John 14:14

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

… Some illnesses/conditions aren’t cured because God has other plans for those afflicted. We are born with such things because we are fallen creatures.

Some of us have some conditions because God willed that we be born into the real world.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Once you get to a technology level where people who lose limbs are not going to starve or die in other ways, you seem to get a lot fewer of these kinds of miracle testimonies. Of course, it could also be that people aren’t desperate enough now to pray for miraculous limb regrowth or replacement. Who knows?

When would you say that the technology level has reached a point where those with lost limbs or other body parts were not going to starve to death? From what I’ve been reading advancement in artificial limbs to allow movement or other activity is fairly recent. Things like hearing aids are only about a century old. We still don’t have anything readily available to replace lost eyes.

You mentioned a 3rd century legend of St. Cosmas grating the leg of an Ethiopian man to a man missing a leg. Are there any stories that can be corroborated? We’ve had a living press for centuries. Are there miraculous body part replacements noted in the press?

I ask this to put your assertion to the test, that the advancement of technology to allow function to replace lost body parts is perhaps the reason why no such miracles occur today. Yet as I explained such advancements are only recent in some cases and yet to occur in other cases. The time between when we’ve had a press to investigate claims of supernatural body part restoral and a time when the technology allegedly negated the need for such miracles is great. Why are there no corroborated stories of supernatural body part replacement in all that time? It’s clearly not because of advancement in technology.

 

[Mintaka]

You’re right. My previous answer was too vague to be useful. Why is it too vague?

Well, obviously first one has to read every single hagiographical miracle report in existence, as well as every Vatican saint investigation report which contains reported miracles. Obviously this will mean reading a lot of Latin and Greek. It will probably take at least a hundred man-years, so it would obviously be useful to recruit a lot of people. Preferably Italian people already living in Rome, so as to be able to visit non-digitized Vatican libraries and Curial record storage.

(Obviously this Catholic focus would be solely for simplicity’s sake, since of course other Christian denominations also report miraculous healings, as do non-Christian faiths.)

One puts all the results into a database. (And of course one would separate things into whether there is historical verification by eyewitnesses, or if it’s just hearsay, or what have you. Here you could get some help from the Acta Sanctorum folks, the Bollandists. They’ve only been working on their hagiographical collation project since the 1600’s.)

Then one makes a chart of results.

And then one will know for sure, or at least one will begin to be able to accurately define the problem.

Since you are so concerned about these results, obviously you should take the lead in creating this vast miracle project database. Since I doubt you’ll be able to get everyone to work for free, and creating a new religious order is difficult nowadays, you’ll have to think about funding and grants. It would be an exciting project, I’m sure, and a nice way to spend the rest of your life (and those of your kids and grandkids).

Alternately, you will have to settle for some vagueness.

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

Are there any reports of limbs restored that aren’t described as legends?

My answer? Let God be God and Faith1960 be Faith1960. 'Nuff said.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

You’re right. My previous answer was too vague to be useful. Why is it too vague?

I’m going to say because it was incorrect. You stated that there was a cut-off point to which it was no longer necessary for God to perform miraculous healing on those who had lost body parts, and that cut-off point was when prosthetics allowed someone to make it through life without starving. I noted to you that the such a cut-off point is relatively recent yet we have no corroborated stories of miraculous body replacement before that time.

Then one makes a chart of results.

And then one will know for sure, or at least one will begin to be able to accurately define the problem.

Since you are so concerned about these results, obviously you should take the lead in creating this vast miracle project database. Since I doubt you’ll be able to get everyone to work for free, and creating a new religious order is difficult nowadays, you’ll have to think about funding and grants. It would be an exciting project, I’m sure, and a nice way to spend the rest of your life (and those of your kids and grandkids).

There’s no need to go to such trouble. We’re looking for one verified case where a person was missing a body part and then miraculously he or she gained that part. I don’t have to look far to find people who claim that they were afflictied with any of several different maladies – some of which are not fatal – and that they believe they were healed through prayer, The same investigation on amputees (or those with missing eyes or ears) doesn’t give such results. The response become much more mushmouthed, often deflecting the question to why one would doubt God in such a way. Or the response is to give a legend despite the fact that we’ve had people with missing body parts for as long as there have been people. To ask to give credence to legends (despite non-amputees today claiming healing through prayer) is to wonder if we should give credence to all legends, even ones of a non-Christian bent.

What would you say are the two or three most convincing examples of miraculous restoration of body parts?

Alternately, you will have to settle for some vagueness.

Interestingly I find when a pointed question results in only vague answers the truth becomes that much clearer.