The things that Christians say - episode 4
Dr. Mike Licona
Dr. Licona also recounts this same story on his The Risen Jesus podcast titled "The Historian and Miracles" from Feb of 2020 as well - it goes like this:
"So I look at that and I'd say, well, that's a class A miracle. Now you could try to come up with some naturalistic explanation, but that would seem extremely unlikely. The fact that it occurred in a context charged with the religious significance and the timing of it would suggest that this is indeed a miracle."
I can't verify any of this story. I have no idea what city or state this incident took place. Googling "Lloyd Reed" yields nothing helpful.
But let's just assume that Dr. Licona's retelling of the story is accurate. Is it "reasonable" to conclude that, as a direct result of the congregations prayers for Lloyd Reed that July 4th afternoon, Lloyd Reed miraculously awoke from his coma?
In Dr. Liconas mind, in his very educated mind, this was obviously a miracle - specifically due to the timing - Lloyd came out of his coma at the same moment that his church congregation, miles away, were praying for him. Dr. Licona is sold on this. He seems to believe that this is actual evidence that miracles do occur, and are the result of the actions of the Christian God, as prompted by the prayers of the followers of the Christian God. He is even a tad amused that Pinecreek Doug finds this example unconvincing.
Bear in mind that the "miracle" story that he is recounting is from 1987, and the video is from 2019. Dr. Licona is having to reach back 32 years for his best, most favorite miracle story - why - because apparently Dr. Licona can't think of a more recent miracle story, or God just hasn't done anything lately.
Honestly, hearing and reading claims (beliefs) such as these make me cringe, especially claims from well educated individuals who one might assume have a more reasonable view of reality.
So many questions:
1 - How does Dr. Licona know that Lloyd awoke from his coma at the moment he was being prayed for? What if Lloyd actually came out of his coma 5 minutes, 15 minutes, or an hour before the congregation began to pray, unbeknownst to them? Would this scenario lessen, in Dr. Licona's mind, the chance that it was a miraculous healing? If in his mind, the real evidence is the timing, then in his mind, a change in the timing should change his claim of correlation, shouldn't it? Unfortunately, Dr. Licona offers no way to confirm that 4:00pm is the magic hour. This could be just another miracle claim that has suffered embellishment over the many (32) years.
2 - Had people in the church been praying for Lloyd during the previous 21 days since he was in a coma? - of course they had been. Why did God wait 21 days to wake Lloyd up? What benefit was there in waiting 21 days rather than 11 days, or 1 day? Timing is timing, whether it took ten days or ten years. Is there really a difference when it comes to miracles, really?
3 - How did this miraculous incident further the kingdom of God? Does Dr. Licona believe that his retelling of this story will influence skeptics to have a "change of heart"? Does he know of anyone who has "come to Christ" after hearing his retelling of this story? Can he identify a single skeptic who, after hearing this story, has said to Dr. Licona, "Well, you have convinced me - God does answer prayer" ?
4 - If it was a miracle, wouldn't it have been better if Lloyd's congregation had of been praying for ALL of the patients in Lloyd's room to be healed? Wouldn't the healing (waking from their coma) of all of the patients at the same time, 4:00 pm on July 4th, have been an incredible testament to the "God performs miracles" claim? If Lloyd's church family didn't pray for all of his fellow comatose room-mates, why didn't they?
5 - What if the day before Lloyd awoke, another congregation was praying for another coma patient in Lloyd's room, and the very moment that they were praying, that patient died - how would Dr. Licona interpret that occurrence? I mean, timing is everything, correct? Would that have been evidence that God can and will, on occasion, do the exact opposite of what Christians pray for?
6 - Does Mike believe that Lloyd's recovery from the coma was a direct result of the prayers uttered on that day? Or isn't it possible that God heard the prayers that were uttered on the very first day of Lloyd's coma and decided to wait 20 more days before waking him up. Or - isn't it even possible that God had always intended to wake Lloyd on the 21st day of his coma, regardless of any prayers uttered? If God has everything pre-planned (Acts 4:27-28) then He didn't wake Lloyd up on July 4th because of the July 4th prayers - he was always going to wake him up on that day at that time - and Dr. Licona should not claim this coincidence of timing as evidence for a miracle from God. If no one had ever prayed for Lloyd's healing he still would have awoke from his coma exactly as he did, July 4th at 4:00pm.
7 - Wouldn't it be reasonable to be extremely skeptical of this miracle story in light of the sheer multitude of instances where individuals and congregations pray for a healing, and seemingly the prayers go unanswered and the subject of those prayers is obviously never healed and / or obviously dies from their injury or illness? If 1,000 Christians pray for a specific need, and only 10 of those 1,000 have their need met at the moment of their prayer utterance, what are we to conclude from this?
8 - What was Lloyd's condition after waking up - did he have lingering brain damage or did he awake to his normal function as he was before the accident?
9 - I wonder if Dr. Licona considers the normal, natural event - such as waking from a coma - to be a "miracle" only when the awakening is directly linked to a specific time when a prayer was made to the Christian God? And what if the coma had lasted only a few hours and the family was in the hospital waiting room praying for their loved one to be healed - and the patient awoke? What if the coma had lasted a few days, same scenario, and the patient awoke - miracle? What if the loved one had been in a coma for years or decades and the family had given up on praying years ago, and then suddenly the patient awoke - miracle?
How does one distinguish between a miracle and a natural, normal occurrence?
~ ~ ~
Seriously Dr. Licona - you bring up an instance from 32 years ago, claiming that it is an example of a miraculous healing from God prompted by the prayers of your fellow Christians, and you do this while completely ignoring the multitude of instances where God seemingly ignore's the prayers of millions of Christians.
What I find curious is that Dr. Licona writes a 24 page paper on "Historians and Miracle Claims" claiming that historians should allow for the serious investigation of biblical miracle claims, and yet what he offers in the above mentioned video clip is an entirely uncorroborated miracle claim from his own mouth, and he is then perplexed that Pinecreek Doug doesn't view it the way he views it. Dr. Licona is perfectly satisfied to claim that it was a miracle while completely ignoring the fact that coincidences do occur - people get better, and millions upon millions of people stay sick or die in spite of all the prayers made on their behalf.
~the exact cause of the coma (type of brain injury)
~the chances of a person recovering (and to what degree) from this type of coma
~what the recovery status of Lloyd Reed is currently, 35 years on
~what is the current status of his coma room mates, and whether or not they were prayed for.
In matters of religion it is very easy to deceive a man, and very hard to undeceive him.
~Pierre Bayle, Dictionary (1697)
Comments
Post a Comment