{"id":51297,"date":"2020-09-15T11:04:13","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T15:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/?p=51297"},"modified":"2020-09-15T11:04:13","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T15:04:13","slug":"miracle-of-the-sun-at-fatima-brief-exchange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2020\/09\/miracle-of-the-sun-at-fatima-brief-exchange.html","title":{"rendered":"Miracle of the Sun at Fatima: Brief Exchange"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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\u201cVicqRuiz\u201d describes himself as \u201con the boundary between agnosticism and deism. I find that I am unable to accept either materialist scientism or the idea of a personal God.\u201d<\/span> His words will be in blue<\/span>.<\/p>\n

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Atheists and agnostics usually mean [by \u201cevidence\u201d]<\/span> \u201csomething that leaves a trace in the physical record\u201d. Apologists can mean this, but often they mean \u201csomething that would be accepted under legal rules of evidence\u201d. This usually amounts to eyewitness testimony.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A good example would be the supposed 1917 miracle at Fatima. A Catholic apologist may unhesitatingly say that there is sufficient eyewitness testimony to make the case that the sun actually stopped and moved erratically in the sky. A skeptic would ask why, if the sun moved, was it not seen throughout the hemisphere (much less why the orbits of the earth and other planets were not impacted).<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Personally, I am willing to accept the possible reality of intangible and supernatural things. However, if the supernatural reaches into 3-D space and time and touches something, it should leave a footprint that can be analyzed.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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That miracle need not necessarily have been \u201castronomical.\u201d God could also have changed the perception of those who saw it. Either one is something other than natural.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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[see, for example, my paper on Joshua and the \u201csun standing still\u201d<\/a>]<\/div>\n
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I agree that is a possibility. However, it leaves the several hundred millions (half of the world population ca. 1917) who were not on that hillside in Portugal with the choice of trusting what those several thousand say they saw, or trusting the evidence of their own eyes.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Generally, if several thousand people say they saw the same thing, we trust them [see a collection of Fatima eyewitness accounts<\/a>]. We trust even one credible witness in court cases. If there are three witnesses saying the same thing, the case is stronger. Thousands? All the more . . .<\/div>\n
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There are many things that lots of people see, but can\u2019t yet explain. For example, UFOs. The very name is \u201cunidentified.\u201d One need not have any opinion at all on that topic (I myself am agnostic) to recognize that there have been many unexplained sightings.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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That\u2019s an argument which I have seen made by a number of apologists, and in fact I discussed it earlier this year with another Catholic apologist (who also happened to be an attorney) on his own blog.<\/span><\/div>\n
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What I am wondering is that if eyewitness testimony of the supernatural is of a quality as to be acceptable in court, whether there is any precedent in American or British courts of such testimony being ruled acceptable.<\/span><\/div>\n
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In other words, if someone claimed that the circumstances of a crime or a tort was influenced by supernatural factors, was that testimony made available to the jury and was it decisive. So far I am unaware of any such case.<\/span><\/div>\n
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I have no idea. But that\u2019s beside my more fundamental point of noting how we (legally, and I think generally) are favorable towards eyewitness testimony (as long as such witnesses are credible).<\/div>\n
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And my analogy to UFOs also remains intact: we can trust the accounts of people (otherwise credible), of seeing things or events that they themselves can\u2019t explain or interpret. The validity of their testimony doesn\u2019t require them to have an opinion on a \u201cweird\u201d thing that they saw; only evidence that they did indeed see it. Hence, doctors, when they run across a purported miracle, will simply say \u201cscience in its present state cannot explain this phenomenon\u201d or some such.<\/div>\n
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Thus, the eyewitness testimony of the \u201cmiracle of the sun\u201d at Fatima doesn\u2019t necessarily (logically) depend on their belief in the apparitions or what Mary was purported to have said. It is valid apart from that (though certainly most people there would have believed it in its \u201creligious\u201d context; according to that prior framework).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Fair enough. We may have to agree to disagree on this one.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Related Reading<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
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Dialogue with an Atheist on Miracles & First Premises<\/a>\u00a0[12-18-10]<\/div>\n
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Exchange on Miracles & Hyper-Rationalism<\/a>\u00a0[12-7-15]<\/div>\n
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Dialogues with Atheists on Miracles<\/a>\u00a0[6-8-16]<\/div>\n
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Does God Still Perform Miracles? (Some Evidence)<\/a>\u00a0[5-26-18]<\/div>\n
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Dialogue w Agnostic on Proof for Miracles (Lourdes)<\/a>\u00a0[9-9-18]
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Miracles, Materialism, & Premises: Dialogue w Atheist<\/a>\u00a0[2-20-19]<\/div>\n
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Miracles & Scientific Method: Dialogue with Atheist<\/a>\u00a0[2-22-19]<\/div>\n
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Atheist Demands for a Miracle to \u201cProve\u201d God (Dialogue)<\/a>\u00a0[2-22-19]<\/div>\n
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Atheist Desire for Amazing Divine Miracles \/ Incorruptibles<\/a>\u00a0[2-23-19]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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(originally from 7-3-18)<\/div>\n
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Photo credit:<\/strong> [public domain \/ Aleteia<\/a>]<\/div>\n
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\u201cVicqRuiz\u201d describes himself as \u201con the boundary between agnosticism and deism. I find that I am unable to accept either materialist scientism or the idea of a personal God.\u201d His words will be in blue. ***** Atheists and agnostics usually mean [by \u201cevidence\u201d] \u201csomething that leaves a trace in the physical record\u201d. Apologists can mean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":51300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,112],"tags":[11970,5971,2907,11967,1346,11973],"class_list":["post-51297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blessed-virgin-mary","category-philosophy-science","tag-eyewitness-testimony-of-miracles","tag-fatima","tag-marian-apparitions","tag-miracle-of-the-sun","tag-miracles","tag-ufos"],"yoast_head":"\nMiracle of the Sun at Fatima: Brief Exchange Miracle of the Sun at Fatima: Brief Exchange<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""VicqRuiz" describes himself as "on the boundary between agnosticism and deism. I find that I am unable to accept either materialist scientism or the ideaI made an analogy to UFO reports. 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Chesterton\\\" (Saint Benedict Press \/ TAN Books: 2009). \\\"100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura\\\" was published by Catholic Answers in May 2012. His \\\"Quotable Wesley\\\" compilation was published by (Protestant \/ Wesleyan publisher) Beacon Hill Press in April 2014. Several of his 49 books are bestsellers in their field. Dave maintains a popular personal Facebook page, a Facebook author page, and has a Twitter account as well. He offers almost all of his books in e-book form on his own Biblical Catholicism site (http:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/), at a permanent deep discount: only $2.99 for ePub, mobi, and AZW, and $1.99 for PDF. His writing has been enthusiastically endorsed or recommended by many leading Catholic apologists, authors, and priests, including Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Marcus Grodi, Patrick Madrid, Steve Ray, Tim Staples, Devin Rose, Mike Aquilina, Al Kresta, Karl Keating, Fr. 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Formerly a campus missionary, as a Protestant, Dave was received into the Catholic Church in February 1991, by the late, well-known catechist and theologian, Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave\u2019s articles have appeared in many influential Catholic periodicals, including \"This Rock\" (now called \"Catholic Answers Magazine\"), \"Envoy Magazine\" (Patrick Madrid), \"The Catholic Answer,\" \"The Coming Home Journal,\" \"Gilbert Magazine\" (American Chesterton Society), and \"The Latin Mass.\" He also writes a featured column for every issue of \"The Michigan Catholic\": published by the archdiocese of Detroit, and was editor for most of the apologetics tracts published by the St. Paul Street Evangelization apostolate. Dave\u2019s apologetics and writing apostolate was the subject of a feature article in the May 2002 issue of \"Envoy Magazine.\" He served as the staff moderator at the Internet discussion forum for The Coming Home Network, from 2007-2010. Dave has been interviewed on many nationally syndicated Catholic radio shows, including \"Catholic Answers Live\" (twice), \"Faith and Family Live\" (Steve Wood), \"Kresta in the Afternoon,\" \"Son Rise Morning Show,\" \"Catholic Connection\" (Teresa Tomeo), and \"The Catholics Next Door.\" His large and popular website, \"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism,\" was online from March 1997 to March 2007, and received the 1998 Catholic Website of the Year award from \"Envoy Magazine.\" His blog of the same name (now transferred to Patheos), begun in February 2004, contains more than 1,500 papers, at least 500 debates or dialogues, and over 50 distinct \"index\" web pages. Unsolicited correspondence has indicated many hundreds of conversions (or returns) to the Catholic faith as a result, by God's grace, of these writings. Dave's conversion story was published in the bestselling book \"Surprised by Truth\" (edited by Patrick Madrid; San Diego: Basilica Press, 1994). Sophia Institute Press has published six of his books: \"A Biblical Defense of Catholicism\" (Foreword by Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J., 1996 \/ 2003), \"The Catholic Verses\" (2004), \"The One-Minute Apologist\" (2007), \"Bible Proofs for Catholic Truths\" (2009), \"The Quotable Newman\" (editor: 2012), and \"Proving the Catholic Faith is Biblical\" (2015). He is co-author (with Dr. Paul Thigpen) of the inserts for \"The New Catholic Answer Bible\" (Our Sunday Visitor: 2005), and editor for \"The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton: The Very Best Quotes, Quips, and Cracks from the Pen of G. K. Chesterton\" (Saint Benedict Press \/ TAN Books: 2009). \"100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura\" was published by Catholic Answers in May 2012. His \"Quotable Wesley\" compilation was published by (Protestant \/ Wesleyan publisher) Beacon Hill Press in April 2014. Several of his 49 books are bestsellers in their field. Dave maintains a popular personal Facebook page, a Facebook author page, and has a Twitter account as well. He offers almost all of his books in e-book form on his own Biblical Catholicism site (http:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/), at a permanent deep discount: only $2.99 for ePub, mobi, and AZW, and $1.99 for PDF. His writing has been enthusiastically endorsed or recommended by many leading Catholic apologists, authors, and priests, including Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Marcus Grodi, Patrick Madrid, Steve Ray, Tim Staples, Devin Rose, Mike Aquilina, Al Kresta, Karl Keating, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Brandon Vogt, Marcellino D'Ambrosio, and Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave has been happily married to his wife Judy since October 1984. They have three sons and a daughter, and reside in southeast Michigan (metro Detroit).","sameAs":["https:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dave.armstrong.798","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@LuxVeritatisApologetics"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/author\/davearmstrong"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}