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Saturday, August 17, 2013

Medine Keener's father

Is this an immediate or a mediate miracle?

I suppose the MacArthurites would say it's God healing directly (in response to prayer), so therefore an immediate miracle. But would God have healed Medine if her father hadn't prayed (and/or Medine hadn't trusted him)?

On the face of it, it seems Medine's father's prayer is effective in a way in which the prayers of most other Christians aren't. If so, then it would appear the MacArthurites' distinction between the mediate and immediate doesn't quite hold up in Medine's father's case.

3 comments:

  1. "would God have healed Medine if her father hadn't prayed (and/or Medine hadn't trusted him)?"

    That's one of those questions that reveal a lot about the person who puts it forward: they are either ignorant about God or willfully reject His sovereignty.

    God does not only decrees the ends, but also the means. He decreed exactly what happened. There are no hypotheticals with God. Our fallen minds like to come up with all these "elaborate" scenarios that leave His Sovereignty out of the picture. Because of that, they (the hypotheticals) are not based on reality or facts.

    E.

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  2. Elaine Bittencourt said:

    That's one of those questions that reveal a lot about the person who puts it forward: they are either ignorant about God or willfully reject His sovereignty.

    God does not only decrees the ends, but also the means. He decreed exactly what happened. There are no hypotheticals with God. Our fallen minds like to come up with all these "elaborate" scenarios that leave His Sovereignty out of the picture. Because of that, they (the hypotheticals) are not based on reality or facts.


    1. So Elaine claims "put[ting]...forward" "hypotheticals" demonstrates a person is "either ignorant of God or willfully reject[s] His sovereignty." She goes further: "There are no hypotheticals with God." And, indeed, she states: "they (the hypotheticals) are not based on reality or facts." All in all, Elaine strikes quite a strong position against hypotheticals.

    Well, the Bible "puts...forward" "hypotheticals." For example, check out 1 Cor 15 where the apostle Paul puts forward hypotheticals about the resurrection.

    So according to Elaine, the apostle Paul is "either ignorant about God or willfully reject[s] His sovereignty."

    2. This, in turn, would hardly be a conservative Christian's view about the apostle Paul and his epistles! Maybe this is one of those occasions that reveal a lot about the person who puts it forward: maybe Elaine is a closet liberal Christian?

    3. There's a bit of circular reasoning to Elaine's argument. Perhaps not quite, but almost. On the one hand, "put[ting]...forward" such a "hypothetical" (A) is quite possibly to "willfully reject His sovereignty" (B). But on the other hand, "leav[ing] His Sovereignty out of the picture" (B) means "they (the hypotheticals) are not based on reality or facts" (A). In short, Elaine wants to assert it's wrong to put forward a hypothetical since it's tantamount to rejecting God's sovereignty, but then wants to define rejecting God's sovereignty as putting forward hypotheticals.

    4. Hypotheticals may be "not based on reality or facts" in the sense that hypotheticals can be assumptions made contrary to the facts in order to facilitate discussion or analysis. But that's the point: such a hypothetical would be for the sake of argument. If it's for the sake of argument, then how does that "reveal a lot about the person who puts it forward: they are either ignorant about God or willfully reject His sovereignty"?

    5. Plus, even if Elaine is right (ad arguendo, which I don't grant), she's proposing and committing a false dilemma. The only two choices are not "either ignorant of God or willfully reject[s] His sovereignty." Rather, there are other choices. For example, it could be an honest mistake. Or, heck, it could even be both, I suppose. Not either/or but both/and.

    6. In any case, sorry to say, Elaine, but you're making a pretty shoddy argument here.

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  3. At the risk of stating the obvious: if it's a hypothetical question, then it isn't necessarily indicative of my own beliefs let alone beliefs about God.

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