FAITH AND REVELATION -- WITNESSES & MIRACLES Faith, Science and Reason Many people today refuse to believe anything said in the name of religion that is based on faith. They look upon faith as unscientific and superstitious. What they should be suspicious about is a claim that faith is required about something where there is no foundation for the faith. Faith itself is entirely reasonable. The claims it makes are beyond investigation by science but reason is broader than science, which makes use of reason in its investigation of material objects, those that are subject to sense knowledge knowledge involving sight, hearing, taste, touch or smell. Reason goes beyond science in that it is capable of passing judgment on many situations involving abstract concepts; that is, nonmaterial objects that have no size, shape, color or weight, such as probability, justice, beauty and love. We all make use of faith dozens of times a day, every time we believe something based on the word of another. We do this when we turn on the radio to find out where traffic tie-ups may be, the state of security markets, the outcome of sporting events, and the outcome of fighting in the Middle East. Reason cannot give us the answers to any of these questions, so we rely on faith to supplement the every-day knowledge we have through reason. History also does not depend on reason yet it is a valuable source of human knowledge. We do, or course, accept this knowledge
only from someone who has access to the information we seek and has no motivation to deceive us. Religion and Revelation Religion deals with our relation to God, our Creator. We can use reason to form judgments about this relationship, but we are on firmer ground if God tells us the facts Himself, and this we call divine revelation. Most religions are the product of human minds, but there are a few that claim to have received revelation. People feel suspicious, again, when revelation tells us something that seems far removed from human experience. Christianity claims that its founder: was a man who was also God; that he was born of a virgin mother; that he returned to life after he was crucified; that he exists today whole and entire in every small piece of what appears to be bread over which a priest has said words of Consecration. All this is far beyond human experience. Science would undoubtedly challenge the fourth item and reason challenge all of them, but if the first point is true, that Jesus was both man and God, then all the others are at least possible and, therefore, potential objects of faith. The basic issues here are whether Jesus actually was God and whether He made these claims Jesus Claims, Miracles and Witnesses History, a valid source of knowledge, informs us about Jesus through eye-witness accounts backed up by the miracles He
worked. The four gospel accounts of Jesus life tell us that He claimed in several ways that He was God and gave proof of it by working miracles, observable events that are exceptions to the laws of nature and therefore do-able only by the Author of nature s laws, God Himself. Jesus worked hundreds of such miracles, mostly to heal the sick or infirm, on almost three dozen occasions. The same gospels also record the claims regarding His virgin birth, His resurrection from the dead and His institution of the Holy Eucharist. There were reliable witnesses to Jesus miracles and to all of His statements about the way we should live. He appointed twelve witnesses, His Apostles, who were with Him for His entire public life and who spent the remainder of their lives testifying to what He had done and said. The four gospels that we have can be shown to agree substantially with the writings that were done in the first century. We have hundreds of such early fragments, in three languages, so that the books we have today are more reliable than other writings of the ancient world. Read those four gospels plus Acts of the Apostles in The New Testament either New American Bible or Revised Standard Version. Miracles, Even in Modern Times Verifiable miracles show God s approval of the claims of a religion. Jews have this in the crossing of the Red Sea and in the delivery of the Ten Commandments, and Christianity has had such miracles though the centuries since the time of Christ. Even in modern times miracles attest to
God s approval of Catholic claims. More than sixty healings of medical problems have been documented at Lourdes, France, healings for which doctors can find no natural explanation. The most dramatic miracle occurred at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, where fifty thousand people had gathered on October13th because three children had said Mary, the mother of Jesus, was appearing there and would work a remarkable event that day. That morning all the people and the ground were soaking wet from a drenching rain. While the children reported Mary was there, the sun appeared to spin like a pinwheel and look as if it would crash into earth. When it stopped spinning and retreated in the sky the people and the earth were perfectly dry. It was not mass hallucination. Fifty thousand people do not hallucinate the same way in the same place at the same time; this was a true miracle. On this occasion Mary delivered a request from her Son that the world should stop offending Him. Proof of Revelation s Transmission Yes, Christianity, and especially the Catholic Church, has solid evidence through witnesses and miracles which make it reasonable to respond in faith. These items of evidence are also important when a religion claims to be divinely inspired. Truths that are beyond human experience, such as Christ as the God-man, His birth from a virgin and His resurrection from the dead, His presence in what appears to be pieces of bread and the multiplication of that presence, are themselves suggestive of divine involvement. What is also important, and what needs to
be verified when a religion claims to be divinely revealed, is the evidence, reliable historical evidence, for the actual transmission of that revelation. Judaism, and Christianity, which supplanted and fulfilled it, can both point to this needed historical evidence. And both have shown additional evidence in the form of miracles, that indicate God s support for their teachings. Most religions are the product of human minds and do not have the basis of divine revelation. There are a few religions that claim to be based on revelation, some of them with very worthwhile practices of prayer, fasting and charitable works and with large numbers of adherents, but for which the evidence is lacking regarding the transmission of the revelation they claim to have received and their claim to divine approval through miracles. Without evidence of the transmission of divine revelation and divine approval these religions are merely the product of human minds and subject to all the shortcomings and errors of human thought. It is necessary, when investigating a religion, that one use reason, not to judge the beliefs of that religion directly, but especially to apply reason to examine the evidence given for those beliefs. And it s also necessary to verify the evidence underlying any religion s claim to divine revelation. FAITH AND REVELATION -- WITNESSES & MIRACLES
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