*Alward: Prophecy and Prayer

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Jeff Epler:


 . . .So without even discussing just what it takes to establish the existence
of
 a prophecy or its fulfillment, I cannot see how it can produce the
 certainty that Christians claim it can.  Have I overlooked something that
 lets a certain conclusion be made?  Or do I misunderstand the Christian
 claim, and it really only is that the large set of prophecies and
 fulfillments shows a probable Messiah, not a certain one? >>
==============
Joe Alward:

I think many Christians don't fully accept the "certainty" of prophecy-
fulfillment until they imagine they've caused a miracle to happen through
prayer to the prophesied Jesus.  Tentative belief in the prophecies gives one
the courage to dare to imagine that their prayers can cause miracles, and then
to imagine that they actually occurred; this serves to make the belief in the
prophecies more certain, irrespective of the mathematics Epler has in mind.

An acquaintance told me he prayed to the Jesus prophesied in the Bible and--he
imagined--a dying friend was immediately restored to nearly full health.  If
belief in the prophecies can give him *that* much power, he said, the
prophecies are absolutely true.

Another acquaintance told of his daughter who banged her head into a metal
pole at the fair.  He prayed to Jesus to take the hurt away, put his hand
tightly against her head, and she stopped crying, apparently no longer in
pain.  He's told this story to me four times, and each time tears come to his
eyes.  If the Jesus of the prophecies didn't exist, then why would God have
performed this miracle through him?

I imagine that most former Christians on this list have many similar stories
they could tell.

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