Miracles: A christian theological overview

Southern Medical Journal

Volumn 100, Issue 12, 2007, Pages 1236-1242

  Pinches, Charles ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SCRANTON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CHRISTIAN; HUMAN; LITERATURE; MIRACLE; NATURAL SCIENCE; RELIGION; REVIEW; SPIRITUAL HEALING; THEOLOGY; WORKER;

BIBLE; CHRISTIANITY; HISTORY, MEDIEVAL; HUMANS; PHILOSOPHY; RELIGION AND MEDICINE; SPIRITUALITY; THEOLOGY;

EID: 37349122177     PISSN: 00384348     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1097/SMJ.0b013e31815843cd     Document Type: Review

References (27)

1. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Translated by Attridge H, Hock RF. In: The Complete Gospels. (New York, Harper Collins, 1992).
2. As has been lately popularized by a book like Brown D, The Da Vinci Code (New York, Doubleday, 2003), in the roughly 200-year period following Jesus's death, a variety of stories were written about him. Four of these, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, circulated widely in the Christian church and were understood as inspired by God. As such, they were taken up into the Church's sacred scripture or "canon." The other stories, which perhaps circulated for a time in splinter Christian groups like the Gnostics, typically give a quite different sort of picture of Jesus, and so also of God. We refer to this group of stories simply as "noncanonical."
3. Infancy Gospel of Thomas, 3:2.
4. Infancy Gospel of Thomas, 3:5.
5. Jesus says here that the girl is only "sleeping." For a full range of the healing miracles in the canonical gospels, including comparative lists, see Wilkinson J, The Bible and Healing (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2000), especially pp 66-69,
6. and Remus H, Jesus as Healer (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1997).
7. Since the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, depend on each other in various ways, there are many miracle stories that appear in duplicate or triplicate.
8. Summa Contra Gentiles, III, cii.
9. See Summa Theologiae, I-II. 1.3.
10. See Pinches C, Theology and Action. (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2002), especially Chapters 4 and 5.
11. John numbers some of these seven signs for us. In Chapter 4, we hear of a healing of a royal official's son, after which John tells us that this was "the second sign Jesus did when he came to Galilee from Judea" (4:54). 10. See, for instance, Rhoads D, Michie D. Mark as Story. (Philadelphia, Fortress, 1982).
12. This is especially prominent in the Gospel of Mark, where the "messianic secret" functions so centrally.
13. Peter, for instance, is walking into the Jewish temple and encounters a cripple begging for alms. He says to the man "I have neither silver nor gold, but what I have I give to you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk" (Acts 3:6) [italics added].
14. See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion. (4.19.6).
15. For an example of this proliferation of miracles, see Bede's A History of the English Church and People, especially Book 3, Chapters 9-19.
16. "Of miracles." In: Flew A, ed. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. In: On Human Nature and the Understanding. (New York, Collier Books, 1962) pp 115-136.
17. Issues regarding the "ethics of belief," for example, whether we have a responsibility to scrutinize and doubt whatever is received by tradition or reported to us, have often been discussed since Hume. See, for instance, the discussion between W.K. Clifford in his essay "The Ethics of Belief" and William James in his "The Will to Believe." These appear together in Baruch B, ed. Readings in the Philosophy of Religion. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1974) pp 241-264.
18. Michael Ignatieff has a stunning reflection about Hume's soul through the eyes of James Boswell. See "Metaphysics and the Market" in his The Needs of Strangers. (New York, Penguin, 1984) pp 83-103.
19. About the Red Sea, this began with an essay by J. Clericus in 1693. See Childs B, The Book of Exodus. (Louisville, Westminster Press, 1974) pp 236-237.
20. Lewis CS. Miracles. (New York, HarperCollins, 1996), p 68.
21. The City of God. (22.10).
22. See Bowersock GW. Martyrdom and Rome. (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1995), especially pp 1-7.
23. The City of God. (22. 8).
24. Citizenship Papers. (Washington, Shoemaker & Hoard, 2003) pp 182-183.
25. Citizenship Papers. p 185.
26. Citizenship Papers. p 188.
27. In a book that includes many contemporary healing stories that could easily be called miraculous, the renowned cardiologist Bernard Lown speaks intriguingly of the importance of touch and of words in healing. See The Lost Art of Healing: Practicing Compassion in Medicine. (New York, Ballantine Books, 1999), especially Chapter 2, "Listening through Touching," and Chapter 6, "Words that Heal."