A Protestant pastor, named Daniel, recently posted a video about a potentially supernatural experience he had with his daughter related to Mary's assumption. He was researching the assumption of Mary, asked God to reveal to him whether the assumption is historical, and was told by his daughter afterward that she'd had a dream in which she saw Mary going up to heaven.
The incident seems to have a lot of potential to be supernatural on its face. Before I get to possible explanations of the episode if it is supernatural, I want to address some reasons to be hesitant about concluding that there is anything supernatural that needs to be explained.
He referred to how he hadn't talked to his daughter about Mary since Christmastime. He places her dream around the middle of this year, so the implication is that he hadn't talked to her about Mary for around half a year. But wouldn't Mary sometimes come up in other contexts, like when reading or discussing the Bible (including Old Testament passages that refer to the Messiah's mother and relatives more broadly in some way, like Isaiah 7 and the Servant Songs)? And he refers to some research he'd been doing on the assumption of Mary. It seems to have involved a lot of material: the Bible, the apostolic fathers, and the early church in general. I don't know how long he spent on that research. Maybe it was just a few hours, a day, or some other shorter period of time. But it seems more likely that it was longer. And if it was longer, and to a lesser extent if it was shorter, there's a large amount of potential for his daughter to have found out about his research in some normal manner. She may have heard him talking about it with somebody else, her mother may have told her about it, she may have seen an article on the assumption that was on a computer screen in their house (perhaps with accompanying artwork of Mary being taken up, which left a lasting impression in the mind of Daniel's daughter), she may have seen a book he was reading related to the topic, and so on. I don't know if Daniel has asked his daughter, his wife, and other relevant people about issues like these. I would think he did that before producing the video he put out, but maybe not. If his daughter learned about his research on the assumption by some normal means, then that diminishes the significance of the episode in question. It could still be supernatural, but it would be less significant if his daughter knew about his work on the assumption by some natural means before the dream. If we don't have enough evidence to determine whether she did, it's significant that there's so much potential for her to have heard about her father's research in a normal way. One hypothetical scenario is that he was reading an article about the assumption on his computer, got a phone call, and got up to handle the call. While he was away, his daughter saw the article on the computer screen. On the other end of the spectrum, another potential scenario is that all of his research was done in a church office, one his daughter hadn't been to in the relevant timeframe, and he didn't discuss his research with his wife or anybody else of relevance. I don't know if either of those scenarios or anything like them happened. But it would be good to have that sort of information.
Then there's the nature of his prayer. He says he asked God to "reveal" the truth to him. That seems unusual for a Reformed pastor to do, though it's a reasonable possibility. Years ago, when I heard that some Christians have believed in an assumption of the apostle John, I did some research on the subject and rejected his assumption based on my understanding of the evidence involved. The thought of asking God to reveal to me whether it's true never even crossed my mind, as far as I recall. It's possible that Daniel is reinterpreting his prayer in light of what happened later, in a misleading way. (I'm suggesting something sincere, not something dishonest. I don't think he's being dishonest.) A term like "reveal" can include something like a supernatural sign, but it can also include more common prayer requests, like seeking guidance, wisdom, or information. Did something like a supernatural sign, like his daughter's dream, even enter his mind before he was told about the dream? If not, is "reveal" the best term to use to describe his prayer request? If he was just making the common sort of request for guidance, information, etc. that people often bring up in prayer, then some significant implications follow. He probably should use a better term than "reveal". And isn't it likely that he made such prayer requests more than once, especially if his research process was a lengthy one? If he did pray like that on multiple occasions, then the occurrence of his daughter's dream shortly after one of those prayers is less evidentially significant.
And though he thinks his daughter mentioned the dream the day after his prayer, he expresses some hesitation about it. Go here to listen to him use the qualifier "I'm pretty sure". It would be good to get some clarification from him about why he added that qualifier. If he could get confirmation about the timing from his daughter, his wife, or others involved, that would help.
Another issue is the daughter's behavior in the surrounding context. How often does she talk about her dreams? How much had she done so on the day in question and the days surrounding it? Did she bring up other types of dreams around that time?
Let's assume the episode did occur as Daniel reports it and was supernatural. Like I said above, it does seem on its face to have substantial potential to be supernatural, even though it ought to be examined further in the ways I've outlined above. Granting the genuine paranormality of the episode, what should we make of it?
Paranormal events sometimes happen in affiliation with false claims, including false claims about Mary. Rival groups that make contradictory claims, including contradictory claims about Mary, have experienced Marian apparitions, for example. See my discussion here. There's a lot of reason to think the Zeitoun Marian apparitions are genuinely paranormal, but there's also a lot of reason to think the apparitions aren't Divine. See my article on the subject here especially, as well as my collection of Zeitoun articles here. Philip Schaff wrote:
"Henceforward the Immaculate Conception became an apple of discord between rival schools of Thomists and Scotists, and the rival orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans. They charged each other with heresy, and even with mortal sin for holding the one view or the other. Visions, marvelous fictions, weeping pictures of Mary, and letters from heaven were called in to help the argument for or against a fact which no human being, not even Mary herself, can know without a divine revelation. Four Dominicans, who were discovered in a pious fraud against the Franciscan doctrine, were burned, by order of a papal court, in Berne, on the eve of the Reformation. The Swedish prophetess, St. Birgitte, was assured in a vision by the Mother of God that she was conceived without original sin; while St. Catherine of Siena prophesied for the Dominicans that Mary was sanctified in the third hour after her conception." (The Creeds Of Christendom, Vol. I [Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998], 123-124)
There's a broad variety of potential scenarios to take into account. I don't think Daniel's experience is fraudulent. He dismisses the demonic hypothesis. I take the possibility of demonic activity seriously, but I don't think there's adequate reason to conclude that what Daniel is reporting is demonic.
If Daniel's experience isn't fraudulent or demonic, it could involve human paranormal activity, such as telepathy or clairvoyance. It could be an ability somebody involved in the experience has, whether knowingly or unknowingly, or it could be something brought on by some kind of outside factor. It could occur as a singular incident or something that's rare in somebody's life, or it could happen frequently. I don't have access to the relevant information about Daniel, his daughter, and others involved.
There have been many reports of telepathy between twins. It was a subject Guy Playfair, a paranormal researcher I've often cited, studied in depth. In an article he and Nemo Mörck wrote for the Psi Encyclopedia, we read, "John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, mentions in his Journal for 7 April 1781 a pair of twin sisters 'between whom there is so strange a sympathy that if either of them is ill, or particularly affected at any time, the other is so likewise'. The women also had simultaneous identical dreams although they were living far apart, Wesley noted." And we read later in the article, "Telepathy is of course not restricted to twins. The other two pairings most likely to experience it are parents and children, especially mothers and newborn babies, and dogs and their owners." I don't know if Daniel has a biological relationship with his daughter or an adoptive one. If it's biological, which is more common, then there's more potential for some kind of telepathy, it seems, judging by the research done on these issues so far.
And there's evidence for dreams involving telepathy, as the Psi Encyclopedia article mentions, which could explain the dream Daniel's daughter had. Playfair, the paranormal researcher I mentioned above, was also one of the primary researchers of a significant poltergeist case I've studied in depth, the Enfield Poltergeist. That case involved telepathy, and some of it occurred in the context of dreams (between two or more people dreaming and potentially between a dreaming person and one who was awake at the time). For an example of the evidence for genuine telepathy in the case, see this clip from a documentary. (It involves vulgar language.) Do a Ctrl F search for "telepathy" here for a discussion of some of the other evidence. My article on dream phenomena in the case discusses some instances of telepathy in the context of dreams. For example, from Playfair's book on Enfield:
"During one of the girls' shared dreams, [Margaret Hodgson] kept saying 'I want to speak to Peggy next door' over and over. On an impulse, I went down to the kitchen, where Mrs. [Hodgson] was tidying up, and asked her to try some automatic writing. I showed her how to do it, and the very first words she wrote, in the characteristic form of [this] type of writing which I am sure she could not have faked, were: 'I want to speak to Peggy next door.' This seemed a remarkable coincidence. She could not hear [Margaret] from the kitchen" (This House Is Haunted [United States: White Crow Books, 2011], 103)
That could be an instance of telepathy between an individual dreaming and one who was awake at the time. Daniel's experience didn't happen in a poltergeist case, in the context of automatic writing, or anything like that. I'm addressing a broad range of potential explanations, with details like a poltergeist context or the involvement of automatic writing being incidental.
I doubt that Daniel's experience is Divine in the sense of God's showing approval for the conclusion that Mary was assumed to heaven. The problems with the assumption of Mary go far beyond the silence of the historical sources Daniel refers to. I'll probably be posting more on that subject later this month, but you can access some of my previous posts on the assumption here and an archive of many of our posts on the subject here. In a video responding to Daniel, Cameron Bertuzzi repeated his appeal to silence in the historical record about Marian relics as an argument for the assumption. Go here and do a Ctrl F search for "relics" to see my response to that argument when it was used in another of Cameron's videos earlier this year. Some people during the first several centuries of church history said that nobody knows what happened to Mary at the end of her life, referred to Mary's body as buried somewhere, etc. And even if they hadn't made such comments, an assumption of Mary wouldn't be the best explanation for the lack of claims to know where her body was. In a post in 2006, I cited John Chrysostom's comments, "Tell me, are not the bones of Moses himself laid in a strange land? And those of Aaron, of Daniel, of Jeremiah? And as to those of the Apostles we do not know where those of most of them are laid. For of Peter indeed, and Paul, and John, and Thomas, the sepulchers are well known; but those of the rest, being so many, have nowhere become known. Let us not therefore lament at all about this, nor be so little-minded. For where-ever we may be buried, 'the earth is the Lord's and all that therein is.' [Psalm 24:1]" (Homilies On Hebrews 26:2, v. 22) If you go to that 2006 article linked above, you can also read some material from Dionysius of Alexandria that's relevant in this context.
Keep in mind that if Mary was resurrected before being assumed, which is a common belief among advocates of her assumption, then that involves two highly unusual miracles, not just one. That makes the silence and other relevant characteristics of the sources more significant. It also heightens the initial unlikelihood of the series of events Catholics and others are claiming occurred. And while I agree with Catholics and others that Mary is an unusually strong candidate for an assumption, that isn't much of a factor. When people like Enoch and the two witnesses of Revelation 11 are taken up to heaven, but individuals like Abraham, David, Jesus' father Joseph, and Peter aren't, there doesn't seem to be much evidential value in the general significance of the person in question. God can have a variety of reasons for not assuming somebody to heaven, even if the person is highly significant in general. To paraphrase Tertullian, God could have given Mary the ability to fly, but we don't conclude that he therefore did:
"Well, but 'with God nothing is impossible.' True enough; who can be ignorant of it?...For a barren woman to have a child against nature was no difficulty with God; nor was it for a virgin to conceive. Of course nothing is 'too hard for the Lord.' But if we choose to apply this principle so extravagantly and harshly in our capricious imaginations, we may then make out God to have done anything we please, on the ground that it was not impossible for Him to do it. We must not, however, because He is able to do all things suppose that He has actually done what He has not done. But we must inquire whether He has really done it. God could, if He had liked, have furnished man with wings to fly with, just as He gave wings to kites. We must not, however, run to the conclusion that He did this because He was able to do it." (Against Praxeas 10)
Daniel mentions the high Mariology of the Protestant reformers. But the reformers had a lower Mariology in some contexts, alongside their higher Mariology in others. See my discussion here. On the diversity of views of the perpetual virginity of Mary in the late medieval and Reformation eras, see here. The evidence from the New Testament authors, Josephus (who knew the man who put Jesus' brother to death), Hegesippus, Irenaeus, and other early sources is against Mary's perpetual virginity. The earliest Christians were likewise opposed to Mary's sinlessness, praying to her, and venerating images of her. See the relevant articles linked here for further details. That evidence from those early sources is much more significant than the agreement of some early Protestants with some portions of Catholic Mariology. Daniel would agree with at least some of what I just said, but it should be said for the sake of the broader audience.
It would take something with a lot of evidential weight to tip the scales in favor of an assumption of Mary. Daniel's experience doesn't meet that standard, given how easily it could be non-paranormal or paranormal without being Divine.
No comments:
Post a Comment