Skeptical cessationism

I'm going to comment on this post, by my friend, Fred Butler:

http://hipandthigh.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/why-wont-faith-healers-heal-amputees/

Knowing Dan like I do, I would imagine he has read much. He has to have had, or his tweet in pointless. I too have read many accounts of modern miracles. I find them to be mostly hearsay and apocryphal.

What's his source of information? Who has he read? 

More to the point, however: if modern day faith healers are genuinely healing people like they claim, then documentation would be easy to confirm. We would know someone with a serious spinal cord injury and atrophied limbs who would be completely restored. Individuals like that would be identifiable and people would testify as to their testimony. None ever come forth.

Fred's denial begs the question. Once again, what is his source of information? 

The problem is that both Fred and Dan are guilty of hasty generalizations–a classic informal fallacy.

That’s exactly the point. Miracles on that level done by men who were supernaturally gifted to perform them, were rare. That is unlike the claim of modern charismatics who insist they are happening all the time all over the world.

Fred and Dan are picking on easy targets. Now, there's a place for that. It's good to expose popular charlatans like Benny Hinn, Peter Popoff, Kenneth Hagin, Robert Tilton, &c. 

However, that no more disproves the existence of genuine healers than false prophets disprove the existence of true prophets. Dan is using a standard which will easily circle back and bite things that he himself believes in. 

Not sure what Steve means here. Certainly he isn’t suggesting those individuals were NOT dead. Or maybe mostly dead?

If you're demanding modern medical documentation, then I doubt Dorcus or Eutychus would count (or the daughter of Jairus, or the widow's son). It would be easy to say, "How do we know they were really dead?" It's not like an EKG or EEG was performed. Take cases of people who wake up in the morgue. Heck, you can be skeptical about Lazarus. After all, people can survive for four days without food and water.  So that raises the question of whether Dan is using consistent criteria. 

But Stephen did miracles. 

That misses the point. For Dan, evidence for miracles in general is insufficient. He's specifying a particular type of miracle. Unless the individual performs a particular type of miracle (e.g. "resurrecting" the dead), then you can dismiss evidence of other miracles. That's the classic "Why won't God heal amputees?" criterion of secular debunkers.  

Raising the dead was only one of many abilities that Christ invested into His apostles, and by extension, those Christians associated by the apostles after the apostles laid hands on them. Their ability to do any miracle, particularly heal the lame and incurably sick, is suggested by the NT documents, especially when Christ sent the 12 out among the people in Matthew 10.

The disciples failed to heal the deaf-mute demoniac (Mt 17:14-20). 

I can’t speak for Dan, but I figure we are pretty like-minded in this area, so I’ll go ahead and answer for him. Peter and Paul healed people because Jesus delegated to His apostles such abilities. See again Matthew 10. So yes, they could heal anyone at will, and did so on a number of occasions in Acts.

The problem with the delegation model is that we are shortsighted creatures. Human lives have ripple effects. Suppose you're a faith-healer who can heal anyone you choose. Suppose you heal a teenager with terminal cancer. Suppose he celebrates by getting drunk, driving home, and accidentally killing a pedestrian while he's under the influence. 

Seriously? Dan’s “taunt” is different in that Dan believes in the God of Scripture and the holy testimony of written Scripture. He is not attempting to disprove God’s existence, nor His ability to perform miracles ala’ Randi and other anti-theist in their war against God.

Dan is using the same kinds of arguments. 

Dan is merely challenging the assertion of modern continuationists who insist the spiritual gifts of the NT era, especially miraculous healing by the hands of gifted individuals, continue today in the 21st century at the same level of quantity and quality that were performed by Jesus and His immediate followers.

No, Dan is doing more than that. Dan is a hardline cessationist. Therefore, he is committed, a priori, to dismissing every miracle attributed to a faith-healer. 

The reality, however, is that they are not.  I don’t have to read Craig Keener’s book on the subject or any of the others listed in the comments under Steve’s original post. IF a person with the gift of healing laid hands on an amputee, that amputee should have his or her missing limbs fully restored. Family and friends who knew the person before his or her healing could easily document with pictures and personal testimony that person had no right arm for 10 years after an automobile accident and such-and-such Christian with the gift of healing laid hands on the person and the arm was fully restored and usable without physical therapy.Rather than asking “why won’t God heal amputees?” a better question should be asked, “Why won’t people with the gift of healing heal amputees?” Both Dan and I believe God can heal amputees if He so chose to do so. The point of contention is with individuals who claim they can if they chose to do so and say they do in spite of the overwhelming evidence against them.

Once again, Fred and Dan are guilty of overgeneralizing. They are resorting to the same evidentiary standard as secular skeptics who treat lack of evidence as equivalent to counterevidence. By that standard, unless God answers every prayer, there's no evidence that God answers any prayer. Apparent answers are dismissed as lucky coincidence. 

Secular skeptics routinely discount positive evidence for miracles by drawing attention to all the cases in which a miracle didn't happen, then acting as if the absence of evidence in some cases cancels out the presence of evidence in other cases. They elevate lack of evidence to contrary evidence, which they oppose to positive evidence.

Never thank God if you survive an accident, for what about all the accident victims who didn't make it? God had nothing to do with it. You just got lucky. Odds are, some people naturally survive accidents. Odds are, some cancer patients go into spontaneous remission. Odds are, it was bound to rain on someone's farm. That's statistical, not miraculous.  Take your chances. 

That’s exactly the point. Miracles on that level done by men who were supernaturally gifted to perform them, were rare. That is unlike the claim of modern charismatics who insist they are happening all the time all over the world.
I can’t speak for Dan, but I figure we are pretty like-minded in this area, so I’ll go ahead and answer for him. Peter and Paul healed people because Jesus delegated to His apostles such abilities. See again Matthew 10. So yes, they could heal anyone at will, and did so on a number of occasions in Acts.

i) How does Fred's first statement regarding the rarity of miracles cohere with his second statement that they could heal anyone at will? 

ii) Likewise, if they could heal anyone at will, why didn't Paul heal Trophimus (2 Tim 4:20)?