Do the Laws of Nature Preclude the Possibility of Miracles? | John Lennox at Harvard
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2012
- Oxford mathematician John Lennox speaks at The Veritas Forum @ Harvard on the topic "Miracles: Is Belief in the Supernatural Irrational?" Lennox explains how science - while eminently valuable - cannot disprove particular instances of miracles like the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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"Of course one does not need to reject science to believe in miracles. It is science that confirms that miracles really are miracles."
G.K. Chesterton
I believe in science and miracles in real life.
Beautiful quote ❤️
Yes there are documented miracles, documented by scientists called to examine before and after.
Like Lourdes.
The books have been written and I have read some of the data, they really have documented the data, and interviewed thousands of witnesses. They invited doctors and scientists to satisfy themselves with access to examine people before and after the waters of Masa Biel.
I wish I hadn't given the evidence to a person who takes things like that and doesn't return them.
Last time I asked about it they wagged their head and wouldn't say what they did with the evidence I had.
This showed me they're dishonest and unscientific.
We are living in the middle of a miracle right now. Be amazed
Name a single miracle confirmed by science.
Since I have already experienced the miraculous, and several times at that, I'm going with the belief in a SUPERNATURAL God. "I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." Romans 1:16.
Hello, brother. I would love to hear your stories. God bless
Not all that is supernatural is of God.
Agreed. He's always in a pleasant mood, to boot. An inspiring scholar, this man is.
WOW!!! Thank You Prof. Lennox! i love this man so much! Thank you for the upload!
I love you Proph J Lennox and I pray GOD that He strengthens you to preach the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to win the souls of the lost 🙏🏾
I love listening to Professor John Lennox. I think the first time I heard him explain miracles was during a debate with Richard Dawkins, who blurted out that miracles are impossible as they go against the laws of nature. Quick as a flash, Prof. Lennox replied with words to the effect, "Of course they go against the laws of nature. They wouldn't be miracles if they didn't."
Beautiful and apt quote
I love this man! I agree with his point, miracles aren't against our current scientific understanding. I put no limits on God’s power.
That analogy is taken from C. S. Lewis, "Miracles: A Preliminary Study", London 1947, p. 62.
That was awesome!
Thanks
As an atheist, I have no problem admitting that miracles are 'possible', I've just never seen the laws of nature conclusively suspended or broken, and people telling me via hearsay and scripture that it happened 2,000 years ago is not proof of anything - every religion in history has similar stories about miracles.
Short answer: YES.
"It wasn't a closed system." Form follows thought. Ask and you receive. The mind determines the physical system.
If you want to read a VERY strong analysis of this, esp Hume, and tons of examples of modern miracles, please check out the two volumes by Keener, entitled "Miracles". Very worth having to reference or to read cover to cover if you are a skeptic. Wish I could buy it for everyone.
You should try the Harry Potter text books by JK Rowling,
This guy is brilliant. He reminds me of Bennie Hill, the great British comedian.
You're right, i cannot comment on the supernatural, but this doesn't determine rather or not God actually exist or that He interacts with the natural world. This only has something to do with me, not God. So your assumption that God does not exist based on this is quite absurd. Also, if i cannot comment on the supernatural, then that means you cannot either. So assuming a supernatural being does not exist, when you cannot even comment on it, is absurd. The best you can do is say "i don't know."
General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics (large and small) handle time in contradictory manners. However, in their realm (large or small) they work brilliantly. In other words, there is something about time that we don't understand. This is hardly surprising, but it does mean that we don't understand physics at a basic level. If we don't understand physics at a basic level, we can hardly declare that miracles can or can't happen. I mean that is obvious -- at least to me.
Catholics can have odd rationale. I was one for many years. Most of my family still are. They will believe an image of a saint on a French toast is a miracle and sell it on eBay for $100k to other Catholics. But show them a peer reviewed miracle in a journal, and will they refuse to look into it.
Sorry, wrong person replied to.
@@capturehishonor9292 Interesting point though. I'm glad you left roman Catholicism, but I hope you did not leave god. Maybe it was even the opportunity to meet him :-)
@@ThefrenchFranz You must be born again.
Nobody ever said that miracles cannot be explained. In fact, many miracles are only considered miracles AFTER they are explained. For example, if an old lady buys a lottery ticket every time she goes to the store, and wins every time, she might consider that repetition and reproduction of results to be very normal. But when she realizes that nobody else ever gets that same repetition, it becomes miraculous. We know that somebody is messing with the system because we understand probabilities.
The lotto system may be faulty or corrupt. Atheist scientists insist to prove a miracle it must be repeated on demand under controls. But some miracles may be beyond repeating by anyone other than the One who performed it. If a few more skeptics insist on repetition, eventually, they will declare that since it occurs often, it cannot be a miracle. The opposite of your example of repetition.
prayers/miracles/evidence:
starting a little over 20 years ago many complete strangers would tell me i looked like george clooney. i basically ignored it, but there it was and still happens occasionally to this day. now i was married to my wife Elizabeth who passed away just over 6 years ago. Elizabeth was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and never started treatment. Elizabeth was on life support for approximately 6 weeks before we chose to set her free.
i would visit her every day and read to her from the Bible
always the same chapter : John 14
... Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my fathers house are MANY MANSIONS.
14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
fast forward 5 years and George Clooney has released a film titled "The Descendants". if you are not familiar with the film it starts out where george and his family make a decision to terminate his wife who is on life support in a coma and her name is Elizabeth. one of the themes of the movie revolves around a massive estate in Hawaii.
my wife Elizabeth and i would always celebrate our birthdays with lobster as was my preference always as a child growing up. my wife died of cancer and a few years later i was living in a homeless shelter. i had befriended a young kid who has just gotten out of prison. he wanted to have a little party at a friends house on a sat which just happened to be my wife Elizabeth's birthday. i went along with the plan not expecting much to happen and had virtually nothing to do. his party was cancelled at the last moment and i ended up back in the city at the shelter right at lunch time which was very unusual for me to be there at that time. i went in to get something from my room with absolutely no intention of staying as the food was never any good and i had many other places better to eat. when i walked into the common area they had pots of the best lobster stew that you would have a hard time finding in any 5 star restaurant. i believe she sent me a birthday wish from beyond space and time. now this was in a salvation army homeless shelter. In My Fathers House
God isn't limited in how He speaks to us. Before I married or even met my late husband, I had a good job, lived in a house with little rent and didn't have a lot of bills. I had been saved for a few months. I asked the Lord to lead the right person for me to my front door. It was during a Bible study a month or so later, a man came to my front door. Didn't know him. But others did. I knew he was the one the Lord had sent. We were married about 3 months later. Beautiful relationship. God blessed us with a daughter and adopted son. Not a coincidence.
😂😂😂
Lewis
Meant to type "Miracle healing". I mistyped heading? Miracle because letters d and l are far apart on the keyboard? Was God forcing me to mistype? A miracle? Nope. My ipad corrected my mistype by picking the wrong word.
Ever heard of the miracle where the statue of Mary was founding crying? They remain miracles until (a) one finds a physical explanation, (b) one finds a hoax. Miracle headings are of type (b). And Catholic Church accepts them to elevate people to Sainthood.
Catholics can have odd rationale. I was one for many years. Most of my family still are. They will believe an image of a saint on a French toast is a miracle and sell it on eBay for $100k to other Catholics. But show them a peer reviewed miracle in a journal, and will they refuse to look into it.
Yes god heals people strange though that he does not go near amputees I wonder why?
The question is no different to "Do the laws of nature preclude the existance of wish-granting genies?"
I once knew an old man when I was a kid. He had the handles from his coffin from when he died as a baby. He was in the coffin 2 days later and shocked everyone by coming to & start crying. Strange things can happen.
Where do you think the expression, "Saved by the bell," and "Graveyard Shift," came from? After centuries of moving caskets and graveyards, the inside of the top of some caskets would have embedded fingernails. Apparently, some were buried alive and came to later. Sometimes days later! They used to tie a string to a bell and to your finger. I idea was that if you came to, you could ring the bell and a watchman would hear and alert a sleeping crew to immediately dig you up. But what if your watchman fell asleep?
@@capturehishonor9292 an old friend of mine was a grave digger & he had some stories. One I still remember, he told me that it's true that people's fingernails & hair keep growing long after death.
If miracles means God doesn't follow the laws what creates or God isn't the prisoner of law then how God wants or demands the mankind ( what he created like his image or his carbon copy will follow the laws ? Mankind must be a law breaker as like as their own master( i,e, Lord).
If John Lennox is to be believed, it's a miracle I have not seen a miracle in all my 69 years.
The Simpsons,
Truth is not a singularity! By this I mean truth is tentatively final. Here's why I do not believe in Jesus or in his resurrection
If I were Joseph of Arimathea, what do you think I would do if after taking Jesus down from the cross, I found that he was still alive albeit in a coma? The answer is simple: I would stage a mock burial as I can't possibly hand him back to the authorities to be crucified a second time. For this I would need help from James (Jesus' brother). The body I bore covered in linen to the cave-tomb wasn't a dead Jesus but his living brother, James! Meantime, I would have my friend Nicodemus tend to Jesus' wounds in some secret place! James would then let himself out of the cave-tomb sometime in the night! Incidentally, this was why the cave was chosen for a tomb as burying James in the ground would have killed him! This is the secret that Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, James, Mary (Jesus' mother) and Jesus took with them to their graves! This also accounts for Jesus meeting Saul on the road to Damascus, resulting in the latter's conversion. Sadly, in fleeing Israel, Jesus was leaving his disciples in the lurch! But how do I know that it was James who took Jesus' place in the cave-tomb? Here's the evidence - straight from the bible itself!
1. James never spoke of Jesus' virgin birth, miracles and ascension to heaven! Like Jesus, James preached no gospel! All that Jesus allegedly preached in the Gospel of John (which was the last of the 4 gospels written) were works of poetic imagination as many of these key teachings were not mentioned in the other 3 gospels! For instant, the raising of Lazarus from the dead was never mentioned in the other 3 gospels!
2. James preached that "faith (i.e. faith in Jesus) without works is dead." This is a sharp contrast to what Peter, John and Paul preached i.e. one is not saved by works but by faith alone.
3. James warned of Christians whose tongues are like the rudder of ships i.e. they make mountains of molehills. He was referring to Peter, John and Paul and their claims that Jesus rose from the dead!
4. If Jesus was in the tomb, he would have been too grievously hurt, nor have the strength, to roll away the stone! It would take a person free of serious injuries to do that.
5. In the Book of Acts, Peter and Paul, rejecting the need for Gentile believers to be circumcised, criticized James for teaching that Gentile believers should be circumcised and abstain from blood and food offered to idols i.e. James was a devout follower adherent of Judaic practices.
6. Jesus himself said that he came to fulfill the law, and not to destroy it i.e. he too sought to fulfill Judaic laws.
7. Jesus was crucified not because he preached he was the Son of God (he in all probability never did - it was the gospel writers who proclaimed him to be the Son of God since they believed God raised him from the dead) but because he was critical of the hypocrisy and corruption of the pharisees and Sanhedrin.
8. Jesus' own family did not believe that he was the messiah or son of God.
9. Jesus had to hide each time the Jews sought to harm him. After his so-called resurrection, he fled Israel for good (and met Saul on the road to Damascus) and was never seen or heard of again in the land of Israel.
10. If indeed Jesus were the way, the truth and the life, billions of unbelievers would go to hell. How then can one say that God is merciful when He doesn't seem to understand what forgiveness is! James understood forgiveness better than the gospel writers, Peter, Paul and John.
11. Mark 6:5 and Mathew 13:58 -Jesus is not God as he is not omnipotent! These verses say he could not perform miracles because of the unbelief in the hearts of his listeners!
I am a born-again atheist. I seek only to know the truth. Years of pondering on the bible led me to my hypothesis that Jesus survived the cross. I rest my case.
Doh, which of the Simpsons are you - Bart or Homer? How on earth is anyone to understand the gibberish talk you are making, leave alone believe you speak the one and only singular truth. I respect your right to be self-deluded such as to believe that Jesus is now in heaven seated at the right hand of God. In this, the Talmud begs to differ - it claims Jesus is now in hell boiling in excreta. I have no wish to wish anyone such a fate but I know all too often, Truth (or whatever God you imagine there is) is not a singularity but a plurality of lies.
For your sake, please seek medical attention.
Don't worry I've been involved in 3, I can afford you one.
@@stchew49 what a marvelous display of self deception. I see how you have ignored the context in all these verses so as to succesfully infer the meaning that supports your hypothesis. Truly amazing, keep it up.
Only your opinion. Most Christians only go to Church once a week, for one hour. What's wrong with that?
I haven't been to church in years. Yet God regularly answer my prayers and I have witnessed many miracles. What's wrong with that?
@@capturehishonor9292 Dude you're responding to a 9 year old comment. I'm an atheist now. LOL!
@@toshtao1 Well, will you please tell us how you became an atheist?
Well, since you clearly don't understand that analogy, let's take a different one. Imagine that you see your name written in the sand on a beach. Do you think it was put there miraculously? Only if you believe that NATURE produced it. If you assume that another person wrote it, you wouldn't consider it a miracle.
So you have two choices. 1) Believe that things like DNA and the letters of your name appear randomly in nature? Or believe that something put them there. Either way, 'tis a miracle.
Science definitely does not disprove miracles. Science is limited to the natural world...it cannot comment on the supernatural.
I agree. It depends if you are a biased scientist and closed minded or open to the possibility that their is more to be known than the sum of your own limited knowledge.
Science definitely does approve miracles and supernatural in real life too.
Statistically science can bolster, and sometimes prove, miracles. Example, the wind and waves stopping at Jesus' command. Wind and waves stop all the time. But it is more than rare to stop at one's command, both at the same time. A body in motion tends to stay in motion.
genius
How? In his entire apologist career he's failed to show a single shred of evidence.
Miracles happened before the laws of nature wre understood. The people who wrote the bible were ignorant of many things.
The laws of nature are precluded by miracles.
To all you people who believe in miracles. You don't believe in miracles. You believe in the miracles that are the tradition of your own faith. All those other faiths with their miracles, you think it's all boloney.
He got that from CD lewis
Even if you agree there is a celestial super power. still a long stretch to the catholic church being the sole agent of this super being..amen (I presume he is a irish catholic with that accent. ?)
Catholics don't have a unique accent.
Of course the laws of nature preclude miracles.
Of course, assuming that we actually know the full reality of "nature."
Well of curse if you put a magic sky daddy into the equation, then all is possible
I guess, see if god can make a square circle. or make a rock so big he could not pick it up.
Cs
Pretty much miracles CAN happen but they are pretty much in rarified air
Says who?
@@capturehishonor9292 say,s reality
The images of a corpse on the Shroud of Turin shouldn't be there. No natural explanation can be found, and dead human bodies are not able to produce such images. But there they are, for anyone to see. So maybe we do not know the "laws of nature" as well as we think that we do.
No full access to the shroud has ever been granted because the answers don't suit its owners who of course readily admit it's a fake.
What about the team of 24 US scientists who traveled to Turin with four TONS of scientific instruments in 1978? Were these men not granted five 24 hour days to make measurements and collect evidence on the Turin Shroud? Maybe its the skeptics that find the "answers" unsuitable.
BTW, the Catholic Church does not own the Shroud, but several Popes have said that it is authentic. @@byteme9718
@@byteme9718 In 1978 24 US scientists traveled to Turin with four TONS of equipment. They spent five 24 hour days taking readings and gathering evidence. Three years were necessary to analyze the data. The conclusions were that the images on the Shruod are not paintings and are not the work of an artist.
@@byteme9718 the Itaiian State is the owner of the Shroud. Pope Pius XI researched the Shroud for several years before publicly declaring that it was authentic.
@@byteme9718 I you search "schwortz" and "shroud" you will be able to find the summary of STuRP's conclusions.
Yet another improvisation on argument by special pleading. When it comes around to providing evidence for the resurrection, he says he doesn't have time.
I'm sorry, but that's just nonsense. A one-time event is, by definition, incapable of being reproduced. It was a one-time event. That means it only happens once. Never again. Reproducing it would either mean that it wasn't a one-time event, or that you can time travel.
Anyway, i am not going to argue about this because arguing with a non-believer, especially with one like yourself, really is useless. Arguments which have been heard and debunked for at least a decade now is arguments that you guys use, no point at all. So, goodbye.
in other words, you have absolutely nothing, just belief, pathetic and sad
The Creator God cannot make a miracle because it's against the laws of His creation?? 🤔 I don't think that's even worth responding to.
The prof is such a nong..we are relying on the stories from antiquity as being rock solid set in contrite..the veracity of folklore cannot be established so you cannot make definitive conclusions..amen
But your making a definitive conclusion that these stories are "folklore."
@@blusheep2 Do you feel the need for a definitive conclusion elves and pixies are folklore or do you just write them off as nonsense? I guess not and neither do atheists who place your god in the same category so why do you see a difference?
@@byteme9718 I write elves and pixies off as folklore because we know these creatures are of fantasy novels.
The point I was trying to make is that you are criticizing definitive conclusions about the existence of God while making a definitive conclusion that God is just folklore. Its inconsistent.
If you are willing to say without qualification that God is folklore, which is something you cannot prove, then you should be consistent and allow others to say without qualification that God is real, without proof.
@@blusheep2 Really? Go tell that to the Icelanders who believe in Elves to the extent that planned roads have had their routes changed to avoid areas elves arenknown to inhabit. I used elves and pixies to see of you'd differentiate between then and yet you didn't despite one being part of a belief system.
I could have asked about genies and no doubt you'd have said the same thing but they're an essential part of the Islamic faith. This is the background to the story of Aladdin and Muslims believe genies can be harnessed and forced to carry out tasks. I've lived and worked in Islamic countries for much of my life and actually knew someone who traded genies.
Your so sure your god exists that you putting your "special" belief on a pedestal that's not allowed to be criticised while instantly dismissing and insulting the deeply held beliefs of others. It's YOU who's inconsistent, not me. I regard the claims of elves, genies AND your god as identical as none have a single shred of evidence to support them.
You should learn about the religious belief of others, it might help you view yours objectively. After all, why is Muhammad splitting the moon in two to convince those doubting him, or flying to heaven at the speed of light in a winged horse, any different to a man handing out 5000 fast food fish sandwiches, walking on water and coming back from the dead?
@@byteme9718 I don't have experience with every fringe belief that exists around the world. Anyone that believes something is true and thinks its important for me to understand this, can find a respectful conversation from me about it. They can present their case. For now, I am only aware of pixies and elves in fictional stories and so I have no reason to assume they might be real just because you say someone, somewhere, believes them to be true.
The reason that you are inconsistent has no relation to if I'm being consistent or not. Maybe I'm being inconsistent but that doesn't rescue you from your inconsistency. Your being a hypocrite because you are saying that I can't make a definitive conclusion while stating a definitive conclusion that you can't demonstrate. Can't you see this? Can't you adapt to new information and rephrase your original comment and prove yourself a rational person?
You have no clue how much energy I've put into vetting my beliefs to say that I'm putting my belief on a pedestal. And I certainly, have never suggested that someone can't criticize my belief if they wish. So don't strawman or assume what I would do or am doing.
_I regard the claims of elves, genies AND your god as identical as none have a single shred of evidence to support them._
To say that there is no evidence or reason to believe a God exists is either obtuse, an exercise in cognitive dissonance, or most likely the common atheist conflation of "evidence" with "proof." For the bulk of village atheists, if they aren't convinced that God exists by the evidence, then it means the evidence isn't even evidence. This is the quality of the bulk of atheist thinking.
Let me ask you this... What is your thoughts on the Intelligent Design evidence for the Origins of Life?
Well, that's a biased statement.
so...he's saying that "god" stole the $1500 from him?
You missed the point lol
sorry, no such thing as magic miracles, simply something you don't understand....... #ESCAPEMYSTICISM
Sorry, miracles are common events for the believer, simply you don't understand them.
@@ThefrenchFranz hahahaha....good one!
There's only one truth here, Lennox gets to satisfy his immense ego while raking in a fortune for telling these lies. He may not have a private jet, like the US TV evangelist preachers, but I guarantee he's now earns far more now than when he was teaching maths.
John Lennox seems to talk a lot but says very little, all he does is attack other people's positions but never ever defends his own. He tries to tell us why everyone else is wrong but he doesn't even begin to tell us why he is right. John Lennox is talking like an idiot about nonsense, and gullible fools like believers are buying into it, he is picking apart fairy tales as if they were real and you can't see it, it's just plain sad.
I tried very hard not to comment but as always your analogy are so pathetic, that as someone who holds the truth above all else, l am always lleft indignant. You hold forth the law of nature, law of god etc like you wrote them. The reason you are ever clear is that you don’t have s truthful answer - so you bring up silly analogy and with the licence of a madethematician, you intellectualism and rationalism. All my life experiences tell me that the truth is always simple and straight forward. When someone cannot answer in a simple straight forward manner and resort to convoluted intellectualism and silly analogy, this person is unsure of the answer or is simply lying. Or the most scary thing is he is under the illusion that he is making a great revelation.
This guy is an embarrassment. No serious scientist believes in miracles. In fact, it's impossible to even conduct science in a universe peppered with miracles.
Lennox keeps spewing forth his particular brand of gibberish.! He's a charlatan!
THERE IS NO GOD!!!!!!!!
Lennox is hopelessly deluded.
You need to get out more. Find a woman.
How tragic that a grown, and seemingly intelligent, man can't see any other answers than a magical sky fairy. He must have had a horrendous upbringing to cause that much damage.
Epicurus - a great deal smarter than this individual and evidently very dead and not frolicking in heaven
If God is unable to prevent evil, then he is not all-powerful.
If God is not willing to prevent evil, then he is not all-good.
If God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist?
JamesJoyce12 Firstly if you believe there is a such thing as evil, than you must conclude there is a such thing as good. if you believe there is a such thing as good and evil, then there must be a moral law in which to differentiate between good and evil. if there is a moral law then there must be a moral law Giver. Otherwise it's all relative.. and if that's the case by what standard do you criticize God for something that's relative?.
Furthermore it has nothing to do with God's incapability to get rid of evil. Because as you said he wouldn't be all-powerful.. So sinse we believe he is all-powerful than how can he be all-good and allow evil to exist?... Ironically you make an assumption that in order for God to be all-good there cannot be evil. And this is where the irony comes in because without the possibility of evil there would be no "choice" but to do as your told as it's the only option. Also there wouldn't be the possibility of love as love requires a choice, but with no free-will there is no choice but to do as your told. If you had it your way we would all be mindless robots doing as we are told by the almighty Dictator! Except because God is all-good he gave you the ability to choose him or not. if you did not have the option to choose only than would God not be all-good.. because you would be forced to do as he commanded.
Think about what you are really saying here my friend.
Can I ask you a few questions about evil?
@@aquacandela3705 A great reply full of purely logical thinking my friend.
free will.
@@aquacandela3705 Its interesting how such people call themselves free thinkers, not knowing that the ability to think freely is dependant on some type of a God. Otherwise we would be totally determined in anything we do. So its amazing how they claim they are free but totally determined at the same time . XD Also i miss Ravi.
Harvard is going downhill if they take this clown seriously
clown ? I find this man appealing to reason in a balanced way.
steve lovett he's talking about angels and gods and fairies and miracles...no logic in that
You're not a bit as intelligent as him. You most likely didn't even understand what he said. If you did, please respond to his arguments in an articulated way and show me how they make him a clown.
Steve Fowler seriously ? Harvard needs to pay more attention to this kind of people without them atheism will destroy Humanity.
Steve Fowler when did you prove that God, angels and demons don't exist? can you give me your irrefutable evidence of this? I'm dying to hear it!
All nonsense.
Winson Hui says you who contribute nothing.