In my experience, people who are not involved in alleged miraculous events will often throw support behind their veracity, because any dramatic miracle is like a point scored for the cultural group they identify with. While arguably this might have been less the case hundreds of years ago when the cultural hegemony of Christianity meant that there was less value in dramatic evidence for it, I think that the far greater prevalence of dramatic miracle claims from that period suggests that this is not the case. Plus, in those times, the site of any dramatic alleged miracle would often gain a reputation as a holy place, greatly increasing the standing of the location and increasing business through pilgrimage.
More cultural hegemony means more status accruing to people that can credibly claim to have witnessed (or, better yet, been beneficiary of) a miracle, and therefore more coattails to ride. It also means fewer skeptics hanging around to poke holes in your testimony.
More speculatively, it might also mean a greater cultural acceptance of magical thinking, which could make supernatural explanations more salient whenever people are faced with the sort of freakish coincidences that happen a few times in every life by the laws of statistics.
Of course you can speculate on reasons why people would have been likely to make up stories like that, but Christians could also speculate that since the Bible says miracles are worked by faith (“your faith has healed you” etc), one would expect that in places where there is more faith, there will be more miracles. But those times had more faith, so one would expect that they would have more miracles. So theoretically that could be an alternate explanation for why those times had more dramatic miracle claims, however unappealing that explanation might be to you.
This is certainly an argument one could take. However, while the average levels of faith then were certainly much higher, the population now is also much higher, so even if our per-capita rate of dramatic miracles is lower, we have a much larger pool to draw on, and much better documentation.
Also, if we’re comparing hypothetical worlds where Christianity is true or false, I think a scenario where the populace becomes dramatically less faithful over time, to the point that the absolute population with sufficient faith to perform miracles goes down while the total population more than dectuples, is significantly less likely to occur in the world where Christianity is true.
Jesus is said to have said, “Will the Son of Man find faith left on the earth when he returns?” In context this looks like a rhetorical question, with the answer being “no”, at least more or less, even if he did not mean that no one at all would believe. So I don’t see how your second thing is right, since someone seems to have predicted that scenario. It’s true that that is likely to happen if Christianity is false; but apparently it is also likely to happen if it is true.
Regarding the first, Mark 6:4-6 says, “Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.” And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He wondered at their unbelief. ” So it seems that just as faith works miracles, unbelief impedes them, even when there are a few believers around. So even if the population is greater, miracles will not necessarily increase, because of the greater population of unbelievers.
As for better documentation, Thomas Aquinas at least asserts that the reason faith should work miracles is that a person who has faith “merits” in a certain way to prove that faith to himself and others. This means that equal faith should earn equal proofs. But an equal miracle will be more capable of proving things, not equally capable, when you have better documentation; so as documentation improves, the faith you need to work the same miracle will increase, and so the frequency of miracles of a given type will decrease. This also explains why most miracles are not directly visible in a moment; because a miracle like this has too much of a capacity to prove something, in comparison to people’s level of faith.
As I said, such explanations may be unappealing, especially since apparently the consequences are exactly the same whether Christianity is true or false. However, I did not invent those explanations, but they were already presented long ago by the Bible and by Christians (such as Thomas Aquinas).
Jesus is said to have said, “Will the Son of Man find faith left on the earth when he returns?” In context this looks like a rhetorical question, with the answer being “no”, at least more or less, even if he did not mean that no one at all would believe. So I don’t see how your second thing is right, since someone seems to have predicted that scenario. It’s true that that is likely to happen if Christianity is false; but apparently it is also likely to happen if it is true.
First, I don’t think it’s at all clear from the context that the answer is intended to be “no.” Second, Jesus also indicated that some people who knew him in person would still be alive as of the time he returned to earth, so this might be better interpreted as skepticism that his followers can maintain their standards of devotion rather than doubt in the persistence of a long term tradition.
As for better documentation, Thomas Aquinas at least asserts that the reason faith should work miracles is that a person who has faith “merits” in a certain way to prove that faith to himself and others. This means that equal faith should earn equal proofs. But an equal miracle will be more capable of proving things, not equally capable, when you have better documentation; so as documentation improves, the faith you need to work the same miracle will increase, and so the frequency of miracles of a given type will decrease. This also explains why most miracles are not directly visible in a moment; because a miracle like this has too much of a capacity to prove something, in comparison to people’s level of faith.
On the other hand, Jesus himself seems to suggest a simpler model in Luke 11, according to which God answers prayers simply to satisfy those who ask, because he is good.
If unbelief inhibits miracles, then one should be able to create miracles by separating out enclaves of the faithful (and indeed, more religious communities certainly tend to segregate themselves from less religious ones.) But if you go too far down the road of expecting no miracles to occur, then this also means that you can’t update your confidence upwards based on reports of miracles either.
In my experience, people who are not involved in alleged miraculous events will often throw support behind their veracity, because any dramatic miracle is like a point scored for the cultural group they identify with. While arguably this might have been less the case hundreds of years ago when the cultural hegemony of Christianity meant that there was less value in dramatic evidence for it, I think that the far greater prevalence of dramatic miracle claims from that period suggests that this is not the case. Plus, in those times, the site of any dramatic alleged miracle would often gain a reputation as a holy place, greatly increasing the standing of the location and increasing business through pilgrimage.
More cultural hegemony means more status accruing to people that can credibly claim to have witnessed (or, better yet, been beneficiary of) a miracle, and therefore more coattails to ride. It also means fewer skeptics hanging around to poke holes in your testimony.
More speculatively, it might also mean a greater cultural acceptance of magical thinking, which could make supernatural explanations more salient whenever people are faced with the sort of freakish coincidences that happen a few times in every life by the laws of statistics.
Of course you can speculate on reasons why people would have been likely to make up stories like that, but Christians could also speculate that since the Bible says miracles are worked by faith (“your faith has healed you” etc), one would expect that in places where there is more faith, there will be more miracles. But those times had more faith, so one would expect that they would have more miracles. So theoretically that could be an alternate explanation for why those times had more dramatic miracle claims, however unappealing that explanation might be to you.
This is certainly an argument one could take. However, while the average levels of faith then were certainly much higher, the population now is also much higher, so even if our per-capita rate of dramatic miracles is lower, we have a much larger pool to draw on, and much better documentation.
Also, if we’re comparing hypothetical worlds where Christianity is true or false, I think a scenario where the populace becomes dramatically less faithful over time, to the point that the absolute population with sufficient faith to perform miracles goes down while the total population more than dectuples, is significantly less likely to occur in the world where Christianity is true.
Jesus is said to have said, “Will the Son of Man find faith left on the earth when he returns?” In context this looks like a rhetorical question, with the answer being “no”, at least more or less, even if he did not mean that no one at all would believe. So I don’t see how your second thing is right, since someone seems to have predicted that scenario. It’s true that that is likely to happen if Christianity is false; but apparently it is also likely to happen if it is true.
Regarding the first, Mark 6:4-6 says, “Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.” And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He wondered at their unbelief. ” So it seems that just as faith works miracles, unbelief impedes them, even when there are a few believers around. So even if the population is greater, miracles will not necessarily increase, because of the greater population of unbelievers.
As for better documentation, Thomas Aquinas at least asserts that the reason faith should work miracles is that a person who has faith “merits” in a certain way to prove that faith to himself and others. This means that equal faith should earn equal proofs. But an equal miracle will be more capable of proving things, not equally capable, when you have better documentation; so as documentation improves, the faith you need to work the same miracle will increase, and so the frequency of miracles of a given type will decrease. This also explains why most miracles are not directly visible in a moment; because a miracle like this has too much of a capacity to prove something, in comparison to people’s level of faith.
As I said, such explanations may be unappealing, especially since apparently the consequences are exactly the same whether Christianity is true or false. However, I did not invent those explanations, but they were already presented long ago by the Bible and by Christians (such as Thomas Aquinas).
First, I don’t think it’s at all clear from the context that the answer is intended to be “no.” Second, Jesus also indicated that some people who knew him in person would still be alive as of the time he returned to earth, so this might be better interpreted as skepticism that his followers can maintain their standards of devotion rather than doubt in the persistence of a long term tradition.
On the other hand, Jesus himself seems to suggest a simpler model in Luke 11, according to which God answers prayers simply to satisfy those who ask, because he is good.
If unbelief inhibits miracles, then one should be able to create miracles by separating out enclaves of the faithful (and indeed, more religious communities certainly tend to segregate themselves from less religious ones.) But if you go too far down the road of expecting no miracles to occur, then this also means that you can’t update your confidence upwards based on reports of miracles either.