Big Healing Book - Medical Studies Have Proven That Faith Healing Works by the

Objection: Medical Studies Have Proven That Faith Healing Works by the Placebo Effect

This objection, based on some actual studies, is interesting because the studies don’t deny that faith healing works. In fact, they affirm that it DOES work, which at least is a nice change of pace! The problem is that they attribute the result to godless causes and take Jesus out of the picture.

I remember the first time when someone came to me with this “placebo” argument. My response was that if faith healing actually works, by WHATEVER method, why don’t YOU get rich and popular by going around providing relief for sufferers around the world using the placebo effect? After all, some people who are healed by faith are healed of conditions that are not treatable by traditional medicine. What a revelation – go around and hand out placebos! They ought to be a lot cheaper than the real drugs being used to treat conditions. Or you could just make an even bigger markup than the pharmaceutical companies make by selling sugar pills at outrageous prices. You probably wouldn’t even have to warn, “Don’t take Placebex if you’re allergic to Placebex” or hire a professional motor-mouth to rattle off potential dire side effects of Placebex in as few seconds as possible during your ads.

I am aware that there IS such a thing as the placebo effect, as documented in medical journals. Some people have recovered from conditions after being given sugar pills that they were told were a new treatment for their illness. However, that doesn’t mean that what goes on in healing meetings works on the same principle.

I have seen deformed body parts suddenly become normal after ministry in the name of Jesus. No one has ever come up with a placebo that has that effect! If anyone did, he would doubtless win a Nobel Prize and be one of the richest men on the planet. Consider the types of conditions Jesus encountered – blindness, deafness, insanity, untreatable hemorrhaging, having a withered hand, and so on. Do you know of any placebo that can INSTANTLY fix these conditions? No! It’s ridiculous to ascribe such miracles to the placebo effect. Besides, you couldn’t give the dead people who were raised in the New Testament placebos to bring them back!

Beware of any “science” that thinks it disproves the Bible! That’s not an original warning; Paul beat me to it (1 Timothy 6:20-21). Bad “science” that supposedly disproves Scripture is probably the major reason that more people turn from Christ in college than anywhere else. They are fed nonsensical “proof” that we evolved from apes, despite the fact that there isn’t a shred of evidence that one species can ever evolve into another, to say nothing of how ludicrous it is to think that an ape without an eternal spirit can suddenly turn into a morally accountable man who will spend eternity on a new earth or in the lake of fire. So beware of any so-called expert who thinks that he can explain away the Bible. It’s the FOOL who says in his heart that there is no God (Psalm 14:1, Psalm 53:1).