Arguments Against Healing

If God did miracles, it we wouldn't need faith to believe in him

If miracles undermine faith, Jesus went about ministry in all the wrong ways. After all, he did a great many miracles, which — if the above thesis is to be believed — would have undermined the faith of the people Jesus sought to minister too. Additionally, in Matthew 8:13, Matthew 15:28, Mark 5:34, Luke 17:19, and Luke 18:42, Jesus connects various peoples faith with the healings that resulted. In these cases, faith superseded the miracles, so saying miracles undermines faith implies that Jesus not only undermined the faith of people in general but that he actively undermined the faith of people with what we might consider strong faith: people with enough faith to believe Jesus would heal them.

Of course, the very reason people came to Jesus asking for healing was because they believed he could heal. The obvious reason they would have thought this possible was that they had heard of the miracles he performed. So, even though they had heard of miracles, they responded by coming to Jesus with faith. Clearly then, for those people, miracles resulted in faith rather than undermining it. It also seems extremely clear that Jesus did not consider miracles a threat to people's faith.

We know there is no "healing" today because people aren't healed

The implication here is that if miracles happened, we'd all know about it. Actually, I think this is an entirely valid argument. Were it flounders is in the application: we do hear about it. For example, here are stories of seven medically unexplainable recoveries: "Heaven Healed Me: 7 Miraculous Healings Doctors Can’t Explain."

Now, if you're like me, your immediate reaction to the linked page is one of cynicism — where's the proof? After all, anyone can claim anything online. But what if you had seen or experienced a miracle personally? Would you react differently? Maybe. Maybe not. I was healed of hypothyroidism about a decade ago. The condition was diagnosed by my doctor who told me it was not medically curable and I would need to take a pill a day for the rest of my life. I had lots of people pray for me over the next few months, and the condition had improved when I went back after three months and gone away entirely when I returned at the six month mark, Thus far, it has not returned. Even so, I see those "7 Miraculous Healing" stories and my first reaction is to doubt their veracity.

If they were really miracles, they'd be immediate

If a piano is falling on me and I see it curve away even though there is nothing to cause it to change direction, I'm likely to consider it a miracle. The speed at which a thing happens does not explain away the irregularity of it happening at all. That said, most of Jesus miracles appear to have been immediate.

I have seen some discussion online that one of the Greek \words used to describe healings means that they happened over time, but I don't see are any clear examples in the New Testament of people going away and being healed over a period of days (or even months as was my experience with hypothyroidism). That said, Mark 8:22-25, Luke 17:12-14, and John 9:1-7 all have healing that is not instantaneous. I would argue the casting out of Legion in Mark 5:1-11 was also not instantaneous. Jesus tells the demons to leave the man, and then there is a short conversation between Jesus and the demons before they actually obey his command. However, the longest of these (Luke 17:12-14) does not seem to have taken very long at all.

This does raise an interesting question, though. What I have come across online seems to indicate anecdotally that progressive healings rather than instantaneous ones are the normal experience. This appears to be the exact opposite of the New Testament experience. If one believes the reports of healings (including my own healing from hypothyroidism) and also holds the typical evangelical belief that the Bible to be true, how do we reconcile those two? Why is the current experience so different from the Biblical one?

God's just there, but doesn't do anything and isn't really anything

In this TED talk, Church of England Vicar, Tom Honey, rejects a God who does anything at all other than just experience life with us: I Don't Know. A humble talk, but less of a response and more of a capitulation dressed to sound intellectual.

Isaiah 53:5 doesn't really mean "healed"

Chris DeRoco makes a reasonable observation regarding the meaning of the verse here. He argues the "healing" here refers to deliverance from sin. Where that argument seems lacking to me is twofold. First of all, it requires starting from the perspective that the word "healed" in the verse doesn't mean healed. Secondly, it overlooks the association of sickness and sin in the Bible; while not all sickness is a direct consequence of a specific sin, all sickness is the result of a fallen world, which is the result of sin. The only reasonable way to argue otherwise is to take a cessationist viewpoint and say all healing occurs in heaven. That said, it is clear that Jesus did not heal every sick person he passed by, so it also seems unreasonable to use this verse to argue that God will heal every illness.
For an argument against cessationism, see John Wimber's observations on the "Arguments for Healing" page of this website. For an argument that sin and sickness are related, see Smith Wigglesworth: Sin and Sickness: Are they related?