God and Physics part 2

Difster clings to his previous assumptions:

Apply this to a resurrection. We are, in a material sense, nothing more than the elements of the Earth, assembled together by some formula we truly don't understand and imbued with the ability to replenish the ever dying parts of our system by eating, drinking water, etc. Lazarus was no different. When he died, he was a complete living machine. Is it beyond conceivable that Jesus was able to take what already existed and reconstitute it and return the life and soul of Lazarus to him without breaking the rules of the universe? Remember, right now we're not concerned with the "how", just the "what". The material Jesus needed to make Lazarus whole again was already there! Obviously, God did not create new material to bestow upon Lazarus since creation ended the 6th day. There is a finite amount of building blocks to work with. God created this universe and the physical rules by which it's governed. I would contend that God doesn't likely distinguish between the spiritual rules and the physical ones not to mention the inter-dimensional rules that extend beyond our ability to observe but that's a completely different discussion. Adam was created from the dust of the Earth, not new material; creation was finished on the 6th day.

It is true that the universe contains the materials needed to reconstitute Lazarus. However, the process of bringing Lazarus back to life would be significantly more complicated than that. At a minimum, these are the steps that I would expect would have to be done on a physical level to bring him back to life:

• Repairs and reconstruction of the DNA in Lazarus' body.
• Purging his body of all of the toxins from decomposition, as well as all microbes that had taken up residence and were feeding on his corpse.
• Repair of all organs and systems to a functional state; this might be damn near at the point of having to reconstruct many from scratch.
• Repairing the brain, including restoring all of the synapses to the state they were in prior to him dying and his brain starting to decay.
• Restarting all organ activity in a coherent way.

I will grant Difster this one only on the grounds that the human body more closely resembles a machine than anything else, and as such can be repaired and modified without violating the laws of physics. My point here, though, was to highlight the fact that it would be a tremendously unnatural operation at work here. However...

There are lots of miracles in the Old Testament. The pillar of fire that the Israelites followed in the wilderness was some advanced technology that we do not understand. So much of what we take for granted now would cause us to be executed for sorcery in the not too distant past. Hey, how did those tiny people get in that glass container you call a television? Imagine how cell phones would have been looked on a couple of hundred years ago. Most of our modern comforts would have been deemed scientifically impossible back then yet now they are ubiquitous.

One thing you don't read about in the Old Testament is the "Road of Glass Leading to the Holy Lands." That is because this self-sustaining thermal reaction did not scar the landscape at night time. In fact, the only way that we can conceive of such a thing being physically possible would be a nuclear reaction akin to the way a star works. If it were just a regular pillar of fire, it would be a violation of the laws of physics because the pillar of fire would burning an infinite supply of fuel.

Another thing, an atomic reaction would have left some very visible scaring along the path that the Israelites traveled. To my knowledge, none exists.

Long Day of Joshua - strong gravitational field from some other entity essentially neutralized the gravitational forces that currently move our planets around the sun.

Said strong activity would have to be so strong it would exert a terrible force on our own sun, possibly causing a draining effect on the matter and energy as often seen when a blackhole ensnares a star. Game over over for this solar system.

Walk on Water - Manipulated the density of the water below him.

If Jesus manipulated the density of the water enough that he could walk on it, that would make the water under his feet sink into the water that was at normal density.

My alternate suggestion of how God does this stuff is that God just breaks the laws of physics and biology when they are not convenient. You could argue that since God says, "I'm not a man that I should change my mind" that they are eternal truths as well. However, some of the miracles performed are pretty well outside of the realm of the laws of physics being eternal truth when confronted by God's needs for a particular situation.