When it comes to belief contemporary miracles, many conservative evangelicals declare themselves to be ‘open but cautious’ (by which they usually seem to mean, ‘almost completely closed and extremely cautious’).  In other words, they will pay lip-service to the possibility of miracles, but have a high index of doubt as to whether they actually occur.

It feels a little strange, therefore, to read an article from a thoughtful Christian who makes no concessions at all to the possibility of contemporary miracles; who is, in effect, a cessationist (although not using that word).

The article in question comes from the Evangelical Times (24th October, 2022).  And the thoughtful Christian is Alan Thomas, Professor and Consultant in Psychiatry, and an elder at Newcastle Reformed Evangelical Church.

Alan Thomas begins with the issue of definition.  Biblical events such as the parting of the Red Sea, Jesus walking on water, and the raising of Lazarus are generally recognised as miracles, in the sense that they are ‘not explicable in natural or ordinary terms’.  They stand outside God’s usual providential activity (which, precisely because it is his usual activity, can be explained by the laws of science).

A miracle (according to Alan Thomas) is an immediate act of God, and, standing outside the laws of science, cannot be explained by them.

Grudem’s definition of a miracle as ‘a less common kind of God’s activity in which he arouses people’s awe and wonder and bears witness to himself’ is judged to be unsatisfactory, because it appeals to the subjective effect of a miracle, to the neglect of its objective nature.  The narrow avoidance of a serious accident, or the safe escape of people from a raging inferno, for example, should not lead to cries of ‘It’s a miracle’, because they cannot be ascribed to the immediate action of God.

Alan Thomas cites examples from his own experience:

‘A woman diagnosed with multiple sclerosis is pronounced cured by her neurologist. Her church had been praying for her and now they praise God for this miracle. A man is operated on to remove his bowel cancer but is found to have no cancer at all and his church thanks God for answered prayer by miraculously removing his cancer. An 84 year old celebrates that he has beaten Alzheimer’s disease by living with it for 20 years.’

But these could all be accounted for through misdiagnoses.  Other claimed miracles can be explained in terms of spontaneous remission, psychosomatic effects and so on.

How different the miracles of the Bible!  There could be not mistaking the man born blind is healed (John 9), the banishment of leprosy (2 Kings 5; Mark 1:40-32), or a cripple picking up his mat and walking (Mark 2:1-12).

Other Christian doctors, including Professor Verna Wright and Dr Monty Barker, have investigated contemporary claims to miraculous healing and found them all to be lacking that clear supernatural elements that we see in the biblical miracles.  The Christian Medical Fellowship has investigated healing claims and found nothing comparable to those we find in Scripture.

To claim as a miracle something that is not brings the gospel itself into disrepute.  Those who later find out that they are not healed are devastated.  Outsiders mock our message and our Saviour.

Alan Thomas concludes:

‘It is vital we carefully define the healings and miracles of Scripture, recognising their objective basis in God’s direct action, and so distinguish them from other natural healings. We can thank God when people recover from sickness without needing to call this a miracle. God’s kind providences are fully worthy of praise. There is no need to use the language of miracle, and much harm arises from doing so.’

Comment

I appreciate Alan Thomas’ insistence of careful definition, and his rejection of trivial or spurious miraculous claims.

I would not expect him, in the space of a short article, to give the reader much by way of scientific or theological reasoning.

But I do find the article flawed, and therefore unhelpful, in a couple of important respects.

The definition of ‘miracle’ suffers from the ‘No True Scotsman’ fallacy.  If we define a miracle as an event caused by the direct action of God, without intermediate causes, then we have excluded, without further thought anything that lies outside this definition.  Here I point to the careful work of Professor Sit Colin Humphrey, who provides good reasons for supposing that some of the biblical miracles (such as the crossing of the Jordan by the Israelites) might be regarded as ‘miracles of timing’.

To say that some contemporary claims to miraculous healing are trivial, exaggerated, or downright spurious does not prove that they all all.  Craig Keener has amassed a very considerable body of evidence that suggests that contemporary claims to have witnessed or experience healing miracles cannot be dismissed with a mere wave of the hand.