I’ll let you be for now…but remember, I’m in law school and I LOVE a good argu– er, discussion.

I’ve begun perusing this site. Interesting stuff. So all these people have some connection to Mpls/St Paul? Cool.

I found the Christian courtship post interesting. Yes. Good work, whoever you were. Using the word SEX caught my eye a lot more than “courtship” would have.

I’d love to comment on that blog (or are they called threads?) as well… but it seems a bit old. Pity.

I’ll actually address your questions (at least, I think I will) in post # 3, the final in this series. I just don’t want to jump the gun, you know. So definitely let me know if I miss something then (probably post it tomorrow), or if I don’t answer something to your satisfaction.

I will submit that I do believe He can bend the rules. Good enough for now?

The bigger question is, I’m wondering who I went to see Heist with. I think I know, I’m actually pretty darn sure, but I don’t want to say and then be wrong… publicly. Heh.

They say that the most difficult parts of faith are believing in the things you can’t corroborate — is there a God? Did God create us? You know… that stuff…

I disagree.
I think the harder part of faith is believing that God has power to bend the rules that we believe he set in place. It’s easy enough to believe that in some hazy wonderous event, he created the planet and gave it life. It’s easy enough to believe that in a distant past there was a man- a man who was also God. Why? Because it’s really tough to prove those things right OR wrong.

When it comes to having faith that donkeys can talk…. or mountains can be thrown into the sea… that lame men can walk or the blind can see… well, there’s the problem of empirical evidence.

Maybe it’s harder to believe that miracles happen because, well, our brains have helped us determine that this is a world of order. Gravity exists. People die. Humans can’t regenerate limbs. When someone claims that they believe in God, we smile and say that we do too. Warm fuzzies ensue.

When someone says that they were healed, we raise an eyebrow and cock our heads. Why? Because in our experience, and due to our level of education, we know that just. doesn’t. happen.

Maybe real faith is believing that God does exist AND he can bend the rules. Faith the size of a mustard seed.

I guess I have a few personal questions for you:

1. Why do you think miracles don’t occur or occur with less frequency these days?
2. Do you think that if God wanted, he could perform miracles through a man, a woman or heck, even a goat?
3. If you’ve answered #2 in the affirmative, then do you think he decides to take a back seat approach to modern miracles because there are so many “bigger” things out there to deal with?

I guess my observation is this: If I can believe that God sent a part of himself to Earth, to be born of a virgin… and then have his death somehow wipe out all our sin so we can go to heaven one day – then how can it be any stretch of the imagination that he can fix my broken arm? If you think that he is the reason we exist, and that he crafted us… then could you possibly think that he couldn’t fix us?

I’ll look forward to your response.