A while back I wrote that my problem with atheism is that all it has to say to the innumerable and nameless dead piled on the ash heap of history is, "It sucks to be you." Atheism's other problem would seem to be that it has little in the way of an encouraging word for the future. The long term future, that is. The scientists tell us that eventually the universe will either expand to the point of fizzling out or collapse in upon itself. The big freeze or the big crunch. If there is no God whose purposes for this creation are ultimately good, then none of our efforts to make the world a better place have ultimate worth.
The reply would be, "Well, that's a long way off," and I must admit it is. Heck, when God postponed Israel's punishment just one generation, that was enough of a reprieve to let King Hezekiah sleep like a baby. If the big fizzle doesn't happen for another few billion years, how much better can we all sleep?
And yet, if it is coming, and that's all there is that's coming, why get out of bed in the morning?
This is why I won't give up on the bodily resurrection. The bodily resurrection is a premodern confession that the law of entropy is destined to be revoked. That's a theology of hope.
And I suppose this is why I'm not fully on board with Schleiermacher's assessment of miracles. Schleiermacher maintains that everything has both a natural and a supernatural cause. In other words, the nature system of cause and effect is for Schleiermacher a manifestation of divine causality, which is different in both degree and kind than natural causality.
This means that Schleiermacher doesn't believe in miracles, if by miracle you mean the suspension of the laws of nature. Jesus came not to abolish but to fulfill the law (of nature) by redeeming us from sin and evil. On the other hand, this also means that for Schleiermacher, everything is a miracle. Unlike the Deists, Schleiermacher can affirm God's ongoing providence in the world.
I really appreciate the second half of that equation. If we only look for miracles in the extraordinary and unexpected, then we take too much for granted. Why do we exist at all? That we are here is wholly gratuitous. I believe that if we properly understand our existence and the amazing intricacies of the universe that sustain us, we will feel not only awe but gratitude as well, and a relentless determination to seek out the One who properly deserves our gratitude.
At the same time, the laws that govern this dazzling universe seem in some sense to be prison bars. We understand more about the world than Schleiermacher's generation did, and to us, and apart from revelation, it appears to be less a well-oiled machine and much more a random and purposeless cacophony.
The Bible says that when God created the world he pronounced it good; thus the laws of nature must be "holy and just and good." But a good creation may not be good enough in the long, long run. Even if we repented of our rapacious plundering of the earth, we still stand in need of new heavens and a new earth. So we look for a disclosure from God apart from the law (of nature), which we call miracle in the customary sense of the word, and for those who receive it, this disclosure names the One who is worthy of our gratitude and gives us a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
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