A personal story.

[NeitherExtreme]

Writing this story is somewhat of a response to a discussion from another thread in which we were discussing miracles, reason, and some other topics, but hopefully it will be interesting and helpful on it's own...

For times sake, I will simply say that I am a Christian Theist, who believes in the importance of the Bible, and also believes that God interacts with humanity. For my own sake, I'll also mention that I don't defend and stand behind everything that has been called Christian. And if you will believe me, I would call myself a skeptic/cynic by nature, even if I don't sound like it here. I’m just going to tell the story pretty much as I have been told it, and leave the critiquing for later…

Anyway, my grandpa and grandma's lives (on my dad's side) were some of the most important factors in why I believe what I do. Here I will share one short story, which though it is maybe the most clearly (IMO) supernatural event, it was not at all outside the scope of their other life experiences. They had (from my perspective) a vibrant, purposeful, life, and a relationship with God that was almost tangible. In fact, I believe that at times it was tangible, which is why it has been nearly impossible for me to ignore it. This story has also taken on a bit of new meaning for me now that I am in school to become a radiographer...

So here's the short version of the story: My grandpa fell 36 feet (about 11 meters) from a farm building headfirst onto the concrete floor, with nothing but his hand over his head for protection. Surprisingly, he lived, and eventually recovered enough go back to farming, but his hand was always a bit deformed after that, and more importantly his back was badly damaged. He was not a complainer, and had a family to care for, so he worked through the pain. As time passed, the pain grew worse, until eventually one day he collapsed and couldn't move. He was taken to the hospital, where he was x-rayed (he said that he hollered every time they touched him, which takes on a new dimension thinking about it from a tech's point of view as I do now...). He was in terrible pain, no position change helped, and the strongest pain-killers had no affect. Two days later, and still in severe pain, the doctor looked at the x-rays, and told him that his back was severely damaged. He said he would be put in heavy traction for six weeks, followed by six weeks of a neck-to-knee cast, and all this was without any guarantee that any of this would fix the problem; his back might never be able to support him again.

Later that day two friends of his, from different areas and unaware of the other’s plans, visited him because each one felt that God had led them to come and pray for him. They arrived within 30 seconds of each other, said a short prayer and left. My grandpa had been asking God to heal him ever since the fall, and didn’t expect anything to happen. During the evening hours, his pain lessened, and then disappeared all together. The next day he told the doctor that he had been healed, and the doctor obviously found that very hard to believe- just the previous day he had been in terrible pain. A team of doctors looked at the x-rays again, and couldn’t believe it. But my grandpa got up and walked around the hospital completely free of pain, with a couple of employees pushing a wheelchair behind him for when he would fall. But he didn’t fall. After a few days it was obvious even to the doctors that he was fine, and they let him leave. He never had a serious back problem again.

So… What should I rationally do with this story? Here’s where I’m at…

(For those of you reading it, you would obviously have to decide if I’m just making up the story before it could mean much to you. I on the other hand, know that I’m not making it up from my end… so I'll just give the options I've delt with.)

-I could assume that there are significant lies/misconceptions about the details in the story. That’s hard for me to do for a number of reasons… For one, there are many witnesses before/during/after the event(s). Second, I (and everyone who knew him) knew my grandpa to be a very honest man with a level head, and not an exaggerator. Third, my grandparents were raised old-order Mennonite, and at that time the idea of “healing” was not, um…, popular among their family and church, so if it hadn’t happened I don’t think that they would have made up a story that upset their own friends and family. Fourth, years later they put their life story in a book, so anyone who wanted to object would have had plenty of opportunity. So why would I disbelieve it? Even though I'm skeptical by nature, I don’t see cynicism itself as a rational reason when so many facts and witnesses (including those who weren’t excited about it) would tell me otherwise.

-I could say it’s just one of those “whoa dude” stories, that in reality would have a very natural explanation. This again I can’t do. That seems to trivialize a real event simply to fit a preconceived naturalistic worldview. The odds and probabilities involved don’t let me ignore it, especially in relation to many other “unlikely” prayer/answer situations that happened in their lives. Not a rational response IMO. Given my current studies and work (I'm in school and doing radiography), I have a certain familiar trust in the accuracy of a series of radiographs, as well as in the ability of a team of trained doctors to read them correctly. So how could a destroyed vertebral column fix itself over a few hours? And for what it’s worth, I don’t see how any neurological response to “belief” could piece a vertebral column back together. It just doesn’t make sense.

-I could believe that the basic belief of my grandpa and those who prayed for him in the supernatural God of the Bible was good, and that his healing was God’s response to their prayers. This seems rational, though I still see more options…

-I could believe that the healing was some ambiguous supernatural occurrence that could easily be mistaken for a response by God. This would leave the doors open for a deceptive god or spirits, humanistic spirituality, etc. etc. I wouldn’t say that these seem necessarily irrational, but I have obviously chosen the former option.

It’s just a tiny bit of their story, but it’s one of the pieces that I have never been able to “throw out” rationally… So, for me, when I begin to think about the world rationally I always to start with the assumption of the supernatural. Not that I have never pondered the possibilities of naturalism, and not that I have never doubted and questioned the basic premises of my faith (which I have). But for me, from the perspective of my life, to be rational has meant to believe that there are things other than the natural/material that affect our universe.

Please feel free to comment, question, or doubt. I have done them all, I wouldn’t expect anyone hearing 3rd hand (as you are) to do less.

[Aedes]

If you take the part about the friends and God out of this account, it is not a particularly exceptional medical story. I've seen people recover from stuff that you would not believe. In the Appalachian Mountain Club Journal, which I used to subscribe to, I read about someone who fell 800 feet (well, bounced and fell) down a ravine on Mt. Washington and walked out.

What is exceptional is that it's someone that you care for and that his story provoked the whole range of emotions from preparation for loss to inexpressible relief and gratitude.

So to me I don't see anything especially miraculous about his medical course or recovery. I don't know the details, of course, but I do know that all you know about how bad it was was what the doctors originally said, and I cannot vouch for their medical or communication skills. My wife is a radiologist and I myself deal with x-rays all the time, and unless you've gotten a single radiologist to sit down and compare the two x-rays with one another, side-by-side, you have no idea what one shows compared with the other, including technical differences in the studies. All of us non-radiologists use X-rays, but frankly we suck at them compared with a radiologist, and because we're clinically correlating them with the patients we care for, we often just use the X-rays to convince ourselves. So I don't buy miraculous recoveries on X-rays unless a trained radiologist is the one sitting there comparing the studies to one another, I'm more likely to regard it as an amateurish reading by a non-radiologist.

Now, this apparent miracle is juxtaposed with friends arriving and praying -- which is exactly what people do when someone they care about is in the hospital. I saw 14 patients in the hospital yesterday and 10 or 11 of them were praying with a family member or talking to their pastor when I arrived.

Some will survive, some will die, many will pray. There are apparently miraculous recoveries, and there are apparently unpredictable calamities -- I had a 2 year old patient last year who died of a horrible, unpredictable, overwhelming infection, despite MANY prayers from friends and family. This is medicine -- good things and bad things happen and a lot of it is out of our medical control.

But whether the outcome is good or bad, there is usually someone praying -- and that's why an unexpectedly good outcome can certainly seem like a miracle.

So I know this is an extremely meaningful story for you that certainly affirms your faith. But I don't see anything outstanding about it that makes me even think about a medical miracle, let alone a divine miracle.

[Didymos Thomas]

NeitherExtreme - Thank you for your family's story. Your grandfather's recovery may not be miraculous in the sense that it defies the natural world, but his recovery, and the range of emotions Aedes spoke of, certainly do help reaffirm our faith in the value of life, this life, every moment that we and others have.
Supernatural things are not necessary for events to be significant and meaningful.

There is a war story from my grandfather. He never told the story when he came back from Europe (he rarely talked about the war), but we do have the letter he wrote to his mother after the events happened. His unit landed at Normandy and pushed through northern France. In the process, he was wounded twice. Coming out of a tavern in France (while behind the lines recovering from his most recent injury, shrapnel) he saw an angel, and the angel assured him everything would be fine. I've read the letter, and he goes into great detail about how beautiful she was, ect.
War is something I've never experienced, and have no interest in seeing. But under the intense emotional and physical stress, having been shot, hit by a grenade, and later shot again, I imagine the thought of that angel was comforting, and may very well have helped him to remain the sort of soldiers his friends expected, and needed him to be.
Does it matter if there really was an angel? I dont think so - however he rationalized the notion, he needed something to help him rise above the horrible circumstances. Reading the letter, he uses the story of the angel, and then talks about his duty and responsibility to the younger guys in his unit, men with wives and children, that he should be there, and be brave for them. I'd like to say he was a brilliant writer, using the angel as part of a compelling narrative for his mother, but for some reason I doubt the sign painter was so skilled. I think the angel, and the imagery fit his notions of what is greater than himself, God, and he related that to principles greater than himself, honor, duty, courage, and in his mind came up with an angel to remind him that these are good, and greater than himself. Something for him to hold on to when bullets are flying and bombs falling.

[NeitherExtreme]

Thanks for your both of your comments. And I agree with you Aedes that it is not "proof" until there would be a lot more documentation and specialists involved, especially for anyone removed from the story (like you). But, since my life is not science, and I have found no reason to disbelieve it other than pure skepticism, and many very good reasons to believe it (from skeptical witnesses to multiple doctors), so it is something I feel like I need to take into account. And as I said, there were many other circumstances in their lives that had similar results, though I don't feel like writing their whole life story here. Thanks for reading the story.

[Aedes]

Consider, if you will, that the friends who had visited had said that they were both thinking about how God doesn't exist and they were just thankful for doctors. Would this association then make you think that it was the magical touch of doctors who had healed your grandfather?

Or if the two of them had revealed that they had both been thinking about the Lord of the Rings. Would that mean that Gandalf had healed your grandfather?

I think the very common coincidence of people talking about God in the setting of a medical crisis has affirmed a pre-existing belief of yours. But as we we've talked about at length in the evolution thread, you have real difficulty regarding probabilistic concepts in a neutral way, and you're therefore imposing meaning on this juxtaposition of prayer (common) and apparently 'miraculous' medical recovery (also common).

[NeitherExtreme]

If they asked the doctors to magically touch him, or if they asked Gandalf to heal him, I would have to think seriously about it. But I also noted that the obvious scenerio (God) was not the only one I considered, so likewise in that case Gandalf or magical doctors would not be the only thing I consider.

Also, to say that this event "affirmed a pre-existing belief" might be very accurate, but that doesn't mean it's irrational and certainly doesn't mean it's wrong. What does science ever do but affirm a hypothesis (a pre-existing guess)?

And I would ask you why you would look at this situation and rule out the simple and reasonable explanation that God had healed? Is it not your pre-existing belief that dis-allows you to believe it, so that you have to dismiss it as coincidence, even though you have no objective reason to dismiss it?

[Didymos Thomas]

And I would ask you why you would look at this situation and rule out the simple and reasonable explanation that God had healed? Is it not your pre-existing belief that dis-allows you to believe it, so that you have to dismiss it as coincidence, even though you have no objective reason to dismiss it?

I think the problem is you are going to have a hard time proving that God healed anyone, while demostrating the utility of medicine is fairly easy.

[NeitherExtreme]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

I think the problem is you are going to have a hard time proving that God healed anyone, while demostrating the utility of medicine is fairly easy.

First, just to split hairs here, you're using the word "prove" toward God and "demonstrate the utility of" toward medicine. Not exactly apples to apples...

I don't have any problem at all with the utility of medicine. I work in the field, and am happy to do so. The point is that there was no medicine involved here, except that it diagnosed a problem, and then saw it disapear inexplicably.

Also, I'm not trying to "prove" this to anyone. I'm sharing, in a snapshot sort of way, an expirence that has affected my life, and a little bit of how it has influenced my thinking. If anyone else chooses to give credence to the story, I would be honored, but I would not force it on them. At the same time, I will not change my own opinions based simply on their disbelief. If they except the story, even if just for argument's sake, and then want to demonstrate why I have applied it wrongly in my own life or irrationally misinterpreted it, I am open to this.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by NeitherExtreme

Also, to say that this event "affirmed a pre-existing belief" might be very accurate, but that doesn't mean it's irrational and certainly doesn't mean it's wrong. What does science ever do but affirm a hypothesis (a pre-existing guess)?

A scientific hypothesis is affirmed by repeatedly observable evidence according to a prospectively stated methodology that defines outcomes before the study is performed. That's what testing a hypothesis is. A belief is not a hypothesis if you cannot propose a method to test it.

And I would ask you why you would look at this situation and rule out the simple and reasonable explanation that God had healed? Is it not your pre-existing belief that dis-allows you to believe it, so that you have to dismiss it as coincidence, even though you have no objective reason to dismiss it?

Uh no... I rule out the explanation that God had healed because it's neither simple nor reasonable. What's God? What do you mean when you say "God"? What, you tell me now that God can heal? But where does it say in your book that God heals orthopedic emergencies?

This divine explanation has no necessity at all.

All we KNOW about the situation is that God was spoken of by two people, and that this shortly proceeded an unanticipated medical recovery. This is known.

Well, what if you found out that both those guys ate at Bruegger's for breakfast that morning and had ordered poppy seed bagels, completely independently of one another. Would that mean that poppy seed bagels have some agency in healing the illness? At least we can all agree on what a poppy seed bagel at Bruegger's is. Do you even know that those two guys agree what God is, as opposed to using the same word?

Originally Posted by NeitherExtreme

Also, I'm not trying to "prove" this to anyone. I'm sharing, in a snapshot sort of way, an expirence that has affected my life, and a little bit of how it has influenced my thinking. If anyone else chooses to give credence to the story, I would be honored, but I would not force it on them. At the same time, I will not change my own opinions based simply on their disbelief. If they except the story, even if just for argument's sake, and then want to demonstrate why I have applied it wrongly in my own life or irrationally misinterpreted it, I am open to this.

We all give credence to the basically neutral facts of the story, some of which I summarized above. These are all routine things in medicine. But you're sharing this story because it has particular meaning for you in a philosophical way, and because it provokes ideas about whether God exists and intervenes in this world. Thus, given the diversity of perspectives here, you must expect that we'll debate this from different points of view.

And I'll repeatedly argue here that you're being selective about which events you choose to focus on. A lot of other non-medical things happened around that time that you haven't brought up. What if your grandfather's doctor took a nice big dump that morning -- the morning in which coincidentally your grandfather began to recover? Is that causal? Maybe another old man on the opposite side of the world died unexpectedly that same morning -- and therefore his life force flowed into your grandfather giving him a second chance at life?

The problem is that there were only two physical processes going on to further your grandfather's healing process -- there was his body's own healing process, and there were the medical interventions; and furthermore, he might not have been as sick to begin with as everyone thought. Everything else, from discussions about God to the intestinal regularity of the doctor are equally unrelated unless you happen to hold the ARBITRARY prejudice that God was more important.

[NeitherExtreme]

First, I'll try to clear up the science issue. I said before that this was not a scientific proof, and that it does not stand up to scientific criteria, and I am not trying to present it as such. My comment about science in my last post was only meant to point out that just because you have an idea before it appears to be supported doesn't invalidate the idea at all. Sorry, I think I wrote that in a confusing way...

Second, I'd like to ask a question to clarify things a bit: Do you think that only theories that can be developed scientifically are rational things to believe? I don't, as many things in life aren't science, nor is science built on "pure" reason alone, not to mention that itself has (nececary) limitations built into it. So reason and science are not equal terms to me. So to make arguments that "prove" that my story is not scientificaly verifiable is a mute point- I stated as much in my first post. I only used this particualar example because some of the details removed (IMO) some of the subjectivity, but obviously not to the point of being science. But we are in the religion forum...

Also, just because something does not appear to you to be a necessity, doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered or even believed. If I say that belief in a physical universe is not a necessity (it could all be an illusion), that wouldn't make you not believe in it would it? You believe in it (I assume) because it is a persistent experience, and that reasures you that it is worth believing in. IMO, their experience (life) with God was persistent to the point that to disbelieve it would have been cynicism rather than reason. Like I said before, this one experience was only one of many experiences that affirmed their belief in God, His personal communication with people, and His ability to answer prayer. And this event was not the only one of its kind either. If this event was removed, their life would still carry just as much of a challenge for me. This is not to say that it was "scientific" or "provable" or even under their control, but they participated and experienced. You would probably dismiss each event as further coincidences, and some things would be easy enough to dismiss. Other events not so easy. Though I'm sure they'd all be easy to dismiss for you, if for no other reason (as far as I can tell) you bring to the table the assumtion that they must be coincidences. (You accuse me of being selective, but I would ask if you are not also being selective, simply acting as if anything but God is a better explanation.)

And about the odd-ball explanations (like doctors dumping) that you keep bringing up... They do not fit into any reasonable world-view or explanation that I've ever thought of or heard of. If you want to develope a complete world-view based on one of those options, I will consider it.

Theism, on the other hand, I (and many intellegent and educated people all through history) have found to be a reasonable, or even the most reasonable, belief system known to man. And God healing in response to prayer fits very solidly in that belief system. If you need me to point out some Biblical passages or Theologans to show that, I can. I realize that theism may seem stupid to you. But if naturalism seems stupid to me, that doesn't automatically make your view point null and void, does it? Maybe a thorough discussion of Theism would be worthwhile (though maybe on another thread).

And, no, I don't mind questions and challenges. You are right that I expected that much when I posted this on a forum. But I did post it in the "religion" forum rather than the "science" forum intentionally.