I was a bit intrigued by my last conversation with Lucas,
and I was kind of interested to know where he was going with the points he was
making. Interested, I would say, in the
same way you are interested to see an accident up ahead. Curious is maybe a better word. And I knew Lucas well enough that I thought I
could just get straight to the point and he wouldn’t be put off by that.
I sat down across from Lucas for lunch. “Lucas, it really seems to me that you’ve been
trying to drive to some big point…so just get to it – what is the point to this
discussion about miracles and natural events and so on?”
“OK – fine. You
asked,” Lucas smiled. “I want you to
tell God – no – tell Jesus - to do a miracle in your life, I want you to see
the miracle, and, as a result, I want you to completely and fully commit
yourself to following Jesus for the rest of your life”, he said, fairly
matter-of-factly.
Maybe I should have let him keep building up slowly! “You can’t be serious,” I said, searching his
expression.
“Well…maybe I shouldn’t have gone so far,” he said,
backtracking a bit. “Really, all I’m
asking is that you change your worldview from “there is no such thing as
miracles” to “miracles are extremely unlikely but can’t be ruled out.”
I wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily. “Wait a minute - what about this “tell God
what to do” thing you just said?”
Now he was in a full retreat. “OK, look, I overstated my point to try to
get you to think about what I have been challenging you with. Obviously you can’t tell God what to do.”
“Actually, Lucas, you can
tell God what to do,” I said, feeling a bit proud that I could make a point
about spiritual things. “People tell God
what to do all the time. The problem is
that there is no God to hear anyone, so that is why nothing happens.” I figured if Lucas could be blunt, so could
I.
“OK – I’m sorry I brought it up. And not to belabor the point, but it’s not
true that ‘nothing happens’ when you talk to God,” Lucas said, belaboring the
point. “Lots of people have asked God to
do something and he has done it.”
“Yah, well, lots of people have asked God to do something
and he hasn’t done it. That proves nothing,” I said.
“That’s a valid point.
But the problem is that no matter what God does, you’ve set up a
situation where you can always rule out the possibility that God exists.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Let me put it this way:
can you design an experiment that you could do that would cause you to
believe in God…or, again, more specifically, Jesus?”
“How can you do an experiment with God – you just said you
can’t tell God what to do,” I asked.
“My point is that if such an experiment were designed, it
would certainly have to involve a miracle, and you don’t accept that there can
be any such a thing as a miracle.
Therefore, you reject God and no amount of evidence would ever change
your mind,” Lucas challenged.
“Evidence? There is
no evidence,” I challenged back.
“What I mean is that you are unwilling to put your lack of
belief in God to a test because you have eliminated all possible ways God could
reveal himself to you a priori.”
“Unwilling? I
didn’t say I was unwilling to see
evidence – I just don’t see any,” I said.
“Sorry – wrong word choice. It’s more that you prevent God from revealing himself to you because you have
eliminated all possible ways God could do that.”
“Whatever. I don’t
see what you’re getting at. I feel like
we’re going in circles.” Hadn’t he said
this before? Besides, it didn’t make any
sense to me that any human being could “prevent” his so-called God from doing
anything. But I didn’t want to bring
that up and prolong the conversation.
“So – what about my challenge?” Lucas said, ignoring my
comment. “Consider just changing your
worldview from “there is no such thing as a miracle” to “miracles are extremely
unlikely but can’t be ruled out. Then
people like me can no longer say that you’ve ruled God out without ever giving
him a chance.”
On the face of it, it seemed like a small change but I
wanted to stall him. I wasn’t ready to
change anything. Why should I change? I was winning the argument. “I hate the word ‘worldview’” I said, stalling. But I really did hate that word.
“You’re just stalling,” he said, recognizing what I was
doing. “So, then, how about changing
your ‘philosophy of life’ to include the remote possibility of a miracle, or,
more specifically, intentional divine intervention?” he asked.
“Well, it would have to be a really really really remote
possibility,” I countered.
“Of course. Almost
by definition, a miracle has to be very rare – extremely rare – otherwise it
kind of becomes just a natural event,” Lucas agreed.
I had to admit that there was some logic in what he was
asking me to do. “OK. I will take it under consideration,” I said.
“No problem,” Lucas smiled, “let me make the decision
harder for you.”
“Oh great,” I said, a bit surprised.
“You recall our conversation about the evidence for the
resurrection of Jesus Christ?” Lucas asked.
“Not much. To be
honest, it’s not something I’ve committed to memory. I mean, how can you present ‘evidence’ for
something that doesn’t exist? I thought
we agreed to put that aside.”
“Hah! You do
remember – or at least you remember that we agreed not to talk about it
again. But you didn’t listen to my
arguments because you’d already decided that a resurrection can’t happen – it never
happens.
“Sounds about right,” I said. “Case closed,” I added, hoping he would move
on.
“Well…if you change your philosophy of life to allow for
the very remote possibility of miracles, then you’re going to have to consider those
arguments. Previously you didn’t care
what I said about it – because you had already eliminated the possibility of
any miracle ever happening – particularly someone rising from the dead. But now, even if the possibility if very very
remote, you can’t just reject the concept off-hand like you did before.”
“Well, I haven’t changed my mind,” I said, almost adding
“yet” but decided not to. “Is this whole
discussion part of some grand plan of yours to bring up that whole conversation
about the evidence for the resurrection again?
Count me out.”
“No, no, I promised I wouldn’t bring that up again, so I
won’t,” Lucas said, then paused. “Unless
you ask,” he added, smiling.
“Well, that’s not happening. So let’s move on. It’s time to eat.”
“Yes, we can move on.
But I still want you to consider allowing for the remote possibility of
miracles.”
“Do you ever give up?”
I was a bit tired of this, but couldn’t think of a good reason not to
crack. “If I agree, will you let me
eat?”
“If you agree, I’ll pay for lunch! But I’m serious. This is a big decision…I know it’s not as
simple as it sounds.” Lucas said,
backing off a bit.
“You’re right. I’ll
take it under consideration,” I said.
But I had no intention of considering it.
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