Morphemics

Kevin:

I note a logical fallacy that you employ throughout so as to prove your point: that is the fallacy of the false dilemma, "I welcome any scriptural defense of the necessity of current miracles, but, unless this happens, I see no justification for their continued existence." In other words, you set up the argument in such a way so that only your conclusion is the valid one.

But your argument falls apart if current miracles by their nature are not necessary, because you admit they are possible even if you don't think they happen.

You claim that miracles, as part of their primary function, serve to confirm new revelation. You claim they have secondary functions, but you introduce no Scripture (aside from "common sense") to provide evidence that miracles can be so categorized as to primary and secondary categories. This is your own unsubstantiated assumption, which you do not prove on the basis of Scripture but only on the basis of the conclusion, which is merely circular argument.

Thus, if these other categories for miracles (meeting a need, displaying God's compassion, etc.) are also valid reasons for miracles, then miracles are possible today, since one would be hard pressed to say that God no longer meets needs or displays compassion. But then if they are possible, it does not follow that they are necessary, so no proof as to their necessity is needed. It is only enough to prove that they are possible.

In other words, your whole argument is based on a couple of logical fallacies: false dilemma (either they are necessary or they are no longer happen) and circular reasoning/denying the antecedent (either miracles are necessary or they no longer happen, they are not necessary, so they no longer happen).

Since your argument itself is invalid, we have no need to consider your cessationist interpretation.

Cliff took the words right out of my mouth. (No really, he said all my points!)

There is no false dilemma here. Many people who believe in the continuation of miracles also accept sola scriptura. They believe that miracles can and must be defended from Scripture. When I say that I welcome any scriptural defense, I really mean it. Give me a more convincing argument, grounded in the Word of God, and I will change my mind. And you cannot object to my limiting any defense to scripture. You may deny the veracity of the premise sola scriptura and thus conclude that the conclusion is not necessarily true; however, a false premise does not make for an invalid argument. I was asked what cessationists believe. All premises must be included in that belief. If you wish to show that my conclusion is invalid, then you need to demonstrate that it does not follow from my premises, not any that you might have preferred.

My argument is that miracles are not possible because God no longer does them. They are possible according to his power, but no longer according to his will. Net effect: not possible. I do admit that my argument may be wrong, in which case miracles would be possible, but this admission is not a part of the argument iteself. You say that my argument falls apart if current miracles by their nature are not necessary. This begs the question. The cessasionist position is that there are no current miracles. If there are, then this position is wrong. If there are not, either the argument is correct, or it just chanced upon the right conclusion.

No Scripture to provide evidence for primary and secondary categories? It's all over the texts I used (perhaps not Mt. Carmel). Or are you trying to make a caricature of sola scriptura into nothing more than prooftexting? It actually has to say in so many words that miracles have a secondary function? All that is necessary to deduce a secondary function in miracles is to see that they have like results to what God has otherwise produced through ordinary providence. The result would be an effect of the miracle, not the miracle itself. Thus the result of healing the man born blind is that he is able to see. The same result-that they can see- has been achieved in countless others simply by not having them born blind.

In themselves, these other categories are not valid reasons for miracles. If it is true that the primary function of miracles is to validate revelation, if it is also true that revelation has ended, then the continuation of miracles would only serve to confuse. You correctly assert that one is hard pressed to say that God no longer meets needs or displays compassion. But, once again, this begs the question. Is God incapable of doing these just as well through non-miraculous means? You have not demonstrated in this line of reasoning that miracles are possible. But, let me give it to you anyway. They're possible. And here's where I agree with the wording of your next claim, "But then if they are possible, it does not follow that they are necessary." Precisely. If something is possible, it does not follow that it exists at all. On the other hand, if something does exist, then it is both possible and necessary. Distinguish between types of necessity. Everything that is, at the time that it is, is necessary. That is, it is the effect of a sufficient cause (excepting, of course, the self-existent God). But causes may also be reasons, and they don't always have to be good reasons. Thus, if I were to go into a tirade of ad hominem attacks, one would justly ask whether such an attack were necessary as to reason. It would still be necessary in that it was caused. The same duality cannot exist when God does something. His reasons for doing anything are always good and, therefore, necessary. Nothing that is can be unnecessary in the first sense; if a miracle were unnecessary in the second sense, then this would imply that God's reason for the miracle was not good. The choice between necessity or not happening at all is not a false dilemma. It is a defense of the goodnes of God.

You've lost me on the claim that I employ circular reasoning/denying the antecedent. Especially since the immediate example you provide is set in the form of a valid argument:
p or q [~(~q)]
~p
therefore, q

In arguments whose first premise is p or q, correct forms include the following second premises and conclusions: p, therefore ~q; ~p, therefore q; ~q, therefore, p; q, therefore, ~p. Fallacies include: p, therefore q; ~p, therefore, ~q; q, therefore, p; ~q, therefore, ~p.

Denying the antecedent requires a different form of argument in which the first premise is if p, then q. Correct forms include : p, therefore q; and ~q, therefore ~p. Fallacies would include affirming the consequent: q, therefore p; and denying the antecedent: ~p, therefore, ~q.

So far, your track record on identifying fallacies is somewhat lacking. You might try dealing with the truth claims of the premises for a change.

Kevin:

My record on fallacies is actually quite good, going on the counter-evidence you've thus far produced. But you are correct that the form in which I put the fallacy does not in fact fit the fallacy I claimed you had committed.

The form of your argument, more correctly, is:

If there is new revelation to be confirmed, then miracles would be necessary
There is no new revelation to be confirmed
Therefore miracles are not necessary

And this is fallacious.

The rest of your argument is simply founded on circular reasoning. You fail to substantiate that Scripture itself hierarchically distinguishes between the various qualities of miracles. You write:

Also, while I may have shown that authenticating a message is one purpose of miracles, some might argue that I have not demonstrated it to be the only purpose. And this is true. They all had secondary purposes: getting Israel out of Egypt, feeding them, bringing back the dead, healing people. However, in each of these cases, this secondary function is the miracle.

But here you slip in the categories of primary and secondary without any direct authentication from Scripture. Where in the texts you have considered do the Scriptures actually delineate these distinctions? They do not. Begging the question again, aren't you.

For example, you commit your favorite fallacy of all, assuming absence of proof as proof of your own thesis. You write: "I have not included all the miracles of Scripture, many of which do not state that they exist for this particular purpose [i. e., to confirm new revelation]. This is, however, no indication that such is not the case." In point of fact, since nothing is said about the purpose of those miracles in those texts, very little can be inferred from them; certainly nothing as declarative as miracles are only necessary for the confirmation of revelation.

As to your contention that the texts do not have to explicitly delineate a hierarchy of categories, I agree. It's not necessarily about unequivocal declaration. That being said, the categories you claim to see from the text just simply aren't there.

The miracle is primarily and fundamentally an act of God. It may be intended for many different purposes, all of which may be equally important at the same time. Certainly many instances of miracles appear to be intended for the purpose of confirming the message/messenger. But in Luke 4, when Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law, this is a private act, done in the home, and there the text gives no indication as to the purpose, indeed it seems to have been merely to heal her.

Your paradigm also fails to account for the miracle of Peter raising Dorcas/Tabitha from the dead. Tabitha was a disciple. There would have been no need to confirm the word to her. Same for the widows of the community: believers. The text does say that as a result of the miracle many believed on the Lord, but it is question-begging to assume that that was the primary purpose of the miracle. Indeed, the force of the text is that the miracle met the need of the community and only secondarily confirmed the message/messenger.

Same for the miracle of the resurrection of the widow of Nain's son. Jesus' words on the matter are directed at the woman's grief. The text has more to do with the grief of the mother and the assuaging of that grief than it does about the authenticating the message/messenger.

And this is my point. That the texts of many, even most, of these miracles indicate that the miracles served to authenticate the message/messenger in no way gives a hierarchy of purposes. It is the case that the miracles were about compassion and authentification, and there is nothing in the text that indicates one is primary and one secondary. To read such a classification in the text is to engage in question-begging eisegesis.

In fact, your whole point of confirming the message/messenger is contradicted when you go on to limit how that must unfold:

In each of these cases, the miracle serves to authenticate the message/messenger. But there is another side. Once the message has been delivered and authenticated, it is sufficient. No further signs are needed and requesting further miraculous signs for this pupose is an indication of wickedness.

If this is the case, then once a single miracle is done in Jerusalem, no more miracles need to be done there, the word has been confirmed. Unless of course, you allow for the possibility that any person or group which had not yet witnessed a miracle still had one freebie God could do for them.

In fact, once the Old Testament writings had been inscripturated, on the terms of your own argument, there was no need for any other miracles in Israel, since God had already confirmed his word. Isn't this what Jesus himself says Luke 16 and the parable of the rich man, the beggar, Lazarus, and Abraham? They have Moses and the Prophets.

You also like to create false dilemmas. For example:

The continuation of miracles when they no longer serve the function of authenticating new revelation turns the miracle into something of a divine stopgap measure. They fix various problems that may crop up in the world. But this is where God's providence enters. . . .

In all cases in which miracles were perfomed, God could have arranged matters so that they would not have been required. As noted earlier, the need itself, death, leprosy, whatever, did not, in itself, constitute sufficient reason for a miracle. Nor does it now. God is quite able to prevent what he wants to prevent or to cause helaing to come by means within the parameters of everyday providence.

One might argue that miracles demonstrate divine compassion or pity. And so they do. But this is not reason enough to keep them around. God is quite capable of being compassionate through other means.

So now, not only must we set up question-begging categories for miracles, we must also divide God's providence within himself: the miracle-making kind, and the non-miracle making kind. But this is simply nonsensical. Further, there is absolutely no Scriptural warrant for this. If God can provide for a need by way of a miracle, and can allow for that provision via a non-miracle, why must he only do so through the non-miracle? The only answer you can give is because miracles are only necessary to the confirmation of God's message/messenger.

But think of the feeding of the 4000. They could have been provided for through any of the non-miraculous means. There would have been no necessity for the confirmation of the message/messenger, for Jesus had been doing miracles all over the region, and the reports had gone throughout all the land. In fact, what is Jesus' own explicit reason for doing the miracle? "I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been remaining with Me three days, and they do not have anything to eat. And I do not desire to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way" (Matthew 15:32//Mark 8:2). And there is nothing else in the text to indicate it was in any about authenticating the messenger.

Thus if it is at all possible that God does miracles primarily, even only, for the reason of compassion, then miracles are certainly possible today, since God has not ceased to be compassionate.

I do not have to prove that miracles must necessarily happen because neither my argument nor the defeat of your argument requires it.

You go on to create category errors of necessity and existence which do not apply here. That something now is must mean that it necessarily is. But for something that in time is not yet, then, in time, it is not necessary for it to be; it is enough that in time it is possible for it to be. You will likely argue that if anything ever has been, is or ever will be, then it is necessary that it be on the fundamental understanding that being is a fundamental good originating in the author of all being. But this is a confusion between the necessity of a thing's purpose and a thing's being. Under your argument you want to argue that the only purpose that necessitates a miracle is confirmation of a message/messenger. But even this necessity does not necessitate that a miracle happen, as you admit. So if it is enough that a miracle may happen, and on my argument it is, then your argument is defeated.

You even go on to tidily shut tight your circle by asserting:

These miracles serve the same function even once the revelation has been recorded as Scripture. Recall that the miraculous events of the Exodus were done so that future generations of Israel would know who God is. To be sure, this information would be passed on orally, but it was also inscripturated in the same generation in which it happened. The miracle would serve the same authenticating purpose for those who read about it rather than seeing it. The same goes for the other miracles of Scripture. They are interwoven into the fabric of history in such a way that the historical record itself must be accepted or rejected along with the miracles.

But in point of fact, in terms of the feeding of the 4000, this turns your paradigm on its head, for under the terms of your own argument the miracle itself was primarily (both on Jesus' own words and temporally) about compassion and only secondarily about confirmation of the Word.

Ready to give up your cessationism now? Your arguments continue to fail to substantiate it.

Clifton- Now that the form in which you put the fallacy matches the fallacy you claimed, it is all that much further from the argument I actually gave. You present my argument in terms of denying the antecedent: If p, then q/ ~p/ therefore, not q. But you are only able to do this by ignoring other components of the argument. You have misidentified the first premise as if p, then q, when, actually, it is if and only if p, then q. There is, of course, the matter of determining the truth of this premise; however, under this particular form, it is not possible to commit the fallacy of denying the antecedent.

Another component of the argument, which I mentioned in the beginning but did not emphasize, works towards making this premise so exclusive. It is that all miracles are, themselves, a form of revelation. All p are q. From which we can also deduce that some q are p. If new revelation considered as a genus has ended, it follows that all species therein, including miracles, have also ended. My case for the cessation of miracles is dependent upon the cessation of revelation and not the reverse. If no more revelation is being given, then there are no more miracles. On the other hand, if all I can demonstrate is that miracles have ceased, it would not follow from this that revelation had ceased.

You proceed to present your case along contrary paths. On the one hand, you accuse me of slipping in categories of primary and secondary, saying that they "just simply aren't there." On the other, you affirm that there are primary and secondary categories, disputing about the relative position to which I had assigned each. "Indeed, the force of the text is that the miracle [the raising of Tabitha] met the need of the community and only secondarily confirmed the message/messenger." But it isn't just a matter of the position of the categories, you go on to question the existence of the categories themselves, "So now, not only must we set up question-begging categories for miracles,..." Please, make up your mind. Either there are no categories or you cannot engage me in a dispute over which shoould be primary.

The quote immediately above continues, "...we must also divide God's providence within himself: the miracle-making kind, and the non-miracle making kind. But this is simply nonsensical. Further, there is absolutely no Scriptural warrant for this." Brilliant maneuver, Clifton. If it is not possible to distinguish between miracles and non-miracles within the providence of God, then all talk of miracles is meaningless. You have either proven that everything is a miracle or you have proven that miracles no longer exist becuase they never existed in the first place. Either way, this entire discussion is now moot.

Distinctions must be made within a miracle as to its form and as to its substance. Thus, the question, "Why did Jesus raise the widow's son?" is not necessarily identical to "Why did Jesus perform a miracle?" In the first, Jesus' actions are dictated by the immediate circumstances. He raised the widow's son in order to assuage her grief. For the second, if we consider that raising the widow's son is a miracle, then the answer is the same. But we can also back out of the immediate circumstances. In this case, the question, "Why did Jesus perform a miracle?" can be understood as, "Why did Jesus assuage the woman's grief by performing a miracle?" or "Why was the providence of God in this case such that Jesus could assuage the woman's grief through a miracle?" In this case, where the question is why God's providence has taken on the form of a miracle, then the answer is to authenticate the messenger/message; namely, Jesus.

Nor is it necessary that this authentication have to do with all parties immediate to the miracle. The idea is that all of Jesus' miracles affirm him as the ultimate revelation of God. This would include those miracles done in a semi-private setting, such as healing Peter's mother-in-law (but then, the relative privacy of the original act is rather beside the point when the miracle has been made a matter of public record). I also did not mean to suggest that a single miracle is sufficient to authenticate the Word. Confirmation of a divine messenger is offered in order to strengthen the faith of the believer, not to change the mind of unbelief. To those who responded in faith to Jesus message, he would continue to confirm their faith by means of miracles. To those who would not believe, but would insist on more miracles, he would not oblige them.

There was no need for miracles in Israel to confirm what had already been written. It does not follow from this that there was no more need for miracles in Israel. The advent of Christ constituted new revelation- the miracles were designed to confirm this. In the case of Luke 16, the refusal to provide a miracle rests on a two-fold basis. 1) The brothers did not believe what they already had. 2) What they had at that point in history stood as sufficient revelation for their salvation. [Incidentally, the phrase "once the Old Testament writings had been inscripturated" is redundant. Inscripturation refers to the process of putting into permanent written form whatever revelation had before only existed in terms of historical events, miracles, or the spoken word.]

I'm glad to see that we agree with each other on the necessity of being. But then you write, "You will likely argue that if anything ever has been, is or ever will be, then it is necessary that it be on the fundamental understanding that being is a fundamental good originating in the author of all being." Well, no, I wouldn't. And so your next claim, that "this is a confusion between the necessity of a thing's purpose and a thing's being," is not the case. In fact, I attempted to distinguish between these types of necessity, arguing that whatever God does must be for a good reason. If such a reason does not exist, then there is no necessity of purpose. And if there is no necessity of purpose, then God won't do it. Furthermore, if God won't do such a thing, then, no matter how possible it may be, it is not actual. There is a failure of necessity on both counts. Contrary to your claims, you do need to prove that miracles are both possible and necessary (in both senses of the term), not just possible by way of being potential.

Kevin:

Some quick and final replies:

1. I deny that Scripture actually makes the firm distinctions as to the purposes and ends of miracles that you claim is there. As part of my denial, I use those categories to defeat your claim. It is not double-dipping, it is a consistent critique.

2. My contention that there is no distinction in God's providence is not that there is no distinction between miracle and non-miracle, but that God's providence is not exercised in an either/or fashion such as you contend. That is to say, you have no biblical basis whatsoever that supports your argument that God's providence *must be* non-miraculous if there is a way for God to exercise that providence non-miraculously. No biblical text makes that claim. In fact, you can only make that claim on the basis of your cessationist interpretation, which simply begs the question.

3. You write: "Distinctions must be made within a miracle as to its form and as to its substance." Once again you have no biblical basis for this claim. Furthermore, your claim--"In this case, where the question is why God's providence has taken on the form of a miracle, then the answer is to authenticate the messenger/message; namely, Jesus."--is a false dichotomy, as I contended earlier. It is, first and last, always both the assuage grief and and, one can reasonably infer, to testify to Jesus' identity. You deny the one to make your claim, but it's a fallacious denial.

4. With regard to miracles, Israel and Luke 16, you contradict yourself. You claim that this is a new sort of revelation and thus miracles are necessary. Yet you then go on to admit that the parabolic brothers don't need Scripture to authenticate the reality of the afterlife. But if the messenger himself, who in your schema needs miracles to authenticate his ministry, claims that the Old Testament is sufficient apart from miracles, then your claim and distinction falls apart.

5. Your final paragraph depends on the tendentious presuppositions of your Reformed philosophical convictions. But these presuppositions fail in important ways: they effectively reduce discussion of God to his attributes and do not center on his person (i.e., omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc.). The Church, though it has utilized philosophical terms to explicate her experience of the Person of God, has rejected the philosopher's God as a pagan God. That is to say, God cannot be reduced to the philosophical categories of necessity and simplicity. Therefore, to predicate your argument regarding my need to argue for the necessity of miracles presupposes that what I take to be your philosophical presuppositions (based on your language and argument here) are true--and I contend they are not.

In short, I argue that God is fundamentally a Person, not an accumulation of philosophical attributes, and is, on the basis of being a Person, absolutely free to do as He wills, apart from the necessity of fallible human rational categories, though not in essential opposition to reason itself.

So the question is not put in terms of necessity of purpose, but simply in terms of God's radical freedom to do as He wills. You have not proven from Scripture that God does not will now to do miracles. Therefore, my argument that miracles are possible is valid.

1) It is not necessary that Scripture actually make these distinctions; it is sufficient that these categories can be assumed.

2) Given a partucular incident of divine providence, God is either performing a miracle or he is not. How much more of either/or situation do you want? I am not making the argument that "God's providence *must be* non-miraculous if there is a way for God to exercise that providence non-miraculously." If this were the case, I would have to deny all biblical miracles except for the incarnation and resurrection. My argument is that God's providence must be non-miraculous when there is not sufficient reason for miracles. The point that miracles serve to authenticate the messenger applies to miracles as a category. It is the case, when considered individually, that God could have achieved the other results of the miracle through non-miraculous means.

3) There is nothing within the doctrine of sola scriptura that requires a biblical basis for this claim. It is not the case that every move needs to have a proof text. We are, rather, allowed to interpret Scripture in terms of logical categories not specifically mentioned therein. There is no false dichotomy between assuaging grief and confirming Jesus' identity for anyone who can distinguish between the questions "Why has God performed a miracle?" and "Why has God's providence taken the form of a miracle?"

4) I'm not sure what the antecedent of "this" is in, "You claim that this is a new sort of revelation and thus miracles are necessary." I do claim that, at the time Jesus spoke these words, he was new revelation and, therefore, sufficient reason for the occurence of miracles. But then, the circumstances surrounding the telling of the parable have no direct bearing on the content of the parable. I have not admitted that the brothers did not need Scripture "to authenticate the reality of the afterlife." Instead, I have said that they did not need the miracle of Lazarus' return from the dead when they already had Scripture to tell them that they stood condemned. The OT, which had already been confirmed through miracles, is sufficient apart from further miracles for that which it teaches. There is no contradiction between saying this and saying that more miracles would have been needed for NT revelation.

5) You're drawing a false dichotomy betwen the attributes of God and God as Person(s). In Reformed discussion, divine attributes are never divorced from being personal attributes. Besides, I'm not convinced that your problem is so much in a discussion of God's attributes as it is in diagreement over what those atrributs are. You substitute the attributes of acting according to necessity and purpose with "God's radical freedom to do as He wills." The two, of course, are not actually in contradiction; however, I do suspect that your conception of God's free will falls along common libertarian lines. Which, if true, gives us plenty of reason to be worried, for then God is not required to will in accordance with his nature. I have not claimed that your argument that miracles are possible is not valid. It does follow from premises. I just dispute the truth of the premises.

Kevin:

You claim in your reply that we are sufficiently justified in assuming categories, and that we are allowed to interpret Scripture according to logical categories not contained therein. While in principle I am not in disagreement, after all, interpretation is the exercise of inference and logical reasoning, in the particular I dispute that your argument is actually valid.

The necessity of authenticative purposes in miracles for their existence is precisely the thing that you conclude. You think to avoid circularity by positing first the categories of authenticative necessity and new revelation, but as I've already mentioned, these are the very things you have to prove: you cannot assume them in the premises. Indeed, when I brought up the feeding of the 4000, and how the miracle occurred out of compassion and not authenticative purposiveness, you countered that the fact of the inscripturation of the miracle itself was purposively authenticative. If this is not a logical circle, I don't know what is.

In point of fact, it does not follow that the inscripturation of the miracle of the feeding of the 4000 necessarily lends itself to authenticative purposes. All it is logically required to necessitate is that the miracle was performed for compassionate reasons, since that is explicitly what the text says. To presume more of the text is invalid insofar as logical proof goes. You may offer that it is possible that the text means more, but you cannot prove it via the argument you have constructed.

But then if the feeding of the 4000 is a miracle that occurred for purposes of compassion, and one cannot logically tie purposive authentication to the text, and further that compassion is the only explicit reason given in Scripture, then not only am I not required logically to export out of the text authenticative purposiveness, it in fact serves to function as a counterexample--since it is one miracle to which authenticative purposiveness cannot be logically required to apply, and therefore requires the possibility that miracles happen for compassionate reasons alone. But if I can prove that a miracle can happen outside the purposive necessity of authentication, your argument is defeated, because it requires that any reasons for which miracles happen, authenticative purposiveness is required. My argument proves it is not so required, therefore it is valid to conclude that miracles are as likely to happen today as they did during the life of Jesus, since God continues to be compassionate today.

With regard to God's Person and his attributes, I do not draw a dichotomy at all. Indeed, I argue that God has no "attributes" but is only Person, or rather superessentially Person. You say that God cannot will except in accordance with his nature. I argue that God's nature cannot be known, not even analogically. Further, I argue that any discussion of God that speaks in terms of necessity, confuses categories and ultimately reduces God to attributes that make of him less than a Person.

Let me say it this way. When we speak of God's omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, and so forth, we cannot but end in antinomies. The traditional skeptical attack formulated by Sextus Empiricus in his Outlines is as valid as it was about 1800 years ago. If we speak of God's omnibenevolence, we end in denying God's omnipotence and omniscience: else there would be no evil or sin. If we speak of his omnipotence and omniscience, we end in denying God's omnibenevolence: else there would be no evil or sin.

In point of fact, we know nothing of God's essence, so can know nothing that we do not experience through our experience of him in his Person (as Holy Trinity). We know nothing of God's "omnibenevolence" because we do not know him as a-personal charateristics: we know him as Father who acts with love toward us, as Son who dies for us, as Holy Spirit that transfigures us. In fact, God's "omnibenevolence" is so far removed from what we can know of that term, that we can truthfully say both that God is "all-Good" and God is not "all-Good." He is "all-Good" because we have seen that he wills to act toward us in this way. But he is not "all-Good" because we can know nothing of God's essence, as it is a superessence and beyond our knowing and thus is not in any way apprehended, let alone comprehended, by what we mean when we say that he is "all-Good."

Thus, when I say that God is radically free to do as he wills, that means precisely that none of our human ways of knowing God can comprehend what it would mean for God to be bound in his willing by an a-personal attribute. If we speak of God's attributes, we can only speak of them as aspects of his Person, which is to say, as his freely willed acts. He does not hate Esau for any reason that is consistent with our human way of understanding God's attributes. Nor does he love Jacob for any reason that is consistent with any humanly rational construct. We only know that this is what he has willed to do.

It is precisely for this reason that I posit that miracles are possible today. What we know of God's actions from revealed history in no way prohibit God from acting today as he has done throughout history. We may construct human rational systems that confine God to categories; but in so doing we posit a God who is not the God of Christianity.

Clifton-In response to your post-final reply, my argument is not the circle that you'd like it to be. I do not posit first the category of authenticative necessity. I do note an authenticative function in many individual miracles. At this point, though, I have not said that this authenticative function is necessary to the existence of miracles. But there is more to it. Scripture assigns authenticative purpose to miracles as a category. Also, there are no cases in which the reception of the miracle-worker as messenger from God is neutral. We never see mere gratitude for compassion. Instead, there is either belief in the credentials of the miracle-worker or there is condemnation for unbelief. Consider too what is assumed among those groups that claim, not only the possibility of miracles, but their present existence. In every case, the claim to miracles serves to validate the teaching of the group. In the end, an authenticative function cannot be divorced from miracles. I move from this to authenticative necessity, both from the perspecitive that this is what miracles, in fact, do, and to say that God intends miracles to do this. If miracles necessarily serve an authenticative function, then the existence of miracles depends upon God's desire to authenticate revelation. You may counter my cessationism in one of two ways. 1) Deny the antecedent. This would not be a fallacy since the form is not merely "if" but "if and only if" (as indicated by "necessarily"). This is what you have attempted by using the feeding of the 4000 as a counter-example. 2) Agree to the validity of the argument, but either deny that revelation has actually ended (for which I would want some evidence) or demonstrate that God keeps reauthenticating the same thing over and over. In short, I do not posit authenticative necessity as a premise in order to prove the same thing in the conclusion. I start with authenticative function and move through authenticative purpose to authenticative necessity. Feel free to find other reasons why this may be invalid, but it is not a circle.

Now to the 4000. Your contention that this serves as a counter-example is, at best, an argument from silence. My claim is that miracles as a category serve an authenticative function. In order to disprove this, it is not enough to find an example that doesn't explicitly claim this function of a particular miracle. You would need to find an example that explicitly denies this function. So much for the best that I can make of your contention. In point of fact, this is not a case of arguing from silence, but of ignoring the context. This miracle is recorded in Matthew 15:32-39 and in Mark 8:1-10. In both cases, it is preceded by Jesus' condemnation of the tradition of the Pharisees. He applies Isaiah 29:13 to them, saying that they "teach as doctrines the commandments of men." This is followed by Jesus' discourse on what defiles a man. It is not what goes into the mouth, but what comes out of it. Both by the Pharisees negative reaction and in the larger context, it is evident that Jesus has their teaching in mind as the specific example of what defiles. The next episode has to do with the faith of the Canaanite or Syrophoenician woman. At first, Jesus refuses her request that he heal her daughter. It is no accident that he explains this in terms of the bread that is intended for the children. This is in keeping with the larger context. The false teaching of the Pharisees, as that which comes out of the mouth, is being contrasted with what Christ gives, as that which goes into the mouth. This is followed by Jesus healing many people with the result that "they glorifed the God of Israel" (Matthew 15:31). Mark changes this a bit by putting the healing of a deaf man here and the healing of a blind man after Jesus' discussion of the "leaven of the Pharisees." This is in keeping with a standard device found throughout the second gospel called the "Marcan sandwich" in which he bookends a section either with two similar accounts or with the first and last half of the same event.

The next event is the feeding of the 4000. Jesus states his compassionate intent to the disciples. He is unwilling to send the people away hungry. It is important to remember what has preceded this. Jesus is revealing something about himself to the disciples that stands in direct contrast to the Pharisees. Whereas the Pharisees would even nullify the command to honor, and by implication, care for one's parents, Jesus shows comapassion to the multitudes. The Pharisees demonstrate a lack of compassion by what comes out of the mouth; Jesus demonstrates compassion by what goes into the mouth. After this, the Pharisees demand a sign from Jesus, which he refuses to give except for that of Jonah. Then he tells his disciples to beware the leaven of the Pharisees. They completely misunderstand, assuming that he has said this in reference to their lack of bread. Jesus then reminds them of the miracles of the feeding of the 5000 and of the 4000 asking how they could fail to understand that he wasn't talking about bread. By doing this, he is not merely saying, "Don't worry, I can make more," but he is indicating that both of these miracles were ultimately about more than bread. They were about the identity of Christ as the bread from heaven. He had already explained this after the feeding of the 5000 as recorded in John 6. Jesus is the true manna, which as Moses had stated was given so that they might know "that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD." In both of these miracles, Jesus has identified himself and his teaching as the source of life. In the feeding of the 4000, he contrasts this indentification with the traditions and teachings of the Pharisees, which are a source of defilement. The feeding of the 4000 is not a mere demonstration of Christ's compassion at the moment, but is a further revelation to the disciples of who Christ is. It serves an authenticative function.

Regarding your denial of God's attributes in favor of his being "superessentially Person," this is nonsense. You claim that we cannot speak of God in terms of necessity because it reduces God to attributes and makes him less of a Person. But, and you really had to have seen this coming, is this necessarily the case? Is it necessary that God is "superessentially Person" or might he be something else? You argue that God's nature cannot be known, that he has no attributes, and yet you continue to speak about him and to posit specific attributes, such as his "radical freedom." If it is true that "God's nature cannot be known, not even analogically," then why does Scripture tell us what God is like? Furthermore, why does it command us to be like God? If it is true that we cannot know at all what God is like, then this command is most unjust. I am not arguing that we can have comprehensive knowledge; after all, God is infinite. But the fact that God has revealed himself assumes a point of intelligible contact, even if he has to create it.

I also deny the antinomies that you mention. These result by defining the attributes without any reference to God before applying them to God. Take omnibenevolance, the doctrine that God is all-good. This can only be set in opposition to God's omniscience and omnipotence if we have a preset idea of what a good God can do, which is backward. Instead, we should determine what it means for God to be good by noting what he has revealed himself to do. A good God sends plagues, destroys armies in the Red Sea, and demands that the Israelites be ruthless in their conquest of Canaan. A good God allows sin, bruises his own Son, and sends people to hell. Read Psalm 136 to see what God does to his enemies for the cause of his steadfast love to his own people.