Micael Grenholm - Are Miracles Real.docx



Independent essay, systematic theologyJohannelund Theological SeminarySupervisor: Mark SluysFall 2014Are Miracles Real?Miracles According to a Charismatic, Lutheran and Catholic Church LeaderMicael Grenholm44533264763Table of Contents1. Purpose and Study Questions32. Method32.1 Source Criticism42.2 Methodological Models 43. Theoretical Background53.1 Definition of Miracles53.2 Theology of Miracles in Church History64. Research84.1 Surprise Sithole84.2 K.G. Hammar114.3 Pope Francis145. Discussion and Analysis175.1 Surprise Sithole185.2 K.G. Hammar205.3 Pope Francis235.4 Conclusion246. References251. Purpose and Study QuestionsWhat does a Christian believe when it comes to miracles? It depends on who you ask. The charismatic, Lutheran and Catholic church traditions have generally viewed the topic differently, and there are theologians within each tradition who gives arguments for their views. Still, those who do a lot of theological impact are often the official church leaders, who preach to the masses and organize the leadership of their churches. Let us then compare church leaders from each of these traditions!The purpose of this essay is to analyze similarities and differences between three contemporary church leaders when it comes to their views on miracles, to explain why they hold these views and to analyze their arguments. These church leaders are:Surprise Sithole, director for the charismatic missionary organization Iris AfricaKG Hammar, Archbishop Emeritus of the Lutheran Church of SwedenFrancis, pope of the Roman Catholic Church Some questions that will help the analysis could be: Do they think that miracles depicted in the Bible are historical events? How do they view the probability of a miracle happening today? Do they themselves claim to have witnessed a miracle? Do they believe that Christians have to believe in miracles? What are the theological sources for their viewpoints? And whose viewpoint have the most reasonable arguments? 2. MethodThe primary sources for Surprise Sithole and K.G. Hammar are two books by each of them, as well as semi-structured interviews that I have made with them. My interview with Surprise Sithole took place already in 2013 when I was writing my bachelor thesis in peace and development studies, and since my research question then was “How does charismatic belief affect incentives for development?”, the answers I received are very relevant for this study as well. I also talked to other people in South Africa about Sithole’s miracles.Francis has also written a book, as a cardinal, and while it contains a little bit of useful information for this study the bulk of information I have about his view is made up by news articles, statements, homilies and interviews. Francis is a man who talks rather than writes. I have not even tried to interview him though, since he, after all, is the pope.2.1 Source CriticismSurprise Sithole says that he has experienced a lot of miracles, from hearing the audible voice of God to raising the dead. It tells a lot about his views, but the anecdotical evidence is weak in itself to prove that these events really happened. That would rather require scientific confirmation, as is the case with some of the events that pope Francis has declared miraculous.K.G. Hammar’s book is not written personally by him, but by a journalist who has written down their conversation. This opens up for the risk that the formulations may not exactly be Hammar’s own, even though my interview with him minimized this risk since it to a large extent confirmed the book.I have used multiple sources for pope Francis, mostly secular news sources and Catholic papers or blogs. Both of them could be biased, especially the Catholic ones when they discuss miracles. There is also a language barrier since pope Francis rarely speaks English, but Italian and Spanish.The downside with analyzing pastoral leaders rather than systematic theologians is that they have generally not written down all of their theology. I have sometimes needed to reconstruct arguments and reasoning, since they are not always very explicit. In the argument analysis, arguments are converted to a deductive format which sometimes requires my own interpretation of the argument, which also needs to be taken into consideration.2.2 Methodological Models When analysing the material, I will try to discover what sources the respondents have when arguing for their view, using the classical model presented by Alister McGrath in his Christian Theology: Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience. Scripture refers to the biblical texts and the revelation that Christians believe is written there; tradition to doctrines and practices that have developed in the church in post-Biblical times; reason refers to logic, rational thinking and philosophy; and experience to personal, subjective impressions with theological meaning. There has been much debate about how to value these sources and which are most important; for example, Protestants on one hand and Catholics and Orthodoxs on the other often debate the relationship between Scripture and tradition, and skeptics and believers often debate the relationship between reason and experience.After describing each church leader’s view and their sources for the view, we will do an analysis of their arguments. The model I have chosen for this analysis is based on Carl-Henric Grenholm’s Att f?rst? religion (Understanding religion). He argues that one firstly needs to identify and describe what problem a person is addressing, what thesis s/he is proposing to deal with the problem and then what arguments s/he uses to support the thesis. After describing the argumentation, one should in an analysis value it critically. This is done through testing if the premises of the argument are true and reasonable, and if the argument is logically consistent and relevant to the thesis. Grenholm argues that in the context of testing a theological or doctrinal thesis, one should also test it’s authenticity against the Bible and church tradition, as well as its plausibility against human experience, logical coherence towards other doctrines, and scientific knowledge. 3. Theoretical Background3.1 Definition of MiraclesIn his extensive work on systematic theology from a charismatic perspective, J. Rodman Williams defines a miracle as “an event manifesting divine activity that is other than the ordinary process of nature”. It is a common definition but it brings some problems in identifying a specific miracle: how do we differ what is contradicting the “ordinary process of nature” (or “natural laws”) from what is simply an unusual natural event? And how do we know that an inexplicable event is in fact a divine activity?Even with these problems, the general understanding among philosophers of religion is that several theoretical (and claimed) scenarios can be dubbed miraculous. It is true that if someone’s headache disappears after prayer, it’s very hard to prove that this was an act of God and not just sheer luck (or the placebo effect) but if a glass of water is turned into wine after prayer, many would say it is definitely an event other than the ordinary process of nature and, due to its biblical parallel and its preceding prayer, many would argue that it is indeed an act of God. While there are events that scientists yet are unable to explain, the general understanding is that whether one ascribes supernatural causations to them or not depend on one’s faith (even though there are numerous examples of people who start to believe in God after they have witnessed something they believe is miraculous).A lot more could be said about this, but let us now have a brief look on how theology of miracles have developed in the Christian church from the Bible to this day.3.2 Theology of Miracles in Church HistoryThe New Testament describes how both Jesus and his disciples experienced “wonders” (Greek: τ?ρα?) and “works of power” (δ?ναμι?), such as healings of blindness and deafness, casting out demons, hearing the audible voice of God and raising the dead (Mt 3:17, 4:24, 11:5). These were not new claims in the Jewish culture, since the Old Testament talks about “wonders” (Hebrew: ??????) like parting the red sea, healing the sick and raising the dead (Ps. 77:14, Ex. 13:17ff., 1 Kings 17, 2 Kings 5). The apostle Paul wrote that the Holy Spirit bestows miraculous gifts to all believers (together with non-supernatural gifts like wisdom or faith), and encouraged his readers to seek such gifts together with love (1 Cor. 12:4-14:1).Fathers in the early church believed that miracles were possible, and many argued that they or their church members had experienced them. Justin Martyr argued that the prophetical gift had remained with the church to his day, and that “numberless” persons plagued by demons had been healed by Christian exorcists. Origen made parallels between the miracles of the Bible and Christians of his day who “expel evil spirits, and perform many cures, and foresee certain events”. Similar claims were made by many other church fathers.The great African theologian Augustine was the first to argue that one of the miraculous gifts had ceased, namely xenolalia – to be able to speak an existing language one has never studied like the early disciples did on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4-12). Augustine did however argue that other Biblical miracles were still happening in his day; in his City of God he gives numerous examples of people being healed from blindness, breast cancer, paralysis, demonic possession and other torments, and he gives four examples of Christians in the area who were raised from the dead. Augustine argued that miracles are not contrary to nature, but what we know as nature – hence he did not want to differentiate between the natural and supernatural.During medieval times, stories of miracles abounded in both the Western and Eastern Church, connected to various saints. Even to this day, two medically verified miracles are required for each canonization of a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. During the reformation, many Catholics argued against the Protestants by saying that their teaching could not be from God, since they did not experience miracles to the same extent that Catholics did. Faced with this, Protestant leader Martin Luther argued that “the day of miracles is past” and that Christians of his day may experience something greater than the blind seeing or dead raising, namely “spiritual miracles” in a person’s soul when Christ brings salvation and the Word of God.This theology, known as cessationism, became dominant in the Protestant movement for several hundred years. After the Enlightenment and scientific revolution, many were skeptical towards religion and belief in miracles. Atheist philosophers like David Hume rejected all miraculous claims as highly improbable, and Lutheran theologian Rudolf Bultmann argued that we must “demythologize” the miraculous claims of the Gospels, since things like walking on water or being raised from the dead is impossible according to a “modern” worldview.However, during the 20th century the Pentecostal and charismatic movement, which expresses a strong belief in healing, prophecy, speaking in tongues and other miraculous phenomena, has grown fast and now claims over half a billion people in all sorts of Christian denominations, including both the Catholic and Lutheran churches. Non-charismatic Catholics may also believe in miracles, but connect them to special saints rather than viewing them as normal in the ordinary Christian life, as many charismatics claim. Non-charismatic Lutherans generally believe that miracles have ceased to exist or that they have never existed. While both Catholics and Lutherans view science as important when forming theology, charismatics generally view a literal interpretation of the Bible as more important than adapting theology after scientific theories.4. Research4.1 Surprise SitholeSurprise Sithole was born in the late 1960’s into an animist family in the small village of Cachote in Mozambique. In his biography Voice in the Night, he writes:From the time I was born, my parents hoped I would follow the family tradition and become a witch doctor. […] My childhood was full of strange spiritual experiences and spiritual oppression. This was the only life I knew. […] Did my parents have real power, or were they charlatans? The answer is both. Much of what they did was trickery, pure and simple. But I also know that they sincerely believed in the spirits, and I saw many strange events for which I have no other explanation than the supernatural. More than once, I found myself floating above the floor as I tried to sleep at night.Sithole claims to have heard the audible voice of God at the age of 15. This voice told him to leave his village, and after wandering in the jungle for two weeks he met a Christian man, Mr. Lukas, who said that God had given him a dream where he foresaw Sithole’s arrival, and Surprise was not surprised since he “believed that such things happened and thought that Mr. Lukas must be a witch doctor, like my parents.” Mr. Lukas took care of him and taught him how to be a Christian. Soon, they received the news of that Sithole’s family had been poisoned back in Cochete. Surprise was the only survivor.Sithole writes that he then became a missionary, travelling mostly by foot in Mozambique and Malawi to preach the Gospel. He says that on the island of Chikusi, he started to preach in a language he had never studied – Chichewa – through the power of God. People on the island were converting to Christianity when they saw this, Sithole writes, since they knew that he didn’t know the language naturally. He also claims that he still speaks Chichewa, and that his first bible was written in that language.However, to this point he claims that he had not been reading the Bible. The very next day after the language miracle on Chikusi, a woman was seriously attacked by a puff adder. Concerned that the clinic was too far away, a woman asked Sithole “Will Jesus make her well?” Sithole writes: “It had never occurred to me that Jesus could and would heal the sick. But I knew He could do anything He wanted to do – and unless He helped her, this poor girl was going to die.” He then explains how he prayed for her, and how all the pain and symptoms disappeared from the girl, and she survived without getting health care.Since then, Sithole has studied the Bible in rural Bible schools in southern Africa and is currently leading one. He is pastoral director for Iris Africa, a big missionary organization, and oversees over 10 000 churches in South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and other nations. He is also being recognized in the West, thanks to Iris Global leaders Heidi and Rolland Baker, who according to professor Candy Gunther Brown are “among the most influential leaders in world Pentecostalism.”Sithole shares in his book how he has survived mine explosions twice through supernatural intervention, witnessed food multiply to feed hungry children and raised several dead people back to life. During my field trip to South Africa in 2013 I met Francis Shongwe – pastor for Iris Global in a small village called Clau-Clau – who claims that he has been raised from the dead through Sithole.Shongwe said that in September 2003, he was helping out at a youth conference that Iris was arranging when suddenly, a gang appeared that wanted to go in and start a fight. Francis asked them to leave and they were then upset and started to beat him violently. Suddenly, Francis could see his body from above, and he says that he went up to heaven, witnessing people and angels worshipping God together.He was enjoying this, thinking to himself that there would be no poverty or problems in heaven, when he suddenly heard a voice that said “Francis!” He woke up at a hospital, and Sithole was sitting beside him. Several other people that I talked to said that they had witnessed the gang’s attack and agreed that Shongwe had been dead but had come back to life. However, no medical record of the event was available. I also witnessed how Sithole prayed for a very sick man on the third day of my visit. About seven weeks later, I met this man’s wife by coincidence when taking a walk in the village of Backdoor. She said that her husband had been sick in TBC and had problems with the liver. He had not been able to work for nine months, but had been feeling much better the last couple of weeks. She said that he went to a doctor who proclaimed him “a hundred percent healed”, and that he now was at work again.When being asked how it feels when he sees God raise someone from the dead, Sithole replied “I feel personally that it’s shocking news, because it’s something that nobody expected very much. But it is written that we have to see those things.” He says that belief in miracles is not optional for a Christian: “If you are a true believer, you have to believe in miracles.”In his book he discusses “why so many miracles occur in Africa while they seem to be so rare in America and Europe”. His answer is that Africans have “simple faith”, while Western people “question everything, including the Bible” and “think they are too smart and too sophisticated to simply believe and accept God’s Word”. “When we accept His Word simply, without criticizing and doubting, God blesses us and we are able to see even more of His truths.”Sithole compares his miraculous experiences with miracle stories in the Bible. For example, he does a brief Bible study about how God has power over nature and how Jesus commanded the winds and waves to obey him, and then he shares how he “experienced this authority” as he claims that he and fellow Christians have commanded a storm, a drought and a tsunami to vanish.Sithole argues that it is impossible for him to doubt: “There is no single doubt on me. I believe fully that God is alive, and He want to save the people.” He encourages people not to wait for experiencing miracles before they believe, but believe in order to experience:Most of the people, they are waiting to see before they believe. So myself, I take it the other way: I believe for me to see. […] That’s why even last week, or maybe it was three weeks back, a lady that was healed from diabetes. So the day I prayed for her, she got healed. And in her testimony, she said that she did not believe the day I prayed for her. I said to her: ‘I believed. You’re all right when you say that when I was praying for you, you didn’t believe. I’ve been praying for the dead person that didn’t believe, but rose from the dead.’4.2 K.G. HammarKarl Gustav (K.G.) Hammar was born into a religious Lutheran family in Sk?ne, southern Sweden, and became a priest in 1965 at the age of 22. He says that his faith started in “some form of literalness”, but from his teenage years and onwards the “symbolic language became a tool” to start a “transformation” of faith. Hammar was impacted both by the socialist movement of the 70’s that demanded global justice, as well as Bible criticism at the theological faculty in Lund. He found a particular interest in how theology relates with Darwinism, and was impacted by evolutionary biologists. He says that he found it important to understand Christianity’s critics, and that he even found something “cleansing and attractive” in atheism, although it never became an alternative for him: “My reality never was that empty, and the arguments were hardly more profound than those which the theologians were using”.In 1972, Hammar received a PhD in church history, writing his dissertation about liberal theology and church politics. Between 1972 and 1975 he was a missionary for the Church of Sweden in Singapore, and he realized how he and his students at the college he was working on had very different worldviews. “They could talk about spirits and I rejected it as ‘just superstition’ in my zeal to make life understandable”.In 1997, Hammar became archbishop of the Church of Sweden. His progressive views on homosexuality, abortion and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sparked controversy among conservative Christians, and in the beginning of 2003 this shifted to a loud debate in the biggest Swedish media channels concerning the historicity of biblical miracles in the life of Jesus. Hammar had expressed doubts concerning the virgin birth as a historical event in an interview in December 2002, and on January 23rd the following year, Catholic archbishop Anders Arborelius and Pentecostal leader Sten-Gunnar Hedin write an article called “Jesus is more than a myth” where they criticized Hammar for not expressing a clear belief in the historicity of New Testament miracles.In 2004, Hammar published I do not have the truth, I seek it. Interviewed by journalist Ami L?nnroth, he explained why he is critical to a literal, biological interpretation of the virgin birth: “When we say ‘ascended into heaven’, we think it’s clear that such a statement is characterized by the worldview of that time, and that we today must think differently. At the same time, some say that ‘incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the virgin Mary’ must be interpreted as a description of historical reality.”He also thinks that a symbolic interpretation of Jesus walking on water (Mt. 14:22-33) is “obvious” - “To me, this is a creed founded on that Jesus is the conqueror of the forces of chaos”. On Jesus’ multiplication of bread (Mt. 14:13-21) he says:If we interpret this story with a main point in Jesus’ divine capacity to do what ordinary people cannot, a distance to Jesus is created. But what if the story is about people sharing what they have - like the boy the the gospel of John tells about [Jn 6:9]. It was he who came with bread and fish. The divine is then not the distance between us and Jesus but the closeness, that he manages to reach us and affect us from the inside and call out the most human in us.Hammar does not believe that “the world is dualistic in the sense that an evil and a good force are fighting each other”. The devil and demons are “help conceptions” to deal with that evil is unbearingly impersonal. He also says that resurrection “is a difficult word and difficult imagery”. When asked by Ami L?nnroth what happens after death, he simply replies “I do not know. Nobody knows what happens.” But he believes that our relationship with God continues after we die, although he does not have “an idea of us meeting on the other side. But I know that many find comfort in this imagery. It is true for them.” Personally he believes that we become some form of “inscription” in God when we die. “We remain in God, whatever that means.”In an interview with me in November 2014, Hammar said: “I am really not very interested in miracles, but miracles to me are connected to the ancient worldview. […] If we have a worldview impacted by evolution, then everything is a process and a movement. Thus, what were miracles before do not need to be miracles today.”When being asked if the ancient worldview simply is wrong he replied:Yes, we are clearly not viewing the world like that. We have to interpret [the ancient worldview] figuratively, metaphorically. If we use the expression ‘God in heaven’, it is not a placing of God as it was in the ancient worldview, we have to understand it differently. So of course, worldviews change. This doesn’t mean that our worldview is the last one, it has changed during our lifetime as well with quantum uncertainty and the like. Hammar is critical towards the division between natural and supernatural; rather, he believes that there is one world which is transcendent. He says that one could describe the world as miraculous in that it is fascinating and surprising, but he doesn’t believe that God can intervene in special ways. God is always present, and one can experience him through mystic experiences. Hammar acknowledges that he himself has had such an experience.Hammar reaffirms that he does not believe that Jesus being born of a virgin or walking on water are historical events, rather, they are “metaphors to describe the importance of Jesus”. “If one would say that the virgin birth is a historical event, is then the story about the virgin birth of Augustus an historical event as well? Or is it so that it is only when it is ascribed to Jesus that it is historical, otherwise it is not?”He is also skeptical to the historicity of Jesus raising people from the dead: “If the biblical texts tell us about Jesus raising the widow’s son from the dead in Nain, which is a classical miracle, it doesn’t mean that this was what happened but what people were telling.”When asked whether he believed that the gospel writers intended that these stories are just metaphorical or if they thought it also was historical, Hammar argues that they used narrative theology inspired by the Old Testament and the ancient worldview. Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead is very important in the Christian narrative, Hammar argues, but he is against the view that we “must” believe that Jesus historically and physically rose from the dead on the third day to be Christian. “I’m against all ‘musts’, that you ‘must’ believe in a certain way. People are free to think that way, but one should realize that it is more complicated in the Bible”.Hammar argues that “the [Biblical] text does not expect that we should believe in the miracle, as it has become during the 20th century, that the faith is centered on the miracle; rather, faith is centered on Jesus.” He says that the Lutheran tradition, unlike charismatic or Catholic Christianity, is uninterested in miracles. “To me, the concept of faith is twisted by this… If you have to believe in miracles to be approved, then it is, according to me, not biblical faith.”Hammar is obviously thinking very differently from Surprise Sithole. When I share some of Sithole’s miraculous claims, like hearing the voice of God audibly or raising people from the dead, I ask Hammar if he, without reviewing the authenticity of Sithole’s claims, even think that such events are possible?“You know what I will reply”, he says. “No I don’t. Of course I don’t believe that it is possible to raise dead people”.4.3 Pope FrancisJose Mario Bergoglio, who would become Pope Francis, was born in in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1936. After a brief career as a chemical technician and a bar bouncer, he studied theology to become a Jesuit and a priest. In 1992 he became bishop of Buenos Aires and in 1998 archbishop of the same. He became known for his care for the poor and marginalised and was called "bishop of the slums".In Latin America, the charismatic movement is growing fast, both outside and inside the Catholic church. After Bergoglio became a pope, he would reveal how his view of the charismatic movement changed during the 80’s and 90’s, from skeptical to welcoming:I'll tell you something about the Charismatic Movement ... at the end of the '70s and in the '80s, I wasn't a big fan. I used to say they confused the holy liturgy with a school of samba. I was converted when I got to know them better and saw the good they do. In this moment of the life of the church, the movements are necessary. They're a grace of the Spirit, and in general, they do much good for the church. The charismatic renewal movement isn't just about winning back a few Pentecostals, but it serves the church and its renewal. In 1996 to 1999, bishop Bergoglio was involved in the process of verifying a eucharistic miracle, where a host had allegedly turned into a piece of flesh in a church in central Buenos Aires. According to an article in Catholic magazine Love One Another, Bergoglio ordered that the host should be photographed and scientifically analyzed. The article says that Dr. Ricardo Castanón sent it for analysis in New York, and he was told that the substance was a fine slice of a heart muscle. Dr Castanon speak about this himself in a video that can be found on YouTube. After Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, Bergoglio was elected new pope and took the name Francis after the medieval saint from Assisi. As a pope, he has been responsible for approving miracles in the canonization of saints. In July 2013, Francis declared that the recovery of Floribeth Mora Diaz from Costa Rica was miraculous. Two years earlier, she had a brain aneurysm and could not afford treatment in Mexico or Cuba, so the doctors said that she had not long to live. On May 1st, the same day when former pope John Paul II was beatified, Diaz saw the pontiff in a vision, telling her “Floribeth, get up, what are you doing here?” Diaz was then feeling healthy, and when examined, the brain aneurysm was gone. Brain surgeon Alejandro Vargas Roman says: “The question of why it disappeared without surgical intervention is without explanation. I have never read about this anywhere in the world.” And: “If I cannot explain it from a medical standpoint, something non-medical happened.” After declaring this a miracle, pope Francis canonized John Paul II as a saint.Conversely, when explaining why he has not canonized controversial pope Pius XII, he referred to the lack of a confirmed miracle: “There’s still no miracle,” he said. “If there are no miracles, it can’t go forward. It’s blocked there.” Soon after his papal inauguration, Francis prayed for a man in a wheelchair during mass at S:t Peter’s square, laying both hands on the man’s head while the latter started heaving and shaking. The media started to speculate whether Francis had performed an exorcism, something fr. Gabriele Amorth, chief exorcist of the diocese of Rome, insisted that he had. The Vatican, however, announced that the pope “didn't intend to perform any exorcism. But as he often does for the sick or suffering, he simply intended to pray for someone who was suffering who was presented to him.” The man who received prayer told Spanish newspaper El Mundo that he did seek pope Francis for an exorcism, but he believed that the demons were still inside him. On the other hand, El Mundo states that he could walk after pope Francis had prayed for him.In October 2014, pope Francis gave his support and blessing to the International Association of Exorcists, encouraging them to show "the love and welcome of the Church for those possessed by evil".Back in 2010, when Francis was an archbishop of Buenos Aires, he wrote in his book On Heaven and Earth: “[I]n my personal experience, I feel [the devil] every time that I am tempted to do something that is not what God wants for me. I believe that the devil exists. Maybe his greatest achievement in these times has been to make us believe that he does not exist, and that all can be fixed on a purely human level.”Similarly, in October 2014 he argued that angels are real beings interacting with humans: “The doctrine on angels is not fantasist. No, it’s reality […] How often have we heard ‘I should do this, I should not do this, that’s not right, be careful...’ So often! It is the voice of our travelling companion […] No one journeys alone and no one should think that they are alone,” This belief in the supernatural has made pope Francis, as we have seen above, positive towards the charismatic movement. In June 2014, the pope attended a Catholic charismatic renewal convention in Rome, where he said: “I expect from you that you share with all, in the Church, the grace of Baptism in the Holy Spirit.” In the next month he was the first pope ever who visited a Pentecostal church. In Francis’ first apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, he wrote about “charisms”, gifts of the Spirit: “The Holy Spirit also enriches the entire evangelizing Church with different charisms. These gifts are meant to renew and build up the Church. They are not an inheritance, safely secured and entrusted to a small group for safekeeping; rather they are gifts of the Spirit integrated into the body of the Church, drawn to the centre which is Christ and then channelled into an evangelizing impulse.” How, then, does Francis view Biblical miracles? In his homilies he often does an allegorical interpretation, saying that Jesus can heal us from sin or that Jesus can raise anyone from a dead, tired soul. However, it seems like the pope also believe that the Gospel accounts tell us about historical events. While saying that Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fishes sends a message to us about sharing the world’s resources, Francis describes the event as historical. The same is true for the virgin birth, and especially for the resurrection of Christ:"This is not a lie, ok? This is truth. We believe that Jesus Resurrected. Jesus is among us and alive right now. But, do you really believe that He is alive? Oh, you don't? Yes or no? So, if Jesus is alive, do you think He would just let us die without resurrecting us? No! He waits for us because He has risen. The power in His Resurrection will raise us too.” 5. Discussion and AnalysisLet us now summarize and compare the viewpoints of the three church leaders. It is interesting that Surprise Sithole and pope Francis seem to have a similar belief in miracles – both think that supernatural activities and supernatural beings (like demons and angels) are existing realities. They both believe that miracles happened in the time of the Bible and that they happen today. However, while Surprise Sithole places a lot of emphasis on the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, the pope is less eager to focus on them. Sithole uses Biblical texts about miracles to justify his experiences and to put them into context, while the pope often uses allegorical interpretation to find the meaning of the biblical miracles, even if he still seems to believe that they really happened.The big contrast, however, is not between Sithole and Francis but between both of them and K.G. Hammar. As we have seen, Hammar does not believe that biblical miracles are historical events, nor does he believe that they happen today. Rather, he thinks that life is miraculous in the sense that it can be surprising and unexpected, but he is critical towards the idea that God can intervene in supernatural ways, or that one must believe that such things are possible in order to be a Christian. Belief in miracles is part of the ancient worldview that is incompatible with science and that we simply cannot believe in anymore.Why does Hammar reach a conclusion so differently from Sithole and Francis? And how sustainable are each church leader’s arguments for their viewpoints? These are the questions the following analysis will try to answer.5.1 Surprise SitholeIf we start with Surprise Sithole, my thesis is that experience is the most important source that has formed his belief in miracles. He finds the Bible very important and interprets it miracle stories literally, but as we saw, he says that he believed in miracles before he had ever read the Bible and before he even was a Christian. His animist upbringing seems to has given him a supernaturalist paradigm, which remained with him as a Christian. We saw how he believed that Jesus could heal the sick, not because he had read it in the Bible yet, but because he “knew” that Jesus could do everything. And where did this knowledge come from, if Sithole’s account is accurate? From the teaching of Mr. Lukas, which Sithole in turned believed in based on the “voice in the night” he had heard.At the same time, Sithole argues that he believes before he sees, and that many Western people lack miraculous experience because they question and doubt the Bible. Why, then, should we believe the Bible? In Surprise’s own case, it is because of his miraculous experience. But is this not circular reasoning? Not necessarily. While Sithole’s initial belief in the Bible was a consequence of his experience, he is giving examples of how he expected miracles he had not yet seen because of the Bible, like raising the dead. And there is a difference between using the Bible as an argument for non-Christians why they should believe in miracles (where “the Bible says so” obviously, in itself, is not a relevant argument), and using it to convince Christians why they should believe in miracles. As Sithole says, “If you are a true believer, you have to believe in miracles.” When Christians, who according to Sithole should believe in the Bible, doubts and criticizes it, they do not experience miracles as a consequence. We are thus dealing with several arguments here that address different problems. A first problem is whether miracles are existing phenomena, a second is whether Christians need to believe in miracles. When it comes to the first problem, Sithole’s thesis is that miracles are indeed existing phenomena, and his primary argument seems to be:All strange events without natural explanation are miracles.I have witnessed strange events without natural explanation.What I have witnessed must exist.Therefore, miracles exist.Is this argument sound? If an event truly has no natural explanation, it should be dubbed supernatural, per definition. However, our definition of miracles in 3.1 says that it is an event that is other than the ordinary process of nature and manifests divine activity. This should not be much of a problem to Sithole’s argument though, since he should agree with that. We could thus modify the argument to:(1a) All strange events without natural explanation that manifest divine activity are miracles.(2a) I have witnessed strange events without natural explanation that manifest divine activity.What I have witnessed must exist.(4) Therefore, miracles exist.Still, objections could be raised to premises (2a) and (3). What some may interpret as supernatural may very well have a natural explanation. Someone who thinks that s/he hears the voice of God may hallucinate, and someone who “comes back from the dead” may not have been dead at all - it may just have seemed like it. Furthermore, there may be phenomena that science cannot explain now that may be explicable in the future - just like we now know things that were inexplicable in medieval times (such as why earthquakes occurs). But can Sithole’s claims about hearing God, receiving a supernatural language, multiplication of food and raising the dead etc., really be reduced to misunderstandings, or to phenomena that will be explained in the future? That seems unreasonable. It is then more likely that Sithole is simply lying or exaggerating. His anecdotes have little proof value, and even in the cases where I have talked to others who witness about miracles connected to Sithole’s prayers, I could not attain medical or scientific confirmation. While Sithole seems to be a genuine believer in (2a), it is hard for his stories to prove (2a), and thus (4), to someone else.Unlike Hammar, Sithole is not referring to science when arguing for his thesis. He puts a lot of trust in personal experience and in a literal interpretation of the Bible, and is not even trying to play on the academic field when reasoning - rather, criticizing or doubting Scripture will only result in that God withdraws miracles, so the skepticism that science is basically founded on is damaging. This does not necessarily mean that Sithole despises knowledge per se, but his view on skeptical science and Bible criticism is definitely not the same as Hammar’s.Another thesis Sithole supports is that Christians need to believe in miracles. This presupposes (4) but does not automatically follow it - one could argue that one does not need to believe that tomatoes are red, even if is true, in order to be a Christian. Sithole, however, believes that miracles are necessary for a “true Christian” to believe in, and he criticizes how Westerners doubt the Bible. His argument could be formulated:No true Christian doubts the Bible.The Bible says that miracles exist.Therefore, people that doubt that miracles exist are not true Christians.Premise (5) is very hard to prove though. It is of course reasonable to say that “true” Christians should be like the early Christians, since they coined the term (Acts 11:26). And the earliest sources for the lives and thoughts of the early Christians are collected in the New Testament. But the Bible rarely talks about itself, being a collection of many different writings. 2 Tim 3:16 says that all Scripture is “useful”, but this probably only refers to the Old Testament, and it does not say that doubt is unlawful. A Bible passage that does speak negatively about doubt is Jam. 1:6-8, but it neither mentions the Bible, nor that doubt would not make you a true Christian (only that your prayers will not be heard). A Christian is simply never defined in the Bible as someone who does not doubt the Bible, and, thus, this argument falls apart, even if we would find support for (6).5.2 K.G. HammarK.G. Hammar does not cite personal experience very much in order to defend his belief that miracles, as defined in 3.1, are not historical realities (such as “I have never experienced someone being raised from the dead”). It could still be argued that they play a role though; the mystic experiences he says that he has had confirm his belief in a constantly present, non-intervening deity rather than a divine wonderworker. He does also refer to the Bible several times but is obviously using a much more allegorical interpretation than Sithole. He seems to agree though that the biblical writers were not as naturalist as he is; even if he gives arguments for why several miracle stories probably were intended to be metaphors, he is also arguing that they shared a false worldview: the ancient worldview. The modern worldview is impacted by the science of evolution and is a more accurate description of reality, and our understanding of miracles must adapt to this worldview, Hammar argues. Based on this, I would say that Hammar’s primary source to his theology of miracles is reason. If the worldview with most scientific support denies supernatural miracles, then we should deny supernatural miracles. Of course, science is not only about reason and logic but also empirical research, which is some form of experience; however, the experiences we are talking about here when discussing sources of theology are personal, subjective impressions - something that Hammar is not referring to when arguing for his thesis.Hammar’s main argument against belief in miracles could be formulated: All worldviews based on science are reasonable The modern evolutionary worldview is based on scienceTherefore, the modern evolutionary worldview is reasonableThe modern evolutionary worldview denies supernatural divine intervention We should believe what is reasonableWe should believe in the modern evolutionary worldview (from (10) and (12))Therefore, we should deny supernatural divine interventionThe first part of the argument, (8)-(10), seems very sound - it is reasonable to found one’s worldview on scientific knowledge, since scientific knowledge maps the truth of reality as far as we can understand it. (12)-(13) is also very plausible. But premise (11) is problematic. Science recognizes, as we have seen, that there are many inexplicable phenomena in the world, and rather than denying acts of God, it is agnostic about whether the inexplicable events were caused by God. While methodological naturalism is praxis in natural science, metaphysical naturalism is a view that is not mandatory for either scientists or the educated public. Science does not deny the existence of supernatural divine intervention for the same reason as it does not deny the existence of God: this is outside its field, and thus it is agnostic instead.This is why many religious scientists believe that miracles exist, as well as non-scientists who still accept the modern evolutionary worldview. Pope Francis is an example of such a person.Let us continue with Hammar’s arguments against a specific miracle, the virgin birth of Jesus. He is arguing that those who thinks that the virgin birth of Jesus is historical are not consistent if they do not also believe in the virgin birth of Augustus. Basically, they say:All ancient sources that speak of virgin births are trustworthy The gospels of Matthew and Luke are ancient sources that speak of a virgin birthTherefore, the gospels of Matthew and Luke are trustworthySuetonius’ De Vita Caesarum is an ancient source that speaks of a virgin birthSuetonius’ De Vita Caesarum is not trustworthyThe argument of Hammar’s opponents is thus self-contradictory and non-valid, according to Hammar (based on (15) and (18), (19) must obviously read that it is trustworthy). However, this seems to be a straw man argument, since it is very seldom that Christians actually believe (15). They do not believe in the Bible just because it is any ancient book that describes miracles, but they often have other reasons to believe in the Bible instead of pagan works.Let us finally look at Hammar’s argument to why Christians need not to believe in miracles:Christians must only believe in what the Bible says they must believe in The Bible does not say that Christians must believe in miracles, but believe in JesusTherefore, Christians must not believe in miracles, but believe in JesusPremise (20) seems reasonable, since we have already stated that the Bible brings us the initial definition of a Christian. However, premise (21) is doubtful. Paul writes “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom. 10:9). Being a Christian seems then to require belief in Jesus’ resurrection, according to Paul. Paul reaffirms this in 1 Cor. 15:1-4, and in verses 12-19 he argues forcefully that Christians therefore cannot believe that it is impossible to be raised from the dead: "For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins." (1 Cor. 15:16-17)If one argues that Christians must believe in what the Bible says they must believe in (20), resurrection from the dead should be included. And resurrection from the dead is undoubtedly a miracle, that contradicts the thesis that supernatural divine intervention should be denied (14). It would still be possible to believe that Jesus was not born of a virgin or deny other individual miracles, but not miracles in general; and if Christians need to believe that God can raise people from the dead, one could ask why they should deny that he can heal the sick, multiply bread or conceive virgins?5.3 Pope FrancisFinally, we have pope Francis. He cites experience to why he believes that the devil and angels exist, and he has been involved in declaring miracles based on scientific inexplicability. It is also based on his experience that he became more open to the Catholic charismatic movement. We must remember though that Catholics that do not define themselves as charismatic generally also believe in miracles - Francis’ view on demons, angels, healing and other supernatural phenomena are in line with official Catholic teaching, as we saw in 3.2. It is part of his church tradition, and thus it could be argued that this is his most important source. But maybe he accepts the traditional Catholic view on miracles because of his experience, or biblical interpretation, or philosophical reasoning? Unfortunately, the material I have managed to collect does not reveal much of the beginning of Jose Mario Bergoglio’s theology on this matter, and it is thus unclear which source is most vital to him.What can be seen though is that Francis in a way takes a middle position between Sithole and Hammar both when it comes to both biblical interpretation and when it comes to science. Like Sithole, he believes that the biblical miracles are historical realities, but like Hammar, he emphasizes the spiritual and metaphorical meaning. Francis also believe, like Sithole, that miracles happen today, and like Hammar, he believes that theology should not conflict with science - thus he is awaiting scientific confirmation before he declares a recovery a miracle.When arguing for the existence of angels and the devil, however, Francis does not refer to science but to experience, as stated above. Let us analyze the angelic example:If we hear inner exhortations to do or not to do things, then it is the voice of our guardian angelWe hear inner exhortations to do or not to do thingsTherefore, it is the voice of our guardian angel(23) needs not to be true: maybe we simply “hear” our own thoughts or reasonings, discussing with ourselves what is moral to do. Even if one assumes that a spiritual being is talking to us, how can we know it is not a djinn, demon or forefather? If one already believes in guardian angels this could possibly be an argument for how they communicate, but it is not a good argument for their existence.What could potentially be a good argument for the existence of miracles, however, is the canonization process where the pope declares that a miracle has taken place after scientific verification. The reasoning behind this process could be formulated:If a medically inexplicable recovery takes place after prayer, then it is a miraculous healing.A medically inexplicable recovery takes place after prayer.Therefore, it is a miraculous healing.Is this a sound argument? Premise (26) seems to correspond to (1a), and thus our definition of a miracle. And as we have seen in 4.3, medically inexplicable recoveries have indeed taken place after prayer, such as the disappearance of Floribeth Mora Diaz’ brain aneurysm, which was confirmed by dr. Alejandro Vargas. So it seems then that (27) is true. Does this mean that (28) also is true, and that we have found a sound argument for the existence of miracles?I am sorry to disappoint. As was the case with (1a)-(4), the problem is that even if something is inexplicable for our contemporary scientific knowledge, one cannot exclude that in the future, we will have an explanation to why a brain aneurysm disappears. There is also a possibility that the patient was misdiagnosed. So while it is true that an event or recovery that truly has no natural explanation is supernatural, it is hard to prove that no natural explanation exist at all when a scientist or physician fails to see one.On the other hand, if we assume that miraculous healings are existing phenomena, then they would manifest according to (27). If pope Francis declares that a recovery is a miracle even though the doctor says that it has a natural explanation, he would have a problem. But as it is, his belief does not contradict science as we know it. Inexplicable phenomena are a fact - but whether one calls them miracles or not is dependent on one’s faith.5.4 ConclusionSurprise Sithole is a strong believer in miracles, basing this on his miraculous experiences and a literal reading of the Bible. K.G. Hammar does not believe that miracles happen, based on science, his metaphorical Bible reading and non-supernaturalist experiences. Pope Francis believes, like Sithole, in miracles both as Biblical and contemporary events, and like Hammar, he believes that science confirms his view. He interprets the Bible both literally and metaphorically, and his experience and church tradition confirm his supernaturalist belief.These three viewpoints corresponds roughly to each church leader’s church tradition, which is not very surprising. Although most charismatics are not making as astonishing claims as Sithole does, and many Lutherans would not be as naturalist as Hammar is, they reflect the charismatic movement’s positivism and the Lutheran tradition’s skepticism towards miracles. Likewise, the pope reflects the official Catholic teaching, even though there are probably many Catholics who would not express themselves as he does.Proving that miracles exist is difficult - whether one interprets inexplicable phenomena as divine intervention or unknown natural processes depends on one’s faith. It is easier to argue that Christians must believe in at least one miracle, resurrection from the dead. While K.G. Hammar seems to deny this, Sithole and Francis acknowledges it and generalizes this so that they believe in all kinds of miracles as existing historical and contemporary events.6. 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