Christian apologists are liable to opposite errors: (1) Blind dogmatism: to fail to listen to opponents, recognize nuance, or ever concede anything, and (2) Blind conciliation: to concede to opposing arguments too quickly, without first coming to grips with the rich tradition of Christian thought on a given topic.
I'm afraid the young philosopher Seth Hart makes the latter error in his argument "The Glaring Problem with the Argument From Miracles: Bad logic, incomplete arguments, and the strange case of Prahlad Jani."
Hart is an Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology at John Brown University. He recently received his PhD from Durham U, and has also studied at Oxford and at Regent College. What he has not apparently done is read my book, Jesus and the Religions of Man, and maybe not C.S. Lewis' much more famous Miracles, either. If he had, he should not have made the arguments against the evidentiary value of Christian miracles that he did. Because frankly, it does not appear to me that Dr. Hart has a very clear idea of what a miracle is, yet. His argument seems somewhat tentative, so hopefully he'll be open to these opposing arguments.
The Case
Hart begins by saying he "advocates" miracle claims, and is open to using them as fodder for Christian apologetics. But his research on "eastern spirituality and miracle claims" have placed a bump in that road.
I've been studying Asian religions for decades, including a "miracle-working" Buddhist guru for my MA, so I'll be happy to help him over that speed bump, if possible. Though let me say from the outset that I regard the term "eastern religion" as misleading. East is a direction, not a doctrine nor a set of practices. Chinese traditions have little more connection to Indian traditions, despite Buddhism, than either do to European traditions. Never mind many other great civilizations and tribes in Asia, and the complexity of European and American beliefs.
But when it comes to the wonder workings of famous gurus, Hart is talking about something pretty common in East and West. He reports:
"In 2010, a scientific team of 35 researchers at the Indian Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS) undertook one of the most controversial studies ever done. Eighty-year-old Prahlad Jani claimed to have been visited by the goddess Amba; the goddess, in return for his devotion, would sustain him with nectar he claimed flowed through a hole in the roof of his mouth. Thus, he could survive without food or water. That, at least, was his claim—a claim that could be tested."
The team placed Jani under constant observations for two weeks in a hospital, under the gaze of CCTV cameras and a "large multidisciplinary team of scientists and physicians." After fifteen days:
"He had not eaten, drunk, defecated, or urinated—something seemingly impossible for any human being. Moreover, his body didn’t even seem to offer any evidence that he was fasting."
Hart recognizes some apparent flaws in the study: Jani gargled, bathed, sometimes left the CCTV field of view, and received devotees. But he thinks these flaws poorly explain the results, and put Christian apologists in a bind:
"There is an ironic twist here, for the Christian cannot demand less skepticism here than they’ve resented skeptics demanding of them.
"Now, do I believe Jani survived fifteen days without food and water? I’m not sure. Given my Christian convictions and the background of Hindu religiosity that colors this account, it certainly causes me to sweat. The most obvious, knee-jerk reaction would be an appeal to the demonic. Didn’t Jannes and Jambres duplicate the miracles of Moses? However, I feel deeply uncomfortable about such appeals; couldn’t the adherent of another religion surmise that the miracles supporting my religion were the products of dark, deceptive spirits?"
Seth then points to Catholic "miracles" at Lourdes, Fatima, and Zeitoun, which he says he found "intriguing," and says "they together form a bulwark of evidence that might buckle the knees of even the most confident Protestant."
But it is especially hard for a Catholic to deal with such "miracles," Seth asserts:
"Ones like Jani’s cannot so easily be accommodated, as they involve pagan deities. Nor could the Catholic simply take the skeptic’s approach. Jani’s experiment was done in a controlled scientific environment—a privilege not held by most of Catholicism’s most famous miracles (and, to be fair, the same could be said of Protestant miracles). To exercise this level of skepticism would, at the very least, risk special pleading . . . If Jani’s inedia was the product of demons, could not also the same be said of Catherine of Siena, St. Lidwina, Saint Nicholas von Flüe, Therese Neumann, and the Venerable Domenica dal Paradiso, who all reportedly achieved the same feat?"
"I've met a growing number of Eastern-minded thinkers who fully affirm the bodily resurrection of Christ yet would call themselves closer to Hindus. Eastern religions often have the ability to accommodate competing religions’ miracle claims in a way Christianity does not. So have Catholics introduced a new standard of evidence to determine the true faith—one they’ll later learn to regret?
"I have not seen this question answered—nor much addressed—in these conversations, though perhaps I am wrong."
I don't know what conversations those might be. But let me address this challenge. I will begin by briefly describing my own research on a miracle-working "eastern" guru.
A Living Buddha for Bill Gates?
I first heard about the Taiwanese Buddhist Lu Shengyan, sometimes called a "living Buddha" by his disciples, from a couple who had joined his temple, and were convinced about the reality of the supernatural events occurring at it, but then became concerned that the sect was growing demonic. They left and became Christians. I decided to study his "True Buddha" movement for my MA at the University of Washington, under the supervision of the anthropologist Stevan Harrell, an atheist. This was convenient, because while Lu's network was international, his head temple was in Redmond, Washington, about a kilometer from Microsoft, and within driving distance of our house in North Seattle. (Though his fancy mansion, which I also visited once for a dramatic meeting, was past North Bend, near the mountains.)
Lu Shengyan attempted to "leak the secrets of Heaven:" to take esoteric Buddhism, the sort practiced in Tibet, and make it publicly available. He had written over 100 books leaking those secrets by the time I did my research. I read several, in English or Chinese, and found they shared the following qualities: (1) they were lively and well-written, with a Zhuang Zi-like sense of humor; (2) they were chock full of miracle claims, such as the time Lu rebuked the god of Mount Rainier for a drought, and then it rained; (3) they consistently exalted Lu, while some of the sect's materials attacked rival gurus. Indeed, when Lu arrived at his temple one day, I found I was the only one who didn't fall to the ground before him.
When I interviewed followers of the sect, they related many supernatural stories, of how Lu had saved them, or taught them by telepathy. An atheist Chinese mailman told me Lu was a con man who was in it for the women, while a Zen Buddhist nun told me he wasn't a good Buddhist because he ate meat. But the anecdotal evidence for supernatural events in his circle might pretty strong on its own -- it even convinced two people who left, as I noted.
But my face-to-face encounters with Lu Shengyan did NOT make me "sweat." I didn't find his act convincing. In fact, I ended my research on his movement not only with my faith intact, but my confidence in Christian miracles strengthened.
Nor does the story of Mr. Jani bother me in the slightest, aside from the troubling fact that some people find his act troubling.
I explained why I find Christ's acts so much more persuasive than those the likes of Lu Shengyan work in two chapters of Jesus and the Religions of Man. (Which I need to update for Amazon, and can only be obtained directly, now.) Let us begin with that word "miracle." Because I don't think either man did any miracles. I was inclined to side with the atheist post man, and dismiss Lu Shengyan as a colorful, story-telling con man. But feel free to add the adjective "demonized" if you prefer.
What is a Miracle?
In my 2000 book, Jesus and the Religions of Man, I argued that there are two kinds of alleged supernatural events, which I call "Miracle" and "Magic." Miracles are what you find in the gospels and in the Christian tradition at its most credible. Some Christian miracle claims, sorry to say, I do not find credible. But maybe God works outside of the Church on occasion, too: "He is not a tame lion." Magic is found almost everywhere, and is often conflated with Miracle, but the two are nothing alike. They are distinguished by five contrasting traits:
"1. Miracles ask to be verified: Magic insults the intelligence.
"2. Miracles tend to be practical: Magic is often showy.
"3. Miracles enhance human dignity: Magic makes us more or less than human.
"4. Miracles point to God: Magic points elsewhere.
"5. Miracles come in response to requests; Magic to demands."
I developed these criteria in view of personal and second-hand experiences with and historical study of allegedly supernatural acts. I give many examples in those two chapters. They generally agree with other accounts of miracles, for instance Craig Keener's three books on the subject, a book by Eric Metaxis, and with C. S. Lewis' more theoretical Miracles: A Preliminary Study. So there is nothing ad hoc about applying these criteria to a new Hindu guru.
It is clear, on four of these criteria, that Jani's alleged failure to drink or urinate for two weeks was not a "miracle" at all. It was a show with no practical value: he wasn't trying to make his way through the Sahara Desert to save a friend, for instance. God created the urinary track for a reason. Not using it makes Jani either more than or less than human, implying that the normal functions of the human body like are embarrassing, or that failure to use them lends one psychic power (as we will see). These accounts do not mention God, but glorify either Jani himself, or the alleged goddess Amba (again, see below). There is no sense of existential need followed by a request for help, like that of Elijah, or of many missionaries faced with trials. Jesus fasted in the wilderness to pray, but his miracles often involved feeding the hungry.
What about verification? Isn't this experiment an elaborate and unusually careful attempt to rationally support the supernatural powers of Jani or Amba?
More so than most magical tricks, granted, though magic acts do often pretend to be rationally verified, even while the audience knows the magician is up to some sleight of hand. James Randi, one such performer, apparently offered Jani a million dollars if he could reproduce this trick under controlled conditions. (Randi's challenge makes sense for magic, which arises from the will of the magician, but cannot work for miracles, in which God is in control, and cannot be bribed.)
And does it really follow that if an old man fails to drink or urinate for two weeks, the goddess Amba must be sustaining him? Even the missionary doctor Paul Brand was impressed by the ability Hindu holy men had developed to control the body. Others will suspect a trick -- he garbled, but did not drink anything? He took baths, but never let anything out? What was he doing off-camera? Were one or more of those reputable physicians in his pay?
And who is Amba? A rejected woman in a mythical story, who sought to gain magical powers by austerity in order to wreak revenge on an enemy, and then was turned part-time into a twisting river with crocodiles by her enemy's mother, Ganga. Here's part of the Wikipedia account, with key points highlighted:
"Amba gave up food and sleep, and practised asceticism standing still for six months in the Yamuna river valley, surviving only on air. She became emaciated and developed matted locks. After that, she stood in the waters of the Yamuna, without food and practiced austerities. After that, she spent time standing on her tip toes, having eaten only one fallen leaf of a tree. Her penance for twelve years started burning the heavens and the earth. She then went to Vatsa kingdom, in which many renowned sages lived. She roamed the kingdom, bathing in the sacred waters of the Ganges (Ganga) and the Yamuna. Then, she visited the ashrams of many sages . . . as well as sacred sites . . .. During her journey, she observed difficult vows and performed ablutions in the holy waters.
"The goddess Ganga appeared before Amba and listened to Amba's tale that her austerities were aimed to destroy Bhishma, Ganga's son. The angry goddess Ganga replied that since Amba's mind was crooked, she would become a crooked and tortuous river, which will remain dry for eight months and flow in the four months of the rainy season. Ganga declared that the bathing places along the river's course would be in difficult terrain, and it will be infested with crocodiles and other fierce creatures. Amba wandered practicing severe vows and forgoing food and water for months. She visited many tirthas in this time and finally returned to Vatsa, where Ganga's curse materialized. Though half of her became the river Amba, the other half remained human, due to her ascetic merit."
Indian mythology is full of such stories. Nothing could be less like the miracles of Jesus in the gospels, along all five criteria listed above. This tale is poetic, but not (to me) in the slightest bit believable. There is, in fact, no reason to believe that this "Amba" is more than a minor character in a famous ancient Indian epic, like one of the tragic females in accounts of the fall of Troy. She is, in that story, a pure magician, gathering magical powers through austerity to destroy her enemy.
So at most, claims about Jani partly meet only one out of five criteria for a true miracle, and probably not that one, either. It may be impressive if some old man has developed the ability to not urinate for two weeks while also not drinking anything. But I am not a doctor, and really don't care. Perhaps one comes to see peeing in a more positive light as one grows older.
And if this does require supernatural action, then the "traditional Christian" response that it must be demonic actually fits the facts rather well. Amba is not a nice person. If she is now a minor goddess of some sort, well that is literally what daemon meant in Greek. Even taken quite literally and (I might add) gullibly, this story in no way conflicts with or undermines the truth of Christianity, or the redemption Jesus really did bring to India, told in detail by the likes of Vishal and Ruth Mangalwadi.
Like those of Lu Shengyan, Jani's story does not even slightly incline me to believe in Amba, or in the goodness of either guru, or to doubt true Christian miracles. In fact, such stories -- which are pretty common, even in the Christian tradition -- serve to highlight the credibility of Christianity, for three reasons:
1. By contrast, true miracles are not arbitrary. They fit, Lewis pointed out, within the pattern of Creation by a rational God as seen in Nature. What God does in Nature on a large scale, Jesus did locally. Jesus feeds the hungry, he does not magically make bodies no longer need food or drink. That is what God does through the fecundity of Nature, feeding us all through the Earth's crops.
2. How is it that scholars keep overlooking the obvious qualities of Christian miracles? Some New Testament scholars compare the gospels to the Life of Apollonius of Tyana or (for Bart Ehrman) to the Polish rabbi Baal Shem Tov. (See my Jesus is No Myth for a refutation of Ehrman's arguments.) These gurus do magic, not miracle. Their tricks are arbitrary and impractical, I show (it doesn't take much showing), glorify gurus not God, make us less than human (Baal is reincarnated as a fish!), and get their way by magical displays of power, not prayer.
British philosopher Stephen Law, with whom I have crossed swords on this subject, made exactly the same mistake. (I respond to his pushback here and here.) He tells a fanciful story about one Bart (no known relation to Bart Ehrman or Simpson), who flaps his arms and flies at a party in Oxford, for no clear reason but to show off, and compares that to gospel miracles. This only shows that he has not read gospel accounts of miracles with much perception. It seems neither has Bart Ehrman, despite his real expertise.
But the fact that so many skeptics, and even Christians, overlook the yawning gaps between Miracles and Magic, tells us something about the weakness of skepticism when confronted with the gospels. If there were better parallels, they would have found them, because people like Ehrman, Pagels, and Carrier do read a lot. If they were more observant, they would not make such comparisons. But we are enveloped in a fog of blinding materialism, which sometimes obscures the vision of Christians as well.
(3) The gospels and other early Christian accounts (Acts, even Augustine's stories) are remarkably coherent in how they describe miracles. Nearly all such acts clearly fit the definition I give above, while apocryphal tales of Jesus resemble magic, as do stories about Apollonius of Tyana. Miracles from reliable modern missionaries also tend to fit the Gospel pattern.
Given that highly-educated scholars so often overlook this distinction, it seems unlikely that the early Christians all got together and made up the gospel accounts, carefully filling them with just the sort of supernatural event that Lewis or I would find striking a couple thousand years later, while leaving out this other, far more popular sort. It is more likely that such miracles are, in fact, traces of divine action in history.
If God acts, His actions will not be arbitrary, any more than the laws of physics are arbitrary, but will fit into a larger creative pattern. "The gods" are often silly creatures, and might I suppose do something as meaningless as helping an old man not pee to impress the Indian Army brass. But if India gets into another fight with the PLA in the Himalaya Mountains, I'd advise them to bring canteens, and build latrines. Because generally speaking, I think God wants us to plan around the laws he has made for His cosmos, and not thumb our noses at the Laws of Nature to show off. A desperate prayer in a time of need, may be another matter. Brother Yun tells stories of similar miracles when he was imprisoned. His account may also have been invented, but it comes closer to meeting my definition of "miracle" because that was practical and glorified God.
I have other reasons for disbelieving Hinduism, and therefore marginal Hindu deities out of epic mythology like Amba. But that is a topic for another day.
Hart's Argument in Brief
Seth Hart ends by offering the following abbreviated version of his argument. I'll quote his final comments in full, then give an also-brief reply, lettered a-h.
d. Miracles would, if they occur, certainly make the existence of a supernatural realm, or God, far more likely. But other explanations can cover any phenomenon, such as the idea that we live in a computer simulation. So validation can never take us so far as absolute proof. Faith should not be blind, but an element of trust is necessary to know God -- or even other people.
"2) Miracles occur that seemingly validate certain religious claims.
"3) Therefore, we are warranted in believing those religious claims.
"Premise 1 is arguably satisfied by other religious claims—those that are incompatible with Christianity. (e) Appealing to deception by spiritual beings undermines premise 1, thus damaging the argument. (f) Accepting the two premises would seemingly entail embracing something other than orthodox Christianity to account for these miracles (like religious pluralism). (g) The last resource would be to undermine miracle claims emerging in other religions, but this risks special pleading without demonstrating that every single one fails to satisfy the same evidential benchmark reached by Christian miracle claims. (h) As far as I am aware (i), we have not come close to this. This is not to say that it can’t be done but only that it hasn’t.
e. In a lifetime of studying world religions, I have seen little evidence that any non-Christian religion offers convincing evidence for genuine miracles comparable to those in the gospels. Master Lu, when I tested him, failed.
f. The argument here seems to be that if some supernatural events involve evil spirits, then maybe they all do. But we differentiate on the mundane level between honest and dishonest people. Given that we live in a world that follows laws, and that science demonstrates we can know those laws, it follows that something or Somone stands behind natural events that can be trusted, who shows integrity, and which is greater than mere "spiritual beings." So the traditional Christian distinction between God and common spirits is hard to avoid, even if this experiment was valid.
g. I describe the deep, I think irredeemable, flaws of Religious Pluralism in Fulfillment: A Christian Model of Religions, Chapter Eight.
h. Hart has not considered the possibility that God may heal people, or do other acts of mercy or judgement, outside of the Christian revelation. But why should Christians assume that God never hears the prayers of a desperate Buddhist with a sick daughter? Or of an oppressed people?
I find both the "con man" and "demonizing" hypotheses for Lu Shengyan's show more plausible than that God truly worked through such a vessel, to be sure.
But Christianity is ultimately a package deal. Jesus' miracles are credible not only because of their character and the evidence behind them, but because of His character, and because of much else in the world that points to the salvation which He brought. (And which can be historically verified, as I try to do in How Jesus has Liberated Women.)
Hinduism is incredible, to me, not merely because this or that guru seems like a con man or in league with dark powers, but because the whole system seems worldly at best, ungodly at worst. But these patterns of evidence and reasoning reinforce one another.
i. And Seth admits he is not very aware of what Christians have said about this subject. Hopefully this exercise has suggested other facts for him and others who ask this question, to take into account.
