Re: [asa] Miracle healing?

Iain's account of the arthritis is interesting, but he describes not
actually arthritis, but positioning of the fingers. There is a term called
ulnar deviation. This describes the positioning of fingers in patients with
rheumatoid arthritis, it is due to damge of the joints. So could ulnar
deviation be psychosomatic? Yes it probably could be.

I probably wouldnt believe any medical account of a miracle, unless I saw it
myself, or had detailed and objective information about it. For arthritis
for example, if there was a radiograph of the fingers before and after, that
is where you can see the changes in the joint itself, I would be more
persuaded.

As far as miracles go, if Christ rising from the dead was not a supernatural
miracle, then it is meaningless as far as I am concerned. The resurrection
to me is an example of what a miracle must be, it has to be supernatural.
There may not be any miracles that can be proven other than Christ's, but
that miracle alone is sufficient.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Iain Strachan" <igd.strachan@gmail.com>
To: "RC Metcalf" <rcmetcalf@thinkagain.us>
Cc: "Murray Hogg" <muzhogg@netspace.net.au>; "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2008 5:53 AM
Subject: 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
>
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Received on Sat May 24 06:31:16 2008