LIVE RADIO! Eric Walberg on Miracles; Christians vs. Guyénot
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Last week’s interview with Laurent Guyénot stimulated much discussion and controversy. Some listeners wanted to hear more on miracles and what Islam says about them, while others insisted that Guyénot’s critique of Christianity is misguided.
First hour: Canadian Muslim author Eric Walberg and I discuss miracles. Walberg considered anomalous events in general, and miracles in particular, in his review of Jeffrey Kripal’s How to think impossibly about souls, UFOs, time, belief, and everything else. Since my doctoral dissertation compares medieval Moroccan miracle stories to contemporary personal experience narratives of anomalous events, I’ve thought about this topic quite a bit, which is why I didn’t want to go off on such a huge tangent during last week’s conversation with Laurent Guyénot. So today’s the day for the tangent.
Guyénot suggested that Islam is less concerned with miracles, and more compatible with secular rationalism, than Christianity and Judaism. Though he isn’t entirely wrong, it’s actually a lot more complicated than that. Tune in for the details.
Second hour: Christians reacted to last week’s interview with Laurent Guyénot by disagreeing with Guyénot’s assertion that the Old Testament is very bad scripture, that Yahweh is basically Satan, and that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah. Patrick Chenal, a Catholic listener, and Ed Kendrick, a pioneer of the “Israel did it” school of the 9/11 truth movement, continue the discussion.
"Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature." ~ St. Augustine
If someone thinks, e.g., that the Bible stories about miracles are mythological, it is probably because he thinks miracles are impossible, which is much more a deliberate choice than a reasoned conclusion in the face of historical evidence. And if someone disbelieves in miracles, he usually disbelieves in God as well. But denial of God is also a choice, not a reasoned conclusion.
"Anyone who denies God has reasons for wanting Him not to exist." - St Augustine
Just because almost all Christian denominations have become corrupted, including the Vatican, the latter definitively since 1958 when the papacy was usurped by the “powers that ought not be” (whitesmoke1958.com), and just because there are many false "miracles," either hoaxes or demonic manifestations, that doesn’t mean there is no such thing as authentic Christianity or authentic miracles. As the saying goes, “Abusus non tollit usum,” "Abuse (of something) doesn't negate its (legitimate) use."
See the great G.K. Chesterton on miracles from his famous book, Orthodoxy:
"...my belief that miracles have happened in human history is not a mystical belief at all; I believe in them upon human evidences as I do in the discovery of America. Upon this point there is a simple logical fact that only requires to be stated and cleared up. Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them."
Continued at spiritualmeanderings.wordpress.com/2010/07/03/chesterton-on-miracles
If you find that intellectually stimulating, see more of his profound thought & captivating prose in the rest of the book here: ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/orthodoxy.html
See also GKC's much shorter earlier work:
https://www.ecatholic2000.com/gk/blatchford/cont.shtml
Re**We are not overwhelmed! God bless God Speed**. (For RK.)