perhaps a misdiagnosis of Stargardt's disease, and a gradual improvement for other reasons. record-breaking fundraising, and breakthroughs in research and academic Even if we couldn't explain it, we'd say "this is interesting, maybe we should look into these effects more" -- this is what we do for any other proposed medical treatments when we have only two case studies to go on. We should celebrate that. Kamil: so he basically said, look the way we do it is that we have, let's say seven different possible explanations, six of them are naturalistic which we can disconfirm using science and then the seventh is the explanation that God did it. Here I look into the papers he references in response. "Barbara Snyder was diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic with multiple sclerosis. But we also had the medical documentation. If you thought you were miraculously cured, you'd have it tested every two weeks not waiting two years. Strobel, 66, is a former investigative journalist with the Chicago Tribune. But you've written a two volume set over, excess of a 1000 pages on the subject of miracles. To contact us or to submit an article, click here. That's biola.edu/thinkbiblically. We make a mistake in the episode here about corrected vs uncorrected vision measurements. [3] During Snyder's tenure as the university president, CWRU has overcome a $20 million budget deficit, increased fundraising by nearly $60 million, and increased research dollars by more than $15 million. candidates for its presidency.. "This was an instantaneous healing of all of her symptoms and all of her illness to the point where 31 years later she's completely healthy," Strobel said. So the first part of the answer is sort of true but trivial and also not what they've been doing but then the second part contradicts that by saying "just assume that it's true anyway and start praying for people." Scott Rae: Because I mean by any medical definition she had died. It should further be noted that the subjects in the study were not chosen from the random population but from a self-selected group that already believe in the efficacy of the treatment. fall transition to the AAU will depend on the progress of the search process. We average between 2 and 3 posts a day. I mean I tried to get accounts from all sorts of different cultures. And I talked with two of her doctors from the time and they both testified, "Yes, this is, there's no medical explanation for this." I mean Grant still prayed for healing all his life. The good news will be preached to the poor. in social ethics from the University of Southern California, a Th.M. such profound challenges across so many fronts, I felt an obligation to answer In response, Snyder said, "I am proud to be president of Case Western Reserve and intend to continue in this role for many years to come. I think no, because theism is vaguely defined. He encountered scores of healings and other claims of the miraculous along the way, but there was one case in particular that truly blew his mind: the case of Barbara Snyder. It's not just a few people. This is where they burn child witches," and stuff like that. He became a Christian in 1981 shortly after he decided to investigate Jesus and the Christian faith after his wife became a Christian. The way people like the stories highlights their way of thinking and provides a teachable moment about like why don't we trust claims just from the claims, even if it has a peer-reviewed journal article. The maternal mortality rate in childbirth is so much higher there. Scott Rae: Yeah. Also, the theists show a profound lack of imagination in coming up with studies that can test the involvement of an agent, while ruling out other effects. This means that the original measurements were not accurate enough to establish the lengths, and the follow-up that said it grew back are also not enough. I said "I'm doing well" and he said "Well listen this may sound odd to you, but could you use a pool table?". But I think there's a good representative sample. its future, DiSanto said. So, we know that at least 450 Christians began praying for her, because they wrote letters saying, 'We're praying for you.. I mean these were mainstream Evangelical Christians and anyway, some of the critiques, and actually some of the praises from the Christians showed that they hadn't actually read the book either. I, sometimes I'll joke it's obvious looking at me that healing doesn't always happen. She is the former president of Case Western Reserve University. Click here to subscribe to the Charisma News newsletter. You wont want to miss Scotts interview with Dr. Craig Keener, renowned New Testament scholar, who has done in depth research on miracles today. This barely qualifies as a pilot study. Her blindness, too, had been instantaneously healed. It's been shown that there is a high survival rate for patients with their heart rhythm responds to shocks. And you just Well that was one of the reasons people argued against their reliability. Secondly we're talking about these things objectively, put yourself in situations where you can have experiential knowledge: pray for sick people that you know they would not be healed unless God showed up. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and. but there comes a point when enough is enough. When his wife prayed, having been told that he was gone, the heart monitor "sprang back to life" and then the doctors were able to revive him. Then, on Pentecost Sunday, two of Synders friends read her letters from those praying for her. And so on. A particular response has now happened twice in an ongoing discussion about extraordinary claims, and I felt I needed to think about it more deeply. Scott Rae: Tell me first, one of the books I'd like to talk about first is the book Impossible Love. Don't presume what I'll believe, show me evidence of an arm growing back first, then perhaps we'll see -- but I'd need the proper controls. It also includes the audio recording of Duane Miller as he is being spontaneously healed of his permanent, severe vocal chord damage. I'm your host, Scott Rae, Dean of Faculty and Professor of Christian Ethics at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. in Old Testament from Dallas Theological Seminary, and a B.A.S. I think we could say your relationship with Medine and how you guys, the two of you made it together, counts as one of those major miracles in your life. The deaf will hear. But if you're that kid you've got to go what's more probable: an event that just randomly happened or the God that prayed I was praying to gave me my sight back, and so that is a part of the conversation. And I think with a little imagination one can probably control for things like spontaneous remission and background effects and even some of the kind of unknown effects by a suitably designed experiment. From Send Proof Elijah StephensI didn't realize how difficult it would be [to find evidence for miracle healings]. Once you admit that getting a pool table after prayer is a miracle, then you've admitted that your standards of evidence are outrageously poor. How would you eliminate the hypothesis that a miracle did in fact happen? The current results are suggestive, but are not conclusive. And, in fact, one doctor described her as being one of the most hopelessly ill patients he'd ever encountered.. Get Charisma's best content delivered right to your inbox! It is quite clear that once you allow one miraculous healing in, using evidence of just one person, then one has to let in a whole host of others. James: Keener says simultaneously that there are hundreds of millions of cases but also that none of this can be replicated. Back home it happens. Scott Rae: Right. So as you've cataloged these different stories and different accounts, what's been the sort of the breath of the geography that's been involved? his term as board chair this Junewill lead a national search for her I had a lot of connections with Africa, different parts of Africa. What problems are you interested in? Now normally somebody's healed, they're still gonna have, their muscles are still going to be atrophied if they've been unable to walk for a long time. But Greg Spencer had been going blind due to macular degeneration. Then, on Pentecost Sunday, two of Synder's friends read her letters from those praying for her. "This male voice coming from the corner of the room where nobody was said, 'Get up, my child, and walk,'" Strobel recounted. Is it a miracle? Personally I like looking into the details of miracle claims because they spotlight the scientific process, when it is misused or when people try to use the authority of science but don't want to go through the admittedly hard work to earn it. I commented on the story here but there is very little to go on. "It was really the miracle of the resurrection and the historical evidence for that that ended up bringing me to faith many years ago," Strobel told Pure Flix Insider and "The Billy Hallowell Podcast." Adding to that, he had some skepticism about some of the charlatans who have been exposed for making false claims about healings and the like. Scott Rae: Well that gets us to the books that I want to talk more about today. I sort of think that these popular apologetics books will briefly touch on some of these tools that should be used but then that's a stand-in that makes people think that they're actually using them. We really appreciate your taking the time to come be on the podcast with us. in economics from Southern Methodist University. Tell our listeners a little bit a how you two met and why you wrote the book, Impossible Love. For example, if you take the population of people who go to Rome on pilgrimage each year, you can calculate the fraction of those with diseases that will go into remission. We don't get to choose what our test is. It will be life-changing for those individuals, for sure, even under the condition where there are no miracles. unblinded) studies were better. It also calls into question the motives of God -- God is more concerned to give you a pool table than to cure leukemia in children or heart defects or nearly anything else. This is why causal connections are so hard to establish, because not only do you have to demonstrate a real effect, you have to somehow distinguish possible causes. At a minimum, one has to. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute. Despite several operations and treatments, Barbara continued to deteriorate to the point that she was put into respite with doctors orders not to resuscitate. We would not believe any medical claim that didn't have these properties, so we are not having too high of a standard -- we are just refusing to lower the standard in these cases. #unbelievable He is, let's just say he is one of the most prolific biblical scholars that I'm aware of and is so productive. It is for these sorts of problems that randomized controlled studies are developed and are necessary to distinguish effect from non-effect. conversation that I was a part of here: Bad Apologetics Ep 20 - Miracles & even MORE even NEWER Resurrection evidence where we respond to the Unbelievable? What problems are you interested in? In So how much evidence really is enough? And, in fact, one doctor described her as being one of the most hopelessly ill patients he'd ever encountered." The first question is, are there real miracles that get recorded on video. She is the former president of Case Western Reserve University. Elijah: I think this: the fact that there are fake miracles does not preclude the fact that there can be real miracles. 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