Spong's Fourth Thesis

4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.

Spong does not state his strong premise, something like: "divine intervention and manipulation of 'literal' biology is impossible". Not only does Spong fail to clearly state this foundational premise, he seems content to provide no proof that his corollary argument is indeed true.

I am not about to make an attempt to prove that miracles do, indeed, exist; perhaps, I will tackle that in future posts. My problem with Spong is not that he has a different (and I would argue, equally difficult to defend) position than mine. Rather, Spong sees himself as a pure scientist talking about religious issues. Science, as we all know, has a certain arena to which it is confined: observable, repeatable, empirical data. It draws general conclusions from that collected and double-checked by a community of professional scientists familiar with particular questions. Spong is, quite simply, confusing reproductive biology with a particular issue in theology.

No one in their right mind is going to say that Christ's birth, as depicted in the Gospels is natural. Which makes Spong's statement, on the face of it, quite correct; it is quite impossible for a woman to have a child outside of the normal biological processes. Then again, that's why it's a miracle.

Spong simply cannot image a God that intervenes in human history, much less one that bodily manifests Himself. Spong is not re-thinking the New Testament account of Christ's incarnation and birth. He is abandoning it, which is fine and good. As with the other issues, because Spong cannot image a thing, it must be false. This is not sufficient proof that his opponents are wrong and his thesis is true. It simply leaves it open for respectful debate . . . I hope.