Cessationism, testimonial evidence, and historical knowledge

I'm going to comment on some recent remarks by Ed Dingess:

He [Steve Hays] wants to argue, in theory that healings and miracles have continued without missing a beat even though he has never encountered a faith healer or miracle worker himself. 

i) It's quite possible (or even likely) that I've never encountered a faith-healer. I don't seek them out. And from my perspective, there's no presumption or expectation that every generation (or any generation) has a genuine faith-healer on hand. That's up to God.

ii) But in principle, somebody could have the gift of healing without being famous for it. Our popular preconception of faith-healers is shaped by media coverage of celebrities who make a career out of their reputed ability to heal. Folks like Aimee Semple McPherson, Oral Roberts, Kathryn Kuhlman, and Benny Hinn. They hold healing services for hundreds or thousands. That's the basis of their notoriety. 

But take the case of Peter Bide. How many Christians, much less the general public, have ever heard of him? You have to know something about the life of C. S. Lewis. To the extent that anyone has heard of Peter Bide, that's not because he was well-known in his own right, but because he's remembered in association with C. S. Lewis. Bide was an Anglican priest and former student of Lewis. When Joy Davidman was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Lewis asked Bide to pray over her because he had a reputation as a healer. As a result, she went into remission. For a time, she got much better.

Bide wasn't a "professional" healer. Rather, he was an Anglican priest who happened to have a gift for healing–to judge by what I've read. 

iii) BTW, isn't this a credible case of a Christian healer? Our information comes from C. S. Lewis's own correspondence. Isn't Lewis a credible witness to the miraculous healing of his wife, and the role that Rev. Bide played in that transaction? If we dismiss that out of hand, how is that any different from the attitude of Godless debunkers like Martin Gardner or James Randi? 

Based off that sort of reasoning, we are left without any recourse, but to accept the claims of alien abductions as well. 

i) Notice how Ed's knee-jerk skepticism about testimonial evidence repristinates the position of Hume and his followers. Yet the Bible places great stock in the value of eyewitness testimony.

ii) Ed acts as though you can only assume one of two attitudes towards testimonial evidence: blind credulity or reflexive incredulity. He acts as though every witness is equally trustworthy or equally untrustworthy. But there are standard criteria for sifting testimonial evidence. 

This is one of the basic problems besetting some members of the MacArthur circle. Their cessationism commits them to radical skepticism regarding the possibility of historical knowledge. They're like the minimalist school in Biblical archeology (e.g. Hector Avalos). That's what happens when you adopt a purely reactionary posture. 

Those who argue this way want to defend the on-going practice and possibility of tongues, healings, and miracles but without having to subject it to empirical verification.
I have said that our method for examining this question is both exegetical and empirical. It is exegetical from the standpoint that we must understand the nature of the gifts given in Scripture and how the Church used those gifts for ministry and for edification. It is empirical in the sense that these claims are physical in nature and can be subjected to empirical testing. We can see if a healing has taken place or if a person can actually speak in a foreign language supernaturally.

I have no objection to the empirical verification or falsification of reported healing, where medical records and diagnostic technology are available. 

The dreams of Abimelech and Pilate's wife were given for our benefit, primarily. That is why they are included in divine revelation. You do understand that divine revelation in Scripture was given for the divine revelation OF Scripture and FOR our benefit, right? God is not capriciously or arbitrarily out there revealing things to people willy nilly. There is obviously a greater purpose in His actions than what we see with the Pentecostal connections you are trying to make.

Notice that Ed dodges the issue of how Abimelech or Pilate's wife should have responded to their revelatory dreams. That's because the question exposes an insuperable dilemma in his position. If, on the one hand, he allows that they were right to heed the warning, then, by his own admission, that supposedly opens a door that can't be closed: Once you open the door to such experiential leanings and to extra biblical revelation, just about anything can walk in under the guise of a “movement of God." That would be a fatal concession on his part. For he no longer has a basis for excluding extrabiblical revelation in principle.

However, at least in his initial response to me, he's not prepared to say they were wrong to heed the warning, for that would place him in diametrical opposition to the text. These were revelatory dreams from God. The recipients were supposed to heed the divine warning. 

Since Ed has no good answer, he ducks the question. Changes the subject.

That's because Ed isn't beginning with the witness of Scripture. He begins with his a priori position, then tries to explain away inconvenient evidence to the contrary.

I don't distinguish between verbal and visionary revelation because I cannot know either unless they were reduced to the revelation of Scripture. You continue to miss your target.

Notice how he's confusing ontology with epistemology. Visionary revelation is a different genre. 

If I allow the extra biblical principle in Pentecostal theology, I am indeed in quicksand without any escape from any of the outrageous claims that supposedly come through those revelations. A man may hear that God wants him to divorce his Baptist or Presbyterian wife and marry a fellow Pentecostal who will follow him in his supposed Holy Ghost filled ecstatic utterances. Who are we to say he is wrong. We may say you cannot divorce her because of Paul. He will retort that Paul was speaking of a general situation where the man never heard from God. But I have heard from God and therefore, I must obey! How shall we respond to this person? They have a word from God as sure as any word from God written down in Scripture.
How can we know that Benny Hinn did not receive a legitimate revelation that God has disclosed to him but to no one in Scripture? If we affirm the possibility of extra biblical revelation, I do not see how we can judge the claims these men make, to be false without at the same time engaging in a level of arbitrariness foreign to all rational thought. Even if we arbitrarily assert that all new revelation must be examined in light of Scripture, there is enough not revealed in Scripture that enormous error could ensue and we would have no exegetically rational way of refuting it. This development is both intellectually unappealing and spiritually perilous.
This whole question is a question of epistemology. How do we know and what is our final authority for knowing? Either we have a closed canon and a final authoritative revelation that serves as the basis for knowing truth or we do not. There is no middle ground.

i) The obvious problem with Ed's position is that he raises an issue which didn't begin with the death of the apostles. This goes all the way back to the OT. What should a believer do when confronted with conflicting prophetic claimants? There are hypothetical cases in Deut 13:1-5 & 18:15-21, as well as concrete cases like Jer 27-28. 

Ed's objection either proves too much or too little. By his logic, no OT Jew could distinguish between true and false prophets. Given Ed's all-or-nothing position, an OT Jew should either lend equal credence to all prophetic claimants or dismiss them en masse. This is the problem with the corrosive skepticism of hardline cessationists like Dingess. It doesn't stop with postbiblical "prophecies" or miracles. The same acid begins to dissolve Biblical prophecies and miracles. Ironically, Ed is staking out the same skeptical ground as liberals like Sanders, Crenshaw, and Sheppard. 

If only a closed canon will serve as the basis for distinguishing between true and false claimants, then where does that leave OT Jews, who–by definition–weren't operating with a closed canon. At that time, the canon was still open. It was still the era of public revelation. Same thing with the NT church. 

ii) The fact that someone claims to be a prophet carries no inherent presumption that he is what he claims to be. The bare possibility of "extrabiblical revelation" doesn't confer presumptive actuality on any particular claim or claimant. 

Let's take a concrete example. Alexander Peden. He was a Covenanter with a reputation for foreknowledge. He was reputedly prescient or clairvoyant about enemy troop movements–among other things. Maybe this is legendary, but let's discuss it from a hypothetical standpoint.

Suppose your a Covenanter who's living in Scotland during the Killing Times. Suppose Peden comes rapping on your door and warns you to leave with your family because he had a premonitory dream of Redcoats heading to your house to murder your family. What should you do?

Well, if Peden has a track record for accurate predictions, it would be prudent of you to heed the warning. You have nothing to lose, and potentially everything to gain. 

That doesn't mean you're obliged to heed the warning. Rather, you're acting on his local reputation. That's a judgment based on probability rather than certainty. You don't have to have be strongly invested in his claims. 

The Killing Times were extraordinary times. It wouldn't be surprising to me if God does extraordinary things in extraordinary times to protect his people from mass extermination. 

iii) But what about ordinary times? I endorse Spurgeon's default position. He relates an anecdote about a man who came up to Spurgeon and said the Lord told him he was to preach at the Metropolitan Tabernacle that Sunday. Spurgeon replied, "That’s funny - the Lord didn’t tell me that!"

If somebody says God told them to tell me something, my normal reaction would be: If God really has something to tell me, he can tell me directly!