Thursday, October 24, 2013

Strange bedfellows


MacArthurites:

Continuationists would easily smash the cessationist position if any one of the thousands of people who claim to have the spiritual gift of healing would simply clean out a cancer ward on camera with verification by medical staff (and Jesus did this repeatedly – Matthew 4:24, 8:16; Luke 4:40), but the fact that nobody ever tries to attempt this is suggestive. 
http://mennoknight.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/cessationism-and-continuationism-and-strange-fire-oh-my-part-1/
It is nice to hear about a person having her hip pain taken away and his flu-like symptoms disappearing, but those miraculous healings, even if they are occasionally supernatural healings (and I am not saying they aren’t) are no where near the kind of supernatural healings recorded in the Bible. I want to see people with the gift of healing going into burn wards, veteran’s hospitals with soldiers who have lost limbs, and hospitals that specialize with spinal cord injuries. 
 http://hipandthigh.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/my-concerns-with-bloggers-concerned-about-strange-fire/

Atheists:

Also, he [God] could say, "Folks, I'm going to do you a favor: make you immune to cancer," where from that day on no cancers are observed in anyone. It would put the oncologists out of business, but it would please everyone else, but more importantly: it would provide excellent evidence that God exists. 
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/drange-interview.html
Someone tells us that God loves us as a father loves his children. We are reassured. But then we see a child dying of inoperable cancer of the throat. His earthly father is driven frantic in his efforts to help, but his Heavenly Father reveals no obvious sign of concern. Some qualification is made -- God's love is "not a merely human love" or it is "an inscrutable love," perhaps -- and we realise that such sufferings are quite compatible with the truth of the assertion that "God loves us as a father (but, of course, ...)." We are reassured again. But then perhaps we ask: what is this assurance of God's (appropriately qualified) love worth, what is this apparent guarantee really a guarantee against? Just what would have to happen not merely (morally and wrongly) to tempt but also (logically and rightly) to entitle us to say "God does not love us" or even "God does not exist"? I therefore put to the succeeding symposiasts the simple central questions, "What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of, God?" 
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/antony_flew/theologyandfalsification.html

2 comments:

  1. Unfortunately, our message hasn't been the gospel of Jesus Christ where the resurrection to come is the healing we hope for in light of the forgiveness of our sins. Our prayers for healing now should be geared toward providing a sign for those whose faith is weak, whether in the manner of our praying or the event of miraculous healing (most we pray for simply heal naturally). Strong faith trusts God in the face of suffering.

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    1. That's largely true. But it doesn't change the fact that MacArthurites are using arguments against faith-healers which parallel atheist arguments against the existence of God.

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