Do Miracles Truly Happen?
Written by: Matthew Sabatine
Image credits belong to: GDJ | Pixabay
When I was an atheist, I scoffed at the possibility of miracles. Anyone who told a story about seeing the miraculous was either lying, poorly educated, misperceived the actual event, was trying to win points with God, or was having some kind of mental health issue. No matter what, I always assumed that the event did not take place exactly like the storyteller told it. But I also never bothered to seriously test my assumptions.
Now that I am a Christian, I want to genuinely explore the possible authenticity of miracles. I must admit this is my first attempt at blogging about this topic, and I am starting with The Case For Miracles written by former investigative journalist and atheist-turned-Christian, Lee Strobel. Forgive me if this is too basic or rudimentary. Forgive me if I bungle my first adventure into this territory. I hope to redeem myself in the future.
Lee Strobel’s research
According to Lee’s research, 38 percent of our United States population, which is a whopping 94,792,000 people, hold God responsible for at least one miracle in their lives. That significant number tells me that we should not trivialize the topic of miracles, even if many people prefer to accept a naturalistic and materialistic worldview.
Lee admits that belief in divine intervention increases among those with less education and decreases among college graduates and the wealthy. Of course, the number increases even more significantly among evangelical Christians (78%). Perhaps their belief in God would be nonexistent if their belief had not been prompted by the miraculous.
On page 31, Lee states:
“Although skeptic Harriet Hall dismissed supernatural reports as being ‘more common from the uncivilized and uneducated,’ a 2004 survey showed that 55 percent of US physicians have seen results in their patients that they would consider miraculous. That’s coming from highly educated professionals trained in medicine and working on the front lines of serving the sick and injured.”
Lee’s source on this is a survey attributed to HCD Research and the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary. His bibliography states that this was reported by Business Wire on December 20, 2004. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find that exact Business Wire article. Maybe I have mistakenly overlooked it amongst the thousands of results that can appear on a Google search. I would greatly appreciate it if someone would ever decide to locate it for me someday. Various websites on Google also attribute this same 2004 survey to HCD Research and the Louis Finkelstein Institute. It is strange to me that none of those websites have been able to direct me to the original source with the original data.
Actually, other sources will say that of the 1,100 surveyed physicians, “74% of doctors believe that miracles have occurred in the past and 73% believe that can occur today.”
WorldHealth.Net goes on to say that:
“37% believe that the Bible’s miracle stories are literally true while 50% believe they are metaphorically true. 12% indicated that they did not believe in the Bible’s description of miracles.”
“9% believe the Bible was written by God, 58% believe the Bible was inspired by God and 34% consider it human ancient literature.”
“55% believe that medical practice should be guided by religious teaching (44% do not).”
At this point, I imagine skeptics would scoff at this and call this fake. Perhaps I can leave this matter unsolved for now.
Perhaps many skeptics would regard medical miracles as “spontaneous remissions.” But Lee Strobel has some remarks on that:
“Spontaneous remissions do happen sometimes in serious illnesses, but they usually take place over a period of time and often do not endure. If a serious illness is instantly and permanently eradicated at the exact moment a prayer for healing is being offered–well, that tends to push the needle over into the ‘miracle’ category for me.” (pg. 28-29)
Lee Strobel quotes philosopher Richard L. Purtill’s definition of a miracle:
“A miracle is an event that is brought about by the power of God that is a temporary exception to the ordinary course of nature for the purpose of showing that God is acting in history.” (pg. 27)
In the book, Lee Strobel interviews Michael Shermer, who is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic Magazine and is well known for investigating claims about the supernatural. Shermer cautions against using the term “miracle” synonymously with “improbable event.” I agree that people frequently use the term too nebulously, which can complicate conversations on this topic. Shermer cautions against anecdotes (i.e., short and amusing stories about biographical incidents) about things like cancer which can sometimes go into remission on their own anyway. He calls it a “statistical anomaly” which he ascribes to nature.
“And by the way, we see remarkable recoveries through the placebo effect, which is when people receive a fake or ineffective treatment, but they get better anyway because they believe they’re being healed or they expect they’ll get better. This can be seen when people are asked to subjectively rate their pain. ‘How’s your migraine today? It’s a nine? Okay, we’re going to try meditation or prayer.’ Now it goes down to a six. Did that really work? I don’t know. It could have been wishful thinking. But let’s be realistic: you’re not going to heal an AIDS patient that way.” (pg. 50)
Gary Greenberg, who is a practicing psychotherapist from Connecticut, and author of The Book of Woe: The DSM and The Unmaking of Psychiatry, wrote in a 2018 New York Times article that the placebo effect is a “fake medicine” with no “discernible reason to work” because “people like to be cheated.” He was quoting Henri Lenferink, the mayor of the Dutch City of Leiden, who once spoke at the Society of Interdisciplinary Placebo Studies.
He writes about sugar pills being used as placebos for persistent, stress-related conditions. Such an idea can be borrowed from the premise that placebos provide an expectation of benefit. The expectation triggers reward pathways in the brain that unleash endorphins similar to opiates or morphine, which bind to pain-alleviating receptors.
He writes about normal milkshakes being used as placebos to trick the gut into thinking the drink is low fat. If the athletes’ belief is strong enough, you can get them to perform better with oxygen tanks on exercise machines in the Alps than they would in other normal environments. Someone who needs minimally invasive joint surgery will feel relief in his knee if you just put him to sleep, give him a couple of incisions, and tell him the surgery took place when it actually did not. Drugs with polysyllabic names work better than drugs with names that are not polysyllabic. Apparently, there is a long list of conditions treatable with a placebo, especially if the doctor shows enough confidence and care for the patient.
But according to Shermer, we do not have a placebo or a miracle that is repeatable for AIDS patients. For Shermer, regrowing limbs would be a better example of the miraculous, instead of cancer remission. As of now, I cannot find any believable AIDS-miracle stories to counter Shermer’s assertions. For Shermer to believe in miracles, he must witness a jaw-dropping violation of nature, or something he cannot rationally explain away. But it seems strange that he would have this standard, as I interpret Shermer to be the kind of skeptic who contends that the laws of nature are inviolable, and that science will eventually find explanations for the unexplained.
I am not so sure that enthusiastic hope, faith, and belief in miraculous recovery are comparable to placebos. If we look at miraculous remissions and boil them all down to neurobiology acting upon itself, prompted by belief, I then find plausibility in Scripture passages such as Proverbs 4:20-23, which says we find healing in God when we give attention to his words, or James 5:14-15 which says that a prayer of faith can save the sick.
Vicki’s Story on the 700 Club
While wiping down the shower one night, Vicki felt a crippling pain in her lower back, and could hardly leave her home for two days because it was too difficult to walk, even for short distances in her home. She started wearing a brace. She was seeing doctors about her chronic arthritis but felt certain that this problem was too severe for them to fix. After being skeptical about miraculous healing, she chose to believe that Jesus could heal her. According to her story, after two days of unspeakable pain, she sat down on the sofa to watch the 700 Club. She claims that, before she turned on the television, she already knew she was going to have an answer to her prayer. A woman on the program started praying for an unspecified person’s misaligned spine. Vicki says that she already knew the pain was gone before she stood up. Vicki says the pain never returned thereafter.
I feel that it would be very easy for skeptics to chalk this up to a placebo or something like a placebo. But it appears to me that placebos are physical in nature with inoperative properties imitating real treatment effects. Those receiving placebos are actually unaware that they are getting a placebo, whereas Vicki knew what she was asking for and from whom she was asking to receive it.
Chalk it up to positive thinking? Well, a placebo goes beyond just positive thinking, because many people are unaware of their response to a placebo. But Vicki was aware of what she was responding to. I suppose that skeptics would prefer to say that Vicki probably contrived her own story for public attention or selfish gain. Maybe The 700 Club contrived the story to keep their audience satisfied. Maybe it is all just clever sales and marketing tactics. But those are just assumptions.
They say that belief is the source of the benefits. To me, this parallels with Jesus' interactions with people where He tells them to believe and be healed.
Now, the skeptics might ask “Is it truly God healing you, or is it your belief helping to numb the pain and giving you the illusion of healing in progress?” Perhaps I am not representing the skeptics’ argument in the best way, there.
I guess we will have to save that topic for a later post.
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Sources:
[3] What if the Placebo Effect Isn’t a Trick? - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
[4] More Than Just a Sugar Pill: Why the placebo effect is real - Science in the News (harvard.edu)
[5] 10 Scriptures to Declare for Healing - C3 SYD
[6] (3) Once Skeptical of Healings, Woman Experiences Miracle - YouTube
[7] Placebo Effect: Meaning, Examples, and Impact (verywellmind.com)