An excerpt from Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, by Craig S. Keener. From Pneuma Review Fall 2013.

From the introduction to Part 3, “Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity”

Pages 209-210

The principle of analogy once used to argue against all ancient miracles (either the occurrence of some sorts of extranormal phenomena or their supernatural causation) now undermines that very argument. In Hume’s day, many Protestant theologians distinguished sharply between biblical and postbiblical miracles as part of their anti-Catholic polemic. Their polemic played into the Humean argument against ancient miracles based on the lack of many comparable modern claims. Many theologians in turn accommodated this nonmiraculous approach, further emphasizing the lack of postbiblical miracles and eventually often renouncing miracles altogether.

Today, however, abundant claims of miracles, particularly from the Majority World, challenge Hume’s skepticism about the existence of many credible eyewitnesses. Hume demanded “a sufficient number” of witnesses of unquestioned integrity and intelligence who would have much to lose by testifying falsely.¹ In today’s academic climate, many who testify to miracles have much to lose even by testifying truly; but I shall first respond to Hume’s quantitative demand. In contrast to the environment assumed by Hume, today hundreds of millions of people claim to have witnessed miracles. Moreover, eyewitnesses claim what they believe are miracles even in the West, and this has been the case through most of history, even when Hume framed his argument within the theological framework of academic circles often reticent to acknowledge miraculous claims. Some of these eyewitness claims involve even the healing of blindness, the raising of the dead, and nature miracles. I will treat some of these subjects in turn in subsequent chapters: claims from the Majority World (chs. 7–9); Western history (ch. 10); the modern West (ch. 11); and some specifically dramatic claims like those involving blindness, death, or nature (ch. 12).

Virtually no one would suggest that all claims reflect clearly authentic miracles (see discussion in ch. 13). Nevertheless, such claims, however we interpret them, clearly exist on an eyewitness level and hence need not be excluded from first- and second-generation testimony in the Gospels and Acts. Statistics suggest the vast numbers of claims; my primary interest in chapters 7–12 is to illustrate some of the variety of sorts of cases involved in them. While the primary point of these chapters is not the interpretation of events, some of these reports may have a bearing on that question. At the least, given the vast number and variety of claims, one can no longer simply take for granted that uniform human experience a priori excludes extranormal events for which many observers would find a specifically theistic interpretation particularly persuasive (see discussion in chs. 13–15).

PR

This excerpt is from Craig S. Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 volumes, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2011. Used by permission. All rights to this material are reserved. Material is not to be reproduced, scanned, copied, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission from Baker Publishing Group.

Footnotes appear in the full digital issue of Pneuma Review Fall 2013 and in the book from which this excerpt is derived.

An excerpt from Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, by Craig S. Keener. From Pneuma Review Fall 2013.

From Part 3, “Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity”

Chapter 7, “Majority World Perspectives”

Pages 238-241

For these countries alone, and for Pentecostals and charismatics in these countries alone, the estimated total of people claiming to have “witnessed divine healings” comes out to somewhere around 202,141,082, that is, about two hundred million. Among Pentecostals, an average of 73.6 percent claim to have witnessed or experienced divine healing, and among charismatics the proportion is 52 percent; given estimates of possibly half a billion Pentecostals and charismatics worldwide, we might be looking at claims of closer to three hundred million among them alone.¹⁵⁴ My estimates extrapolate on the assumption that numbers and percentages above are roughly accurate; in fact, all such figures are merely estimates, but they give us the best current ballpark figure to work from. Even if for some reason we later estimated only one-third of these figures (a much greater margin of error than seems likely), the numbers are already enormous even before we add (below) the noncharismatic claims.

Lest I be misunderstood, I must emphasize that in noting the prevalence of healing claims, I am not offering a blanket endorsement of all the beliefs on all issues that command majorities among these groups (elsewhere in the same survey), including beliefs about healings. I am also not suggesting that all claims of cures are authentic; still less am I suggesting that none of the claims could have alternative explanations,¹⁵⁵ though from my research I suspect that the majority of those who claim to have witnessed some miracles could specify some fairly substantive claims.¹⁵⁶ My point here is simply to invite attention to what this survey indicates about the vast numbers of people worldwide who claim to have witnessed supernaturally effected healings. The examples that I offer in the following chapters may make this observation more concrete, but my examples obviously pale before the statistics.

Such Claims Not Limited to Pentecostals

What may be more interesting in this survey, however, is the category of “other Christians,” with somewhere around 39 percent in these countries claiming to have “witnessed divine healings.” That is, more than one-third of Christians worldwide who do not identify themselves as Pentecostal or charismatic claim to have “witnessed divine healings.” Presumably many of these claimants believe that they have witnessed more than a single case. Note that these are not simply people who say that they believe that supernatural healing occurs; these are people who say that they believe that they have witnessed or experienced it.¹⁵⁷

Of course many of these claims would not withstand critical scrutiny, and presumably an even higher percentage would fail to persuade others predisposed not to believe. But those who would simply reject all healing claims today because Hume argued that such claims are too rare to be believable should keep in mind that they are dismissing, almost without argument, the claimed experiences of at least a few hundred million people. (Even if one were to err extremely on the side of modesty, one could easily speak boldly of “tens of millions” of claims.) In contrast to starting assumptions on which Hume built his case, it is no longer feasible to consider such claims rare.

As noted above, the greatest concentration of these claims is in Africa, Asia, and Latin America rather than in the West, though in chapter 11 I shall note abundant examples from the West as well. Non-Pentecostal Western Christian workers active in such areas often report dramatic phenomena similar to those reported by Pentecostals.¹⁵⁸ Worldview is probably one important factor in generating more faith recoveries in many non-Western regions;¹⁵⁹ for example, nearly a decade ago one of my students, a sincere Baptist pastor from India, complained that Americans he prayed for were rarely healed, but almost everyone he prayed for in north India was healed.¹⁶⁰

Accurate or inaccurate, reports of prophetism, dreams, visions, and healings (sometimes of incurable, terminal illnesses) on a massive scale characterize many areas where Christianity is expanding rapidly and with intense religious fervor among non-Christian populations.¹⁶¹ Although some¹⁶² Westerners historically used cultural dominance from colonial cultures or (especially in Latin America) force to spread Christianization, many indigenous evangelists today instead embrace the missiological model they encounter in Acts and believe that they are following Paul’s model.¹⁶³ One Western charismatic missiologist argues that whereas some Asian Christians appreciated Western missionaries bringing teaching about God, many Asian missionaries are now demonstrating God’s power through miracles.¹⁶⁴ Another writer recounts that missionaries to one region in Africa who merely left behind Gospels returned to find a flourishing church with nt-like miracles happening daily, “because there had been no missionaries to teach that such things were not to be taken literally.”¹⁶⁵ Indigenous readings of Scripture often noticed patterns there “that the missionaries did not want [local believers] to see.”¹⁶⁶

Although the most visible growth has occurred in the last three decades,¹⁶⁷ already in 1981, at one large U.S. seminary with students from many nations, Christiaan De Wet of South Africa wrote a thesis on signs involved in church growth around the world. He surveyed more than 350 theses representing most of the world and interviewed countless missionaries. He complained, “My research has turned up so much material on signs and wonders that are happening and churches that are growing, that it is impossible to use all of it.”¹⁶⁸ He noted that miracle claims help drive Christian growth in many parts of the world.

PR

This excerpt is from Craig S. Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 volumes, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2011. Used by permission. All rights to this material are reserved. Material is not to be reproduced, scanned, copied, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission from Baker Publishing Group.

Footnotes appear in the full digital issue of Pneuma Review Fall 2013 and in the book from which this excerpt is derived.

An excerpt from Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, by Craig S. Keener. From Pneuma Review Fall 2013.

From Part 3, “Miracle Accounts beyond Antiquity”

Chapter 7, “Majority World Perspectives”

Pages 214-219

A Multicultural Approach

Social scientists have noted that, despite a variety of interpretations, “people from all cultures relate stories of spontaneous, miraculous cures,” based on experiences that they have had.¹⁵ This observation has some relevance for how we approach biblical narratives involving healings. As Justo Gonzalez remarks in his commentary on Acts, the frequent denial of narratives’ historicity because of their miracle reports employs a questionable epistemological criterion. Bultmann denied that modern people who use scientific inventions can believe in miracles,¹⁶ yet “what Bultmann declares to be impossible is not just possible, but even frequent.” Miracles are, Gonzalez points out, affirmed in most Latino churches, despite the influence of the mechanistic worldview from much Western thought.¹⁷ Cuban Lutheran bishop Ismael Laborde Figueras notes that it is hard to find Latin American Christians who do not believe in miracles.¹⁸ Noted Latina theologian Loida Martell-Otero likewise emphasizes prayers for healing in the Latina community,¹⁹ and notes that Latinas’ experience helps shape their way of reading Scripture.²⁰

Some Asian theologians have likewise complained that the approach of Bultmann’s school is irrelevant to Asian realities. Asian worldviews, Methodist bishop Hwa Yung notes, affirm miracles, angels, and hostile spirits.²¹ Indeed, pace Bultmann’s rhetoric, most religious Westerners also fail to see any contradiction between miracles and the use of modern science²²—including a number of scientists.²³ “Modern” worldviews are too diverse to fit any one paradigm,²⁴ and despite his cultural assumption that his argument is true, Bultmann never provides a reason for it.²⁵ Cross-cultural studies suggest that socialization rather than exposure to science accounts for most of the skepticism in some circles.²⁶

Whereas fewer than 18 percent of Christians in 1900 lived outside Europe and North America, today more than 60 percent do, and an estimated 70 percent will by 2025.²⁷ As the center of world Christianity has shifted to the Global South, the dominant Christian perspectives in the world have shifted with it.²⁸ Although far from being the only groups involved in this shift, charismatic and Pentecostal forms of Christianity have been in the forefront of the recent expansion of Christianity, reportedly growing six times over in the three decades from 1970 to 2000.²⁹ Not surprisingly, readings of Scripture in the Global South often contrast starkly with modern Western critics’ readings.³⁰ These readings from other social locations often shock Westerners not only because others believe the early Christian miracle narratives to be plausible but also because these readers often take these narratives as a model for their ministries.

Thus Western scholar of global Christianity Philip Jenkins notes that in general Christianity in the Global South is quite interested in “the immediate workings of the supernatural, through prophecy, visions, ecstatic utterances, and healing.”³¹ Such an approach, closer to the early Christian worldview than modern Western culture is, appeals to many traditional non-Western cultures.³² Hwa Yung, the above-mentioned bishop of the Methodist Church in Malaysia, notes that the charismatic, Pentecostal character of Majority World churches reflects not so much direct influence by Pentecostals or charismatics as simply the worldview of the majority of humanity. They have simply never embraced the Western, mechanistic, naturalistic Enlightenment worldview that rejects the supernatural.³³

Referring to the analogous issue of hostile suprahuman forces, noted scholar of African religion John S. Mbiti complains that most Western scholars “expose their own ignorance, false ideas, exaggerated prejudices and a derogatory attitude” that fail to take seriously genuine experiences pervasive in Africa.³⁴ African psychologist Regina Eya warns that all claims to extranormal healing are dismissed by many Western scholars, the credible along with the spurious, because of the inappropriate application of traditional Western scientific paradigms to matters for which they were not designed.³⁵ Danny McCain, a Western professor who has spent more than two decades teaching in Nigeria, notes that “nearly all African Christians and most African theologians,” regardless of their views on other critical issues, reject Western antisupernaturalism. He acknowledges the existence of some false claims, but complains that “it is arrogant and unprofessional for Western scholars to outright reject the miraculous, totally ignoring the testimonies of thousands of people,” based simply on their own lack of such experience.³⁶

In addition to differing in their paradigms involving paranormal phenomena, many other cultures are in general more holistic, expecting spiritual beliefs to impinge on physical needs in ways that Western culture has often found uncomfortable.³⁷ For example, the concern of religion for health in traditional African thought³⁸ is likely a factor in the growth of African Independent Churches (AICs), most of which include a heavy focus on healing.³⁹ Newer Pentecostal and charismatic churches are also filling the same niche, sometimes at the expense of older AICs.⁴⁰ Because African culture has always connected healing with religion, African Christian movements that appropriated the biblical connection of healing with religion have grown, often challenging churchgoers in more Western churches who were secretly consulting diviners and traditional practitioners.⁴¹ Many newer churches have grown in Africa at the expense of more traditional ones, especially where the latter have refused to engage local cultures’ reigning cosmologies.⁴² In some areas, older mainline churches under indigenous leadership have likewise emphasized healing in a manner relevant to their African context.⁴³ Western observers may appraise such developments positively or negatively,⁴⁴ but what is minimally clear is that Africans from various belief systems are engaging issues that Westerners often ignore. At least some aspects of their interest in physical health are more in keeping with biblical cosmologies than much traditional Western Christian minimizing of the body is.⁴⁵

Regardless of how we interpret miracle reports and other supernatural claims, their frequency in various sectors of today’s world indicates that large numbers of intelligent, sincere people believe that such cures are occurring today, including through their own prayers. This is true even in the modern West; how much more likely would this be the case in a generally less skeptical culture like the world of the first Christians? There is no intrinsically historical reason to think that the Gospel writers had to invent such miraculous claims, or that Luke had to invent them even in the eyewitness “we” material in Acts (Acts 16:18; 20:10; 28:4–6, 8–9; cf. 21:4, 11, 19).⁴⁶ Nor is there any reason to insist that the reports must have originated in a reporter’s deception or imagination.

PR

This excerpt is from Craig S. Keener, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 volumes, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2011. Used by permission. All rights to this material are reserved. Material is not to be reproduced, scanned, copied, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission from Baker Publishing Group.

Footnotes appear in the full digital issue of Pneuma Review Fall 2013 and in the book from which this excerpt is derived.