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We interrupt our regularly scheduled program

 

 Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.  By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. (II Peter 3:3-7)

When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” (Matthew 28:12-14)

“Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. (Acts 2:22)

          If you deny that God exists or insist that He created the universe then went on a permanent vacation, it’s obvious that miracles cannot exist. Those who make such claims seem to insist that if God were the sort of god who interferes in the universe, that there would be no means of conducting science, because it could not be trusted that what results from any cause was not, in fact, a miracle not associated with the cause at all. Some go as far as to suggest that there could be no rationality, just one long, bad hallucinogenic dream. Alice in Wonderland would be the tamest we could expect the universe to be. We would not be able to recognize a miracle because there would be no normal with which to compare it.

          This is another logic fault, known as all-or-nothing. Either God has to miraculously do everything and there is nothing but chaos, or God can do nothing and everything must follow natural laws. Well, all except singularities like black holes. They defy the laws of physics that rule the rest of the universe, and, um, quantum objects and rules don’t always follow the same rules as the rest of the universe, but everything else. OK, except evolution. Evolution occurs when something… radiation or something else … causes some part of an organism to not follow the pattern it is supposed to (AKA mutation). But everything else, as far as we know, follows well-established rules. That’s the way it has to be for science. Rules must be followed, or there is nothing but chaos.

          On the other hand, if there is a God like the One described in Scripture, it makes perfect sense that most things would work in accordance with His design and plan, but that He can and does “interrupt our regularly scheduled program” when He deems fit.

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