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Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Assessing Lourdes

This is a post on Lourdes. Lydia McGrew kindly provided feedback on a draft version, so I'm including our exchange (with permission) at the end. 

1. It seems to me that there are two different ways we might classify the cures at Lourdes as coincidental. One way, championed by atheists, is to say that in any sufficiently large sample group, it's statistically inevitable that some medical conditions will natural resolve themselves. This will happen anyway, regardless of prayer. The cliché example is spontaneous remission from cancer. 

2. However, atheists don't think just any cure is susceptible to that explanation. Take the cliché example of amputees. They don't think the spontaneous regeneration of organs or body parts is something that naturally happens in a sufficiently large sample group. They concede that if that occurred, it would be naturally impossible. That would be a bona fide miracle.

3. But there's another sense in which the cures might be coincidental. And that's whether it's coincidental in place. According to the official site, only 70 cases have been formally confirmed as miraculous healings by the Catholic church:


In addition, I've read from 3 different sources that the total number of pilgrims is over 200 million:




Assuming that estimate is approximately accurate, the question it raises is whether, in any sample group of 200 million people who pray for miraculous healing, there will be a comparable percentage of naturally impossible cures. If so, the geographical association with Lourdes is random. That concedes a genuine miracle, but the location is an adventitious variable. Miraculous healings happen at the same rate in answer to prayer regardless of locality. 

4. Mind you, that may oversimplify things. Perhaps this happens more often in a Christian context, and not, say, when Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhist pray for miraculous healing. That's another variable. 

5. In fairness, the comparison (3) may be misleading in another respect. The same official site lists 7000 unexplained cures:


And unpacks that category is a bit more detail:

The members of the International Medical Committee of Lourdes have the task of assessing and, as may be the case, “certifying” that the course of the cure, which has been declared “unexplained” by the Bureau des Constatations Médicales of Lourdes, is indeed “unexplained” on the basis of current medical knowledge” (4). 
https://www.lourdes-france.org/en/medical-bureau-sanctuary/

So that changes the percentages by changing the standard. Put more precisely, that raises the percentages by lowering the standard. The question is whether in any sample group of 200 million people who pray for miraculous healing, there's a comparable percentage of unexplained cures. That's a less stringent standard. And it may be impossible to draw a comparison if we lack a relevant survey of the respective sample groups.

Since "7000" is obviously a round number, I wonder where that number comes from. Where's the source? 

Lydia
I'd be very surprised if those 7000 are on the order of the restoration of amputated limbs. Verified not to have been hoaxes, as well. It's important to remember that plenty of people aren't going to suffer any serious consequences for perpetrating a religious hoax. Nobody is going to crucify them.

Hays
It might be argued that the official figure (70 miraculous cures) is artificially low because the criteria are artificially rigorous. Since the Catholic church is putting its reputation on the line, it has stringent standards to vouch a miracle (in the past it wasn't so scrupulous). 

If so, then the actual number of miracles is probably higher than the official figure, but because "unexplained" is so vague, without further information about specific cases, we can't judge if the real figure is at the low end of the 7000, high end, or somewhere in the middle. 

Lydia
I think you are suggesting that God might cure them because they prayed or because he has some other reason to perform a miracle, not because of anything to do with Mary. That's a legitimate possibility, but it has some problems since God presumably knows that such a miracle will be credited to Mary's intercession. He could just have cured the person before he left to go to Lourdes.

Hays
i) It raises difficult issues regarding providence however we slice it. I wish to avoid a double standard. As you know there are cessationists and "anti-Catholics" who set the bar low enough so that every biblical miracle gets over the bar, but then reset the bar impossibly high so that no Catholic or Pentecostal miracle gets over the bar. Yet that's textbook special pleading.

ii) Mind you, a Catholic apologist might accuse me of special pleading because I detach the miracle from Marian claims. But a Catholic apologist is in the same situation, only in reverse. Because there are well-documented Protestant and/or charismatic miracles, a Catholic apologist must be able to distance those cases from Protestant claims. So both sides have the conundrum of conceding a miracle but denying that it verifies a sectarian claimant. 

iii) There's also the question of whether providence will avoid situations that cause some individuals for form a false impression regarding the religious significance of the incident. Given the complexity of historical causation, it's hard to see how providence can achieve certain goals without some intervening events having the incidental consequence of leading some people to draw the wrong conclusion. 

Take popular perception of Marian apparition in a  bank window. As you know, that's a real case. God knows that if the bank is built in that location, then natural lighting conditions will generate a visual pattern or "image" that recognizably corresponds to Marian iconography. But that's arguably a coincidental side-effect of natural processes that have a different purpose entirely independent of that result. Yet for those predisposed to Marian apparitions, on the lookout for Marian apparitions, that will have a predictable result.

Now, it might be argued that that's different from miracles at Lourdes, a site explicitly linked to a purported Marian apparition, and further linked to the Immaculate Conception. Indeed, it probably contributed to the elevation of that folk tradition to the status of dogma.

At the same time, that's a matter of degree rather than kind, compared to the bank window. Both have the same effect.

iv) In addition, if a Catholic prays to Mary at home or in church, then undergoes a remarkable cure, she will attribute that to the intercession of Mary. And she will share her testimony with friends and family. So it's still similar to Lourdes, although it doesn't have the official certification.  

Lydia
I can't remember if you consider the distinction important between God's performing a miracle and God's refraining from preventing something from happening. I do consider it important. It seems to me less likely that God would refrain from intervening to prevent someone from happening to have an amazing healing at Lourdes (by secondary causes) than that God would perform a miracle to heal someone at Lourdes. So that may be a difference between us.

Hays
Even if we grant the distinction in principle, that breaks down in relation to a healing that is naturally impossible, circumventing secondary causes and natural processes. At best that might apply to a subset of healings that are preternatural or coincidence miracles rather than something contrary to nature that bypasses secondary process. 

Lydia
Oh, I agree. If one granted that God had deliberately performed a real miracle (one might say a miracle-miracle) at Lourdes, one would have to deal with the implications of that. I would say in that case it would have some evidential value in favor of Marian doctrines, for the reason I have already given. Because it is not akin to the case of a reflection in a bank window or a pattern on burnt toast or whatever but rather a real miracle.

Of course, we have some evidence for all kinds of things that are false! I think sometimes it's difficult to bear in mind that "some evidence" doesn't mean "strong evidence" or "evidence to which there is no counterweight." I'm quite willing to say that there is probably some evidence for Catholicism in the form of reported miracles, visions, etc., but that it is strongly counterbalanced by the evidence against. Of course, the theoretical arguments for Catholicism are extremely bad, as many of your posts show. The empirical argument is really the basket into which Catholics should place their eggs, as it were. 

I would even go so far as to say that the conversion story of Wright (he's a sci-fi author, I can't remember his first name–John?) is some evidence for Catholicism. He was an atheist. IIRC, he prayed one of those "atheist prayers" (such as "If you're there, God, show me"). Very shortly thereafter, he had a heart attack and was in a coma or something for a while. During that time he claims that he had visions of the Virgin Mary. I think he says Jesus as well, but my memory is a little hazy. I found his blog increasingly weird and coarse and stopped reading it several years ago. Anyway, he recovered and promptly became Roman Catholic, which I suppose is understandable under the circumstances.

7 comments:

  1. "There's also the question of whether providence will avoid situations that cause some individuals for form a false impression regarding the religious significance of the incident."

    I wonder if this coincides with what we see in John 5:1-15; Jesus heals a man who immediately rats him out to the authorities. Mind you, it may simply be a case of cowardice but we nevertheless have a case of divine healing where the person healed goes on to make explicitly bad religious decisions.

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  3. As a Protestant, I have to honestly admit that it seems to me that, all things being equal, it's more difficult for Protestants to explain Catholic miracles, then for Catholics to explain Protestant miracles. Because if Protestantism were true, then God would be less inclined to grant Catholic prayers since it would tend to support Catholic claims, which according to Protestantism is, or borders on, idolatry. Whereas if Catholicism were true, Protestant miracles wouldn't be as surprising since there are some basic doctrines that both Catholics and Protestants share "in common" (either approximately or with one-to-one correspondence). So, from the Catholic perspective, Protestants are praying to a (generally) correct BASELINE conception of the Triune God who has been revealed in the message of the OT and NT. And so God could answer Protestant prayers without necessarily denying that the Catholic Church is the one true Church (maybe even a Feeneyite could agree with this reasoning). Catholicism would have more truth, but Protestants have some minimum level Christian beliefs that aren't fully developed to full-orbed Catholic theology.

    What I find missing in the discussion is the involvement of demons. According to Scripture demons can sometimes be the source of sickness. In which case, at least some Catholic healings might be due to demons withdrawing their illness afflicting influence so as to spiritually mislead people into believing false Christian doctrines and dogmas. To be fair, the same thing could be said about some Protestant claims of healing/signs/wonders/miracles. No doubt it sometimes does apply to Protestants. I'm using the word "Protestants" in the broadest sense of the word to include groups like Pentecostals and Charismatics. I myself am a Calvinistic Continuationist and think some Charismatic miracles are demonic.

    Having said that, I don't think it's likely that all Catholic miracles in the context of HIGH Marian devotion is always demonic. If so, then on what grounds could/would God positively heal in such a situation? Likely, for similar reasons God would do them in the context of a LOW Marian devotional Catholic context. Namely, because they ask the Christian God on the basis of Christ and His work (i.e. "in Jesus' Name" and His atonement) and by the power of the Holy Spirit. God is a merciful God. Even John Calvin agreed that God sometimes positively answers the prayers of pagans to demonstrate His mercy and their need of and dependence on the Deity (and for other providential purposes [e.g. think "Butterfly Effect" and future timelines]). If God sometimes answers pagan prayers that are thoroughly idolatrous, then it shouldn't be surprising for God to answer some prayers of Catholics who have a theology that's a hodge-podge of truth and error which includes truths like the Trinity, the sacrificial and substitutionary atonement of Jesus the Son of God, and of the personality and power of the Holy Spirit.

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    1. i) One question is whether affirming error is worse than denying truth.

      ii) I already discussed the issue of occult miracles in my post on Guadalupe. And there I referred to "evil spirits" rather than "demonic spirits". Postmortem apparitions can be apparitions of saints or the damned.

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    2. Both excellent points. Regarding ii, I totally agree. I should have included that distinction since you and Jason convinced me of the genuine possibility of postmortem apparitions and communications.

      Regarding i, that's a great question and applies to many issues. In this context, would God necessarily be affirming error? Not all Catholic miracles occur in the context of high Marian devotion. Even those that do, don't always do so in a direct way that one may/must necessarily infer the miracle is an affirmation of Marian devotion and doctrine. Faith in partial truth exercised by humans might (in some cases) be more important to God than a seemingly Divine affirmation of error. Since, epistemologically it's not absolutely certain to man whether God really was affirming the doctrine, whereas God could infallibly discern genuine faith in God in the heart of a person for miracles. In the Gospels Jesus sometimes healed people who had faith for healing who didn't have saving faith for their souls. As a Calvinist I believe that God is ultimately the source of our faith. Nevertheless, God genuinely response to our faith, even for physical healing. Inductively (not Biblically), reading many reports of healings from various groups down through history, it seems God is a God who respects and responds to faith, even (to some degree) doctrinally imperfect/erroneous faith.

      The difficult cases for Protestants are those where the Marian connection is explicit. Where, say, an alleged apparition of Mary says she herself was involved in the occurrence of a miracle (which would correspond to the Catholic teaching that Mary is the Mediatrix of All Graces). Even then, unless the context or some proposition is conveyed that directly points towards Catholicism, then that could point to a more general understanding of the Communion of the Saints that's closer to something like that found in Orthodoxy. If so, that doesn't necessarily undermine the general truth of Protestantism. Even some forms of Anglicanism have a kind of devotion to the saints that makes other Protestants uncomfortable. Even in the history of Protestantism, some Protestants have claimed apparitions of departed believers who have given them messages. Moreover, there are cases of NDEs among Protestants where not only angels but departed believers have appeared (usually in heaven rather than on earth) who functioned as a kind of welcoming party to kind of ease them into their temporary transition from earth to the intermediate state. So, it just might be the case that Protestantism is true, but has too low a view of the Communion of the Saints. Or at least one that is lower than the reality. But that shouldn't be surprising, since the same could be said about angelology and demonology. The reality, activities, functions, offices, species and hierarchy of angels and demons is mostly withheld from us from God. Scripture is mostly silent on those issues. We only get glimpses in the Bible.

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    3. typo correction: //The reality, activities, functions, offices, species and hierarchy of angels and demons is mostly withheld from us [BY] God.//

      Being convinced historically and theologically that Sola Scriptura (or at least Prima Scriptura) is true, I think we will only [or primarily] be held accountable by God for what he has clearly revealed in Scripture. That applies even irrespective of the correct canon, since we can be judged by the core books which have been (virtually) universally accepted by all Christian believers. God understands our epistemic limitations, He providentially conditioned them. He'll judge us by the amount of light we had and what we did with it. Protestants have good reason to doubt and reject Catholic and Orthodox claims as well as good positive reasons to hold to Protestant distinctives. Protestantism is preferable because it is the conservative, guarded, cautious and streamlined position to hold. Out of reverence to God's glory it attempts to trim off superfluous, unnecessary and uncertain theological fat.

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  4. I addressed a lot of these issues in my series on Craig Keener's book on miracles several years ago. The part here on Christian exclusivism discusses Lourdes to a small extent and Catholicism more broadly. I comment on some subjects there that haven't come up in this thread.

    Keener's book cites a lot of statistics related to miracle claims. We need to keep in mind that one group can have a larger number of miracle reports, yet have miracle reports among a smaller percentage of its followers. And the success of one group in getting more attention for its miracle claims (media coverage, books published, etc.) isn't equivalent to having more miracle claims. I discuss these and other issues in the series linked above. And Keener's book ought to be consulted, since it provides a lot of relevant information.

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