How do Cessationists distinguish between miracles and spiritual gifts? What is the biblical basis for such discernment?
Upvote:0
From an epistemological point of view I don't think a strict and normative cessationist can authenticate something as a miracle apart from some sort of human agency and a tie into a promise of Scripture being involved. Apart from that, at best, they will only be able to describe something extraordinary in terms of it being an anomaly.
For example, suppose public prayers occur for a person who is not physically well. Than that person experiences a dramatic improvement in health. How would a cessationist know for sure that it is not just coincidence that they got better? If all the promises for healing through prayer are time bound to the formation of the canon, how can they presume to know that God has actually intervened?
C.S. Lewis urges in his book Miracles, that Christians need to develop a nose like a bloodhound for the concealed assumption that miracles are impossible, improbable or improper. He writes, If we admit God, must we admit Miracles? Indeed, you have no security against it. That is the bargain.
The Lutheran theologian and Christian apologist, Dr. John Warwick Montgomery, gives a helpful view of how authenticating miracles involves a simple test:
We must suspend disbelief, check out the evidence with the care demanded for events in general, attempt to formulate explanatory constructs that best fit the facts, and at the same time be willing always to accept facts even if our best attempts to explain them prove inadequate. If we are religionists, we must avoid the orthodox presupposition (i.e. cessationism, my edit) that supernatural events must be limited to biblical timess, and the even less satisfactory presupposition of liberal theology that all supernatural occurrences, including biblical miraces, are the product of the naïve, world- view of pre-modern man. (Principalities and Powers, page 46)
Montgomery further clarifies:
The care demanded is no less than, but also no greater than, that required for events in general...Not knowing the universe as a whole, we have no way of calculating the probabilities for or against particular events, so each event must be investigated ad hoc, without initial prejudice. (Principalities and Powers, pages 193-194)
Upvote:2
Spiritual gifts are at least in part connected to an individual Christian. A Christian exercises a spiritual gift of their own volition. A spiritual gift can result in a miracle, but it does not have to, some spiritual gifts are more ordinary such as teaching, or administrative work. Someone claiming to have the gift of healing would therefore intentionally act to heal someone. Of course it is still God's work and God's will that any such healings take place, but it's not solely God's will. Possibly there are some Christians who claim to heal without intention, like those in Acts 5:15 who thought Peter's shadow would heal (though Acts doesn't say they were right to think that). I haven't heard of any Pentecostal healers who say this though; to my knowledge intention does always seem to be part of it.
A non-spiritual gift miracle is solely the work and intention of God. God can heal anyone at any time, without working through human agents. God can heal without the Church even praying for healing.
So this is not an issue of discernment but just two clearly distinct concepts. There are two orthogonal axes:
| Ordinary providence | Supernatural laws-of-nature defying events | |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary talents | Ordinary life | Miracle from God's will alone |
| Spiritual gifts | Non-miraculous gifts of the church | Miraculous spiritual gifts |
The only thing the cessationism/continuationism debate concerns is the bottom right box: miraculous spiritual gifts.
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