Miracle vs Blessing

Namaste Jesus

Namaste Jesus

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I was talking with a neighbor the other day when his Pastor happened by. He also lives in the neighborhood. We chatted for a while and something or the other came up and someone said, "That's a miracle." The Pastor corrected us saying that it wasn't a miracle, but rather a blessing. He proceeded to say that a miracle involved the superseding or suspension of God's natural laws, whereas a blessing works within natural and spiritual laws.

He then gave some examples. Saying that, if you ran out of gas right in front of service station, that would be a blessing. On the other hand if you ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere and were able to continue on with a completely dry tank, that would be a miracle. Likewise if you suffered significant blood loss and were rushed to the hospital just in time for a blood transfusion, that would be a blessing. Whereas, if you suffered significant blood loss and survived even though you couldn't get to the hospital for 2 days or so, that would be a miracle.

Thoughts?
 
Sure.... In order for it to be a miracle ...it would have to be something that can't be done.

Them tellyvangelists who think it a miracle people send money to pay their rollz payment...
 
Hey, NJ, I think your pastor gave a really succinct definition, in the context of the colloquial language of our everyday experience.

To go on from that, theologically, we'd have to be a bit more concise.

He proceeded to say that a miracle involved the superseding or suspension of God's natural laws...
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I'd say the norms of natural law are superseded by a 'higher' or 'spiritual law' which determined them in the first place. It's the fact that people deny the realms of the spirit and the Divine that they assume miracles are 'impossible'.

By what logic people can accept the idea of the Divine as transcendent or super-natural, but then insist the Divine is limited and governed by empirical natural law, escapes me.

... if you ran out of gas right in front of service station, that would be a blessing.
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Coloquially, yes. Or one might say it would be lucky. Or chance. But 'blessing' in the Abrahamics is an invocation of the divine, from berakhah (Hebrew) 'the drawing down of spiritual energy'. In Islam the word is baraka. So one might bless God for one's good luck in being outside the gas station, but technically, if a blessing then it means God engineered it that you were outside the gas station when you ran out ...

... it's an interesting one. Of course, 99% of the time it's not Divine interaction but mere chance, or that you were subconsciously aware that you were running low on gas and it was you who brought you that way ... but then there are 'chance' events/meetings that can change a life and destiny, so who's to say?
 
wil said:
Sure.... In order for it to be a miracle ...it would have to be something that can't be done...
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Nah, if it can't be done, it can't be done, like a round triangle. In order for it to be a miracle just requires it to transcend the limitations of our empirical box.
 
Thomas said:
Hey, NJ, I think your pastor gave a really succinct definition, in the context of the colloquial language of our everyday experience.
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Yeah, that's all he was going for really. In the sense that it was just 3 neighbors talking outside. Had it been an actual church setting I'm sure he would have gone a bit more in depth. He used the gas station analogy simply, because prior to that we had been talking about cars. I like his definition though, because it's something the average person can grasp and relate to.
 
Thomas said:
Nah, if it can't be done, it can't be done, like a round triangle. In order for it to be a miracle just requires it to transcend the limitations of our empirical box.
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What does that mean?

I am saying in order for something to be a miracle it has to be something that can't be done. Something with our understanding is impossible. A miracle does the impossible, not the improbable.
 
wil said:
I am saying in order for something to be a miracle it has to be something that can't be done.
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Well that can't be right, can it, as to qualify as a miracle something has to have happened! :D

What you mean is, in order for something to be a miracle, it must be "an extraordinary and/or welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency".
 
Namaste Jesus said:
Yeah, that's all he was going for really... I like his definition though, because it's something the average person can grasp and relate to.
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Oh yes! The 'pastoral touch' often gets the thing across, where a concise metaphysical explanation leaves us all scratching our heads!

Apropos that, the academic and statistician Hans Rosling passed today, from pancreatic cancer. In the eulogies I heard, everyone was saying Rosling made statistics accessible and inspirational, and gave people a view of the world that was unlike any other, and shattered stereotypical assumptions.
 
Thomas said:
Well that can't be right, can it, as to qualify as a miracle something has to have happened! :D

What you mean is, in order for something to be a miracle, it must be "an extraordinary and/or welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency".
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Nope, what is mean, is in order to be a miracle it has to be something that can't happen that did happen.

Like parting of waters...virgin birth...raising dead.

As in raising dead today with defribulators or CPR... Not a miracle, simply science combined with actions and immediacy... It is lucky or handy, or a blessing someone was there and did it...but not a miracle.
 
I don't understand the context by which a miracle allegedly occurs. Is there a prerequisite involved such as being in dire straits or hopeless situations?

Blessings sounds metaphorically akin to enjoying a cake with frosting as an extra treat as opposed to just enjoying one plain without.

I think miracles as commonly defined in many religious disciplines lay among the realms of hopelessness and despair by which those situations get resolved in some unexpected fashion for which the term suffices.

I've actually had my miracle in life come to pass, and it's blessings as well. Suffice to say, I take no stock in the divinity of such things as others do, but I do enjoy the connotations through the wonderful insights and feelings that come with such descriptions.
 
Nowhere Man said:
I don't understand the context by which a miracle allegedly occurs. Is there a prerequisite involved such as being in dire straits or hopeless situations?
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Nope.

Nowhere Man said:
Blessings sounds metaphorically akin to enjoying a cake with frosting as an extra treat as opposed to just enjoying one plain without.
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The colloquial version, yes. The theological version is something else.

Nowhere Man said:
I think miracles as commonly defined in many religious disciplines lay among the realms of hopelessness and despair by which those situations get resolved in some unexpected fashion for which the term suffices.
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I tend to think otherwise.

Nowhere Man said:
I've actually had my miracle in life come to pass, and it's blessings as well. Suffice to say, I take no stock in the divinity of such things as others do, but I do enjoy the connotations through the wonderful insights and feelings that come with such descriptions.
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It's a question of horizons, I suppose, and where the eye rests.
 
Hey, NJ ... you'll never guess what.

So I'm driving up the motorway tonight to visit my mum. Three lanes plus a 'hard shoulder' lane for breakdowns, which becomes a 4th lane when traffic's heavy. Tonight is dark, drizzle, and traffic is heavy ... and my car begins to lose power ... and continues to lose power ... so I flick on the hazard lights and start pulling over, worried that the average speed is between 70-80mph, including the hard shoulder, thinking this is going to be interesting, as the shoulder tends to be used by big trucks, or maniacs who want to overtake everyone on the inside ... only tonight they're going to find my conked-out estate sitting in the way. Not happy at all, and now we're doing less than 20mph and the revs are still dropping ... and there it is, a pull-in for maintenance vehicles, out of harms way, right there. Ijust managed to park it before the engine cut out.

I thought 'that's a blessing!', thought of you, and laughed...
 
Thomas said:
Hey, NJ ... you'll never guess what.

So I'm driving up the motorway tonight to visit my mum. Three lanes plus a 'hard shoulder' lane for breakdowns, which becomes a 4th lane when traffic's heavy. Tonight is dark, drizzle, and traffic is heavy ... and my car begins to lose power ... and continues to lose power ... so I flick on the hazard lights and start pulling over, worried that the average speed is between 70-80mph, including the hard shoulder, thinking this is going to be interesting, as the shoulder tends to be used by big trucks, or maniacs who want to overtake everyone on the inside ... only tonight they're going to find my conked-out estate sitting in the way. Not happy at all, and now we're doing less than 20mph and the revs are still dropping ... and there it is, a pull-in for maintenance vehicles, out of harms way, right there. Ijust managed to park it before the engine cut out.

I thought 'that's a blessing!', thought of you, and laughed...
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There you go!;)
 
Thomas said:
By what logic people can accept the idea of the Divine as transcendent or super-natural, but then insist the Divine is limited and governed by empirical natural law, escapes me.
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Thomas said:
Nah, if it can't be done, it can't be done, like a round triangle.
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Seems you are contradicting yourself. In the first post you claim that the Divine can change natural law; in the second you are saying a Divine can't change natural law. If a Divine can transcend the rules of this reality to do whatever it wants, seems to me it can make a round triangle.

I admit I'm kinda quibbling here.
 
Thomas said:
I'd say the norms of natural law are superseded by a 'higher' or 'spiritual law' which determined them in the first place. It's the fact that people deny the realms of the spirit and the Divine that they assume miracles are 'impossible'.

By what logic people can accept the idea of the Divine as transcendent or super-natural, but then insist the Divine is limited and governed by empirical natural law, escapes me.
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This is an interesting set of statements. There is something deeper there that hit me and I have not quite put my finger on what it is yet.

For there are a good many people who believe in a God and who also believe that the 'miracles' in the Bible could not have actually happened. It may not make sense, but then when has making sense been a prerequisite when it comes to the human condition?

No, that's not quite right. It's more that people see miraculous events as myths and fables rather than an actual event. Sort of like Greek myth of Aphrodite being born out of sea foam.

Not sure I have it nailed down yet, so possibly more to come.
 
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