Cancer in remission: A clear case of divine healing?
God never heals amputees.
Occasionally updated and edited.
Copyright © 2009
My wife's excited chatter emanating from the living room caught my attention this afternoon. She was on the phone with one of her friends from church and topic of conversation led me to suspect that a new baby had been born, an old person had been born again, or someone had announced a wedding. Not until my wife burst into my office with the news did I realize I was wrong on all accounts. Rather than a new birth or new marriage, the excitement centered on the victim of terminal cancer. The news was that God had miraculously healed the man leaving no trace of the dreaded disease.
While I share my wife's happiness for the (former) cancer victim, I can't bring myself to attribute the remission of cancer to the miraculous.
There are several considerations:
1. Natural remission occurs apart from from supposed divine intervention. Remission, then, does not necessitate a divine cause. One needs only to google "cancer remission" to discover a number of remission stories that are unrelated to Christian theism. One such story related a cancer victim's odyssey in experimentation ranging from Eastern religious practices to acupuncture to changes in diet.
2. Divine remission cannot be demonstrated to be more common than other attributions. If cancer remissions were significantly more common among evangelical Christians than, say, Catholics, Buddhists or atheists, one could have a reasonable argument in favor of a supernatural cause. However, I have found no such evidence. Granted, people of faith often adhere to healthier lifestyles that translates into fewer physical ailments. But cancer remission, specifically, does not seem to be significantly more common among the faithful than the non-faithful.
3. Selective remissions question God's arbitration. The man "healed" of cancer was, by all accounts, a decent person. Shall we conclude, then, that God selected him because he was more worthy than those not healed of cancer? Was he somehow more faithful, righteous or godly? If so, we would then conclude that others in the same congregation who are not beneficiaries of divine healing must be less faithful, less righteous or less godly. Apart from a meager few old biddies, that notion simply will not be tolerated by most church folk. Rather, they appeal to the sovereignty of God whose ways are past finding out. Or, more honestly stated, they have no answer for God's arbitration.
4. Belief in divine healing encourages dangerous, even deadly, behavior. The story is told of a woman stricken with type 1 diabetes who attended a faith-healing crusade. The evangelist declared everyone in the balcony healed. Because she was seated in the balcony, the woman claimed her healing and declined further treatment. She eventually died of complications related to that lack of treatment. Likewise, Christians encouraged by the church man's divine remission of cancer could claim Matthew 9:22, "Thy faith hath made thee whole," refuse the risk of offending God with faithlessness, and refuse cancer treatment.
5. The conclusion is forthcoming. That is, while the diagnosis may indicate a clean bill of health, the prognosis is inclusive. A cancer may currently be in complete remission, but future physical examinations will tell the full story. If the cancer returns, what explanation will church folks offer? Will they admit to misdiagnosing divine intervention?
6. God's healing is limited to the unverifiable. It is impossible to prove or disprove God's role in eradicating cancer. Divine intervention would be more convincing if God were to heal an amputee. One would think such a miraculous healing would be no less problematic than healing cancer. Oddly it appears that God prefers to only perform healing that cannot be verified as divine intervention.
December 21, 2009
Update: Sadly the cancer victim mentioned above died within months of the "remission." It appears the diagnosis was incorrect.
