elôahîym, “the supreme God,” from ’elôahh, “the Deity.”
Jesus was fully human & fully God. So, when Jesus said what He said in Luke 7:22, it was God working in & through the man Jesus. (note: this verse is a catena of phrases from Isa. 35:5-6 & 61:1; see also Lk. 4:18)
Jesus allowed the Holy Spirit’s power to flow through Him… healing manifestations for body, soul & spirit of the people. The beneficent miracles of Jesus were anticipations, proleptic manifestations, of the GREAT salvation which would be consummated only in the age to come… which we now enjoy. By & through Jesus the Christ, God began His New World Order. Praise The Lord!
Jesus demonstrated power over nature, over disease/sickness, over demons, over death itself. Go thru the N.T. and count the times in which He demonstrated the Divine Supreme power of God. He demonstrated a power that could belong only to God. It was the miracles authenticating the Christian faith. They were real, not miracles of apocryphal fiction. We too have this power within us.
Jesus was both a natural man & a supernatural person in ONE.
“Miracles are harmonious with the character & consciousness of Jesus; they were not for mere “show” but for confirmation of who & what He was. They were displays of both anger (cursing the fig tree) & love, mercy & grace for lost & hurting humankind. Even Jesus’ enemies, the “religious,” had to recognize the power He had within – but they attributed His miracles to Satan/magic. In A.D. 95 Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus of Lydda spoke of Jesus’ “magic arts” (Stauffer, Ethelbert. Jesus & His Story, 1960). Around this same period (A.D. 95-110) we encounter the ritual denunciation: “Jesus practiced magic & led Israel astray” (Sanhedrin 43: a). In Jesus & His Story we further read that around 110, a controversy among Palestinian Jews centering upon the question of whether it was permissible to be healed in Jesus’ name: “Now, miraculous healings in the name of Jesus imply that Jesus Himself performed such miracles.”
Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate, (361-363), one of the most gifted enemies to Christians & Christianity stated: “Jesus… has now been celebrated about 300 years; having done nothing in his lifetime worthy of fame, unless anyone thinks it a very great work to heal lame & blind people & exorcise demoniacs in the villages of Bethsaida & Bethany.” (the Person of Christ, 1913, by Philip Schoff). This antichrist unwittingly ascribed to Jesus the power to heal & cast out demons!
Jesus did most of His miracles, not in private, but in public, why? They were done before the public for open investigation & scrutiny so the “religious” & skeptics could behold them. The raising of the dead –Lazarus- was witnessed by many. His enemies did not deny that miracle, but, rather, as the Bible says, tried to MURDER Him before all men believed on Him (see Jn. 11:48; see also Mt. 12:24,25,26).
Miracles, therefore, are against nature & reason.
By now you realize that I am a firm believer in miracles.
It is time to start believing in the miracle working power of the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit & God the Father.