John Loftus throws a curveball at Paul Manata (incorporate angels into your theology, boys)

On a radio show called the Narrow Mind hosted by Gene Cook (or internet broadcast, I'm not sure if it's actually broadcast also on radio) Christian apologist Paul Manata seemed stumped by atheist John Loftus when Loftus asked him how God, who is a spirit, could move matter. That's not his exact wording, but it was his basic challenge. Manata stated that he didn't know the mechanics of how it happens, etc., etc.

Here's a possible way to think of it: angels. "In the Bible, angels are a medium of God's power; they exist to execute God's will." (I put that sentence in quotes because it is how whoever wrote the article on angels on the Wikipedia site put it, and I don't want to be accused of plagiarizing Wikipedia, my goodness.)

Now, the first objection would be: ah but angels themselves are spirit beings, or, immaterial beings.

This goes to a long-standing debate among theologians, including Reformed theologians. Some say angels are pure spirits. Other say it's not possible for a being to not have any body and still be a being. A strong argument for the latter view is: to say angels are pure spirits is to put them on the same plane with God, who is pure spirit. Also, degree of materiality is usually unecessarily non-existent in thinking about materiality. Angels could very well be material, yet not of flesh and bone obviously. In this way of seeing it a thought is as material as a stone, yet just a higher degree of materiality.

Only God is pure spirit.

So angels can very well effect, or move, material things because they are material themselves. Calling them spirit may just mean they are that to a threshold degree which allows them to exist with God in heaven. Yet they still have bodies. Only God the Father has no body. Only God the Father is pure spirit.

(Like many Christians I have an experience of being saved in a miraculous manner. In my case it was a car accident. My car - a very material object - was moved in a miraculous way. Because the Bible states that angels perform such functions for believers - or potentially do - I assign the deed to angels. Angels moved my car from the middle of an intersection just as an oncoming, heavy old Buick (yes, the kind certain ethnic types are always seen driving, and, by the way, where do they find all those old Buick sedans?) was a split-second from plowing directly into me after I'd driven into the intersection to make a U-turn. I describe it this way: reality became like a Cubist painting, and I and my car ended up back in the left-turn lane and the Buick was distant red tail lights down the road (this was at night). Mock if you feel you must, but many believers have very similar experiences, and some rate much more strikingly miraculous, even by our own rating systems and experience than others we also experience, and the one I just described was a 10 on a scale of 10 for bizarre-miraculous. The point is: angels moved my car (thank you Father in heaven, without your free grace I'm much worse off than just mutilated flesh in a mangled car). They effected a material object. Isn't it said in the Word of God they are powerful to do such a thing? And they carry out the will of God; and minister to His elect...)

And of course I am not saying this is the only way God has to effect the matter of what He Himself created and put into motion, but it is one way...