Available for preorder:
http://www.amazon.com/Chance-Sovereignty-God-God-Centered-Probability/dp/1433536951
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Strange fire or misfire?
I'm going to comment on this post:
(1) First, a true prophet must be doctrinally orthodox. Conversely, any self-proclaimed prophet who deceives people by leading them into theological error is a false prophet…In other words, this passage makes it clear that, if a prophet comes to you and even if the prophet makes predictions that come true — if the prophet leads you away from the truth and into error, then that prophet is a false prophet.
What about "false prophets" who, by God's overruling providence, unwittingly point people in the direction of theological truth (e.g. Balaam, Caiaphas)?
Second, a true prophet must have moral integrity. Any self-proclaimed prophet who lives in unrestrained lust and greed shows himself to be a false prophet…when we see the fruit of gross immorality and impurity in someone’s life, we can be confident that he is a false prophet no matter what he might claim.
The Psalms of David constitute the core of the Psalter. And there were 73 Psalms attributed to David.
Yet Scripture also attributes at least 19 wives and concubines to David–not to mention the Bathsheba affair, involving adultery and murder.
Likewise, Scripture attributes Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, the bulk of Proverbs, and Pss 72 and 127 to Solomon. Yet Scripture also attributes 700 wives and 300 concubines to Solomon. And Solomon enjoyed a palatial standard of living.
Since both David and Solomon had licentious lifestyles (not to mention the royal palace), does that make their false prophets? Should their writings be excised from the canon?
Now, there's often a connection between heresy and immorality. That can take two different forms:
i) A false prophet may exempt himself from normal morality. Claim that he is above the law. Muhammad is a good example.
ii) A the false prophet may rewrite morality to fit his degenerate lifestyle. Brigham Young is a good example.
By contrast, David and Solomon were immoral in spite of Scriptural standards to the contrary.
Perhaps Busenitz could claim that just as the NT has a stricter position on divorce, it has a stricter position on the morals of a true prophet. My immediate point is that his criterion overlooks obvious counterexamples in the Biblical canon.
(3) Third, a true prophet must demonstrate predictive accuracy. Or to put this in the negative, if someone claims to speak prophetic revelation from God about the future (or about some other secret thing), but then that prediction does not come to pass or proves to be false, we can safely conclude that person to be a false prophet.
That's true in principle, but it's more complicated in practice:
i) Shortterm prophecies are easier to verify or falsify than longterm prophecies, which extend beyond the lifetime of the prophet's contemporary's.
ii) Ezekiel was accused of making false predictions.
iii) It sometimes takes patience to discern how some NT fulfillments correspond to their OT prooftexts. Many scholars appeal to a sensus plenior principle. I don't think that's necessary. But it does illustrate the fact that prophetic fulfillment isn't always transparent.
James Randi in sheep's clothing
I'm going to comment on this post:
In his haste to expose the imbalance of MacArthurites and provide Sid Roth with some much needed credibility, Steve makes some rather inaccurate and embarrassing assertions from the biblical text. Let’s consider three key points.
Maybe the shoe is on the other foot.
First off, the problem with the Corinthian Christians was not that they doubted the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. They most certainly believed that Christ rose from the dead, because the Resurrection is the centerpiece of the Gospel message itself.
It's striking to see Fred vouch for the orthodoxy of Paul's theological opponents. But although they might appreciate his vote of confidence, I doubt Paul would second Fred's character witness on their behalf.
What in the world makes Fred assume that members of the Corinthian church held a monolithic view of the resurrection? What makes him assume that some members of the Corinthian church didn't espouse deficient, sub-Christian, or heretical views? After all, Paul is going out of his way to correct a grave theological error on the part of some Corinthian churchmembers.
What makes Fred presume that Paul's Corinthian adversaries weren't assimilating the resurrection of the interpretive categories of their pre-Christian, Greek philosophical or pagan mythological socialization, viz. ghosts, apparitions, apotheosis, Hellenistic epiphanies, and/or the dead returning from Hades?
We know better because we have the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John, and 1 Cor 15. They didn't have all that. Even 1 Cor 15 is new to them.
In the same manner, it is not asking too much when someone claims some divine healing happened to thus and so a person. It is only wise and shrewd to ask about the person, their condition, and if the so-called healing can be verified by others. I would even add, verified by unbelievers who knew the person before he or she was healed and now know of the person’s healing. Only someone naively gullible would believe such stories blindly especially when the vast majority of such stories are wild exaggerations or outright shams altogether.
i) Whose position does Fred imagine he's attacking? Supposedly he's responding to me, but he doesn't quote me saying that.
ii) I'd also point out that gullibility is a two-way street. There's gullible skepticism as well as gullible credulity.
iii) Why does Fred make verification by unbelievers a necessary criterion? That's how atheists routinely attack the NT. These were written by believers. Therefore, their testimony is biased.
Once again, we have a MacArthurite who adopts the standards of the secular debunkers.
Thus there is just no comparison between the hearsay modern day claims of the “miraculous” with the true and certain testimony preserved in the Word of God.
Fred's knowledge of the Resurrection is "hearsay."
Clarifying charismata
I'm reposting some comments I left at Justin Taylor's blog:
I agree with Dr. Anderson that the debate suffers from lack of clarity. Let’s draw some basic distinctions:
i) Not all prophetic phenomena is of the “Thus says the Lord” variety. Consider some prophetic dreams:
9 Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me” (Gen 37:9).
13 When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.” 14 And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp” (Judges 7:13-14).
Those are revelatory, but they aren’t the “very words of God.” They don’t contain any “words” from God.
ii) In addition, although these dreams were inspired, the dreamer isn’t necessarily speaking under inspiration when he relates his dream.
Furthermore, the dreams require interpretation. The interpretation isn’t necessarily fallible.
So those are two additional conditions.
iii) To take another example:
24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed (1 Cor 14:24-25).
Suppose a Christian tells an unbeliever something the unbeliever did in the past. An incident which only the unbeliever would ordinarily be privy to. That would be revelatory. Extrasensory knowledge of the past, or someone’s private memories.
But that’s not like a divine command. And it’s easy to verify or falsify. The unbeliever knows whether or not he did it.
iv) There’s also a distinction between first and secondhand information. If a Christian had a premonitory dream, and it comes true, he’s justified in believing it. If he tells his friend about the dream before it happens, the friend is justified in believing it.
If, however, he tells his friend about it after it happens, then it doesn’t carry the same degree of warrant. The friend didn’t have that experience. And he can’t confirm it independently.
v) There’s a further distinction between what’s obligatory and what’s prudential. If my friend tells me he had a premonition about me, I don’t have a duty to heed the warning, but if my friend a level-headed guy, I might be wise to heed his warning.
vi) There’s another problem with Grudem’s paradigm. Suppose passages like Acts 2:17-18 and 1 Cor 13:8-10 indicate that charismata are an integral feature of the new covenant. Even so, that creates no presumption regarding the relative incidence of charismata in the church age. They might happen every now and then in the course of church history. They needn’t be a regular occurrence.
Schreiner reviews Strange Fire
Tom Schreiner reviews Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship by John MacArthur.
Some charismatic demographics
I emailed a widely respected charismatic scholar about charismatic demographics. They've graciously granted me permission to post their response (slightly edited for anonymity).
Some things are a matter of definition. Some reports dump non-Christian movements (e.g., they see their founder as the messiah) in the "charismatic" category for sociological reasons.But among charismatics as more traditionally defined, prosperity teaching and often extreme demonologies are very common in much of Africa and Latin America (and some of these go beyond the charismatics to the church more generally). At the same time, though these people have been taught wrongly on these issues, they often have embraced the true gospel regarding salvation. So (contrary to MacArthur et al.) many of these are sincere Christians whom God is using, and some are learning the hard way about other errors. Also, a large proportion of those polled as believing that faith brings prosperity actually were saying that they depend on God to supply their needs, which is quite different from prosperity teaching. [Another scholar], who is African but not charismatic, said that most Africans would answer that question Yes but not mean it the way those whom we call "prosperity preachers" do.
The mixed teachings are widespread and with maybe 50% of the population in many countries being teenagers or children we must teach the next generation rightly. But there is a shortage of Bible teachers and hard cessationists don't help when they divide those with the gift of teaching from others because we need teachers who can communicate with (rather than berate) those charismatics. The explosion of evangelism and of population makes it hard to disciple, and unfortunately it was the Western prosperity teachers who invested in getting themselves on African TV ... :-( So much work needs to be done. Prosperity teaching emerged as syncretism with Western materialism, but hard cessationism proliferated as syncretism with Western deism. Rather than choosing our poison, it would be better to just seek to bring people back to the Bible in every respect.
Monday, October 28, 2013
The science of global warming
We Can't Ignore the Security Threat from Climate Change
Scientists tell us we have a 10-year window -- if even that -- before catastrophic climate change becomes inevitable and irreversible. The threat is real, and time is not on our side.
Facts, as John Adams said, are stubborn things.
The truth is that the threat we face is not an abstract concern for the future. It is already upon us and its effects are being felt worldwide, right now. Scientists project that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer of 2013. Not in 2050, but four years from now.
The people of the tiny coastal village of Newtok, Alaska offer a harbinger of the challenges ahead. Citizens there recently voted to move their village nine miles inland because melting ice shelves made their old home too dangerous.
But don't take my word for it. Anyone who doubts the reality of climate change should go to Alaska and see the melting permafrost for themselves
This time we have to connect the dots before we face catastrophe.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry/we-cant-ignore-the-securi_b_272815.html
Possession in the Gospels
Some Christians, even though they believe the Gospels, are sometimes perplexed by what they regard as the disproportionate occurrence of possession. By that I mean, not that cases of possession are overrepresented in the Gospel record, compared to other stories, but that cases of possession seem to be overrepresented in the general population. It's not a question of Mark's selection criteria, Mark's interest in possession, but the fact that Mark has so much raw material to choose from.
They wonder why there would be so many cases of possession in 1C Palestine. To begin with, that's a center of Judaism, so we'd expect possession to be less frequent there than in pagan parts of the world. Moreover, it seems to be out of proportion to our own experience. In the modern world, cases of possession are evidently rare. So why would there be such a concentration in the time of Christ? To be blunt, this strikes some readers as unrealistic.
I'm not stating my own position. I'm just summarizing the baffled reaction that some Christians have, when they compare the Gospel accounts to the observable world. By way of response:
i) I think some Christian readers have a misimpression of the Gospel data. The vivid stories of possession and exorcism make such a memorable impression on the reader that they think the reportage is more prevalent than is actually the case. The actual number of Gospel references to possession is fairly sparse, and primarily confined to Mark, with Matthew as a distant second, then Luke and John trailing even further behind.
You have four exorcism accounts in Mark (Mk 1:21-28; 5:1-20; 7:24-30; 9:14-29), two short reports in Matthew (Mt 9:32-34; 12:22; par. Lk 11:14) and a few summary statements (Mk 1:32-34,39; 3:7-12). You also have the possession of Judas (Lk 22:3; Jn 13:2). So there's less material than we might mistakenly recall.
ii) We also need to distinguish between reported cases of possession which were brought to Jesus, and cases where Jesus or the narrator identifies the individual as a demoniac. When the narrator describes people bringing cases to Jesus, that's a reflection of their diagnosis, not the narrator's. They bring the troubled individual to Jesus because they think that individual is possessed. When the narrator explains their motivation, that isn't an endorsement of their diagnosis.
iii) Unlike a disease, whose symptoms are automatic, the symptoms of possession are under the voluntary control of the demon. It's a question of the degree to which he chooses to manifest himself. Having Jesus on the site brings the behind-the-scenes spiritual conflict out into the open. That invites a direct confrontation between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. That smokes them out of hiding. So it's not surprising if a demon surfaces when brought face-to-face with his arch rival. Ordinarily, he might maintain a low profile.
iv) What about modern counterparts? Demonic possession may well be underreported and often go undiagnosed. Most psychologists and psychiatrists have a secular outlook. And psychotropic drugs might mask the symptoms of possession. Illicit drug use might have the same effect. Also, even if a psychologist or psychiatrist suspects possession, he may decline to offer that diagnosis, for fear of damaging his professional reputation.
Of course, you have the opposite problem in folk pentecostalism, where possession is routinely overdiagnosed. And that, in turn, can lead to a backlash, by bringing the demonic attribution into disrepute.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Wedge tactics
When dealing with the charge that they pick on soft targets, MacArthurites respond by claiming that the responsible charismatics aren't numerically representative. I see MacArthurites make unsourced claims about the dominance of the Word of Faith heresy in global pentecostalism. That claim would be more impressive coming from a sociologist of religion who specialized in that particular area.
It's also ironic. To my knowledge, a full-blown MacArthurite is a Reformed Baptist classic dispensational pretribulational premillennialist. How representative is that? Pretty exotic, if you ask me. How many decimal points out must we go before that infinitesimal fraction registers on the scale of global Christianity? Would it be fair to judge MacArthur's theological synthesis by how numerically representative that is in relation to global Christianity?
But here's the main thing. Suppose we stipulate to their allegation that the Word of Faith heresy is deep and wide in global pentecostalism. When MacArthurites use that allegation to discount responsible charismatic scholars, they are using a wedge tactic. The responsible charismatics are so statistically insignificant that they can be written off. So it comes down to a stark alternative between cessationism and Word of Faith.
But notice the circularity of the objection. When you drive a wedge, groups fall on one side or the other of the wedge. By automatically discounting responsible exponents, by preemptively dismissing any middle ground, you are contributing to the atrocious alternative you claim to abhor. You're not giving Christians a third option.
Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with polarizing the debate. There are issues where it's appropriate to cast the choice in antithetical terms.
It is, however, viciously circular to simultaneously decry the prevalence of the charlatans while you discredit the reputable spokesmen. Marginalize the responsible voices, then complain that they are too marginal to be taken seriously. You yourself are directing charismatic Christians away from the most orthodox exponents. You yourself are doing your best to keep the reputable proponents on the fringe of the debate. In a way, you're collaborating with the Word of Faith movement. Both of you are squeezing out the responsible voices. You push at one end while Word of Faith swindlers push at the other end. Guess who's left?
Demarcating miracles
I notice that MacArthurite cessationists define miracles in two different ways.
On the one hand, they distinguish between direct miracles and indirect miracles. Direct miracles are miracles which God himself performs apart from human agency, whereas indirect miracles employ divinely-empowered human agents.
MacArthurites sometimes say they are cessationists respecting indirect miracles rather than direct miracles.
On the other hand, they also distinguish between apostolic miracles and modern miracles by claiming that apostolic miracles are top-of-the-line miracles: complete, permanent, undeniable, spectacular, viz. raising the dead, regenerating amputees, restoring sight to the congenitally blind.
But in that case, they aren't drawing the line between direct and indirect miracles, but between low-grade and high-grade indirect miracles.
Even though demarcating miracles is essential to their position, MacArthurites present a moving target on this issue. I assume the reason for this confusion is that MacArthurites are improvising. They have a clearer idea of what they oppose than what they believe in. They begin with what they oppose, then define their position by what they oppose. By process of elimination, they work back to what they believe in: whatever's left over. As a result, their definitions are makeshift and contradictory, because they have a clearer sense of the starting-point than the destination.
Affordable Care Act?
Pam Kehaly, president of Anthem Blue Cross in California, said she received a recent letter from a young woman complaining about a 50% rate hike related to the healthcare law."She said, 'I was all for Obamacare until I found out I was paying for it,'" Kehaly said.
Read the rest here.
Healers and healing
11 And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. 13 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” 14 Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. 15 But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” 16 And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded (Acts 19:11-16).
i) One of the issues in the cessationist/charismatic debate is whether the "gift of healing" is something a healer can exercise at will. Has God delegated that ability to the healer, to exercise at the healer's personal discretion.
ii) In his passage, Paul's healing ability is strictly instrumental. God heals through him.
This is evident from the fact that even Paul's bandanas had a healing effect. Paul doesn't intend to heal anyone in particular, or anyone generally, through his bandanas. He may not even be aware of how some people were using them. And how they use them, once they leave his possession, is clearly beyond his control. Healing at a distance, without his cognizance, approval, or disapproval. Paul is not even the proximate source of power.
Just as Paul's healing ability is purely instrumental, the efficacy of the bandanas is purely emblematic. They are tokens, in whose association God healed the sick.
iii) If all we had were vv11-12, that might create the impression that healing power is stored in relics, like Paul's bandanas. As if you can siphon off the healer's power, and contain it in a "battery," for future use. That reduces divine healing to magic amulets.
However, the subsequent story, which–not coincidentally, comes right on the heels of this incident–quashes that inference. The Jewish exorcists mistakenly thought the name of Jesus possessed talismanic power. They found out the hard way that the power lies, not in physical media, but personal agents. It's not an inanimate energy force which you can manipulate.
iv) Finally, this passage is sometimes compared to Acts 5:15-16. However, that passage doesn't say Peter's shadow had any healing effect. Rather, some sick people were hoping or expecting his shadow to have healing efficacy.
Keep your distance
23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. (2 Kgs 2:23-24).
Although this is a "controversial" passage, because unbelievers find it morally offensive, the controversy can deflect our attention away from two interesting features of the incident:
i) If the narrator invented the story, why the incidental details? Why two bears? Why forty-two boys? Why she-bears? Why be so specific?
ii) To my knowledge, she-bears are more dangerous than he-bears. A mother bear with cubs is notoriously aggressive and easily provoked. Although lone he-bears may be more dangerous than lone she-bears, a she-bear with cubs is more dangerous than a lone he-bear. At least, that's my unscientific understanding–based on watching nature shows over the years.
Even though this event is a coincidence miracle, it includes realistic details.
Charismatic miracles
This is a sequel to my previous post:
Since, by definition, cessationists reject modern charismata, I will use "charismatic miracle" as a convenient designation to refer to the type of modern miracle which MacArthurite cessationists deny.
The challenge facing the MacArthurite cessationist is to define miracles in such a way as to include any and all biblical miracles while excluding any and all postbiblical charismatic miracles.
From what I've read, Fred Butler offers two criteria for miracles:
i) Public
ii) Naturally inexplicable
By implication, his criteria yield a fourfold classification scheme of events:
i) Public and naturally inexplicable
ii) Public and naturally explicable
iii) Private and naturally inexplicable
iv) Private and naturally explicable
On the face of it, the public criterion and the natural inexplicability criteria are different types of criteria. The public criterion is an epistemological criterion. An event (miraculous?) must be public to warrant our belief in the event.
The natural explicability criterion is a metaphysical criterion: an event must defy natural explanation to be miraculous.
Presumably, Fred doesn't think the public nature of an event is a sufficient condition of a miracle. After all, most public events aren't miraculous.
To take a comparison, both the Sermon on the Mount and the multiplication of fish are public events, but I assume Fred only regards the latter as a miraculous event.
When I say "naturally inexplicable," I'm not defining that category on my own terms, but in terms of how Fred seems to define that category, given his examples (e.g. Mt 8:23-27; 12:9ff; 14:23-33; Mk 2; Mk 8:22ff; Jn 2; 6; 11; Acts 4:16).
Evidently, Fred is using some biblical miracles as his standard of comparison to evaluate reported modern miracles. However, Fred only uses some biblical miracles as his standard of comparison. That generates a dilemma:
i) If he's saying only events which satisfy both criteria (public, naturally inexplicable) count as miracles, then his criteria exclude many biblical miracles.
ii) But perhaps his intention is to select certain biblical miracles as paradigm-cases of the miraculous, then use that as his frame of reference for judging reported modern miracles, without prejudice to all the other biblical miracles which don't measure up to his twofold criteria.
If, however, that's his unstated principle, then that's too loose to exclude modern miracles which don't meet one or both criteria.
Finally, let's apply his criteria to some Biblical examples:
1) The burning bush (Exod 3:3) is naturally inexplicable, but essentially private. Moses was the only human witness.
2) The metamorphosis of a staff into a snake and vice versa (Exod 4:2-4) is naturally inexplicable, but private. Moses was the only human witness.
3) The special creation of Adam and Eve (Gen 2:7,21-22) is naturally inexplicable, but private. There were no human witnesses to either event.
4) Jonah's survival inside the fish (Jonah 3) is naturally inexplicable, but private. He's the only witness.
5) Balaam's talking donkey (Num 22) is naturally inexplicable, but private. He's the only human witness.
6) Conversely, natural disasters like the flood (Gen 7), destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19), plague of boils (Exod 9), plague of hail (Exod 9), and plague of locusts (Exod 10) are public events, but not naturally inexplicable, inasmuch as these employ natural mechanisms.
7) The she-bears attacking the hecklers (2 Kgs 2:24) is public, but naturally explicable. These aren't supernatural bears.
8) The multiplication of food and oil, as well as revivification of the widow's son (1 Kgs 17; par. 2 Kgs 4), are private, but naturally inexplicable
9) Elijah's answered prayers for drought and rain (1 Kgs 17-18) are both private and naturally explicable. He's the only witness. Both rain and drought are natural meteorological phenomena.
10) The exorcisms of Christ are public, but naturally explicable (i.e. psychosomatic).
I could give other examples. Remember where Fred set the bar: something that even James Randi couldn't deny.
Question is: could Randi either deny that these events ever happened, or assuming their occurrence was undeniable, deny that they were naturally inexplicable?
My concern is that, in their zeal to debunk charismatic miracles, MacArthurite cessationists are implicitly (albeit unintentionally) attacking the integrity and credibility of biblical miracles.
Denying the undeniable
One tactic which MacArthurite cessationists use to discredit modern miracles is to claim that, unlike Biblical miracles, modern miracles are deniable. Now there are different ways in which a miracle might be deniable. Here are two:
i) The occurrence of the event is deniable. You can cast reasonable doubt on whether it actually happened.
ii) The occurrence of the event is undeniable, but the nature of the event is deniable. You can deny the miraculous character of the event.
For instance, Fred Butler says:
The miracle wasn’t confined to a small number of witnesses, or a small congregation of people.They were done publicly, in full view of a great multitude of believers and unbelievers alike, and they were so extraordinary they were undeniable.Think Iraqi war veterans getting their limbs back completely whole or the late Christopher Reeves having his spinal cord injury reversed.Continuationists are arguing that real signs and wonders recorded in the NT documents still exist today among God’s people. Specifically that means the miraculous healing of people with severe physical health problems and handicaps. Considering the NT documents, it would be individuals with spinal cord injuries and paralysis (Mark 2), those with crippling deformities (Matthew 12:9ff.), those with incurable blindness (Mark 8:22ff), and those who had even died being raised to life again (John 11).
Fred isn't including all Biblical miracles. Rather, he's whittling them down to a subset of Biblical miracles.
Some are undeniable in the sense of (i), because they are public miracles.
Some are undeniable in the sense of (ii), because they defy a natural explanation, viz., regenerating dismembered limbs, restoring sight to the congenitally blind.
But that's a theologically dangerous strategy, for by Fred's criterion, this means many or most Biblical miracles don't rise to the level of undeniable miracles. Some Biblical miracles are private rather than public events.
More importantly, some Biblical miracles aren't really miraculous so long as a natural explanation is possible or available. So Fred naturalizes modern miracles by a tactic that implicitly naturalizes many or most Biblical miracles.
That places many Biblical miracles on a par with reported postbiblical miracles, by making both deniable, in the sense of (ii).
However, Fred also deploys the opposite argument.
They were done publicly, in full view of a great multitude of believers and unbelievers alike, and they were so extraordinary they were undeniable. Even the Pharisees recognized they were the real deal and the only explanation they had was the Devil did them.Other passages of Scripture imply that miraculous activity can be produced by our demonic enemy designed specifically to lead people into theological error. That is why I am loathe to embrace the examples of Keener as being genuine works of God. There may be something supernatural happening, yet the vast majority are no where near the level of quality recorded for us in Scripture, and certainly not from God at all if they are tied to false religions.
That tactic presupposes that reported modern miracles are so undeniable that it's necessary to attribute their origin to the dark side. And that, too, places postbiblical miracles on a par with biblical miracles.
Are modern miracles deniable or undeniable? Fred says both.
MacArthurite cessationists wish to privilege Biblical miracles, but their hostility to continuationism is so intense that their position threatens to debunk Biblical miracles in the process of debunking postbiblical miracles.
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