Denying the undeniable

One tactic which MacArthurite cessationists use to discredit modern miracles is to claim that, unlike Biblical miracles, modern miracles are deniable. Now there are different ways in which a miracle might be deniable. Here are two:

i) The occurrence of the event is deniable. You can cast reasonable doubt on whether it actually happened.

ii) The occurrence of the event is undeniable, but the nature of the event is deniable. You can deny the miraculous character of the event.

For instance, Fred Butler says:

The miracle wasn’t confined to a small number of witnesses, or a small congregation of people.They were done publicly, in full view of a great multitude of believers and unbelievers alike, and they were so extraordinary they were undeniable.Think Iraqi war veterans getting their limbs back completely whole or the late Christopher Reeves having his spinal cord injury reversed.Continuationists are arguing that real signs and wonders recorded in the NT documents still exist today among God’s people.  Specifically that means the miraculous healing of people with severe physical health problems and handicaps.  Considering the NT documents, it would be individuals with spinal cord injuries and paralysis (Mark 2), those with crippling deformities (Matthew 12:9ff.), those with incurable blindness (Mark 8:22ff), and those who had even died being raised to life again (John 11).

Fred isn't including all Biblical miracles. Rather, he's whittling them down to a subset of Biblical miracles. 

Some are undeniable in the sense of (i), because they are public miracles. 

Some are undeniable in the sense of (ii), because they defy a natural explanation, viz., regenerating dismembered limbs, restoring sight to the congenitally blind.

But that's a theologically dangerous strategy, for by Fred's criterion, this means many or most Biblical miracles don't rise to the level of undeniable miracles. Some Biblical miracles are private rather than public events. 

More importantly, some Biblical miracles aren't really miraculous so long as a natural explanation is possible or available. So Fred naturalizes modern miracles by a tactic that implicitly naturalizes many or most Biblical miracles. 

That places many Biblical miracles on a par with reported postbiblical miracles, by making both deniable, in the sense of (ii).

However, Fred also deploys the opposite argument.

They were done publicly, in full view of a great multitude of believers and unbelievers alike, and they were so extraordinary they were undeniable.  Even the Pharisees recognized they were the real deal and the only explanation they had was the Devil did them.Other passages of Scripture imply that miraculous activity can be produced by our demonic enemy designed specifically to lead people into theological error.  That is why I am loathe to embrace the examples of Keener as being genuine works of God. There may be something supernatural happening, yet the vast majority are no where near the level of quality recorded for us in Scripture, and certainly not from God at all if they are tied to false religions.

That tactic presupposes that reported modern miracles are so undeniable that it's necessary to attribute their origin to the dark side. And that, too, places postbiblical miracles on a par with biblical miracles. 

Are modern miracles deniable or undeniable? Fred says both. 

MacArthurite cessationists wish to privilege Biblical miracles, but their hostility to continuationism is so intense that their position threatens to debunk Biblical miracles in the process of debunking postbiblical miracles.