The healing debate

I listened to the White/Brown debate on healing. It's a ramshackle debate. Sometimes White and Brown debate each other, sometimes they debate the moderator, sometimes they field questions from audience.

In general, I thought Brown had the better of the argument, but there are some tensions in his position–which I will get to. 

i) White appeared to come into the debate to dispute a position other than Brown's position. The majority position: it is always God's will to heal.  

That lack of preparation was a weakness in the debate. Apparently, White hadn't studied Brown's position. 

ii) In his opening statement, Brown said the gifts continue to eschaton (1 Cor 13).

The gifts are not reserved for the apostles, but for the common good. The list (1 Cor 12:28) separates the gift of healing from apostles. He later added that in the NT we see non-apostles performing miracles. 

He denied healing on demand. Healing is not automatic. For in that very letter, Paul mentions sick churchgoers at the same time the gifts were flourishing.

iii) In his opening statement, and later on, White argued that over the course of NT church history, we seen the gifts petering out. He compared Acts 3, where some people are healed by Peter's shadow, with the Timothy's chronic illness, and the further fact that Paul didn't (couldn't?) heal Trophimus. He also stressed Paul's incurable "thorn in the flesh." 

White discerns a transitional phase even during NT times. He appealed to the Pastorals, where Paul is writing to the next generation, looking beyond the apostolic period. White noted that in the Pastors, provision is made for windows. But if the charismatic position is correct, why didn't God simply resurrect their late husbands?

White appealed to the evidential value of miraculous healing to divinely accredit the apostles. 

White also said, throughout the debate, that God is free in the exercise of his gift of healing. We can't command the power of God. 

iv) Brown countered that if Book of Acts is trying to show us that the gift of healing was on the wane, why, in last chapter, does it record Paul healing every sick person brought to him on Malta? That's hardly a decrease. 

Brown mentioned the Timothy was gifted through the imposition of hands, as well as guided by prophetic words. So Brown sees the Pastorals as charismatic. 

Brown appealed to categorical promises like Jn 14:12 and Jas 5:14-16. 

He reminded White that there were sick churchgoers in Corinth. So we don't see the gift fading away. Rather, it was never automatic.  You don't push a button and it happens.

And he reminded White that in 1 Cor 12:28, healing is not an apostolic gift.

Brown said resurrections are very rare even in the NT. That's the exception, not the rule. 

In general, I think his pushback was strong. Not only did he counter White's argument, but he already anticipated some of White's objections in his opening statement. Because, apparently, White hadn't boned up on Brown's specific position in advance, White was recycling stock cessationist objections to continuationism which failed to anticipate or target Brown's actual position. 

v) There are other tensions in White's argument. 

a) White's appeal to divine freedom is at odds with his cessationism. For if cessationism is true, then that's a case of divine self-limitation rather than divine freedom. Although God is still free to heal directly, he is no longer free to heal by empowering a second party to heal the sick. 

b) Likewise, the appeal to divine freedom is at odds with White's appeal to a pattern whereby healers or gifts of healing peter out during the course of NT history. For if God retains the freedom to heal or refrain from healing, then it's unpredictable. God is free to gift someone to be a healer at any time and place. 

vi) But there were also tensions in Brown's position. He says we should build our position on revealed promises rather than experience. And he rejects the caveat that we should pray conditional prayers for healing ("If it be your will"). Rather, we should pray with expectant faith. 

Problem is, Brown's prooftexts create an expectation. They are predictive. "Do this, and that will happen." 

There's nothing wrong with judging by experience if they promise a particular experience. 

Conversely, if, when we practice Jas 5, the patient isn't usually healed, then it's wishful thinking to pray for healing with expectant faith. That's a false expectation. And that invites disillusionment when our hopes are dashed. 

So Brown has difficulty finessing his prooftexts with reality. That should cause him to reconsider his interpretation. 

vii) The issue of whether God wills or sends illness cropped up throughout the debate. One question from the audience challenged White's appeal to Paul's thorn in the flesh. This came from Satan rather than God. 

White countered that Satan's intentions can't be the ultimate explanation. Why would Satan do something to Paul to keep him from boasting. He wants to trip him up. 

Behind Satan's agenda is God's ulterior agenda. God is using Satan. Satan is the unwitting instrument. Satan intends to do harm, but God intends to do good. Satan ends up doing God's will, in spite of Satan's malicious intent. God's beneficial intent overrides Satan's malicious intent. And that was in the cards all along. 

viii) On a related note, Brown argued that if God wills sickness, then a prayer for healing runs counter to God's will. 

That's one of the old uncomprehending objections to Calvinism. 

a) To begin will, God wills sickness as a means to an end, not an end it in itself. Not illness for the sake of illness, but to facilitate some second-order good–either for ourselves or another. 

b) We don't know ahead of time if God has willed to answer our prayer. Perhaps our illness has served its divinely-appointed purpose. God predestined our illness, but if he answers our prayer, that's a predestined answer to prayer. So there's no inconsistency here. Indeed, that's one way of discovering God's will.