For example it's obvious you'll get more miracle reports in Christian circles than, say, atheist circles even if miracles don't exist. If miracles are real then these steps -- while possibly inconvenient -- would be easy to demonstrate. Keener quotes a study that showed that half of the physicians studied said that they had seen what they consider to be miracles. I had heard the story before from my wife, but it was actually when I interviewed the, my wife's source, that I got the details. What really annoys me is when they say "I could show you cases of arms growing back theoretically speaking and you would not believe it" when the best evidence they have barely rises to the level of being interesting, let alone something amazing like this. As I've said before, the fact that there are no videos of this sort is strong evidence against the veracity of miracles. Nathan's point here is interesting, especially in light of the idea that the murderer example is not being used in the right place, that Elijah has this set of standard "tools" that he pulls out but doesn't seem to understand their use or limitations and is prone to misapply them. 5 John Wilkes Booth's Brother and Abe Lincoln's Son . I mean there are, there's lots of Kingdom fortes that we're experiencing now. He encountered scores of healings and other claims of the miraculous along the way, but there was one case in particular that truly blew his mind: the case of Barbara Snyder. That is directly below. She was blind, bedridden with severely impaired breathing due to a paralyzed diaphragm and a collapsed lung. in economics from Southern Methodist University. It would seem that these people are constantly dealing with skeptics, and the easiest way to address it would be to get the pre- and post- medical test data rather than a summary by one doctor, after the fact. I misspoke in the episode for the next one, thinking the name was Barbara Snyder, but Barbara's case is an MS case. All rights reserved. It is justified to demand better evidence, because we do that for even more modest claims, and we have centuries of data on the failings of human reasoning in inferring causes from effects. Barbara began her academic career as an assistant professor at Case Western Reserves School of Law, then joined the faculty of Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. I mean there was one person, it was so crazy. It's all just ad hoc special pleading. And they said, "Macular degeneration doesn't undegenerate." And again, the group that received prayer had better outcomes than the control group. (p. 127). Scott Rae: This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically, Conversations on Faith and Culture. Never miss a big news story again. Synder ended up in hospice care with a no-resuscitation order; she was nearly blind, her hands and body were curled and she had a tube in her throat to help her breath as well as a tube in her stomach to ensure proper nourishment. He says, he's going back to these passages about the coming of the [inaudible] and saying, "John, these are signs of the Kingdom right now." So they investigated him for fraud. If you make such a claim, and that higher-than-average standard is not met, then you cannot be confident in that claim. public flagship institutions as UCLA, University of Michigan, and the undergraduate and graduate students alike receive a world-class education. One of the remarkable stories recounted in Lee Strobel's book "The Case for Miracles" involves a hopelessly ill woman named Barbara Snyder, who had suffered for many years with multiple sclerosis. Sometimes running for their lives. You don't mix, say, corrected and uncorrected measurements in a timeline unless you provide both at every time point you have. Then, on Pentecost Sunday, two of Synders friends read her letters from those praying for her. Did she go back to Congo after her PhD studies? All rights reserved. We know God worked many and mighty miracles throughout biblical times, but for many Christians, we dont see as much evidence for miracles in our lives as there was in biblical times. successor. What happens if you don't have randomized-controlled studies in medicine? episode: Is there medical evidence for miracles? From the Send Proof film they admit that they can't publish Bruce Van Natta case because the accurate measurement of the length of intestine needed to verify the result we don't have the technology yet. Indianapolis, Indiana. That said, before writing The Case for Miracles, Strobel was "ambivalent" about whether these miracles still happen today. But if you're that kid you've got to go what's more probable: an event that just randomly happened or the God that prayed I was praying to gave me my sight back, and so that is a part of the conversation. (Warner Brothers even invited me onto the movie set to watch some of the filming and to meet the engaging actress.) Its consultants have assisted with the recruitment of multiple senior CWRU In his early 30s? or perhaps it resolved in 2 years, and they never checked for a long time, only checking right after the prayer 16 years later. I made a number of these errors in the episode, and I think it is because 1) the scientific papers (rightly) don't use names and 2) when the stories are told they don't cite their sources well and 3) I'm terrible with names. Jonathan McLatchie vs Jonathan Pearce, documentation for the Barbara Snyder case, https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/?s=control&category_name=&submit=Search, this woman was healed of Parkinson's with "Energy Healing". He is, let's just say he is one of the most prolific biblical scholars that I'm aware of and is so productive. The timeline of the events from the paper is. Scott Rae: Yeah, see that's the big miracle that's coming. National Colloquium on Library Special CollectionsPresident's RemarksBarbara Snyder, President, Case Western Reserve University10/22/2014President's remarksC. It is a reasonable question to ask -- how much evidence is enough? She deteriorated over a period of many years, several operations, many hospitalizations," Strobel explained. Subsequent medical records document repeated substantial improvement. But you've written a two volume set over, excess of a 1000 pages on the subject of miracles. Thank you for being with us. A comparison of base-rates is needed and Keener doesn't seem to care about this when it comes to miracles. So for example, if I just say oh well there was spontaneous remission you could say that's implausible given our medical knowledge but it's going to be very hard to establish that that's actually like impossible, to definitively rule it out and so the question of which is a more plausible explanation and not can you rule it out. I think we can. But there are other cases were the person had been dead for eight hours. It is a notable pattern for something to become less observable to more carefully you're able to observe it. One can have compelling evidence even when a case could be rendered stronger with even more evidence. Craig Keener: Yeah. Her feet and fingers were suddenly straight and normal again. But I'm grateful for the, the engagement that's come since then because there has been a lot of good engagement and people have taken it seriously and taken to heart some of the arguments in it. If you want to, for our listeners, if you want to read a little bit more about it Craig's written a fairly lengthy book on the whole, the whole narrative of that called Impossible Love. Earlier in her career, she served as provost of Ohio State University . Barbara Snyder, JD'80, is president of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization composed of America's leading research universities. -pomelo- 9 mo. Here I look into the papers he references in response. It seems we disagree on how much evidence is enough. What surprised you? fall transition to the AAU will depend on the progress of the search process. Thinking about the Snyder "miracle", I do wonder why in these cases there isn't much more extensive medical documentation? Read Barbara's Blog for blog posts and speeches from the Presidenton prominent and emerging issues facing research universities and the broader higher education community. In We have previously pointed out that the kind of coincidences you'd dismiss as bad writing if you saw them in a movie happen all the time in real life. Strobel, 66, is a former investigative journalist with the Chicago Tribune. Just to have the words "inference to the best explanation" that legitimizes the inference that you're making rather than actually being able to use inference to the best explanation. Now that also put me through some struggles because we were already close friends at that point. Thinking about the Snyder "miracle", I do wonder why in these cases there isn't much more extensive medical documentation? The fact that they can only produce two or three, with serious procedural and reporting issues, is strong evidence that this effect is non-existent. He became a Christian in 1981 shortly after he decided to investigate Jesus . Look, I have male pattern balding. This shows a profound lack of imagination on the part of the investigators, and I think shows their hand. In Steven Novella's post at Proximal Intercessory Prayer, he comments (on a different case, but applicable here). Well she couldn't walk. This is where they burn child witches," and stuff like that. Each of those people are in the same position as the boy Elijah speaks about and will certainly attribute a God-given miracle to their healing. an 18-year-old female lost the majority of her central vision over the course of three months in 1959 and was later diagnosed with juvenile macular degeneration (JMD). Of course, it's possible her sight was perfect and declined in the 2 years between the "healing" and the measurement which would call into question the miraculous nature. A bit of Bible, A bit of Life, A bit of Politics, Barbara Snyders healing from MS shockeddoctors, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/98-miraculous-healing-of-3-month-old-baby.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/forgiving-to-forget-1.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/13mysteryguard.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/dreams-and-visions-1.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/meekinheritanceworking-1.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/bringing-the-pain-in-prayer-1.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/whychristmasfellondec25.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/wjinterview.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/spiritual-warfare-1.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/kate-fisherinterview.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/podcast-5-what-really-sunk-peter-1.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/4-edited-you-are-not-a-mistakeaud.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/3authorityopentheword.mp3. 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