Mr. Lundahl Finally Openly Admits in Lundahl (2022q) that God Will Break the Laws of Nature
Kevin R. Henke
September 23, 2022
In Henke (2022v), I accuse Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022i) of limiting God’s omnipotence by arguing that God could not violate or break natural laws. In contrast, I stated that an omnipotent God, if he exists, could prefer to act either in accordance with natural law or by violating it through a supernatural action.
Here is how Lundahl (2022q) responds to Henke (2022v):
“Henke (2022v): “Lundahl (2022i) Limits God’s Omnipotence”
To the title : no, I do not. God arguably will be breaking a lot of "natural laws" (or rather causes, described by laws) to the pieces He made them from when making a new heaven and a new earth.”
Finally! Despite the total lack of evidence that the Book of Revelation contains any valid prophecies about a new Heaven, a new Earth or anything else, Mr. Lundahl has finally openly admitted that God could break the causes (laws) of nature if he wants to. However, God’s breaking of natural causes hypothetically does need not to be limited to scrapping the entire system to make a new Heaven and Earth as described in Revelation 21:1. That is, if God exists, he could also temporarily and locally break the causes (laws) to perform a miracle. Earlier in Lundahl (2022q) also admitted:
“An example somewhat more serious than the Pool Game Analogy : there are natural laws that describe what our immune system can do against Hansen's disease, and an instantaneous healing through our immune system is contrary to these laws.” [my emphasis]
Starting with Lundahl (2022a), Mr. Lundahl engaged in all kinds of word playing dodges to avoid admitting that God could violate or act contrary to natural laws if he so desired. For example, in Lundahl (2022a) he tried to describe God “adding to” the laws of nature rather than violating them:
“This was answered by C. S. Lewis in Miracles - a miracle is not a break away from natural physics, chemistry, or biology, but an addition to them.”
In Lundahl (2022i), Mr. Lundahl also engaged in all kinds of semantic gymnastics in an attempt to avoid admitting that God could violate natural laws if he so desired:
“The point is, the clearly extraordinary activity of the clearly supernatural agent achieve these things without breaking any actual law, because no clause in any law of nature describes absence of other factors as always applying, nor, therefore, absence of supernatural ones.”
“I use the historicity of the Gospels (established on other grounds, like first known audience of Gospels taking them to be historic) to prove there is an exception to the ordinary course of events to be explained, and I use an explanation from God's omnipotence not breaking any actual law of nature (established by theoretical example of pool table in steamer, and only then tested on the Gospel story) to prove the purported history is not impossible, that is, to explain it.”
“Yes, and there is no law of movement broken in the former, namely His Omnipotence, it is an agency outside their field of description, but not a result contrary to their essence.”
“What exact law involved in medicine would be broken by such healings?”
“Btw, that is one area in which the presence of Christ would actually make those around Him expect the normal course of events (but not the natural laws) to be very often broken.”
“In miracles, God adds to the agencies usually involved in a process, those being the ones described by natural laws. [new paragraph] Natural consequences of a pre-existing condition, and the laws of nature applicable to them, are not coextensive. There is natural law about natural healing of wounds taking time and after a certain amount of damage has been reached being impossible. They remain applicable to the normal agent of natural healing processes, since the agent actually replacing tissue damaged by either leprosy or the fall from the window (boy raised by St. Paul, in the presence of St. Luke who had seen him dead) is other than the natural agent for healing. Hence, no laws actually broken. But precisely added to.
“Break a piece of bread in two. Watch each half refill the lacking parts, as God's omnipotence makes a creation out of nothing. You have not watched the laws involving bakery to be broken, you have watched an agent other than a baker produce more bread by creation out of nothing. Which therefore is clearly not contradicting the laws of bakery. [new paragraph] Perhaps Mr. Henke is referring to "law of conservation of mass" and "law of conservation of energy" - but each of them was at least apparently broken by nuclear power and by Hiroshima. You can obviously fix this by imagining "mass and energy are the same" or "mass is a species of energy" - but that is very clearly going beyond observational proof.”
So now that Mr. Lundahl admits that God, if he exists, could act contrarily to natural laws, what’s the real difference between God acting contrarily to natural laws and breaking or violating them or their causes? If Mr. Lundahl cannot distinguish between a miracle being contrary to natural law and breaking or violating it, then I will admit that Mr. Lundahl is no longer trying to limit God’s omnipotence.