Mysteries

In the Christian context, we do not mean by a "mystery" merely that which is baffling and mysterious, an enigma or insoluble problem. A mystery is, on the contrary, something that is revealed for our understanding, but which we never understand exhaustively because it leads into the depth or the darkness of God. The eyes are closed—but they are also opened.

- Kallistos Ware
The Orthodox Way

Myth-taken Identities

Quarter of Brits think Churchill was myth: poll
Sun Feb 3, 7:12 PM ET
Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.

The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.

And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain's most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.

Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.

Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns' fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.

UKTV Gold television surveyed 3,000 people.

Miracles; Perhaps there is a place for them...even if most of the time I doubt it.

IF A MAN believes in unalterable natural law, he cannot believe in any miracle in any age. If a man believes in a will behind law, he can believe in any miracle in any age.
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

IT IS MY OPINION that miracle is an essential element of biblical faith. … Miracle, however, is not to be understood in terms of the 19th-century argument between science and religion, but in terms of the biblical doctrine of Creation. From this perspective, miracle is strange and offensive not only to modern man, but to ancient man as well.
Millard C. Lind, "Reflections on Biblical Hermeneutics," in Kingdom, Cross, and Community

A MIRACLE in healing is not the conjuring of some magic, nor a disruption in the created order, or something supernatural. Rather, healing exemplifies the redemption of fallen creation, the restoration of the created order, the return to the usual, the normative, the natural.

William Stringfellow, A Simplicity of Faith: My Experience in Mourning

THE FITNESS of the Christian miracles, and their difference from these mythological miracles, lies in the fact that they show invasion by a Power which is not alien. They are what might be expected to happen when [nature] is invaded not simply by a god, but by the God of Nature: by a Power which is outside her jurisdiction not as a foreigner but as a sovereign.
C. S. Lewis, Miracles

GOD does not sell himself into the hands of religious magicians. I do not believe in that kind of miracles. I believe in the kind of miracles that God gives to his people who live so close to him that answers to prayer are common and these miracles are not uncommon.
A. W. Tozer, Rut, Rot, or Revival

IS NOT the most helpful way to approach the gospel miracles to place them within the familiar and inescapable tension between the already and the not yet, kingdom come and kingdom coming, the new age inaugurated and the new age consummated? To the skeptical (who doubt all miracles), I want to say "but already we have tasted the powers of the age to come." To the credulous (who think that healing miracles are an everyday occurrence), I want to say "but not yet have we been given resurrection bodies free from disease, pain, infirmity, handicap, and death."
John R. W. Stott, Evangelical Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue

CHRIST HIMSELF … is the supreme miracle and the chief attestation of the truth of the biblical revelation.
Alan Richardson, Christian Apologetics

A MIRACLE is a sign of the

love of Jesus,

Who yearns to heal each one of us
So that we can become truly alive and grow in love.
Jean Vanier, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John