Science and the virgin birth

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I have a friend who was raised christian but has left the faith many years ago. From time to time we will have discussions about faith. One question that he brought up to me was the virgin birth. He mention that if God created science and the humans ability to reason, how would we explain the virgin birth, or was Mary a liar?

I realize that there are some things that science can not explain and we have to base somethings on faith but he thinks that anything that can not be explained, christians use God as a cop-out. He says that anytime something can’t be explained, its only because we have not developed the sciences/reasoning for it. Does anyone have any (name removed by moderator)ut on this. Any other examples or comparisons of some sort to answer his question?

Thanks
 
Your friend appears to believe that God, who created the natural ordering of the universe, who holds it in being by the power of His will every moment of every day, and who gave us the power of reason so that we could perceive this natural order, is somehow bound by it. He is not. God can suspend the normal rules at will, like a video game programmer with access to the game’s source code. These suspensions of the normal rules are called “miracles.”

The essence of science is to accept that observed facts take precedence over preconceived theories. We have eyewitness accounts of many miracles, including the Virgin Birth, and we have good reason to believe that those eyewitnesses were telling the truth. To reject observed miracles on the basis of preconceptions about how the universe “should” work is the opposite of science.

Does that help?
 
Wowbagger said:
Your friend appears to believe that God, who created the natural ordering of the universe, who holds it in being by the power of His will every moment of every day, and who gave us the power of reason so that we could perceive this natural order, is somehow bound by it. He is not. God can suspend the normal rules at will, like a video game programmer with access to the game’s source code. These suspensions of the normal rules are called “miracles.”
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If an all-powerful god exists, then he would be able to make the impossible possible, this would be an easy thing for a god to do.
I oppose virgin birth for other reasons.
goose2007 said:
He mention that if God created science and the humans ability to reason, how would we explain the virgin birth, or was Mary a liar?
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Your friend had a good point but you possibly did not understand him well. I would try to make it clear by presenting to you this and asking you a question:

There is a lot of stories that are illogical and scientific but a perfect god is able to make all these stories true. Why you believe in some of these illogical and unscientific stories ( like virgin birth etc.) and bring a powerful god as an excuse to prove them, like “God is above Natural Laws”, but when it comes to other stories in other religions, your mind dismiss them as illogical or scientific?

Do you believe in the stories of other religions?
 
In the Bible we have Jesus raiing others and Himself from the dead, healing diseases, turning water into wine, walking on water, etc. And in the Old Testament we have Moses parting the sea, turning his cane into a snake, water into blood, and even the entire universe coming from nothing.

And you’re whining about a virgin birth?
 
I think he makes an interesting point. Whenever we use God as a “god of the gaps” – that is, anytime we don’t understand something, we say “God did it” – we have the problem of looking foolish if science subsequently comes up with a natural answer.

However, the Virgin Birth doesn’t seem to fit in that category. It’s not that something unexpected happened, and then a child was born. Instead, we have an explanation: the angel Gabriel came to Mary, asked for her buy-in, told her exactly what was going to happen… and it did!

Now, if what your friend is saying is that he doesn’t believe the Gospel account, well… that’s a whole 'nother thing. However, if his concern is that we Catholics take ‘natural’ events and supernaturalize (!) them, then that’s an interesting note (but irrelevant in this case).
 
Wowbagger said:
Your friend appears to believe that God, who created the natural ordering of the universe, who holds it in being by the power of His will every moment of every day, and who gave us the power of reason so that we could perceive this natural order, is somehow bound by it. He is not. God can suspend the normal rules at will, like a video game programmer with access to the game’s source code. These suspensions of the normal rules are called “miracles.”

The essence of science is to accept that observed facts take precedence over preconceived theories. We have eyewitness accounts of many miracles, including the Virgin Birth, and we have good reason to believe that those eyewitnesses were telling the truth. To reject observed miracles on the basis of preconceptions about how the universe “should” work is the opposite of science.

Does that help?
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This man really is not for science, he is just twisting it’s purpose to his own condemnation. This is natural for fools.
 
goose2007 said:
I have a friend who was raised christian but has left the faith many years ago. From time to time we will have discussions about faith. One question that he brought up to me was the virgin birth. He mention that if God created science and the humans ability to reason, how would we explain the virgin birth, or was Mary a liar?

I realize that there are some things that science can not explain and we have to base somethings on faith but he thinks that anything that can not be explained, christians use God as a cop-out. He says that anytime something can’t be explained, its only because we have not developed the sciences/reasoning for it. Does anyone have any (name removed by moderator)ut on this. Any other examples or comparisons of some sort to answer his question?
Thanks
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There was a movie once long ago about a woman who was an engineer. She was invited to speak at an engineering symposium being given in a men’s-only club before they knew she was a woman. When she showed up, the club wouldn’t admit her to the premises. The president of the engineering society was apologetic that they wouldn’t let her in the building and said, “Oh, if only you were a man!” She replied, “Well, after all, engineering does have its limits!”

Like engineering, reason has its limits too. 😃
 
sedonaman said:
There was a movie once long ago about a woman who was an engineer. She was invited to speak at an engineering symposium being given in a men’s-only club before they knew she was a woman. When she showed up, the club wouldn’t admit her to the premises. The president of the engineering society was apologetic that they wouldn’t let her in the building and said, “Oh, if only you were a man!” She replied, “Well, after all, engineering does have its limits!”

Like engineering, reason has its limits too. 😃
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Indeed. We are not God, so how can we expect to understand everything he does? If we did, we would be God ourselves.

That was a great movie, btw. Anyone else know which one we’re talking about?
 
I was actually thinking and meditating about this matter last night during the Rosary, and was pleasantly surprised to see this thread. A thought came to me:

Without getting too graphic, if Christ could pass through the midst of the crowd without touching them, and he could pass through doors without opening them, why could he not also “pass through” Mary (or certain parts of her body) without effecting her?
 
goose2007 said:
he thinks that anything that can not be explained, christians use God as a cop-out. He says that anytime something can’t be explained, its only because we have not developed the sciences/reasoning for it.
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Does your friend realize that his “we have not developed the science yet” is exactly the same cop-out as he’s accusing religious people of having.
 
superamazingman said:
Without getting too graphic, if Christ could pass through the midst of the crowd without touching them, and he could pass through doors without opening them, why could he not also “pass through” Mary (or certain parts of her body) without effecting her?
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I dont question whether God COULD do these things, i was just wondering how i could explain this (and the other examples you gave too) to him a scientific way. I think ultimately it comes down to faith.
MarcoPolo said:
Does your friend realize that his “we have not developed the science yet” is exactly the same cop-out as he’s accusing religious people of having.
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yes he does actually and he does not deny this lack of knowledge or is too proud to just say ‘I don’t know’ yet but he is under the impression that EVERYTHING can be explained with science. The things that have not been explained yet are because we have not developed the sciences yet to explain them.
 
User124 said:
If an all-powerful god exists, then he would be able to make the impossible possible, this would be an easy thing for a god to do.
I oppose virgin birth for other reasons.

Your friend had a good point but you possibly did not understand him well. I would try to make it clear by presenting to you this and asking you a question:

There is a lot of stories that are illogical and scientific but a perfect god is able to make all these stories true. Why you believe in some of these illogical and unscientific stories ( like virgin birth etc.) and bring a powerful god as an excuse to prove them, like “God is above Natural Laws”, but when it comes to other stories in other religions, your mind dismiss them as illogical or scientific?

Do you believe in the stories of other religions?
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Why would we believe in stories of miracles from other religions? There is only One God revealed through the Trinity.
 
To understand the virgin birth we must understand the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the force through which God comes outside of Himself and fruitfully expresses the Son–an exact “duplicate” (using a colloquial term) of the Father. The multiplication of good is the modus operandi of the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit “overshadowed” Mary, her DNA was multiplied and became Jesus’ DNA (incidentally, let’s not forget multiplying is a natural function of DNA and that science is now proving that the division of DNA and it’s cell is triggered by coherent light–not chemical “orders”). Throughout Scripture, multiplication is always associated with the Holy Spirit, e.g. the multiplication of loaves and fishes just to name one of many possible examples. The Spirit didn’t run to the store and get more loaves, he multiplied what was there.
 
SaintPatrick333 said:
Why would we believe in stories of miracles from other religions? There is only One God revealed through the Trinity.
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Oh yeah! Here’s what most humans believe:

“Other religions believe in things that are irrational and unscientific, we are very skeptics towards these religions”.
But when something is irrational and unscientific in our own religion, we say :" God is all powerful and is able to do anything above natural laws".

Our mind dismiss what is unscientific in other religions, but accepts what is unscientific in our religions.

I agree with all religions when they debunk each others using scientific methods, but when it comes to their own religion, they lose this ability.
 
goose2007 said:
yes he does actually and he does not deny this lack of knowledge or is too proud to just say ‘I don’t know’ yet but he is under the impression that EVERYTHING can be explained with science.
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And what scientific experiment did he conduct to conclude “everything can be explained with science”? :rolleyes: His argument defeats itself…
 
Yes, the modern person has a tenancy to elevate science to a religion. Actuality science is a Catholic University’s extension of the search for truth. Problem is they want to ignore the Theology department as a part of the search for truth.

Then there is this tendency to demand that all religions are to be regarded equally. I suppose they think of them as extensions of culture to be tolerated, but not taken seriously.

I’m not proposing solutions to dissolved these misconceptions, but I do think these are the root of the difference and good arguments against these presuppositions are valid methods of showing that this religion of science is another religion we don’t adhere to, but actual scientific findings are a welcome part of our collection of truth.
 
This is not laboratory science but rather a study of history and to a certain extent human nature.

First let us consider the gospel proclamation of Mary’s conception follwed by the related old testament passage.

MAT 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Please bookmark in your mind that God’s Holy Word includes “which being interpreted, God with us”

ISA 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Jewish scholars (for the most part) then and now deny that Isaiah foretold of a pure unmarried woman in the sense that we consider “virgin” to mean today.
They argue the Hebrew word for “virgin” can just a easily mean simply “young woman” with no qualification for sexual purity, it could of course also imply sexual purity.
This is true as far as the Hebrew language is concerned, and many anti Christian Jews at the time of the emerging Church were quick to deny a genuine virgin birth.

However what did Jewish scholars believe from the time of Isaiah until the Holy Ghost came to Mary?

We have clear evidence that the scribes understood Isaiah was speaking of a young woman who had sexual purity.
Three centuries before our Savior’s birth in Alexandria, Egypt; the scribes produced a Greek version of the scriptures called the Septuagint or LXX.
Now the Greek language is clear in the use of the word “virgin” (παρθεν) it means a pure and unmolested woman.
The LXX scholars clearly understood the meaning of Isaiah and without the present conflict of Christianity pressing on them honestly translated what God wanted everyone to know for all time.

By the way we can know the gospel Matthew was originally written in non Hebrew or non Aramaic because “Emmanuel” had to be translated for the Greeks to understand.
 
User124 said:
There is a lot of stories that are illogical and scientific but a perfect god is able to make all these stories true. Why you believe in some of these illogical and unscientific stories ( like virgin birth etc.) and bring a powerful god as an excuse to prove them, like “God is above Natural Laws”, but when it comes to other stories in other religions, your mind dismiss them as illogical or scientific?

Do you believe in the stories of other religions?
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I don’t dismiss them out-of-hand, as you seem to think. When a Muslim says, “Oh, the Prophet PBUH did so-and-so and it was a miracle,” I ask who witnessed it, whether the witnesses are credible, how reliable the texts are through which those stories were transmitted, whether there’s any historical evidence to buttress the claim, whether there are any a priori theological implications to accepting the miracle as fact, and, if so, whether those implications are credible independent of the alleged miracle’s truth or untruth.

Few miracles, from any religion, survive even the initial round of inquiry. Islam’s central miracle, in particular, is seriously problematic – the Prophet, PBUH, is said to have received the Qu’ran directly from the angel of God… but there were no independent witnesses to the event, and, if his status as prophet is not taken as a given, there is nothing particular in his background to commend him to me as a reliable witness, at least not reliable enough to verify a very extraordinary happening. And, of course, tons and tons of miracles reported out of Christianity (particular in medieval Europe) cannot be relied upon.

However, some miracles do weather the storm, and I accept them as having factually occurred in history. Others I rate “plausible,” and accept as true, but without relying on them for any further reasoning. Most are Catholic or Christian miracles, if only because I have been exposed mostly to them. But it is also the case that most religions do not report nearly as many miracles as Catholic Christianity, and, lacking a central authority to investigate them (as Catholics have in Rome), their documentation is generally much, much worse. At any rate, there are some miracles outside my faith which I accept as plausible or better, and, so far, these have not raised serious theological problems. All have been entirely compatible with Catholic teaching about God and Man.

If they were not compatible, then, based on the objective evidence, I may have to reconsider my religious convictions.

So why do you reject all miracles?
 
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