In one of my blogposts I've been having a discussion on healing with rgbrao. Read the entire discussion there. But I wanted to create a new blogpost for one of the questions rgbrao asked and my response to it.
rgbrao wrote:
Ok. So a common line given by Cess's is that while healing does take place, there is no such thing as the gift of healing that inheres in a person.
My response w/ recourse to Sorites (aka the paradox of the heap) is that the gift of healing has to be possible. Sorites is similar to the Bald Man paradox. Let me post that here from Oxford Reference:
"Suppose a man has a full head of hair: if he loses one hair he will still have a full head of hair. But if he loses enough hairs he will become bald."
~ Likewise in reverse. If we add a single hair to a bald man, he is still bald. Add yet another and he is still bald. And another and another... we are still constrained to saying that the man is bald yet we know that he is no longer bald. There simply is a point where we have to say that the guy is not bald.
Like so if we say that the gift of healing does not exist and I point out to an event, say Joe's being healed upon prayer by Jane, and say Jane has the gift of healing, Cess's will say no. One healing does not a healer make. But what if Jane repeats the event with Joan and then later with Jeff and another, and another, etc.
Then can we say Jane has the gift of healing? I think so.
Ok. I picked up the Concentric Cessationist lingo from Daniel Wallace in this article. https://bible.org/article/uneasy-conscience-non-charismatic-evangelical
He does not go into it too deep however.
Thanks!
Raj
Here was my response:
Yes, I've been aware of the sorites paradox for years. I've used it in various arguments. I disagree with you and agree with the cessationist. No matter how many times someone is healed by the prayers of person X, that, by itself, doesn't prove that X has the gift of healing. Since, it could be the pray-er's godliness that God is responding to [as per James 5:16b], or that person's "grace of faith" [as distinct from "the gift of faith"]. Or maybe the pray-er is exercising the gift of the working of miracles, or maybe the gift of faith, or maybe has cast out an evil spirit of infirmity.
So, I agree with the cessationist, that no amount of successive successful healing is proof anyone has the gift of healing (technically giftS [plural] of healing). Also, I don't think the gift of healing guarantees that everyone he prays for will be healed. Only that he has more extraordinary success in praying for healing than normal.
On the one hand, as a Calvinist, I think people are only healed if God decreed the person to be healed at that time. Yet, on the other hand, as an extreme continuationist, I believe that it's theoretically possible for someone to successfully heal anyone at any time given God's promise that all things are possible to him who believes [Mark 9:23]. As a Calvinist I believe that faith is always ultimately the gift of God [whether via the normally developed "grace of faith" or the extraordinary temporarily endowed/deposited "gift of faith"]. I believe God encourages Christians to always have faith for healing, even though God might not have decreed person Y be healed at time T. I believe we should leave God to work in His sovereignty as He pleases, but attempt to always have faith at all times for healing as God encourages and commands us to. There is an apparent contradiction in that, but not a real contradiction.
Having said all that, I think there might be times when God might supernaturally reveal that it's not His will to heal person S at time T maybe ever [e.g. it might be his time to die]. But unless God clearly and unambiguously reveals it's not His will to heal person S, then we have biblical warrant to do our best to exercise faith for S's healing. EVEN THEN, maybe faith might be able to "trump" God's revealed intention. Remember how God revealed to Hezekiah that he was about to die, yet God heard Hezekiah's prayers and granted the king 15 more years. Or think of how Jesus, speaking as God's messiah, told the Syro-Phoenician that He was sent to the House of Israel and basically implied that He wasn't going to heal her daughter. Yet, because of her persistence, Jesus healed her daughter anyway. In such cases, I would have to say that God ultimately intended to heal them. God's secret decree to heal, was hidden by His temporary revelation that it wasn't His intention (at least at time T1) to heal (thought it was at time T5).
Again, see this excellent article by Vincent Cheung. There is a sense in which, as he said, "Faith trumps everything."
AP -
ReplyDelete~ Thanks for the reply. I will mull it over again. Good answer.
A couple of things however, one possibly unrelated and one in the ballpark.
1) Unrelated: I am curious - in what capacity or area have you used Sorites.
2) Ballpark: Perhaps I can run one more by you and if its wrong, disabuse me of this also. What motivates this is someone I know who recently too umbrage at some comment by Beth Moore, to wit, "God told me that ____."
The argument was that the canon is closed and that God does not speak today, sans the Scriptures. So Moore is off. Interestingly enough, this same person at another point, in response to a story about a providential happening, that I told him, said, "Wow! That is a sign from God." I.e. That God had provided direction to me in some matter in an amazing way.
Now it seems to me that the issue is ultimately an issue of communication. I could take said person and put him in the same camp as Beth Moore.
So how does God communicate? Only via the Scriptures or in other ways, which though they be non-normative, still constitute communication?
In George Muller's life itself we find him convicted of certain matter simply via prayer or an impression.
My claim is simply that, yes, the canon is closed, yet, even the Heavens proclaim His righteousness. This is communication from God. I would not give it the same status level as the Scriptures, but it is communication, nonetheless.
Thanks!
//1) Unrelated: I am curious - in what capacity or area have you used Sorites.//
DeleteIn different apologetical contexts with both Christians and non-Christians. I can't remember too many specific instances because I've made reference to it so many times. I have vague recollections that I've argued with the late Steve Hays on certain points based on the sorites paradox on a number of occasions.
Also, I appealed to the sorites paradox in 2009 in my comments on Sean Gerety's blog HERE. It was, if I recall correctly, on how Clark's view and definition of faith amounts to heretical neo-Sademanianism.
I didn't initially understand how you were using the sorites paradox until you rephrased your questions.
//What motivates this is someone I know who recently too umbrage at some comment by Beth Moore, to wit, "God told me that ____."//
I know virtually nothing about Beth Moore. So, I can't either recommend or warn people about her.
//The argument was that the canon is closed and that God does not speak today, sans the Scriptures. So Moore is off.//
Steve Hays addressed that in the following blogpost where here addresses the objection that "If ‘private revelations’ agree with Scripture, they are needless, and if they disagree, they are false." See my COMMENTS in the blog as well.
If private revelations agree with Scripture, they are needless
https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/04/if-private-revelations-agree-with.html
Steve was a semi-cessationist, but he was often willing to grant that God does do miracles and sometimes provide guidance. See my collection of Steve's blogs on cessationism HERE.
CONTINUED BELOW
//this same person at another point, in response to a story about a providential happening, that I told him, said, "Wow! That is a sign from God." I.e. That God had provided direction to me in some matter in an amazing way.//
DeleteThat seems inconsistent. Nevertheless, cessationists have attempted to defend a mediating position that's in between "hard cessationism" (so to speak) and God "giving" people information etc. See for example how Doug Wilson in one of his blogs both 1. defends cessationism and 2. admits that God "gave" him supernatural information about someone he was counselling. SPECIFICALLY See POINT #10 in his article here:
https://dougwils.com/books/eleven-theses-on-private-spirits.html
There are a number of Calvinistic continuationists whose materials you should study which address these topics of 1. the closed canon, 2. God still giving revelation and 3. why they aren't contradictory. For example, Wayne Grudem, Sam Storms, John Piper, (possibly) James K.A. Smith et al.
See Grudem's book "The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today" (Revised Edition)
See Sam Storms many books on the charismatic gifts that deals with both 1. abstract theology AND 2. hands on practicing of the gifts.
The YouTube channel "The Remnant Radio" has great videos on these topics by theologically informed continuationists. One of the regulars is a Calvinist, another is an Arminian, and I'm not sure what the 3rd one is:
Here's one where they interview Sam Storms:
Crushing Cessationist Arguments: With Sam Storms
https://youtu.be/G1aG78dklJo
Here's Sam Storms on a panel of others who operate in the gifts:
Training In The Gifts: Panel Discussion with Matt Chandler, Jack Deere, Sam Storms, & Jeff Wells
https://youtu.be/3Pi0XNnqvAw
Grudem wrote in his book The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today (Revised Edition):
//I may add a personal note at this point: When I first found this material in Baxter, I photocopied these two pages and sent them to J. I. Packer, whose doctoral dissertation at Oxford was on Baxter's work. Packer sent back the following note:
By the way, some weeks ago you faxed me an extract from Baxter about God making personal informative revelations. This was the standard Puritan view, as I have observed it—they weren't cessationists in the Richard Gaffin sense.15//END QUOTE
That statement came from J.I. Packer who is well known for being well versed in the writings of the Puritans.