On one hand, we have the Divine creation of God. By his own power he spoke the universe into being. He commanded the universe, and then it was, in all it's brilliance. On the other hand, we have miracles. We have God's hand jumping into his creation and creating exceptions to the physical norms such that His divine plan continues well.

However, these two ideas are actually mutually exclusive. For God to perform a miracle, that is suspend or disregard the laws of nature, God actually sins. That's right, miracles are sinful. How so? God spoke creation into being. Creation is a dictate of God, just as "do no murder" is a dictate of God. Therefore, if God ignores his own dictates, he's ignoring his own orders, and God has broken his own decrees.

So which is it? If God does miracles, he is sinful. If he doesn't, then we must rethink our Christian worldview.

Please comment

I'm not fully understanding this ideology; if you believe in a holy god, then he cannot sin.

I don't entirely follow your logic.  However, I will say this: I don't believe God made the universe out of nothing.  God is God because He obeys the universal laws that apply to everything.  True miracles don't disregard laws; instead, they fulfill them.  Take a look at the Miracles of Jesus.  His Miracles rewarded people for their faith in Him.  The one leper that was grateful was made whole in more ways than one; the other nine were turned to lepers again.  He raised Jairus' daughter from the dead for Jairus' faith.  He used the resurrection of Lazarus to prove His power.  Miracles are not God ignoring His Dictates: It is God showing His Love for us and fulfilling His Dictates.

tRIUNE :

That's the dilemma I hoped people would infer. God is holy, but miracles are in opposition to His previous decrees. This would make miracles unholy, and therefore impossible.

supernerd117 :

Your concept of God is awkward, and it confuses me why you would call him a "god" at that point. If God has external things greater than he is (such as physical laws), then it's those things that deserve our worship.

Nevertheless, you bring a decent reply with the "True miracles don't disregard laws; instead they fulfill them". Talk more about this! That's actually really good. I've never thought about if this applies or not in this scenario. My initial thought is that this does not currently take place. The moral law has been fulfilled in Christ, yet is not abolished. However, all the physical laws don't seem to be "fulfilled" in the same way. I think a more coherent picture is that the "fulfillment" of the physical laws comes at Resurrection, when there is a new heaven and a new earth. That's not really an argument, but just seems to fit better than using that analogy.

I also want to address "It is God showing His Love for us and fulfilling His Dictates." This is actually the point I'm trying to drive as contradictory. His dictates for creation have already been made, and those dictates should communicate the same divine love as any other dictate. God does not lack. But a miracle would then be a "new love" or a "different love". So the new dictate and the old dictate contradict. Moreover, they can't exist simultaneously with a Holy God because at least one option is not totally holy if they are different.

Txgangsta : I honestly don't know what to think of this and maybe I'm misunderstanding your post completely. It just seems that there is an effort to fit God or a concept of Him and what He did into a phylosophical worldview and this becomes a problem. God clearly said in His word, Isaiah 55:8 - " For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord." This is a general comment - If you could "figure out" God, then your god is too small. He is beyond finding out and beyond our understanding. Anything less is us trying to make an image of Him in our minds that fits our worldview. This is called idolatry. The moment I'm trying to figure out how and why He did miracles and what it is, I'll be questioning my own salvation since it is in itself a miracle. I am forever grateful that Jesus died on the Cross for my sins and that He rose from the dead so that I can have everlasting life. It is a miracle from God and God's gift of grace and His grace is sufficient for me. I'm not going to question that.

SoL@R :

Refusing to answer the question does not make the question go away. You say God is not understandable, but I agree to a point. He is infinite, and wrapping our minds around it is futile. However, saying we cannot know anything about God is anti-Christian. Of course we can know things about God. At the very least, we can know that which is revealed to us. But, in light of Romans 1:20, we should be able to understand God even more by the revelations hidden within his creation. Our thoughts are not his thoughts because they are sinful. With careful discernment, we can have his thoughts.

But what you claim is that God does miracles and creates. Sure, but I demand you give reasons for these presuppositions. I think you can't believe both. Simply saying "well I do" is not a respectable response, and this is the reason the young and old alike are abandoning the church.

Txgangsta : The reason I'm not answering the question is because I'm not sure what the question is. God performing miracles = God sins? Is that it? If so, why not put it simply from the beginning? If that is indeed your core question then here's my answer:

You first need to consider who God is. The human mind, as I have already mentioned, cannot adequately grasp who He is if it were not for the special revelations He has given us. One of these revelations is through His creation (Psalm 19:1-6: "The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices like a strong man to run its race. Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end; and there is nothing hidden from its heat.")
Creation's complexity, design and order lead us to acknowledge there is an awesome Being who brought it into existence and maintains it.

Another avenue is through God's written Word. From portions of scripture we can gather the attributes that are inherent in God, thus giving us a glimpse of His character. Some of them are:
His eternality (Psalm 90:2)
His immutability, or in simple terms - God does not change (James 1:17)
His love (1 John 4:8)
His omnipotence - Him being all powerful (Revelation 1:8)
His omnipresence - being everywhere present at all times (Psalm 139:7-11)
His holiness, absolute purity and separation from evil (Habakkuk 1:13)
His righteousness or justice (Psalm 11:7)
and His truth (Titus 1:2)

This is only a brief picture of God who manifested Himself in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the attributes, or perfections, are true for each member of the Godhead. Since God is holy, righteous and true and He can do nothing inconsistent with Himself, you can come to the conclusion that God does not and cannot sin. Since holiness, righteousness and God's other attributes are who God is, if God were to sin, He would cease to be God. The fact that God is holy prevents Him from doing anything that is unholy i.e. sinful and that includes performing miracles which you stated, "If God does miracles, he is sinful."

Our holy God, however, involved Himself in mankind's sin. He sent His one and only Son, Jesus Christ to this earth to suffer and die to pay the penalty for sin. "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit" - 1 Peter 3:18. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the Cross so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness.

SoL@R :

I fail to see your counter objection. Is it that God's interaction is necessarily miraculous? I don't think that undermines my position. I will simply say that God's interaction was planned from the dawn of creation and there are not missing material causes.

Txgangsta : I'm not "counter objecting" anything apart from the notion that "God sins when He performs miracles" and I think I pointed out clearly that God is without sin. To even think otherwise is anti-scriptural, anti-Christian and downright blasphemous and it concerns me when these "thoughts" are entertained and even "debated" among Christians. I have mentioned this a couple of times in the past - I have not joined this forum to "win" threads / debates. I joined to (simply) answer genuine questions from believers and non-believers alike about the Christian faith, biblically - not to get involved in philosophical debates that just goes around in circles. That's what the Debate forum is there for. So with respect - I'm done with this specific thread.

SoL@R :

Wait! That last post doesn't help either. I agree, thinking that God is sinful is only to think that God is not God. But, my claim is that if God were to do a miracle, that he would be sinning. My conclusion is that God does not perform miracles, and my reason is because God is holy. Miracles are a violation of the commands of God, and so I simply say that miracles do not exist.

So I write this to encourage the Christians here to not believe in miracles. I think they are a detriment to the faith.

The problem here is that I don't see anywhere that the premise is suggested to be true. So you may need to first talk about why you think God doing miracles is sinful. You also need to define what you mean by "miracles" because if you define miracles like how the Bible defines it, then you would be contradicting against the Bible because of all the descriptions of the signs and wonders that God did or lead his people to do.

play4fun :

Fair enough.

I define "miracle" as a phenomena with no material cause. One story I heard is that some car was about to go off the road and tumble down a cliff, but angels held it back. It wasn't that there were guard rails, but there was no physical force acting upon the car, just the spiritual force of the angels. So the laws of physics were suspended because of the angels. This is what I call BS on.

The logic is:

1) God commanded creation into existence.
2a) The physical laws are a part of creation, and thus were also commanded into existence.
2b) The physical laws are commanded into existence.
3) A Miracle (as defined above) is contrary to the physical laws.
4) Therefore, a miracle is contrary to a command of God.
5) Something contrary to a command of God is sinful.
6) Therefore, miracles are sinful.

So, I think that God performing miracles is sinful because it is against one of his commands, specifically the creation commands. Basically, an exception to the created order is and exception to the commands of God. This is no different than making moral exceptions. Technically, if you think that sometimes adultery is ok, then there isn't a problem, but that isn't a good thing.

Here's another route.

1a) When God created, he saw it was good.
1b) Creation is good.
2a) The laws of creation are part of creation, so the laws of creation are also good.
2b) The laws of creation are good.
3) Miracles are exceptions to the laws of creation.
4) Therefore, miracles are exceptions to the good.
5) Anything that is an exception to the good is sinful.
6) Therefore, miracles are sinful.

Here the argument is more skewed toward the essence of creation. God made an order, and that order is good. Anything that violates that order is not good.

So I do think that the parting of the Red Sea is a "miracle", but not in the same sense. I don't think that the parting of the Red Sea is an exception to the physical laws, I think that it is a "miracle" because it was a crucial event in the history of the Hebrews, and God foreordained that a "great wind" should come (that's actually scriptural, btw).

I also grant two miracles of my definition. The first is creation. In the beginning, there were no physical laws, so the creation of such physical laws didn't abide by the non-existent physical laws. Really, this is a category error, but when God created there were no physical laws to abide by. The second is recreation (though this also is a category error). Resurrection will not abide by the physical laws because there isn't a connection between the first laws and the second laws, so basically there aren't any laws to obey or disobey. But, this doesn't cover guys like Lazarus; those I will still claim followed the physical laws.

I have nothing. Can somebody answer Txganstas questions please?

I am not sure if I fully follow your logic. What I think is that God is holy and for him to perform miracles was not sinful because he went against his own plans- maybe that was his plan all along. I think you're missing the point of what miracles are. These tend to happen in moments when all feels lost and nothing but hope and faith persist- so God's hands brings peace and comfort by making a miracle happen. If these miracles did not in fact take place then, how will people think of God as all holly and powerful? How would we believe that he is above all? 

Brigand : I need to be fair and humble because your response inspired way too much pride in me.

One guy did reply to me (I gave the argument in person) and his response was that the creation commands have been corrupted due to original sin. Therefore, miracles are actually in defiance of the sinful influence of man. Decent response, to which I have no definitive rebuttal. Since the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), I think that the only thing that sin corrupts is life. I don't think it affected planetary orbits or things like that. But I also don't think that response means that the case is closed. Also, supernerd responded with miracles are the fulfillment of the laws of creation. This is really interesting, and might be an objection, but he never fleshed that out. I don't actually know if that claim even applies.

jlove92 : My argument doesn't have anything to do with secret plans of God, it has to do with him commanding one thing, then later doing another. If I said "I will repay you the $20", then come back and change my mind, you'd call me a liar. That is the problem with God and miracles. He spoke all of creation into existence, but most people think that he later came back and said "no wait, exceptions here". If he created those exceptions in the beginning, they would be explained by those same laws that he spoke into existence, and thus wouldn't be "miracles" as I defined. The Red Sea, for example, I claim was divinely ordained before God even started to create. It wasn't an exception, but it fit with the physical laws all along. Even scripture talks about a great wind that parted the waters. The physical laws didn't change or suspend, but those same laws worked for the people of Israel. But this isn't a "miracle" in most people's vocabulary. Most people want the event to be scientifically unexplainable. But God created science, and he saw it was good. Why would science be good and then God go against it? I say he doesn't.

I think I understand what you are trying to argue. However, it does make me terribly curious about a few things.  First, I was going to ask how you felt about God's miracles, like the feeding of the multitudes or the splitting of the red sea. Then, I saw your post above and felt even more confused.

Do you believe, then, that the feeding of the multitudes was one of these pre-ordained miracles?  That God set those into place before He created the laws of physics, and thus He doesn't violate His laws by performing the miracles?

This idea is pretty absurd to me, but I might just be very un-educated, and my knowledge and understanding of my faith is not always perfect.

First, how do you explain that God isn't limited / defined by time and is omnipresent?  If He set those miracles in place BEFORE He created the laws of physics, then how is He not breaking those laws since they are now established at the time of any miracle's existence?  (That's very difficult to word, I understand. So if I can clarify, I'll try.)

Secondly, if this is indeed the case, why do you seem to believe that any further miracles (which seem to break the law of physics), are out of the question?  For example, you seemed to imply in my miracle thread that you did not believe the miracles to be true.... simply because you viewed them to violate the laws of physics. What if my miracles were some of those divinely ordained miracles you describe.... created before the laws of physics?  What if everyone's miracles were?

Do you not believe in God's desire to be a very personal Savior and miracle worker to all of us?

Thirdly, do you believe the Bible to be the infallible Word of God?

Singelli :

Thanks for the response!

My main claim isn't that pre-ordained miracles exist before the laws of physics, but that the pre-ordained miracles exist in accordance with the laws of physics. I want to say that science and miracles are not contradictory, ever.

"How do you explain that God isn't limited / defined by time and is omnipresent? If He set those miracles in place BEFORE He created the laws of physics, then how is He not breaking those laws since they are now established at the time of any miracle's existence?"

I mean that the miracles are simply laws of physics, but the events were planned. They are not exceptions to science, they work with science. My OP is about how God cannot defy the laws of physics. That's why I deny miracles.

"Do you not believe in God's desire to be a very personal Savior and miracle worker to all of us?"

Of course I do! I just don't understand God in the traditional way. I believe in all the events listed in the bible as historical fact and bearing immense theological importance, especially the gospel of Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection. But, "miracle" isn't the right word here. God gave us faith, but that doesn't contradict science. Jesus fed the 5000, but that doesn't contradict science. The bible communicates the will of God, but that doesn't contradict science. "Miracle worker" should be understood in terms of salvation, not in terms of "makes me feel better now".

"Thirdly, do you believe the Bible to be the infallible Word of God?"

No. I believe the Bible to the be the infallible word of God. The Word (capital W) is Jesus. The bible is not Jesus.

I can't say I understand your view any better with that response, but thank you nonetheless. I guess the best I can say is that I do agree that God won't violate His laws of physics and that His miracles do work in accordance with science, but on the rest, you and I don't see quite eye to eye.

(At least, from what I CAN understand of your post, I don't think so.  Your post seems to contradict your original idea though, so I'm obviously just being very confused by your choices of words.)

Off-topic ramble.

Necro-post! I still would like anyone to comment. I believe soul sleep is a good Christian conclusion, logically and scripturally.