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145-705: Informally, English-speakers often use the word miracle to characterise any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws of nature , such as surviving a natural disaster , or simply a "wonderful" occurrence, regardless of likelihood (e.g. "the miracle of childbirth"). Some coincidences may be seen as miracles. A true miracle would, by definition, be a non-natural phenomenon, leading many writers to dismiss miracles as physically impossible (that is, requiring violation of established laws of physics within their domain of validity) or impossible to confirm by their nature (because all possible physical mechanisms can never be ruled out). The former position

290-481: A human nature and a divine nature can co-exist in one person. The study of the inter-relationship of these two natures is one of the preoccupations of the majority tradition. Teachings about Jesus and testimonies about what he accomplished during his three-year public ministry are found throughout the New Testament . Core biblical teachings about the person of Jesus Christ may be summarized that Jesus Christ

435-579: A physical system under repeated conditions, and it implies that there is a causal relationship involving the elements of the system. Factual and well-confirmed statements like "Mercury is liquid at standard temperature and pressure" are considered too specific to qualify as scientific laws. A central problem in the philosophy of science , going back to David Hume , is that of distinguishing causal relationships (such as those implied by laws) from principles that arise due to constant conjunction . Laws differ from scientific theories in that they do not posit

580-430: A system of theological thought is the development of a method, one which can apply both broadly and particularly. Christian systematic theology will typically explore: Revelation is the revealing or disclosing, or making something obvious through active or passive communication with God, and can originate directly from God or through an agent, such as an angel . A person recognised as having experienced such contact

725-601: A benefit without doing the work necessary to merit it. Miracles continue to be occasionally reported in the practice of Hinduism, with an example of a miracle modernly reported in Hinduism being the Hindu milk miracle of September 1995, with additional occurrences in 2006 and 2010, wherein statues of certain Hindu deities were seen to drink milk offered to them. The scientific explanation for the incident, attested by Indian academics,

870-471: A cause immediately available. Rather the miracle is for combating the ignorance it entails, like a political project. According to the philosopher David Hume , a miracle is "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent". The crux of his argument is this: "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such

1015-613: A collection of Buddhist miracle stories. Miracles play an important role in the veneration of Buddhist relics in Southern Asia. Thus, Somawathie Stupa in Sri Lanka is an increasingly popular site of pilgrimage and tourist destination thanks to multiple reports about miraculous rays of light, apparitions and modern legends , which often have been fixed in photographs and movies. The gospels record three sorts of miracles performed by Jesus: exorcisms , cures, and natural wonders. In

1160-513: A different country decades after having left school, they may consider this miraculous . However, a colossal number of events happen every moment on Earth; thus, extremely unlikely coincidences also happen every moment. Events considered impossible are therefore not so – they are just increasingly rare and dependent on the number of individual events. British mathematician J. E. Littlewood suggested that individuals should statistically expect one-in-a-million events to happen to them at

1305-503: A discipline of Christian theology formulates an orderly, rational and coherent account of Christian faith and beliefs. Systematic theology draws on the foundational sacred texts of Christianity, while simultaneously investigating the development of Christian doctrine throughout history, particularly through the ecumenical councils of the early church (such as the First Council of Nicea ) and philosophical evolution. Inherent to

1450-809: A famous proclamation of faith among Christians since the 1st century, said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Most Christians now wait for the Second Coming of Christ when they believe he will fulfill the remaining Messianic prophecies . Christ is the English term for the Greek Χριστός ( Khristós ) meaning " the anointed one ". It is a translation of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ ‎ ( Māšîaḥ ), usually transliterated into English as Messiah . The word

1595-517: A fever which could be cured naturally, and it may rain independently of the working of the principles of nature. For a majority of Evangelical Christians, biblicism ensures that the miracles described in the Bible are still relevant and may be present in the life of the believer. Healings, academic or professional successes, the birth of a child after several attempts, the end of an addiction , etc., would be tangible examples of God's intervention with

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1740-658: A head over the persons of the Godhead and their relationship with one another. Christology was a fundamental concern from the First Council of Nicaea (325) until the Third Council of Constantinople (680). In this time period, the Christological views of various groups within the broader Christian community led to accusations of heresy , and, infrequently, subsequent religious persecution . In some cases,

1885-442: A kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact which it endeavours to establish." By Hume's definition, a miracle goes against our regular experience of how the universe works. As miracles are single events, the evidence for them is always limited and we experience them rarely. On the basis of experience and evidence, the probability that miracle occurred is always less than the probability that it did not occur. As it

2030-639: A lame buttermilk vendor, and the rescue of Portuguese sailors from a violent sea storm. In addition to these, the Catholic Church attributes miraculous causes to many otherwise inexplicable phenomena on a case-by-case basis. Only after all other possible explanations have been asserted to be inadequate will the church assume divine intervention and declare the miracle worthy of veneration by their followers. The church does not, however, enjoin belief in any extra-Scriptural miracle as an article of faith or as necessary for salvation . Thomas Aquinas ,

2175-420: A law or theory from facts. Calling a law a fact is ambiguous , an overstatement , or an equivocation . The nature of scientific laws has been much discussed in philosophy , but in essence scientific laws are simply empirical conclusions reached by scientific method; they are intended to be neither laden with ontological commitments nor statements of logical absolutes . A scientific law always applies to

2320-476: A mechanism or explanation of phenomena: they are merely distillations of the results of repeated observation. As such, the applicability of a law is limited to circumstances resembling those already observed, and the law may be found to be false when extrapolated. Ohm's law only applies to linear networks; Newton's law of universal gravitation only applies in weak gravitational fields; the early laws of aerodynamics , such as Bernoulli's principle , do not apply in

2465-763: A miracle as "a less common kind of God 's activity in which he arouses people's awe and wonder and bears witness to himself." A deistic perspective of God's relation to the world defines a miracle as a direct intervention of God into the world. A miracle may be false information or simply a fictional story, rather than something that truly happened. A miracle experience may be due to cognitive errors (e.g. overthinking , jumping to conclusions ) or psychological errors (e.g. hallucinations ) of witnesses . Use of some drugs such as psychedelics (e.g. ecstasy ) may produce similar effects to religious experiences . Statistically improbable events are sometimes called miracles. For instance, when three classmates coincidentally meet in

2610-469: A miracle as a transgression of a law of nature, but Kierkegaard, writing as his pseudonym Johannes Climacus , regards any historical reports to be less than certain, including historical reports of miracles, as all historical knowledge is always doubtful and open to approximation. James Keller states that the "claim that God has worked a miracle implies that God has singled out certain persons for some benefit which many others do not receive implies that God

2755-455: A miraculous sign in heaven is a prominent fourth-century example. Since the Age of Enlightenment , miracles have often needed to be rationalized: C.S. Lewis , Norman Geisler , William Lane Craig , and other 20th-century Christians have argued that miracles are reasonable and plausible. For example, Lewis said that a miracle is something that comes totally out of the blue. If for thousands of years

2900-426: A particular phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions be present". The production of a summary description of our environment in the form of such laws is a fundamental aim of science . Several general properties of scientific laws, particularly when referring to laws in physics , have been identified. Scientific laws are: The term "scientific law" is traditionally associated with the natural sciences , though

3045-492: A point of reference for all other Christologies. Most of the major branches of Christianity— Catholicism , Eastern Orthodoxy , Anglicanism , Lutheranism , and Reformed —subscribe to the Chalcedonian Christological formulation, while many branches of Eastern Christianity— Syrian Orthodoxy , Assyrian Church , Coptic Orthodoxy , Ethiopian Orthodoxy , and Armenian Apostolicism —reject it. According to

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3190-430: A point; hence the rate of change of density in a region of space must be the amount of flux leaving or collecting in some region (see the main article for details). In the table below, the fluxes flows for various physical quantities in transport, and their associated continuity equations, are collected for comparison. u = velocity field of fluid (m s ) Ψ = wavefunction of quantum system More general equations are

3335-488: A prominent Doctor of the Church , divided miracles into three types in his Summa contra Gentiles : Things that are at times divinely accomplished, apart from the generally established order in things, are customarily called miracles; for we admire with some astonishment a certain event when we observe the effect but do not know its cause. And since one and the same cause is at times known to some people and unknown to others,

3480-477: A sect's unique Christology is its chief distinctive feature, in these cases it is common for the sect to be known by the name given to its Christology. The decisions made at First Council of Nicaea and re-ratified at the First Council of Constantinople , after several decades of ongoing controversy during which the work of Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers were influential. The language used

3625-403: A series of improving and more precise generalizations. Scientific laws are typically conclusions based on repeated scientific experiments and observations over many years and which have become accepted universally within the scientific community . A scientific law is " inferred from particular facts, applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena , and expressible by the statement that

3770-491: A thing that has a completely hidden cause is wondrous in an unqualified way, and this the name, miracle, suggests; namely, what is of itself filled with admirable wonder, not simply in relation to one person or another. Now, absolutely speaking, the cause hidden from every man is God. In fact, we proved above that no man in the present state of life can grasp His essence intellectually. Therefore, those things must properly be called miraculous which are done by divine power apart from

3915-495: A very short time span. They could also produce food and rain in seasons of drought, heal the sick and help barren women conceive. Descriptions of miracles (Hebrew Ness, נס ) appear in the Tanakh . Examples include prophets, such as Elijah who performed miracles like the raising of a widow's dead son (1 Kings 17:17–24) and Elisha whose miracles include multiplying the poor widow's jar of oil (2 Kings 4:1–7) and restoring to life

4060-856: A woman can become pregnant only by sexual intercourse with a man, then if she were to become pregnant without a man, it would be a miracle. Others argue that Jesus's healing miracles dealt with conversion and somatization disorders , could manifest as blindness , paralysis etc. In a Mediterranean context, healing was also defined as restoring a person's social standing. Some diseases, like leprosy , caused immense social stigma. There have been numerous claims of miracles by people of most Christian denominations, including but not limited to faith healings and exorcisms. Miracle reports are especially prevalent in Roman Catholicism and Pentecostal or Charismatic churches. The Catholic Church believes miracles are works of God , either directly, or through

4205-637: Is "eternally begotten of the Father", indicating that their divine Father-Son relationship is not tied to an event within time or human history. In Christianity , the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is one being who exists, simultaneously and eternally , as a mutual indwelling of three Persons: the Father, the Son (incarnate as Jesus), and the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost). Since earliest Christianity, one's salvation has been very closely related to

4350-418: Is a combination of extensive evidence of something not occurring, combined with an underlying theory , very successful in making predictions, whose assumptions lead logically to the conclusion that something is impossible. While an impossibility assertion in natural science can never be absolutely proved, it could be refuted by the observation of a single counterexample . Such a counterexample would require that

4495-467: Is a consequence of the shift symmetry of time (no moment of time is different from any other), while conservation of momentum is a consequence of the symmetry (homogeneity) of space (no place in space is special, or different from any other). The indistinguishability of all particles of each fundamental type (say, electrons, or photons) results in the Dirac and Bose quantum statistics which in turn result in

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4640-426: Is a further concept of infallibility, by suggesting that current biblical text is complete and without error, and that the integrity of biblical text has never been corrupted or degraded. Historians note, or claim, that the doctrine of the Bible's infallibility was adopted hundreds of years after the books of the Bible were written. The authority of the Bible can also be linked to the principle of sola scriptura ,

4785-533: Is a trinity in God's single being, the meaning of which has always been debated. This mysterious "Trinity" has been described as hypostases in the Greek language ( subsistences in Latin ), and "persons" in English. Nonetheless, Christians stress that they only believe in one God. Most Christian churches teach the Trinity, as opposed to Unitarian monotheistic beliefs. Historically, most Christian churches have taught that

4930-629: Is an event described by those to whom it was told by people who did not see it." Laws of science Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations , that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena . The term law has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) across all fields of natural science ( physics , chemistry , astronomy , geoscience , biology ). Laws are developed from data and can be further developed through mathematics ; in all cases they are directly or indirectly based on empirical evidence . It

5075-450: Is called "Father" in a more literal sense, besides being the creator and nurturer of creation, and the provider for his children. The Father is said to be in unique relationship with his only begotten ( monogenes ) son, Jesus Christ , which implies an exclusive and intimate familiarity: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." In Christianity, God

5220-409: Is expressed (for instance) by Thomas Jefferson , and the latter by David Hume . Theologians typically say that, with divine providence , God regularly works through nature yet, as a creator , may work without, above, or against it as well. The word miracle is usually used to describe any beneficial event that is physically impossible or impossible to confirm by nature. Wayne Grudem defines

5365-418: Is generally understood that they implicitly reflect, though they do not explicitly assert, causal relationships fundamental to reality, and are discovered rather than invented. Scientific laws summarize the results of experiments or observations, usually within a certain range of application. In general, the accuracy of a law does not change when a new theory of the relevant phenomenon is worked out, but rather

5510-555: Is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable ..." Here St. Paul is referring to the Old Testament, since the scriptures have been known by Timothy from "infancy" (verse 15). Others offer an alternative reading for the passage; for example, theologian C. H. Dodd suggests that it "is probably to be rendered" as: "Every inspired scripture is also useful..." A similar translation appears in the New English Bible , in

5655-650: Is often called a prophet . Christianity generally considers the Bible as divinely or supernaturally revealed or inspired. Such revelation does not always require the presence of God or an angel. For instance, in the concept which Catholics call interior locution , supernatural revelation can include just an inner voice heard by the recipient. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) first described two types of revelation in Christianity: general revelation and special revelation . The Bible contains many passages in which

5800-717: Is often misunderstood to be the surname of Jesus due to the numerous mentions of Jesus Christ in the Christian Bible . The word is in fact used as a title , hence its common reciprocal use Christ Jesus , meaning Jesus the Anointed One or Jesus the Messiah. Followers of Jesus became known as Christians because they believed that Jesus was the Christ, or Messiah, prophesied about in the Old Testament , or Tanakh . The Christological controversies came to

5945-505: Is one of the main goals of science. The fact that laws have never been observed to be violated does not preclude testing them at increased accuracy or in new kinds of conditions to confirm whether they continue to hold, or whether they break, and what can be discovered in the process. It is always possible for laws to be invalidated or proven to have limitations, by repeatable experimental evidence, should any be observed. Well-established laws have indeed been invalidated in some special cases, but

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6090-503: Is rational to believe what is more probable, we are not supposed to have a good reason to believe that a miracle occurred. According to the Christian theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher "every event, even the most natural and usual, becomes a miracle as soon as the religious view of it can be the dominant". The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard , following Hume and Johann Georg Hamann , a Humean scholar, agrees with Hume's definition of

6235-571: Is the creator and preserver of the universe . God is the sole ultimate power in the universe but is distinct from it. The Bible never speaks of God as impersonal. Instead, it refers to him in personal terms – who speaks, sees, hears, acts, and loves. God is understood to have a will and personality and is an all powerful , divine and benevolent being. He is represented in Scripture as being primarily concerned with people and their salvation. Many Reformed theologians distinguish between

6380-722: Is the essence of eternal life . God the Son is the second person of the Trinity in Christian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity identifies Jesus of Nazareth as God the Son, united in essence but distinct in person with regard to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit (the first and third persons of the Trinity). God the Son is co-eternal with God the Father (and the Holy Spirit), both before Creation and after

6525-425: Is the mathematical consequence of the 3-dimensionality of space . One strategy in the search for the most fundamental laws of nature is to search for the most general mathematical symmetry group that can be applied to the fundamental interactions. Conservation laws are fundamental laws that follow from the homogeneity of space, time and phase , in other words symmetry . Conservation laws can be expressed using

6670-579: Is unfair." According to a 2011 poll by the Pew Research Center, more than 90 percent of evangelical Christians believe miracles still take place. While Christians see God as sometimes intervening in human activities, Muslims see Allah as a direct cause of all events. "God's overwhelming closeness makes it easy for Muslims to admit the miraculous in the world." The Haedong Kosung-jon of Korea (Biographies of High Monks) records that King Beopheung of Silla had desired to promulgate Buddhism as

6815-612: The Angel of the Lord spoke to the Patriarchs, revealing God to them, some believe it has always been only through the Spirit of God granting them understanding, that men have been able to perceive later that God himself had visited them. This belief gradually developed into the modern formulation of the Trinity , which is the doctrine that God is a single entity ( Yahweh ), but that there

6960-564: The Father , the Son ( Jesus Christ the Logos ), and the Holy Spirit . The Trinitarian doctrine is considered by most Christians to be a core tenet of their faith. Nontrinitarians typically hold that God, the Father, is supreme; that Jesus, although still divine Lord and Saviour, is the Son of God ; and that the Holy Spirit is a phenomenon akin to God's will on Earth. The holy three are separate, yet

7105-651: The Gospel of John , the miracles are referred to as "signs" and the emphasis is on God demonstrating his underlying normal activity in remarkable ways. In the New Testament, the greatest miracle is the resurrection of Jesus , the event central to Christian faith. Jesus explains in the New Testament that miracles are performed by faith in God. "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'move from here to there' and it will move." ( Gospel of Matthew 17:20). After Jesus returned to heaven,

7250-513: The Incarnation , the relationship of Jesus's nature and person with the nature and person of God, and the salvific work of Jesus. As such, Christology is generally less concerned with the details of Jesus's life (what he did) or teaching than with who or what he is. There have been and are various perspectives by those who claim to be his followers since the church began after his ascension. The controversies ultimately focused on whether and how

7395-510: The Pauli exclusion principle for fermions and in Bose–Einstein condensation for bosons . Special relativity uses rapidity to express motion according to the symmetries of hyperbolic rotation , a transformation mixing space and time. Symmetry between inertial and gravitational mass results in general relativity . The inverse square law of interactions mediated by massless bosons

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7540-615: The Revised English Bible , and (as a footnoted alternative) in the New Revised Standard Version . The Latin Vulgate can be so read. Yet others defend the "traditional" interpretation; Daniel B. Wallace calls the alternative "probably not the best translation." Some modern English versions of the Bible renders theopneustos with "God-breathed" ( NIV ) or "breathed out by God" ( ESV ), avoiding

7685-401: The Son of God through incarnation . The exact phrase "God the Son" is not in the New Testament. Later theological use of this expression reflects what came to be standard interpretation of New Testament references, understood to imply Jesus's divinity, but the distinction of his person from that of the one God he called his Father. As such, the title is associated more with the development of

7830-488: The communicable attributes (those that human beings can also have) and the incommunicable attributes (those which belong to God alone). Some attributes ascribed to God in Christian theology are: Some Christians believe that the God worshiped by the Hebrew people of the pre-Christian era had always revealed himself as he did through Jesus ; but that this was never obvious until Jesus was born (see John 1 ). Also, though

7975-459: The convection–diffusion equation and Boltzmann transport equation , which have their roots in the continuity equation. Classical mechanics, including Newton's laws , Lagrange's equations , Hamilton's equations , etc., can be derived from the following principle: where S {\displaystyle {\mathcal {S}}} is the action ; the integral of the Lagrangian of

8120-475: The faith and prayer , by the Holy Spirit . In the 1980s, the neo-charismatic movement re-emphasized miracles and faith healing . In certain churches, a special place is thus reserved for faith healings with laying on of hands during worship services or for campaigns evangelization. Faith healing or divine healing is considered to be an inheritance of Jesus acquired by his death and resurrection. In Hinduism, miracles are focused on episodes of liberation of

8265-950: The law of conservation of energy can be written as Δ E = 0 {\displaystyle \Delta E=0} , where E {\displaystyle E} is the total amount of energy in the universe. Similarly, the first law of thermodynamics can be written as d U = δ Q − δ W {\displaystyle \mathrm {d} U=\delta Q-\delta W\,} , and Newton's second law can be written as F = d p d t . {\displaystyle \textstyle F={\frac {dp}{dt}}.} While these scientific laws explain what our senses perceive, they are still empirical (acquired by observation or scientific experiment) and so are not like mathematical theorems which can be proved purely by mathematics. Like theories and hypotheses, laws make predictions; specifically, they predict that new observations will conform to

8410-658: The shirayim (the leftovers from the rebbe 's meal), such as miraculous healing or blessings of wealth or piety. Thomas Paine , one of the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution , wrote "All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe." Thomas Jefferson , principal author of the Declaration of Independence of

8555-453: The social sciences also contain laws. For example, Zipf's law is a law in the social sciences which is based on mathematical statistics . In these cases, laws may describe general trends or expected behaviors rather than being absolutes. In natural science, impossibility assertions come to be widely accepted as overwhelmingly probable rather than considered proved to the point of being unchallengeable. The basis for this strong acceptance

8700-474: The (more famous) mass–energy equivalence E = mc is a special case. General relativity is governed by the Einstein field equations , which describe the curvature of space-time due to mass–energy equivalent to the gravitational field. Solving the equation for the geometry of space warped due to the mass distribution gives the metric tensor . Using the geodesic equation, the motion of masses falling along

8845-571: The 16th-century Protestant Reformation certain reformers proposed different canonical lists of the Old Testament. The texts which appear in the Septuagint but not in the Jewish canon fell out of favor, and eventually disappeared from Protestant canons. Catholic Bibles classify these texts as deuterocanonical books, whereas Protestant contexts label them as the Apocrypha . In Christianity , God

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8990-514: The 27-book canon of the New Testament that all use). A definitive list did not come from any early ecumenical council . Around 400, Jerome produced the Vulgate , a definitive Latin edition of the Bible, the contents of which, at the insistence of the Bishop of Rome , accorded with the decisions of the earlier synods. This process effectively set the New Testament canon, although examples exist of other canonical lists in use after this time. During

9135-533: The 2nd, zero resultant acceleration): where p = momentum of body, F ij = force on body i by body j , F ji = force on body j by body i . For a dynamical system the two equations (effectively) combine into one: in which F E = resultant external force (due to any agent not part of system). Body i does not exert a force on itself. From the above, any equation of motion in classical mechanics can be derived. Equations describing fluid flow in various situations can be derived, using

9280-597: The 3rd century, Tertullian claimed that God exists as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—the three personae of one and the same substance. To trinitarian Christians God the Father is not at all a separate god from God the Son (of whom Jesus is the incarnation) and the Holy Spirit, the other hypostases (Persons) of the Christian Godhead . According to the Nicene Creed, the Son (Jesus Christ)

9425-398: The Bible cannot both refer to itself as being divinely inspired and also be errant or fallible. For if the Bible were divinely inspired, then the source of inspiration being divine, would not be subject to fallibility or error in that which is produced. For them, the doctrines of the divine inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy, are inseparably tied together. The idea of biblical integrity

9570-428: The Bible than his Father, had to be a secondary, lesser, and therefore distinct god. For Jews and Muslims , the idea of God as a trinity is heretical – it is considered akin to polytheism . Christians overwhelmingly assert that monotheism is central to the Christian faith, as the very Nicene Creed (among others) which gives the orthodox Christian definition of the Trinity does begin with: "I believe in one God". In

9715-632: The Bible, the second Person of the Trinity, because of his eternal relation to the first Person (God as Father), is the Son of God . He is considered (by Trinitarians) to be coequal with the Father and Holy Spirit. He is all God and all human : the Son of God as to his divine nature, while as to his human nature he is from the lineage of David. The core of Jesus's self-interpretation was his "filial consciousness", his relationship to God as child to parent in some unique sense (see Filioque controversy). His mission on earth proved to be that of enabling people to know God as their Father, which Christians believe

9860-451: The Book of Acts records the disciples of Jesus praying to God to grant that miracles be done in his name for the purpose of convincing onlookers that he is alive. ( Acts 4:29–31). Other passages mention false prophets who will be able to perform miracles to deceive "if possible, even the elect of Christ" (Matthew 24:24). 2 Thessalonians 2:9 says, "And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom

10005-478: The Christian best and most particularly advertised its miracles by driving out of spirits and laying on of hands ". The Gospel of John is structured around miraculous "signs": The success of the Apostles according to the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea lay in their miracles: "though laymen in their language", he asserted, "they drew courage from divine, miraculous powers". The conversion of Constantine by

10150-460: The End (see Eschatology ). So Jesus was always "God the Son", though not revealed as such until he also became the "Son of God" through incarnation . "Son of God" draws attention to his humanity, whereas "God the Son" refers more generally to his divinity, including his pre-incarnate existence. So, in Christian theology, Jesus was always God the Son, though not revealed as such until he also became

10295-475: The Father has a special role in his relationship with the person of the Son, where Jesus is believed to be his Son and his heir. According to the Nicene Creed , the Son (Jesus Christ) is "eternally begotten of the Father", indicating that their divine Father-Son relationship is not tied to an event within time or human history. See Christology . The Bible refers to Christ, called " The Word " as present at

10440-453: The Father's relationship with humanity is as a father to children—in a previously unheard-of sense—and not just as the creator and nurturer of creation, and the provider for his children, his people. Thus, humans, in general, are sometimes called children of God . To Christians, God the Father's relationship with humanity is that of Creator and created beings, and in that respect he is the father of all. The New Testament says, in this sense, that

10585-495: The Galilean transformations for low velocities much less than the speed of light c . The magnitudes of 4-vectors are invariants – not "conserved", but the same for all inertial frames (i.e. every observer in an inertial frame will agree on the same value), in particular if A is the four-momentum , the magnitude can derive the famous invariant equation for mass–energy and momentum conservation (see invariant mass ): in which

10730-578: The LORD" (for example, 1 Kgs 12:22–24;1 Chr 17:3–4; Jer 35:13; Ezek 2:4; Zech 7:9 ; etc.). The Second Epistle of Peter claims that "no prophecy of Scripture ... was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" The Second Epistle of Peter also implies that Paul's writings are inspired ( 2 Pet 3:16 ). Many Christians cite a verse in Paul's letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy 3:16–17, as evidence that "all scripture

10875-480: The Lagrangian, is required (in other words it is not as simple as "differentiating a function and setting it to zero, then solving the equations to find the points of maxima and minima etc", rather this idea is applied to the entire "shape" of the function, see calculus of variations for more details on this procedure). Notice L is not the total energy E of the system due to the difference, rather than

11020-501: The Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the Truth, that they might be saved." Revelation 13:13,14 says, "And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on

11165-581: The Lorentz transformation). Similarly, the Newtonian gravitation law is a low-mass approximation of general relativity, and Coulomb's law is an approximation to quantum electrodynamics at large distances (compared to the range of weak interactions). In such cases it is common to use the simpler, approximate versions of the laws, instead of the more accurate general laws. Laws are constantly being tested experimentally to increasing degrees of precision, which

11310-428: The Son and the Holy Spirit are still seen as originating from God the Father. The New Testament does not have the term "Trinity" and nowhere discusses the Trinity as such. Some emphasize, however, that the New Testament does repeatedly speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to "compel a trinitarian understanding of God." The doctrine developed from the biblical language used in New Testament passages such as

11455-510: The Trinity teaches the unity of Father , Son , and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead . The doctrine states that God is the Triune God, existing as three persons , or in the Greek hypostases , but one being. Personhood in the Trinity does not match the common Western understanding of "person" as used in the English language—it does not imply an "individual, self-actualized center of free will and conscious activity." To

11600-696: The Trinity, is a mark of Catholicism , Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy as well as other prominent Christian sects arising from the Protestant Reformation , such as Anglicanism , Methodism , Lutheranism , Baptist , and Presbyterianism . The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church describes the Trinity as "the central dogma of Christian theology". This doctrine contrasts with Nontrinitarian positions which include Unitarianism , Oneness and Modalism . A small minority of Christians hold non-trinitarian views, largely coming under

11745-623: The United States , edited a version of the Bible in which he removed sections of the New Testament containing supernatural aspects as well as perceived misinterpretations he believed had been added by the Four Evangelists. Jefferson wrote, "The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems, [footnote: e.g. The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification,

11890-664: The above classical equations of motion and often conservation of mass, energy and momentum. Some elementary examples follow. Some of the more famous laws of nature are found in Isaac Newton 's theories of (now) classical mechanics , presented in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica , and in Albert Einstein 's theory of relativity . The two postulates of special relativity are not "laws" in themselves, but assumptions of their nature in terms of relative motion . They can be stated as "the laws of physics are

12035-576: The accident of heaviness for as long as the soil was to fall. For Muslim theologians, the laws of nature were only the customary sequence of apparent causes: customs of God. Sufi biographical literature records claims of miraculous accounts of men and women. The miraculous prowess of the Sufi holy men includes firasa ( clairvoyance ), the ability to disappear from sight, to become completely invisible and practice buruz ( exteriorization ). The holy men reportedly tame wild beasts and traverse long distances in

12180-401: The ancients, personhood "was in some sense individual, but always in community as well." Each person is understood as having the one identical essence or nature, not merely similar natures. Since the beginning of the 3rd century the doctrine of the Trinity has been stated as "the one God exists in three Persons and one substance , Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." Trinitarianism, belief in

12325-436: The assumptions underlying the theory that implied the impossibility be re-examined. Some examples of widely accepted impossibilities in physics are perpetual motion machines , which violate the law of conservation of energy , exceeding the speed of light , which violates the implications of special relativity , the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics , which asserts the impossibility of simultaneously knowing both

12470-526: The authors claim divine inspiration for their message or report the effects of such inspiration on others. Besides the direct accounts of written revelation (such as Moses receiving the Ten Commandments inscribed on tablets of stone), the Prophets of the Old Testament frequently claimed that their message was of divine origin by prefacing the revelation using the following phrase: "Thus says

12615-496: The baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19 and by the end of the 4th century it was widely held in its present form. In many monotheist religions, God is addressed as the father, in part because of his active interest in human affairs, in the way that a father would take an interest in his children who are dependent on him and as a father, he will respond to humanity, his children, acting in their best interests. In Christianity, God

12760-411: The beginning of God's creation., not a creation himself, but equal in the personhood of the Trinity. In Eastern Orthodox theology, God the Father is the "principium" ( beginning ), the "source" or "origin" of both the Son and the Holy Spirit, which gives intuitive emphasis to the threeness of persons; by comparison, Western theology explains the "origin" of all three hypostases or persons as being in

12905-399: The case of compressible flow such as occurs in transonic and supersonic flight; Hooke's law only applies to strain below the elastic limit ; Boyle's law applies with perfect accuracy only to the ideal gas, etc. These laws remain useful, but only under the specified conditions where they apply. Many laws take mathematical forms, and thus can be stated as an equation; for example,

13050-742: The claim that by scripture alone that the authority of the Bible is more important than the authority of the Church. The content of the Protestant Old Testament is the same as the Hebrew Bible canon , with changes in the division and order of books, but the Catholic Old Testament contains additional texts, known as the deuterocanonical books . Protestants recognize 39 books in their Old Testament canon, while Roman Catholic and Eastern Christians recognize 46 books as canonical. Both Catholics and Protestants use

13195-556: The concept of a triune God, although the Trinitarian doctrine was not formalized until the 4th century. At that time, the Emperor Constantine convoked the First Council of Nicaea , to which all bishops of the empire were invited to attend. Pope Sylvester I did not attend but sent his legate . The council, among other things, decreed the original Nicene Creed. For most Christians, beliefs about God are enshrined in

13340-562: The creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity; original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy, etc. —T.J.] invented by ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him, is a most desirable object, and one to which Priestley has successfully devoted his labors and learning." American Revolutionary War patriot Ethan Allen wrote, "In those parts of

13485-412: The definition of generalized momentum, there is the symmetry: The Hamiltonian as a function of generalized coordinates and momenta has the general form: Newton's laws of motion They are low-limit solutions to relativity . Alternative formulations of Newtonian mechanics are Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics. The laws can be summarized by two equations (since the 1st is a special case of

13630-444: The divine nature, which gives intuitive emphasis to the oneness of God's being. Christology is the field of study within Christian theology which is primarily concerned with the nature, person, and works of Jesus Christ , held by Christians to be the Son of God . Christology is concerned with the meeting of the human ( Son of Man ) and divine ( God the Son or Word of God ) in the person of Jesus . Primary considerations include

13775-466: The doctrine of Trinitarianism , which holds that the three persons of God together form a single God. The Trinitarian view emphasizes that God has a will and that God the Son has two wills, divine and human, though these are never in conflict (see Hypostatic union ). However, this point is disputed by Oriental Orthodox Christians, who hold that God the Son has only one will of unified divinity and humanity (see Miaphysitism ). The Christian doctrine of

13920-506: The doctrine of the Trinity than with the Christological debates. There are over 40 places in the New Testament where Jesus is given the title "the Son of God", but scholars don't consider this to be an equivalent expression. "God the Son" is rejected by anti-trinitarians , who view this reversal of the most common term for Christ as a doctrinal perversion and as tending towards tritheism . Matthew cites Jesus as saying, "Blessed are

14065-404: The dynamics of the system for all times. The term "path" simply refers to a curve traced out by the system in terms of the generalized coordinates in the configuration space , i.e. the curve q ( t ), parameterized by time (see also parametric equation for this concept). The action is a functional rather than a function , since it depends on the Lagrangian, and the Lagrangian depends on

14210-629: The earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." Revelation 19:20 says, "And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." These passages indicate that signs, wonders, and miracles are not necessarily committed by God. These miracles not committed by God are labeled as false(pseudo) miracles though which could mean that they are deceptive in nature and are not

14355-399: The earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live." Revelation 16:14 says, "For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of

14500-420: The earth shook, the sun was darkened, beautiful flowers rained from the sky, his severed head flew to the sacred Geumgang mountains, and milk instead of blood sprayed 100 feet in the air from his beheaded corpse. The omen was accepted by the opposing court officials as a manifestation of heaven's approval, and Buddhism was made the state religion in 527 CE. The Honchō Hokke Reigenki (c. 1040) of Japan contains

14645-449: The encroachment of the independent secondary causes, some medieval Muslim theologians such as Al-Ghazali rejected the idea of cause and effect in essence, but accepted it as something that facilitates humankind's investigation and comprehension of natural processes. They argued that the nature was composed of uniform atoms that were "re-created" at every instant by God. Thus, if the soil was to fall, God would have to create and re-create

14790-400: The general continuity equation (for a conserved quantity) can be written in differential form as: where ρ is some quantity per unit volume, J is the flux of that quantity (change in quantity per unit time per unit area). Intuitively, the divergence (denoted ∇⋅) of a vector field is a measure of flux diverging radially outwards from a point, so the negative is the amount piling up at

14935-435: The geodesics can be calculated. Christian theologian Christian theology is the theology – the systematic study of the divine and religion – of Christian belief and practice. It concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament , as well as on Christian tradition . Christian theologians use biblical exegesis , rational analysis and argument. Theologians may undertake

15080-416: The given law. Laws can be falsified if they are found in contradiction with new data. Some laws are only approximations of other more general laws, and are good approximations with a restricted domain of applicability. For example, Newtonian dynamics (which is based on Galilean transformations) is the low-speed limit of special relativity (since the Galilean transformation is the low-speed approximation to

15225-514: The greater the things that God does are, and the more they are removed from the capacity of nature, the greater the miracle is. Thus, it is more miraculous for the sun to reverse its course than for the sea to be divided. Then, the second degree among miracles is held by those events in which God does something which nature can do, but not in this order. It is a work of nature for an animal to live, to see, and to walk; but for it to live after death, to see after becoming blind, to walk after paralysis of

15370-495: The heading of Unitarianism . Most, if not all, Christians believe that God is spirit, an uncreated, omnipotent , and eternal being, the creator and sustainer of all things, who works the redemption of the world through his Son, Jesus Christ. With this background, belief in the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit is expressed as the doctrine of the Trinity , which describes the single divine ousia (substance) existing as three distinct and inseparable hypostases (persons):

15515-425: The limbs, this nature cannot do—but God at times does such works miraculously. Even among this degree of miracles a gradation is evident, according as what is done is more removed from the capacity of nature. Now, the third degree of miracles occurs when God does what is usually done by the working of nature, but without the operation of the principles of nature. For example, a person may be cured by divine power from

15660-640: The miracle's authenticity. The process is overseen by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints . The Catholic Church has listed several events as miracles, some of them occurring in modern times. Before a person can be accepted as a saint, they must be posthumously confirmed to have performed two miracles. In the procedure of beatification of Pope John Paul II , who died in 2005, the Vatican announced on 14 January 2011 that Pope Benedict XVI had declared that

15805-414: The nature of God is a mystery , something that must be revealed by special revelation rather than deduced through general revelation . Christian orthodox traditions (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant) follow this idea, which was codified in 381 and reached its full development through the work of the Cappadocian Fathers . They consider God to be a triune entity, called the Trinity, comprising

15950-447: The new formulations created to explain the discrepancies generalize upon, rather than overthrow, the originals. That is, the invalidated laws have been found to be only close approximations, to which other terms or factors must be added to cover previously unaccounted-for conditions, e.g. very large or very small scales of time or space, enormous speeds or masses, etc. Thus, rather than unchanging knowledge, physical laws are better viewed as

16095-448: The order generally followed in things. Now, there are various degrees and orders of these miracles. Indeed, the highest rank among miracles is held by those events in which something is done by God which nature never could do. For example, that two bodies should be coincident; that the sun reverse its course, or stand still; that the sea open up and offer a way through which people may pass. And even among these an order may be observed. For

16240-451: The outcome of an experiment. Laws differ from hypotheses and postulates , which are proposed during the scientific process before and during validation by experiment and observation. Hypotheses and postulates are not laws, since they have not been verified to the same degree, although they may lead to the formulation of laws. Laws are narrower in scope than scientific theories , which may entail one or several laws. Science distinguishes

16385-407: The pains and temptations of a mortal man, yet he did not sin. As fully God, he defeated death and rose to life again. Scripture asserts that Jesus was conceived, by the Holy Spirit, and born of his virgin mother Mary without a human father. The biblical accounts of Jesus's ministry include miracles , preaching, teaching, healing , Death , and resurrection . The apostle Peter, in what has become

16530-406: The path q ( t ), so the action depends on the entire "shape" of the path for all times (in the time interval from t 1 to t 2 ). Between two instants of time, there are infinitely many paths, but one for which the action is stationary (to the first order) is the true path. The stationary value for the entire continuum of Lagrangian values corresponding to some path, not just one value of

16675-479: The peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God (5:9)." The gospels go on to document a great deal of controversy over Jesus being the Son of God, in a unique way. The book of the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of the New Testament, however, record the early teaching of the first Christians– those who believed Jesus to be both the Son of God, the Messiah, a man appointed by God, as well as God himself. This

16820-565: The physical system between two times t 1 and t 2 . The kinetic energy of the system is T (a function of the rate of change of the configuration of the system), and potential energy is V (a function of the configuration and its rate of change). The configuration of a system which has N degrees of freedom is defined by generalized coordinates q = ( q 1 , q 2 , ... q N ). There are generalized momenta conjugate to these coordinates, p = ( p 1 , p 2 , ..., p N ), where: The action and Lagrangian both contain

16965-692: The position and the momentum of a particle, and Bell's theorem : no physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics. Some laws reflect mathematical symmetries found in nature (e.g. the Pauli exclusion principle reflects identity of electrons, conservation laws reflect homogeneity of space , time, and Lorentz transformations reflect rotational symmetry of spacetime ). Many fundamental physical laws are mathematical consequences of various symmetries of space, time, or other aspects of nature. Specifically, Noether's theorem connects some conservation laws to certain symmetries. For example, conservation of energy

17110-487: The prayers and intercessions of a specific saint or saints. There is usually a specific purpose connected to a miracle, e.g. the conversion of a person or persons to the Catholic faith or the construction of a church desired by God. The church says that it tries to be very cautious to approve the validity of putative miracles. The Catholic Church also says that it maintains particularly stringent requirements in validating

17255-516: The prime mover doing only what a perfect being can do, think. Jewish neo- Aristotelian philosophers who are still influential today include Maimonides , Samuel ben Judah ibn Tibbon , and Gersonides . Directly or indirectly, their views are still prevalent in much of the religious Jewish community. In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus , the philosopher Spinoza claims that miracles are merely lawlike events of whose causes we are ignorant. We should not treat them as having no cause or as having

17400-400: The punishment of execution, for what would quickly be seen as a forgery. Ichadon prophesied to the king that at his execution a wonderful miracle would convince the opposing court faction of Buddhism's power. Ichadon's scheme went as planned, and the opposing officials took the bait. According to legend when Ichadon was executed on the 15th day of the 9th month in 527, his prophecy was fulfilled;

17545-441: The rate of about one per month. By his definition, seemingly miraculous events are actually commonplace. A miracle is a phenomenon not explained by known laws of nature . The criteria for classifying an event as a miracle vary. Often a religious text , such as the Bible or Quran , states that a miracle occurred, and believers may accept this as fact. The Aristotelian view of God has God as pure actuality and considers him as

17690-455: The recovery of Marie Simon-Pierre from Parkinson's disease was a miracle. Among the more notable miracles approved by the church are several Eucharistic miracles wherein the sacramental species of bread and wine attain the accidents of human flesh and blood. Prominent examples are the Miracle of Lanciano and of Santarém . According to 17th century documents, a young Spanish man's leg

17835-402: The result is that of several who see an effect at the same time, some are moved to admiring astonishment, while others are not. For instance, the astronomer is not astonished when he sees an eclipse of the sun, for he knows its cause, but the person who is ignorant of this science must be amazed, for he ignores the cause. And so, a certain event is wondrous to one person, but not so to another. So,

17980-579: The same 27-book New Testament canon. Early Christians used the Septuagint , a Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. Christianity subsequently endorsed various additional writings that would become the New Testament. In the 4th century a series of synods , most notably the Synod of Hippo in AD 393, produced a list of texts equal to the 46-book canon of the Old Testament that Catholics use today (and

18125-467: The same as the true miracles committed by God. In early Christianity miracles were the most often attested motivations for conversions of pagans ; pagan Romans took the existence of miracles for granted; Christian texts reporting them offered miracles as divine proof of the Christian God's unique claim to authority, relegating all other gods to the lower status of daimones : "of all worships,

18270-512: The same in all inertial frames " and "the speed of light is constant and has the same value in all inertial frames". The said postulates lead to the Lorentz transformations – the transformation law between two frame of references moving relative to each other. For any 4-vector this replaces the Galilean transformation law from classical mechanics. The Lorentz transformations reduce to

18415-417: The scope of the law's application, since the mathematics or statement representing the law does not change. As with other kinds of scientific knowledge, scientific laws do not express absolute certainty, as mathematical laws do. A scientific law may be contradicted, restricted, or extended by future observations. A law can often be formulated as one or several statements or equations , so that it can predict

18560-461: The sky, and appear to plummet towards Earth, radiating great heat in the process. After the ten-minute event, the ground and the people's clothing, which had been drenched by a previous rainstorm, were both dry. Velankanni (Mary) can be traced to the mid-16th century and is attributed to three miracles: the apparition of Mary and the Christ Child to a slumbering shepherd boy, the curing of

18705-763: The son of the woman of Shunem (2 Kings 4:18–37). The Torah describes many miracles related to Moses during his time as a prophet and the Exodus of the Israelites. Parting the Red Sea , and facilitating the Plagues of Egypt are among the most famous. During the first century BCE, a variety of religious movements and splinter groups developed amongst the Jews in Judea . A number of individuals claimed to be miracle workers in

18850-713: The spirit. A key example is the revelation of Krishna to Arjuna , wherein Krishna persuades Arjuna to rejoin the battle against his cousins by briefly and miraculously giving Arjuna the power to see the true scope of the Universe, and its sustainment within Krishna, which requires divine vision. This is a typical situation in Hindu mythology wherein "wondrous acts are performed for the purpose of bringing spiritual liberation to those who witness or read about them." Hindu sages have criticized both expectation and reliance on miracles as cheats, situations where people have sought to earn

18995-498: The state religion. However, officials in his court opposed him. In the fourteenth year of his reign, Beopheung's "Grand Secretary", Ichadon , devised a strategy to overcome court opposition. Ichadon schemed with the king, convincing him to make a proclamation granting Buddhism official state sanction using the royal seal. Ichadon told the king to deny having made such a proclamation when the opposing officials received it and demanded an explanation. Instead, Ichadon would confess and accept

19140-501: The study of Christian theology for a variety of reasons, such as in order to: Christian theology has permeated much of non-ecclesiastical Western culture , especially in pre-modern Europe, although Christianity is a worldwide religion . Christian theology varies significantly across the main branches of Christian tradition: Catholic , Orthodox and Protestant . Each of those traditions has its own unique approaches to seminaries and ministerial formation. Systematic theology as

19285-554: The sum: The following general approaches to classical mechanics are summarized below in the order of establishment. They are equivalent formulations. Newton's is commonly used due to simplicity, but Hamilton's and Lagrange's equations are more general, and their range can extend into other branches of physics with suitable modifications. S = ∫ t 1 t 2 L d t {\displaystyle {\mathcal {S}}=\int _{t_{1}}^{t_{2}}L\,\mathrm {d} t\,\!} Using

19430-456: The term 'Ayah' (literally meaning sign). The term Ayah is used in the Quran in the above-mentioned threefold sense: it refers to the "verses" of the Quran (believed to be the divine speech in human language ; presented by Muhammad as his chief miracle); as well as to miracles of it and the signs (particularly those of creation). To defend the possibility of miracles and God's omnipotence against

19575-529: The three "Persons"; God the Father , God the Son , and God the Holy Spirit , described as being "of the same substance" ( ὁμοούσιος ). The true nature of an infinite God, however, is commonly described as beyond definition, and the word 'person' is an imperfect expression of the idea. Some critics contend that because of the adoption of a tripartite conception of deity, Christianity is a form of tritheism or polytheism . This concept dates from Arian teachings which claimed that Jesus, having appeared later in

19720-409: The tradition of Moses , Elijah , and Elisha , the Jewish prophets. The Talmud provides some examples of such Jewish miracle workers, one of whom is Honi HaM'agel , who was famous for his ability to successfully pray for rain. There are people who obscure all miracles by explaining them in terms of the laws of nature. When these heretics who do not believe in miracles disappear and faith increases in

19865-413: The very idea of family, wherever it appears, derives its name from God the Father, and thus God himself is the model of the family. However, there is a deeper "legal" sense in which Christians believe that they are made participants in the special relationship of Father and Son, through Jesus Christ as his spiritual bride . Christians call themselves adopted children of God. In the New Testament, God

20010-626: The word inspiration , which has the Latin root inspīrāre - "to blow or breathe into". Christianity generally regards the agreed collections of books known as the Bible as authoritative and as written by human authors under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit . Some Christians believe that the Bible is inerrant (totally without error and free from contradiction, including the historical and scientific parts) or infallible (inerrant on issues of faith and practice but not necessarily on matters of history or science). Some Christians infer that

20155-509: The world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue." Robert Ingersoll wrote, "Not 20 people were convinced by the reported miracles of Christ, and yet people of the nineteenth century were coolly asked to be convinced on hearsay by miracles which those who are supposed to have seen them refused to credit." Elbert Hubbard , American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher, wrote "A miracle

20300-519: The world, then the Mashiach will come. For the essence of the Redemption primarily depends on this – that is, on faith Most Chasidic communities are rife with tales of miracles that follow a yechidut , a spiritual audience with a tzadik : barren women become pregnant, cancer tumors shrink, wayward children become pious. Many Hasidim claim that miracles can take place in merit of partaking of

20445-530: Was and forever is fully God (divine) and fully human in one sinless person at the same time, and that through the death and resurrection of Jesus , sinful humans can be reconciled to God and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life via his New Covenant . While there have been theological disputes over the nature of Jesus, Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnate and " true God and true man " (or both fully divine and fully human). Jesus, having become fully human in all respects, suffered

20590-400: Was fully divine and also human. What it did not do was make clear how one person could be both divine and human, and how the divine and human were related within that one person. This led to the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries of the Christian era. The Chalcedonian Creed did not put an end to all Christological debate, but it did clarify the terms used and became

20735-472: Was miraculously restored to him in 1640 after having been amputated two and a half years earlier. Another miracle approved by the church is the Miracle of the Sun , which is said to have occurred near Fátima, Portugal on October 13, 1917. According to legend, between 70,000 and 100,000 people, who were gathered at a cove near Fátima, witnessed the sunlight dim and change colors, and the Sun spin, dance about in

20880-643: Was that the material was wicked from the offering bowls by capillary action . In the Quran , a miracle can be defined as a supernatural intervention in the life of human beings. According to this definition, miracles are present "in a threefold sense: in sacred history , in connection with Muhammad himself and in relation to revelation ". The Quran does not use the technical Arabic word for miracle ( Muʿd̲j̲iza ) literally meaning "that by means of which [the Prophet] confounds, overwhelms, his opponents". It rather uses

21025-499: Was that the one God exists in three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit); in particular it was affirmed that the Son was homoousios (of one substance) with the Father. The Creed of the Nicene Council made statements about the full divinity and full humanity of Jesus, thus preparing the way for discussion about how exactly the divine and human come together in the person of Christ (Christology). Nicaea insisted that Jesus

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