Quote - Atheist Richard Dawkins

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Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that with us Dixie. I'm very encouraged that you see God and His graces in all your sufferings.

Lord bless.

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Great reply, Dixie! Thanks for posting that.

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While I think that Dawkins has some interesting things to say about religion, science and philosophy, this strikes me as akin to the "argument from evil".

It has some merit but it assumes Benevolence is a necessary attribute for God, which I think is ill-founded.

God did answer their prayers, not neccessarily with the answer they wanted, but if they are talking to God now wanting answers, at least he has their attention.

Odd, though, that every amputee's answered prayer has the same answer.

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The following two stories (as I recall them) come from Chuck Smith, pastor of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, CA. If they had come from someone like Benny Hinn, I could easily discount them. However, Chuck does not claim to have a ministry in healing, and has even publicly expressed disappointment that God had told him that his prayers for such a ministry were not to be granted, but that Chuck was, rather, called to be a teacher. There is only Chuck's word for these two accounts, so that our friends who insist that miracles do not occur will not be impressed in the least with them. However, for those of us who have open minds, and weigh the credibility of witnesses, these stories seem germane to the matter raised in this thread:

1. In Chuck's early ministry, a distraught mother came to Chuck with her young son, who had just had his thumb (or perhaps it was a finger) cut off at the first knuckle in an accident. She begged Chuck to pray for his thumb to be healed. Chuck confesses that he had no faith for this miracle, but that he prayed for the boy and sent them home. I believe it was the next day that the woman excitedly returned with her son and showed Chuck that the finger had regenerated and was whole--with fingernail and all. She also had the severed finger in a jar that she showed him. It is not impossible that this could have been a hoax perpetrated against Chuck's gullibility (for example, if the second boy was an identical twin of the first boy), though I imagine that CHuck's own skepticism would have caused him to look into that before repeating the story. I am willing to accept the story at face value. It is not the kind of thing that will convince a determined skeptic, but for those of us who have no prejudices, it may be a piece of data indicating that regeneration is actually among the various kinds of miracles that God may sometimes perform.

2. I don't remember the details of this second story, except that a person lacking an eyeball, and wearing a glass eye presented himself (or herself) requesting prayer after a service when Chuck was ministering to those who came forward. This person wanted his eye restored. Again, Chuck had little faith that such a thing would occur, but prayed as asked. Soon afterward (the next day?) this same person returned and reported that a new eye had grown into the socket and had pushed out his glass eye. Chuck could see for himself that the person had a real eye in the socket, so he took it as a genuine miracle.

Chuck doesn't tell these stories very often--perhaps so as not to encourage too many people to expect such a rare miracle for themselves, or possibly because he is not 100% convinced that there was no hoax involved--I have never asked his reasons, since I don't know him well or have much access to him. I just remember him telling these stories once or twice at Calvary Chapel during the Jesus Movement.

Again, I don't repeat these in order to prove anything to the skeptical. I have personally seen terminal cancer throughout a person's body disappear permanently through prayer and I have friends who were in the revival in Indonesia in the seventies who witnessed the restoration of sight to the blind and the raising of a dead man at his own funeral. These miracles have no documentation that would convince the doubter. Those of us who know the Father of Jesus Christ, however, see nothing particularly unreasonable about taking such stories at face value.

If one would ask why God would perform such miracles in a corner, to obscure individuals, without documentation, I would be inclined to conjecture that He might do so out of concern for the individuals, without wishing to accommodate the doubts of those who are hostile to HIm. It was Jesus' habit, after all, to keep His miracles as low-key and private as the circumstances would permit, and to tell those whom He healed to say nothing about it to others. Jesus (like His Father) was no exhibitionist.

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Wow Steve! What a coincidence! I was thinking about sharing that exact story of Chuck's (#1) but I didn't remember all the details. I think I read it in one of his books several years ago.

I had thought that Chuck was actually told by God somehow that the boy's finger would be healed, but Chuck later got upset because it wasn't instantaneous enough for his liking (I think he may have shared that info with the mom). I could be mixing that story up with another, it's been a long time since I read it and I can't remember which book it was in.

I agree with you though that there's no reason for a rational, fair-minded person to doubt the story.

I wonder if Malchus counts as an amputee (Luke 22:51)

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Christopher,

You are more likely to be right in the details of the story than me, since I am going on "oral tradition" and you actually have seen "manuscript evidence."

Good point on the Malchus thing!

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Well, I started this thread when I had little time to say anything, even though I didn't want to "hit and run"!

I believe miracles still occur but are very rare, and usually such that would not convince a skeptic. I believe all healing is from God through His providence.

In John 20:26-29 we read of the story of Thomas' belief being based on "sight" rather than belief of testimony. Jesus did not seem much impressed with Thomas. Elsewhere we read of Jesus' remark that "an evil an adulterous generation seeks after a sign", Matt. 12:39.

Immediately after John told the story of Thomas, he wrote of Jesus signs "but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ..." It appears to me that Jesus' miracles were immediately done for reasons of compassion, and the testimony of them was to engender faith in the open-minded. Many skeptics, as Jesus noted, will not be convinced by any miracle, no matter how stupendous.

There is always an out. For example. sometimes cancers spontaneously go into remission. I read some time ago that very small children can regenerate the tip of a finger, beyond the first knuckle, if it is left untreated. Of couse, the end of the finger takes time to grow back.

It seems to me that the healings by Jesus were undeniable at the time. The question raised by unbelievers was by what power He did them. If people had the gift of healing today, should we not see the same kinds of undeniable healings occur? And why would the healer not be successful most of the time, at least. People who have the "gift" of teaching seem able to employ their gift on a rather regular basis.