Re: [asa] Miracle healing?

On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 3:05 AM, RC Metcalf <rcmetcalf@thinkagain.us> wrote:
>
> Murray Hogg said:
>>
>> (1) It seems that even if the above can be ascribed to the category
>> "miracle" then it doesn't seem necessary to deny that there were
>> recognizable physical processes going on. I simply DON'T adhere to the idea
>> that a miracle is a violation of a law of nature - so I don't find
>> particularly compelling what is probably the most obvious critique of the
>> above, namely that we only call such events "miracles" because of our lack
>> of natural explanation.
>>
> As far as I've been able to determine, the idea that a miracle is a
> violation of natural law arose with David Hume, who was certainly not a
> Christian. C.S. Lewis clarified what I believe should be the proper
> Christian view of "miracles" in his book of the same name. That being that
> God works through his natural laws to orchestrate events that to us appear
> miraculous. However, it seems that every time atheists like Dawkins attack
> the concept of miracle they attack Hume's version, effectively building a
> strawman. So, once again we have semantic disagreement between theists and
> atheists. I've yet to see an atheist acknowledge this problem. Has anyone
> else?
>
> RC
>

This is a nice idea but ... surely walking on water can't be seen as
anything but a violation of natural law, unless you invoke the Many
Worlds Interpretation as the universal mechanism for explaining the
incredibly unlikely.

Or to take two of the examples I cited. I know that many sceptics,
such as James Randi are extremely suspicious of the "one leg shorter
than the other" type of miracle; but just let's suppose that what was
shown and described on the YouTube video actually happened to the
woman Frances Finn. That she sat down in a char in front of hundreds
of people; was prayed for and as a result the bones in her leg grew
about one and a half inches. Let's suppose that actually happened.
How could one describe such a thing as an "orchestration" of natural
causes? If it could be explained as a placebo effect; perhaps there
was nothing stopping her walking normally but it took intervention
from God via prayer to realise this, then one could see it as an
orchestration of natural causes. In the audio interview on the BBC
web page I gave, she is quite rational about it; acknowledging that
the power of positive mental attitudes can indeed make spectacular
things happen, but is left still pondering "what if God actually did
heal me?".

Likewise with the example of the arthritic hand. My understanding is
that arthritis is due to actual physical damage to the joints, and for
that damage to be reversed would mean actual movement of large numbers
of molecules in a way that seems incredibly unlikely - order
spontaneously appearing out of disorder. So if that's what really
happened, then it would appear to be supernatural and not merely an
orchestration of natural causes. Perhaps Jack can give us the benefit
of his medical knowledge on this. I don't know if, for instance,
arthritis can be psychosomatic; it seems unlikely to me.

To respond briefly to Merv. Yes, I did praise God for what happened -
and the other night in my house-group when I was told about the
YouTube video, I told the others about my experience. I also agree
that even if these were psychosomatic causes, then they would be
nonetheless acts of healing to praise God for.

It's just that my instinct as a westerner (not just scientist as
Murray pointed out) is to look for rational explanations and to
examine the evidence critically. If you look at the YouTube video of
the woman's leg growing you will notice that the position of the
bottom of her jeans relative to her shoes remained the same during the
lengthening. As my wife, who is not a scientist, pointed out; if you
had one leg shorter than the other, you'd have taken the leg up by an
inch and a half, and so after the leg grew back the jeans would appear
to have legs of different lengths.

As David S pointed out - those who are too innocent to doubt often see
more miracles happening.

Iain

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sat May 24 05:53:45 2008