I feel like I want to say: Yes, of course. One of the first thoughts that came to my mind was an encounter I heard Father Stephen Freeman describe with a monk (Romanian, I believe). The monk made the comment, “You Americans! You talk about miracles like you don’t believe in God!” By that, he meant that on one hand we discuss miracles as the intervention of a God off somewhere else into our reality. And on the other that we then looked for these ‘interventions’ as some sort of proof that God actually existed.
By contrast, Christianity holds that God is everywhere present and filling all things and that all that exists is contingent on him each moment for its continued existence. Now God is not capricious and does not begrudge existence to any of his creation. But he is not off somewhere else. God is everywhere around us. In one sense, the ‘heavens’ begin at our skin when we look outward. And when we look inward, if we learn to look truly, we will also see God, for we are his eikons. The natural existence of everything is a continual ‘miracle’ of God. Thus to speak of ‘creation’ requiring ‘unnatural’ intervention is to speak from a place of unbelief in God. The monk is correct. This way of looking for ‘miracles’ is as if we did not believe in God.
I’ve always seen Jesus’ healings, exorcisms, and interaction with the natural order not as evidence of divinity in the narrative of Scripture, but the revelation and fulfillment of true humanity – the proper place of man. The transfiguration, cross, and resurrection are the primary evidence of his divinity. I would also say that it’s obvious that the water to wine event of Cana has theological meaning. John is the explicitly and wholly theological gospel. It’s a collection of water and bread stories ordered in a story of new creation leading to a new first day. When we read the story of the wedding at Cana, it seems to me that we should be spending less time wondering how Jesus turned water into wine and more reflecting on the water of Baptism and the wine of communion. But maybe that’s just me …
Strictly speaking, in the Christian narrative, the Resurrection is not a ‘miracle’ at all. If you look at it like that, I would suggest you’ve missed the whole point. It is the central event of our reality, the point at which the cosmos changed. The human eikon was created with the potential for union with God. That is our true nature. Death is not ‘natural’ for the human being. That is what Christianity has always taught. It is a central truth. And when Jesus melded the nature of the faithful human with the nature of God and entered death on our behalf, he defeated death. Death had swallowed a man and discovered it had consumed the transcendent God instead. The Resurrection altered all creation, but specifically changed the nature of mankind so that it is no longer our nature to die. This is why our Scriptures speak of those whose bodies ‘sleep’. It’s not some euphemism to avoid saying they died. It is an acknowledgement that we cannot ‘die’ anymore in the sense that we did before the Resurrection. Hades can no longer contain the human being.
Of course, since God is everywhere present and filling all things, he can manifest to us in spectacular ways if that is fitting. Stories of a bush that burns without being consumed and other similar stories don’t bother me at all. But when we speak about God having to ‘intervene’ in the ‘natural’ process in order to create, we are speaking as though we do not believe in God – or at least, not in the Christian God.

I think there are at least two places in creation where we might reasonably expect / conclude that there were “contrary to ‘nature’” type of miracles: the initial creation of matter and the ‘laws’ of nature, and the ‘creation’ of human beings.
As to the initial creation, the question we face here is how something can come from nothing. We have absolutely no reason to expect, scientifically speaking, that something can come from nothing. Cosmologists have offered theories about how this might be so, but such theories are by definition not scientific, because they cannot be based on observations and inferences concerning uniform natural process — the question is how any “natural processes” came to exist. The “big bang” may or may not be a true singularity that points to the miracle of creation ex nihlo (so far this really does seem to be the case, string theory notwithstanding), but in any event I think this is very likely a question “natural” science can’t answer.
As to the creation of humans, I think scripture and the Christian Tradition give us strong warrant for thinking that something super-natural happened when the first “human” was created. Human beings possess a “spiritual” nature — a “soul” if you will — that seems to be unique to humans created in the image of God.
Neurobiology attempts to answer the question of “soul” in naturalistic terms. I think this raises interesting issues concerning what we mean by the human “spirit” or “soul,” or the “image of God.” It seems clear that human consciousness and volition are deeply tied to our biology, which is rooted deeply in our evolutionary past. Nevertheless, I think Christians are warranted in resisting the sort of reductionism that would confine the “spiritual” dimension of human persons to biology. Once again, we are by definition dealing with some irreducible, “super”-natural aspect of our ontology, which is by definition outside the competence of natural science to define.

Scott,
That Eastern, perhaps even a bit panentheistic, explanation works as an explanatory apparatus. But, that explanation doesn’t explain why contemporaries of Jesus were at times utterly startled by what happened — walking on water, resurrection, healing etc. There has to be some explanation for the startling event. That’s what “miracle” has done for us for two millennia.

“After all, God is the ordainer of the laws of nature, not someone who is subjected to them. However, precisely because they are divine laws, simply to overturn them would be for God to act against God, which is absurd.”
But the natural law does not equal the overarching divine law. Doesn’t the divine “law” state that God can overturn the natural law for whatever purposes He sees fit?
Perhaps it is misusing the meaning of “natural law”, so that rather than being a scientific term, it becomes a legal restraint on God. I have a problem with, “simply to overturn them would be for God to act against God”. According to what standard?
I like Scott M’s (#1) use of the phrase natural “process”.

Something I thought might be interesting. This is the description of miracles from “The Second Jewish Book of Why.” Having grown up in Judaism, I never was taught to understand miracles in this fashion, and it seems counter-intuitive to me, but take it for what it’s worth:
George Santayana once wrote: “Miracles are propitious accident,s the natural causes of which are too complicated to be clearly understood.”
About 1,800 years ago, a number of talmudic scholars held a somewhat similar view about the miracles described in the Bible, except that they were able to harmonize what was seemingly supernatural activity with the laws of the universe. These rabbis suggested that the unusual events that transpired were indeed miracles, but they were not miracles in the sense that we understand the word. The biblical happenings that we call miracles were actually preordained events that were programmed into nature and were thus part of the natural order. Accordingly, the miracles of the Bible were no longer to be considered a break with the natural order, but a fulfillment of the plan that was set into motion at the very beginning.
Here is how two early talmudic scholars viewed supernatural occurrences:
Rabbi Yochanan: “God made an agreement with the sea [during the time of Creation] that it would split in half when it would be approached by the Israelites [fleeing from Egypt.”
Rabbi Jeremiah: “Not only did God make an agreement with the sea, but He made an agreement with all the other things that were created during the six days of creation.
“God made an agreement with the sun and the moon that they should stand still in the time of Joshua.
“God made an agreement with the ravens that they should feed Elijah.
“God made an agreement with the fire that it should not harm Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah?the three froms of Daniels?when they would be thrown into the fiery furnace at the command of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia.
“God made an agreement with the fish that it should spit out Jonah alive, after it had swallowed him.”
Some Talmudic and post-talmudic authorities were of the opinion that the miracles are to be taken as allegorical and poetic expressions of God’s greatness. This is evident, for example, from the manner in which the Rabbis interpreted the story of Israel’s battle with its archenemy, the Amalekites. The Bible says, “And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and when he put down his hand, Amalek prevailed” (Exodus 17:11). The Rabbis of the Talmud wondered about this miraculous event, and concluded that the biblical statement is not meant to be taken literally. Rather, it is allegory, with the message that as long as the Children of Israel look up and keep their hearts attuned to their Father in heaven, they will prevail. If they do not look up towards God, they will be defeated.
This manner of interpreting the Bible was widely accepted by the greatest of scholars, among them Saadya Gaon and Moses Maimonides. Maimonides, in fact, stated openly in his Guide for the Perplexed that all the miracles described in the Bible in connection with the careers of the prophets must be understood as prophetic visions, not as literal happenings. (Alfred Kolatch, The Second Jewish Book of Why, pg 215).

Alice and Bob, two inquisitive students, wonder how the leopard really gets its spots. They ask around and nobody quite knows the process. Bob declares that nobody knows the process, therefore God performs a miracle each time and uniquely gives each leopard its spots. Alice eventually discovers that there is a chemical reaction very much like what happens when oil sitting on top of a puddle of water causes an iridescent pattern: at some point during gestation, a chemical reaction in the womb causes the leopard’s skin to take on a seemingly random bunch of spots. Elegant, that the same exact process is able to account for all spots and stripes, leopards, tigers, jaguars, giraffes, and zebras included. The size and shape of the embryo along with some other factors determine whether the animal gets splotches or is half black and half white or some pattern of spots or stripes. It is possible to model that process with an equation that you can tweak to get the result of all these basic patterns.
So Bob walks away in disgust upset that where he previously thought there was a miracle, there was just a natural process. But Alice is moved at God’s design in nature. There are so many patterns which are all created by this same basic process. It is a creative and elegant, practical and artistic process designed by God.
My little parable to try to restate in a very simple way what I think is being said here. That God’s design is elegant and beautiful. If you discover a natural process for something, God designed that process. If you don’t know a process, you may or may not discover one later. If you do, God designed that too. Either way, he’s the artist and “all this” is his art.

Resurrection was utterly unprecedented. As the central event of reality, how could it be anything but startling? As far as the rest go, Jesus as the second Adam was the first faithful man and the true human being. I don’t object to the word miracle. Nor do I think they have stopped even now as God transforms and unites through Jesus with faithful human beings. In fact, it’s because I believe that God actually inhabits and begins to change our bodies when we unite ourselves to Christ that the tradition and experience of relics in Christianity has never bothered me. If what we say about God is true, of course that is what would happen.
Miracles were, are, and will be startling because we mostly do not properly perceive the fullness of reality. Through Christ, we are not only being made divine, we are being made human. But as I said, that sort of miracle, continuing to the present day, doesn’t bother me. Rather, it’s how Christians sometimes look for them as ‘evidence’ of God that bothers me. God is not off somewhere else or at any distance from us at all.
The idea that God would have to ‘intervene’ in the natural order in order to create, though, is entirely different from our experience of the reality of God within that order. God *is* the natural order. At least, that’s the Christian view.
dopderbeck, I think (or at least hope) that all Christians would agree that God created out of nothing (ex nihilo) in the overflow of the love of the wholly self-sufficient uncreated relationship of the Trinity. That is the source, the origin, and the sustaining force of the ‘natural’ order of creation. A question I heard not long ago, though, is one that I’m still pondering. It’s one thing to say that God created out of nothing. It’s another thing to ask: From where did the ‘nothing’ come?

MatthewS, indeed. Though I would go a step further and add that God is still actively and intimately creating through that process every single time. Creation is not some distant, largely impersonal activity.

Interesting post. This gets back to the issues of definition that we have discussed in other threads:
What is “natural” and what is “supernatural”? For God, supernatural is quite natural. Is supernatural just a realm of natural that we don’t understand yet?
What is “spiritual” and “natural” when they are contrasted in Scripture? Eg the body:
1 Co 15:42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
On creation, you said:
“But all of the evidence we have suggests that God used natural means to reach a desired end – not supernatural means to inaugurate a new regime (after the big bang anyway).”
I strongly disagree, and many Christian scientists do too. Your readers should know that this is a huge point of contention among Christian scientists.
Scripture repeatedly tells us that nature displays evidence of God, and so people are “without excuse.” Romans 1, Job 38ff, Psalm 19. How we understand this is a big, big question.
“Why should we expect to see the Hand of God in creation in a manner capable of empirical scientific demonstration?”
Science is the study of nature. Nature tells of God’s glory. Why should we rule this out?
“For what theological reason would God step outside of his divinely ordained and instituted laws of nature in the process of creation?”
To preach of his existence, goodness and glory to all mankind:
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
3 There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
That is in part why Dallas Willard, Peter Kreeft and many others think design arguments are so important. Dallas Willard on Design Arguments
Of Tim Keller’s “5 Clues” three are basically design arguments from nature:
Tim Keller?s ?5 Clues? For the Existence of God

dopderbeck, on the mind and the spirit of the human being, I tend to perhaps view it a little differently. ‘Soul’ is a tricky word. I tend to use it as Dallas Willard does (and as much of scripture seems to use it) as a description of the whole human person. For instance, in the Genesis 2 story, God forms a body from matter, breathes into it, and it becomes a living soul. I don’t see the mind and the spirit as separable from the body. It is clear that changes to our physical body impact and alter both. While we can speak of them separately and to some extent each transcends or is at least distinguishable from the other two, nevertheless they are so deeply intertwined and interconnected that they can hardly be considered separate.
It also seems clear to me in the Christian story that from God’s perspective it was the separation of the body and spirit of the human being in death that was most unnatural and as a result placed the human in bondage to death. The Resurrection healed that aberration and restored the human nature so that it is no longer our nature to die. We are still in an interim period, an already, but not yet time, and scripture does not speak a great deal about what happens to us during this time when our bodies sleep. N.T. Wright says he has heard someone describe it as God downloading our software onto his hardware until such time as he makes new our hardware again. That perhaps still creates too much of a dichotomy between body and spirit, but does capture some of the idea. Any metaphor will necessarily fall short. In that sense, it is the death of the human eikon which is unnatural.

Scott M (#10) — yes, I was trying to avoid the intractable (to me) question of substance dualism vs. holistic dualism vs. nonreductive physicalism. In short, like you, I lean towards holistic dualism. But regardless, in Biblical terms, I think, there is something “more” to human ontology than “nature.”
Pds (#9)– I think you’re confusing different kinds of “design” arguments. The apparent beauty and order of nature as a whole points towards God — that is a Psalm 19 / Romans 1 kind of “design” argument or “natural theology.” It’s a different thing to suggest that there is empirical evidence of a “miracle” in the construction of nature represented by a break in natural laws — that, I think, is the strong-ID view.
Rick (#4) — I agree. God ordains natural laws, but those are not the only laws God ordains. Moreover, natural laws do not constrain God, because God is other than nature. There seems to be an ontological confusion here between God and nature. God is free to act however He chooses to act, consistent with His character as perfectly good, just, etc. Therefore, I don’t understand why the existence of natural laws, and the ordinary operation of creation according to those laws, would constrain God’s freedom to act within time and space in ways that differ from the constraints God has placed on creation qua creation.

Chesterton in his book, Orthodoxy, [ http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.html ] ch. 4 and 9 addressed this issue quite compellingly, pointing out that any empirically observed laws of nature, unlike laws of logic and mathematics, rest on the sum of all our data collection, arranged according to the patterns that emerge from the data.
But since we can never collect all the data, not even for the present, let alone the past, and most certainly not for the future, all our explanatory models (scientific theories) necessarily are tentative. Miracles occur on the edges of those models. As more data come in, eventually we modify our models to account for the new and challenging data.
We have never seen a tree producing tigers hanging by the tail as its fruit but we have not seen all the trees that ever have or ever will exist. We don’t expect, based on the data we do have, ever to see a tree producing tigers hanging by their tales. The laws of nature provide trustworthy patterns which we expect to recur and according to which we order our lives. But we cannot a priori rule out the possibility that Pattern X which seemed to be so clear and certain, might not actually be Pattern XY because future data might show that we only saw a corner of Pattern XY and thought we had a complete pattern.
If one looks at an immense circle ten times the circumference of the earth, the data we can see (only a small portion of the data, an arc forming part of the circle) gives a pattern of a straight line. But if we could actually see all the data, we’d see that the straight line pattern was actually a circle pattern. The future data aspect alone guarantees that some portions of the Patterns of Nature remain hidden from our view.
Chesterton says that we miracle-believers are the true scientists who are willing to trust our empirical observations even when they yield “marvelous” (miraculum simply means “marvel”) or “wondrous” unexpected results. Hume was the dogmatic, a priori failure at Logic 101.
C. S. Lewis takes a different line but with the same result: the “Laws of Nature” are formulas based on hitherto gathered data but if one plugs into an equation a different set of variables, the result changes. The “Laws” governing the equation have not changed, but the variables changed and changed the result. A miracle thus involves God substituting different variables into the steady, constant laws of nature. Personally, I find Chesterton’s approach more appealing.
Either way, miracles DO NOT violate the laws of nature. Hume said that Christians believed they do and then turned around and dogmatically declared the laws of nature inviolable, hence a priori miracles are impossible. Nice trick but totally circular reasoning. He also was a lousy historian, claiming that only uneducated, stupid people claim to have observed miracles. That’s just not true, historically–plenty of highly educated, intelligent people have reported seeing miracles. Hume was bigoted against uneducated people and falsely reported the demographics of miracle-reporting.
Finally, Stanley Jaki, Miracles and Science, makes the simple point that if scientists closed themselves off a priori against contervailing data, if refused to believe their eyes when the dial on the empirical observing machine moved in the direction opposite what their previous research suggested it ought to move in, they’d be lousy scientists. Instead, they trust their eyes (after checking to make sure the machine is properly functioning and calibrated) and add the data to the pile that eventually might require a revision of the explanatory model that produced the projections about the direction the dial should have moved. Science moves forward precisely by being open to challenges to the thus far observed patterns (laws) of nature. That was true of Faraday, for instance, Jaki argues.

peelingdragonskin.wordpress.com
dop (#11)
The distinction you are making is not found in Scripture. How do we apply modern science to the verses I cited? You seem to want to draw a bright line between different kinds of design arguments. The line is not obvious, as you can see by reading Willard, Kreeft, Keller, Collins. Different people will find different design arguments plausible or not.
For example, I personally found Collins’ argument based on altruism very weak. It is a God of the Gaps argument, and science has already plausibly filled the gap.

OK, so how does a virgin birth occur with respect to natural law? Would that not require some creative act of God that does not fit the normal pattern? No male seed involved, no extra 23 chromosomes from the male sperm uniting with the 23 from the female egg. Seems the simplest explanation for those of us who believe the New Testament that God did something “miraculous”, something that doesn’t happen every day according to the “natural” workings of things.
And if the virgin birth is an intervention of God not explainable by the normal workings of the laws of nature, (which I think would be Joseph’s perspective after the vision from the Angel) why is that nearly so many here insists that God could not have done things beyond the scope of our understanding of the laws of nature in the events of Genesis 1-3? Or 1-11? It seems to rob Christianity of the “mystery” so many seem to crave these days on the one hand, and on the other to imprison God in some concept of natural law that He is bound to. Would he not be the author of natural law? Would not the creator of nature not be bound by nature?
It seems to me that Christianity is neither deistic nor pantheistic, that is, nature is not God but exists as an objective reality outside of himself, and God is not so removed from nature that it “runs on its own”. If nature is objective reality that is not itself God, then God is not bound by natural law.
If that is true, then miracles can be what they have always been understood to be by the common folk, God doing something that is NOT normal and NOT explainable in terms of natural cause and effect – an intervention that does not break the laws of nature nor invalidate them, but an intervention that is of a higher jurisdiction from somewhere “beyond nature”, to use C.S. Lewis’ phrase.
I honestly see a lot of the ink spent here as dressing naturalism up in Christian garb.

I have to say I dispute the author’s categories and the appropriateness of the perspective from which they emerge. To be brief, I have little to no faith in the author’s first two categories as accurately describing the ‘miracles’ of Jesus or his followers through time. Once we place all such miracles in the third category, the argument largely breaks down. Jesus is both a rampant miracle worker and the good shepherd of the whole creation at the same time. His miracles (and those of his followers after him) were not a form of violence to his own rule. They were a form of violence to the ways in which the enemy had twisted and broken the creation; they are acts of love, healing and liberation. The question is not whether a given miracle contradicts a ‘law of nature’ or not, but in what ways is a given miracle an outflow of the government of God towards the new nature, overthrowing the rule of the enemy within the current creation, and revealing the direction of God’s government for the new creation now underway. Nature as it now stands bears within it both ‘laws’ and governing powers that God is already working to remove, such as the curse.
What’s more, the whole chapter seems to be asking a question that the scriptural narrative simply doesn’t care about. What I mean is, ‘the laws of nature’ as such aren’t given particular prominence in the scriptures. Rather, the governing of God, and, to a lesser extent, that of other powers, are the major players within nature, and nature bears the consequences and character of the ‘rule’ or ‘laws’ of both. God is (already/not yet) repealing many of these ‘laws’ and keeping others.
The author’s logic would seem to imply that sanctification is more akin to a natural stage of evolution in man than to a new creation by the Spirit that brooded over the waters. If he would concede that sanctification is more like the latter then, then he concedes that the government of God is not opposed to wide scale ‘miraculous’ activity (in the third category) within the creation right now.
The whole line of reasoning strikes me like a thoroughly western way of viewing the world, attempting to fit Jesus and his works within itself, however awkward the fit. I can’t even put my finger on all the ways.

Your Name (#14)
The virgin birth is another miracle with deep theological significance. This is God incarnate – fully human but not merely human. God enters into his creation. There is a deep underlying consistency which makes this miracle intelligible.
Now we turn to creation – one would have to ask the theological significance and underlying consistency in a creation made to look natural yet inherently supernatural – at least that is the question your comment raises for me.

RJS:
Thanks for the thoughtful post. I would want to qualify your comments a bit. You say of the resurrection, following Wright, “the case for the historicity of the resurrection is strong.” I agree.
On the creation issue you say, “…the search for empirical demonstration of design will not find evidence capable of convincing the skeptic. Coincidences and probabilities are capable of natural explanation.” But wouldn’t this basic reasoning apply as well to the resurrection: the evidence is not capable of convincing the skeptic, because the event is capable of natural explanation–”While the soldiers slept the disciples stole the body.”
So it seems to me that in some ways you are asking more of creation than you are of the resurrection! I would say that both nature and history provide revelatory data which, though partial and susceptible to conflicting interpretations, nevertheless bear genuine witness to the existence and character of God.

I think a wonderful perspective on this process is found in C.S. Lewis’ essay on Miracles found in the collection “God in the Dock.” The following is taken from page 29 of that work (you can find it on Google Books here), in which Lewis is explaining and riffing off a teaching he found in Athenasius:
“There is an activity of God displayed throughout creation, a wholesale activity let us say which men refuse to recognize. The miracles done by God incarnate, living as a man in Palestine, perform the very same things as this wholesale activity, but at a different speed and on a smaller scale. One of their chief purposes is that men, having seen a thing done by personal power on the small scale, may recognize, when they see the same thing done on the large scale, that the power behind it is also personal – is indeed the very same person who lived among us two thousand years ago. The miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. Of that larger script part is already visible, part is still unsolved. In other words, some of the miracles do locally what God has already done universally: others do locally what He has not yet done, but will do. In that sense, and from our human point of view, some are reminders and others prophecies.
God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water by its roots and, with the aid of the sun, to turn that water into a juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities. Thus every year, from Noah’s time till ours, God turns water into wine. That, men fail to see. Either like the Pagans they refer the process to some finite spirit, Bacchus or Dionysus: or else, like the moderns, they attribute real and ultimate causality to the chemical and other material phenomena which are all that our senses can discover in it. But when Christ at Cana makes water into wine, the mask is off. The miracle has only half its effect if it only convinces us that Christ is God: it will have its full effect if whenever we see a vineyard or drink a glass of wine we remember that here works He who sat at the wedding party in Cana.”

I find myself, once again, resonating with what Scott M has said – that we are not divided from God, that God’s creation and creating is all around us and that so-called “miracles” are not outside the realm of the natural world but only outside our ability to comprehend and understand the intricacy of God’s design and eternal nature of its unfolding. It is only in our arrogance that we imagine that God had finished with creation, that we were once perfect and so powerful that in one act we could destroy God’s handiwork and that God is now just working on mopping up the mess that was caused by two naive human creatures 6,000 years ago. God is not so feeble and stupid and we are not so mighty. To follow on from what Matthew said whether God creates by magic or by natural laws we end up with a miracle. it is only because of inability or unwillingness to accept the infinite nature of God’s plan that we think that a big-bang 6 six-day creation is more miraculous than the creation of nature’s laws and the patient, eternal use of those laws to create something from nothing. Or that a virgin birth is more miraculous than that the child of a lowly young girl’s violation and shame became the symbol of redemption for mankind. Or that the mechanics of Christ’s resurrection matters more than the enduring metaphor that God has given us – victory over death. I also agree in principle with Nate’s rabbinic scholars – that miracles can come about as a result of a complex juxtaposition of natural phenomena and events that God has preordained.
We see miracles when we look for miracles. God gives us miracles when we need them. Whether those miracles are the result of of a series of very unlikely coincidences, a sudden mutation in evolution, a fortuitous discovery, hallucination or magic is not really the point. The point is that the hand of God is there. Many of us have experienced miracles on a small scale and the skeptic in us may say that it was a coincidence or that our eyes and mind was playing tricks on us. There was a point in my life when I thought my daughter’s chance for survival to the age of 20 was in the single digits and that the chance of our family surviving intact was very low. I prayed with desperation and humility and with only faith I could muster – which was honest doubt and opening myself to God’s possibilities. Now a skeptic would say (and I have said) that my daughter’s and our family’s survival was fortunate but well within the realm of possibility – nothing miraculous about it all. Some might even say that in our desperation our behaviors changed, that a threat to our survival caused a small but successful mutation in our evolution which allowed us to survive. And I would still see God’s hand working in the result. The day I was baptized was a day of great joy for me, surrounded by my kind and loving sisters and brothers in the parish, whose joy was also palpable. When the priest handed me the baptism candle I looked up and saw flakes of gold coming down from the cedar rafters and a white dove fluttering near the ceiling. I looked around to see whether anybody else was sharing my vision and they didn’t seem to be so I gave me head a shake and it was gone. Was it a hallucination caused by a release of stress and joy? No doubt. Was that hallucination a gift from God and therefore a miracle? That I don’t doubt also.

Dave (#17),
Yes, the phenomena that led to the claim of resurrection are capable of “natural” explanation, and a stolen body is the most common (or no separate grave, only a criminal’s mass burial). And of course Wright’s argument doesn’t convince skeptics …
But if resurrection is true it is supernatural – not simply God working within the same natural processes we study in science. Resurrection is something else altogether, which is probably why Paul works so hard at explaining in in 1 Cor. 15.
I am not convinced that we should expect creation to be accomplished by God working outside of his natural process. I would wonder why, theologically it should be supernatural. If God is working within his natural process – his involvement will be difficult to demonstrate. The probability arguments seem to me to be the only hope – and I don’t think that we know enough to make good probability estimates.

T (#15)
Polkinghorne’s first category seems a bit questionable to me – but the second and third represent issues I think that we should consider.
It is clear within scripture that some miracles are performed through secondary cause capable of natural explanation, a wind blows, an earthquake occurs, fire, lightening, hail, insects — these represent actions of God within creation, but they don’t require changes in natural law. God is sovereign over nature and can use it to carry out his will.
There are miracles, however, which do represent steps outside of the natural realm. Water (and not even carbonated water) to wine and resurrection.
My question (which doesn’t come up in this chapter of Polkinghorne’s book) is simple – Should we expect creation to be a miracle of the third type? If so why – what is the theological reason?

I would throw another angle on RJS’ question:
Should we expect creation to be a miracle of the third type? [demonstrably outside the normal God-ordained functioning of nature] If so why – what is the theological reason?
Suppose the answer is in the affirmative for some theological reason. In what aspects of God’s creative activity should we expect to see such “gaps”?
It seems like many Christians have no problem with “natural” processes as God’s means of creating stars, the Earth, etc. It is only when it comes to living creatures that “gaps” are expected (sometimes demanded). This seems inconsistent.
So in addition to asking for a theological reason to expect extra-natural miracles (if such a category makes sense) in God’s creative work, we need to be asking those who do expect this type of miracle where they think such miracles should be found, and why in those aspects of creation but not in other aspects. If it is theologically OK for God to work via “natural” processes to form stars, why not starfish?

RJS, just as a note, it does not appear from 1 Cor 15 that the Corinthian believers had any particular problem with the idea of Jesus’ resurrection. Rather, it was our bodily resurrection (the general resurrection of the dead) that they seem to be having issues with. A bit different nuance than the modern discussions.
mariam, I would tend to say that at your baptism you were standing in a thin place and for a moment glimpsed reality. However, I will clarify that if I came to believe that Jesus was not bodily resurrected then I would not be a Christian. It’s not because some construct of faith would collapse or anything like that. Rather, absent the Resurrection, Christianity holds no interest for me whatsoever. Not sure what I would do. Now that I am even more aware of it than I once was, I might explore Judaism more. Or I might return and dig deeper into some form of Hinduism. But I would not be Christian. I would also tend to put the Virgin Birth into that category as well simply because I’m not sure how you get to a full and complete union of the human and the divine without adding or subtracting from either without it. And if Jesus of Nazareth was not both fully and utterly human while at the same time also the uncreated, eternal, and coequal Son of God, then again, I’m just not much interested in Christianity.
I don’t have any problems with God working what appear to be wonders to us either directly or through others. A number over the years have been given the gift of wonderworking. I have no problem with the idea that taking God into our bodies has the potential to actually change our bodies. Incorruptible relics of saints don’t bug me.
I do have issues with any perspective that says that God must have had to somehow intervene in detectable observable ways in the “natural” processes he established, fills, and sustains in order to create. I disagree with the idea that we must somehow find these ‘interventions’ to prove the existence of God. And I wholly disagree with the idea that we can limit God in that way. I don’t even really agree with the categories of natural and supernatural or secular and divine or ordinary and extraordinary at all. There are things of God that might appear more like wonders to us than other things, but it is all of God. The category that we consider ‘natural’ is simply a subcategory of reality, not its own separate and self-sustaining category at all.

Scott,
I don’t know – it seems to me that Paul is spending a great deal of space in 1 Cor. 15 writing about resurrection and resurrection bodies, spiritual, natural, perishable and imperishable. I think that there are aspects of this whole concept that they are struggling with, because resurrection is a new experience – outside of “natural” expectation.

1 Cor. 15:12 states the issue. “How do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” As the next statement makes clear (as do other references in 1 Cor 15) “resurrection of the dead” is referring to the general resurrection at the end of the age. 1 Cor. 15:13. “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen.” Two separate things.
I do agree that Paul provides tons to support not only the general resurrection, but the resurrection of Jesus. However, when he states that clearly what the issue was in Corinth that he was addressing, I don’t see any reason to assume it was something else.

RJS, you wrote:
Now we turn to creation – one would have to ask the theological significance and underlying consistency in a creation made to look natural yet inherently supernatural – at least that is the question your comment raises for me.
Just how would the created order not “look natural”? Assuming God created a particular creature from the dust of the ground, would the creature’s offspring somehow not “look natural”? A belief in divine intervention is not a discarding of the laws of cause and effect, but a belief that something higher than cause and effect exists.
Back to the virgin birth, would Jesus not “look natural”? Yet he would have been, if we accept the New Testament, born conceived by means well out of the natural laws of human reproduction.
I think, if one could go back in time as a scientist and take samples of the water turned to wine before and after the event, one would be able to verify that the water was water and the wine was wine. One would not be able to explain the event as a natural occurrence, because it was not. It was a demonstration of Christ as Lord over creation, not bound by creation but above it.
What theological reason for acts of special creation? How about the simple theological truth that God is “creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible”. I don’t see a reason for accepting a New Testament miracle like the resurrection or virgin birth and rejecting out of hand the possibility that the miraculous had a role in the origins of the earth and the human race.

Dan,
You said What theological reason for acts of special creation? How about the simple theological truth that God is “creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible”.
Now I agree that God is creator of everything – heaven, earth, visible, invisible. All we are discussing is method of creation.
The only reason to take the view of an abrupt view of special creation (especially young earth, but also forms of old-earth progressive creation) is a literal view of Genesis. The problem I have here is not “could God” or even theological reason, but the simple fact that the world we see contains a great deal of deeply embedded evidence to great age and to natural process. There is also the issue that such a literal interpretation of Genesis does not seem to make sense in terms of the genre, intent, and form of the text. In July we will look at a new book coming out by John Walton where he develops ideas about the interpretation of Genesis one.
When we move to the discussion of Intelligent Design the issues are thornier I think. The question I am posing here is more for those who are thinking through the ideas of ID which proposes that God’s design in creation will be empirically discernible. Here I think that the difference between creation and the other miracles we are discussing is theological. Why should we expect empirical evidence for God’s design in creation?

RJS,
I think I see more now what you are asking, and you’ve made me stop and think. Creation is–no surprise–a hard case. I think it is hard because we have to start with the mother of all miracles–the speaking of matter and energy into existence out of nothing, however unfinished after the initial bang/word. Your question seems to be, for lack of a better phrase, “Is it more “deism” or “theism” that accurately describes what was going on after the initial big ‘miracle’?” Even YEC would acknowledge that God downloaded some of his genius and energy into the creation itself to allow, for example, all but the first humans to be created through the ‘natural miracle’ of pro-creation. So it isn’t theologically crazy to see how God doesn’t do everything that needs doing despite nature; he does like working through it, too.
As you’ve said, the main reason to think that it was a more theistic than deistic process is because of how the Genesis narratives portray the story, and the clear theistic bent of the scriptures as a whole. That’s where Polkinghorne becomes a very poor leg to stand upon, even if he prompts a good thought in you. He has to do violence to the gospel narratives–obviously for his first category, and more subtly for his second–in order to come to the very odd thesis that miracles are themselves violence to God’s own rule (with Jesus as Exhibit “A”!). It is an obvious western lens for the texts. Perhaps most significantly, though, it ignores the governance themes (of God and contrary powers) that are arguably the central story, the conflict between which nature bears within itself, longing for liberation from the ‘natural laws’ of death and decay brought by Satan’s victories, whose been using the power of some of God’s laws to imprison and kill.
You do ask a good question, and you’re right that the Genesis narratives specifically do give the reason to think creation was more theistic than deistic after the first word/bang. I think the implicit move toward deism and away from theism is also another theological reason why there will continue to be great resistance to evolutionary theories, precisely because the overall scriptural narrative is not, contrary to Polkinghorne’s view, hostile to God’s direct involvement. On the contrary, his moves within and outside of nature are both celebrated in the scriptures. I think it’s a better argument to show how his moves within/with nature are celebrated in the scriptures (to add genuine theological plausibility to evolutionary theories) rather than try to construct a hostility to miraculous acts from the scriptural witness. It just makes a hard job harder because of the over-reach.
Thanks for continuing this line of discussion, though. Many, many thanks.

A “two books” person with respect for Science and Scripture is constantly challenged to create consistency between theological and natural evidence. I think it is interesting to see the processes people use (or don’t use unfortunately), often without conscious awareness, to integrate their thinking. I saw one presentation at a Christian symposium by a scientist that included a “flow diagram” with decision blocks at various junctures where the output of this elaborate process diagram was either a natural or supernatural verdict. While I don’t subscribe to such a rigid algorithmic approach, there is a certain simplicity and clarity the comes from such an exercise. The value I have found in discussions such as these is that it can bring my flow diagram to the level of consciousness where I can evaluate it and perhaps even reprogram it if a better process is warrented.
If I put the question of creation and resurrection through my thinking there are some questions that are asked:
- what is the strength of the theological vs. empirical evidence
- what is the importance of each conclusion to my existing worldview
- and in all honesty, what are the social costs of a particular conclusion
The theological evidence for a supernatural process of creation is weak compared to the empirical evidence for evolution. I have also determined that a supernatural creation story is not essential to my worldview while denial of the empirical evidence for evolution would require dismantling large parts of my rational understanding of the world. A supernatural resurrection has strong theological evidence in Scripture compared to the weak empirical evidence for alternative explanations. Further a supernatural resurrection is a cornerstone to my understanding of God’s purpose in the world and toward me as an individual.
Unfortunately, within my tradition the social costs of certain conclusions on creation are high.

I think the discussion about creation compared to the resurrection misses the point. Pres. Dunbar (#17) — I agree with the modest natural theology at the end of your post. But we should not try to compare natural theology with the resurrection. Natural theology is precisely what “nature” — or better, “creation” — reveals about God. We don’t need to “look for miracles in nature / creation” because all of nature/creation is in a sense miraculous. The uniform physical “laws” that underlie nature/creation are the miracle! There is no need to look for “extra” miracles of “intervention” in the processes God established to bring forth life (except, as I’ve noted, with respect to some aspects of human ontology, or so I believe).
The resurrection, in contrast, is something entirely different — indeed, it is the first sign of the “new” creation. We ought to expect discontinuity with the present creation with respect to the resurrection, because that is exactly what the resurrection is about.

peelingdragonskin.wordpress.com
RJS (#27)
You said,
“The only reason to take the view of an abrupt view of special creation (especially young earth, but also forms of old-earth progressive creation) is a literal view of Genesis.”
This, I think, is false. I find it truly tragic that so many Christians are so unaware of the overall pattern we see in the fossil record. I think the ignorance in this regard is in some ways as tragic as some of the views held by the other side, that some have so vehemently criticized in other threads.
Consider Gould:
>>>>The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and “fully formed.” (Gould, Stephen J., “Evolution’s Erratic Pace,” Natural History, Vol. 86, No. 5, May 1977, p.14).
You may try to explain this pattern away, but it is simply wrong to say Genesis is the only basis for accepting an “abrupt view.” We will never have good dialogue unless we summarize all the evidence accurately.

pds,
You are misreading Gould and his criticisms and you are misreading my statement. Are there aspects of nature and history we don’t fully understand? And are there faults with some current hypotheses? Absolutely. Is steady gradualism the rule? Probably not – a punctuated progress seems more likely. But this is not the same as abrupt special creation.
I stand by the statement that a specific view of Genesis and an insistence on God’s “miraculous” special intervention in creation is the only reason to suggest abrupt special creation.

RJS-
Strongly disagree. The Gould quote is a summary of the fossil record. Gould’s punctuated equilibrium theory was an effort to take a fossil record that on its face was unfriendly to Darwinian theory and “spin” it to make it fit. Maybe he is right. Maybe not. But the fossil record taken at face value is what it is. All paleontologists agree on that.
Care to explain how I am “misreading” Gould? I am so tired of blanket generalizations with no scientific evidence to back it up. I also find you curiously dogmatic in denying basic evidence that undermines Darwinism.

pds,
Define what you mean by Darwinism.
I am not dogmatic in upholding any particular scientific theory – I look at the evidence.
I am dogmatically opposed to the assumption that holes in the predictive or explanatory power of any current theory leads to evidence for a designer.
This is largely for two reasons.
First – I think that the leap from natural explanation to designer is a “gap” solution. Past experience suggests that the better assumption is that God works and creates through his “natural” means as a normal matter of course and the further investigation will identify and lead to a better understanding of these natural means.
Second – I don’t think that there is any theologically sound reason to assume that he would step outside of his ordained natural mechanism in general.
When might we expect that God specially entered into history to interrupt the normal patterns of nature in creation? I think that some element of the creation of mankind may be such an instance – what makes us like God and unlike other animals? There is certainly theological reason to think that God specially entered history at this point. This is part of the coherent story of God’s relationship with his creation.
But the idea that the interruption of normal patterns of nature is/was God’s normal mode of creation doesn’t make sense to me.

dopderbeck (#30)
David, I wasn’t really trying to equate natural theology and the resurrection, except to suggest that God as creator and as the life giver who raised Jesus from the dead are both doctrines that are supported by evidence that is not “capable of convincing the skeptic” (to use RJS’s language). That means that both doctrines are faith statements, but it may mean also that both find “evidence” within the natural realm–I think they do. My point to RJS was simply to question why she accepts Wright’s appeal to (historical) probability in support of the resurrection, but seems not to find (probable)evidence for creation within the natural world. Her objection to probablity arguments (#20 above)cuts against the resurrection as well, don’t they?

RJS,
I imagine few of us here are experts in this area. You might be one of the very few. But from my brief reading on Gould’s theories, he apparently gives even experts in the field reason to misread how radical his critique/alternate theory is. Regardless, his work seems to be an attempt to reconcile the actual fossil records with the evolutionary theory of the development of new species, precisely because the record (even as supplemented from Darwin’s time) hasn’t shown what was expected from the theory in this regard.
For my part, while I don’t equate evolutionary theory with gradualism, it seems that the more the fossil record grows and simultaneously continues to require a theory such as Gould’s to reconcile the record with the evolutionary theory regarding new species, the the harder the case becomes for natural causes alone to account for the appearance of new species. Or am I misreading things here?

peelingdragonskin.wordpress.com
RJS (34)
You said I was “misreading” Gould. I am still waiting for your explanation how, based on fossil evidence.
I am talking about fossils. If you don’t want to talk about fossils, that’s fine. I understand. The fossil record poses problems for your theistic evolution presuppositions.
T (36)
Your second paragraph is very well put. I am glad someone here knows something about the actual fossil record.

pds,
The fossil record poses problems for your theistic evolution presuppositions.
Just putting it this way means you don’t get my point – I take a theistic evolution point of view right now because I think that it makes the best sense of the data. If a modified view of evolution is indicated by the data in the future, that is not a problem. It is possible that the data, including fossil evidence, will result in a change in details of the paradigm. This is why I asked how you defined Darwinism. It is quite possible that your definition isn’t even something I would find worth defense. The future may lead us to some new theory or insight we can’t even conceive of today.
What I find troublesome is the leap from “this model isn’t perfect” to “there must be a designer (God).”

RJS (38)
You said I was “misreading” Gould. I am still waiting for your explanation how, based on fossil evidence.
I found that comment quite insulting. I have read a lot of Gould (and also Eldredge, Stanley, and Simon Conway Morris) and I fail to see how quoting him directly is “misreading” him.

RJS (38)
You said I was “misreading” Gould (#32). I am still waiting for your explanation how, based on fossil evidence.

pds,
OK, lets back up a moment – you are misreading Gould when you use his writings as support for “abrupt special creation” where special creation is used in the sense that I had used it in my original comment (#27). (Special creation = independent creation of species) This is what I meant by my comment in 32 – which didn’t deny Gould’s statement or your quote of it at all.
Criticism of any proposed model is a legitimate scientific approach. This is how we move forward.

RJS (#41)-
That is not “misreading Gould.” You are saying I am misusing Gould to support “abrupt special creation.”
You said,
“The only reason to take the view of an abrupt view of special creation (especially young earth, but also forms of old-earth progressive creation) is a literal view of Genesis.”
That is a very strong statement. You are saying that the many Christian scientists who take an “old-earth progressive creation” position have no scientific data to support their position. I find that outrageous, and still do.
I don’t see how we can have a discussion about the other issues with such disagreement about the basics of Fossils 101.

pds,
It would have been more accurate if I had said you appear to be misreading me and misusing Gould.

RJS,
My thanks again for continuing to raise these issues. They need to be discussed in venues like this with Christian experts and lay people in the same conversation, despite the difficulties of doing so.

Prez. Dave (#35) — I still think there is a problem with the way you’re approaching it, and I still think the question is one of natural theology. The evidence in the natural realm for God as creator is the entire natural realm. We shouldn’t expect to find evidence “within” the natural realm for God as creator, because that would indicate some sub-set of creation that provides more evidence, or more highly probabilistic evidence, than the whole of creation. This seems very strange to me — it seems to fracture “creation” into various sub-parts in a way that scripture doesn’t contemplate.
I think testimony of creation as a whole is that there is a creator-God who is orderly, beautiful, awesome, etc. That seems to me what Psalm 19 and Romans 1 are about. And I don’t think this testimony is even “probabilistic” — I think it’s certain, in the sense that it is in reality unimpeachable, except to the mind darkened by sin — as all of our minds are darkened (and indeed, Paul seems to say that no one recognizes it!). It seems to me an enormous mistake to try to identify some sub-set of creation, such as “irreducible complexity,” as “empirical evidence” of “creation” (or more generically, “design”) that is accessible to any rational person (whoever that entirely fictitious person might be!) absent some illumination of the Holy Spirit.
Now, the resurrection is different because it particularly reveals Christ as the victor over sin and death. It demonstrates that there is a new creation that is now breaking into the old. The resurrection by definition reveals radical discontinuity with creation as we experience it. So, it is entirely right to expect that the “evidence” for the resurrection would involve a substantial “break” in the “natural laws”.
Maybe I’d sum it up this way: the continuity of nature is the “evidence” that points to the glory and wisdom of God concerning the present creation; the discontinuity of the resurrection is the “evidence” that points to the new creation.

RJS (43)
I don’t see how I did either of those things, and I don’t think you have demonstrated that I have, but I am not sure this is worth pursuing.

peelingdragonskin.wordpress.com
I would just add one thing. I would encourage thoughtful Christians everywhere to learn something about the fossil record and think hard about these issues and decide for themselves. A good place to start is “Wonderful Life” by Gould. The Cambrian fossils (and animals) filled me with awe and wonder.

As this thread winds down, let me chime in regarding Gould, with what I think RJS was getting at.
It is “misusing” Gould to invoke his work as though it opposes common descent. Gould took a somewhat different view than others of his day with regard to details of the trajectory of evolution, but he absolutely agreed with his fellow scientists that the evidence strongly favored universal common descent (and he wrote before the DNA evidence was as strong as it is today).
A parallel misuse would be somebody arguing against Christianity as a whole by invoking the writing of NT Wright, because Wright has some different views from the traditional Reformed establishment with regard to details of Christian doctrine.
Incidentally, I’d agree with pds that “Wonderful Life” is a good book to read. And I’ll reiterate my recommendation for Darrel Falk’s “Coming to Peace with Science” for a well-written Christian interpretation of the fossil and genetic evidence.

AHH (#48)
But I did not invoke Gould’s theories. I made reference to his summary description of the facts concerning fossil record. Those are simply the facts, and all paleontologists agree on them.
I was trying to make a very simple point. There is scientific evidence to support “abrupt creation” of some kind.
What I found ironic in Wonderful Life is Gould’s contention that Walcott “shoehorned” the evidence to fit his preconceived notions. I think he is right, but I also think Gould does the very same thing by assuming there must be a Darwinian explanation for the stunning appearance of so many phyla in so little time.

“But I did not invoke Gould’s theories. I made reference to his summary description of the facts concerning fossil record. Those are simply the facts, and all paleontologists agree on them.
I was trying to make a very simple point. There is scientific evidence to support “abrupt creation” of some kind.”
Quite a false statement.
pds I have explained to you numerous times why you are incorrect. You do not address the evidence that flatly contradicts yoru claims. You silmply say the contrdictory evidence is “cool.”
Question for you: When was Gold’s statement regarding the fossil record made?
When?
Yes…..I see now. 1977.
Absolutely nothing at all has happened in science since 1977.
Is that really your position?
Are you sure you have any idea of the strength of the fossil record that directly contradicts your assertions?

pds misquotes Gould and concludes:
“The Gould quote is a summary of the fossil record. Gould’s punctuated equilibrium theory was an effort to take a fossil record that on its face was unfriendly to Darwinian theory and “spin” it to make it fit. Maybe he is right. Maybe not. But the fossil record taken at face value is what it is. All paleontologists agree on that.”
Let’s hear from Stephen Gould himself:
“…no biologist has been lead to doubt the fact that evolution occurred; we are debating how it happened. We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy. Creationists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it, and by falsely suggesting that evolutionists now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand.
Faced with these facts of evolution and the philosophical bankruptcy of their own position, creationists rely upon distortion and innuendo to buttress their rhetorical claim. If I sound sharp or bitter, indeed I am?for I have become a major target of these practices.
We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record. Trends, we argued, cannot be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages, but must arise from the different success of certain kinds of species. A trend, we argued, is more like climbing a flight of stairs (punctuated and stasis) than rolling up an inclined plane.
Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists?whether through design or stupidity, I do not know?as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms.
Gould makes several arguemtnsin support of evolution. Argument number 3 is unambiguous:
The third argument is more direct: transitions are often found in the fossil record.
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html

UC (#50)
Did you even read the Gould quote? Show me a paleontologist that disagrees with Gould’s summary. That’s all you have to do.
Are you saying Gould is wrong?
Tiktaalik appears suddenly in the fossil record. You are confirming Gould’s point. He would be grateful.

UC,
I am sorry that Gould was infuriated. But did he ever take back his summary of the facts of the fossil record? No. Because he knew the facts were the facts.
All witnesses get infuriated when their admissions are used against them. His summary is a “statement against interest.” That is why it is so persuasive.
Calling a fossil a “transitional fossil” involves opinion and speculation. And I have never said there are no transitional fossils.

Here is the quote that made Gould so infuriated when it was quoted again and again:
“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persist as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils ?.We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.” – Stephen J. Gould – “Evolution’s Erratic Pace,” Natural History, vol. 86 (May 1987), p. 14.
As far as I know, he never said that he was wrong about these facts. “Inferences” are not facts. Are people not allowed to take his facts and draw different inferences?
The phrase “trade secret of paleontology” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

“Here is the quote that made Gould …”
No, it’s not an accurate quote–see those ellipses?
You didn’t quote Gould accurately because you didn’t consult the original source. Instead, you plagiarzed an inacurate quote from a creationist website.
That’s called “bearing false witness.”
Why don’t you just give us the link to the website where you originally got this “quote?”

UC
Read my comment. I quoted it to show what made Gould so infuriated.
How is my use of it inaccurate? Was Gould not infuriated by it? That is the purpose for which I quoted it.
Are all selective quotes inaccurate? Do you not realize that all quotes are selective?
You are falsely accusing me of “plagiarism” (do you know what that means?) and then accusing me of bearing false witness. Rich.
I won’t expect an apology, since you are “unapolgetic.” Or is it “unaplogetic”? You might want to try spell check on those.

Pds?continues to misrepresent science states thus:
There are no transitional fossils.
Evolution cannot explain the Cambrian era.
And concludes:
?Those are simply the facts, and all paleontologists agree on them.?
He then throws down the gauntlet issuing this bold challenge ?”Show me a paleontologist that disagrees with [psd?s manufactured distortion of Gould's summary set out above]. That’s all you have to do.?
Pds I accept your challenge.
I am going to identify individuals who directly contradict your claims. Before I didentify them, they must meet three requirements. First, they must be Ph.D?s. Second, their Ph.d must be in paleontology.
Third, in honor of Stephen J. Gould-who you blatantly have misrepresented?their first names must be ?Steve.?
Here?s a list of people who meet all three requirements:
St?phane Ducrocq, Ph.D., Paleontology, Montpellier University
Stephen J. Godfrey, Ph.D., Paleontology, McGill University
Curator of Paleontology, Calvert Marine Museum
Steven C. Good, Ph.D., Paleontology, University of Colorado, Boulder
Steve Salisbury, Ph.D., Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, University of New South Wales
Steven M. Stanley, Ph.D., Paleontology, Yale University
Member of the National Academy of Sciences
Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University
Your turn.
Give me the names of three Ph.D.s in paleontology who do not accept universal common descent and who doubt the existence of transitional fossils. You can choose any first name as long as the individual holds Ph.D in paleontology, so your pool of potential candidates could be 26 times bigger than my self imposed limit. You should have no problem if your statements are true

How is my use of it inaccurate?
Because the quote is inaccurate. He wasn’t quoted accurately. I’ll demonstrate below what you did.
Was Gould not infuriated by it?
Yes, he was infuriated by people intentionally misrepresenting what he said.
That is the purpose for which I quoted it.
I know. You just admitted you lied in your very own words. Do you now see how easy it is to manufacture an admission against interest by selective use of words out of context? That’s what your mystery source did.
Are all selective quotes inaccurate?
No, but your was.
Do you not realize that all quotes are selective?
I disagree. It is easy to quote a person to demostrate their true meaning and intent.
I ask again: Which creationist website was the source of your inaccurate “quotation.”

UC
I am sorry you are having such a hard time understanding my comments. Have a great weekend!

I take it you are unwilling to post a link or any other source for your alleged Gould “quotation.”
Accepting yoru challenge, I provided a number of paleontologists PhD’s who reject your claims. I have asked you to “Give me the names of three Ph.D.s in paleontology who do not accept universal common descent and who doubt the existence of transitional fossils.”
You have not done so. You have no scietific support for your factual misrepresentations.
I will be reminding you of your failures to answer my very basic questions when you post in the future.