Christians attempt to give credibility to miracles such as Jesus walking on water or Jesus giving sight to the blind by saying there were lots of human eyewitnesses. They’ll say these miracles can be understood because they pale in comparison to the larger miracle of God creating the earth and the heavens. But there were no human eyewitnesses to God creating the earth and the heavens - God was the eyewitness. However, if a Christian can accept God as an eyewitness to that event, then why is it necessary to identify man as an eyewitness to things like Jesus walking on water or Jesus giving sight to the blind when God would have witnessed these events?
I’d say an appeal to the testimony of eye-witnesses is a poor grounding for any faith. Conversion occurs when you see the light (consider Paul’s convesion on the way to Damascus), not when you trust the reports of others.
Can you elaborate on your usage of the term “see the light”?
I mean coming to believe that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
It’s not a matter of believing that Jesus actually turned water into wine or rescusitated the dead (as if scripture is a record of historical fact), or as per your other post that the world was created 6000 years ago (a timeline presumably based on the genealogies provided in scripture, which again isn’t history).
Instead, picture it as an intellectual realization of the sense of a proposition, where in this case the proposition is the creative and restorative power of Christ.
Read Hume on miracles. By definition miracles are impossible.
Perhaps a distinction needs to be made between simply impossible and the impossible. Turning water into wine is simply impossible. As is resuscitating the dead.
We cannot do what is simply impossible, but the impossible is simply a matter of shattering all horizons of expectation.
Jesus doesn’t do what is simply impossible; he does the impossible. He forgives his torturers as they torture him. He loves his enemies. He goes out to teach and heal with nothing to keep himself, trusting others will keep him. Such actions shatter all horizons of expectation, and as such are miracles.
(This would be along the lines of postmodern-Catholic philosopher John Caputo.)
Can one “come to believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life” without believing in the creation theory?
If “miracles” are impossible and Jesus did walk on water, then by definition, Jesus walking on water wasn’t a miracle.
How can you be sure everything Jesus did wasn’t just a put-on? After all, from the viewpoint of a Christian, he was God and therefore could have done anything.
So we should ask, when he was being tortured, how can we be sure he didn’t turn off the “pain switch”?
Again, it’s about the creative and restorative power of God/Christ, not the historical truth of any scripture…
In the creation narrative (Genesis 1) we receive an ambiguous display of God’s exercise of power. In the gospels and other scriptures we receive a more fleshed out version. It’s a matter of taking these revelations and, through the light of reason, seeing their truth. Not their historical truth, but again, the truth of the creative and restorative power of God/Christ.
How does God/Christ excercise power in scripture? Is God/Christ’s power creative/restorative?..
I don’t even know/care whether there was a real Jesus who really died on the cross. If the account scripture provides doesn’t have an ounce of historical truth, or misses out on certain aspects of this truth, it doesn’t thereby lose all (or perhaps even any) significance. To say otherwise would be, for example, to say Shakespeare’s plays are worthless. Or that reading Homer is a waste of time.
If you believe in a perfect reason you believe in something that transcends history. The same is true with scripture. It may be loosely based in history, but what it’s trying to express goes beyond history.
So if I understand that part of what you said, one can believe in Jesus without accepting the creation theory? Am I correct?
First you say this has nothing to do with historical truths then you say this has to do with the creative power of God. If God created the earth, then that’s a historical truth. Can you please elaborate and/or clarify?
I don’t even know/care whether there was a real Jesus who really died on the cross. If the account scripture provides doesn’t have an ounce of historical truth, or misses out on certain aspects of this truth, it doesn’t thereby lose all (or perhaps even any) significance. To say otherwise would be, for example, to say Shakespeare’s plays are worthless. Or that reading Homer is a waste of time.
If you believe in a perfect reason you believe in something that transcends history. The same is true with scripture. It may be loosely based in history, but what it’s trying to express goes beyond history.
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That doesn’t quite answer of how we can be sure he didn’t turn off the “pain switch”?
Nope.
Miracles are by definition, at least it’s true definition, something which goes against the laws of nature. Therefore to walk on water would contravene physics and hence be a miracle. But… if a person does walk on water, then it must be physically possible to do so, therefore the act is not outside of the laws of nature.
Brief outline of Hume’s arguement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Miracles - Wiki I know, but hey, it’s late!
In all my years around and in Christianity, I’ve never heard anyone stand on this reason for evidence of the miracles of Jesus.
If by “creation theory” you mean the world was made in 6 days 6000 years ago by some omnipotent creator being called God wielding cosmic forces, then yes, I think one can believe in Jesus without accepting the creation theory.
But if by “creation theory” you mean a more nuanced reading of Genesis 1, then I could very well accept it… Put it this way: I love Genesis 1, but I have little care for creationism…
Put it this way; I don’t think there is a being called God who created the world. But I am inclined to say that God is love, and that as love God becomes an ontological category and has the capability of creating and restoring beings, like you and I and everyone else in the world. Have you studied much continental philosophy, i.e., Heidegger? He distinguishes between beings, like you and I, and Being, which is the condition of possibility for beings like you and I. In other words, there is being as noun, i.e., entities, and Being as verb, i.e., “to be”.
God as a being, i.e., a noun, i.e., an entity like you and I, is rooted in Aristotilean metaphysics with its unmoved mover at the bottom of it all. God as Being, i.e., as verb, i.e., not an entity like you and I but the condition of possibility for beings like you and I, would be closer to what I would mean by God…
So I would want to say that God/love is Being, i.e., the condition of possibility for beings.
Genesis 1 is a story that shows God, i.e., love, i.e., the condition of possibility for beings, at work. It reveals a power at work in the world that is both creative and restorative, and insofar as this is historical, then it is historical. I just don’t want to elevate the narrative of Genesis 1 to historical truth… i.e., 6000 years ago God actually said “Let there be light”…
I guess my point was, where does such questioning get us? We could ask endless questions of this variety… If Jesus did have a “pain switch”, and felt no pain during his torture, what would it change? Would it change what he taught us? Would his message be worth any less?
What do you mean by “transcends history” and “goes beyond history”?
Very well said. 
If you believe God is love, then why use the term ‘God’ when the term ‘love’ is more universally understood?
If Jesus was God, he could have turned off the pain switch, meaning while he may appeared to have been suffering, he actually might not have been feeling any pain at all.