A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar

Miracles and Unanswered Prayers with Craig Keener

June 16, 2022 Randy Knie & Kyle Whitaker Season 2 Episode 24
A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar
Miracles and Unanswered Prayers with Craig Keener
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Does God move supernaturally in our world today? Should we expect miracles? These are questions that New Testament scholar Craig Keener investigated, documented, and wrote about in his book Miracles Today. The book is fascinating and a bit frustrating in some ways, but also compelling and deeply researched. Dr. Keener has also written a ridiculous amount of scholarly work on the New Testament, and we go into some of that expertise for our Patreon supporters, so subscribe if you're interested in some NT geeky time. It's good fun.

The beer we tasted in this episode is Ghost Note by Casey Brewing.

The beverage tasting is at 4:05. To skip to the interview, go to 7:13.

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

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Cheers!

Randy:

I'm Randy, the pastor half of the podcast, and my friend Kyle is a philosopher. This podcast hosts conversations at the intersection of philosophy, theology, and spirituality.

Kyle:

We also invite experts to join us, making public space that we've often enjoyed off-air around the proverbial table with a good drink in the back corner of a dark pub.

Randy:

Thanks for joining us, and welcome to A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar. Our guest today is Dr. Craig Keener, Craig got his PhD in New Testament and Christian origins at Duke University. So right there, push the guy's legit. And then you just look at the, you know, like that. Should we do that again?

Kyle:

Oh, I love it. Okay, this is all going in.

Randy:

And then you just look at the the list of works that he's done, as far as common commentaries is written on the book of Acts book of revelation book of John, I think he said, he said, he's working on the commentary on Mark, as we're talking to this guy. He's just citing scripture after scripture after scripture, particular verses, talking about where Paul says this. And Jesus says that he's a, he's one of the preeminent New Testament scholars that's alive today, I would say,

Kyle:

Yeah, his output is kind of ridiculous. He's written 30. Some books, many of them are 1000 Plus pages, his commentary on Acts is about 4000 pages. He's I think, the foremost Pentecostal scholar in the world. And I don't even think that's controversial. Now call them would would recognize that and agree with it.

Randy:

I mean, the fun thing is that he is really humble and lovely. And we're going to talk to him today for most of the interview about a particular book that you stumbled across.

Kyle:

Yeah, so one of the things he's become well known for in the past decade or so. And he will openly say, This is not my main area of research, I just dove into this, because I had a lot of personal experiences of miracles. And I was interested in documenting them because no one else had. And he was interested in applying the sort of investigative standards of historiography to this issue and see what he could come up with. And so he wrote this 1100 page, really academic treatise on miracles, and like, nobody read it, like everybody bought it, put it on the shelf, and then never read it again, because it was 1100 pages. And so what he did was came out with this shortened version, I say shortened, what that means for him is you can hold it in one hand. Like it's still 300, and some pages, but it's, it's called miracles today. And he lays out his case for believing in modern day miracles, documents, a bunch, a bunch that he didn't include in the previous one. And that's miracles is a topic that philosophers have always been interested in every just about famous philosophers, including the skeptical ones have had something to say about miracles, they've always been interested in investigating the, like the contemporary people who are performing miracles and faith healers and whatever, they've always been interested in that. And most of them have been skeptical. I

Randy:

mean, I was gonna say, yeah, as you say, philosophers have been really interested in miracles I was gonna say, in the most douchey way possible. Yeah.

Kyle:

The most condescending and, yeah, yeah. But they've, but it's produced some really fascinating and interesting philosophy explaining whether or not you should believe in miracles, and why from him to Kant and many others. And he deals with some of that in the book. And so I wanted to have him on to just get his take on, what do you thinks about miracles, and it's something that I don't agree with him about, there's a lot in the book that I disagree with. And some of that comes out a little bit in the interview, some of it doesn't. But he's a voice I respect and somebody that I think you should pay attention. Yeah.

Randy:

And I will say we talk a fair amount about the book miracles today. It's very interesting, as some really good major questions, weighty questions, I think I would say we asked him, but also, we just had a fun time of just firing off, I had a fun time of firing off just random New Testament questions for this New Testament scholar. And we're gonna make a lot of that available on Patreon. So if you're, if you're a Bible geek, if you're a New Testament geek, and you love going into the weeds of the scriptures, look for our Patreon bonuses because we're gonna put a lot of that stuff in there and it's fun time.

Kyle:

Yeah, yeah, it was really fun. Just get to ask Greg Kinnear anything.

Randy:

Question. What do you have for us today?

Kyle:

Today, I have something in a bottle with what appears to be a champagne cork in it. So this is on the show. I'm gonna pop this is not Miller High Life is not. I'm gonna pop this cork and we're gonna see what happens. We can

Randy:

also see how long it takes you to pop a cork. If you get some server bartender skills. There you go. No,

Kyle:

no, no explosions or anything. So it's not champagne, though, right? It's not champagne. So this is a saison. I'm excited. Yeah, my, one of my favorite styles, and it's big champagne bottles. There's plenty for all of us. So this is from Casey brewing, and they're in Colorado, and they have a really good wild ale farmhouse Saison program that's highly respected. And I've been wanting to try him for years and I bought a couple of bottles recently and this is the first beer I've had from them. So we'll see if this is good. All right, if it lives up to the hype, so this is called ghost note It's a saison aged on peaches and something called a plot. So plots are apparently a hybrid of plums and apricots, so okay,

Randy:

this smells to me, like a combination of grain dog food and urine.

Kyle:

Okay

Randy:

anybody else? wish she'd let me add a SIP first? It's funky. It is. Yeah, it's wild, which

Kyle:

is one of the reasons I love the star list reminds me a lot of alambic. Yeah. Often hmm, fruit.

Randy:

Yeah, well, and it's lambics our open air fermented, right? Which this this saisons do this. I would think this would be I mean, I will say saisons do this to me where it tastes wild. And it tastes like you can taste the surroundings of where this was made. Almost. You know what I mean? It's an adventure in a in a cup here for sure. Yeah. It tastes almost pickled. To me, that's a good way to play. Yep.

Kyle:

I like it. Me to just not say I get a ton of peach. I expected more.

Randy:

No, I would never pick peach up if he hadn't said that. But maybe, you know, it'd be a very turn new tasks like, yeah, yep. An unripe peach.

Kyle:

Having never had a clue what. Apricot?

Randy:

What was what was the St. Louis Saison that we tried. That was side project. Like all other seasons I've had to bow at.

Kyle:

Yeah, but this is good.

Randy:

You're winning me over for seasons seasons. US I used to say they're too much for me. But they're it's just a fun little adventure and a cup favorite style for sure. For me. I like it a hell of a lot better than barrel aged out to say that.

Kyle:

I'm gonna convert you on that one to give it time. Great for a hot summer day. Yeah, like a very luxurious setting on a farmhouse ales originally were forced Saison is originally for you got the farmworkers out in the field. They make beer for themselves using the cheap ingredients that they have. It's light, it's refreshing. That's what it says, is supposed to

Randy:

be fun. It's good. Can you tell us one more time what it is?

Kyle:

Yeah. So this is called ghost note. And it's from Casey Brewing Company in Colorado.

Randy:

Cheers. Craig Keener, thank you so much for joining us on A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar.

Craig:

Thanks. Thanks so much. I haven't been in bars much lately. We didn't have any in this town. So great to be with you.

Kyle:

Excellent. Well, we do normally ask our guests if they have a favorite beverage they want to tell us about or if there's anything they're drinking at the moment that they want to feature. We always feature a drink on the show. So if there's anything you want to mention, feel free, but no pressure

Craig:

I have some water with me.

Kyle:

There you go.

Randy:

That's most interviewees. That's the typical answer.

Kyle:

I actually haven't poured anything for myself yet. We've got to remedy that. Yeah. So Craig, I should say I'm the one that wanted to have you on the show. I mean, Randy jumped on it, too. But I was the one that saw that you had a book coming out. And I've, I've benefited from your work for years. I don't remember when I discovered you. But I know I've been using your Bible backgrounds commentary on the New Testament for a long time, that's just been a go to resource for me, your two volume set on miracles has been on my to read list since it came out. And I've just never gotten around to it because I had too much other stuff to do. And so when this came out, and I saw Oh, there's like a somewhat more manageable length version of that. I thought we got to we got to read this and have him on the show. So what we do on the show is we try to talk about topics that straddle both a pastoral perspective and a philosophical perspective. And so we've talked about lots of things that are relevant to philosophers of religion, but that also have a pastoral impact. And miracles was one of the things I thought we had to get around to talking about eventually. So thanks for writing a shorter version of this, I guess. It's still like 300 and some pages, but thanks. It's not 1000. So that's a short work for you. We're talking to a guy in case listeners don't know who wrote a four volume commentary on x. That's somewhere about 4000 pages. I think so. So this is a short book for him. So thanks for doing that. And we've I think we both benefited from your work. You've used his commentaries in sermon series and whatnot. So yeah.

Randy:

I mean, any, any scholar who's a biblical scholar and charismatic, you get my attention right off the bat. There's not many of those, and we'll talk about that a little bit. We've got some questions for you in that correct. But

Kyle:

yeah, and hopefully it's okay. You've told us ahead of time that it is but we're going to talk about miracles a lot, but also want to talk about some more general New Testament stuff, because it's just too good an opportunity to pass up to have you on the show. So thanks for being willing to talk about some other things too. So can you tell us a bit to just get started? Why you decided to document modern miracles? Being a New Testament scholar? How did you get into that? And how is that if you want to connect it up to your Pentecostal identity?

Craig:

Yeah, that's two questions, but...

Kyle:

It is two questions. Answer in whatever order you like.

Craig:

The way I got started in this was the the earlier 1100 page book came out 10 years ago, it was because I was working on the axe commentary. And there were a lot of scholars who just dismissed the historical plausibility of any accounts in the New Testament that included miracle claims. So I was like, Okay, I'm dealing with the historical question here. But their argument was usually, well, these kinds of reports can't come from my witnesses. And I'm like, That is clearly wrong. Because I mean, I know lots of eyewitnesses who claimed it. And I've seen things that are not on the level of some of the things and then testament, but on the level of some of the others. And so I see, well, let me just go and see if we do have eyewitness accounts. If we do, but let me let me compile some. And as I was working on that, eventually, I found more of what I was looking for, I found some volumes that had more medically documented cases and compiled a number of other accounts. But when I started, I hadn't. So it was originally a footnote in my axe commentary. But after about 200 pages, I in my editors decided it was too long for a footnote. It needs to be a longer book. Yeah,

Kyle:

That would be like a record breaking footnote.

Randy:

Yeah. Just to give our listeners Craig, just a taste of some of the stories in the book. Because there are some very remarkable stories in this book that you've kind of documented. You turned into kind of a journalist for this book, and just doing your research and talking to doctors talking to family members looking at backgrounds. Would you be willing to just tell our listeners one or two of the more dramatic stories and or miracles that you documented in this in this book?

Craig:

Sure. Now, part of part of the question is how we define documented. So there are some where I actually haven't seen medical journals. Those are, I think, the strongest overall for persuading somebody who doesn't know the people. Some of the ones that were most persuasive to me, were ones that I witnessed or experienced, or were with somebody close to me. One that I liked to talk about is my sister in law, because when she was about two years old, now, there was no medical help. So there was no medical documentation. So you know, when we say that, as far as we know, she wasn't breathing, at least that was the, the understanding of those who were present. So her mother strapped her to her back, ran to a nearby village, where family friend Coco, go, Mama, Louise was doing ministry, He prayed for her. And she started breathing again. And the next day, she was fine. And when I asked her, asked my mother in law about this, how long was it that she wasn't breathing, and she hadn't really seemed like thought about that before. So she had to think to get from this village to them, which was about three hours. And after six minutes with no oxygen, irreparable brain damage starts in. So that one got my attention, because it was like, so close. And she Torres has no brain damage. I mean, she she has a master's degree. She just recently retired from Ministry back in, in Congo. So that that will get my attention. There were some others that got my attention. One time when we were planning an outreach and a campus and one of the undergraduates, it was it was pouring down rain, and it was supposed to be pouring down rain all day. We hadn't done that, obviously, when we scheduled it. And actually, some of the leaders on the campus were just shutting down activities in the campus right then because of the downpour. And one of the was actually a sophomore biology major from from a nearby campus who was working with us, let us in a prayer for the rain to stop. I thought it can't hurt. She finished spraying suddenly, the rain stopped. And a few minutes later, the sun came out stayed out the rest of the day. Think things like that are really meaningful to me personally, obviously, I can't give you a medical documentation for the rainstorm. Probably there's probably some way to document it meteorologically I was able to do that with with somebody else's account. Because where he was, I found the ref for tornadoes in the area that day when when they prayed and suddenly the hailstorm that had shattered their truck window stopped. That was one of my doctoral students shared that one. But in terms of the of the ones that are documented and published in peer reviewed, journals, and so on. One of those would be the woman who was blind for 12 years, and it was organic. And she and her family. They didn't actually it wasn't like they didn't believe miracles could happen. They just never had been familiar with any. But he was just so desperate. He just cried out to God, God, please open my wife sighs and suddenly she could see. And we have the before and after medical documentation. And that was published in a medical journal. And that was like several decades ago. And she's remained cited. So those things are noteworthy I think.

Randy:

Yeah, the story of Barbara in the I think it was in the introduction. The second Barbara with Ms. Yes, that one just floored me right off the bat. Can you tell a little bit about that one?

Craig:

Yeah. Barbara Barbara. cummiskey Schneider who there she recently did pass away from COVID. Very sadly. But she was completely well for 40 years after the healing. She was sent home by the hospital. She had spent most of the previous 15 years in the hospital. She was sent home with a note don't Resuscitate order because the family and the doctors had agreed there was nothing more that could be done. Her muscles didn't work. So she was hooked up to a machine so that her diaphragm could could function. She had gone blind from multiple sclerosis as well. And she heard a voice saying my child's rise up and walk, which of course she couldn't do. When she couldn't rise up to begin with she in her word, she was curled up like a pretzel, her hands were so curled that they had to be uncurled every so often just to get the dead skin out. But anyway, she she jumped out of the bed, somehow she landed flat on her feet, which was impossible because her feet normally were curled up. And the first thing she noticed was that her feet were flat on the ground. Second thing she noticed was that she was her hands were curled up in third thing, she noticed that she was seeing these things. I mean, it was so complete. Even her muscles weren't atrophied. She was running around, after she pulled out a lot of plugs and stuff. And I consulted to the three doctors who worked on her before this time. And all three of them actually published something on it. And all of them agree that this was just beyond I mean, not just beyond medical expectation, but this was something that just can't happen on its own. So she lived on 40 more years with no, no recurrence of multiple sclerosis.

Randy:

Yeah, that one was like, Okay, you got my attention now.

Kyle:

Yeah, makes sense that you lead off with that one. But like, that's not necessarily the most dramatic story in the book. I mean, this book has a whole chapter, several chapters actually on resuscitations like people dying than not being dead anymore. I noticed you didn't call that resurrection. I assume there's a theological reason for that.

Craig:

Yeah. Well, I didn't want people to confuse it with the theologically we often make a distinction with the eschatological resurrection. And yeah, Jesus resurrection is the first fruits of that. Obviously, the people who were raised the way we're talking about in the book don't become immortal, they die again. So it's a different character.

Kyle:

Yeah. But we are talking about like, clinically dead for long enough for brain damage to have well said and then resuscitation with no, no lasting damage. So there's a lot of stuff like that, and really crazy stuff. So in fact, most of the book is taken up with stories like that. And then there's some frontmatter, and some men matter that are more theoretical and kind of framing. But if you're looking for a compendium of documented miracle cases, this is the book for you. So I'm coming to this as something of a skeptic. So just a little bit of background about me, I'm a philosopher that kind of made me skeptical, but I was naturally skeptical. Anyway, it's kind of why I went into the field, I guess. But I'm also Pentecostal. And I had these Pentecostal, relatively typical Pentecostal experiences in college, got involved with this campus ministry that unbeknownst to me, was filled with Pentecostals. And before I knew it, they were laying hands on me and I was praying in tongues and having this experience and that lasted, you know, that kind of spiritual high thing lasted for a few years, gradually dwindled, but I had enough like really powerful tangible experiences of God's presence in those years, that it's, it shaped me in a way that I'll never be able to get out of no matter how skeptical I am, you know, sometimes doubt, past the point of belief and wonder, should I just call myself agnostic, and then I remember those experiences, and I can't. And so I'm still solidly Pentecostal, happy to own the label. But I'm also a really weird one. And that I'm extraordinarily skeptical of miracle claims. I've seen some stuff and been told some things by some very close friends who I know are lying, that I don't have explanations for. But at the end of the day, I still come back to a kind of William James Ian kind of place where I totally believe that that is justificatory for your belief, you the person that experienced it. But at the same time, I don't think it is for mine from the sort of third person testimonial perspective, and reading, you know, some of these crazy accounts in your book that didn't change. Like, I believe you when you tell me that story. But I also don't go to the place of God performed a miracle there. I stopped just short of that. And so I guess what I want to ask you first is, well, maybe maybe a two part question. So first, who's the sort of target audience of this book? And does it include people like me? So are you trying to convince skeptics like myself, or are you just trying to give sort of, you know, hope and encouragement and faith building to people who already are inclined to believe in miracles Am I included in the target audience.

Craig:

Yes. Now this one has a fairly wide target audience. Although I figure most of the people who buy the book will be people who already believe in miracles, because that's why they wanted to buy. Now, the first book was really the more academic one. So this is, this one is kind of for the people who it was on their to read list, but they

Kyle:

then then they saw

Craig:

so and so it's focused more on the on the accounts, and they focus more on the ones like probably 70% of that material in this one was not in the first one. I didn't want to have too much overlap. So I didn't want to punish the people who already read the first one and feel like they're, they're getting cheated on me about the second one. But yeah, I think different people have different standards of evidence, you've got people who are like so gullible, they believe anything. And you have people who like, I had a couple atheist friends who've told me that if somebody were raised from the dead in front of them, that wouldn't convince them. And I was an atheist before my conversion, but I would have certainly at least gotten my attention. If something like that had happened, or even if some, right, if somebody had told me about it, it might have gotten my attention, but then I would really want to rigorously sure check into it to see to see how solid the claim was. So different people have different bars of evidence. And so I'm trying to give evidence that will be persuasive to those who can accept whatever kinds of evidence some of the some of the ones earlier in the book weren't, as I thought is strong. In some of the some of the earlier accounts that some people have reported as raising from the dead, you know, when it was like they hadn't breathed for maybe 10 minutes or something. And figuring Well, if you just off a few minutes, maybe. So I kept those in chapters about brain damage, rather than sticking them toward the end about the resuscitation split. But I'm hoping that there's enough evidence that it will be taken into account by the wide range of readers.

Kyle:

Yeah. So you do help them for maybe some people who are skeptical to change their minds.

Craig:

Yeah, to be skeptical sometimes of their skepticism. My training inclines me towards some skepticism. In the first book, I was just going to deal with the question, do I witnesses claim these things? Because I could make a solid case, obviously, this is to claim these things. But then I got into some of the other questions because I decided it would be disingenuous for me not to come out and say, I do believe that these early some of these are special divine action.

Kyle:

Yeah. Let me let me put the question to you this way, and then I'll leave you alone. So I'm curious if you would say, having described to you my the kind of skeptical outlook, where I land on specific miracle claims, is agnosticism. I don't have any metaphysical objections to God doing that. I do have some epistemological objections to me believing reports of things that I didn't see or experience. And so where I land is kind of this agnosticism, do you think that I'm lacking something important by being in this position that I should work on? And if so, is it spiritual? Is it related to Christianity? Is it just epistemic? Am I missing something important that I should that I should try to change?

Craig:

There is an epistemic question. But first, let me say it's good that we have a range of perspectives on this, because we need some skepticism. We need some people to keep us honest. Because, I mean, there's so many claims out there, and people can Doctor videos and all sorts of things. So we want to be fairly rigorous, at least in looking into it. But at the same time, and I'm thinking I guess if Humes epistemology? Well, maybe not his best analogy in general, you know him as a philosopher, you know him way better than I do. So you could really address this better than I could. But in his in his essay on miracles, it just seems to me like the kind of epistemology where you have to witness it firsthand, that would completely shoot most of my work, or pretty much all of my work in ancient historiography, it would ancient by definition, it would shoot all of it. I mean, journalism would become very difficult law would become very difficult. anthropology and sociology would become very difficult. And then, you know, if you if you take it all the way, replicable things might not be impossible in terms of, you know, the argument that he used in the second part of his miracles essay, but until you replicate them yourself, it might not work, but it just seems to me like that's too constrictive and epistemology and that we don't act that way for most things, except when it comes to miracle claims. That if we have a sufficient number of eyewitness accounts and so on, now, then the question arises is special divine action, or is it just enough? flickable. And there, I think, you know, we're not talking about 100%. Because it's pretty hard to know, outside of like mathematics, it's pretty hard to affirm much like completely 100%. But it seems to me we have sufficient patterns that we can, we can make a really strong case for. So, so believing it to a sufficiently high degree of probability that we can say, I believe this, even though we're not talking about mathematical certainty,

Kyle:

yeah. I would love to argue with you about him. But we have so many questions on our outline that I'm gonna I'm gonna skip right over that one. What about though, and then I'll hand it over to Randy, do you think there's anything lacking in the Christian faith of a person who cannot bring themselves to believe in miracle reports? Let me tell you why I'm asking this. So I was in a church slash campus ministry setting for several years throughout most of my college and like first year of grad school, in which it was Pentecostal, but it was the kind of prosperity word faith kind of Pentecostalism very much off the deep end, Kenneth Copeland was their homeboy. I mean, it was. And they would say, from the pulpit directly, if you're not getting healed, if you don't have enough money to pay your rent, if you can't afford the car you want, it's because you lack faith. And it's probably because you're sinning in some way. And then they would dig around to try to find what the sin is. And obviously, that's a toxic, called, there was a lot of like, weird leadership stuff going on to like you couldn't approach the leaders. They had this sort of aura around them that you know, prevented any kind of questioning or skepticism. Cheers,

Randy:

Kyle, you were part of a cult? Yeah,

Kyle:

no joke. I mean, this was yes, this was definitely cultish. And so there was a tone that was present in that setting. And sometimes it was just explicit. But even when it wasn't, it was implicit, that anything that you didn't get from God, that anything you couldn't bring yourself to believe, was somehow your fault. It was a lack of faith on your part. And I don't think you're saying that, but there are, if you forgive me for saying, so there are places in your book that reminded me of that. So for example, you say, I think it's in the preface somewhere, see if I can find it here. You know, you describe someone who, instead of saying that was a miracle that God did, will say, that was inexplicable, it just happened. And that's me, like you're describing me. But then you say, to me, that seems a considerable stretch. But some prefer to take the leap of faith required by such an explanation, rather than to trust the God who sometimes acts unexpectedly. And it's that kind of language. And that popped up a few times in the book, that reminded me and then, and I won't say it was like bringing back trauma, but it was like definitely reminding me strongly of some really unhealthy toxic theology I had experienced. And I don't think you actually hold that theology, by all accounts of people that know you that I've talked to, you're a kind sweet man. And I want to, I want to interpret you charitably. And so I want to give you an opportunity to explain what you mean. And if you think there is actually anything inferior about the theology of someone like me, who looks at the evidence, and just simply can't bring myself to say, to assent to it. Yeah,

Craig:

I don't, they don't have the book memorized. But I think I recall that the context of that was talking about, well, I could be wrong, but I think the context of it was meant to talk about somebody who won't really accept any evidence for theism. It's not really talking about certainly not talking about Word of Faith kind of theology, which I address later in the book and talk about how it also through the book where, because in the first book, I didn't deal with this at all, but he kept notes on it, because I really was intrigued. I really wanted to know, the element of faith in the people who prayed. And sometimes their people were like, I know God's gonna heal me. But sometimes people say that, and it's just denial. It doesn't happen. Yeah. But then there were plenty of other people who I mean, they prayed, but they were, they were completely shocked with the answers to the prayers. So and what I see in the New Testament is, especially right now, I'm working on a commentary on the gospel of Mark, and it talks about these people that come to Jesus with great faith. But then you've got the disciples who are like the main characters after Jesus, and they are the antithesis of faith most of the way through, you know, Jesus stills a storm. It wasn't certainly wasn't the disciples faith agging them afterwards. So it's not it's not that our faith produces anything that sets people up to put their faith in their faith rather than their faith in in God.

Kyle:

Yeah. Well, I appreciate that have do you have any sense? And then I really will turn it over to

Randy:

I'm beginning to be skeptical. Speaking of skeptic,

Kyle:

just because we mentioned were to faith people, which maybe we should define that. I don't know. For listeners who might not know Do you have any sense of how how common miracles are in that kind of theological context versus another maybe say more mainstream Pentecostal or even non Pentecostal context like, Does their does all their psychological effort actually pay off in

Craig:

psychological effort? Well, yeah, obviously, that would take care of the psychosomatic ones pretty well. But I don't know. I've kept notes. But again, these are, these are more like case studies, even though there are a lot of them. It's not like, you know, pure form survey, I think it was 2006. Just in Pentecostals and charismatics, in about 10 countries, they said that, about 200 million of them claimed to have witnessed divine healing, of course, there are different levels of how freely we would call those divine healing, there's different levels of what we would think. But anyway, I've only interviewed like, hundreds of them or not, not, not million. But my, my sense is that we do have a number of a number of them from Word of Faith circles. But that Word of Faith circles tend to report those a lot. And if they reported their cases where it didn't happen, it might be similar to what we have elsewhere. Yeah. I mean, that the faith, the clinging to God, and the fact that they pray, I mean, it's probably more likely to happen there than people who don't pray. At the same time, you probably also have more people who die, refusing or neglecting medical attention, although I think most Word of Faith circles don't say that it's wrong to use medicine. But yeah, I can't answer that definitively. I'm just basing it on my sample size. Sure. Yeah. Fair enough. But I should I should mention, because I forgot to answer that one about my Pentecostal identity earlier. All right. I'm actually ordained as a Baptist. But I'm experientially Pentecostal. So I answer I answer to that. And anyway, so go ahead.

Randy:

Why do you have to tell us your So Craig, I am a pastor been pastoring for 15 years. And that means I've prayed for countless people. I mean, just person after person Sunday, after Sunday, day after day of people coming to me asking for prayer, whether it's via text, phone in person, prayed for the same person, you know, people for years, who were dealing with chronic illness or chronic pain, and I have heard reports of people coming back and saying, Praise God, I got healed, you know, and, and in response to that, I think when I was younger, I probably felt really awesome about myself, that my prayer was effective, you know, the prayers of a righteous man. And then, and then I've just seen so many, what, uh, you know, what people would call in layman's terms, unanswered prayers, or you don't get the healing, or the sickness takes over, or even death happens. And I've seen that so much more often than, you know, quote, unquote, answered prayers. So while I do believe in miracles in the supernatural work of God in, in the world and in, in among human beings, I also believe, because of my experience, they don't happen way more than they do happen. And that's passed orally now. So I'm asking you kind of a pastoral and maybe a little theological question, but you do say your books primary goal is not to document miracle reports, and not to deal with theological questions surrounding miracles. But I'm sorry, I've got one for you. We have to recognize that the fact is that most requests for miracles are unsuccessful, not the norm for everyone, regardless of religious persuasion is that illness, injury, suffering, you name it take their natural course, unless medical intervention is available. And you acknowledge this by calling miracles, special divine action, even? Can you talk a bit about why they're not more common at the end of the book? But if this is the case, how do we hold to the supernatural movement of God? While we also see more typical silence from God? How do we, I'm asked this question. I want to say all the time of what do I think about prayer, what do you think about prayer when a lot of our prayers seem to go unanswered? Or the the we don't get what we pray for? How do we hold prayer? How do we hold intercession on healing prayer in light of this, and how do we hold this God who seems to move sometimes, but more often than not? Doesn't?

Craig:

Yeah. And I think, I think what we see is pretty similar to what we see in the Bible as well. I mean, in Genesis, you've got all these genealogies, so and so begat so and so and they died, and then so and so begat so and so and then they died. Death and sickness, the reality of those are, are taken for granted in the Bible. So even when you have a case of somebody where miracles were surrounding the person like Elijah, where he is sick of the sickness with which he died. And it doesn't even give an explanation. It just says that was his condition. He's prophesying at that point. And then later, they threw a corpse and on top of his bones in the corpse survives, but Elijah died of a sickness. Paul says Trophimus, I left it muleta sick and Second Timothy four Epaphroditus was sick, close to the point of death and Philippians. Two, Paul himself was afflicted with bodily weakness in Galatians, 413. So it's like, it's not like they even try to give explanation. It's just like this is part of the norm of the world. But then in the Gospels and acts, we also see so much healing, and so many other kinds of dramatic incidents taking place. But I think that's why theologians often call that special divine action. God has His blessed us with life to begin with, he's blessed us with so many things in the world. That's a general divine action. But special divine action is meant to get our attention in a special way. And the kind of setting that we have in the Gospels and acts is that if groundbreaking evangelism is the message of the Kingdom is going forth, especially in new areas. So it doesn't exclude things happening elsewhere. Paul also talks about gifts of healings, James talks about praying the prayer of faith, the elders doing that for for the sick, and so on. But those don't have to be dramatic. If it happens through just the way God created our bodies to repair themselves until our eons of our telomeres start wearing out, then, I mean, it's still we can still give God thanks for it. If it's if it's through medicine, we can give God thanks for that. But those are the more dramatic ones, I think happened, especially in the context of groundbreaking evangelism. And that's, that's, I have seen that pattern in terms of the places that I've explored in an interview.

Randy:

Yeah, and I don't think that's an uncommon experience, or, or interpretation yet another, just another pastoral question, because that's, again, me, I've seen people walk away from the faith, walk away from Christianity, because they grew up, or were in a fairly charismatic environment where people would talk about hearing from God in, you know, prophetic ways, or people would pray in tongues and do that easily and fluently. You know, you name it, they had these experiential moments with God on a fairly regular basis, or said they did. And then the people who didn't felt like, well, where's my like, why are you? If God is doing that? Why is he holding out on me, I'm sure, as I'm saying this, tons of listeners are identifying with this. And I've seen it go to the extent where a person, people walk away from God because they say, Well, I'm waiting for God to show up in a dramatic way in an experiential, supernatural way. And until he does, I'm done. And as a pastor, I don't like that at all. Because I don't want to build people's faith off of what God does for me, or what the supernatural miraculous things that God can deliver for me, I want to build people's faith and discipleship journey on the beautiful way of Jesus. And that's in that being the foundation, and that alone being the foundation. And then if we see miraculous things, or supernatural things, or charismatic experiences, praise God, but let's not hang our hat on him. Because I myself have had moments seasons in my life where I've experienced, quote, unquote, the presence of God or the supernatural more than for the last several years. And I think my faith is a little bit more grounded and mature now than it was then. So how do you, you know, you write a book like this, which thank you for writing it. But how do you ground this and not set people up to say, Well, if that doesn't happen to me or my family, I'm out.

Craig:

Paul talks about this is this is in the first generation of Christians actually, when he writes to the Corinthians, most of them wouldn't be more than they wouldn't have been Christians for more than two years at the time that he writes to them. And he emphasizes that there's one body with different gifts. And so we shouldn't be exalting one gift above another in Corinth. Part of it was gifts of speech, because that was really emphasized in their culture, and knowledge. He talks about in eight, one, First Corinthians eight one that people sometimes are arrogant about their knowledge, and then they were really, really emphatic about tongues. And so he deals with that in First Corinthians 14, my wife doesn't pray in tongues, although she'd like to. In my own case, it happened to me two days after my conversion from atheism, I had no no idea what it was. So it wasn't even something I saw it. It just it just happened to me. It's important to let people know that we're all wired differently. And that's alright. God. God has gifted different ones of us in different ways and So I think you have some kinds of churches that look down on others because they're not, you know, they don't know enough. And then some of these other churches are looking down on these churches because they aren't spiritual enough. And by their definition, and in bows, I think it's arrogance, when we need to humble ourselves and learn from one another, and work for the unity of the Body of Christ. And so those of us who who have more information, we need to, to work to help those who are something that bothers me a lot is that sometimes you have some people that are really emphatic on the teaching gift, who are like, so anti charismatic, that of course, charismatics, are not going to feel welcome to listen to them. And then you have some people who are so into, like the cultic type stuff, it was just described, that in I know, people who walked away from the faith to because of, you know, their expectations, you know, this, this needs to be happening to me, if it doesn't, why should I believe that it happened? Anybody? Some people who were putting it forth, like, it should happen to everybody the same way, because it happened to them that way. And they weren't, I mean, they're impervious to correction, because they think they're so spiritual. If we could get people to stop reacting against each other, and to listen to one another and talk with each other. I think we have a much healthier body of Christ, instead of amputating certain members from one side and then piling up the mutated members on the other.

Randy:

Yep. Yep. That's really good. And speaking of information, I just want to color our listeners idea of this conversation is we're looking at you, Craig, we've mentioned this earlier, but we weren't recording. But we're looking at this incredible background that looks like it's fake. Because there is just, this is worth going to YouTube and looking. Yeah, it's a long list of filing cabinets with just uncountable noses piled on top. And it looks like yeah, it looks like it's a facade. It is unbelievable. I've never seen anything like it. And you know, they're awful. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I mean, if you want if, if you want to have a fun week, just go to Craig Keeners. basement office, and just dive into all the all the information don't actually show up at his door. Don't do it. Don't do it. Thanks for that answer.

Kyle:

So one quick follow up to that. I'm curious, what is your experience? Like? I mean, you're I think it's safe to say, I don't think I'm overstating anything here that you are probably the foremost Pentecostal biblical scholar just period. And you run in some some some circles, that I think Gordon Fee is way up there as well. But he was one of your one of your mentors,

Craig:

would be further ahead. And actually, I mean, charisms sort of picked up his mantle to people like Ben Witherington shouldn t, right. And so,

Kyle:

yeah, and I'm taking all of them into account. So I know what I'm saying. We're telling you, you're awesome, Craig. So I mean, just given your output, and you're standing in the community, but you run in circles, you must with colleagues who are not Pentecostal, and who probably don't believe in miracles, many of them probably aren't even theist. And so I'm curious, given that theme of, you know, coming to the table and talking to each other, and just having an honest conversation, what's, what's that like, for colleagues who don't see things the way that you do have? Are you able to? I don't know, do you have good relationships? Do they look askance at your work? Or what are your relationships? They're like,

Craig:

it depends. Mostly, I think it's good relationships. So I mean, you've got plenty of common ground, and just the fact of being biblical scholars, you know, in terms of working from a historic graphic standpoint, although I've had some people who don't like using historical background, they're kind of against it. And so, but we still have common ground in terms of literary approaches. So I mean, yeah, I tried to look for the common ground. And, and we work from there, we have so much to work together on. But there, there are times where I feel like I've experienced prejudices. I mean, there was one time where I, my first book, on historical Jesus research, I thought it was working from fairly minimal epistemological assumptions. Well, in that case, I was working from some accepted criteria across the board and historical Jesus research, which are not all accepted today. But they were accepted, the book was written. And so but then there was this one, there was this one session at the Society for biblical literature, where somebody who's responding to the book started this response by saying, Well, there's two kinds of scholars there are genuine critical scholars, and then there are evangelicals. And you evangelicals should not be allowed in the room with us. Really. So I mean, I wasn't trying to write an evangelical book I was trying to I mean, I am an Evangelical, but I was trying to write a book that was just A good scholarship based on historical approaches that I thought were widely used. And since then I've worked a lot more on ancient historiography, trying to put things in their, in their original context. But I mean, that's, that's kind of an outlier, for the most part, whether SBL or anywhere else, we have, we have fairly respectful dialogues. And, you know, when people disagree, we can, we can still listen to each other and, and learn from each other. And we may not agree on one thing or, but in also, in a lot of the settings, we come together based on on the common ground on shared epistemological assumptions. So that, you know, there's some things that are fairly off the table, unless somebody brings them up and then figure it's, it's fair,

Kyle:

that the gloves are off.

Craig:

But even even then, usually in those contexts, it's it's fairly respectful. So

Kyle:

good to hear. I got one question that will let you. That's okay. I want you to settle a bet between or a disagreement between Randy and myself. So on a, this came up on a previous episode, and it's also kind of been making the rounds on like, progressive Christian Twitter, which I don't know if you know that that's a thing, but it is. I don't know if you're on Twitter. But sometimes things happen. And everybody in that section of Twitter gets really excited for a few days. And recently, one of the things that happened was kind of well known pastor posed the question, and this is an ancient question, but a lot of people on Twitter seem to be thinking about it for the first time. And the question was, what about your faith, practice, belief, whatever, would change, if per impossible, we had definitive proof that Jesus's resurrection did not happen. So let's say, you know, we invented some kind of time machine or whatever sci fi scenario you have to imagine, to definitively prove this. I watched a show called Debs one time where they they built this quantum computer that was able to basically give you a kind of video feed of any point in history, and they were able to go back and watch Jesus on the cross. Let's imagine we have some kind of like seriously definitive, objective proof that Jesus was not in fact, resurrected. What about your faith practice? What about your belief? What about your view of Christianity in general, would change. Randy is on the record, taking the view that some personal subjective stuff would change? I don't want to put words in your mouth here. But in general, not that much would change, you would continue to practice you would continue to find similar meaningfulness in Christianity. For me, it would completely change. I would have find no reason to be a Christian and have no hope. anymore. So. So I guess, two parts that question, what's your answer to the question personally, but also, what do you think Paul's view of it was? What when he said, If the resurrection was false, were hopeless or were to be pitied? Or however he put it? Do you think he was being hyperbolic? Do you think he meant that concretely? How do you how do you approach that?

Craig:

Yeah, answering the last thing first. Yeah, I think Paul was, I think Paul really meant that, although he had, obviously was a theist, before he still had hope, in terms of in terms of Israel, but it would have messed up everything for his Gentile converts. That was the basis of their faith. And of course, I came to the faith through the message about Jesus. But since we're entertaining counterfactuals here, because that because I really think all the evidence we have points in in the direction that Jesus did rise from the dead unless you assume that that's impossible. But let's say we did have a time machine, and we could have stronger evidence and like, undercut all the evidence we had, if, yeah, if I thought Jesus didn't rise from the dead, that would definitely change my faith. I could still be a theist, which is nice that through Christian faith, I came into theism from from atheism. I could still be a theist, but I couldn't be a Christian in a meaningful sense. I could I could say, Okay, I liked some of Jesus teachings. I like some teachings. Why like a lot of Confucius is teachings actually, like some other teachings from a Buddhist teachings. But, you know, I like some things and a lot of other religious and philosophic documents like Seneca and Epictetus a lot, but it wouldn't be. He wouldn't be Lord, obviously. Now. I'm wondering if what you're saying is physical resurrection is yes to something else. Okay.

Kyle:

Yeah. So why wouldn't it be Lord though, so this was Mark is Borg's view, right? That there is a real sense in which he's still Lord. There's a real sense in which Christianity is still true. And I can practice all the same ways and I can have all the same meaningful experiences. I think he literally said like, what does believing in the physical material bodily resurrection, add Uh, that, that I don't already have

Craig:

part of the question. I'm not sure if this is where he was coming from, I read some of his stuff, I did correspond with them some while he was alive, but part of it may be he may have defined physical and material in a different way. But if it's just like a ghost, you know, just like an afterlife, I had a professor where we dialogued about this and, and that's basically what he believed. He said, Well, you know, I think the corpse of Jesus probably rotted Mattoon, and that we still have an afterlife. But just like, I hope to have an afterlife. In that case, there's nothing really distinctive about Jesus. And so I would not see that as, yeah, I wouldn't see Jesus as Lord and I wouldn't see a basis for the Christian faith is, is being distinctive in any way. I mean, there was there's still some good ideas, mission to the Gentiles, bringing them to faith in the One, the One True God, and the experience of the power of the Spirit. But I mean, it's, it's all it was all rounded in believing that Jesus was the risen and Exalted Lord. So what kind of resurrection body we're talking about? Maybe disputable, but if we're just talking about a ghost in the corpse was left behind, then. Yeah, I think Paul would say, we're a bomb. All people most miserable. We're just fighting wild beasts in the arena and Ephesus for nothing.

Randy:

Yeah. So just to like, state my position.

Kyle:

Yeah, I tried my best to remember what you said, yeah. Now I've gotten that right.

Randy:

I do believe in the resurrection for one. I'm, you know, writing my 15th sermon on the resurrection, as we speak. And I think resurrection matters, not just a little bit, but it matters for everything. At all times, I think, you know, I could talk for a long time about why I think the resurrection matters intensely. However, my faith doesn't rest solely on the resurrection. And my my faith in Jesus and Jesus work doesn't rests solely on the resurrection. I think the Incarnation we've sold short, in many ways, I think, the incarnation of Christ, because that's not part of the question of whether or not the incarnation and the resurrection happened is just the resurrection. And so I think the Incarnation in and of itself, is enough for me to a follow Jesus. And say that this is, this is a unbelievably beautiful, revolutionary story of the infinite God becoming a finite person and become, you know, all that goes into incarnation is enough to keep me around easily. And then you add to all of the life and ministry and teachings of Jesus. And I haven't read hardly any of the guys that you mentioned, Craig, but I have read Jesus a lot. And the Jesus way, honestly keeps me in the Christian camp, easily as much as the resurrection. Because this Jesus way, for me is kind of the the answer to the world's problems, you know, the way of agape love, loving your enemies, loving your neighbor over yourself. And I mean, A new commandment I give to you love one another. I mean, you could I could just go on and on about the teachings and in ministry of Jesus and say, That's enough for me, like I would, even if Jesus is dead in, in, you know, somewhere in in Jerusalem, somewhere off Jerusalem. I'm still in. That's my position, even though I definitely believe in the resurrection. It's not the end all be all. For me. I don't agree with Paul. That's where I would disagree with First Corinthians 15. And say, I think Paul was probably being a little he was speaking hype in hyperbole a little bit. Maybe he's trying to prove a point. But I don't think it's just like, we tossed the rest of it to the rubbish if Jesus, the resurrection didn't happen. That's my position.

Craig:

You're actually not disagreeing with him. If you're saying it's hyperbole, you're just interpreting it differently.

Randy:

Exactly, exactly.

Craig:

But yeah, I mean, Jesus teachings are beautiful. But I had to grapple with this when years ago, I had friends who were in a place where jihadists were killing them. I mean, my friends didn't get killed, but a lot of their friends got killed. And I struggled with this thinking, okay, turning the other cheek, is the right thing to do. But is it the right thing to do in a setting like that? Can we let people defend themselves? Should we intervene to defend them? And I guess that's a different question in a corporate level than just on an individual level, because I have been beaten and had had my life threatened actually, for from my witness before, and I did turn the other cheek. But I was like, Is this practical? It's certainly practical, if we believe in the hope of the resurrection, but if I didn't believe that Jesus rose, I think I wouldn't believe in the Incarnation either. I might appreciate some of Jesus teaching But the idea of the incarnation of a God who loved this, to the extent that he would actually become one of us, and share in our pain, die on the cross, but then just leave it there. How would he still be God? And so, it, it might be a nice enchanted story. But I think I wouldn't really believe much of it.

Kyle:

I think that's a nice place to leave it. We're Holy Week and Easter is upon us. And Greg just agreed with me. So I think we could probably finish it right, even

Randy:

though we're gonna drop this episode some random time knows when this will come out. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Craig Keener, thank you so much for just giving us your time and exposing us to the cavern of academia that you have behind you, that just is still blowing me away. We're really appreciative for your work that you've done over the scriptures over the course of decades. And really, thanks for being with us.

Craig:

Thank thanks. Thanks for having me. And again, I'm just a sample there are scholars who hold a wide range of different views. But these are the things I'm thinking anyway.

Randy:

That's, that's the best kind of scholar right there. A humble one. Yep.

Kyle:

Thanks for joining us.

Craig:

Thanks for having me.

Kyle:

Well, that's it for this episode of A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar. We hope you're enjoying the show as much as we are. Help us continue to create compelling content and reach a wider audience by supporting us patreon.com/apastorandaphilosopher, where you can get bonus content, extra perks, and a general feeling of being good person.

Randy:

Also, please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, and Spotify. These help new people discover the show and we may even read your review in a future episode. If it's good enough.

Kyle:

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Randy:

Catch all of our hot takes on Twitter at@PPWBPodcast, @RandyKnie, and@robertkwhitaker, and find transcripts and links to all of our episodes at pastorandphilosopher.buzzsprout.com. See you next time.

Kyle:

Cheers!