André Kole on faith healers

https://billdembski.com/theology-and-religion/faces-of-miracles-chapter-7/#more-54804

This is much better than a previous installment on James Randi

How amazing is Randi?

https://billdembski.com/theology-and-religion/faces-of-miracles-chapter-6/

A few of quick observations:

1. Scientist Rupert Sheldrake is less enthusiastic about Randi's debunking bona fides:

https://www.sheldrake.org/reactions/james-randi-a-conjurer-attempts-to-debunk-research-on-animals

2. While a magician has a useful skill set for exposing certain types of charlatans, there's a lot of evidence for the paranormal that's not easily reducible to parlor tricks. For instance, has Dembski studied the research of Stephen Braude? 

https://userpages.umbc.edu/~braude/index.htm

3. Finally: 

Randi is an equal opportunity skeptic. He has no specific animus toward Christianity. To him, Christian belief is no more realistic or defensible than any other supernatural claim. 

While I'm sure Randi is hostile to religion in general, there's a difference between generic theism and Christianity. The Christian faith includes sexual ethics. Randi is an active sodomite. So I expect he does harbor personal animus towards Christianity. It's not an abstract philosophical construct like perfect being theology, but a living religion with personal ethics, social ethics, and social policies for the church and culture.

Miraculous healing and faith-healers

https://billdembski.com/theology-and-religion/faces-of-miracles-chapter-5/#more-54769

This is useful up to a point. Mind you, his experience was limited to an 18-month period. And the sample of faith-healers was very small. Not to mention that the psychic healers are prima facie charlatans from the get-go.

He didn't debunk miraculous healing. He only debunked some faith-healers.

This raises the question of whether there are healers in the sense of gifted individuals with the supernatural ability to heal the sick on a regular basis. That doesn't mean God can't heal through individuals, but it may be on rare occasion. Peter Bide comes to mind.

Dembski on Thurman Scrivner

I'm going to comment on Dembski's assessment of Thurman Scrivner:

https://billdembski.com/theology-and-religion/faces-of-miracles-chapter-3/

i) I think Dembski sets the bar too high for miracles. The purpose of many miracles isn't to prove God's existence but to provide for a need that's humanly hopeless. Of course, miracles like that are still a witness to God's existence, omniscience, and omnipotence, but they're limited to the need.

ii) Apropos (i), even in the case of miracles whose primary purpose is evidentiary, they are not designed to satisfy a Cartesian skeptic. Setting the bar artificially high is like skeptical thought-experiments (e.g. the Matrix, brain-in-vat). 

Reported miracles vary in their conclusiveness, and in some cases we ought to grant a strong presumption that this was a miracle. It needn't rule out every conceivable naturalistic explanation–although some miracles do so. The issue is not whether it's the only possible explanation but the best explanation, given the evidence at hand. 

Many would argue that there’s no way to predict who will receive a miracle and who will ask in vain. The decision is God’s alone and God’s plans and reasons are beyond our ability to understand. 

Agreed. 

Later in his professional life, Scrivner began a healing ministry after hearing God’s voice speak to him for the first time in 1977...When asked how he knew it was his prayers alone that led to healing, Scrivner answered, “I just know that. I just know. Because God speaks to me.” He adds that the sound of God’s voice is “just like a normal man,” just like the interviewer’s (AT).

i) I'm highly skeptical of people who say God speaks to them on a regular basis. I think God speaks to some Christians on rare occasion, like an emergency. 

ii) Moreover, his ministry is so dangerous and damaging that I think his impression is delusional. 

Scrivner bases his belief on several key Bible verses. Others often interpret these verses very differently, saying that they refer specifically to Jesus or his disciples or to specific situations, and that applying them without qualification takes them out of context and distorts their meaning. Scrivner, by contrast, accepts the words at their most literal face value. To him there is no room for debate or discussion: anything other than his reading is simply misguided and wrong.

In Deuteronomy 28:1-2, Moses promises the people of Israel, “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I commanded you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations and the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you…” Moses then lists both the many blessings in store for those who obey God and the even greater multitude of curses that await the disobedient. According to Scrivner, this passage affirms his belief that you have to do exactly what God commands in order to get a miracle.

i) That's a corporate threat/promise.

ii) Moreover, it's a promise to OT Jews, not to Gentiles under the new covenant. Even if, for argument's sake, God restores the promised land to ethnic Jews in the world to come, the promise is irrelevant to Christian Gentiles. 

Scrivner believes that the message of Romans 10:17 is that the faith we need for healing comes from the teachings of Jesus: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” 

That's a promise for salvation–contingent on faith, not a promise for healing, contingent on faith. 

Faith makes it possible to please God, who then rewards us by healing us, as explained in Hebrews 11:6: “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

But that doesn't say or imply a promise to heal on condition of faith. 

Not only do Scriptures tell Scrivner he can heal, but they also tell him he can do a better job of it than Jesus. He derives this conclusion from John 14:12-14, Jesus’ words to His disciples following the Last Supper: “Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”

I'll revisit that. 

Furthermore, according to Scrivner, anyone, not just Jesus, has the power to forgive sin. To justify that claim, and thus his own authority to forgive sins, Scrivner points to John 20:23, in which Jesus appears to the disciples after the resurrection and declares, “If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”

This verse gives a good example of how Scrivner interprets Scripture and why his approach is controversial. Backing up to verse 21, we read, “‘As the father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive … etc.’” To many biblical interpreters, Jesus appears to be saying these words specifically and exclusively to his disciples, not to you or Thurman Scrivner or anybody else. Scrivner politely but firmly disagrees.

Agreed. 

Standing beside his granddaughter’s hospital bed, Scrivner recited John 15:7: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” Then he followed with an assurance of his own: “He is my God. He honors faith, and so I’m going to ask Him to raise that little girl up and make her well. And He will.”

Thurman fed his granddaughter by mouth against doctor’s orders based on his reading of Mark 11:24: “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” He prayed that she would be able to eat solid food and then gave it to her. He fed her applesauce and orange juice that day and she has been eating normally ever since. Furthermore, she seems to have recovered completely from her injuries.

Thurman Scrivner’s theology hinges on two points. First is absolute reliance on what the Bible literally says. The tricky part here is that people have to accept his interpretations of Scripture without question or variation, absolute and unwavering. Yet from Bible scholars on down, credible people see the meaning of Scripture very differently.

i). A basic problem with his face-value hermeneutic is the mismatch with his own experience. His prayers aren't uniformly answered. Even if he gets a few hits, that falls far short of how his prooftexts are worded. 

ii) He falls back on the lack of faith escape clause, yet his prooftexts don't condition the efficacy of healing prayer on the faith of who is prayed for but at best on who offers the prayer on their behalf.

What happens when you take the Bible out of context? We looked earlier at John 14:12-14, where Jesus speaks to his disciples following the Last Supper, “Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.”

Many Bible students and scholars agree that these words are specific to the disciples, who were invested with healing powers to demonstrate they were acting in Jesus’ name as human representatives — deputies, if you will — designated specifically and personally by Christ. Of course, other interpretations are possible. What if Jesus, in talking of greater works performed by his disciples, was referring not to healing but to the suffering of martyrdom? Indeed, it’s not clear that Jesus’ miracles have been exceeded by his disciples, but their suffering for his name has in some cases been more extreme than crucifixion.

i) I have serious reservations about that interpretation. It's true, of course, that some promises which Jesus addresses to the disciples are exclusive to the disciples and not Christians in general. Many readers stumble because they fail to make allowance for that distinction.

ii) In Johannine usage, the works denote miracles, not martyrdom. Just consult standard commentaries. Moreover, martyrdom is hardly exclusive to the Eleven. 

iii) If the promise is exclusive to the Eleven, that excludes St. Paul. 

iv) It's a misleading way to phrase a promise restricted to just eleven people. 

v) Consider other promises in the Upper Room Discourse:

13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

14: 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me[e] anything in my name, I will do it.

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.

23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 

Are these exclusive to the Eleven just because they were the initial audience? Do these not extend to Christians in general? 

A better explanation is that Jesus frequently employs hyperbole in his teaching. Although Jn 14:12 isn't confined to the Eleven, the promise is hyperbolic.  The promise includes garden-variety Christians but not all (or even most) Christians–and even among the subset, not all (or even most) of their petitions are granted.

Charlatan faith-healers

https://billdembski.com/theology-and-religion/faces-of-miracles-chapter-2/

This is a good expose of some high-profile charlatans, and that's just a sample.

However, the dilemma of this sort of expose is that those who are listening don't need to hear it while those who need to hear it aren't listening. In general, those who are listening weren't taken in by the charlatans in the first place while those who need to hear it are impervious to evidence that their idols are flimflam men. That's not the fault of Dembski and countercult ministries. 

A failed experiment

https://robertbowman.net/2018/04/14/8-answers-to-why-nabeel-qureshi-was-not-healed-nabeel-qureshi-and-healing-part-10/

Prince Ali, fabulous he, Ali Ababwa!

Steve pointed me to this excerpt from The Cambridge Companion to Miracles (pp 194-195):

There are many examples of such 'marvellous' happenings. Perhaps the most famous contemporary guru associated with the miraculous is Sathya Sai Baba. Sai Baba was born in 1926 to a poor family in Andhra Pradesh and his life is surrounded by devotees bearing witness to his miraculous powers. He claims to be a reincarnation of the saint Sai Baba of Shirdi (d. 1918) and also to be an incarnation (avatara) of Shiva and Shakti. His career has been of increasing claims to divinity supported by a large organization and thousands of devoted followers. At the heart of his teachings is the idea that we are all God and that the difference between him and others is that he has realized this. He advocates what he regards as the universal human values of truth (satya), right conduct (dharma), non-violence (ahimsa), love of God and world (prema) and peace (santi). He also teaches the unity of world religions and service to humanity.³¹ These teachings, which are typical of Hinduism after the nineteenth century, are accompanied by miraculous events and Sai Baba demonstrating miraculous powers. The most important of these is materializations of objects such as watches, necklaces, rings and gold ornaments. Of particular importance is the manifestation of ash (vibhuti) from his finger tips, although other substances are also said to be produced such as red powder for tilak marks, turmeric powder, sweets, fruit, holy water and Siva lingas. Ash is sacred to Siva and, significantly, the term vibhuti is used synonymously with siddhi. He is also attributed with powers of clairvoyance, levitation and appearing in two places at once, or bilocation. One of the most recent claims to a miracle by Sai Baba was in 2006 when he told his devotees that he would appear in the moon. The large crowd that gathered were disappointed because of the overcast weather.³² Sai Baba does not appear to perform healing miracles.

The important point is that Sai Baba is said to perform miracles as a sign of his divinity. These manifestations are taken to be evidence for his claims by devotees and evidence of his fraudulence by his critics and rationalists. There is much controversy surrounding Sai Baba. On the one hand there is good work funded bythe Sai Baba centre or ashram and many positive claims have been made about the transformative effect of the guru on people's lives; yet on the other he has borne the brunt of negative criticism that his 'miracles' are in fact sleight-of-hand³³ and accusations of sexual abuse and even complicity in murder.³⁴ With Sai Baba we have a curious mix of a traditional yogic understanding of powers, as attested in yoga literature, in a very modern context with a Western understanding of miracles. Sai Baba himself would seem to be aware of this context and speaks to both Hindu tradition and Western belief in miracles as the disruption of material causation.

[Notes]

³¹See Lawrence A. Babb, ‘Sathya Sai Baba’s Magic’, Anthropological Quarterly 56 (1983), 116–24. Also idem, Redemptive Encounters: Three Modern Styles in the Hindu Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). For a general survey of his life see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba

³²http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba

³³Erlendur Haraldsson, Modern Miracles: An Investigative Report on Psychic Phenomena Associated with Sathya Sai Baba (New York: Fawcett, 1997).

³⁴David Bailey, A Journey to Love (Prasanthi Nilayam: Sri Sathya Sai Towers Hotels Pvt. Ltd, 1997).

Just a few brief comments for now:

1. Sai Baba claims to be a kind of savior. An enlightened one. Of course, it's quite possible he's a fraud, per above.

2. However, if Sai Baba is truly performing "miracles", then (from the Bible's perspective) he's a false prophet or an antichrist. The Bible warned us against false prophets and false messiahs (e.g. Deut 13:1-5, Mk 13:21-23).

3. Sai Baba's "signs and wonders" are more reminiscent of Jannes and Jambres and Simon Magus (e.g. ash from his fingertips, materializations of objects) than biblical miracles performed by true prophets like Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, etc. In a sense, Sai Baba's miracles are cheap parlor tricks or small potatoes compared to parting the Red Sea or the walls of Jericho falling down or even creating a gnat. Maybe a better way to put it is: I suspect there's a point at which Sai Baba would have to say "this is the finger of God".

4. Although Jesus and the prophets of the Bible performed signs and wonders, they didn't rely solely on signs and wonders to verify their claims (e.g. John 4:48).

5. If Sai Baba is performing bona fide miracles, albeit false miracles from the vantage point of Christianity, then that undermines atheist claims that miracles are impossible, that there's nothing more than the physical or natural realm. These atheists posit a universal negative against miracles and the supernatural, but if Sai Baba isn't some charlatan, then these atheists are felled at one stroke.

Atheists like Stephen Braude might argue "miracles" are possible within the natural realm. Perhaps humans have seldomly tapped abilities which may seem preternatural, but which are entirely explicable on naturalistic grounds. If so, that depends on their specific arguments and whether Sai Baba's miraculous powers can be accounted for given their specific arguments. For instance, telekinesis could explain levitation, but how could it explain materialization or bilocation?

Avalos on prayer

Last year, apostate Hector Avalos gave a talk on prayer:

http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/student_life/article_277d43c6-dcc5-11e4-b244-e3f0fe813ae9.html

This appears to be a rehash of objections he raised in more detail in his article: "Can Science Prove that Prayer Works?" Free Inquiry 17 (1997). I'll comment on that article. 

The problem with this and any so-called controlled experiment regarding prayer is that there can be no such thing as a controlled experiment concerning prayer. You can never divide people into groups that received prayer and those that did not. The main reason is that there is no way to know that someone did not receive prayer. How would anyone know that some distant relative was not praying for a member of the group that Byrd had identified as having received no prayer?

I basically agree with that.

For example, many people with high blood pressure would call me to pray for them when their blood pressure rose. I would come and pray, and afterwards the blood pressure would fall. This would be regarded by me and the patient as an answered prayer. Yet most blood pressure frequently does rise and fall on its own because our bodies have systems that function like the thermostat in our homes. Many other "sick conditions" also get better on their own because the body has mechanisms to relieve itself (for example, fevers, colds, many types of aches and pains). 
Another reason for the widespread belief in divine healing among Christians, especially Pentecostals, is the dynamic of the services in which healings are said to occur. In many instances a great quantity of healings are reported by traveling evangelists. Usually the evangelist asks the patient what the problem is. 
Many may say, for instance, that they had a "kidney problem" when they have a backache. The evangelist usually does not verify if the patient is indeed suffering from kidney problems and is not usually familiar with the patient s medical history. Yet he might announce that the patient was healed of "kidney problems" to the entire audience. The evangelist also might assume that the persons who approached the altar were healed, and so he may report that multitudes of persons were healed in his previous stop. Indeed, the evangelist rarely performs follow-up examinations. Thus exaggerated numbers of reported healings can multiply rapidly in these environments.  
The psychology of the petitioner is also a contributing factor. If the evangelist, for example, asks patients if God has healed them, they are very likely to say "Yes," even if their symptoms say the opposite. [14] The reason is that many patients are embarrassed to say that God has not healed them because this appears to insult God.

i) I agree. However, citing unimpressive examples does nothing to counter more impressive examples. What about medically verifiable miracles? 

ii) Avalos fails to draw an elementary distinction. If you wish to prove the occurrence of answered prayer, then it's logical to begin with unambiguous examples. But once you establish the occurrence of answered prayer, that makes another examples more likely to be cases of answered prayer, even if they are ambiguous. 

For most of my young and adolescent life, I was a faith healer in a Pentecostal tradition. I witnessed what I then thought were resurrections, spontaneous growth of short limbs, cures from cancer, and many other types of diseases. In retrospect, I have learned much about why people believe in answered prayers even when there is evidence to the contrary or even when it is logically absurd. Every single case of a supposedly answered prayer that I witnessed can be explained by one or more of the following factors: (1) false assumptions, (2) erroneous information, and (3) wishful thinking. 

Yet he admits that he "witnessed what he then thought were resurrections, spontaneous growth of short limbs…" He fails to explain how he could misperceive the instantaneous growth of short limbs. That would be a visible phenomenon, right? Does he think his eyes played tricks on him?  

For Christian believers, answered prayers qualify as a type of miracle. According to Charles Hodge, the famous American fundamentalist theologian: "A miracle, therefore, may be defined to be an event, in the external world, brought about by the immediate efficiency, or simple volition, of God." [11] The problem with verifying scientifically that miracles as defined above ever occur is that the Christian god is supposed to have infinite characteristics, and we can never know whether a prayer has been answered by a being that is said to be infinite. 
Let me explain. One of the infinite characteristics of the Christian god is omnipresence - that is, this being is said to be everywhere in the universe at the same time. The Christian god is also said to be eternal, all-powerful, and all-knowing. Yet, we, as finite human beings, could never know that such an infinite being exists. For example, in order to know that there is a being who is everywhere at the universe at the same time we would have to be everywhere in the universe at the same time. 

i) I don't think God is literally omnipresent. God isn't a physical being. So God isn't everywhere. Strictly speaking, God isn't anywhere. 

ii) It's not uncommon to postulate the existence of spaceless entities (e.g. numbers, logical laws, possible worlds). Their explanatory power accounts for concrete states.

In order to know that there is a being who is eternal, we would have to be eternal. 

i) That's a one-sentence assertion. He fails to explain why we'd have to be eternal to know there's an eternal being. What's the principle? That you must be like what you know? The subject of knowledge must be the same kind of being as the object of knowledge? Must I be a bumble bee to know that bumblebees exist?

ii) I don't need to be timeless to know that timeless objects exist (e.g. numbers, logical laws,possible worlds). I infer their existence because they do necessary explanatory work. They are indispensable to account for certain concrete states. 

In order to know that any event we witnessed in the world was caused by a particular being, we first have to know that such a being exists. For example, it would be absurd to say: "I know my prayer was answered by an invisible Martian, but I do not know if invisible Martians exist." The reason this statement is logically absurd is that it attributes an action to a being not known to exist. 

Really? Take white explorers who saw bison on the Great Plains for the very first time. Must they know in advance that bison exist to take sightings of bison as evidence for their existence? Must they have evidence that bison exist independent of bison sightings before they can acknowledge that bison exist based on direct observation? How would Avalos ever establish the initial existence of something? If he automatically discounts the first case on the grounds that we can't accept that evidence unless we already know it exists, then that rules out novel discoveries. 

Likewise, in order to know that any event (e.g., an answered prayer or any other supposed extraordinary event) was caused by an infinite being, we first have to know that an infinite being exists. Since we can never know that an infinite being such as the Christian god exists, we can never know that any event we witness was caused by this being. In sum, knowing scientifically that an infinite God answered a prayer is logically impossible. 

That piggybacks on a couple of bad arguments (see above).

Prayer would be unnecessary if there were an all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful God. Let's suppose that the most gifted doctor in the world happens to be your friend. This doctor has the ability to cure any sickness known to modern medicine. Let s also suppose that this doctor is living with your family, which includes a six-month-old baby. 
Now if this infant were to become violently ill in the presence of this super-doctor, what would you expect from him? If the baby is choking, for example, you would expect him to use techniques that will relieve the baby s problem. You would not expect him to ask you first if you believed that he could cure your child before he was willing to help the child. You would not expect him to require you to show how much faith you had in him before he would help your child. What you would expect is for this super-doctor to act as soon as he sees the child choking. 

Among other things, prayer is designed to cultivate a sense of dependence on God. If all our needs were automatically provided for, there'd be no appreciation or realization of our dependence on God. 

Moreover, we shouldn't just expect people to do us favors. Asking for a favor is an acknowledgement that if your request is granted, the grantor is doing your a favor. Even if a parent knows that his teenager wants something from them, he may wait for the teenager to ask. A teenager shouldn't just take his parents for granted. Receiving what he asked for is a basis for gratitude. Otherwise, the child grows up to be a selfish, thankless person, since he expects everything to be provided without ever having to ask. The same dynamic applies to friendship. 

Let's also suppose that this doctor has the ability to prevent cancer in all children anywhere in the world even before it occurs. Undoubtedly, you would expect that if he had this ability then he would use it, if he really fits our definition of "good." But if the doctor has this ability, and does use it, then you would not expect there to be any cases of infantile cancer in the world. If this super-doctor has this ability, then he should not wait for anyone to ask him to prevent the suffering of children with cancer. We would expect him to act immediately out of pure goodness. 

That depends on the long-term consequences. Individual lives are not self-contained events. Rather, they have short-term and long-term impacts on other people's lives, for better or worse. Suppose God heals a child with cancer. Suppose his future grandson is a security guard at an oil refinery. He works the nightshift. One of his duties is to periodically check the gauges to make sure a system isn't going critical. But instead, he's watching a skin-flick. As a result, the refinery explodes, incinerating the inhabitants of the company town. Saving one life resulted in a thousand deaths. 

Similarly, an all-good God would not want anyone to suffer. 

Some people deserve to suffer. Take people who commit atrocities.  

An all-knowing God would know who would suffer ahead of time, and an all-powerful God could prevent suffering before it happens. Thus, if there were an all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful God, then there would be no need for prayer in the first place, especially if the prayer is used to alleviate illnesses or any other type of suffering. 

Of course, that's the problem of evil, for which there are different, sometimes complementary, theodicies. For instance, suffering can be a theater for soul-building virtues. Likewise, a world without suffering will have a different set of people than a world with suffering. Each scenario has tradeoffs. Each scenario has winners and losers. 

Even if someone prayed to the Christian god for healing and that person was healed, it would not prove that the healing was done by the Christian god. All religions claim to have answered prayers. For example, according to the Bhagavad-Gita, part of the sacred scriptures of Hinduism, the god Krishna claims that it does not matter which god human beings worship; it is Krishna who answers their prayer. [13] Thus, it would not be scientifically possible to show that it is the Christian god who answered a prayer even if such a prayer was answered. 

i) Avalos is equivocating. He's an atheist. So even if you can't prove that a prayer was answered by the Christian God, it still falsifies atheism.

ii) What kind of god is Krishna? He didn't always exist. He had parents (Devaki, Vasudeva). Is it even possible for an anthropomorphic deity like Krishna to exist? Is it even possible for a finite god like Krishna to answer prayer? 

iii) Hector's comparison is reversible. If the Christian God intended for Ravi Zecharias to exist, he might answer a prayer to Krishna by one of Ravi's ancestors, in case Ravi's future existence is contingent on that answer. Likewise, if God intended Tom Schreiner to exist, he might answer a prayer to Mary by one of Schreiner's Catholic forebears, in case Schreiner's existence is contingent on that answer. 

iv) There's a conspiratorial quality to Hector's objection. For instance, he teaches at Iowa State U. Now it's hypothetically possible that Iowa State U is really a front organization for a drug cartel. This deflects attention away from the cartel's nefarious activities. They bought off the local reporters and politicians to avoid detection.  

Hector's habit of floating hypothetical alternatives is a diversionary tactic. Even though it's hypothetically possible that things are not as they seem, unless we have actual evidence to the contrary, it's irrational to be suspicious. 

Even if we saw an extraordinary healing occur (e.g., a severed leg grow back instantaneously), we would not be able to prove scientifically that it was a supernatural occurrence. To say that something is supernatural is to say that something is not natural. But to say that something is not natural, one would have to be practically omniscient because that would be tantamount to saying that we know all the natural factors that could possibly be responsible for an event, and are claiming to know that none of the factors was responsible. No one has the kind of knowledge, and so consequently no one could ever call anything non-natural. 
The most we could say about an event whose cause is unknown is that the cause is unknown. As already noted, we would be less justified in attributing an extraordinary event to an infinite being. 
But even if you recovered from a potentially deadly illness in some unexpected manner, you still cannot know if it was an act of God. The most we could say is that the recovery was accomplished through an unknown process. Many recuperations that may appear supernaturally miraculous may be due to very natural processes which have not been recognized or studied previously. Indeed, one can draw up a long list of phenomena that were unknown 100 years ago but are deemed perfectly natural today. In fact, most believers in prayer have received conventional medical treatment, and so one cannot eliminate the possibility that it was the medical treatment, not the prayer, that actually had a beneficial effect, even when such an effect might be unexpected. 

i) That argument either proves too much or too little. We can turn it around. You'd have to be omniscient to disprove God's existence. You'd have to be omniscient to rule out supernatural factors. As he himself says, "there is no way to know that someone did not receive prayer". So naturalism is unverifiable. 

ii) By that logic, every biblical miracle might have happened, just as people saw it occur, yet it has a naturalistic explanation. Surely Avalos doesn't take that seriously. 

iii) If he really takes that position, then he's a secular fideist. If nothing in principle could ever count against atheism, then atheism isn't based on evidence. Atheism is indifferent to evidence. Faith-based atheism rather than fact-based atheism. 

iv) If a Christian receives conventional medical treatment, that explains the instantaneous regeneration of an amputated limb? 

God heals amputees!

Don't take my word for it. According to apostate atheist Hector Avalos, in "Can Science Prove that Prayer Works?" Free Inquiry 17 (1997):

Even if we saw an extraordinary healing occur (e.g., a severed leg grow back instantaneously), we would not be able to prove scientifically that it was a supernatural occurrence. 

For most of my young and adolescent life, I was a faith healer in a Pentecostal tradition. I witnessed what I then thought were resurrections, spontaneous growth of short limbs, cures from cancer, and many other types of diseases. 

So he's conceding that he saw the instantaneous regeneration of amputated limbs. (Notice that he uses "spontaneous" as a synonym for "instantaneously".) By his own admission, that's from firsthand observation. 

He doesn't deny what he saw. "Who should I believe–me or my dying eyes!" Instead, he says that's still not scientific proof that it was a supernatural occurrence. 

Now, Avalos is such a fanatical atheist that he might backpedal on his original, damaging admission. Again, though, how could he be mistaken? How could he see an amputated limb merely appear to instantaneously grow right before his eyes? 

Notice that he's not talking about tricks by other faith-healers, but his own direct observation.  

Exorcism and healing

According to one standard theological paradigm, a Christian healer is someone who can miraculously cure medical conditions in general. 

But according to the Gospels, an exorcist can be a healer. The Gospels distinguish between natural medical conditions and demonic medical conditions. Some medical conditions have natural causes while other medical conditions have demonic causes. Possession can manifest itself in medical conditions.

In addition, Ezk 13:17-23 seems to indicate that it's possible to cause a medical condition by hexing the victim. Both possession and witchcraft can result in some medical conditions.

That, however, complicates the analysis of miraculous healing. In principle, an exorcist could cure someone of a medical condition that's caused by demonic activity (i.e. possession, witchcraft), but be unable to cure someone of a medical condition that's caused by natural factors. 

Moreover, there is no gift of exorcism. The ability to cure medical conditions in that situation is indirect. An exorcist doesn't have the power to simply heal someone of their medical condition. At most, he has the power to break the occult bondage that's causing the medical condition.

Furthermore, exorcism is really a matter of invoking God's mercy and power. It's not really an ability on the part of the exorcist. 

This, in turn, imposes a potential limitation on a Christian healer–assuming that's an accurate classification to begin with (see below). What if Christian healers can only cure medical conditions that have occultic causes rather than natural causes? 

There's also the question of whether there's such a thing as a Christian healer. In the locus classicus (1 Cor 12:9), Paul's usage is ambiguous. He doesn't say a "gift of healing" but "gifts of healings."

So he may not even mean that some Christians have a gift of healing. Rather, every healing is a gift from God. 

That's not to deny that some Christians might be agents of God's healing power, but this might be intermittent or unrepeatable. Say, on one occasion, God grants a Christian mother the ability to lay hands on her deathly ill child and convey healing. That might be a once-in-a-lifetime event. 

On that interpretation, both the charismatic and cessationist paradigms are defective. 

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. 

The prayer of faith

What does James mean by the "prayer of faith"? Short answer: we don't know for sure since James doesn't explicitly define his terms. 

i) Some people take this to mean you (the elders) know in advance that God will answer your prayer. 

One question is whether that's a realistic interpretation. Did James think God always healed the sick whenever the elders anointed them with oil and prayed with them? Was that his experience?

Is James predicting or promising that whenever elders do this, the sick will be healed? If so, that's a problem, since that correlation isn't borne out in reality. 

ii) Some might object to using experience to interpret his statement, but that's not inherently invalid. James intends his statement to apply to a real-world situation. And, presumably, this isn't just an abstract hypothetical case. So asking whether a particular interpretation would correspond to his own experience or those of his readers isn't out-of-bounds. 

iii) Perhaps is James using general, unqualified language with the unstated understanding that this isn't always (or even normally) the case. Just a chapter before, James warned his readers against a presumptuous attitude about the future (4:13-15). So when he gets around the "prayer of faith," it may assume that implicit caveat.

Indeed, in this very passage, James implies that illness is sometimes (not always) the result of unconfessed sin (v15b-16). In that event, healing would not be automatic, absent contrition. 

iv) By the "prayer of faith," James could simply mean the elders are men of faith. That's a qualification for Christian eldership. They believe in God. Trust in God. Live by faith in his promises. And living by prayer is one example of living by faith. When they pray, that's an expression of their faith. Not a special kind of faith, but just garden-variety faith, like prayer generally. 

That's confirmed by the parallel he himself draws with the prayers of the righteous, using Elijah as his role model (vv16b-18). Elijah was not a man of unwavering faith. He could be shaken by self-doubt. Yet he was a righteous man. And he had persevering faith, even if it faltered from time to time. 

v) Some people think this refers to "expectant faith." Pray, believing that God will heal the sick. 

Problem is, unless you foreknow that God will heal the patient in question, expectant faith is make-believe or wishful thinking. You pray as if you know that God will answer your prayer, even though you don't actually know that, and, in fact, you know that sometimes God won't respond in kind.  

Does God require us to believe something will happen when that belief is unjustified? Does God make as a condition of answered prayer believing something we don't know to be the case–something which, in fact, we already know will not be the case in some instances? 

vi) Suppose, though, there are times when God gives a Christian a sense of prior confidence about the outcome. Assuming that's the case, then on those occasions you could pray, believing that God will do what you ask. But that would be exceptional. The rest of the time you'd have to pray without that firm anticipation. 

vii) To take a possible comparison, Paul says "Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith" (Rom 12:6). This invites two different interpretations:

a ) Paul is using "faith" in the objective sense. Test prophecy according to the rule of faith. Revealed doctrine is the standard by which to measure prophetic claims.

b) Paul is using "faith" in the subjective sense. Exercising your gift commensurate with the degree of faith God has given you. How much faith you have, the kind of faith you have, is proportionate to God's grace. 

Both interpretations are defensible. But assuming that (b) is correct, and that's a reasonable interpretation, then James may have in mind the same thing. The "prayer of faith" depends on how much faith God has given you. Your level of faith may vary from one occasion to another. Or one Christian's faith may vary in relation to another Christian's faith. 

There might be extraordinary occasions when God gives a Christian "mountain-moving" faith. Absolute certainty about the outcome. But that's not something we can count on. That's not something we have any direct control over. If you have it, use it–but don't presume it. Don't fake it. Pray according to the measure of faith you've been given in any particular situation. Don't be self-conscious about your faith when you pray. Just pray. 

In addition, certitude can be delusive. The fact that you're sure of something doesn't make it true–as many people find out…the hard way.