Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: stfassisi

Miracles are meaningless in determining if something is from God.

Satan can counterfeit miracles. People can claim what they want.

I don’t take any more stock in reports of miracles from this incident than I do from reports about healing from Benny Hinn.


627 posted on 11/28/2011 8:58:35 AM PST by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 621 | View Replies ]


To: metmom

By their fruits shall you know them. How many times must our Lord have said, “Your Faith made you whole.” Go and sin no more. It is Holy lives that are the proof of a miracle. It has been said many times that Bernardette was the true miracle of Lourdes.


631 posted on 11/28/2011 12:46:50 PM PST by RobbyS (Viva Christus Rex.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 627 | View Replies ]

To: metmom
Miracles are meaningless in determining if something is from God.

An authentic miracle can only come from God

Satan can counterfeit miracles.

Correct ,he can only counterfit-he can only perform signs ,wonders and illusions ,not perform an authentic miracle.

The late FR John Hardon explains authentic miracles very well

In general a miracle is any effect perceptible by the senses, produced by God which surpasses the powers of nature. Immediately we must explain that there are three levels of natural laws that God can surpass and thus perform a miracle. There are the physical laws of visible nature. Thus the sudden healing of a fatal disease surpasses needless to say the powers of human physical nature. Indeed surpasses the powers of all physical nature. Walking on water is naturally impossible. The raising of a dead human being back to life exceeds all created power, and no one but God with His omnipotence can raise a dead person back to life. And just for the record, physical miracles are the lowest level of miraculous phenomena.

On a higher level than physical miracles is the performance of what the Church calls moral miracles. A moral miracle exceeds the powers of the human will in the practice of superhuman moral virtue. For which the Church has coined the term "heroic moral virtue". This in fact is one of the norms used by the Church in her assessment of authentic sanctity. The lives of saints like Francis of Assisi and Thomas More. The deaths of martyrs like St. Agnes and Maria Goretti. These are witnesses to the miraculous power that Christ has given to His most beloved followers over the centuries. In other words, every canonized saint is a moral miracle. And today's world needs (what a safe statement) men and women and even children who are practicing what the Church calls heroic virtue.

Finally, still on the different levels of miraculous phenomena there are intellectual miracles in which God enlightens the human mind beyond all natural capacity for acquiring knowledge. The most obvious witnesses to this highest level in the time of Christ were (Shall I say it?) the dense thick-headed Apostles. God had to enlighten them, and this is part of our faith - miraculously. However, over the centuries Christ has continued performing these miracles of the intellect. In a St. Augustine of Hippo, and in a St. Therese of Avila, or in a Catherine of Siena. These testify to the power of Christ, the Incarnate Truth, can produce among human beings who believe that He is indeed the Living God in human form.

637 posted on 11/28/2011 4:54:20 PM PST by stfassisi ((The greatest gift God gives us is that of overcoming self"-St Francis Assisi)))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 627 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson