Can Snakes Talk?

A couple weeks ago, my coworker was talking to me about religion (specifically Christianity). In the past he asked me about my thoughts on different things, but maybe because I didn't take the view that he thinks conservative Christians take then he thought my views were liberal. (I think that must've been good from his point of view.) He came up to me and told me about someone he knew, when he was younger, who "believed the Bible is historical." At that moment, I interrupted, "I believe that." To which he responded, "Seriously? Really, Andy? You believe that snakes can talk?" (Referring to Genesis 3, when the serpent talked to Eve.)

Now let's pause. How would you respond to this question?

... tick tock, tick tock ... Ok, time to continue.

I replied by saying, "I don't believe snakes can talk." This can be observed in our everyday lives. Naturally, snakes are unable to speak as human beings do. So, snakes cannot talk.

"However, what happened there was a supernatural moment." Afterall, the snake was Satan (Rev. 12:9; 20:2), who is himself a supernatural being. Supernatural events do not happen all the time. They may or may not repeat themselves. So I believe that although it is true that snakes can't talk, it is also true that the snake in the garden did talk, provided we allow for a supernatural event to occur.

At the end of all this, it comes back to our worldview. The lens with which we see the world. Christians are supernaturalists; atheists and, generally, agnostics are naturalists. If one doesn't allow for supernaturalism in their worldview, one will never accept that it is even remotely possible that the snake in the garden of Eden talked to Eve.

There is a differentiation made here, if you ask me "Can snakes talk?", I will tell you that snakes can't (unable to) talk in human languages. However, if you ask me "Did the snake in Eden talk?", I will tell you that it did. Because the event was not purely natural.

After explaining that to my coworker, he did show appreciation that I made the distinction.

We Christians are not naturalists, we are supernaturalists. The physical world exists, the spiritual world also exists.

So, can donkeys talk? (Num. 22:28-30)