How to respond to someone who believe that the Jesus miracles are just an allegory?

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thelightoftheworld

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Hi,
a relative of mine think that the healing miracles of Jesus and most of what he did in his public life are just allegories to tell stories of spiritual matter. Like when Jesus heals a blind man, he thinks that Jesus opened his eyes spiritually… But he believes that Jesus is God.
Could you help me to respond to such a claim ?
Thanks.
 
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I forgot to tell that he do believe that Jesus is God.
 
OK. The first ask where this “allegory” concept came from - that is the genesis of the problem.
 
He should probably just read the gospels. It’s pretty obvious that they aren’t metaphors.
 
I dont think people would be so willing to die for their faith if His miracles were not real.

Peace!!!
 
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you’re right ! But I don’t think that’s a strong enough point for him… I’ll reply that they died because of love for Jesus or something like that…
 
He reads them while not accepting everything in them. He also reads the apocrypha. He thinks that it’s suspicious that some gospels were canonized and not others…
 
what about the biggest miracle, the Resurrection… does your friend believe in that? if so, then all other miracles are small potatoes
 
If someone doesn’t believe that Jesus actually performed the miracles there isn’t much you can do. If he still believes Jesus is God, be thankful for that. Because a miracle by its very nature can not be repeated, there is no way to prove them. You either accept them by faith or you don’t. I’m not saying the conversation is over but it is at a stopping point. Move the discussion to other areas.
 
thelightoftheworld said:
I forgot to tell that he do believe that Jesus is God.
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If he believes Jesus is God why doesnt he believes in what Jesus did while, He was on earth?

What is it about the miracles does your friend not accepting?

Jesus made a blind man see spiritual but not physically… but then when you continue reading the blind man met people who knew he was blind, either from childhood or a long time and saw he was able to see.

He brought people back from the dead, was that also done spiritually or physically, cause a little girl woke up, a man was buried in a tomb then rose at Jesus’s command. Both declared dead and then lived again, without CPR. One was dead in a tomb for a while so if he wasn’t dead when they put him in he definitely was by the time Jesus got to him.

He made a lame person just pick up his bed and walk home. He healed a woman without even doing anything but by her touching his clothes she was healed. He healed the ear of his enemy… if all those thing where just spiritual only the person who was healed would know but crowds of people were witnesses to whay happened.

The blind man wasn’t just healed in his heart he was healed for the world to see.

Please, ask your friend specifically, what does he not believe about the power of God?
 
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Good point here thanks ! It seems evident to me.
I think that my relative I’m talking about has been influenced a lot by gnostic thinking lately. That’s why he does not recognize the authority of the Church, the real presence in the eucharist, apparitions that contradict his belief… etc
Maybe I could show him these verses about healing, I just thought about those :

Mark 2:9,12 :
“He asked. “Which is easier: to say to a paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your mat, and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” He said to the paralytic, “I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home.”
And immediately the man got up, picked up his mat, and walked out in front of them all. As a result, they were all astounded and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!””

In this verse it seems clear that this is not an allegory.
But he might also deny that.
 
You respond by prayer…I would suggest asking for the intervention of St. Monica…her approach seemed to work!
 
thelightoftheworld said:
In this verse it seems clear that this is not an allegory.
But he might also deny that.
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I think it’s a good point to make. If he just forgave sins, and only “allegorically” healed him (or only “healed his spiritual paralysis”), then what in the world does the passage mean when it says that the guy “immediately got up, picked up his mat, and walked out in front of them all”? Moreover, why would everyone who witnessed it be flabbergasted?

Other miracles can be approached similarly: when Jesus fed the crowds, how can we make sense of Him telling the disciples “feed them”? And the apostles’ response “we don’t have enough money! Send them to the town to buy food”? (Did they merely misunderstand Jesus? If so, why didn’t He correct their misunderstanding?) And then, on the next day, when the crowds came back again, and Jesus said “what? you came looking for more food?”, does your friend think Jesus meant “what? more spiritual food? C’mon guys!”. Nah… it just doesn’t make sense as an allegory.
 
I believe I would take him all the way back to the very beginning, Genisis. Ask him if he believes God is THE Creator. If he believes God is, and that Jesus is the same God, then it should be very simple. If God created ears how hard would it be for Him to fix what He has created, healing the deaf? If God created eyes, how hard would it be for Him to fix blindness? If God created vocal chords, how hard is it for Him to fix the mute? And if God created life, how hard is it for Him to restore a life? Jesus did these things and many more in front of people, not as story telling, but as acts of God.

Jesus told many parables, but the miracle healings involved eye witnesses. Why else would a blind man’s parents be called to testify that their son was indeed born blind? Now if God was making that up He would be a liar, and that He is not.
 
If Jesus is God then he can do anything and has the power to work miracles. Simple as that. Besides, the miracles he performed were witnessed by hundreds of people and if it were only an “allegory” people wouldn’t go around saying that he literally could heal the blind and the lepers. On top of that people wouldn’t bring their sick family and friends to see him if they saw he was only healing people allegorically. Even a Roman centurion went to Jesus to ask him to heal his son.
 
He needs more faith in what the Church teaches instead of in his own knowledge of the world…

Anyway, the miracles done by Our Lord are both material and spiritual. For instance, when he cured the paralytic man, He both cured the guy’s body and soul. The body because he became able to walk, and the soul because his sins were forgiven.
 
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