Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Modern Healing Miracles

This is a discussion of a doctor's investigation into modern healing miracles. This was a well-known and popular book from the 1970s.

10 comments:

Roffle said...

"All of these people were totally healed of incurable or terminal states. The one commonality they all have is that they were at some point prayed for by the same person, Kulhman."

He should apply for a grant to test this hypothesis. Other than that, this is not really news.

Anthony Fleming said...

I have seen these types of miracles and know people who have experienced these types of miracles. Jesus did promise that similar would happen among those who believed in him (John 14:12). It is good to note that the phrase "grater works" is from the Greek meizona touton. It is a comparative adjective neuter plural. Basically it is not greater in type or quality or "spiritualness" but more in quantity. A lot more apostles / believers means more potential quantity of miracles.

In fact, the absence of miracles was one of the greatest stumbling blocks of my faith growing up.

Anthony Fleming said...

I could of swore that Mr. Babinski posted here. It was a very long comment. I received it by email and even formed a response. Oh Well.

Martin said...

In fact, the absence of miracles was one of the greatest stumbling blocks of my faith growing up.

So did you find some?

Anonymous said...

My mom was healed of an almost inoperable tumour.

I say almost because the doctors at the hosptal that could have done it turned her down because Medicare did not pay enough for this type of thing.

Thats a fact, thats what they told me, although they would never admit it and how can I prove otherwise.

She told us not to worry and said she would rely on the Lord, despite our protests.

Six Months later, the tumour was gone. The doctor who verified this, a Christian, and working at essentially a charity hospital...Truman Medical Center...called it a miracle but put it in the records as a "spontaneous remission".

What else could he say without getting in trouble.

So, my only problem, I know it was a miracle but I can never prove it.

Morrison said...

The post about about my mom was mine, but as I was getting at, I don't think an atheist will accept ANY PROOF because they have established a non falsifiable position for themselves if they hold, as for example John Loftus does in WIBA, that "chance" essentially explains our existence.

Anthony Fleming said...

Martin, Yes I did and still do, though not as often as when I first became a Christian.

Anonymous said...

Morrison...it's great that your mom was/is well....but people do actually go into spontaneous remissions sometimes....even atheists, agnostics, and believers of other religions.

Gregory said...

A former priest of mine had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer around mid-2009, and has since gone into remission. He wasn't expected to be alive today.

Perhaps a skeptic would be inclined to say that this is simply a case of "spontaneous remission". I suppose this same person would explain the case of Elijah being "taken up into heaven" (2 Kings 2:11) as a case of "spontaneous de-materialization" or the Gospel account of the blind man receiving sight as a case of "spontaneous optic transmission"....if, indeed, such things were known to have happened.

This is a problem that boils down to semantics. The proponent of a "miracle" is not saying that the identity of a "miracle" must be known to have originated with God. In fact, the source of such events can very well be left open-ended, or even unknown.

What the apologist of the miraculous does say is that things don't just spontaneously disappear/vanish. Perhaps the skeptic could say:

"Yes, but there may be an--as yet--unknown natural cause that will one day explain why these 'spontaneous remissions' occur."

But this isn't really being "skeptical" at all since this judgment about the remission of cancer has already taken a position:

the naturalistic position

A true skeptic (i.e. one who withholds/suspends judgment) will leave all possibilities open until some kind of verdict can be rendered. In this case, whether there really is a naturalist explanation; or whether there is some other explanation that defies all "natural" ones.

In other words, a person whose default position is naturalism can be neither a "skeptic" nor "objective" because his/her own metaphysical partisanship dictates the answers in advance (a priori).

But if we haven't circumcised the horizon of possibility with a scalpel of bigotry then, at the very least, we ought to leave room for a non-natural explanation.

Besides I'm not sure that saying my car "spontaneously vanished" is different, or any less "rational", than saying that my cancer "spontanesouly vanished" (i.e. went into remission)....because, under normal circumstances, things don't just "vanish".

As a sidenote: a "miracle" is not, as Hume claimed, a violation of "natural law". If that were the case, then "creation ex nihilo" would, by Hume's definition, be a non-miraculous event. Instead, a miracle is an event/circumstance that stands apart from whatever the prevailing, normative condition happens to be. In the case of "creation", the normative condition is physical "nothingingness".

Gregory said...

I incorrectly wrote:

"Yes, but there may be an--as yet--unknown natural cause that will one day explain why these 'spontaneous remissions' occur."

But this isn't really being "skeptical" at all since this judgment about the remission of cancer has already taken a position:


What I should have said was:

"Yes, but there must be a--as yet unknown--natural cause that will one day explain why these 'spontaneous remissions' occur."

Another side note: if the prevailing conditions of reality were the spontaneous appearing and disappearing of things, then a "miracle", in that case, would be the stasis of some physical object.