Token faith in miracles

Back to Ed Dingess:

Hume argues that we simply don’t have enough reliable witnesses, of good moral character, who testify to a miraculous event. Hume also noted that human beings love bizarre tales. Finally, Hume notices that miracles are usually reported among unenlightened people groups…Now, what Steve Hays attempts to do is extend Hume’s argument against human testimony to the cessationist. Hume argues that the particular reports of miracles should not be believed because these men have questionable character, or, they love the bizarre, or they are simply unenlightened. 

Which is exactly how MacArthurites dismiss reported Third World miracles. Thanks for proving my point. 

You may be asking where Hays is wrong in his accusation that cessationists are skeptics in sheep’s clothing. Hays is wrong on several accounts. First of all, cessationism does not deny the possibility of modern miracles. We believe God can perform miracles today. In fact, when presented with the right kind of evidence, rather than rejecting a miracle claim and resorting to some far-fetched naturalistic explanation, we will rejoice that God has performed a miracle. Suppose a person was cured of terminal cancer. The skeptic would conclude that mistake took place in the diagnosis or that something strange had indeed taken place but the cause must have been naturalistic even if we don’t understand it. The believer will not resort to such outlandish and foolish explanations. The cessationist will rejoice in the Lord. 

Except for the awkward little fact that what Ed Dingess specifically affirms, Mike Riccardi specifically denies:

If someone has cancer, the church prays for him, and the cancer vanishes without medical explanation, MacArthur would certainly rejoice in that as an answer to prayer. But he might put it in the category of "extraordinary providence," rather than "miracle." The kind of miracles that we see in the NT, like Lazarus being raised from the dead, a lame man walking, a blind man seeing, etc., are properly understood to be miracles -- where the natural order is suspended in some way. But the mysterious absence of cancer after much prayer may not involve any suspension of the natural order, and can simply be that God chose to work in an extraordinary way through His providential guidance over all things.I guess that would be a good distinction to keep in mind. God doesn't have to work something "supernatural," in the strict sense of the term, in order for that thing to be extraordinary, awe-inspiring, and praiseworthy. 

http://www.challies.com/interviews/john-macarthur-responds-to-his-strange-fire-critics-part-2#comment-1118441412

Taking his cue from MacArthur, Riccardi expressly disallows the miraculous character of a healing like that. 

Hays continues to attempt to tie cessationists to the arguments of naturalism. He knows full well that we believe in the miraculous. He knows we insist on the legitimacy and factuality of biblical miracles.

i) Actually, based on their reactionary definition of a miracle, MacArthurites deny that many biblical events traditionally classified as miracles are in fact miraculous. The list keeps getting shorter as they take a pair of scissors to biblical miracles.  

ii) The other problem is that MacArthurites are wholly inconsistent in what miracles they affirm or deny. 

John 14:12: Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 

Clearly this verse makes no such promise. Jesus is speaking to His disciples who are with Him at the time. The key phrase is "because I go to the Father."

i) Regarding the scope of the promise, the key phrase is "whoever believes in me." Although Jesus was speaking to the Eleven, he wasn't speaking about the Eleven in particular. Rather, he was speaking about "whoever believes in me." 

ii) In addition, by Ed's logic, the promise doesn't apply to NT prophets and miracle-workers like Agabus, Stephen, Philip, and St. Paul inasmuch as Jesus wasn't speaking to them at the time. 

Acts 2:17-18: And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. 

There is nothing in this verse that promises the CONTINUATION of miracles throughout the Church age.

Of course there is. It contrasts how God operated under the old covenant with how God will operate under the new covenant. It applies the promise to every demographic group–not Apostles only. It indexes the promise to the "last days." The last days will be characterized by this type of phenomena. Unless Dingess is a preterist, we're still living in the last days. Does Ed think we're living after the last days? 

In addition, v39 projects the promise into succeeding generations. Not merely for the historical audience on the day of Pentecost, but for posterity. 

1 Cor. 13:8-12: Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 

Once again, there is no promise in this text that miracles will continue throughout the Church age. There is only the acknowledgement that these things are among the imperfect but that they are inferior the perfect state of every regenerate Christian will show this to be the case.

There's nothing in the text about perfect and imperfect people. Rather, it's a contrast between partial, mediate knowledge in the here-and-now and full, unmediated knowledge when we come "face to face" with God. Either that refers to death or the Parousia. If the Parousia, this promise is for the duration of the church age. If death, this promise is for the duration of the church age inasmuch as Christians die throughout the interadventual period.  

James 5:13-16: Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 

And again, there is nothing in this text that promises the continuation of miracles or healings throughout the Church age.

James doesn't say, if anyone is sick, let him call for the apostles, but the elders. Does Ed believe, not only in the cessation of apostleship, but the cessation of eldership? 

If Hays is correct and these are in fact promises, then why aren't they happening? 

They are. One of Ed's many problems is that he acts as if these divine promises operate with mechanical uniformity. But that confuses a natural process with personal agency. Natural processes are uniform because they are mindless. Inanimate. They simply do whatever they were programmed to do. There's no capacity for rational discrimination. 

But God is a personal agent, not a machine. Moreover, Christian theism isn't deism. God doesn't abdicate the throne. He determines whether or when a miracle occurs. He doesn't hand someone a blank check. 

When was the last time you actually witnessed a genuine miracle? I don't mean you heard of someone who knew someone that told you about this person that got healed. 

Actually, I could give personal examples. But Ed is promoting a subversive rule of evidence, as if secondhand testimony is ipso facto suspect. 

Moreover, how often do the elders in your church pray over someone and witness the cancer drying up and going away? Do our elders even believe in God? Why aren't people getting healed? When was the last time Steve Hays laid his hands on a blind man and prayed for him and healed him? 

Ed is foisting his own interpretation of Jas 5:13-16 onto me, then taking issue with the consequences. But, of course, I don't share his interpretation. I've presented and defended my own interpretation, which he conveniently ignores:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-prayer-of-faith-will-save-sick.html

Why isn't Steve Hays down at the hospital working these miracles like Jesus and the apostles did? Hays must not have much faith.

So by Ed's logic, Jesus didn't work many miracles in Nazareth because Jesus was faithless or powerless  (Mt 13:58; Mk 6:5-6). 

 If he did, then he would stop being such a windbag and start actually doing some of these things the Bible supposedly promises. If Steve Hays' exegesis is accurate, then none of us have genuine faith because we simply don't see these miracles in any of our churches. 

"In any of our churches"? How does Ed know what is happening in every church around the world? Or every church in the last 2000 years? Or in Christian homes? 

There is one other possibility I suppose. If Hays' exegesis is accurate, and Hays really does believe, then the Bible must be false.

Ed isn't engaging my exegesis. Rather, Ed is taking his own exegesis for granted, which he imputes to me. One of Ed's problems is that he's an ex-Pentecostal, and he still interprets Jas 5:13-16 the way he did in his Pentecostal days.  

Since Hays isn't healing anyone or working any miracles or doing anything that the Bible promises he could do if he believed it, then the Bible must be a farce.

Ed keeps burning straw men, as if every Christian must have the same abilities. But as Paul explains, the body has different members. 

Oh, I almost forgot; there is one more possibility. Maybe Steve Hays' exegesis and argumentation is a farce. If Hays' exegesis is a farce, then that would explain why the Bible can be fully reliable and why we simply don't see these amazing miracles in modern times. I don't know which option you will choose, but as for me and my house, we choose to believe the Bible and reject the foolish abstractions of a man who has never worked a miracle in his life and yet expects us to just take him at his word that he can. After all, this is the logical conclusion of his argument.

Except that Ed doesn't believe the Bible. He doesn't begin with the promises of Scripture. By his own admission, he begins with what he thinks really happens, then reinterprets the Bible to conform to his notion of reality. Ed has the same hermeneutic as Peter Enns. Retrofit the Bible to agree with your extrabiblical understanding of the real world.