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Seeing the Supernatural by Lee Strobal/ Copyright 2025 by Lee Strobal
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 Seeing the Supernatural by Lee Strobal/ Copyright 2025 by Lee StrobalSkeptics and atheists will say that ‘free will’ is an illusion Or is it? “I found the seeming absurdity of hard determinism* to be another reason why it makes sense to believe we’re not just our brains. We must have a distinct mind or soul, that gives us the capacity to make REAL choices -- to love, to help or hinder, to engage with God or turn away from Him.” (10) * Imagine standing at the crossroads of a life-changing decision, believing you're free to choose your path. Now, picture a world where every choice you've made was already set in stone from the beginning of time. Hard Determinism is the belief that all events in the universe, including human actions, are determined by previously existing causes and natural laws. practicalpie.com (10) Most Christian philosophers believe animals also have souls. Writes philosopher J. P. Moreland, “The animal soul is not as richly structured as the human soul, it does not bear the image of God, and it is far more dependent to its sense organs than is the human soul.” (see The Soul: How We Know Its Real and Why It Matters [Chicago: Moody, 2014], 141-45). |
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VF I also found the seeming absurdity of hard determinism to be another reason why it makes sense to believe we’re not just our brains. We must have a distinct mind AND soul, that gives us the capacity to make REAL choices -- to love, to help or hinder, to engage with God or turn away from Him. We have free will to believe and have faith... or not. We can form our own conclusions to mix-and-match beliefs. We have the capacity to choose what we want to believe and to have faith in those beliefs that they are the most correct of beliefs. We are free to ask questions, speculate, and free to change our minds about our beliefs. We are free to believe in the natural world and/or the supernatural world, and various mixes of it. We are free to base our beliefs on what happens and what causes events to be based on random happenstance or any combination of real physical outcomes. We are also free to believe that everything, for all of eternity, has already been completely planned out ahead of time. I don't believe that. |
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If we could not choose to change jobs, divorce or move to another town, wouldn’t that be a lot like prison? Thank you for your reponse. Yes, let’s hope we get more interested people to join in the discussion here. |
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Speaking of the supernatural. The dream was incredibly vivid. When I woke up—in the mid-1990s—I immediately began searching for any historical mention of Napoleon at a battle called La Rouge. But I found absolutely nothing. Years later, once the internet had become widely available, I searched again. Still, there was no trace of such a battle. Then, just last week, I happened upon a video about color theory that discussed the color magenta. The name, it turns out, comes from a French victory over Austrian forces in Italy, at the Battle of Magenta in 1859. The color itself wasn’t named until around 1860, and at the time, it could also have been referred to simply as “red”—or la rouge. The French forces were lead By Napoleon III, who took part in the fight himself. |
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Evidence We Are More Than Just Our Brain "My Most Unexplained Case as a Neurologist" In 1996, Officer Gary Dockery shocked doctors worldwide when he woke up after 7½ years in a persistent vegetative state — and spoke with full clarity for 18 . . . www.youtube.com (29:50) |
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Imagine Waking Up in Heaven . . . |
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ASTOUNDING MIRACLES TODAY The philosopher Richard L. Purtill offered this definition of a genuine miracle: “A miracle is an event (1) brought about by the power of God that is (2) a temporary (3) exception (4) to the ordinary course of nature (5) for the purpose of showing God has acted in history.” (3) An Interview with Craig S. Keener, PHD It all started with a footnote While working on his massive commentary on the book of Acts (yes, massive - compromising nearly 4,500 pages over four volumes), Craig Keener began writing a footnote about the miracles found in the New Testament account of the early Christian movement. He observed that some modern readers discount the historicity of Acts because they dismiss the possibility of miracles, believing that the uniform experience of humankind is that the miraculous simply doesn’t occur. But are those claims reasonable? Keener began researching. And writing. The footnote grew and grew. The more he discovered the more became convinced that miracles are more common than a lot of people think and better documented than many skeptics claim. Two years later, his book MIRACLES was published - again, an exhaustive scholarly undertaking so sweeping that it covers two volumes and a staggering 1.172 pages. He described himself as a former spiritual skeptic who “liked to make fun of Christians.” But at age fifteen after an encounter on a street corner with a few Christians who awkwardly tried to tell him about Jesus, he was alone in his bedroom and started arguing with himself, “THIS CAN’T BE RIGHT. BUT WHAT IF IT IS?” “And then I sensed it”, he said. “God’s very presence. Right there, right then, right in my room. I had wanted empirical evidence, but instead God gave me something else -- the evidence of his presence. So it wasn’t apologetics that reached me; my brain had to catch up afterward. I was simply overwhelmed by the palpable presence of God. It was like Someone was right there in the room with me, and it wasn’t something I was generating because it wasn’t something I was necessarily wanting.” At the time Keener prayed, “God, those guys on the corner said Jesus died for me and rose again and that’s what saves me. If that’s what you’re saying , I’ll accept it. But I don’t understand how that works. So if you want to save me, you’re going to have to do it yourself.” “Did he?”, I asked. “All of a sudden I felt something rushing through my body that I had never experienced before. I jumped up and said, WHAT WAS THAT? I knew God had come into my life. At that moment I was filled with wonder and worship.” Two days later Keener sought out a minister, who led him in a formal prayer of repentance and faith. “And for the first time I understood what my purpose was.” “What is that?” “Our purpose is found in God -- to live for him and serve him, to worship him.” He paused giving emphasis to one further thought. “Everything is built around Jesus.” (3) Richard L. Purtill, “Defining Miracles”, in In Defense of Miracles: A Comprehensive Casse for God in History, ed. R. Douglas Gaivett and Gary R. Habermas (Downers Grove, IL; InterVarsity, 1997), 72 |
