Many things:
- I'd say that the laws of nature are laws about what will happen given that there is no intervention, so a miracle wouldn't really violate them.
And I say, as you can read in my post, that a distinction needs to be made between the
subjective laws of nature (= our tentative models obtained through the scientific method) and the
objective laws of nature (= the actual rules that we are trying to zero-in on through the scientific method)
The
objective laws of nature are a set of rules that govern all of existence. ALL of existence. That means, if something exists BEYOND our observable universe (a multi verse, extra dimensions, parallell universes, gods, whatever), then that something is PART of ALL of existence. And these things are bound by the
objective laws of nature (=existence) just like everything else.
- Your naturalistic/empiricist presuppositions are pretty plain here. You blatantly assume theoughout this entire post that only natural/material things can exist, and your only justification of said assumption is that they cannot be empirically demonstrated, ergo empiricism.
Don't strawman me. Instead, try to understand what I am REALLY saying.
- What you said about how if supernatural entities have effects on the natural world, that makes them natural is invalid. When you play a video game, you can effect the video game, but that doesn't make you yourself part of the video game.
I'll assume that the video game is an analogy for our space-time continuum. And you call just this universe "nature". I completely disagree with that. When I talk about "nature", I'm talking about ALL THAT EXISTS. If things exist beyond our universe, then those things are included in ALL THAT EXISTS.
I, as a game hacker, programmer, player or cheater of the game am bound by the rules of the plain of existence I EXIST ON. In the very nature of the video game itself are also rules that allow ME to interfere with that internal world.
Again, if a multi-verse exists, then there are laws that govern how that multi-verse works. The universes that come from it can come with their own set of laws. But they don't make the laws of multi-verse dissappear.
In fact, the laws of the multi-verse will pretty much determine the set of possible universes (each with potentially it's own set of laws) that can come from it.
The same goes for gods or any other thing of which the existence is proposed. If gods exist, then they exist in
some way on
some plain of existence.
- Your statement that calling something a miracle is an argument from ignorance is simply false. Calling something a miracle is often an inference from the context of the event, along with the impossibility of it happening naturally
There's a misconception hidden in this statement. First, how do you know what is "impossible" if you are not all-knowing?
Secondly, "happening naturally" is an invalid statement.
For example, computers don't happen "naturally". In fact, much of the materials used for its components don't even occur "naturally". Humans create those machines. So there is an
intervention to produce an object that does not occur
naturally. I guess you will disagree that compuers are "miracles".
Third, I have issues with the word "impossible". If something is impossible, then it is
impossible. If a certain thing can happen (like a miracle - however you define it), then that certain thing is BY DEFINITION not
impossible. Things that are
possible are not
impossible.
Take the Resurrection of Jesus for instance. Now, there are those that say that Jesus rose miraculously from the dead, and there are those that say He didn't rise from the dead, but no sane person says that He rse from the dead, but that maybe someday we will habe an explanation of it.
If Jesus got resurected, then he got resurected
in some way.
If this was the result of an all-knowing, all-powerfull being, then there are rules that
allow for such thing to take place. Then such a thing is not
impossible, since it happened - making it
possible.
I have no issues with the idea that perhaps we are not able to comprehend HOW it happened. Our brains might physiologically simply not be fit to understand such things. Just like the brain of a chimp is physiologically not fit to comprehend quantum mechanics or newtonian physics. But nevertheless, if it happened then it happened
in some way.
If a chimp would have the knowledge we have concerning science, the chimp too could build and deploy a GPS system.
Likewise, if we would have the knowledge that such a deity has, then we too could resurect people.
It happened in
some way. The laws of nature / existence ALLOW for it to happen
in some way. Just like they ALLOW humans to build non-naturally occuring cars, computers and space shuttles.
Not only are spontaneous resurrections after a night, a day and a night dead completely biologically impossible by natural means
But it didn't happen by natural means. The claim of christianity is not that he spontanously came back to life without intervention.
Just like nobody claims that GPS satellites
naturally assemble and get deployed. Somebody is
intervening to build these things. Just like in christianity, some deity
intervened to resurect a dead human.
Clearly, the laws and rules of nature / existence did not make it impossible for this being to do so. Just like the laws and rules of nature / existence did not make it impossible for us to build computers.
Again: if a thing exists, then that thing exists
in some way, in some place, in some form. If this thing can then do certain things (like reaching into a space-time continuum or even creating it), then it can do these things
in some way. And those actions are then
possible by definition.
