Making Sense of Miracles

Hey Bo, I too have been toying with the idea of miracles as a matter of naturalistic perception. Miracles, in my opinion, are a matter of perspective in many ways. To one person a miracle is a cloud covering on a hot day after praying for it; to another a miracle is the sunshine itself without a prayer. To one a miracle is being cured of a disease, to another, a miracle is dying when one is in pain. This leads me to ask along with you, what is a miracle? I am not being reductionistic in the sense that I believe that miracles are only a matter of perspective and thus do not occur in the “biblically miraculous” sense with divine action behind them, but I am rather suggesting that miracles are basically only a reality to those that perceive them as such. It is analogous to the same way in which to some 60 years can be described as “an eternity,” and to some 60 seconds can be deemed likewise “an eternity.” Thus here, both miracles and eternity (two things which often designate concepts outside the realm of our natural world in their own respects), are not actually “super-realities,” but rather are, as you suggest, the “most natural” things that can occur…and I would add, are also, in many ways, a matter of one’s desire to see a certain reality. I love the birth example you gave, as it adds another dimension to the idea of miracles as perspectives.

You noted likewise that, “The Miraculous can be seen several ways – as something that surprises us, outside our expectations; as something that is amazing; like the miracle of birth, something that is statistically improbable , like landing a Airplane on the Hudson River; or religiously as something that only divine help could account for.” I too would add that miracles are constituted as a matter of how one perceives a certain situation, pushing toward an ultimate reality that they so eagerly desire. The problem in my mind is when some Christians tend to think of miracles as direct answers to prayers, wherein, rather they believe they had a causal role to play in the ushering in of said “miraculous event.” I too, like you have experienced the Christian assumptions that bring about the questions:

“Did god tell everyone and they just were not listening?

Did god only tell those whom love god?

Does god monitor all traffic patters and why would god be so concerned with getting you home on time but so unconcerned with children being abused and people going hungry?”

In response to this I am reminder of something Professor Sherman said in class the other day in affirming that, “People can have rvery eal experiences that can still be real and still not necessarily true.” In other words, just because someone perceives a positive answer to something like a “parking spot type of prayer” doesn’t mean that it was an actual miracle in the case of divine intervention. Because, again that causes a problem of evil that is too big, as you alluded to in the abused and hungry example.

I like how you articulated this section as well: “When we are open (mind and spirit) to the presence of a greater possibility – it makes sense that the cells in our body would have a receptivity to those functions and processes that bring health and life. If we believe that there is a God, and that this God has something to do with creating our bodies, and this God’s spirit is present in the world, then it makes sense that our bodies created by this God would response to an openness to the presence of this God.  That is why I can believe in and pray for healing. But it is not supernatural – it is the most natural thing in the world.” Every time I think about the causal nexus between our prayers and God’s activity in the world, I am reminded of a scene from Avatar in which the entire tribe is praying at the foot of a tree for the restoration of the life of one of their loved ones. In that scene, they are portrayed as so in touch as a community with a very primal creative force in the world, and they are so persistent in calling upon this power, that the reality of that power is eventually evoked in the answer of their prayers: the restoration of life to the person they thought to be dead. I too think that as we become more fully God’s creatures who are open in faith to God’s presence and activity in the world, we will learn with greater faith to call upon power of God in our own cells and the cells of others as they grow in receptivity to that reality.

I am curious as to why, though, we can call upon God’s power to restore those things, as you said, primarily because “God had something to do with creating our bodies,” that God couldn’t act in a similar manner in the forces of nature as God had something to do with the creation of this world as well. You said, “Just don’t talk to me about why hurricanes hit certain cities (weather patters are not changed because one super-holy pastor had a lot of faith). And don’t tell me that tornados or earthquakes hit certain towns because of certain sins. Or the President W or X is being corrupted by demon Z. That is all ridiculous.”  I fail to see, along the line of reasoning you have set up, why we can hope for one miraculous reality (in the nature of our bodies) but not in God’s intervention in the forces of other natural realities like weather? Could you please explain that? I realize that you may be implying that God may simply not be employing those forces for the sake of judging the earth, but I just want to be clear.

Thanks again for posting some good stuff on conceding the ‘super’ natural as well, as I too agree about it’s lack of gusto and just downright harmful hermeneutic in a quantum world which posits otherwise. You and much of the process world have given verbiage to many convictions I was already finding within myself simply by times of silent reflection with God. Very interesting…it’s almost as if there’s been some (super)natural leading in thinking theologically about these things. Cheers! 

God is not the world and the world is not god. God ' is' in a 'there' that is not 'here' The 'here' is constituted as the cosmos, nature , man and his thoughts , i.e. the natural The' there' is where god' is', i.e the supernatural. God's existence demands a 'supernatural' category for god to be supreme being. If the 'here' and 'there' are the same then you will in fact have just the natural, but in the process you make supreme being a being among other beings. Furthermore, without a supernatural/natural worldview revelation becomes superfluous and redundant. There must be an ontological chasm existing between god and everything else for revelation to be needed. Revelation is a vis a vis encounter between god of the there and man of the here. Also, revelation can only remain analogical, metaphorical and indirect if the supernatural/ natural categories are in play .A god in this world and of this world would make revelation natural, direct, univocal and redundant. Natural revelation is all you would have. Natural revelation as an oxymoron. You would have discovery not revelation.. God is there, not here and is not silent. . Peace out brother Bo.

I think you are right James! Most people forget Whitehead spent more time talking about the primordial (transcendent) nature of God than the consequent (immanent) nature of God.

Clearly process theism emphasizes immanence much more strongly than classical theism and rejects *absolute* otherness. Such philosophical notions are riddled with problems that process thought aims to overcome. It is held by process theologians to be philosophically incoherent to hold to an absolute qualitative distinction between God and the world. But just because God is held to the same metaphysical principles as anything else, just because God and the world do not exist in qualitatively different realms, does not mean that God can be reduced to the world process itself, as you had earlier expressed concern about. The dipolar God of Whitehead's thought is indeed qualitatively different in some (not all) respects, especially because of the eternal primordial nature which provides the initial aims, while never violating metaphysical principles (for example, see Palmyre Oomen for a thorough defense of this position). That said, your concerns are part of an ongoing debate amongst process-relational theologians. Some process theists have modified Whitehead to more strongly emphasize otherness without rejecting the non-interventionist, persuasive divine action - which is all that this article appears to be concerned to maintain in the first place.

If you say that God is held to the metaphysical principles of the world, then such does not constitute true otherness and ontological distinction. You only have to be hiedeggerian and not yet Christian to see the issues with such claims. True otherness refers, in traditional philosophical terms to ontological difference, not simply quantitative difference. How is ontotheology not the only option here? I am still not sure how such claims really solve the problems of the supernatural, which was my initial issue. Not process theism. Though I do think the claim that God necessarily works within the metaphysical world points to the metaphysical structure itself (the process so to speak) as the god of process and not God himself as the ebbing and flowing locus of creativity and transformation that is forced to work within the metaphysics of the world.

Hey James, thanks for this most recent comment--it does clear up some questions or misconceptions I had about process thought. When Process folks on these blogs keep emphasizing God's presence in all things at all times, it starts to sound a bit like God is equally manifest in anything that happens, so when you affirm that "God's action in the world is variable in both content and effectiveness" it goes a long way toward calming me down :). (Without this, a more 'naturalistic theism' ironically starts to sound like a mirror image of hyper-Calvinism where everything that happens, no matter how vile, equally manifests 'God's will', in that it is identical with history)

Hey Brandon, I agree that Barth is certainly *one kind* of foundationalism's greatest enemy, but do not see how he is not simply creating an alternative form of foundationalism and positivism. But your comment about revelation occurring in language and culture tells me you are likely some kind of post-liberal, which I would have another set of critiques for. I certainly agree with some of the post-liberal critique, but (no surprise) think they tend to give up on speculative metaphysics too soon, deflating theology to language games. But I know post-liberals have their differences, so I'm not simply lumping you in with them (if, in fact, you are in this camp). Even so, I don't think Lindbeck escapes the relativistic fideism he so genuinely desires to avoid. Thanks for your questions about process theology. Let me try to answer some of the big ones and see if that brings some clarity to the others. Unlike most forms of naturalistic theism (i.e., Gordon Kaufman), God is not absorbed into the world process or in any way depersonalized. God remains both personally involved in and truly other than the world, even though, yes, God is held to the same metaphysical principles as anything else. For example: God has the most power that is metaphysically possible, knows all that there is to know, is the supremely/perfectly related one, never perishes like finite actualities. God always transcends the *particular* world God relates to, even though some World forever co-exists with God in creative relationship. If your worry is that God is just like a natural law, as some forms of naturalistic theism certainly assert, this is not process. In this limited sense, process theology could be called 'supernatural' because God remains separate from the world (there is no disguised pantheism or deism involved here, as in most forms of naturalistic theism, but a true panentheism). Furthermore, God's action in the world is variable in both content and effectiveness (again, unlike so many forms of naturalistic theism). So again, no hidden deism here. For process theologians, the world would literally not be able to exist without God's existence. As such, Charles Hartshorne and others have made rather strong and persuasive arguments for the existence of God (against the trends of philosophical theology) by updating some of the classical arguments. Make no mistake: process theists are *strongly* opposed to agnosticism on philosophical grounds.

Nice. Ok so here goes. I, of course, would not advocate retreating into a theological ghetto or any sort of "foundationalism" (which, if one reads Barth's true substance, finds foundationalism's greatest enemy). I also would not advocate a kind of "revelation positivism" anymore than I would advocate a scientific one. Revelation occurs in human language and culture, but is not reduced to them and does not foreclose human reason. As Barth says, "The Word of God is a rational and not an irrational event." (I promise, no more name drops). However, the formation of modern epistemic and ontological foundationalism spawns from an instrumentalization of reason in the natural and social sciences that combine very well with political liberalism to make theological argumentation come off as irrational mythology. James, you seems to want the ability to perform rational speculation, yet you also seem to criticize forms of "supernaturalism" that attempt to actually posit God as something different, whose will and action are also perhaps different, than the ebbs and flows of common history. What are the ways in which, at this very point, an epistemic and historical positivism doesn't already risk to run the show? By questioning the coherence of divine involvement distinguished from the natural flows of human knowing and history, how have you not already betrayed a commitment to these forms of philosophical positivism and thus, to the most violent forms of foundationalism? If not, then how would one go about disciplining the possible instrumentalization of God in order to grant legitimation to an abstract account of historical progression. How can God not end in the very place you don't want God...as a legitimizing force to individual or institutional self-assertion? These are not really leading questions, but sincere ones. Let me be clear...I am not a purist antagonistic to metaphysical formulation or philosophy in general. Philosophers are among my favorite authors. But that does not mean I, anymore than you, affirm them without criticism. . As an obvious advocate of Cobb, you have heard all of these questions before I assume. So what is the disciplining factor here in avoiding the dangers I mentions, which I would think you see as dangers as well? Or perhaps "supernaturalism" has really done enough ecclesial damage to warrant its total rejection? Perhaps evacuation instead of articulate reformulation is our only option here? I suppose for those who find theology to be an apologetic practice, such might be an option. I simply don't think such strategies will save the church or preclude its disavowal. In fact, it may give those who prefer an agnostic posture with less and less to have to question or deny? In making Christian claims easier to handle by the rejection of divine involvement that is "other" than historical movement, we definitely make them easier to hold...but are they not also, in such cases, easier to let go? (These are leading questions).

Great post Bo! I like to think of miracles as Heaven literally breaking through and becoming visible in our world. You're right, a miracle is not something that is outlandish and impossible, rather a miracle is a demonstration of how things are supposed to, and always meant to be. Pagitt's puts it well in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQouEuENBhY&feature=player_embedded

Two Interesting connections to this post: one by an evangelical leader http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/16/my-take-an-evangelical-remembers-his-friend-hitchens/ the other by Stephen Prothero - one of my favs http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/17/my-take-my-lovehate-relationship-with-hitchens/

Brandon and James - Thanks for this bracing exchange which has raised all sorts of important points. Before things get unncessarily abrasive, let me just say that I think I can see the points on both sides as well as the obvious difficulty of a dialogue between two somewhat conflictual different ways of doing theology. I can certainly understand the concerns that are driving Brandon's remarks (as well as your comments on Wild Goose elsewhere in the blogosphere). Basically you seem to be issuing the familiar warning from the side of 'kerygmatic theology' against the danger of a loss of theological nerve in allowing society to dictate the agenda. You are worried that there has been a hastiness in jettisoning core commitments of creedal orthodoxy for the supposed sake of making the Gospel relevant. These concerns are understandable and have certainly been voiced by some heavyweights (Barth, Hauerwas, Milbank ...) going all the way back to Tertullian who it would be unwise to dismiss out of hand. However, I also think that James has made some highly pertinent remarks, particularly in emphasizing the dangers of a positivism of revelation and in stressing that the 'risk of transformative dialogue with the empirical sciences' isn't optional for theology. Yes, there have been some less-than-successful attempts at this over the last century - for example, I can comprehend the argument that Bultmann's demythologization is not so much about dialogue as capitulation (to a scientific model which is completely outmoded within science itself). But this doesn't mean that all engagement with secular thought automatically leads down the same path. What is certain is that simply walling off Church Dogmatics from philosophical critique leads to a profound disconnect from the modern world which leaves a self-satisified but emptying Church talking to nobody except herself. In this context, it is important for the critics of 'progressive' thought to acknowledge that the concern to address the real questions of contemporary society is just as legitimate as the desire to protect the 'deposit of faith' represented by neo-Orthodoxy and its continuations. One may disagree with the theological solutions offered, but there needs to be a proper recognition of the motivation of, say, John Cobb or other liberals, most of whose theology has been deeply impacted by the challenges of secularization, modern science, hermeneutics and inter-faith dialogue. Brandon makes a classical objection to theologies that take human experience as their starting-point. While this critique is comprehensible to the extent that seeing such experience as the ultimate arbiter is arguably to deify subjectivity, it also needs to be recognized that the idea that it is possible to theologize WITHOUT starting from experience is difficult, if not impossible to defend rationally. The idea that any of us approach theology without any cultural baggage is simply naïve, as even the cases of Aquinas and Barth demonstrate. In both, their theological methods cannot be separated from their historical location (the need to respond to the challenge of Islamic scholars' re-introduction of Aristotle to Europe with Aquinas, the need to respond to the collapsing of Church and Empire in Kulturprotestantismus with Barth). That is absolutely not a negative comment on their theologies - indeed, cultural engagement is surely a prime source of their greatness. It's rather to say jthat even with theologians who place a strong emphasis on God's transcendence over all human societies and structures, the human situation always has a profound effect on theological method, whether we admit it or not. And perhaps that's just as it should be. One plea - theo-blogging suffers greatly from a tendency to use convenient shorthand terms such as 'Thomistic' or 'Barthian' to refer to concepts which are immensely complex, dynamic and subtle. For example, whose Aquinas are we talking about here? The Thomas of the pre-Vatican II neo-Scholastics, who held to a strict separation of grace and nature? Or the Thomas of Etienne Gilson, Henri de Lubac and Urs von Balthasar who see the human being as, on the contrary, having an inbuilt and natural desire for God? Or the Aquinas of Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology as processed through Calvin and Scottish 18th century 'common sense' philosophy? The radically apophatic Thomas of Elizabeth Johnson, the Augustinian Thomas of John Milbank ... all very different readings of Thomistic thought, and not at all easy to harmonize with one another. So, as a word of caution - let's all beware of easy answers. Some of the greatest minds in two thousand years of Christian thought have been left stumped by the problems we've been discussing, which return in renewed form for each generation. A little (or rather much) humility on all sides, please. Peter B.

Here's the thing Brandon: I imagine that we could go on and on arguing about all of the other things you said before that last paragraph (and indeed, there are many things to discuss), but if you're taking a stand as a Barthian foundationalist, our conversation probably won't go very far. Such a starting point that deflects criticisms of virtually any position by taking shelter in the infinite transcendence of God's revelation is not one that I can share, nor is it one that I think Christians in general should share. While it may be messy and even end in failure, the risk of transformative dialogue with the empirical sciences and rational speculation is not optional for theology, in my view. Even so, I'll go ahead and make a few comments: 1) As you probably know, both Cobb and Whitehead reject creatio ex nihilo as well as any final closure of history, but Cobb in particular has developed a Wesleyan theology of grace that you may or (more likely) may not find satisfying. But yes, we seem to have been talking about somewhat different things. Supernaturalism is here being rejected in the sense that there would be a divine being who could or would interrupt the fundamental causal processes in the world at will. Also, without a modification of Whitehead (which is sometimes done, though not by Cobb), one cannot claim that process ontology is univocal. God is not collapsed as such, even though certain exaggerations of classical theism are rejected. 2) The criteria that Cobb specifies for theologians to consider when comparing metaphysical frameworks are consistency, coherence, comprehensiveness, and the degree of compatibility with the Christian faith. The point is that one *must* adopt a metaphysical framework (explicitly or implicitly, we all do), so Cobb's rejection of the particular metaphysics implied in the creeds and adoption of an alternative is not without very clear reasons. In this case, we all read the text with metaphysical presuppositions, so the best route is to know what those presuppositions are, stating them up-front for the sake of clarity and openness to criticism. 3) Your dismissal of reasoning about the problem of evil as irrelevant to theology: why shouldn't it be part of theology proper? Because tradition has said so? Because of your particular view of revelation? Furthermore, while there is no 'solving' the problem of evil for the theist, surely there are better ways to think about it than others. The effort to do so seems worthwhile, and in no way does it or must it always end in 'utter cynicism.' That may be your own unfortunate experience, but it certainly is not mine or many others.

Hmm...I suppose we are simply meaning different things by "supernaturalism." I simply mean it to refer to the order of grace in distinction from the order of nature. The order of grace constitutes and funds the purpose of the order of nature at every point such that nature is supported and suspended by the gracious act of God freely giving existence out of nothing to creation, which provides the "stage" for the outworking of salvation history. I suppose I would like to say that whatever philosophical account that makes this form of supernaturalism untenable is not worthy to be called philosophy in either a Barthian or Thomistic sense. I of course would not argue that metaphysical reflection on Scripture is inherently within it, but are theological, and thus human, attempts to organize the claims that Scripture seems to make. God as the creator and sustainer of all that is, are worked out through discourse that may not be just sitting their in the text (though one could argue that they are), but are quite in line with its revealing intent. I suppose I am simply confused by your argument, such that you seem content to let someone like Cobb argue against certain metaphysical frameworks found within the creeds on the grounds that they do not match the biblical account, yet simultaneously allow an alternative metaphysic (Whitehead) to dominate his alternative constructions of God, Christ and the world, though they are speculative abstractions from the narrative of Scripture (e.g. the NT never calls Christ "creative transformation" but does call him the Son of God). There is not enough here to justify claiming that supernaturalism is any sort of stumbling block. If it functions to nullify the order of nature, then we have a problem with the relation between nature and grace, not a problem with the philosophical tenability of the order of grace. The alternative of denying the supernatural and naturalizing all claims about God, Christ and divine presence make me wonder why we keep the discourse about grace at all. (Is this what you are arguing for?) This is not to say that the miraculous needs to be strictly separated from its inhering within the order of nature. But such a claim does not warrant the evacuation of supernature as the unique order of grace that is distinct, though not separate from the order of nature. When such is the case, then I find it fairly easy to move to the logical conclusions of the secularization of the discourse of the sacred such that the order of grace collapses wholly within the immanent sphere. This suggests a univocalist ontology such that God and the world, or nature and grace, are placed on the same ontological plane and the specific interpretation of salvation history collapse into the bare plodding of historical succession. This follows with the denial of any form that suggests a Creature/creature distinction at the level of ontology, which includes creatio ex nihilo, a conclusive eschatology, and the full divinity of Christ. I am not (yet) suggesting that one cannot make such moves, but am simply stating descriptively that such is the case. Perhaps this is analogous to the issues surrounding the immanent/economic trinity. The former is posited as a protective claim to protect the freedom of God's grace in the outworking of the latter reality. Should it fall into a position of becoming "philosophically untenable" and one finds justification to reject it, then what one has denied is the freedom of the gratuity of grace and the imprisonment of the order of grace within an autonomous natural sphere. I would like to say at this point that perhaps what should change is not the obviously biblical account of God's radical distinction from creation (this being what Judaism and Christianity gave to an otherwise pagan form of mythology) and the "immanent trinity" (supernature) that comes with it, but the philosophical accounts of nature that describe a world in which such cannot be claimed and must be evacuated. I simply want to leave room for the possibility that theology's object exists as something ontologically other than what one finds in the order of nature so that, in the words of Barth, the theologian does not become what he seems to be--a philosopher. The true Christian account of supernature, and thus the order of grace, supplies the ontological distinction needed to differentiate God from Zeus, and thus Christianity from mythology. Far from lingering as an ancient account of "mythological language", if supernature is understood rightly, then one sees its role as the evacuation of all mythology from the natural order and the attempt to affirm via some kind of analogical account, the relation between nature and supernature and the true transcendence of God that, as Augustine says, is both incomprehensibly more than creatures while also existing closer to us that we are to ourselves. As far as the fears of fideism and theodicy goes, the former will always be a continual specter in a world that verifies itself through modern accounts of knowledge gleaned from empiricism, logical positivism etc and expects Christian theology to do the same. The latter is not part of theology proper and is simply the historico-causal form and outworking of the epistemic need to account for each and every event in human history by supplying it with infinite weight. Such accounting will always suffer the full weight of tragedy and conclude in utter cynicism.

Thanks so much for the response, Brandon. You wrote: "...it seems like you are wrong to assume that process theists describe their Christology and doctrine of God according to a more adequate reading of Scripture. Cobb, for instance is more honest than that about his overt disregard for traditional formulas." Not quite, actually. Whatever your disagreements with his conclusions, take a look at his most recent post here on Homebrewed about his view of Christology - and perhaps take another look at chapters 9 & 10 of "Christ in a Pluralistic Age" where he takes the creeds as seriously as any theologian. Cobb is clear that he thinks the metaphysics implied in traditional formulas were not biblical, but he also states that his approach to Christology aims to be faithful to Chalcedonian intuitions out of respect for the tradition (although yes, he thinks some creedal formulations are downright erroneous on metaphysical *and* biblical grounds - e.g., the Trinity...but that's another conversation). Furthermore, Cobb continually argues throughout most of his books that the process understanding of God is more biblical in many ways than traditional metaphysical formulations. That is not, of course, to say that he thinks process thought can do justice to every aspect of 'the biblical God.' For him, some of the biblical images of God clearly cannot be plausibly maintained on both ethical and philosophical grounds. But Cobb indeed argues that process theology goes further in capturing the wider biblical vision than the most *plausible* alternatives – and Thomism would be more plausible for him than Barth’s christomonism, as he explains at length in a sympathetic critique of the latter in “Living Options in Christian Theology.” To clarify my own comment: I was not claiming that process theologians believe that they have captured *the* biblical view. That would be naïve. I was, however, suggesting with virtually every process theologian that the Whiteheadian doctrine of God is able to do justice to the biblical view of God in ways that neither Barth nor Thomas can (at least without significant modifications). I am aware of the way the tradition has variously dealt with these issues, including in Barth and Thomas. With all due respect to each of their genius, I find them to be quite problematic for many reasons. It seems to me that we are not doing our tradition a favor by clinging to patterns of thought (or language-games, as post-liberals would say) like supernaturalism that, in my opinion, are philosophically implausible and a stumbling block to contemporary persons of faith. In my own view, an inescapable fideism and enormous theodicy issues abound when those methods are chosen. I've actually had the pleasure of reading Kathryn Tanner and think she's really great in many ways (especially for a post-liberal, which I am not). The last chapter in her most recent book, however, shows that for all of her skillful utilization of traditional theological language, she nevertheless argues that God only ever acts in and through natural processes. As such, miracles for Tanner are ultimately natural, not supernatural in a metaphysical sense.

James, thanks for the comments. I've read Cobb's Christ in a Pluralistic age in which he articulates an understanding of Christ as the Logos of creative transformation, a formula that I personally find wanting in pretty much every way. You are right to suggest that Cobb's account is entirely naturalistic, but it seems like you are wrong to assume that process theists describe their Christology and doctrine of God according to a more adequate reading of Scripture. Cobb, for instance is more honest than that about his overt disregard for traditional formulas. I was not attempting to be critical of process per say, but was simply stating the facts about the ontology it necessarily presupposes and how that specifically diverges from other Christian alternatives that solve this problem without resorting to the naturalization of the supernatural or the metaphysicalization of God. Pseudo-pantheism and God of the gaps are simply two versions (adequately exemplified by Spinoza on the one side and Newton on the other) of an ontology that posits univocity and equivocity in the God/world relation such that nature and supernature exist in a two story universe and have to nullify one another to actually come to fruition at all. To suppose that such ontological moves need to be suggested as alternatives to the, for example, Thomistic or Barthian way of dealing with miracles (neither of which felt the need to eradicate the supernatural in order to save the nature--quite the opposite) is to miss the mark of 90 % of the way the Christian tradition has dealt with this. I simply want us to be more careful in the evacuation of the supernatural simply because people have a bad habit of instrumentalizing spiritual experience. In my opinion, it is "human experience" as a central locus for theological reflection that is the real culprit for what Bo is referring to, not the supernatural. But Cobb among others would be the last to relativize that. They would prefer to relativize the supernatural as that which exists in ontological independence from creation and thus to naturalize Christ, as you have suggested. While that is one way to go, I think the alternatives may lead us into more healthy directions. The best book ever on this topic is Kathryn Tanner's God and Creation in Christian Theology.

You posited this question, "and why would god be so concerned with getting you home on time but so unconcerned with children being abused and people going hungry?" I have heard this question asked in a number of ways lately and I want to respond a few ways. First, are you implying that God doesn't do "small" things? How does that fit into the idea that all things are created by him and for him and that in him all things hold together?" Second, how do you know that God is not concerned with abuse and hunger? Is it possible that God is concerned and we are ignorant of that? Furthermore, is it possible that God is actively engaged with the issues of abuse and hunger but the ultimate results are still unknown to us, perhaps later to be revealed? Third, every time I hear the questions asked I want to say, "Wait a minute, are you presuming to tell God how to run things? I know we all fail in this at times but part of Holy Spirit's work in the disciple is to bring her to trust God completely.

I now have a break and am looking forward to listening to your sermon. And I will try to listen to the other HBC's TNTs to get my head around this stuff. In the midst of you sophisticated, well-read philosophers my comments will probably seem like a pair of brown shoes in a closet full of tuxedos, but here goes. I still don't get the problem with idioms like "supernatural" to describe things that are above and beyond our natural experiences. I think the "two tiered" language that Jesus used to discuss the workings of the kingdom helps to increase our present day dependence and reliance upon God and at the same time to "fan in to flames" our hope for the eschaton. How would you translate phrases like "on earth as it is in heaven" so that they would fit your worldview? Is your problem with the language because it lulls us into into becoming ungrateful because we don't see God at work unless we experience something miraculous? Or is that only part of it? And by the way, did I understand you or one of the other comments to say that all births were miraculous? If all births are miraculous then how would you describe the virgin birth? Super miraculous?

Well, Brandon...this is quite a caricature of process theology. "God of the gaps"? "Pseudo-pantheism"? "Unsophisticated"? Unless you are completely opposed to engaging in natural theology or metaphysical speculation in general, then these criticisms make it seem as if you do not in fact understand Whiteheadian-Hartshornian metaphysics - which is none of those things. A process Christology such as Cobb's (which is able to strongly affirm the decisiveness of the Christ-event) can be entirely naturalistic because the 'Logos' is constitutive of everything finite - furthermore, God is not an exception to metaphysical principles but their "chief exemplification" (Whitehead's words). This is disconcerting, no doubt, for those who insist on a Barthian deity of infinite transcendence. But that is not the biblical God, the process theologian argues. But I actually get the impression that you are open to natural theology by your reference to Thomas. In that case, I would argue that the only plausible Thomistic approach to divine action is one that modifies it in such a way that God only ever acts in and through secondary causes. I can admire this approach as represented by the Australian theologian Denis Edwards in his book "How God Acts." While a true miracle for Aquinas only occurs because a secondary cause is *not* present, Edwards argues that God consistently acts through secondary causes alone out of respect for natural processes and the fidelity of creatures. God works in and through the known *and* unknown laws of nature. Miracles are thus never supernatural, but as Bo often says, "the most natural thing in the world."

Well, you are right that the definition of "miraculous" often works against the natural grain of creation such that God's involvement in the world always takes the form of the suspension of created order and the imposition of divine agency. Such a world becomes "mythological" if we take "supernatural" in a purely extrinsicist fashion and allow creation to continue as a pure, closed off form of immanence that is constantly needing to be placed in a sphere of exception so that God's activity can be included. But this already presupposes that God and creation function as ontological contrastives that take up the same "space", so to speak. This is just your run of the mill univocal ontology in which divine presence is always portrayed as the imposition of divine will on the ordinary working of the natural order or the "Adding on" of the supernatural onto the enclosed autonomy of nature. The alternative will either be the relativization of true supernature in the name of present scientific or philosophical knowledge (think "God of the gaps") or the relativization of nature in the name of a punctilious suspension of nature for the imposition of supernature. Honestly, your view here looks rather like the first option, which is actually par for the process theology course, as your book quote corroborates. This option is just the assertive opposite of the mythology you don't want without ever attempting to recall the options of primary and secondary causality (a la Thomas) or divine and human concurring (a la Barth). If "supernatural" means "mythological" then we have just done a bad job narrating the way Christian theology has accounted for divine presence within the sphere of the natural order. For instance, Thomas agrees with you that God should not be seen as always "skipping over" the secondary causality of the natural in order to become present only in the suspension of the natural. Such discounts the human and the natural altogether. This, however, does not mean that God does not "skip" over secondary causes in miraculous ways, like the Incarnation and the Resurrection etc. But to claim that such acts are not supernatural because "supernatural" does not exist seems confused and unsophisticated. If only it were that easy. But if one wants to claim that the deity of Christ is the inhering of something other than nature in the form of nature, then I find it difficult to really do away with the category of "supernatural" entirely, especially on the grounds that some Christians simply lack the theological perspicacity not to instrumentalize it as a kind of explanatory schema for strange events in time. Why deny the supernatural on the grounds of its misuse and not try to articulate a true account of it? This road seems to easily lead to the same "God of the gaps" versus "pseudo-pantheism" of the modern period (not to mention its ancient forms). If miraculous means "prophetic" then we have succumbed to governing rules of "pure immanence", which encloses God within the natural processes of the world and nullifies the ontological distinction between Creation and creator. Come on Bo. Lets try a little harder.

Picking up on Doug's point, another thing that occurs to me is that any cosmology that includes any kind of divine action at some point has to account for how it seems more divine action is occurring in one instance than in another. Even with a robust sense of God's immanence working in all things, how do we deal with the reality that one person who earnestly desires to be open to God's healing presence receives physical healing, and someone else equally earnest does not? Personally I don't see how you can fully escape the 'mystery' response, and live with a certain amount of unfairness, unless we are ready to completely get rid of the possibility of God acting in special ways altogether. I guess for me, I am more comfortable standing on that slippery slope than I am reducing everyone's account of their experiences to illusion and/or confirmation bias. I could be wrong about this, and I can totally see how someone else could come to a different conclusion. It is ultimately our own biases and experiences that make up our gut feelings on this issue--which are probably more determinative of where we land on this than anything else.

Thanks so much Bo for bravely taking up this particular set of challenges ... I'm absolutely with you that what needs to be deconstructed is our natural/supernatural split, as it is predicated on the idea that God is normally absent from the realm of the 'natural'. That just has to be wrong if you believe in God's omnipresence through the Holy Spirit, and it's also a dodgy notion in that excluding God from the finite on the grounds of God's infinity paradoxically makes God finite (think about it for a couple of seconds). The great French Jesuit Henri de Lubac once said something very pertinent about this in his book on Teilhard de Chardin - who was one of the first to grasp that the natural/supernatural divide is nothing more than a convenient mental construct - Christ cannot truly be the 'head of all things' in the sense of Ephesians 1 if the cosmos is simply neutral, mindless 'stuff' that can organize itself without Him. That would mean that the universe is 'two-headed' ['bicéphale], which is certainly not the New Testament vision of things. In other words, either God is somehow subtly involved with EVERYTHING, or is not God at all. As Bo says, 'maybe the Lord is not absent from any conversation'. That neither means 'intervention' from outside, nor Divine 'micro-managing' but perhaps rather a patient, unseen working inside, beneath all things for good, even when things point to the contrary. Just how this happens is something outside our comprehension, but maybe we can say that God's love operates similarly to a field of gravitational force, to use Pannenberg's image for the Holy Spirit (I'll leave Whitehead to you specialists out there, but it seems to me that is what he also grasped in calling God the 'poet of the world' who draws it towards Godself). To suggest that praying can in some way intensify that field seems a perfectly rational thing to say as well as one that ties in with the Gospel narratives of healing as being intimately connected with human faith and prayer. Seeing persons in terms of the inter-connectedness of mind, body and spirit is surely far better than the kind of mind-body dualism that has characterized so much modern Western thought but which has little to do with a genuinely Biblical anthropology. What is maybe worth emphasizing is that contemporary science is also very much moving in the direction of dismantling the spirit-matter dichotomy - any of you who are Francophones should take a look at 'Notre existence a-t-elle un sens' by the brilliant inter-disciplinary thinker Jean Staune (one of whose books is foreworded by Philip Clayton), which is a mind-blowing and inspiring summary of the present state of the debate. Staune is of the view that the only reason why this hasn't yet percolated into general consciousness because hardcore biological materialists of the Dawkins variety are way behind the curve due to the nature of their discipline, which is always in a time-lag compared to physics (where it's been clear for nearly a century that all sorts of counter-intuitive things are going on at the quantum level). Walter Wink's 'Powers that Be' is one of the few books that starts to tap the theological potential of modern physics, but in general we're only just getting started on this ... and my hunch is that a big revolution in our thinking about science is in progress right now which will be extremely conducive to faith. Shalom, Peter B.

Ideas like this are always challenging for me because I don't think I have ever experienced something that was irreducably miraculous - no magical visions of things I've never seen, no unexplainable insights, no non-medical healing, and so on. I'm in a situation where, on the one hand, I feel like I need to take others' experiences seriously, as they understand those experiences. On the other hand, I have no reason not to think of these experiences as illusory, confirmation bias at work, etc. I end up in a situation where I have to be essentially naturalistic in outlook, even as a pastor and Jesus-follower. I get the idea of the 'miraculous', and as you define it above, am able to buy it readily. To me, part of that might just be the change in the meaning of the word over time as we collective abandon superstition. But there's a slippery slope here, between God giving you a vision of someone's picture in their house, or God healing someone of an injury and illness, and God diverting a hurricane from one city to another on the other hand, or God not giving the majority of people visions, or not healing the majority of illness and injury. I'm uncomfortable with standing on that slippery slope, and feel like maybe more needs to be said apart from just the re-framing of the words here. Where I have ended up, personally, is that what I do and believe has to be meaningful even if there is no...let's say intervention, precisely because instances of intervention, as the quote from Mesle's text points out, put God's justice and love to the test, rather than demonstrate it, for those of us who don't experience the interventions, or don't seem them as such if we do. How do you deal with the slippery slope? How do you deal with the issues around justice? How do you make sense of differences in experience here? If someone never experiences any kind of intervention, ever, does this just necessitate a different theology (or no theology)? How do I deal with someone who tells me "God has given me a prophetic word" when I don't even understand what experience those words are referring to?

Is there anyway to update it without elminating it?

How can the virgin birth be explained?

Hey Bo, great post. Here's my first reaction (ported over from Facebook :) ): I'm pretty sure I agree with where you're going with this--which is why I try to use the words 'unusual' or 'dramatic' when describing certain actions as opposed to 'supernatural'. In fact, when it comes to conceptual framework of getting past the natural/supernatural binary, I agree completely. My question is--does God's presence in creation also open the possibility of water turning to wine, weather patterns being stilled, and the dead being raised? And seeing all these as having natural explanations we simply don't yet fully understand? Following up on that: exactly what is the determiner of whether an unusual happening can be attributed to God's power, or to 'superstition'? I agree that we also need to look closer at narrative devices in the texts such as the Gospel narratives, and how they operate (would like to hear folks weigh in on that issue), although I'm not sure that it necessarily excludes the possibility of something having happened more or less like how it was described. Maybe Jesus didn't turn water into wine, but on exactly what grounds do we decide that couldn't have happened, and is therefore 'ridiculous', if we have a more open framework on how God interacts with creation? It still seems to me that one person's 'amazing thing' could be another person's 'untenable contradiction'. You seem to have an implicit faith in 21st century Western philosophical perspectives to guide our instincts correctly in making those decisions--I'm not as sure.

Amen! The western mind has so easily divorced the physical and spiritual as two separate things. God is powerful, but in a real, physical and natural way. If he is present in everything he created, then he has influence over the nature of things, because he created us to have a certain nature. The first sentence you wrote in green gives a very good example.