(urth) Information, etc.

[Jeff Wilson]

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:

> I think Chris & I are in violent agreement here.
> 
> On 4/12/06, Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>There is a general problem with saying that the Christian *faith* is "based
>>on" miracles. Basically if you know, by whatever means, that the event is
>>possible, then it doesn't require faith at all. In its ideal form, faith
>>would admit that the event was rationally impossible, and believe in it
>>anyway.
> 
> 
> I think this is more-or-less true; the loophole in it is, "with God all
> things are possible." In other words: Event X is a miracle if it is
> outside the scope of physical-logical possibility, _and happens
> anyway_. (Some scientistic zealots have discussed the idea of
> a "thermodynamic miracle," in which something not quite impossible
> but wildly improbable occurs; I regard this as a non-miracle, since,
> if I'm not mistaken, the odds against any given state of the universe
> occurring dwarf the term "astronomical" -- yet the universe continues
> having states. Of course, the universe itself is a miracle, but that's
> another topic.)

The Resurrection would be a non-miracle in this sense, becasue there is 
nothing to prevent the atoms in a body from rearranging themselves into 
a pattern allowing that body to resume living. However, the *proportion* 
of living states to nonliving states is miniscule indeed.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >