God's response to Job was "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the universe?" IOW, "Fuck off, worm."
That's not the overall assessment of Job in the whole book on my reading of it.
Also on my reading of that question, and indeed the book as a whole, an important point is that as creatures not the Creator, we don't have much idea - for now at least - of what's actually going on. I don't think one has to be an Augustinian to take that point.
I suppose my answer is what a mentor told me in seminary what Job was really all about "God doesn't owe you shit."
He's not responsible then?
I wrestle with this question because a lot of religion does consist of praying to God for healing, for blessing and for cure.
Well it would do wouldn't it? It's a superstitious ritual. But we can be real about it.
If my partner or loved one is suffering or sick, I am going to pray to God for healing for them.
I do know intellectually, it is foolish if
1) Loved one gets healed--> therefore I am good, or my 'prayers work'
2) Loved one doesn't get healed--> I did something wrong or I'm not faithful
Aye, it's foolish. It's time to put away childish things.
Still if (1) happens, I do think it is appropriate to show gratitude, while acknowledging that one is to keep quiet and not say anything hurtful or stupid for the people whose loved ones do not get physically healed.
Gratitude is essential in all circumstances. Kindness too.
Though I know of one priest who preached that even if one dies of a disease, he or she does get healed in the sense of entering into eternal life with God.
Yeaaahh. A cop out unless the scientific invalidity of even the hope of miraculous healing or winning any other lottery is addressed.
E, aye, I bow to the foolishness of the cross, of God, despite all my deconstruction of it.
Is not God both responsible and accountable? We are neither, except for being as kind as we can be, which, unlike mercy, is strained. He will answer with the transcendent, that will make the physical irrelevant but for being the former's breeding ground. Nothing else makes any sense at all, but I'm happy for Him to surprise us with a better, fuller explanation. Not that He needs to. I think He'd say the same to Job in Heaven, where everything is restituted; why do you need an explanation? We'd have to be God to understand.
If you theology says that healing should occur and you are not seeing them it may put some pressure on some leaders to fake healings but I think this pressure should be possible to resist if they have integrity...truthfulness is a higher value in the kingdom.
This is unfortunately not borne out by the likes of Bethel. When they fell victim to a fake testimony of mulitple resurruections, their response was not to admit outright that it had never happened but to say "it doesn't matter, because it could have happened". Extensively documented here.
And many churches believe in all of the gifts of the spirit in theory and rarely use any of them in practice so they are certainly resisting the pressure of faking.
Ah, so Bethel and its ilk are actually "walking the talk" are they? Read the above link and tell me that with a straight face. Don't mix up actually using the gifts of the Spirit with broadcasting their alleged use and making that alleged use a unique selling point compared to all the poor dumb churches "rarely using" them.
In terms of theology of suffering I can't see any reason why this can't exist alongside a theology of healing , even a theology of healing as something to be expected rather than something very rare.
Can you point to where in the Supernatural School of Ministry syllabus it deals with suffering and death? The overwhelming message at Bethel is that healing is the norm if one is properly walking in the Kingdom of God. Tell me it ain't so.
Jesus did loads of healings but still taught his disciples that they would face suffering; Paul heals in the book of acts and references healing in his letters but also boasts about his sufferings.
What the Bible says and what the likes of Bethel teach are two different things.
In terms of organisations Iris ministries are an interesting example as they have close relationships with the controversial Bethel (although I think some differences in theology) In their five core values as an organisation they have relying on miracles as one of the five and suffering for the gospel as another so they clearly see these as complimentary rather than contradictory.
I'm sorry, I think if there was much substance to the many miracles I hear attributed to Heidi Baker, we'd be hearing a lot more about them. Can you cite any independent testimony as to their authenticity?
The Christian "circuit" is full of such claims which are never really fully substantiated. Bethel? Pensacola? Todd Bentley? The so called "Turning" in the UK led by the next President of the Baptist Union is the latest is the series of hype.
Was it Isaiah who said "to the Law and the Prophets?"
It all looks like a set of desperate marketing, as if God needs any advertising.
@Martin54 As I say, I think the whole point of Job, echoed elsewhere in Scripture ("can the clay say to the potter...?") is that God isn't accountable to his creatures. We don't elect him and we can't fire him or sue him.
This perspective is not popular from a humanist perspective and has decreased in popularity with the rise of individual self-identity, which I think has largely influenced the Kingdom Now movement with its broader discourse of self-realisation and fulfillment - there's a lot of Norman Vincent Peale (also a major influence on Trump, I learn) in there.
Are we owed a better explanation? I don't think so. Might we get one? Well, 1 Corinthians 13 which you have already quoted hints that we might, but as you say, not being God might be a limiting factor. Then again, if we have all eternity, perhaps we could.
Personally, I find the idea of eternity bearable if I'm allowed to keep my insatiable curiosity and there are still things to find out, which if I've understood infinity correctly, there should be. To know as I am fully known.
Of course all this becomes a sideshow if the emphasis is on healing NOW™
If you theology says that healing should occur and you are not seeing them it may put some pressure on some leaders to fake healings but I think this pressure should be possible to resist if they have integrity...truthfulness is a higher value in the kingdom.
This is unfortunately not borne out by the likes of Bethel. When they fell victim to a fake testimony of mulitple resurruections, their response was not to admit outright that it had never happened but to say "it doesn't matter, because it could have happened". Extensively documented here.
And many churches believe in all of the gifts of the spirit in theory and rarely use any of them in practice so they are certainly resisting the pressure of faking.
Ah, so Bethel and its ilk are actually "walking the talk" are they? Read the above link and tell me that with a straight face. Don't mix up actually using the gifts of the Spirit with broadcasting their alleged use and making that alleged use a unique selling point compared to all the poor dumb churches "rarely using" them.
In terms of theology of suffering I can't see any reason why this can't exist alongside a theology of healing , even a theology of healing as something to be expected rather than something very rare.
Can you point to where in the Supernatural School of Ministry syllabus it deals with suffering and death? The overwhelming message at Bethel is that healing is the norm if one is properly walking in the Kingdom of God. Tell me it ain't so.
Jesus did loads of healings but still taught his disciples that they would face suffering; Paul heals in the book of acts and references healing in his letters but also boasts about his sufferings.
What the Bible says and what the likes of Bethel teach are two different things.
In terms of organisations Iris ministries are an interesting example as they have close relationships with the controversial Bethel (although I think some differences in theology) In their five core values as an organisation they have relying on miracles as one of the five and suffering for the gospel as another so they clearly see these as complimentary rather than contradictory.
I'm sorry, I think if there was much substance to the many miracles I hear attributed to Heidi Baker, we'd be hearing a lot more about them. Can you cite any independent testimony as to their authenticity?
The Christian "circuit" is full of such claims which are never really fully substantiated. Bethel? Pensacola? Todd Bentley? The so called "Turning" in the UK led by the next President of the Baptist Union is the latest is the series of hype.
Was it Isaiah who said "to the Law and the Prophets?"
It all looks like a set of desperate marketing, as if God needs any advertising.
I thought that's exactly what God needs, although such PR is woeful. Ah well, something about brass and a tinkling cymbal.
If healing is such a big deal and a sign of the Kingdom, why isn't there more of it?
Even in my more full-on charismatic days I was never comfortable with the idea that healing was in the atonement - as some of the leaders in my church believed. In fairness, they were cool with my having a different view on that. If healing in the physical sense were part of the atonement we'd see a lot more of it, surely?
It's taken me a while but I no longer think in such 'causal' terms. We've got enough to be getting on with without tying ourselves up in speculative knots or chasing after this, that or the other charismatic fad and circus.
I grateful that there are more grounded charismatics around with more common sense. On fairness, my wife and I didn't get a great deal of crap as she 'lived with' and then died of cancer - but we did get some, even from relatively moderate charismatic circles. Sufficient crap, in fact, for me to issue a formal complaint to the Diocese - but we won't go into that here.
I can't speak for things right across the board but I get the impression that there are a lot of Anglican clergy persons, Baptist and other Free Church ministers who have to spend a fair bit of time dealing with the casualties from this sort of thing, time that could be spent far more constructively if they didn't have to deal with this sort of crap.
@Martin54 As I say, I think the whole point of Job, echoed elsewhere in Scripture ("can the clay say to the potter...?") is that God isn't accountable to his creatures. We don't elect him and we can't fire him or sue him.
This perspective is not popular from a humanist perspective and has decreased in popularity with the rise of individual self-identity, which I think has largely influenced the Kingdom Now movement with its broader discourse of self-realisation and fulfillment - there's a lot of Norman Vincent Peale (also a major influence on Trump, I learn) in there.
Are we owed a better explanation? I don't think so. Might we get one? Well, 1 Corinthians 13 which you have already quoted hints that we might, but as you say, not being God might be a limiting factor. Then again, if we have all eternity, perhaps we could.
Personally, I find the idea of eternity bearable if I'm allowed to keep my insatiable curiosity and there are still things to find out, which if I've understood infinity correctly, there should be. To know as I am fully known.
Of course all this becomes a sideshow if the emphasis is on healing NOW™
Aye, you're right. If He is, then He's good. Aye, looking forward to ever finding out, exploring. I could walk the Pyrenees with a dog forever anyway.
I suppose my answer is what a mentor told me in seminary what Job was really all about "God doesn't owe you shit."
This is hilarious. The problem is not what God owes anyone, it is that God healing some but not others makes God a bastard. The ability without the inclination is the issue. However, if God created the whole shooting match, he certainly does owe humanity.
If I could remember the Augustinian line, it's that we are all fallen sinners who deserve nothing but divine justice, so whether blessing we may receive such as healing is purely gifts. If we complain that the deity is capricious, I think Augustine would respond with Isaiah 55:8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways may ways."
If God heals, then God is a bastard. A right, fucking bastard.
Why? Because he misses quite a lot of people who should be healed and people who deserve to die screaming in pain recover apparently miraculously.
And, IMO, "mysterious ways" just does not cut it.
If God heals, then God is a bastard. A right, fucking bastard.
Why? Because he misses quite a lot of people who should be healed and people who deserve to die screaming in pain recover apparently miraculously.
And, IMO, "mysterious ways" just does not cut it.
Yes, as per lb, the idea that God heals sometimes, is so nightmarish, that I can hardly believe that anyone seriously accepts it.
So this is interesting. It is apparently preferable to have no healing at all, than to have healings that fail to conform to one’s ideas of justice.
So much snark.
No, not really. It was intended as a pretty flat summary. At any rate, it's very flat, compared to what went before.
But it's perhaps more fairly put as a question: is it better to have no healing at all, or healings that fail to conform to one's ideas of justice?
How about everybody being healed? Too generous really.
Well if you go with my priest who once preached that death is a means for healing because the soul enters into heaven after death, you could say that everyone does in a way, gets healed.
When I was a Catholic, the local priest used to argue that God doesn't create a magical world, where there is no pain or death. In a way, such a world would be pointless, as there would be no resistance or stress, which physicality produces. So healing everybody gets close to magic. But then, as you say, universalism seems quite close. Must ponder further.
Paul said in Ephesians 4 that gifts were given so that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. He didn't say that some would be healers.
James in chapter 5 says that if anyone among the believers are sick they should 'call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.' This says a lot. The elders will be careful not to fall into the snares around 'healing ministry'.
I see the place for Christian healing here, with prayer and anointing by those mature in faith as led by the Holy Spirit.
I can't speak for things right across the board but I get the impression that there are a lot of Anglican clergy persons, Baptist and other Free Church ministers who have to spend a fair bit of time dealing with the casualties from this sort of thing, time that could be spent far more constructively if they didn't have to deal with this sort of crap.
I'm one of them and often sickened by the piling on of guilt these so called healers propagate. I'm not ant charismatic but like GG anti causal.
It gets worse at times like this. I have several people who are more anxious than is right to be simply because their world view has been corrupted by charismatic charlatans. They (the cc's) have been and gone: Mrs M is not picking up the pieces of several women's lives.
Paul said in Ephesians 4 that gifts were given so that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. He didn't say that some would be healers.
James in chapter 5 says that if anyone among the believers are sick they should 'call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.' This says a lot. The elders will be careful not to fall into the snares around 'healing ministry'.
I see the place for Christian healing here, with prayer and anointing by those mature in faith as led by the Holy Spirit.
This.
FatherInCharge offers Christian healing, in church, after Sunday Mass once a month, and there are several people at Our Place who are better for it - spiritually, if not necessarily physically.
I have asked @Bullfinch to try to define what s/he means by the rather generic term 'healing', for, as others have said, there can be many forms of healing - even, for the believer, death itself.
One of our people - a fairly recent convert - died about a year ago, after the recurrence of a Fell Disease, which he had had on and off for about 5 years (he started coming to church when he left hospital after his first surgery, and, after a year or so, was baptised and confirmed).
In the end, he refused further treatment, other than palliative care in the hospice, but welcomed prayer and anointing. He passed peacefully away one night, free from pain, and not only was he healed thereby, but also (in a very real sense) so was his previously-estranged son.
All because a faithful mature pastor (who'd been in the parish about 3 days!) took the trouble to Do What It Says In The Book.
Paul said in Ephesians 4 that gifts were given so that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. He didn't say that some would be healers.
James in chapter 5 says that if anyone among the believers are sick they should 'call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.' This says a lot. The elders will be careful not to fall into the snares around 'healing ministry'.
I see the place for Christian healing here, with prayer and anointing by those mature in faith as led by the Holy Spirit.
Ok, but when it comes to the proof-text stakes, many charismatics would quote the references to 'gifts of healing' and 'working of miracles' in the list of ministries and mojo in 1 Corinthians 12: 1-11.
It takes more than throwing Bible verses around to deal with this stuff, as I am sure you appreciate.
FWIW I do agree that this sort of thing is best handled as part of a pukka pastoral framework - insofar as such a thing exists, there are flaws in any system.
Most of the damage is caused by itinerants I suspect, but there are also congregations of course where this sort of thing is rife. I've heard of 'health-wealth' prosperity gospel churches in the US where the elders have asked people with visual impairments and other disabilities to leave because they were embarrassed to have them around and 'unhealed' as it caused the rest of the congregation to question their claims.
My brother-in-law is blind in one eye. When he was about 14 his mother took to him to a healing rally led by a big name US 'healing evangelist'. When she took him forward for prayer, they were hustled aside and told, 'This young man has to come to faith for his own healing ...'
Bollocks doesn't even begin to cover it.
My brother once drove some friends to a meeting in an otherwise MoTR independent evangelical church where a noted British healing evangelist was preaching. He was impressed by the lack of hype and even more impressed when the fella had a 'word of knowledge' about a girl he had taken to the meeting who had a pronounced squint. She went forward in response and when he prayed, lo and behold, the squint apparently 'corrected' itself before their very eyes. Many 'Hallelujahs'. They went home rejoicing.
The next day the girl woke up to find that the squint had returned.
What's all that about?
I submit it was simply a relaxation of muscle tissue under suggestion and the unhyped but certainly heightened atmosphere. Away from that stimulus the squint remained.
So many of these so-called healings are orthopaedic or musculoskeletal. I know a Christian physiotherapist who can give instances of apparently spontaneous remissions and healings of long-standing complaints with no apparent external agency involved.
I'm happy to file some of this stuff in the 'mystery' cabinet. I'd run a mile from any so-called healing meeting today. I don't think I've ever seen one that hasn't been manipulative in some way.
But you, GG, brother, persist in believing that God heals! Despite there being no evidence for that whatsoever. That God heals while utterly denying it. Like YEC (and creation at all actually). Ah well, a bit like Jesus' 'tell no one' I s'pose.
Ah well, a bit like Jesus' 'tell no one' I s'pose.
Yup. And when we do tell, you don't like it, so I guess he had a point after all. Outside the "sign" category, healing isn't there to be trumpeted from the rooftops at all.
Am I right in thinking that many (or all) of the healing miracles attributed to Jesus in the Gospels involved people whose illnesses, or disabilities, were well-attested, and/or visible to everyone?
The man born blind, and the man with the withered arm, spring to mind. Also Lazarus, of course, who was both dead and smelly...
Ah well, a bit like Jesus' 'tell no one' I s'pose.
Yup. And when we do tell, you don't like it, so I guess he had a point after all. Outside the "sign" category, healing isn't there to be trumpeted from the rooftops at all.
But that's a very weak comparison. Jesus had good reason. He didn't need the attention from the powers that be. What's God's problem? What is occult, statistically undetectable healing for? What is null, a flat mill pond without a statistical ripple, stir, glint below the surface, a sign of?
I suppose my answer is what a mentor told me in seminary what Job was really all about "God doesn't owe you shit."
This is hilarious. The problem is not what God owes anyone, it is that God healing some but not others makes God a bastard. The ability without the inclination is the issue. However, if God created the whole shooting match, he certainly does owe humanity.
If I could remember the Augustinian line, it's that we are all fallen sinners who deserve nothing but divine justice, so whether blessing we may receive such as healing is purely gifts. If we complain that the deity is capricious, I think Augustine would respond with Isaiah 55:8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways may ways."
If God heals, then God is a bastard. A right, fucking bastard.
Why? Because he misses quite a lot of people who should be healed and people who deserve to die screaming in pain recover apparently miraculously.
And, IMO, "mysterious ways" just does not cut it.
If God heals, then God is a bastard. A right, fucking bastard.
Why? Because he misses quite a lot of people who should be healed and people who deserve to die screaming in pain recover apparently miraculously.
And, IMO, "mysterious ways" just does not cut it.
Yes, as per lb, the idea that God heals sometimes, is so nightmarish, that I can hardly believe that anyone seriously accepts it.
So this is interesting. It is apparently preferable to have no healing at all, than to have healings that fail to conform to one’s ideas of justice.
So much snark.
No, not really. It was intended as a pretty flat summary. At any rate, it's very flat, compared to what went before.
But it's perhaps more fairly put as a question: is it better to have no healing at all, or healings that fail to conform to one's ideas of justice?
How about everybody being healed? Too generous really.
Well if you go with my priest who once preached that death is a means for healing because the soul enters into heaven after death, you could say that everyone does in a way, gets healed.
When I was a Catholic, the local priest used to argue that God doesn't create a magical world, where there is no pain or death. In a way, such a world would be pointless, as there would be no resistance or stress, which physicality produces. So healing everybody gets close to magic. But then, as you say, universalism seems quite close. Must ponder further.
What unknowable divine purpose does resistance and stress serve?
Not sure I understand that last line, but what indeed is 'it' for?
I think healings in the "sign" category of Jesus' ministry were just that: signs. And I don't think they really brought much benefit to the healed in some cases, or any benefit that they did bring was secondary.
I can't imagine Lazarus' experience being anything other than traumatic, plus, as already pointed out, him and his family having to go through him dying all over again later*.
As noted, I think the general "healed all who came to him" and discreet healings were of a different order and born of a different motivation. I can see them being a milestone in the faith journey of the people involved, without that needing to be for public consumption, in much the same way that Paul saw things of which it was not permitted to speak (I often think that a lot of the people I know who "see things" should STFU about them... even if a testimony is geunine, sharing it seems to cheapen it somehow).
@Bishops Finger - "well attested to" by people who wrote down stories told for some generations. No-one really knows if the accounts as happenned are as written. This is an assumption, it is not fact in the way we might observe something together, you and me, just now. People like the healing miracles because they suffer and are hopeful that something can be done to intervene. And as noted by others above, in our individualistic age since at least the humanists in the middle 1500s, we have focussed on ourselves in ways different than the world view before that. It's a pretty dramatic shift, which we take as an "always".
Isn't a main point of the miracle stories, whether healing or getting Satan to go into a herd of pigs or water into wine, is to show that Jesus is god-like or God. The people who were healed in the bible are two-dimensional characters, like a canvas upon which Jesus is depicted as painting his divinity. We don't even know the names of most of those healed: because their individuality was not important. The point is that if these characters believe he's all powerful, they get healed, and prove Jesus is God. It's nice that they got healed, but that's not the point.
It also isn't the point of Christian faith today to "get something" as if in a transaction. That if you believe you get healed or eternal life. But that's my opinion and critique of the selfishness of Christianity, and concern about maintaining our buildings and structures, rather than the actual needs of people. If we were to consider the healing (I use the word loosely, to also reflect justice and equality) the society and civilizations needs we'd have to conduct corporate, collective Christianity rather differently.
*I think people often overlook the traumatic effects of sudden changes for the better. Some may remember Jennifer Rees Larcombe's book "Beyond healing" (in which she relates coming to terms with being wheelchair-bound after some form of encephalitis: wheelchair-bound enough to merit council funding for a lift to the upper floor of her house) followed by her second book "Unexpected healing" in which she is unexpectedly healed.
This story has the ring of truth about it to me, firstly because the way in which she was healed was entirely unspectacular, un-vaudeville, and secondly because she relates that the first thing she wanted to do afterwards was go home and bake a cake for her son whose birthday it was. She discovered that in the years of her disability, the family kitchen had been wholly rearranged, couldn't find anything, and ended up having a blazing row with everybody that evening. AIUI, she later divorced. I suspect her healing was more than the family unit could adjust to, which creates a whole other subset of questions.
Yes, I meant 'well-attested' by those recorded as being present at the time.
I agree that we cannot know 100% for certain that what we read in the Gospels is literally true, but that subject, I respectfully submit, is something for another thread (again...).
I suppose my answer is what a mentor told me in seminary what Job was really all about "God doesn't owe you shit."
This is hilarious. The problem is not what God owes anyone, it is that God healing some but not others makes God a bastard. The ability without the inclination is the issue. However, if God created the whole shooting match, he certainly does owe humanity.
If I could remember the Augustinian line, it's that we are all fallen sinners who deserve nothing but divine justice, so whether blessing we may receive such as healing is purely gifts. If we complain that the deity is capricious, I think Augustine would respond with Isaiah 55:8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways may ways."
If God heals, then God is a bastard. A right, fucking bastard.
Why? Because he misses quite a lot of people who should be healed and people who deserve to die screaming in pain recover apparently miraculously.
And, IMO, "mysterious ways" just does not cut it.
If God heals, then God is a bastard. A right, fucking bastard.
Why? Because he misses quite a lot of people who should be healed and people who deserve to die screaming in pain recover apparently miraculously.
And, IMO, "mysterious ways" just does not cut it.
Yes, as per lb, the idea that God heals sometimes, is so nightmarish, that I can hardly believe that anyone seriously accepts it.
So this is interesting. It is apparently preferable to have no healing at all, than to have healings that fail to conform to one’s ideas of justice.
So much snark.
No, not really. It was intended as a pretty flat summary. At any rate, it's very flat, compared to what went before.
But it's perhaps more fairly put as a question: is it better to have no healing at all, or healings that fail to conform to one's ideas of justice?
How about everybody being healed? Too generous really.
Well if you go with my priest who once preached that death is a means for healing because the soul enters into heaven after death, you could say that everyone does in a way, gets healed.
When I was a Catholic, the local priest used to argue that God doesn't create a magical world, where there is no pain or death. In a way, such a world would be pointless, as there would be no resistance or stress, which physicality produces. So healing everybody gets close to magic. But then, as you say, universalism seems quite close. Must ponder further.
What unknowable divine purpose does resistance and stress serve?
Well, you could say that existence is better than non-existence, or a universe is better than none, or a non-magical world is better than a magical one. However, I have my doubts.
*I think people often overlook the traumatic effects of sudden changes for the better. Some may remember Jennifer Rees Larcombe's book "Beyond healing" (in which she relates coming to terms with being wheelchair-bound after some form of encephalitis: wheelchair-bound enough to merit council funding for a lift to the upper floor of her house) followed by her second book "Unexpected healing" in which she is unexpectedly healed.
This story has the ring of truth about it to me, firstly because the way in which she was healed was entirely unspectacular, un-vaudeville, and secondly because she relates that the first thing she wanted to do afterwards was go home and bake a cake for her son whose birthday it was. She discovered that in the years of her disability, the family kitchen had been wholly rearranged, couldn't find anything, and ended up having a blazing row with everybody that evening. AIUI, she later divorced. I suspect her healing was more than the family unit could adjust to, which creates a whole other subset of questions.
It has the ring of truth but it's been suggested to me, by some weren't that far away from the family, that there were psychological issues at play as well. Quite what the physical/psychological elements were isn't stated but the suggestion is that when the personal issues went, so did the physical.
I think the important thing that people miss about the book of Job is that it's fiction. It didn't really happen. As such the writer(s) are putting words in God's mouth. And unlike Job's comforters, they are admitting they don't know what God's purposes are, or why God allows suffering. And that claiming to know is, for those suffering, a royal pain in the ass and not at all welcome. God commends Job for not doing so, and condemns his comforters for claiming to know more than they do. In short, to use a word much loved of the Orthodox, human suffering is a mystery. The world is full of wonders, and we can't understand those, how do we expect to understand suffering?
I think we are lead astray if we think the purpose of the book of Job is to explain "why good people suffer." Even the devil in the first chapter is not to be taken literally -- it's a framing device for the story, not something that really happened or happens. If the book has a "point" it's that we don't know. Suffering is, if you will, just another mystery.
That point about the trauma of improvement is well known in therapy and psychiatry. One is warned at times about someone coming out of deep depression, then feeling better, and this is a risk point for suicide. Another example is an alcoholic giving up booze - this can lead to divorce, and/or breakdown for their partner.
It has the ring of truth but it's been suggested to me, by some weren't that far away from the family, that there were psychological issues at play as well. Quite what the physical/psychological elements were isn't stated but the suggestion is that when the personal issues went, so did the physical.
That may be the case, and a case is sometimes made that that might have also been the case for some of the healings in Jesus' day, especially the ones said to be accompanied by some form of deliverance.
The fact remains, however, that her condition was enough to persuade significant council funding to be unlocked for her benefit. Admittedly this was back in the day, but from what I've heard of disability assessment in the UK, it's rather like qualifying as a Lourdes miracle in reverse, i.e. the bar is set very high. So she got better, suddenly, from something seen as seriously physically impairing, whatever was going on in her mind and body.
That point about the trauma of improvement is well known in therapy and psychiatry. One is warned at times about someone coming out of deep depression, then feeling better, and this is a risk point for suicide. Another example is an alcoholic giving up booze - this can lead to divorce, and/or breakdown for their partner.
To your latter point, I've heard this described in terms of systemics: a social unit such as a household is like a child's mobile; it achieves some sort of balance, even when dysfunctional. Upset that balance, even supposedly for the better and a lot of wobbling can and does ensue.
A good reason to have "first do no harm" as a mantra, and why I won't be pulling the switch in the trolley problem.
That point about the trauma of improvement is well known in therapy and psychiatry. One is warned at times about someone coming out of deep depression, then feeling better, and this is a risk point for suicide. Another example is an alcoholic giving up booze - this can lead to divorce, and/or breakdown for their partner.
To your latter point, I've heard this described in terms of systemics: a social unit such as a household is like a child's mobile; it achieves some sort of balance, even when dysfunctional. Upset that balance, even supposedly for the better and a lot of wobbling can and does ensue.
A good reason to have "first do no harm" as a mantra, and why I won't be pulling the switch in the trolley problem.
Yes, that's probably correct. A depth psychology approach might say that the partner of an alcoholic or someone very psychologically ill, is using their partner in some way as a crutch, or a projection. Thus, when the crisis ends in the sick one, the healthy one breaks down. Of course, it's not inevitable. I remember a client who was very depressed, but as he got better, his wife found it intolerable.
So, God doesn't do big healing any longer because reasons, but only does small healing randomly that only people who already believe will believe also because reasons.
And despite that God created all the suffering, it is still not his fault and doing random minor stuff that could easily be seen as normal permutations in the human condition and only by stretching be considered miraculous...that only proves He exists and is good.
Strange that anyone is suspicious of this "logic".
That's not quite right lilbuddha. The world is created to be what it is, without any semblance of divine intervention. It's how it is. Because it weren't that, then we'd have no free choice as to what to believe.
I literally never meet anybody who ever talks about God as something other than a kind of big man. I think God is a wondrous spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, but only interested in men as part of a giant creation which is pulsing with life.
People say, when a relative dies: "Oh, how could God have taken her away so young and with so much before her?" God doesn't give a bugger about how young she is. He probably isn't noticing particularly. That's just the way a lot of things happen. A lot gets spilled, you know, in nature. When you look at what's going on out there now, those trees are dropping seeds by literally the hundreds of thousands and millions, and one or two of them may take on. I think that that is the way that God functions. He doesn't care nearly as much about individuals and individual fates as we would like to suppose. But by trying to ally ourselves with the totality of things, we may get into Tao as they say in the East and be part of it, really take part in it, and not just regard ourselves as a kind of miraculous creation and the rest just sort of stage scenery against which we perform.
I understand his funeral had immense amounts of incense burning at Trinity College Chapel, University of Toronto.
Comments
Also on my reading of that question, and indeed the book as a whole, an important point is that as creatures not the Creator, we don't have much idea - for now at least - of what's actually going on. I don't think one has to be an Augustinian to take that point.
He's not responsible then?
Well it would do wouldn't it? It's a superstitious ritual. But we can be real about it.
Aye, it's foolish. It's time to put away childish things.
Gratitude is essential in all circumstances. Kindness too.
Yeaaahh. A cop out unless the scientific invalidity of even the hope of miraculous healing or winning any other lottery is addressed.
Is not God both responsible and accountable? We are neither, except for being as kind as we can be, which, unlike mercy, is strained. He will answer with the transcendent, that will make the physical irrelevant but for being the former's breeding ground. Nothing else makes any sense at all, but I'm happy for Him to surprise us with a better, fuller explanation. Not that He needs to. I think He'd say the same to Job in Heaven, where everything is restituted; why do you need an explanation? We'd have to be God to understand.
The Christian "circuit" is full of such claims which are never really fully substantiated. Bethel? Pensacola? Todd Bentley? The so called "Turning" in the UK led by the next President of the Baptist Union is the latest is the series of hype.
Was it Isaiah who said "to the Law and the Prophets?"
It all looks like a set of desperate marketing, as if God needs any advertising.
This perspective is not popular from a humanist perspective and has decreased in popularity with the rise of individual self-identity, which I think has largely influenced the Kingdom Now movement with its broader discourse of self-realisation and fulfillment - there's a lot of Norman Vincent Peale (also a major influence on Trump, I learn) in there.
Are we owed a better explanation? I don't think so. Might we get one? Well, 1 Corinthians 13 which you have already quoted hints that we might, but as you say, not being God might be a limiting factor. Then again, if we have all eternity, perhaps we could.
Personally, I find the idea of eternity bearable if I'm allowed to keep my insatiable curiosity and there are still things to find out, which if I've understood infinity correctly, there should be. To know as I am fully known.
Of course all this becomes a sideshow if the emphasis is on healing NOW™
I thought that's exactly what God needs, although such PR is woeful. Ah well, something about brass and a tinkling cymbal.
Even in my more full-on charismatic days I was never comfortable with the idea that healing was in the atonement - as some of the leaders in my church believed. In fairness, they were cool with my having a different view on that. If healing in the physical sense were part of the atonement we'd see a lot more of it, surely?
It's taken me a while but I no longer think in such 'causal' terms. We've got enough to be getting on with without tying ourselves up in speculative knots or chasing after this, that or the other charismatic fad and circus.
I grateful that there are more grounded charismatics around with more common sense. On fairness, my wife and I didn't get a great deal of crap as she 'lived with' and then died of cancer - but we did get some, even from relatively moderate charismatic circles. Sufficient crap, in fact, for me to issue a formal complaint to the Diocese - but we won't go into that here.
I can't speak for things right across the board but I get the impression that there are a lot of Anglican clergy persons, Baptist and other Free Church ministers who have to spend a fair bit of time dealing with the casualties from this sort of thing, time that could be spent far more constructively if they didn't have to deal with this sort of crap.
Aye, you're right. If He is, then He's good. Aye, looking forward to ever finding out, exploring. I could walk the Pyrenees with a dog forever anyway.
When I was a Catholic, the local priest used to argue that God doesn't create a magical world, where there is no pain or death. In a way, such a world would be pointless, as there would be no resistance or stress, which physicality produces. So healing everybody gets close to magic. But then, as you say, universalism seems quite close. Must ponder further.
Further in and higher up!
Paul said in Ephesians 4 that gifts were given so that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. He didn't say that some would be healers.
James in chapter 5 says that if anyone among the believers are sick they should 'call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.' This says a lot. The elders will be careful not to fall into the snares around 'healing ministry'.
I see the place for Christian healing here, with prayer and anointing by those mature in faith as led by the Holy Spirit.
It gets worse at times like this. I have several people who are more anxious than is right to be simply because their world view has been corrupted by charismatic charlatans. They (the cc's) have been and gone: Mrs M is not picking up the pieces of several women's lives.
The comfort in Job is from the questions God answers later, not the ones Job actually asks God.
This.
FatherInCharge offers Christian healing, in church, after Sunday Mass once a month, and there are several people at Our Place who are better for it - spiritually, if not necessarily physically.
I have asked @Bullfinch to try to define what s/he means by the rather generic term 'healing', for, as others have said, there can be many forms of healing - even, for the believer, death itself.
One of our people - a fairly recent convert - died about a year ago, after the recurrence of a Fell Disease, which he had had on and off for about 5 years (he started coming to church when he left hospital after his first surgery, and, after a year or so, was baptised and confirmed).
In the end, he refused further treatment, other than palliative care in the hospice, but welcomed prayer and anointing. He passed peacefully away one night, free from pain, and not only was he healed thereby, but also (in a very real sense) so was his previously-estranged son.
All because a faithful mature pastor (who'd been in the parish about 3 days!) took the trouble to Do What It Says In The Book.
Ok, but when it comes to the proof-text stakes, many charismatics would quote the references to 'gifts of healing' and 'working of miracles' in the list of ministries and mojo in 1 Corinthians 12: 1-11.
It takes more than throwing Bible verses around to deal with this stuff, as I am sure you appreciate.
FWIW I do agree that this sort of thing is best handled as part of a pukka pastoral framework - insofar as such a thing exists, there are flaws in any system.
Most of the damage is caused by itinerants I suspect, but there are also congregations of course where this sort of thing is rife. I've heard of 'health-wealth' prosperity gospel churches in the US where the elders have asked people with visual impairments and other disabilities to leave because they were embarrassed to have them around and 'unhealed' as it caused the rest of the congregation to question their claims.
My brother-in-law is blind in one eye. When he was about 14 his mother took to him to a healing rally led by a big name US 'healing evangelist'. When she took him forward for prayer, they were hustled aside and told, 'This young man has to come to faith for his own healing ...'
Bollocks doesn't even begin to cover it.
My brother once drove some friends to a meeting in an otherwise MoTR independent evangelical church where a noted British healing evangelist was preaching. He was impressed by the lack of hype and even more impressed when the fella had a 'word of knowledge' about a girl he had taken to the meeting who had a pronounced squint. She went forward in response and when he prayed, lo and behold, the squint apparently 'corrected' itself before their very eyes. Many 'Hallelujahs'. They went home rejoicing.
The next day the girl woke up to find that the squint had returned.
What's all that about?
I submit it was simply a relaxation of muscle tissue under suggestion and the unhyped but certainly heightened atmosphere. Away from that stimulus the squint remained.
So many of these so-called healings are orthopaedic or musculoskeletal. I know a Christian physiotherapist who can give instances of apparently spontaneous remissions and healings of long-standing complaints with no apparent external agency involved.
I'm happy to file some of this stuff in the 'mystery' cabinet. I'd run a mile from any so-called healing meeting today. I don't think I've ever seen one that hasn't been manipulative in some way.
The man born blind, and the man with the withered arm, spring to mind. Also Lazarus, of course, who was both dead and smelly...
No mysterious, and invisible, 'bad backs'...
But that's a very weak comparison. Jesus had good reason. He didn't need the attention from the powers that be. What's God's problem? What is occult, statistically undetectable healing for? What is null, a flat mill pond without a statistical ripple, stir, glint below the surface, a sign of?
Sometimes, perhaps, the benefit is reaped by others (family, friends, whoever), rather than by the person who may (or may not) be physically healed.
Does that make sense?
What unknowable divine purpose does resistance and stress serve?
I can't imagine Lazarus' experience being anything other than traumatic, plus, as already pointed out, him and his family having to go through him dying all over again later*.
As noted, I think the general "healed all who came to him" and discreet healings were of a different order and born of a different motivation. I can see them being a milestone in the faith journey of the people involved, without that needing to be for public consumption, in much the same way that Paul saw things of which it was not permitted to speak (I often think that a lot of the people I know who "see things" should STFU about them... even if a testimony is geunine, sharing it seems to cheapen it somehow).
Isn't a main point of the miracle stories, whether healing or getting Satan to go into a herd of pigs or water into wine, is to show that Jesus is god-like or God. The people who were healed in the bible are two-dimensional characters, like a canvas upon which Jesus is depicted as painting his divinity. We don't even know the names of most of those healed: because their individuality was not important. The point is that if these characters believe he's all powerful, they get healed, and prove Jesus is God. It's nice that they got healed, but that's not the point.
It also isn't the point of Christian faith today to "get something" as if in a transaction. That if you believe you get healed or eternal life. But that's my opinion and critique of the selfishness of Christianity, and concern about maintaining our buildings and structures, rather than the actual needs of people. If we were to consider the healing (I use the word loosely, to also reflect justice and equality) the society and civilizations needs we'd have to conduct corporate, collective Christianity rather differently.
This story has the ring of truth about it to me, firstly because the way in which she was healed was entirely unspectacular, un-vaudeville, and secondly because she relates that the first thing she wanted to do afterwards was go home and bake a cake for her son whose birthday it was. She discovered that in the years of her disability, the family kitchen had been wholly rearranged, couldn't find anything, and ended up having a blazing row with everybody that evening. AIUI, she later divorced. I suspect her healing was more than the family unit could adjust to, which creates a whole other subset of questions.
I agree that we cannot know 100% for certain that what we read in the Gospels is literally true, but that subject, I respectfully submit, is something for another thread (again...).
I meant what I said. I always do. Occult. What is it about? What are occult (the only kind if there are any) healings about?
Well, you could say that existence is better than non-existence, or a universe is better than none, or a non-magical world is better than a magical one. However, I have my doubts.
It has the ring of truth but it's been suggested to me, by some weren't that far away from the family, that there were psychological issues at play as well. Quite what the physical/psychological elements were isn't stated but the suggestion is that when the personal issues went, so did the physical.
I think we are lead astray if we think the purpose of the book of Job is to explain "why good people suffer." Even the devil in the first chapter is not to be taken literally -- it's a framing device for the story, not something that really happened or happens. If the book has a "point" it's that we don't know. Suffering is, if you will, just another mystery.
The fact remains, however, that her condition was enough to persuade significant council funding to be unlocked for her benefit. Admittedly this was back in the day, but from what I've heard of disability assessment in the UK, it's rather like qualifying as a Lourdes miracle in reverse, i.e. the bar is set very high. So she got better, suddenly, from something seen as seriously physically impairing, whatever was going on in her mind and body.
A good reason to have "first do no harm" as a mantra, and why I won't be pulling the switch in the trolley problem.
Grammatically...
I think I'll leave it there...
Yes, that's probably correct. A depth psychology approach might say that the partner of an alcoholic or someone very psychologically ill, is using their partner in some way as a crutch, or a projection. Thus, when the crisis ends in the sick one, the healthy one breaks down. Of course, it's not inevitable. I remember a client who was very depressed, but as he got better, his wife found it intolerable.
And they therefore can't possibly be healings unless the conditions being healed are occult too.
And despite that God created all the suffering, it is still not his fault and doing random minor stuff that could easily be seen as normal permutations in the human condition and only by stretching be considered miraculous...that only proves He exists and is good.
Strange that anyone is suspicious of this "logic".
The suffering you refer to, well, here's one of out best Canadian authors, Robertson Davies (from Wikiquote, so I can reprint in full)
I understand his funeral had immense amounts of incense burning at Trinity College Chapel, University of Toronto.