God, Science and Naturalism

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tootle_toot said:
The trick that God has played on us with the Holy Shroud should be taken as a warning: we are all being tricked in this present time. Our doom is right around the corner, it is obvious, and it is something that we have created in violation of His sacred laws. But, as predicted, we go on living as if nothing is wrong.
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I’m not sure your characterization of God as being one to ‘play a trick on us’ is consistent with how God is usually presented. It creates quite frankly a lot of confusing options when you introduce “deceptive” as a characteristic of God.

If God was trying to trick us, since some believe it’s real does that mean he failed?
If God was trying to trick only some of us, did those people have any free will to not be tricked? God knew exactly what would trick them and not you, right?
 
The theme of a trick or a trap is found in Scripture. Psalm 9:15-16

The nations have fallen into the pit that they dug,
they are caught by the feet in the snare they set themselves.
YHWH has made Himself known; has given judgement.
He has trapped the wicked in the work of their own hands.

Luke 21:34

that day will be sprung on you suddenly, like a trap.
 
I think tootle-toot is correct that the Shroud of Turin can act as a focus of a discussion about ‘naturalism’ and the ‘supernatural’. However, over the past twenty years or so, I think there has been a shift in Catholic theological thinking. The earlier position was that the two concepts were different, such that God, who orders and maintains his universe according to ‘natural’ laws, nevertheless from time to time directly and ‘unscientifically’ intervenes, creating what we have called a ‘miracle.’ More recently, I have felt that the Church has been at pains not to make such a distinction, and to emphasise rationality, which some have felt has weakened the ‘supernaturalness’ of God, and others feel has strengthened it.

If there is no distinction between the ‘supernatural’ and the ‘natural’, then, as lelinator so succinctly put it above “it’s not that there are no miracles, it’s that every frickin’ thing’s a miracle.” By this philosophy both the very unusual and the completely normal are manifestations of God’s creative imagination, and fit precisely into the rationality of the universe that we have begun to understand, and call science. The miracle of the Rainbow, the miracle of the Eclipse, the miracle of the Big Bang, the miracle of Evolution, the miracle of Quantum Physics: all these are, I think rightly, seen not as exceptions to the normal working out of God’s plan for his creation, but integral parts of it.
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(continued) Where the Shroud comes in has little to do with its authenticity. As many have noted above, the evidence in favour of it being from the first century is invariably overstated and, as each fragment collapses under any detailed analysis, serves only to strengthen most people’s understanding of it as a medieval creation. Whenever the words “proved” or “the only possible” or “odds of billions to one” are mentioned, we know that we have left the path of scientific enquiry and drifted off into the realm of personal conviction. It is also a shame that many of the most popular videos on the Shroud are by Catholic priests, who for reasons best known to themselves tend to ignore the field in which they have trained and are experts (Catholic theology) in favour of tub-thumping badly remembered or inaccurately stated second-hand evidence that they have no real knowledge of and do not understand. If anyone here is interested in the theological lessons than can been drawn from the Shroud, then I recommend Russ Breault’s lecture, “Super Secrets of the Sacred Shroud,” which can be found at youtube.com/watch?v=xeC-ILwQJys, starting about 40 minutes in. Although the title is a little sensationalist (Russ is an ad-man by profession), it is a splendid exercise in hermeneutics.

But for the relevance of the Shroud to the discussion here, we need to look more closely at those who think that the Shroud is indeed the burial cloth of Jesus, regardless of the reasons why they reject the medieval evidence. For it is here that the natural/supernatural debate really hots up. Without doubting that the miracle of the Resurrection occurred, the question is whether it occurred within or outside the bounds of “science”, and whether the Shroud can provide evidence either way. Tootle-toot, it appears, follows the various radiation hypotheses, by which the body of Jesus either exploded or vanished in a burst of sub-atomic or electromagnetic radiation, deliberately demonstrating his mastery over the ‘natural’ world, or ‘the laws of physics’, which, of course, he himself set in place originally. Other authenticists look for a completely natural explanation for the image, involving chemical emanations and reactions which could be replicated if they were slightly better understood, or electrostatic manifestations driven by earthquakes or thunderstorms.

It is a fair bet, I think, that neither of these points of view correctly describes how the Shroud image was formed, the discussion provides an interesting and worthwhile window on the natural/supernatural debate.
 
AlNg said:
Yes. And all three claim to have miracles.
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All miracles are not the same.

A guru may be able to walk on hot coals without being burned.

Jesus fed the multitudes, made the lame to walk, made the blind to see.
 
Jesu rose from the dead and raised others from the dead. Jesus’s words included the Sermon on the Mount.
 
I thank Mr. Farey for his thoughtful post, but it does contain some incorrect information:
". . .the evidence of it being first century is invariably overstated and, as each fragment collapses under any detailed analysis, . . .

Nuclear engineer Robert Rucker lists 15 reasons why the Shroud is ancient. Perhaps Mr. Farey will “collapse” each of these items for us using his “detailed analysis.”


And: “Whenever the words ‘proved’ or ‘the only possible’ or ‘the odds of billions to one’ are mentioned, we know that we have left the path of scientific enquiry and drifted off into the realm of personal conviction.”

These succinct words could just as easily be applied to the conclusions of the British Museum and its spokesman, Teddy Hall, when they pronounced the Shroud’s date to be medieval with undeniable certainty and labeled those who did not accept this verdict as members of the flat earth society.
 
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With only two days to go, this is not the place to restate the counter-arguments to Bob Rucker’s paper, which are readily available elsewhere (e.g. look up “The Medieval Shroud” on Google), nor to defend Teddy Hall, who was, indeed, at that point speaking from personal conviction (and was never a spokesman for the Brirtish Museum).

Assuming, however, that Bob Rucker’s papers are representative of Tootle-toot’s views, we may take them as an apologia for the ‘interventionist’, or ‘super-naturalist’ side of this thread’'s theme. In general, whether God invariably acts according to his own ‘laws’ or not cannot be more than a philosophical debate, but, as I have suggested above, the Shroud has acted as a more evidential focus for the topic, as there are very few occurrences or artefacts that might be considered examples of such intervention that can be investigated forensically. It has been pointed out above that the miracles of Lourdes, together with the vast majority of miracles currently acknowledged by their local bishops, are not generally distinguishable from examples of spontaneous remission found across the world and its cultures. Although individually any such event may be incomprehensible in terms of today’s medical knowledge, as a group they are rarely thought to be examples of divine intervention.

Few Christians would deny that God can, if he wishes, intervene amongst his creation, or cause supernatural events. The question is not whether He can, but whether He does, and there is precious little material evidence either way. The Old and New Testament miracles, and the miracles attributed to saints ever since, are rarely subject now to independent verification as such, but the Shroud has been investigated quite thoroughly, and has convinced many that it cannot be explained in terms of ‘science as we know it’, and is therefore per se evidence of a miracle. Many others are less convinced. Whether conviction either way is mainly due to the evidence itself, or to a pre-disposition in favour of one point of view or the other, is moot.
 
Moot?
I don’t think so. In my opinion, the Shroud skeptics are all heavily pre-disposed. For instance, our friend, Mr. Farey, has an obvious naturalist infection: he thinks, that when Jesus walked on water, it was some kind of magician’s trick, and that when Jesus rose from the dead, He simply woke up and walked out of His tomb; His resurrection being no different that the revivals of many others who “woke up” after being thought dead. The miraculous image on the Holy Shroud contradicts these false ideas. It is not “moot” by any means.
 
Alas, we part in such a short time, it is not worth refuting Tootle-toot’s quite unjustified personal assessment of me and my views. However I think the discussion may be elevated by taking his idea that I think that “when Jesus rose from the dead, He simply woke up and walked out of His tomb.”

I don’t think that God is constrained by ‘degrees’ of supernaturalism. If he chooses to intervene amongst the ordered, coherent progress of the universe that he appears to have instituted, and if we take the Resurrection to be such an event, then I don’t think that the miracle of ‘reversing the irreversible’ and rising from the dead can be considered more or less supernatural depending on what such an event looked like - a simple awaking and walking out, or a blinding flash of light and dematerialism, for examples.

But if we are to make an intelligent guess as to what an unwitnessed supernatural occurrence looks like, then I think it is not unreasonable to look at other supposed occurrences which were witnessed, and I have suggested that other, less important perhaps but no less supernatural, revivals from the dead should be considered. The other miracles of Jesus can also be taken in into account.

The most striking thing about them all, from resurrections to healings to the feeding of the multitudes, is their lack of ostentation. They just happen, with minimal razz-ma-tazz, flashes of light, or any of the panoply we associate with spectacular stage magic. A basket of food just doesn’t run out. The blind and the lame just find themselves cured. The dead simply ‘wake up.’ If we want to assess a miracle which no one observed, then on ‘past form,’ an unspectacular rather than a spectacular event is indicated.

It seems that as far as Jesus was concerned, these material manifestations of his power were fairly trivial compared to the much more important gift of the forgiving of sins and the promise of everlasting life. The curing of the paralytic epitomises this, but similar examples can be found throughout his mission. People were cured because they had faith in Jesus as the Son of God, and as the Son of God, he could forgive them their sins or promise them life eternal. However neither of these true manifestations of the divine is necessarily observable, and so most of them were accompanied by a material illustration, such as a cure. From a materialist point of view, most of these can be accounted for within the structure of science as we know it, but that is to mss the real miracle that underlay these demonstrations.

If this is my last post (or even if it isn’t) I wish everybody with whom I have engaged in this forum, and all those who have read our discussions without comment, a very happy and enlightening New Year!
 
Hugh_Farey said:
and if we take the Resurrection to be such an event, then I don’t think that the miracle of ‘reversing the irreversible’ and rising from the dead can be considered more or less supernatural depending on what such an event looked like - a simple awaking and walking out, or a blinding flash of light and dematerialism, for examples.
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For one who has wagered everything on one item, any mental or logical gymnastics necessary to keep it “inviolate” become easy and routine. Science says that your artifact is not as old as it has to be? Well then cook up something based on a passing comment of someone else and make sure to call it scientific (it almost sounds like it is if you hold your nose and squint real hard) to “explain” the results away. But I don’t get mad at such people so much as I feel sad for them. I really don’t understand the mindset that makes one’s faith dependent on a relic; any relic. It is quite easy for me to believe both that the Resurrection happened and that the purported Shroud is a later artifact. And at the same time keep an open mind for evidence that it is completely as claimed. But to ignore inconvenient evidence and twist or misconstrue other ideas to “prove” your hypothesis for no good reason befuddles me. Why is such a person’s faith so weak that they must rely on any single physical item to keep it?
 
Dan123 said:
Muhammad also healed the sick and cured the blind, and created food and water from nothing.
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These are fairy tales created nearly 300 years after he died. On top of that any stories of him doing miracles is a direct contradiction of the Quran that explicitly states that Muhammad could not do miracles.
 
And a Happy New Year to Whatistrue too, although for the life of me I cannot fathom what his comment means, or whether he thinks my faith depends on the Shroud or not. In the context of everything I have written on this Fortum, the question “Why is such a person’s faith so weak that they must rely on any single physical item to keep it?” clearly cannot refer to me, as I obviously do not rely on any such thing, and I completely sympathise with his inability to "understand the mindset that makes one’s faith dependent on a relic.’

On the other hand his suggestion that my reasoned and referenced comments are no more than “mental or logical gymnastics” or based on “a passing comment of someone else”, or that I “ignore inconvenient evidence” or try to “prove” my hypothesis; all this is simply bizarre, as they have no relevance to me at all.

I can only suppose that either whatistrue has not read or understood what I have written, or he has misdirected his comment to the wrong person.

Well, bless him, anyway.
 
Ah! Well, that explains it, and puts my mind at rest. Thank you for replying. Good Luck and Farewell until we meet again somewhere in cyberspace!
 
"…miracles are not subject to science." pg. 52 of The Medieval Shroud 2

Many artifacts of Jesus’ crucifixion are purportedly extant: nails, the Sudarium face cloth, the Crown of Thorns, His garments, various parts of the true cross, the title board of the cross, and. of course, the seemingly blood stained linen cloth that wrapped His corpse. And therein lies the rub. Corpses do not leave images of themselves on their shrouds. But this particular corpse did just that, and throughout the ages it has been obvious to its various observers, that this image was not a painting. That fact alone has been enough to convince the Edessians, the Byzantines, the Knights Templar, and the Popes of the Catholic Church that the image was miraculous. All that as a result of the science of direct observation.

But in 1898 something astounding happened. Secundo Pia photographed the Shroud and discovered that it contained long hidden information. This finding shocked the rationalist and naturalist world. Pia was accused of witchcraft and of doctoring his photos. Prominent Catholic theologians Devaliers and Thurston joined the bandwagon, and even today we can see Catholic prelates using such terms as “the myth of authenticity” and “devotional pseudo-science” in their references to Shroud research. Devaliers and Thurston found a French photographer who testified that Pia’s photo-negatives of the Shroud were a result of a “photographic accident.” This idea was, of course, buried in 1932 when the Shroud was again photographed. But those naturalists and rationalists who insist on denying the obvious haven’t given up. Now, instead of a “photographic accident” we find the postulations of “optical illusion,” “pareidolia,” “unconscious perception,” and “elephant in the room” (referring to the C-14 evidence.)

“Elephant in the room” is a cliche meaning that something very obviously important is being ignored. But that is hardly the case when it comes to the Shroud’s carbon fourteen data. In 2015 Antonacci published TEST THE SHROUD in which a very substantial portion is devoted to discussing that data. Nuclear engineer Robert Rucker runs an entire website. shroudresearch.net, in which the Shroud’s carbon fourteen evidence forms a major discussion point. In 2017 Tristan Casabianca forced the British Museum to release the Shroud’s 1988 raw C-14 data, made a statistical analysis, and concluded that the British Museum’s conclusions were “unreliable.”

I could go on. The Shroud of Turin is by far the most scientifically researched relic in the world. Its divine image is a miracle which is “subject to science.”

 
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