Nabeel's recent dream

I'm going to comment on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHEDzitxJB0

When I provide evidence for Christian supernaturalism, I typically select the strongest examples. However, it's useful to examine more ambiguous cases. That's because Christians may experience ambiguous cases, so I think it's useful to consider how we should approach those cases. So I'm going to discuss how I personally assess an example like this. In principle, Nabeel's example raises three issues: (i) Did he really have that dream? (ii) Assuming so, did Jesus really appear to him in a dream? (iii) Assuming so, what does it mean? Let's run through these:

1. One question, and this is an issue concerning testimonial evidence generally, is whether a witness is prima facie credible. Obviously, there are lots of charlatans who profess to have supernatural encounters. And some of them make a lucrative living that way. 

So one question we might ask is whether Nabeel as a pecuniary motive. There's a market for Christian bestsellers that makes sensational claims about supernatural encounters. However, in Nabeel's case, I doubt he's a conman–although we must always always allow for that possibility. (I don't mean Nabeel specifically.)

i) For one thing, I don't find him patently phony like so many charlatans in the charismatic movement. That doesn't mean he couldn't be a charlatan. Some charlatans are better actors than others. My point, though, is that when someone strikes me as oozing with flimflammery, I discount them in the first elimination round. The subset who survive the first elimination round might be discounted on other grounds. But it narrows the contenders. 

ii) Someone might object that in making snap judgments about people, I might unfairly prejudge and misjudge a candidate. That's possible, but so what? I don't owe any of these people my credence. Life is short. We have to make preliminary and provisional judgments about many things. That's necessary to prioritized our time and attention.

iii) Over and above (i), Nabeel comes across as sincere in this vlog series because he's desperate, and desperation puts you in touch with the real person. In the course of his 20 vlogs and counting, he's spooked by the cancer. He's grasping at straws. He wears his game face, both to encourage others and encourage himself, but the anxiety comes through. That's not playacting.

iv) If he's a conman, he doesn't believe in miracles. He knows that a miraculous healing was never in the cards. But in that event he won't live long enough to profit from his illness. So I don't think he has an obvious motive to lie about his dream. It's a kind of paradox: a charlatan has a motive to lie, but only if it's beneficial. Yet if there's nothing to gain, then there's no incentive to lie–in which case there's no reason to suspect that he's a charlatan. 

v) If he was concocting a story about Jesus appearing to him in a dream, I'd expect the symbolism to be less obscure. Likewise, someone concocting such a story wouldn't promptly forget most of what Jesus supposedly told him in the dream.

I'm not saying that's a knockdown argument. But it's reasonable.

2. Assuming the dream is real, which I grant (see above), did Jesus really appear to him in a dream? Of course, I'm in no position to have a definitive opinion on that one way or the other. 

i) Certainly Nebeel could use the encouragement. He's at the end of his tether. So it seems like the sort of thing Jesus might do.

ii) There's the question of autosuggestion. Can we dream about something because we wish to dream about something? I'm not a dream psychologist, so I have no expertise on that question. At least in my own experience, I have no ability that I'm aware of to program my dreams. There are things I'd like to dream about more often, but don't. I lack control over what I dream about from one night to the next. 

iii) I don't think the realistic appearance of Jesus in his dream is probative. Thoughtful Christians have a general idea of what a 1C Palestinian Jew would look like. So our imagination might be informed by what we know in that regard. 

Also, if Jesus does appear to people in church history–in dreams and visions–I'd expect him to adapt his appearance to the time and place. 

So, if we consider the dream in isolation, I have no particular opinion about whether Jesus really appeared to him. I allow for that possibility.  

iv) However, in combination with his daughter's reaction, I think it more likely that this was a revelatory dream: a sign or omen. 

3. That, in turn, goes to the question of what it means. 

i) Nabeel offered his own interpretation. It might seem reasonable to suppose that a revelatory dream means whatever it means to the dreamer. After all, if it's for his own benefit, then it would seem to be tailor-made to what's significant to the dreamer. What the symbolism connotes for him.

Perhaps, though, that's too facile. After all, we have some revelatory dreams in Scripture (to Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar) that were opaque to the dreamer. They required a second party to interpret their dream.

Of course, that might be exceptional because God was making the heathen dreamer depend on the services of a Jewish oneiromantis, in order to give Jews favor with their pagan overlords. So it's hard to say.

ii) As is his wont, Nabeel offered a more edifying, optimistic interpretation. But that could be because he wants it to have a more edifying and optimistic significance. There's been a strain of wishful thinking throughout his vlog series. I don't say that as a personal criticism. By his own admission, he's terrified by the cancer. But desperately hoping for the best can skew the interpretation. 

iii) A more pessimistic interpretation is that this is an omen or premonition of impending death. A harbinger that his daughter will lose her father. If so, that could be merciful in the sense that it prepares his family for the inevitable. If worst comes to worst, they will still know that God didn't abandon them in their extremity. However mysterious his providence, God was present and active in this situation. Only time will tell which interpretation is correct.