exodus 10
In the Bible, God often acts through other agents. When Judges 20:35 says that God struck the tribe of Benjamin, the context makes it clear that God executed this judgment through human warriors.
When God sent swarms of locusts into Egypt by a strong east wind (Ex. 10:13), he was not breaking any natural law. This was not the only time locusts struck Egypt; it was simply the most severe and timely—the one that came right after Moses predicted it. And we already discussed the parting of the sea.
Human beings regularly act within nature; they do not, for example, “violate” the law of gravity by catching a falling pencil or lifting an eraser. Nor does a surgeon violate natural law when she restores someone’s sight. Why should a putative creator be any less able to act within nature than those he created? One must essentially assume deism or atheism from the start for Hume’s argument to work at all.
Another problem with Hume’s argument today is how he viewed natural laws. Today philosophers of science tend to define laws of nature in primarily descriptive ways. That is, these “laws” describe what happens rather than causing it. If scientists find some things that do not fit the pattern, they may rethink the law, but they do not ordinarily say that something violated the law.
Moreover, laws of nature describe nature at particular levels and under particular conditions; they function differently in settings such as superconductivity or black holes. Why should special divine action not create a different set of conditions than those to which we are accustomed?
This excerpt was taken from Miracles Today by Craig S. Keener, ©2021.
When God sent swarms of locusts into Egypt by a strong east wind (Ex. 10:13), he was not breaking any natural law. This was not the only time locusts struck Egypt; it was simply the most severe and timely—the one that came right after Moses predicted it. And we already discussed the parting of the sea.
Human beings regularly act within nature; they do not, for example, “violate” the law of gravity by catching a falling pencil or lifting an eraser. Nor does a surgeon violate natural law when she restores someone’s sight. Why should a putative creator be any less able to act within nature than those he created? One must essentially assume deism or atheism from the start for Hume’s argument to work at all.
Another problem with Hume’s argument today is how he viewed natural laws. Today philosophers of science tend to define laws of nature in primarily descriptive ways. That is, these “laws” describe what happens rather than causing it. If scientists find some things that do not fit the pattern, they may rethink the law, but they do not ordinarily say that something violated the law.
Moreover, laws of nature describe nature at particular levels and under particular conditions; they function differently in settings such as superconductivity or black holes. Why should special divine action not create a different set of conditions than those to which we are accustomed?
This excerpt was taken from Miracles Today by Craig S. Keener, ©2021.
