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Sunday, July 28, 2013

Skeptical cessationism



I'm going to comment on this post, by my friend, Fred Butler:


Knowing Dan like I do, I would imagine he has read much. He has to have had, or his tweet in pointless. I too have read many accounts of modern miracles. I find them to be mostly hearsay and apocryphal.
What's his source of information? Who has he read? 
More to the point, however: if modern day faith healers are genuinely healing people like they claim, then documentation would be easy to confirm. We would know someone with a serious spinal cord injury and atrophied limbs who would be completely restored. Individuals like that would be identifiable and people would testify as to their testimony. None ever come forth.
Fred's denial begs the question. Once again, what is his source of information? 
The problem is that both Fred and Dan are guilty of hasty generalizations–a classic informal fallacy.
That’s exactly the point. Miracles on that level done by men who were supernaturally gifted to perform them, were rare. That is unlike the claim of modern charismatics who insist they are happening all the time all over the world.
Fred and Dan are picking on easy targets. Now, there's a place for that. It's good to expose popular charlatans like Benny Hinn, Peter Popoff, Kenneth Hagin, Robert Tilton, &c. 
However, that no more disproves the existence of genuine healers than false prophets disprove the existence of true prophets. Dan is using a standard which will easily circle back and bite things that he himself believes in. 
Not sure what Steve means here. Certainly he isn’t suggesting those individuals were NOT dead. Or maybe mostly dead?
If you're demanding modern medical documentation, then I doubt Dorcus or Eutychus would count (or the daughter of Jairus, or the widow's son). It would be easy to say, "How do we know they were really dead?" It's not like an EKG or EEG was performed. Take cases of people who wake up in the morgue. Heck, you can be skeptical about Lazarus. After all, people can survive for four days without food and water.  So that raises the question of whether Dan is using consistent criteria. 
But Stephen did miracles. 
That misses the point. For Dan, evidence for miracles in general is insufficient. He's specifying a particular type of miracle. Unless the individual performs a particular type of miracle (e.g. "resurrecting" the dead), then you can dismiss evidence of other miracles. That's the classic "Why won't God heal amputees?" criterion of secular debunkers.  
Raising the dead was only one of many abilities that Christ invested into His apostles, and by extension, those Christians associated by the apostles after the apostles laid hands on them. Their ability to do any miracle, particularly heal the lame and incurably sick, is suggested by the NT documents, especially when Christ sent the 12 out among the people in Matthew 10.
The disciples failed to heal the deaf-mute demoniac (Mt 17:14-20). 
I can’t speak for Dan, but I figure we are pretty like-minded in this area, so I’ll go ahead and answer for him. Peter and Paul healed people because Jesus delegated to His apostles such abilities. See again Matthew 10. So yes, they could heal anyone at will, and did so on a number of occasions in Acts.
The problem with the delegation model is that we are shortsighted creatures. Human lives have ripple effects. Suppose you're a faith-healer who can heal anyone you choose. Suppose you heal a teenager with terminal cancer. Suppose he celebrates by getting drunk, driving home, and accidentally killing a pedestrian while he's under the influence. 
Seriously? Dan’s “taunt” is different in that Dan believes in the God of Scripture and the holy testimony of written Scripture. He is not attempting to disprove God’s existence, nor His ability to perform miracles ala’ Randi and other anti-theist in their war against God.
Dan is using the same kinds of arguments. 
Dan is merely challenging the assertion of modern continuationists who insist the spiritual gifts of the NT era, especially miraculous healing by the hands of gifted individuals, continue today in the 21st century at the same level of quantity and quality that were performed by Jesus and His immediate followers.
No, Dan is doing more than that. Dan is a hardline cessationist. Therefore, he is committed, a priori, to dismissing every miracle attributed to a faith-healer. 
The reality, however, is that they are not.  I don’t have to read Craig Keener’s book on the subject or any of the others listed in the comments under Steve’s original post. IF a person with the gift of healing laid hands on an amputee, that amputee should have his or her missing limbs fully restored. Family and friends who knew the person before his or her healing could easily document with pictures and personal testimony that person had no right arm for 10 years after an automobile accident and such-and-such Christian with the gift of healing laid hands on the person and the arm was fully restored and usable without physical therapy.Rather than asking “why won’t God heal amputees?” a better question should be asked, “Why won’t people with the gift of healing heal amputees?” Both Dan and I believe God can heal amputees if He so chose to do so. The point of contention is with individuals who claim they can if they chose to do so and say they do in spite of the overwhelming evidence against them.
Once again, Fred and Dan are guilty of overgeneralizing. They are resorting to the same evidentiary standard as secular skeptics who treat lack of evidence as equivalent to counterevidence. By that standard, unless God answers every prayer, there's no evidence that God answers any prayer. Apparent answers are dismissed as lucky coincidence. 
Secular skeptics routinely discount positive evidence for miracles by drawing attention to all the cases in which a miracle didn't happen, then acting as if the absence of evidence in some cases cancels out the presence of evidence in other cases. They elevate lack of evidence to contrary evidence, which they oppose to positive evidence.
Never thank God if you survive an accident, for what about all the accident victims who didn't make it? God had nothing to do with it. You just got lucky. Odds are, some people naturally survive accidents. Odds are, some cancer patients go into spontaneous remission. Odds are, it was bound to rain on someone's farm. That's statistical, not miraculous.  Take your chances. 


That’s exactly the point. Miracles on that level done by men who were supernaturally gifted to perform them, were rare. That is unlike the claim of modern charismatics who insist they are happening all the time all over the world.
I can’t speak for Dan, but I figure we are pretty like-minded in this area, so I’ll go ahead and answer for him. Peter and Paul healed people because Jesus delegated to His apostles such abilities. See again Matthew 10. So yes, they could heal anyone at will, and did so on a number of occasions in Acts.


i) How does Fred's first statement regarding the rarity of miracles cohere with his second statement that they could heal anyone at will? 

ii) Likewise, if they could heal anyone at will, why didn't Paul heal Trophimus (2 Tim 4:20)? 

13 comments:

  1. We would know someone with a serious spinal cord injury and atrophied limbs who would be completely restored. Individuals like that would be identifiable and people would testify as to their testimony. None ever come forth.

    I've read or heard many examples. Here's one testimony by David Yaniv where he claims to have been healed of a serious spinal cord injury. Chapter One of They Thought For Themselves

    Their ability to do any miracle, particularly heal the lame and incurably sick, is suggested by the NT documents, especially when Christ sent the 12 out among the people in Matthew 10.

    and

    Dan is merely challenging the assertion of modern continuationists who insist the spiritual gifts of the NT era, especially miraculous healing by the hands of gifted individuals, continue today in the 21st century at the same level of quantity and quality that were performed by Jesus and His immediate followers.

    As Steve pointed out, the apostles sometime failed to heal sick people (e.g. the deaf mute demoniac). I'd go futher and say that they failed to do so despite the fact that they should have succeeded. We know this because Jesus rebuked them for not getting the job done because of the smallness of their faith. In which case, 1. some modern cases of failed healing might be due to smallness of faith (Matt. 17:20). That would in turn affect the number of cases of documented miracles. 2. God might still require (or at least encourage) ministers of the gospel to be able to perform signs and wonders. The general lack of that ability of ministers to do so might be due to their under developed faith for the miraculous.

    To say that the apostles were able to heal people AT WILL not only doesn't explain the failed healing of the deaf mute demoniac, but it doesn't explain why Paul didn't heal the man crippled from birth irrespective of the man's faith (Acts 14:8-10). Paul didn't command the man to stand on his feet until after he saw and realized the man had faith to be healed. Was Paul indifferent to the man's healing and that merely because he saw faith in the man that he then decided to command the man to walk? Paul may have wanted the man well but knew that he himself (Paul) at that time didn't have the faith get the man well. Or didn't sense previously that it was God's will to heal the man. Also, if Paul could heal AT WILL irrespective of his faith, why weren't Timothy (1 Tim. 5:23), Trophimus (2 tim. 4:20) and Epaphroditus (Phil. 4:27) healed instantly at Paul's prayer or authoritative (divinely enforced) command?

    Finally, and most importantly, I also think God is sovereign and doesn't always purpose to heal. So that's another possible reason for why some people aren't healed even if they are prayed for by someone.

    So, It seems to me there are 4 different factors involved:

    1. The "amount" or "size" of faith of the person(s) praying [i.e. the pray-er] (Matt. 17:19-20; James 5:14-15ff.) .
    2. The "amount" or "size" of the person being prayed for [i.e. the prayee] or his proxy (Matt. 8:13; 9:22; 29; Mark 9:23-24). 3. God's sovereignty in choosing to heal or not in any specific case.
    4. God's general will to heal.

    Continued in next post.

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    1. In the opinion of most continuationists (like myself), numbers 1 and 2 are virtually ignored by most cessationists, and number 4 is not believed by most cessationists even though the preponderance of the Scriptural evidence is that God is generally disposed to healing people. This has been demonstrated in various books like Christ the Healer by F.F. Bosworth, The Gospel of Healing by A.B. Simpson, The Ministry of Healing by A.J. Gordon, Divine Healing and The Lord For the Body by Andrew Murray etc.

      IF a person with the gift of healing laid hands on an amputee, that amputee should have his or her missing limbs fully restored.

      This again doesn't take into account the four factors I mentioned above. It might be that the pray-er doesn't have "enough" faith to bring about any manifested healing. Or maybe only a small or partial manifestation. There are claims (rightly or wrongly) of partial healing of amputees (e.g. here and here). It might be that the prayee doesn't have "enough" faith to bring about full or partial healing. It also might not be God's will to heal a particular amputee.

      It might be that God has been healing amputees in the Third world but for various reasons not so many in the First world. It might be the case that God doesn't heal many amputees in the First world 1. because of general unbelief (due to the influence of secularism), 2. as a judgment on an unbelieving and adulterous society that wickedly seeks for signs and wonders [i.e. requiring God to jump through the hoops of performing divine magic tricks as if the Sovereign of the Universe were a clown or jester] (Matt. 12:39; 16:4); 3. too many documented cases of healed amputees might prevent God's providential plan for history to unfold properly. Here's one extreme example of the various possible reasons God might have. It might be that too many documented cases of healed amputees might coerce the reprobate into believing THAT God exists (but not necessary believing IN God trustingly). Also, there are other reasons why God veils His existence so that it's not rationally coercive which I explain in my blog "Unveiling" the Hiddenness of God and Detecting and Finding God.

      Continued in next post.

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    2. The point of contention is with individuals who claim they can if they chose to do so and say they do in spite of the overwhelming evidence against them.

      I'd say that the overwhelming majority of continuationists (including charismatics) believe that the faith or lack (or weakness) of faith of the person who needs to be healed affects the results. Clearly some believe and teach this in order to save face to keep from looking like failures. This obviously includes outright charlatans. But the majority of continuationists appeal to passages like those I cited above (Matt. 8:13; 9:22; 29; Mark 9:23-24).

      Ony a few continuationists believe that they can heal irrespective of the faith of the person needing healing. Though, their numbers are growing (for various reasons I won't go into now). Currently, I'm of the opinion that God usually heals in response to the faith of both the pray-er and prayee, but that ideally pray-ers should be able to have enough faith by themselves to get the person healed regardless of the faith of the prayees. But arguing for that would take too much space here.

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    3. If anyone is interested, I just found a classic book on charismatic theology on the internet on the topic of the Holy Spirit and the charismatic gifts. The book was originally written in the 1970s and it was the closest thing to a systematic theology of the charismatic gifts available at that time. It's even cited in the bibliography of Grudem's Intro. to Systematic Theology.

      The Holy Spirit and You by Dennis and Rita Bennett




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      corrections:

      -Also, if Paul could heal AT WILL irrespective of his faith, why weren't Timothy (1 Tim. 5:23), Trophimus (2 Tim. 4:20) and Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:25-27) healed instantly at Paul's prayer or authoritative (divinely enforced) command?

      -The "amount" or "size" [of the faith] of the person being prayed for [i.e. the prayee] or his proxy (Matt. 8:13; 9:22; 29; Mark 9:23-24).

      - It might be that too many documented cases of healed amputees might coerce the reprobate [i.e. the non-elect] into believing THAT God exists...

      -Clearly some believe [, claim] and teach this in order to save face to keep from looking like failures. This obviously includes outright charlatans [who will claim/teach this idea to protect their fraud].

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  2. John Welch (one of John Knox's son-in-laws) was a minister who apparently raised someone from the dead.

    "...Then Mr. Welch fell down before the Pallat, and cried unto the Lord with all his Might for the last Time, and sometimes looking upon the dead Body, continuing in wrestling with the Lord, till at Length the dead Youth opened his Eyes, and cried out to Mr. Welch, who he distinctly knew, O, Sir, I am all whole but my Head and Legs: And these were the Places they had sore hurt with their pinching. When Mr. Welch perceived this, he called upon his Friends, and shewed the dead young Man restored to Life again, to their great Astonishment."
    http://www.truecovenanter.com/welch/welch00_5_life_2.html

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  3. I lean towards a soft and mild cessationism. I would not adopt the same hard line measures as djp. I do wish I could go to the strange fire conference this October.

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    1. I have some concerns about the "Strange Fire" conference and John MacArthur's ability to be a responsible and accurate critic of the charismatic movement. I express some of my concerns here:
      http://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2013/03/strange-fire-conference.html

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  4. What is your assessment of Waldron's cascading argument for cessationism?

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    1. He says the absence of apostles in the modern church is a "fatal flaw" for continuationism. I don't see how. Most continuationists grant some discontinuity between the NT era and the post-apostolic age. It's easy for continuationists to formulate qualified positions that finesse that distinction. He's trying to come up with a single, simple, knock-down argument. But theological systems are usually too flexible to be susceptible to that kind of disproof. It's like the notion of a "crucial experiment" to verify or falsify a scientific theory. But it's rarely that straightforward.

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  5. Here's a link where I quote Alvin Plantinga's spiritual autobiography where he discusses his experiences of God. One of which was apparently supernatural.

    http://charismatamatters.blogspot.com/2013/07/christian-philosopher-alvin-plantingas.html

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  6. While hardly evidencing the continuity of the gift of healing myself, though i have been healed of a hernia i was troubled with for years, i do not believe one can honesty, objectively reject that God still does miracles today, and that this includes healing thru the ministry of others.
    God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and has never ceased working miracles such as healing, both thru human instrumentation and without, as seen in Acts , though there were drier periods than others. The most miracles were done in instituting covenants, and in fact, it is partly because of miracles by holy men that we have a church. Did souls follow Moses because of his eloquence or scholastic pedigree, or even by checking him out by Scripture (though as written, that became the transcendent standard for truth, as is abundantly evidenced)
    And why would so many souls believe in an itinerant Preacher from Galilee who was rejected by the Jewish magisterium who sat in the seat of Moses, if not that He established His truth claims by Scriptural substantiation in word and purity and power? Likewise the church did and must. (Note that in Acts, we see that while Scripture, and normally miracles, were provided in attestation of their claims, (Acts 2, 13) for ignorant Gentile natural revelation was appealed to, usually along with miracles: Acts 14:8-18; 17:22-31; Rm. 15:19) .
    There simply is not real case for cessationism in the NT. Miracles were not only done by the apostles, as Stephen and Phillip evidence,. (Acts 6; 8) Though the apostles laid hands on them conveying the Holy Spirit, yet it was simply a devout apostle who conveyed the fullness of the Spirit to Paul, (Acts 9) while Phillip is not recorded as laying hands on the eunuch at all, nor Peter on the first Gentile converts. So much for trying to restrict God to one model.
    1 Cor 13:8ff affirms revelatory gifts shall cease when that which is perfect has come, but the characteristics accompanying the coming of the perfect do not correspond to the realization we have with the completion of the canon of Scripture, but they best fit when Christ appears - the "perfect" being the perfect revelation at least in terms of perception - when we shall see Him as He is, and thus know even also as we are known. (1Jn. 3:2)
    Moreover, if the church is the church of the living God, who changes not, and promised His disciples would do greater things that Christ (at least in collective quantity), then we cannot place the book of Acts in a museum, but need to persuade souls by the same type of "manifestation of the truth," (2Cor. 4:2) with God testifying of the resurrected Christ not only by word, but in power, not only in manifest regeneration but in miracles. At least that was the prayer of the early church. (Acts 4)
    As far as empirical evidence of miracles today is concerned, certainly there are fabrications (and such do more harm to Pentecostalism than cessationists), and which likely are the majority, yet the first 3 miracles of Moses were duplicated by the magicians, (Exodus 7:10-11;21-22; 8:6-7) for the devil seeks to compete with God on whatever level or means He operates on. But Moses overcame evil with good, (Exodus 7:12; 8:18-19) and so its the church, and not to restrict supernatural attestation to demonic activity, or relegate all such to having naturalistic explanations. Read “New Age medicine” if you think the latter is all such.

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  7. And while fabrications of Christian miracles abound, there are many testimonies that cannot be dismissed as have natural explanations without doing the same to most Biblical miracles, and with some claiming contemporary documentation. One can sift thru these , such as here . More sifting is required of Roth, but testimonials such as here , here here and here are worth examining.

    I certainly encourage those who testify to miracles to provide documentation, though it has been my experience that those who are committed to atheism refuse to even allow for the possibility of the supernatural being the cause, yet to even relegate the often dramatic and changes in heart and life resulting from regeneration, and which correspond to the claims of the Object of their faith, overall defy naturalistic explanations without attributing powers of deity to them. And which effects also can be seen in the negative by disobedience by believers. I can attest to both.

    Finally, part of the current ethos that does damage to the claims of Pentecostalism is that it is always God's will that His own are healthy and wealthy, rather than conformity to Christ being the goal, and which requires suffering, with overcoming victorious faith not simply being that which escapes the edge of the sword, but that of those who "were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; Of whom the world was not worthy:) " (Hebrews 11:37,38)
    And we, and I, have need of more of both, and which the Lord works to effect.

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  8. Correction: it was simply a devout disciple (not a known apostle), Ananias, who conveyed the fullness of the Spirit to Paul. (Acts 9)

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