WHY BEWARE THE "MIRACLE" OF GRACE FROM GOD
Grace is a miracle. It is God reaching down to that which can only manage good to a degree to lift them up beyond nature. They become specially and unnaturally good. They become holy. This is based on how all things 100% depend on the consent of God. He even only consents to us doing evil when the evil will dissipate and we will learn from it and a worthwhile good comes about. So it is him standing back to a degree to allow an evil to happen and it only is permitted in a framework that can deal with it and overcome it eventually. It is not consented to as in, "It is good. Do it."
Unpacking that he never really stands back. He lets the evil happen after he sets limits and controls.
Also, don't think that grace lifting you to do unnatural good only means you will do heroic things. No. The doctrine shows a very low opinion of human nature. It refers to you needing a push from God to simply give a euro to a poor person. The idea is you at that time are truly selfish and need rescuing. You need a saviour.
While people pursue dramatic miracles such as signs in the sky, apparitions from heaven, they forget that miracles are really about providing for grace. Christianity soon learned that saying that Jesus rose from the dead is only an interesting feat so then they came up with the notion that it is linked to grace, that personal connection with God that he confers on you. That is what they mean when they say there is no salvation for one who ceases to confess that Jesus rose and is with us intimately body and soul though we do not necessarily sense this. Jesus gets gifts from God that he in turn gives to us. Why Jesus can't live on as a ghost and give us these things is unexplained. That is not surprising for the grace tag is put on as an afterthought.
Creation of all by God without using any material is THE miracle. Grace is part of that. God will create a new self and new heart for you and this is his gift, his grace. If you are evil inside he makes you, yes, but this is something-that-happens rather than a gift. It is what happens when the gift is pushed away.
Outward miracles are really an invitation to us to see that transformation miracle, according to Catholic theology. They are telling you that God can make nature rise above itself and that especially is about you, God causes you to get above the limits of your very being.
We deny that this doctrine is really the beautiful thing it is made out to be. It is degrading and is based on the bigotry of low expectations.
Plus how can miracles such as spinning suns mean anything when we can't really see if God is lifting a person above themselves? They could be trying to make us feel safe with them as if their evil traits are dealt with by God. Too many that have supposedly been transformed soon show that this is not true. All the spinning suns in the world can tell us nothing about the real miracle, the inner transformation where you get a new heart of decency and compassion instead of the heart of stone.
Religion says that God never intended for nature to be inflexible. He was like the charity worker who says money must never be given out to a person with a drug problem and who then finds a case where it would be for the best and then gives out the cash. But it is only guessing that. An exception cannot support the rule unless we know why it is an exception. If a legal law makes exceptions, they can be applied in very very rare circumstances or on an individual case by case basis. But you need to know why so you can keep supporting the law. A law that can just be discarded is not a law at all.
So miracles are attacks on the integrity of science. Far from being a sign of grace they are a sign of how manipulative human nature is.
Miracles are rarely reported
and most of those that are are shown improbable or false. That means that the majority of natures’ regularities are as good as iron-clad.
The atheist only goes a bit further and hold we may assume they all are.
Religion says any natural law at all can be suspended to allow a
miracle to happen. Yet it could be an iron law that no woman
will rise from the dead even if Jesus did. If Jesus rose from
the dead all we can say is that "men do not rise" is not an iron
law. We have to say that in principle everything else might
be. Religion goes too far.
If some or many regularities of nature are as good as iron-clad, then what? If
miracles can happen the finality of the natural way of doing things will not let them happen.
What if you can agree that 999,999 natural regularities never alter and never will but 1 will at least once. Now you face the choice of saying you may as well declare that the 1,000,000 never changes for it makes no real difference or saying that as you don't know what law is really final then science is no good. Miracles are about what you the believer want to think and you dress it up as taking account of science and as being fine with science.
Nothing of miracle or grace speaks of God's love. It speaks
of human hypocrisy.
