Elijah calling down fire from heaven, 21st century version
Years ago I saw a New Atheist-y meme that showed a cartoon panel of “the power of God across time,” starting with the creation of the world, moving onto the great flood and turning water into wine, and then ending with Christ appearing on toast, with the idea that in today’s age we kind of grasp at straws to see this little miracle here or there whereas in the past there were seas being split and fire coming out of the heavens to burn up sacrifices.
This is one of those things where I think they have a point on some level. As a general principle I think miracles operate at the same cadence and magnitude today that they did in the past (typically in the subtle, private moments of our lives) and the farther back the record goes the more I’m open to the possibility that the miracles described were later additions, that the correlation between the magnitude and how public the miracle was and how old it is is attributable to the kind of folkloric additions that we see in just about every really old story that has had time to evolve and become grander. Ethics aside, If Brigham Young isn’t calling down a pillar of fire to block the way of the invading US Army in Echo Canyon, or President Oaks isn’t calling she-bears out of Cottonwood Canyon to maul children who make fun of his baldness, I lean towards Moses and Elisha not doing so either.
Of course, there are two big-deal, big-picture miracles that I think are pretty fundamental to Latter-day Saint theology: God was the father of Jesus (which also includes the doctrine of the Virgin Birth by extension, unless you’re going to go all Orson Pratt on this), and the resurrection of Christ. In terms of ancient scripture, I’m open to just about every other ancient miracle being accumulated folklore if it’s not the kind of thing we would expect to see in the year 2024. (As Bushman points out in his new book on the subject, the Gold Plates are another example where this-worldly concrete meets otherworldly provenance in a way that is hard to just brush aside as a well-meaning delusion, but it’s also new enough that it clearly isn’t just a tradition that grew over time, and actually runs counter to the trend of the really concrete miracles being in the distant past).
Individual personal appearances of deity or visions happen so often, in myriad religious traditions, that I don’t include that in the demonstrable miracle category, since skeptics can easily take those experiences at face value and as being sincere without conceding the supernatural elements. They can’t do the same thing with, say, the resurrection or plates.
Of course, I am not opposed to the idea of miracles, and much of our faith requires it. If God has the power to create the world He surely has the power to intervene in it, and the advent of science hasn’t really changed that point. C.S. Lewis pointed out that Joseph the husband of Mary knew scientifically that virgins don’t give birth. He didn’t have to know about gametes to get the point; while with our modern knowledge we can carry the details to a further decimal place, that doesn’t change the fundamental fact that God is intervening to cause something to happen that doesn’t normally happen. Sometimes this rhetoric can become annoyingly superior, (“but how can a Virgin conceive, huh! Checkmate!”) As if the realization that it requires some supernatural element will blow our mind, but an interventionist God makes sense if you believe in a creator God, if anything it seems like the former would take less energy.
So yes, maybe God did allow more demonstrable, large-scale miracles back in the day before electronic, modern-day record keeping, but consistency would a priori suggest that miracles operate at the same cadence and level of publicity now that they did back in the day.
A couple of thoughts. Miracles are one of my favorite topics and I mull over these a lot.
First, have you read Carlos Eire’s “They Flew: A History of the Impossible” (Yale University Press, 2023)? He goes over miracle accounts associated with Catholic mystics at the dawn of the modern era, as well as Protestant responses and the Catholic Church’s surprisingly rigorous interrogation of claimed miracles. There’s some pretty remarkable stuff in there. The mystic St. Joseph of Cupertino apparently levitated in broad daylight in St. Peter’s Square right in front of the pope, who in response offered to testify during Joseph’s beatification. There are also reports of bilocation (being in two places at once). The evidence is remarkable – we’re talking contemporary journal accounts or letters a week later saying “you wouldn’t believe what I just saw” from multiple different people. The kind of thing that would settle the debate about Brigham Young’s transfiguration for all time. One interesting thing is that they aren’t associated with episcopal figures. The popes or prominent bishops aren’t doing this, it’s laity or regular monks. Which, when you look at the miracle accounts of the Old Testament, seems to follow. Elijah and Elisha were unofficial wilderness prophets, not of the sons of the prophets or any royal or temple establishment. So was Jesus. Moses and Peter, on the other hand, were part of ecclesiarchies but only at their earliest stages. Established ecclesiastical figures don’t seem to do this.
You could take that as an argument for a low ecclesiology but I don’t really think so. It makes sense for God to establish the authority of “free agents”, if you will, via miracles. But leaders in the religious establishment already have a source of authority, it’s not needed.
Second, I’ve been toying with the idea that the co-existence of the modern university and global communications technology has created essentially a global mono-epistemology which reigns over the industrialized world. The differences between nations are restrained to political and cultural philosophies, there is only one real cosmology, which is governed by the university. Any revelation or miracle which could be observed plainly enough to pass academic muster would be ramified throughout the whole industrialized world as fact. That constitutes an apocalypse in the original sense, an unveiling of God in the sight of the whole world. Until God is ready to do that, we’re not likely to see such miracles. This limits the probity of your inference that the rate of miracles remains stable throughout time.
I am not going to say a lot but I like and appreciate Hoosiers thinking
Consider salient miracles of each dispensation: the introduction of man into this fallen world (Adam), the fleeing of Zion (Enoch), the building of an Ark (Noah), the appearance of an angel at the moment of sacrifice leading to the Abrahamic covenant (Abraham), the escape from bondage through the Red Sea (Moses), and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In each of these, there is a transition from a place of darkness into a place of great light and knowledge.
In our Information Age dispensation, the salient miracle is the production of the Book of Mormon and the accompanying revelations, beginning with the First Vision, which breaks through a Great Apostasy and brings words from the past into view. It is just as supernatural and supernal as any other, except the pinnacle miracle of the Resurrection of the Lord. That people are looking for something more physical is how the Lord has provided, yet again, a miracle that is difficult for many in the dispensation to have anticipated and accepted.
@Hoosier: I’ve thought about that as a possibility for why miracles back in the day were grander: they didn’t have the kind of scientific testing and record keeping that would have moved it from the realm of faith to knowledge. Back then all they had were faith demoting or promoting rumors. It’s a possibility I suppose.
I haven’t read that book, but it does sound fascinating and I’ve put it on my to-read list. Cases like the ones you mention and the miracle of the sun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun) are examples for why, while eyewitness accounts of miracles can be compelling and merit consideration, in and of themselves they are not enough to hang a hat on completely. In our own framework, the BoM witnesses do provide a fairly compelling case that is objectively difficult to explain away, but in and of themselves the testimony of those 12 people (including JS) is not enough to base an entire personal religious system on.
The ancients lived in a world they did not understand and did not expect to understand, full of mysterious beings with unknown powers. That lessened the impact of miracles: a night with no darkness certainly broke all the patterns the Nephites were used to, but they could easily dismiss it as “wrought by men and the power of the devil.” When Elijah called down fire and sealed the heavens, the point was less to prove that Jehovah existed and Baal did not (even in the ancient world it was hard to prove a negative) than to show that Jehovah controlled the heavens, not Baal.
We moderns live in a world where everything follows predictable natural laws. A large fraction of us have had the experience of using Newton’s Laws to predict the future and then seeing that prediction come to pass. If we don’t understand something we see, we’re confident someone does. So a large-scale, visible, and verifiable miracle really would blow our minds. (Though what it would take for everyone to agree the miracle had been verified could get comic–I’m imagining President Nelson offering to call down fire from heaven in labs all over the world.)
So basically I’m agreeing with Hoosier: a large-scale, visible, and verifiable miracle in the modern world would fundamentally change the parameters of mortality. We would no longer be walking by faith, at least not to the same extent or in the same way. So that’s my pet theory as to why those particular kinds of miracles could have happened in the past even though they don’t happen today. But Stephen C also makes good points and may well be right.
I’m sure that (like everyone who has ever lived) I look back on the passage of time and wonder “how did it all pass so quickly”. At the same time, I ask this fairly common “human” question, I also have to add a somewhat uncommon (perhaps even unique) query – which is “how in the world have I devoted more than half of my life to the loving, raising, nurturing….and the 24/management of a severely autistic child.
I’m sure it may come as no surprise when I tell you that this is not the first time I’ve asked this question. In fact, there have been times when I have practically shouted it at the heavens; and to any God (or God’s) who may be inclined to listen. “What could the possible purpose be (from a loving God) to force a precious soul into a lifetime of captivity; dwelling in a broken body – with a broken mind?” And then, to “gift that child to parents in a way that will slowly, inexorably grind their health, well-bing and God given energy into the ground; as the demands of caring for this loved child never, ever end”.
Being the offspring of 5 generations of faithful LDS heritage, I was raised on a steady diet of stories, teachings and I suppose doctrine of how our Heavenly Father is a God of miracles; who has a keen interest in every aspect of our lives-all throughout our lives. At this point, it is important to underscore that I thoroughly internalized all of this, throughout my young life, during my missionary service for the church and in the early years of my marriage and family life.
Today, as I search my heart, my soul, my mind and my memories, I have to admit that I can no longer believe in a being who regularly bestows miracles on his offspring here on this planet. Nor does everything that happens in our lives have purpose of reason for occuring. Yes it’s true, sometimes “Sh*t just happens”. (Or, if you’re put off by the harsh reality of that statement, we can certainly say “life just happens”.
I readily acknowledge the steady stream of testimonies, Facebook posts, faithful blogs and stories from people who express gratitiude for the miracle of a beautiful morning, of finding lost car keys, an extra five dollar bill in an old pair of jeans and/or the road being cleared for a person to make their way to work on time; on a busy morning. Generally, many of these minor miracles seem to fall under the description of “tender mercies”; as described by those who experience them.
Please don’t think I’m making light of these daily positive events – which happen to everyond from time to time. Rather, I’m simply asking if all of these little, daily uplifting occurrences are gifts from a loving God, then where does this same loving, omniscient Being disappear too when the “big stuff” comes into a person’s life?!
As I reflect on the life changing “hurricane” of having a severely autistic child (at a relatively young age) I feel compelled to mention that (on the opposite end of the life spectrum) my much loved Dad is now suffering through the extraodinarily cruel, debilitating, soul-stealing condition of Alzheimer’s disease. So, for over thirty years, I’ve watched and cared for my beautiful little girl in a broken body with a broken mind and now, I’m watching and caring for my wonderful Dad whose body and mind have become broken as well. And, honestly – I just don’t know what to make of it all; particularly within the context of what I’ve been taught throughout all of my history with “Mormonism” and Christianity in general.
Over the course of decades, many Priesthood blessings have been given; by higher and higher authorities. My wife and I have fasted and prayed until “we’re blue in the face”. We’ve put names on the prayer rolls of the Temple and we’ve watched and waited…..and waited….and waited….and waited for the hoped for divine intervention. Sadly, it hasn’t come – at least in any kind of way that I can recognize.
However, here is the reality of WHAT HAS occurred. My wife and I have worked our asses off (for years) to hold everything together; our family, our marriage relationship, our home, the well-being of our other children – let alone, our own emotional, mental and physical health. We’ve been deeply bruised, scarred, traumatized and very-nearly broken. We’ve given up on, or indefinitely postponed our own dreams and person aspirations and have stoically forced ourselves to survive. But, here we stand.
To simply say that I’m intensely proud of my wife and I really doesn’t do justice to the depth of my feelings; which I really haven’t shared much publicly – until now. Rather than finding any supernatural divine intervention from without, I’ve discoveredand found life in the strength, kindness, laughter and friendship of other human beings. Additionally, I’ve mined strength from within myself – that I had not known existed. This comes, I suppose, when one must choose between giving up or simply continuing to put one foot in front of another – as long and as steadily as possible.
This is a small place, deep in my heart, where I still believe in a God who cares and is willing to comfort us spiritually. At rare times, I think I can still perceive some order in the universe and perhaps some intelligence behing it. But, more often than not, the harsh realities of life teach me something else entirely. That is:
We (human beings-at least in this life) are most likely all that we have – and that we must rely on each other. Love for each other, support for each other and acceptance for each other is of paramount importance; particularly if we want to make it through this life with any semblance of sanity.
This whole business of any organized religion telling us “what we need to do” to gain God’s favor is (in large part) nonsense. For me, I’ve chosen to simply focus on God’s grace. Period.
No one is going to swoop in and save us from ourselves and “make sense of it all”; at least on daily basis. This world is all that we have. We’d better become much more diligent stewards of it. Our time is precious-and limited. We ought to cherish eacy and every moment we have with those we love.
And…
While the LDS Church (and many other religions as well) all make grand promises of comfort, assistance, miracles and relief, the only true comfort generally comes from dear friends and neighbors; within a “Ward Family”. Once anyone sees or experiences what is chronically, blindingly real – an understanding sets in that much of what they teach is nonsense and man-made.
We all just children of the stars…….
Please forgive the “typos” in the above referened document….I was “typing in the fly”.
Grizzerbear, I can understand where you are coming from. I’ve been parenting a child (newly-turned adult) with severe mental health and behavioral challenges for many years; it is a lonely and exhausting journey. I have a circle of friends and acquaintances parenting similar children that make my experiences look like a walk in the park, and I recognize that as hard as it’s been, the worst of it is probably still to come.
I do feel like I’ve seen miracles and clear divine intervention along the way, often with twists and turns that make me wonder what the purpose of the divine intervention actually was when the end result doesn’t look like what I hoped for.
I 100% agree with your statement, “I’ve chosen to simply focus on God’s grace.” That is how I’m doing it. I’ve made many mis-steps, with parenting and other things, but I never ever feel chided by God over those things, only loved and encouraged.
Regarding the virgin birth, please consider IVF. Certainly God would have been aware of and able to use this technology, or one far more advanced in order to have a “virgin” conceive and give birth. Miracles are really just events for which we do not understand the cause or method.