Does the Placebo Effect Explain Miraculous Healings?
Written by: Matthew Sabatine
Image credits belong to: waldryano | Pixabay
In a previous post (click here), I wrote about Vicki’s anecdotal story about a miracle 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 hear my inner skeptic having a knee-jerk reaction that wants to chalk this up to just a placebo effect. Should I obey or not obey my inner skeptic?
Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
On page 92 of his book titled The Case For Miracles, Lee Strobel wants to cater to the Sagan standard that states “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” He interviewed Craig S. Keener, a highly acclaimed Christian theologian who has written about miracles. Lee asked Keener about his thoughts on David Hume’s approach to miracles, which is to say that the laws of nature are unalterable and supersede any eyewitness account that defends miracles and the supernatural.
Keener’s understanding is that we should be doubtful but unprejudiced when approaching miracles. For Keener, seven things can increase the likelihood that the miraculous event occurred: 1) if there are multiple and independent eyewitnesses, 2) if the witness(es) are generally known to be trustworthy, 3) if the witness(es) have nothing to gain from other people’s credulity, 4) if there are medical records about the event, 5) what are the circumstances and timing surrounding the event? 6) what level of opportunity did the witness(es) have for seeing what happened? 7) Are there alternative naturalistic explanations?
I am afraid that the naturalists will always prefer #7. They would prefer that we always assume a naturalistic explanation, even when we have not confirmed it. I think this assumption is one of the greatest impediments to belief in our culture. When I was an atheist, it never seemed strange to me that a non-Christian naturalistic worldview should always take precedence. But now I am uncomfortable with assuming that worldview based on unconfirmed premises.
Unfortunately…
For Vicki, no witnesses were reported in her home. We do not know about her reputation for honesty. She could gain plenty of notoriety and attention from being featured on The 700 Club. There are no medical records of her situation, to my knowledge.
Are there alternative naturalistic explanations for what happened?
I suppose so. There is the placebo effect.
Maybe it was something psychosomatic.
Maybe her condition got better for only a limited time, with no doctor to monitor it nor verify that it vanished, and this therefore disguised itself as a healing.
Maybe she misunderstood her condition. Maybe she deceived herself.
Maybe she confabulated the event, which means to confuse imaginary events with real memories.
There are many alternative explanations.
But do we know for sure? No, we do not. And I will not equate un-knowledge with the feeling of certainty that nothing supernatural took place. I will not handwave this away based on unverified premises. Instead, I choose to remain undecided about the exact cause. However, my recent reading of Scripture and placebo studies makes me think that God and placebos are not mutually exclusive. They can coexist without negating each other.
But I want to talk about the efficacy of placebos
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience reported in 2021 about a study done on 37 females who were given a placebo tap water from a Catholic sanctuary in Lourdes. They were told the tap water would improve their spiritual, emotional, and physical health. They were asked to rate the affective valence and intensity of their emotional experience (i.e. subjective reporting as to whether a stimulus is good or bad). This involved honestly remarking on their thoughts and feelings they had during the procedure.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used for 15 minutes during each session. In one session the participants received the placebo Lourdes water. In the control session, they received water labeled as “tap water.” Researchers studied the changes in resting-state functional connectivity in the brain, which involves the electrical transporters of information between interacting regions that are at rest as nothing is present to evoke reaction in the organ or tissue.
While in a “resting state” the participants were kept awake but with eyes closed and were asked to let their thoughts roam while making no noise. The researchers targeted three brain networks: 1) the default-mode network which is active when the person is awake, at rest, and attending to internal tasks such as daydreaming, among others, 2) the salience network of the brain that is in charge of focusing on what is relevant to the senses, and 3) cognitive control, which refers to the ability to make careful choices as to which thoughts, emotions, and behaviors should be used during a present task.
The results indicated that the placebo decreased the at-rest regional interactions in the frontoparietal network responsible for working memory, uninterrupted attention, and finding solutions to problems. The placebo increased the at-rest regional interactions in the salience network in charge of focusing on what is relevant to the senses. Intensity levels felt in the body from the placebo Lourdes water were reported to be greater than the intensity levels felt in the body from the tap water. Physical feelings and perceptions were said to involve skin tingling, warmth, and relaxation. Intensity of thoughts about friends, partners, routine obligations, and past experiences did not vary between the conditions. Participants said they experienced specific emotions such as “happiness, satisfaction, gratefulness, anxiety, and nervousness” but the anxiety and nervousness took place mostly during the control condition with the tap water.
This led researchers to conclude that religious placebos prompt changes in the experience of emotional salience, cognitive control, and connectivity in the brain networks associated with them.
Several things about the participants stand out to me:
Firstly, they were all female, which was intended by the researchers as they chose the participants from a survey that was completed, online. The researchers admit that these results are not generally applicable to males. I am unsure of the justification behind that…but I guess I will leave it alone.
Secondly, 21% of these women are not officially attached to a religion. This sparks the question: why or how could someone with no religious affiliation invest any wholehearted and unfeigned belief in something said to have supernatural healing? Perhaps the “spiritual but not religious” category applies here? Perhaps this speaks to the idea that thoughts about God and the supernatural can happen independently from one’s formal and public statements about specific attachments to an organized religion? Perhaps this speaks to the idea that a personal God can act and intervene in someone’s life despite their formal and public statements of belief?
It is not the placebo itself, but the belief in the placebo’s efficacy, that seems to make the impact. Belief produces the results, apparently. That can parallel with Matthew 17:20 where Jesus says that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. Obviously, skeptics will chide us about not interpreting this too literally, which I feel is a respectable caveat. Nevertheless, “expectancy” and “desire” are key terms of mind that include hoping and wishing which coordinate with the size or extent of the placebo’s effect. The results from our experience are determined by what we believe we will experience. Prior neuroimaging studies linked placebo response and spiritual experiences to the neural constituents of these networks.
In light of that, I wish to see a scientific study focus on placebos that involve prayer to Jesus and Bible-readings. What a conundrum it would be to have such results reveal that people feel better after using Jesus-focused prayer and Bible-reading as a placebo for mollifying anxiety and stress. Such results would uncannily parallel with what the Bible says about investing belief in Christ and casting your cares on Him as a way to manage fear and anxiety.
But should we assume that the placebo effect is an adequate explanation for all miraculous healings? Is it essentially our minds that generate the results and rewards? And if the rewards do not materialize, should we accuse ourselves of lacking faith?
I think the placebo effect would not explain Pastor Duane Miller’s miraculous healing from a three-year long battle with a throat condition back in the 90s’.
I dislike how some people may accidentally misuse Isaiah 53:5—“with his stripes we are healed”— to imply that unhealed injuries and diseases means you are lacking faith. Lee Strobel shares this sentiment with me as he writes on page 26 of his book titled The Case For Miracles. He also writes about pastor Duane Miller, who was hurt by people’s misguided remarks about postponed recovery caused by inadequate faith.
A Pastor’s Battle with the Flu and Losing His Voice
Duane Miller was a pastor in Brenham, Texas who told his story on the James Dobson show.
Perhaps you think this kind of far-fetched story is expectable from a pastor. Perhaps you think this kind of far-fetched story is not unusual for the James Dobson show. Perhaps you consider this to all be contrived as a good selling point. But let’s at least consider his story:
In January of 1990, Duane Miller awoke on a Sunday morning with flu symptoms and but still preached anyway. His symptoms were not unlike anything he had before, but he had a sore throat that continued for weeks after his other flu symptoms went away. He went to a Houston throat specialist who was also his friend and told him that an infection had swelled his throat, almost to the extent of being totally closed. A month later, the infection and the swelling went away but he still had a raspy whisper that greatly diminished his speaking ability. It was as if someone was constantly squeezing his throat. There was no pain, but he felt a constant pressure.
Since the doctors asked him to rest his voice, he had to discontinue his preaching. He wrote notes for six weeks, which was difficult for someone like him who enjoyed talking.
After his friend and Houston throat specialist could not solve his problem, he was referred to 13 other specialists who worked diligently and frustratingly with many different tests to diagnose and treat his condition but to no avail. Duane tells us these were some of the best doctors out there. He felt certain they were qualified but still felt disconsolate about the whole situation, as his prayers went unanswered for so long. Some sincere but questionable people began to suggest that maybe unresolved sin and inadequate faith in his life was the cause for this. For Duane, that was heartrending, since he did not feel he had any unresolved sin or inadequate faith that should cause this.
Duane had a conversation with a trustworthy friend he knew from long ago. They had not spoken in a very long time, but his friend heard about his predicament and felt the need to contact Duane. His friend, who was more empathetic and less questionable than the other consultants, suggested to Duane that God was not punishing nor torturing Duane.
According to Duane:
“In our conversation he said to me, ‘Duane, do you remember when we had prayed together and you told the Lord you would go anywhere and do anything that He wanted you to do?’ And I said, ‘Yea, I remember that.’ And he said, ‘Well, God’s just takin’ you up on it.’”
After being on medical leave for so long, he decided it would be best to vacate his role as pastor so that someone else could fill it. The church had waited long enough. His wife had been a stay-at-home mother who had to now re-enter the workforce after many years of not being in the field of X-ray technology. Considering the rapid changes in technology, everything she knew before must have been outdated.
According to Duane, it is believed that the virus had severely damaged the myelin sheath, meant for protecting the vocal cords and facilitating the brain’s messages to the vocal cords to make them move. Eight months prior to his miraculous healing, the church asked him to retain his teaching position in spite of the nasty throat noise. Duane demurred at first, but they insisted he continue teaching and provided him with a special microphone that would enable everyone to hear him.
One day while preaching from a Bible passage about God’s healing in front of an audience, the annoying noise and tension in his throat had disappeared. You can listen to this audio. Watch this hyperlinked YouTube video starting at 9:25. As the hoarseness is disappearing, he is slowing his speech in reaction to something apparently unexpected. You can hear a lot of emotion in his voice. He expresses that he is feeling “overwhelmed.”
People on the internet have opined that the hoarseness of his voice could be faked. People have said there are no peer-reviewed medical reports on his case. That could be true. I have not found those reports and would be delighted if anyone reading my blog would take interest in finding them for me. Perhaps they existed at one time but are suppressed or deleted. Perhaps that is a crazy notion. Who knows? I imagine that the world’s best specialists would want to spare themselves from possible public humiliation. Being the finest around, you do not want to become the laughingstock of the crowd in a very competitive field. You do not want to damage the public’s faith in science, especially when the general public often fails to properly understand science and consistently invest their faith in it. Professional documentation of miracles flies in the face of our cherished brand of materialistic, naturalistic, and physicalist science. Most importantly, it is reasonable to say that the scientific community would not want people to think they can rely on miraculous healing that is free of charge instead of seeing the doctor.
Duane’s emotions and response to the event appear to involve shock and surprise, thereby indicating he is perhaps genuine. If he were faking it, how could he uphold such a sham for three years? Why insist on resigning from the profession that was his passion? Why resign from the position that allowed him to be his family’s sole breadwinner and his wife to stay at home with the children? Why force his wife into an environment where she must get re-acclimated after so many years? The stress and loss would not be worth faking the miracle.
Maybe it would be worthwhile, all for the sake of gaining more notoriety and attention and book sales? The crowd’s response to him sounds as though it could also be genuine. Three years of an ongoing health issue entails a struggle to which outsiders could never be fully privy. Judging by the crowd’s response, which also seems as though it could be genuine, they perhaps were witnesses to his three years of struggle. Or should we assume that they all somehow could stay on the same page in machinating with Duane to fake a miracle and a recording? Their machinations with him seem more unlikely than his faking it and duping them into believing him.
I agree with Lee Strobel who says on page 19 of his book:
“Is this a supernatural act of God? Or is it better explained as some sort of spontaneous remission that only coincidentally occurred while he was quoting the Bible on healing?”
With all due respect to Duane and to my skeptical readers, I am unsure of what to make of this. But I will not jump to the conclusion that naturalistic explanations must always prevail and that this was not God. I remain undecided about this but retain my faith in Christ.
General Disclaimer: All sources are hyperlinked in this article. The author has made their best attempt to accurately interpret the sources used and preserve the source-author’s original argument while avoiding plagiarism. Should you discover any errors to that end, please email thecommoncaveat@gmail.com and we will review your request.
All information in this article is intended for educational/entertainment purposes only. This information should not be used as medical/therapeutic advice. Please seek a doctor/therapist for health advice.
Sources:
[1] Once Skeptical of Healings, Woman Experiences Miracle - YouTube
[3] The Sagan Standard: Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence – Effectiviology
[4] Miracles | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (utm.edu)
[5] Confabulation: Definition, Examples, and Treatments (verywellmind.com)
[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6426670/
[8] Resting-State - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
[9] Resting state fMRI - Wikipedia
[10] Salience (neuroscience) - Wikipedia
[11] Frontiers | Cognitive control, emotional value, and the lateral prefrontal cortex (frontiersin.org)
[12] Frontoparietal network - Wikipedia
[13] (1) Breaking the Silence with Guest Pastor Duane Miller - YouTube