You guys got me to thinking...
We tend to measure miracles with a time factor. If it happens quickly in human terms, its a miracle. If it happens slowly, again in terms that a human perceives, or if it happens in the background and isn’t perceived at all, then no miracle has occurred. Which I suppose means the miraculous gets measured against a human constant.
God stands outside time, of course, and has his own agenda. When he intervenes in his own clockwork suddenly, we understand that as miraculous. When he does it in such a way that it unfolds over time, as humans perceive time, then in our minds it is natural and therefor no miracle. Even though the natural itself, the clockwork itself, and the leaf moving imperceptibly upstream, God’s chess pieces inexplicably in the right place at the right time are evidence and fruit of his handiwork.
But you have to have eyes for it.
If you are observant you will notice that God intervenes sometimes in dramatic ways, and sometimes in ways that almost imperceptible until they have gathered momentum and if you weren’t paying attention you’d have never noticed.
But the measure of a miracle isn’t the time factor, of course, but the author and the exertion of the author’s will. When events unfold according to normal cause and effects, we obviously don’t consider that miraculous although it is the fruit of an earlier miracle that established the rules of the game at the beginning. But when God intervenes and suddenly changes the rules, or shields you from consequences, or starts a new game, we call that a miracle... unless he does it slowly in our terms, or he does it in such a way that in retrospect we can explain it away.
Which brings to mind one more point. It is my experience that people tend to forget miracles very quickly after they occur. Because the new reality has problems of its own, and very quickly we get caught up in the day to day worries of the new reality and we forget the miracle that gave it to us.
I think what you say really drives home just who chooses who.
When I look back over my life I see someone little different to most anyone else.Overly led about by emotions,believing (and placing a subconscious faith in)things merely because I'd heard them so many times.Faith does indeed come by hearing,wether you're a believer or not! The god of this world is relentless in his propaganda and until we are awoken we carry on being led by the nose,blissfully unaware and often thinking we know a thing.The flow is very strong and none of us are very good swimmers,so to speak.
My point is that when I contrast that mindset with the way I think now I can't help but believe it's a slow-motion miracle.It's speed governed somewhat by my blindness,pride,ignorance,arrogance,recalcitrance and a boatload of other baggage...you get the picture,but a miracle nonetheless.When I look back I sometimes think...'how'd that happen!?'
"But you have to have eyes for it."
John 6:29
I'm currently reading an astonishing, challenging book by David Bohm: Wholeness and the Implicate Order [1980]. Speaking very roughly here, in it Bohm makes the crucial distinction of "explicit" and "implicate" order.
Again speaking very roughly, explicit order is that which is accessible to physics and the language of physics (i.e., mathematics). It is premised on direct observation (as technologically extended), and thus forms the basis of scientific investigation. Explicate order is based on the system of ideas of Euclidian geometry — which in turn is premised on 3+1 spacetime.
But, as Bohm argues, explicate order cannot generate a complete description of the Universe, for it is "merely" a part of a greater, fundamental Whole that is itself specified in terms of implicate order.
The implicate order is a non-observable in principle; but it is that which alone accounts for the indivisible wholeness of the entire universe, "from first to last." It is the implicate order that is responsible for indivisible wholeness of the entire universe, and all operations in the explicate order are "nested" in it.
Implicate order is that which makes possible the primary yet non-observable ordering of the Universe as one indivisible Whole, and operations in the explicate order are "lower-level" participants in it — which is a concept that science in general seems rather blind to, and seems glad to stay that way.
Implicate order is timeless — which is a real stumbling block for most modern-day physicists, who work exclusively with visible or directly observable explicate-order phenomena in 3+1D spacetime. The funny thing is, if one knew absolutely everything about explicate-order phenomena (which one definitely doesn't), and one "added" them all up, one could still not "see," let alone "explain" the implicate order of which they are "parts."
Given science's current presuppositions and methods, it cannot account for the indivisible Wholeness of the universal system. It can study parts; but the idea of Wholeness is inaccessible by means of such presuppositions and methods.
To me, truly the timeless implicate order is indeed a miracle! I strongly associate it with the Logos Alpha to Omega, God's Word in the Beginning.
As to how the implicate order intrudes on and affects the world of visible phenomena, Bohm suggests it is the source that manifests as "hidden variables." These hidden variables subsist "below the level" of the universal quantum field.... Physicists have been resisting this idea for the past hundred years or so. But then physicists tend to be blind regarding matters of universal non-observables in their work — notwithstanding their unshakeable confidence in such universal non-observabes as the laws of physics, not to mention mathematics itself.
As you wrote, dear brother in Christ: "When events unfold according to normal cause and effects, we obviously don’t consider that miraculous although it is the fruit of an earlier miracle that established the rules of the game at the beginning."
I so agree!
Regarding the issue of cause and effect, note that Newtonian physics deals only with LOCAL causes involving close neighbor relations, in a 3+1 dimensional world.
But quantum physics demonstrates that not all causes are "local." Indeed, non-local causes have been experimentally shown to be real.
To me, the ultimate non-local Cause is the timeless implicate order that God "loaded" into the Universe, in the Beginning.... It is the reason the world is as it is, constantly over time, and not some other way. It is the fundamental "cause" that defines our Universe.
Just some thoughts, dear brother in Christ. FWTW.
Thank you so very much for your wonderful observations!