Type 1 and 2 Miracles

Following-up on last week's post on miracles, there was another BioLogos post on miracles, describing what they term as Type 1 and Type 2 miracles. The former is "providential timing," meaning all the things work out perfectly together. The latter is more of the type that violates nature (the more obvious miracles).

This may be a good way of working with the debates people have over how to define a miracle. My guess is that most of us probably do agree, but as a friend said in the comments of my original, it can be about semantics.

I do believe we have to be careful about relegating all miracles to only what God can obviously do, though, because then we can fall into the idea of the "God of the gaps," where God only does what science cannot explain. And that gap gets smaller and smaller everyday.

I fully believe God works through science and in ways that we can "explain away" fairly easily. And that's the beauty of his work.

Miracles

Miracles can be a very controversial thing. Sometimes they are viewed as violations of the laws of nature. Sometimes they are viewed as things of awe. I think both can be true, but I tend to take a more Incarnational perspective that is more congruent with the latter: Where the actions can be explained scientifically, but are still quite amazing. Why can't God work through that? I think he does, as does a BioLogos writer.

Science and Religion Today also recently posted about a book about miracle cures. It brings up some very interesting points about the sociology of miracle cures. In short, miracle cures were not necessarily created by a violation of nature, but rather due to very natural experiences. Does that make them any less miraculous?