Re: [asa] Miracle healing?

I think this thread has immediately diverted into a discussion of
Dawkins vs McGrath, rather than concentrating on the question
Christine asked. I think it would be more interesting if instead we
tried to have a discussion about miracles, and how we respond to
miracles as the sceptical and honest scientists that we are. I don't
mean sceptical in a derogatory sense - science is all about being
honest, and that means questioning every result that you see, and
endeavouring not just to see what you want to see. T

So there is a dilemma; presented with the apparent raising from the
dead of this woman who had had zero brain function for rather a long
time, and rigor mortis setting in, one wants, as a Christian to
believe that this is a work of God. But as scientisst, we are
trained to question everything we see - to be as sure as we can that
there is no alternative explanation.

To add another example that's doing the rounds take a look at the following:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2008/05/07/frances_finn_miracle_turning_point_feature.shtml

In this news item, a BBC local radio presenter got healed at a
charismatic Christian conference in the UK ( called "New Wine"). A
skiing accident when she was at school resulted in a broken leg. The
injury healed badly and resulted, according to her, in one leg being
1.5 inches shorter than the other one, and having to wear an insert in
one of her shoes in order to walk normally rather than like she had
one shoe on and the other off. At one of the sessions at the New Wine
conference, they asked someone to put their hand up for healing, and
she did so, immediately afterwards thinking "what have I got into
here?". Various people captured what happened subsequently on mobile
phone cameras, in which a prayer was said, and it appears that her leg
grows and ends up the same length as the other one. Subsequently to
that she has stated that she no longer wears the insert in her shoe
and walks normally like that, and abnormally if this insert is
present. The web-site contains an audio interview with her, and also
a video of the whole event taking place. It can also be found (in
extended form) on YouTube by searching for "Harrogate + miracle".

This was told to me by someone in my housegroup who was evidently
convinced by it. And yet I wonder why I still question whether this
is really true? I'd like to believe it was true, but is that because
it makes it easier for me to believe? Does it take away the need for
this difficult thing called "faith"? I can imagine that news of this
miracle is spreading through evangelical churches by word of mouth (as
it did in my housegroup), and many Christians are then pointing their
atheist friends to this YouTube video and saying "There. You wanted
hard evidence that God exists? Well here it is". And I wonder if
this is the right thing to do.

Finally, just to show that I'm not a total sceptic, I have to report
that I also was involved in such an incident. It happened in 1989 in
my own church. I had joined up with a Prayer Ministry team in the
church, where people seeking prayer over issues were encouraged to
come up to the altar and receive prayer with laying on of hands.
There was a specific reason why I joined. I had for some time been a
volunteer with the Samaritans organisation, that offers telephone
support for despairing and suicidal people. Despite its biblical
title, the Samaritans is a secular organisation, and volunteers are
forbidden to give advice or promote their own religious views. There
are no more Christian Samaritans than there are in the general
population, and many of the best volunteers I know are atheists.

So I had joined the prayer ministry in the expectation that God might
be calling me to use my listening/empathetic skills in a more
spiritual context. As a result, I was totally unprepared for what
happened that morning. An elderly lady came up to the front,
evidently in considerable distress and pain and showed me her hands -
her fingers were stiff like cups; she said it was chronic arthritis.
I didn't know anything about arthritis at the time, but anyone I've
told this to has immediately recognised it when I've showed my fingers
in the same way as her fingers were arranged - that it's arthritis.

Frankly I was aghast at this request. It was evident that empathetic
listening wasn't the required treatment for something as obviously
physical as this. (I had only really seen myself as helping with
emotional pain). In my head I was saying I can't do this; I don't do
miracles. But equally there was no escape; face to face with the
situation all I could do was do what was expected of me; I put my
hands on her hands and prayed that God would heal her. And she was
immediately healed; her fingers relaxed and she could move them.
Except that I was so sceptical that any such thing could really happen
that I didn't notice! When she said "Praise the Lord!" and got up and
went off, I rationalised that people always say that kind of thing. I
was forced to accept that something had happened a few minutes later
in the car park as I was just about to drive off, when I saw her again
- she raised her hand as if to wave to me and wiggled her fingers
about, bending them at all the joints, which she clearly had been
unable to do before. I can't forget the look of triumph on her face.

Even then, as the years passed, I never forgot the incident, but the
scientist in me instinctively sought other rational explanations.
Maybe, I thought, in complete ignorance of arthritis, it was an attack
that passed off at that moment. Maybe it was a placebo effect. etc.
Then many years later I told it to a physiotherapist, also a
Christian, who told me not to be daft; of course it was a miracle -
with arthritis, you don't just get mobility back like that.

The moral of the whole tale is that as scientists, we have to doubt;
to question. Not to do so would be to fail at being scientists; and
to fail at being honest - to fall into the trap of seeing what we want
to see. But how, as scientists, should we respond to the miracles
that have been described; Christine's original example; the BBC
announcer with the leg healed (and as a scientist I note that the
"one leg shorter than the other" is a common healing that sceptics
often say is the oldest trick in the book), and my own personal
testimony given above?

Iain

On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 7:23 PM, Christine Smith
<christine_mb_smith@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm no doctor, but if rigor mortis really was setting
> in and there was zero brain function, I don't see how
> this couldn't be a true miracle :) --any doubters out
> there want to put out an alternative explanation??
> http://www.newsnet5.com/health/16363548/detail.html
>
> In Christ,
> Christine (ASA member)
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
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