Friday, December 08, 2006

Ashley's Testimony

In one of my classes the students are organized into cohorts, which have to meet weekly to discuss course content. After meeting with my cohort every week throughout the semester I began to get to know them. During the course of a particular conversation, one of my new friends, Ashley Schroeder, shared a little bit about an experience she called a miracle. I asked her if she would be willing to send me a quick email, answering two things. I wanted to know what she considered a "miracle", and I also wanted a brief description of the one she thought she experienced. This is the email I got back:

Sorry life is crazy! Here is some of it... if you want more info then I
will give it to you. I think a miracle is an act that only God could do
for which there is no other explanation.

It is hard for me to see how anyone could deny Christ because of all He
has done for me. I have suffered from severe asthma since I was little.
During high school I rarely went three or four days with out one if not
two attacks. It was hard and left me weak and sick. Coming to Biola was
a rough transition. My first semester here I got sent to the hospital ER
with a really bad attack, worse than any before. I was released after 6
hours, exhausted and weak. I was still struggling with multiple attacks a
week. Then I had one so bad I was in the hospital for four days at the
beginning of my spring semester. The Tuesday after this attack I was at
my bible study, and I started having another attack, the group began to
pray over me, and it stopped. I have never had an attack since. It is
truly a miracle of God and an awesome one at that.


Ashley Schroeder~

Sigma lobby gang 4ever! :)
Ashley is a senior, so it has been three years since her last asthma attack. Is her belief that the stopping of her asthma attacks is a miracle worked by God able to be demonstrated conclusively? Is it reasonable? Is she rational for adding this to her pile of reasons to believe, next to other experiences (perhaps less miraculous), a cosmological argument, 30 units of theological study, and years of reading the bible? If her reasons to believe outweigh the arguments and testimonies of nonchristians that she has heard, is her faith understandable? Should we ask Ashley to withold belief until she has read every book and spoken to every scientist about whether or not God exists?

1 comment:

Derek said...

given the religious context of the healing and the unliklihood of it occuring because of known natural causes, I think Ashley is justified in believing the following proposition:

"There is a supernatural entity who has power over the universe and cares about my welfare."