Boot Camp. Correcting Anglicostals, Pentecostals, Charismatics & Other Enthusiasts: Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) F.N. Lee
We say with Zachary Ursinus, "Friend, if entering here…be short and leave…or stay but assist us in our work." Or, boot camp. “Welcome to boot camp. Recruit, life as you know it has just ended.” (Recruit’s private thought: “Oh no, what did I get myself into?”) Yes, these Montanists have pushed themselves into public and the pushback is undertaken.
(We used [ ] to indicate Hebrew/Greek words which did not survive from pdf to Word to this forum. A theological study about the nature of miracles and their cessation at inscripturation but the continuation of pseudo-miracles according to revealed religion from the fall of the first Adam till the second coming of the Second Adam.
And now, below, some corrections from Gunnery Sergeant Lee:
For miracles are 'new creations' which either resuscitate or consummate either a part or the whole of the universe. Indeed, they do so specifically to the glory of the Lord and/or the Triune God's Central Person alias the Word Who became Jesus Christ.
Compare: Exodus 34:10; Numbers 16:30f; Deuteronomy 4:24 & 18:14-22 & 34:10-12; Isaiah 28:16-21; Jeremiah 32:18-21; John 2:11 & 11:23-47; and Second Peter 3:3-15.
8. Augustine's brilliant delineation and description of miracles
There were many Pre-Augustinian Theologians who described apostolic-age miracles and pre- and post-apostolic pseudomiracles -- many of whom insisted that miracles ceased with the apostles. Such Early-Patristic Theologians, all of whom will be dealt with later below, include: Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Quadratus, Diognetus, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Theophilus, Athenagoras, Irenaeus, Caius, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Asterius Urbanus, Cyprian, Arnobius, Eusebius, Athanasius, Cyril, Gregory of Nazianze, Basil, Jerome, and John Chrysostom.
None of them, however, offer us a definition of miracles.
Augustine of Hippo, the greatest Theologian of the Early Church, was certainly the first to attempt an adequate definition. To him, miracles were never contrary to God-created (and originally unsullied) nature as such -- but only contrary to (sin-stained) nature as known by man.
Now Augustine certainly held that all miracles and wonders had been fore-ordained by God from all eternity -- supralapsarianly. Yet they still resort under either one or the other of two kinds of 'hidden seeds' of either a miraculous or a wonderful nature: viz. those he called 'immanent' and those he called 'transcendent.'
Immanent wonder-revelations are exhibitions of the unlimited power of God – from 'seeds' which He actually 'hid' in the universe already at the time of its Genesis 1:1 creation.
Such are the wonders which were displayed during the Genesis 1:3-31 formation of our Earth -- even before the creation and the later fall of man.
Transcendent miracles, on the other hand, are those foreordained by the will of God but which would be inserted as 'hidden seeds' and then later proceed only after the fall of man.
God did not actually hide such seeds in the creature(s) already at their creation. Such seeds He would only later, from time to time, have implanted into various of His creatures after the first human sin. Thus Augustine.
The miracles mentioned in the Bible, are principally of this latter kind. They are linked to re-creation, after Adam's fall. Indeed, either directly or indirectly, they clearly focus on the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.6
One of Augustine's best statements on miracles, was made in a work from A.D. 391.
There, he explained:7 "By 'miracle' I mean something strange and difficult which exceeds the expectation and capacity of him who marvels at it.
"Among events of this kind, there is nothing more suited to the populace and to foolish men generally, than what appeals to the senses. But again, there are two kinds of miracle.
Some there are that merely cause wonders. Others produce great gratitude and goodwill.
"If one sees a man flying, one merely marvels -- for such a thing brings no advantage to the spectator beyond the spectacle itself. But if one is affected by some grave and desperate disease and at a word of command immediately gets better -- love of one's healer will surpass wonder at one's healing.
"Such things were done, when God as true man [Christ] appeared to men.... But why, you say, do such things not happen now?" Because such events were special revelations from God; and not just remarkable occurrences, then still humanly inexplicable, such as the wonders of nature.
As examples of the latter, Augustine stated: "Take the alternation of day and night...[and] the leaves falling [in the autumn] and returning [in the spring] to the trees.... If we could speak to someone who saw and sensed these things for the first time, we should find that he was overwhelmed and dizzy at such 'miracles' etc."
However, though astonishing, they are really not true "miracles" at all.
Augustine also rightly said:8 "God's miracles indeed seem to be in conflict with the ordinances of nature. Yet this is not really so. For God is the Creator of nature. Accordingly, He cannot do anything contrary to it.
"Miracles thus occur not against nature, but only against nature insofar as we know it.
In miracles, higher ordinances of God break through. These are previously-hidden powers which God allows to operate as miracles."
Indeed, God's true miracles were never against nature as such, but only and always against sin and its consequences. "Miracles were made known, to help men's faith....Miracles have no purpose, but [redemptively] to help [sinful yet penitent] men believe that Christ is God."9
9. Augustine (continued): miracles rare; not unnatural; but against sin
Augustine further discussed whether it is possible for things to keep on lasting, unchangeably, in burning fire. Exodus 3:2f cf. Isaiah 66:24, Matthew 25:41-46, Mark 9:43-48 & Luke 16:24.
In regard to such matters, some allege "that all miracles are contrary to nature." Yet, responded Augustine,10 such matters "are not so.
"For how is that which happens by the will of God, contrary to nature -- since the will of so mighty a Creator is certainly the nature of each thing? A MIRACLE, therefore, happens NOT contrary to NATURE; but CONTRARY to what WE KNOW as nature."
Formerly, wrote Augustine around A.D. 400, long prior to the christianization of the Ancient World of the Roman Empire in A.D. 321, "miracles were necessary before the world believed -- in order that it might believe. But whoever now-a-days demands to see prodigies so that he might believe, is himself a great prodigy -- because he does not believe....
Many miracles were wrought to confirm that one grand and health-giving miracle of Christ's ascension to Heaven with the flesh in which He arose."
Augustine again touched upon miracles while refuting Manichaeanism. Faustus the pagan follower of the nature-worshipper Mani had himself just questioned:11 the miraculous virgin birth of Jesus; the claim that He had performed 'unnatural' miracles of healing etc; and His resurrection from the dead.
No comments:
Post a Comment