In the combox, a number of atheists responded to David French's testimony of miraculous healing:
I'm going to briefly evaluate their responses:
i) Some resort to the circular argument that since there's no evidence for God, his healing can't be evidence for God. By that logic, nothing would ever count as evidence for God. It will be preemptively discounted.
ii) Some dismiss this as anecdotal evidence. But what's wrong with anecdotal evidence for particular events? It can be risky to generalize from anecdotal evidence, for the sample may be too small to underwrite a reliable induction, but in this case, anecdotal evidence is just a synonym for French's firsthand experience.
My high school German teacher was a native German and war bride. Certainly I can't extrapolate from that instance to high school German teachers in general. But my experience is reliable evidence for what was going on at my high school when I was there. Don't atheists rely on personal experience for most of what they believe about their past and present circumstances?
iii) Some dismiss French's interpretation as an example of confirmation bias. Christians are predisposed to believe in miracles.
a) Funny thing is how often people who cite confirmation bias illustrate their own confirmation bias in the process. They are blind to their own confirmation bias. They act as if confirmation bias invariably applies to some else–never to themselves.
The fact that atheists reflexively discount examples of miraculous healing–even in the teeth of medical verification–is a classic example of confirmation bias. They are predisposed to reject miracles out of hand.
b) Moreover, French didn't expect his classmate's assurance to be true.
iv) Some cite prayer studies to prove that prayer is statistically ineffective.
a) To begin with, there is evidence from prayer studies that prayer is statistically effective. For instance:
b) The operating assumption behind controlled studies is flawed:
c) More to the point, this objection is an exercise in misdirection. Prayer studies are irrelevant to any particular case with specific evidence.
v) Some appeal to spontaneous remission. But there are many problems with that objection:
a) That was French's choice of terms, speaking informally, as a layman. His doctors didn't attribute his recovery to spontaneous remission.
In fact, his doctors concluded that since ulcerative colitis is incurable, they must have misdiagnosed him–for his recovery was naturally or scientifically inexplicable given that condition.
b) Diseases range along a continuum. In some cases, the body has the ability to heal itself, with or without medical intervention. At best, medical intervention hastens the healing process.
But you can't make a facile appeal to the body's natural healing ability in more extreme cases. Likewise, atheists use this category for diseases in general. But is that customary in medical science?
c) To my knowledge, spontaneous remission is not a naturalistic alternative to miraculous healing. Spontaneous remission is not a medical explanation. It doesn't say how or why the patient went into remission. It doesn't identify a natural cause or natural mechanism. Rather, it's a superficial description of what happened. Really, an admission of ignorance.
d) Why assume that spontaneous remission is not miraculous? The fact that some people are healed in answer to prayer doesn't mean people are only healed in answer to prayer.
vi) Some appeal to unanswered prayer to counter answered prayer. Atheists act as though, if one person is healed, but another not, the fact that one person was healed cancels out the evidence that the other person was miraculously healed.
Take a comparison. Suppose I drive my friend to the airport. I park in the parking garage, making careful note of where I parked.
After I return to the garage, I see that my car is gone. I naturally conclude that my car was stolen. i call the police to report my stolen car. I have them come to fill out a report.
When they come they give me with a quizzical look. They ask me how I know my car was stolen? I reply that it didn't drive away all by itself. I wrote down the parking spot.
They admit that the space where my car was is empty. But they point to cars parked to the right and to the left of where my car was. Cars in front and cars in back. So many cars to choose from.
If my car was stolen, why did the thief steal my car rather than someone else's car? Likewise, if it's worth stealing one car, it's worth stealing many cars. It would be lucrative for a chop shop to hire several car thieves.
I have no idea why the thief stole my car when there were others he could take. I have no idea why he left the other cars alone. But so what? How does the fact that I don't know what the thief's selection-criterion was zero out the evidence that my car was stolen?
vii) Apropos (vi), In the nature of the case, we can rarely say why God healed one person but not another. We don't know the specific reason. We can only speculate in any given case. We can, however, suggest general reasons.
Just about every life has a ripple effect. Your life has an impact on other lives. God may heal one person but not another because of the long-term repercussiosn. God might heal one person because his life will have a significant beneficial impact on others. God might not heal another person because his life would have a significant deleterious impact had he lived longer.
Likewise, some people live too long for their own good. They'd be better off if they died sooner.
God doesn't heal some people because they're special; rather, they're special because God heals them.
David French is a lawyer for the ACLJ, in which capacity he defends the Constitutional freedom of Christian expression. So he's doing something with his life that benefits many other people.
viii) One atheist took the opposite tack an appeal to reported cases of miraculous non-Christian healing.
a) To begin with, the atheist didn't cite any evidence on the extent of reported cases of non-Christian miraculous healing.
b) But supposing it's true, where does that leave the original objection? Is French's example incredible because too few people are healed in answer to prayer, or incredible because too many people are healed answer to prayer? Hard to see how both objections are mutually consistent.
c) God can have reasons to heal unbelievers. Human beings are agents of historical causation. Who lives and who dies affects the future. God can heal an unbeliever in the past to benefit a believer in the future.
ix) Unsurprisingly, some atheists make a last-ditch appeal to coincidence. However, French's case is very specific. He was diagnosed with an incurable disease. He was rapidly deteriorating. A classmate from law school prayed for him, then phoned him to assure him that he was cured. The very next day his symptoms were gone. And that was 19 years ago.
Appealing to coincidence proves too much. When is something not a coincidence?
x) The existence of disease doesn't call God's existence into question, for disease is consistent with Biblical theism. The Bible contains many examples of the sick and dying.
"We can, however, suggest general reasons.” I feel that that is a spectacularly bad idea. While giving an example in order to help illustrate what one of an infinitude of possible motives God may have had for doing something is not inherently a bad thing to do, you wording almost makes it seem as if there’s a sort of dichotomy. If you’ve been healed, you clearly will “have a beneficial impact on others”, and if you haven’t been healed, then evidently, you’re a wicked individual who would otherwise “live too long for their own good.” I know that you would obviously reject such a dichotomy, but the wording of your argument makes it seem that way. That is especially the case with the wild speculation that French may have been healed because “he is a lawyer for the ACLJ, in which capacity he defends the Constitutional freedom of Christian expression.” Even if you’d qualified that statement with a clarification that it was indeed a wild speculation (which you didn’t anyway), I feel that that sort of reasoning should not even be verbalised.
ReplyDeleteI really think that the best way to address this is to throw up our hands and say with the Apostle Paul, “Who are you, O man, to talk back to God?” After all, if God is truly omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and Sovereign, then how can we possibly pass judgement on His doings? Who can contend with the Almighty? Will the clay talk back to the Potter?
When heathens question God, call him 'arbitrary', and question why He would not heal a child's neuroblastoma as he healed French, they merely underly their assumption that God is not omniscient, omnipresent, and sovereign - that He does not, in fact, exist. The best way to address such circular impious rebellious verbiage, I feel, is to not offer possible explanations but to resolutely point out that if indeed the Judeo-Christian God exists, then, being omnipresent, omniscient, the Ultimate Law Giver, the ultimate standard of morality, it is necessarily utterly foolish to question Him, let alone judge Him and find Him wanting by their vastly inferior intellect and sense of morality.
When confronted with such facts, it becomes clear that the question to ask is not "how can God allow/not allow/do/not do ", but "Is He there?" Because if He is The God Who Is There, all their arguments and philosophising and terribly naive moralistic arguments vanish, like a vapour in the wind.
"and if you haven’t been healed, then evidently, you’re a wicked individual who would otherwise “live too long for their own good.' I know that you would obviously reject such a dichotomy, but the wording of your argument makes it seem that way.
Deletei) To begin with, you're connecting two separate things. I didn't suggest that "wicked individuals" die prematurely because they'd otherwise live too long for their own good. As far as that goes, there's poetic justice in wicked individuals living too long for their own good.
Living too long for your own good doesn't select for wicked people. Some very good people live too long for their own good–abandoned in nursing homes, where they die lonely and neglected (to take one example).
Living too long for your own good is a separate consideration from having a deleterious impact on others down the line.
ii) Moreover, your objection is shortsighted. To say someone's life might have a deleterious impact had he lived longer does not imply that he was a wicked individual. You completely missed the point about a ripple effect.
For instance, Stalin's grandfather might have been a saintly individual. But his grandfather's existence had the catastrophic consequence of being a necessary condition for the existence of Stalin. Had Stalin's grandfather died young, that would change history–in some respects for the better. Stalin would never exist absent his grandfather.
"Even if you’d qualified that statement with a clarification that it was indeed a wild speculation (which you didn’t anyway), I feel that that sort of reasoning should not even be verbalised."
You express your disapproval, but you fail to explain what's wrong with my statement. Atheistic commenters were asking what possible reason God might have to spare French's life. Well, that's a possible reason. I'm responding to them on their own grounds.
"After all, if God is truly omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and Sovereign, then how can we possibly pass judgement on His doings?"
Since my post is defending God's providence, your comparison is irrational.
"The best way to address such circular impious rebellious verbiage, I feel, is to not offer possible explanations but to resolutely point out that if indeed the Judeo-Christian God exists, then, being omnipresent, omniscient, the Ultimate Law Giver, the ultimate standard of morality, it is necessarily utterly foolish to question Him, let alone judge Him and find Him wanting by their vastly inferior intellect and sense of morality."
i) Do you espouse theological voluntarism?
ii) Paul doesn't merely appeal to God's sheer sovereignty. Paul gives general reasons for God's choices (e.g. Rom 9:17,22-23).
iii) The Bible itself gives many examples of good or bad long-range consequences that flow from individual actions. Although I don't know in any particular instance why God miraculously heals one individual but lets another die, I'm appealing to general truths. The fact that I don't know which general truth applies in a particular situation doesn't mean no general truth applies in that situation. Given a number of applicable general truths, at least one of them will be true to that specific case.
iv) Finally, a problem with your response is that it's apt to fail you when personal tragedy strikes close to home. People who talk like you can become very bitter and disillusioned when they think God lets them down. When they lose a loved one through some inexplicable tragedy, or when they are struck down by a degenerative illness, just invoking God's sovereignty at that point will leave a sour aftertaste.
They need more than pious statements. They need reasons.
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Deletei) Sorry, I'd misread what you'd written.
ReplyDeleteii) "To say someone's life might have a deleterious impact had he lived longer does not imply that he was a wicked individual." Granted.
"You express your disapproval, but you fail to explain what's wrong with my statement." I don't think there's anything wrong with putting forth general principles as a possible example of why God might do something, but such a specific example for a specific person seems to me more than a little foolish.
"Since my post is defending God's providence, your comparison is irrational." That particular statement that you seem to be replying to here was not directed at you.
i) What is theological voluntarism?
ii) Sure. "General reasons." I don't think there's any problem with that. But you've pointed out a specific reason for a specific person. The only time Paul points out a specific reason for an individual (Pharaoh), we must understand that God had chosen to reveal why He'd hardened Pharaoh's heart. Paul's usage of Pharaoh as a specific sort of example is only in light of the fact that God had revealed it, and does not constitute Biblical support for assertions and speculations.
"Although I don't know in any particular instance why God miraculously heals one individual but lets another die, I'm appealing to general truths." My biggest problem with your article wasn't necessarily the pointing out of general truths, but the presentation of a specific possibility.
iii) "The Bible itself gives many examples of good or bad long-range consequences that flow from individual actions." Okay. And? "Although I don't know in any particular instance why God miraculously heals one individual but lets another die, I'm appealing to general truths." I didn't necessarily say you were wrong in doing so. In fact, giving general reasons is a useful thing to do, and I'd only made a comment as to the tone/wording. But giving a specific example without any sort of qualification comes across to me as a bad idea.
iv) "People who talk like you can become very bitter and disillusioned when they think God lets them down." I don't think so, seeing as you've made the incorrect assumption that personal tragedy has not struck close to home. It's not as if I think that God is arbitrary. It's more that I don't think it's helpful to make specific assertions as to why He has allowed something to happen.
"They need more than pious statements. They need reasons." In that sort of emotionally charged scenario, I doubt any reason would cut it.