An interventionist God? Part 2

Part 2 of the questions raised by Phaedrus in my previous post ‘What kind of God let’s that happen?’

Another answer is that divine intervention on such a large scale would leave no room for free will to choose to believe in god.. – But didn’t god and jesus perform miracles of this sort all the time according to the bible?? Did that take away the apostles’ free will to believe? In most of these cases the miracles were performed to prove their divinity to their followers. Even doubting Thomas was allowed to see the risen jesus and touch his wounds to confirm his doubts.

Indeed he did and much of Christianity is based on what Jesus did and what has been recorded about him. How would we know he was the Son of God if he didn’t do what he did at that time? The apostles were the founders of the faith. Their testimony began the modern church. They did not have the New Testament, they were it! Yet they still had free will to believe or not, and not everyone followed Jesus who met him. Not everyone understood what he stood for or who he was and there are plenty of examples in the bible of people who didn’t. Yes Thomas did ask to see the wounds, but as Jesus said

“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:27

I think this is the same today. Some people have amazing experiences where they believe they have seen Jesus or been to heaven, or had angels minister to them. As with Thomas, there are some people who have seen, and some who have not.
 
That is not to say I don’t believe there is a place for miracles in todays world, I do and I believe they do happen. People think that miracles and helaings died out with the apostles but it isn’t true, they are less apparent in some time periods or perhaps not reported but in the great awakening of the 18th century there are amazing testimonies of travelling preachers who saw amazing things happen. Earlier than that the Wesleys. John Wesley had amazing miracles happen during his ministry. Even just the fact that he was able to speak in the open air to literally thousands of people, with no modern equipment, no microphones, and yet everyone was able to hear him preaching – and often in the face of huge distraction, people often brought in just to make noise and disrupt the meetings. As I said in the original post, Heidi Baker in Mozambique is seeing huge miracles, even claims of people being raised from the dead – that is not the kind of claim you make lightly. I mean its not an easy one to believe is it?