OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
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User ID: 359
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
23hr ago
I think we agree on a lot. I didn't become Catholic because of miracle claims, but as a Catholic I am able to accept miracle claims into my worldview. It doesn't hurt me if a miracle claim turns out to have been natural causes, a deception, or something in between - both of those explanations make sense in my world view. But I also am able to accept situations where it really does look like the laws of physics were violated somehow. And once I allow for that, there do seem to be a lot of credible miracles tied to Catholic saints or what is called "Vindicatory" miracles surrounding Catholic claims.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
23hr ago
Yeah, the winning combo for Total War is to have the women in manufacturing and food production so men can fight. If we want this to be "drafted' as well out of a sense of fairness then that's fine, there can be separate female draft where if your number gets pulled you move to a potato processing facility in Idaho (if you don't have a kid under 2).
Why would I deny a list of ancient miracle healings performed by Apollo? God loves all His creatures and may bestow on any of us a healing if we try to reach out to Him the way we know how.
Actual people's medical records are not going to be available online in the clear. I'm sorry. If you're a doctor/researcher you can request them. Does the Church need to digitize more? No question there. Maybe in 100 years a lot of the original copies of witness testimony will be searchable online. They are working on it, but due to the age of the documents and the fact that many are handwritten it is being done with great care.
For the Catholic Church to recognize a miracle healing in modern times, there needs to be objective criteria indicating the disease before the healing, the healing needs to be spontaneous, and it needs to be complete, no remission.
- The 1st criterion is that the disease is serious, of unfavorable prognosis.
- Secondly, the disease must be known and listed by medicine.
- Thirdly, this disease must be organic, lesional, that is to say that there are objective, biological, radiological criteria, everything that currently exists in medicine; which means that still today we will not recognize cures of pathologies without specific objective criteria such as psychic, psychiatric, functional, nervous diseases, etc. (this does not mean that we cannot cure these diseases
- Fourth, there should not be treatment to which healing could be attributed.
- The 5th criterion concerns the moment of healing itself: healing must be sudden, sudden, instantaneous, immediate and without convalescence.
- Finally, after the healing, there are still two criteria: it must not simply be a regression of the symptoms but a return of all the vital functions, and finally, that it is not simply a remission but a healing, that is to say, lasting and definitive.
The existence of objective medical records indicating a disease that can be measured by outside instruments, and then the instantaneous reversal of the disease which is long lasting, is objective criteria and cannot be dismissed as "human cognition, social dynamics, the malleability of memory."
This is an interesting article published by an athiest medical historian who studied the Vatican archives for three years. Dr. Duffin notes:
What diseases were healed through the intercession of saints? Cancer, orthopedic, and neurological illnesses were steadily prevalent in all time periods, but later cases demanded ever-more-stringent proof of diagnosis with, for example, tissue pathology in cancer, X-ray films in orthopedics, and imaging scans or nerve-conduction studies in neurology.
She goes on to report:
Further to my surprise, the Vatican does not and never did recognize miracles in people who eschew orthodox medicine to rely solely on faith. It strives to consider the latest in medical science; it does not want to be manipulated by the wiles of sensationalists or the aspirations of the gulli- ble. Virtually all healing files referred to the treating physicians by name, even if they did not testify in person. Only two complete files of physical healings made no reference to physicians: both were from the mid-1750s in the cause of John of Kanty (d. 1473).34 Doctors crowd these records.
The increasing medicalization of the Western world is evident. From 1800 forward, and across the complete transcripts that I have examined, the average number of doctors making an appearance in each record increases from approximately two to seven. The trend is apparent when expressed either by year of canonization (as shown in Figure 2) or by year of cure. Prior to 1800, the opinions and actions of physicians were described by nuns, monks, or priests; perhaps greater credence was given to witnesses in holy orders, or possibly, doctors were uninvited or unwilling to testify. By the late eighteenth century, however, attend- ing physicians were routinely summoned to give in-person descriptions of the illnesses and the care they had delivered. Even in the earliest records, medical men were mentioned, whether they testified or not. The same was true for other health providers, including dentists and midwives.
New technologies appear in the Vatican records soon after their invention; the aforementioned Wassermann test, elaborated from 1901 to 1906 to identify syphilis, was used in this 1929 case in its capacity as a “scientific fact,” equated with venereal disease.46 Medicalization is appar- ent in the doctors’ words and deeds recorded in many other files. For example, the stethoscope, first publicized in 1819, was used for diagnosis in a miracle worked eighteen years later.47 Three cases had been healed of respiratory ailments in that eleven-year interval where no stethoscope was used; following this miracle, the diagnosis of most heart or lung problems entailed auscultation as a matter of course. A thermometer was used in an Italian woman cured of postpartum fever in 1881.48 Similarly, as tubercu- losis waxed in importance throughout the nineteenth century, the failure to demonstrate Koch’s bacillus to confirm the diagnosis was prominent in medical reaction to a cure effected in 1885, only three years after Koch’s discovery.49 Photography appeared in a file from 1889.50 X rays together with fluoroscopy appeared in the miracle files less than five years after Roentgen’s famous demonstration.51 Blood pressure measurements soon followed.
Also she found many records of proposed miracles being rejected due to insufficient diagnostic criteria:
Testifying in 1908, a Corsican doctor justified his failure to order a bacteriological examination on the pleural effusion of a forty-nine-year- old nun during her illness three years earlier; he was forced to the abject admission that his diagnosis of tuberculosis had been merely “clinical.” With the benefit of hindsight, the three expert colleagues refused to believe that the nun’s ailment, though “grave,” had been tuberculosis and, therefore, beyond a natural cure.62 This disputed healing was not decisive for the pro- cess of Theophilus of Corte (d. 1740); more evidence was needed.63
This is a funny anecdote:
In 1834, a professorial expert criticized his more humble colleague’s use of bleeding some nineteen years earlier in the care of a middle-aged woman with fever; perversely, the supposed medical error made the cure all the more remarkable in his expert (but anachronistic) eyes: not only had the woman recovered from her illness, she had also managed to survive her doctor’s backward treatment.
How severe are these illnesses that are getting miracle claims?
In 1937, an expert physician claimed (quite wrongly at the time) that X-ray-proven tuberculosis was “axiomatically fatal” in the face of any treatment, whether natural or supernatural; he pointed to the patient’s 1926 recovery to insist that the treating physician’s diagnosis of tuberculosis must have been wrong in the first place.
I recommend reading the whole report, it's quite fun and full of interesting things. But the point is, the records are being kept in a complete form, the information gathered is as concrete as possible, reviewed by experts in the fields, and much different from some random rumor that could just be hearsay.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1d ago
Most of the primary resources are not on the internet, so it wouldn't be an interesting discussion. I could say, "Giovanni Savino's eye was completely blown out in an explosion, Savino has an feeling of a Catholic Saint's presence, then his eye was back. This is attested to by contemporaneous medical records and interviews with witnesses." And then someone would want a scan of the medical records, which I do not have. And so it goes.
If you are a physician or scientist you can contact the Lourdes Medical Bureau. Its records are open to any physician or scientist who wants to make their own investigation or challenge any particular case recognized as “miraculous.” They have incredibly stringent criteria and throw out 95% of cases most others consider to be genuine healing miracles.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1d ago
Yeah, I don't really get the blood thing and I'm not the one who brought it up. When it comes to Catholic miracles, there are a few different types:
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Miracles of healing or protection, which are generally something we believe God bestows on many of His children regardless of their religious affiliation. Just done for the sake of benevolence, or because there was something else that person was supposed to do, to live their lives as a witness to others of God's goodness.
That said there are some particularly Catholic contexts for certain healings, like Lordes. Lordes is really the biggest healing miracle site in the world with the best before/after documentation by doctors. -
Miracles related to states of spiritual ecstasy - levitation, visions, trances, etc. A component of very deep prayer that is good for its own sake, the visible signs of which likely are to spur on others to greater commitments to meditation and contemplation.
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Stigmata - Wounds of Jesus signifying a closeness to Jesus, which is also joined to His suffering in a special way for the salvation of souls.
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Bilocation/Apparitions - Saints on Earth and in Heaven appear in locations far removed from their physical body. Just seems nifty I guess, helpful to send a message you couldn't otherwise and receive a prayer request or provide counsel.
Often apparitions of Saints in Heaven are tied to a specific message ("increase devotion to X," "A great calamaty will befall if people don't pray," "I am going to clarify a contentious part of doctrine.") Then the apparition works a sign in the Heavens or on Earth to back up the message. -
Incorruptibility - Saintly bodies don't decompose in the same conditions other bodies do. This points forward in joyful hope to the world to come. St. Januarius's blood might be something like this.
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Eucharistic Miracles - Someone doubts the presence of Jesus, suddenly a visible change occurs that demonstrates the truth.
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Miracles where the visible sign persists long after the initial reason for it disappears to history. St. Januarius's blood might be a sign of this.
Or it might not be a sign of anything. The Catholic Church uses miracles as a sign that it is ok to canonize saints. It doesn't actually like taking a strong position on any specific miracle lest someone's faith be built entirely on that miracle. People who convert to Catholicism on the force of having an experience at Medjugorje are weird and have difficulty becoming spiritually mature. Instead, the only miracle that the Church professes as necessary to defend as reason to believe is the Resurrection of Jesus.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1d ago
Yeah, I think a lot of atheists just don't really look into it, or assume religious people don't actually experience scientifically evaluated miracles in the modern age, because it would be really challenging to their worldview.
Scott Alexander did a review of Fatima recently where he almost started to get worried, but then decided that there are other less clear claims of similar "Sun-dancing" miracles, which makes the first, most widely-attested and most inexplicable natural somehow? Whatever he needs to do to stay sane I guess.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2d ago
The apostles had a very specific charisim of miracles happening all the time, but there are plenty of miracles that have happened since then and are still happening today. St. Padre Pio's life is a more modern example of someone who had "apostolic" things happen all the time around him. There's the guy who's leg grew back, the Life of Christina the Astonishing, St. Joan of Arc, that one guy who could fly, etc. Does dying after consuming the Eucharist for the first time count as a miracle? I don't know.
It seems to me that there has been no end of miracles and miracle claims in the Catholic Church, though of course the sum total might be large but each individual person might not see one in their lifetime.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2d ago
Catholic Answers Apologist Jimmy Akin has argued that the Church has declared the 73 books cannon, but that it has not closed the cannon, meaning that other books could still enter cannon if they picked up a following.
But also I think this is one area that no one really found too important to get 100% correct until the proliferation of Bibles with the printing press.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4d ago
A change means that something had a potential to be something else and that potential was actualized (brought into existence where before it did not exist.) It's the whole argument.
Once upon at time, a High School literature teacher was introducing his students to Shakespeare. One student skimmed through Hamlet and said, "This story sucks. It's boring and doesn't make sense."
The teacher rightly responded, "Hamlet is not on trial. You are."
If everyone who has ever made the cosmological argument says, "No, the universe is not an example of an uncaused cause, instead it's in the other category we refer to," then maybe you don't understand the argument at all and should avoid it until you do.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4d ago
An unchanging God is not the same as a "hands-off" God. Instead, a classical theistic God is at every moment the cause of the existence of everything.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4d ago
Except that in the next microsecond, the universe will be different.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4d ago
It just means that it is not a thing without potential. The hypothesized God has no potential, the universe does.
I am just answering your question about why God isn't an "exception" to the cosmological argument but rather the cosmological argument describes what would make God different from that which we observe.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5d ago
Why can't the universe just be without a beginning, but a supposed god can?
The Universe could be without a beginning, but it is still contingent because it is composed of parts and has potentials. The universe doesn't have to be what it is now, in fact it is constantly changing. That makes it contingent, unlike the proposed God.
This is why the proposed God would be perfectly simple, composed of no parts, etc. Its existence would need to be identical to its essence. The universe does not match any of these criteria.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5d ago
Yeah, I think Ethan Muse is one of the more recent ones that began to believe in God due to investigating miracle claims.
OracleOutlook
🇺🇸 Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5d ago
If something can't come from nothing, why does God exist? And why does that answer not apply to the universe itself existing?
That's not the argument, that's an oversimplification of the argument. It's not that "nothing comes from nothing" like they sang in the Sound of Music. It's that everything that begins to exist has a cause. Or another way of saying it is that everything that is contingent has a reason for being the way it is instead of all the millions of ways it is not.
The argument then is not that God is an exception, but that God is not these things. God did not begin to exist, and God is not contingent, meaning He couldn't be anything other than what He is, or as the Philosophers call it, God is the/a Necessary Being - necessarily that which He is.
It's heavily implied in the Old Testament that the pagan gods are either the guardian angels of their entire nation or demons. It really isn't all that hard for me to accept.
You are misunderstanding. I can still point to plenty of proposed healings of blindness that are recent. The point Dr. Duffin is making is that as diagnostic criteria became more objective and instrumentalized, the more those aspects were required. Cures of illnesses that were not diagnosed with those criteria before the cure were thrown out.
Also, re:resurrection, did you see her section on how resurrection miracles turned into heart miracles due to advances in scientific understanding of death?
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