In my initial answer, I presented several sources collectively advocating for continuationism. However, the original poster (OP) indicated in the comments a preference for reasoned arguments addressing the specific aspects of their question. Thus, in this follow-up, I aim to provide concrete arguments that align more closely with what the OP has requested.
Firstly, I will refer to a key argument outlined in Craig S. Keener's book Miracles: 2 Volumes: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. Concretely, an argument he presents on pages 259-263. This argument will set the general stage by defending continuationism from cessationist objections. Next, I will quote a more specific argument in defense of the continuation of the gift of tongues that Craig Keener published in this article.
For background information on Keener, please visit https://asburyseminary.edu/faculty/craig-keener/. Additionally, it's worth noting that Keener has since authored a more recent, condensed work titled Miracles Today: The Supernatural Work of God in the Modern World. Moreover, he engaged in a debate titled Craig Keener, Peter May & Joshua Brown: Miracle Healing - does it happen today?, which explored the legitimacy of contemporary cases of miraculous healing. Though not directly addressing tongues, the topic of that debate closely intersects with the broader discussion on cessationism versus continuationism which is quite relevant to the OP's question.
Craig Keener's first argument on cessationism vs continuationism
One Theological Caveat
Because I am now turning to postbiblical examples of healing claims,
and some of my Western readers may find many of the healing claims in
this book astonishing for a particular sort of theological reason, I
digress at this point also to address an objection that may arise for
some of them (although not for myself, and certainly not for
antisupernaturalists). This objection involves the doctrine, held by a
minority of conservative Protestants, known as “cessationism,” the
belief that extraordinary supernatural manifestations through
individuals have ceased. Later I will treat the rise of a form of
Protestant cessationism in the West that accommodated Enlightenment
antisupernaturalism, allowing God’s (visible) activity exclusively (or
at least almost exclusively) through natural means. I must digress
here, however, to observe that modern cessationism is not all of one
kind.
Many modern cessationists do not exclude God’s supernatural activity
in the present but simply argue that it does not occur to the same
degree or in the same form as in the nt (in which case “cessationist”
might not be the best term for it, but I defer to the preferred usage
of some of the view’s advocates). This position would not need to
exclude from consideration, even with regard to the question of
supernatural causation, most examples offered later in this book. It
would not regard them as normative, but the issue of normativity is
not important for establishing the main points of this book: that
eyewitnesses can claim to have seen healings and that some healings
may involve supernatural causation.
From an apparent diminution in the magnitude of miracles in many parts
of the world today a historian working from analogy could argue that
nt miracles were exaggerated. A moderate cessationist (again, not my
approach) could counter that if any of Jesus’s miracles (or other
miracles in his name) are granted as genuine miracles, then God acted
in Jesus’s ministry and confirmed his distinctive claims; these claims
in turn allow us to set Jesus apart. This approach, if taken, would
not weaken my argument from analogy even for genuinely supernatural
miracles in the Gospels and Acts, since the point is not the quantity
or degree but the existence of genuine miracles. As I noted in chapter
5, a single genuine miracle would be sufficient to refute Hume’s claim
against miracles from experience, and I will suggest later in the book
that we have far more than a single case (though I do not argue that
all the claims I narrate in following chapters need be understood in
those terms).
For most Christians, especially in the West, this idea of a change in
the character of the miraculous could fit our experience. If Jesus
healed everyone who came to him, as some hold, matters are
different today (and indeed, not only in the West). If healing was
normally instant in the nt (at least in cases where we are informed,
apart from Mark 8:24–25), many or most recoveries attributed to divine
help today differ from those in the nt era (though I will cite some
claims of instant healings today as well). Yet I believe that it is
difficult to find a solid nt rationale for the change (the texts cited
for this perspective rely heavily on theological inference, sometimes,
as in the case of 1 Cor 13:8–12, apparently in the direct face of what
the text says), unless it would be that God lavishes miracles more
freely in particular points in salvation history than in others (a
perspective many noncessationists would share). While in historic
Christian teaching Jesus is unique, the same cannot be said for signs
workers like Stephen in Acts (or among some biblical figures preceding
Jesus).
My purpose in this book is not to offer a theological or biblical
response to cessationism, which I have offered in other works
(primarily responding there to “hard” rather than moderate
cessationism). But I respond here briefly with respect to the
matter at hand: if God lavishes miracles more freely at some
particularly significant points in salvation history (a reasonable
observation from Scripture), one still cannot conclude from the nt
that no such significant points would continue to occur. Although
miracles appear particularly dramatic in Jesus’s ministry, these echo
(as we have noted) signs narrated in earlier significant eras, such as
those of Moses, Elijah, and Elisha, and are in turn echoed in
ministries in Acts (not, incidentally, limited to the Twelve plus
Paul, as some suggest; see Acts 6:8; 8:6). They are not limited to a
single phase in biblical history but appear at various significant
points; the time of Elijah and Elisha was a case of a biblical revival
to reverse, at least temporarily, national apostasy. They are not,
then, limited to Jesus’s ministry or to the events of “salvation” as
most narrowly construed; they apply also to the expansion of God’s
message. The evangelization of previously unevangelized people groups,
where we encounter many miracle reports today, seems analogous to the
kinds of settings we have in Acts.
The apparently consistent nt perspective is that Christians live in an
eschatologically significant time, what nt theologians often describe
as the “already/ not yet” of the kingdom. Early Christians did not
expect that era to last for centuries, but the point is that they
defined the period between Christ’s first and second comings as
eschatological, a period in which many of God’s promises were being
fulfilled. One could also argue that when God stirs the hearts of
believers to live in this reality, that is also a significant time
when God may act in dramatic ways. I can empathize with even a fairly
conservative cessationist perspective on a level of some of my
experience and as an understandable reaction against some widespread
charismatic abuses, but I do not believe that this is the solution
most compatible with the theology that we find in the nt. I believe
that such theology should lead us to expect and weigh more heavily
continuity rather than discontinuity. In the case of some moderate
cessationists, the difference might be one of degree.
In any case, while hard cessationists might find some reports in this
book as shocking as full-scale antisupernaturalists would, I believe
that even in the West moderate cessationists probably constitute the
majority of cessationists today. I would thus invite those committed
to this theological perspective to join noncessationist theists,
including myself, in recognizing the better-founded among modern
miracle claims (normally those supported by trustworthy witnesses) as
a legitimate argument in support of the plausibility of biblical
miracle claims.
Conclusion
What the radical Enlightenment excluded as implausible based on the
principle of analogy, much of today’s world can accept on the same
principle of analogy. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide claim
to have experienced or witnessed what they believe are miracles.
Eyewitness claims to dramatic recoveries appear in a wide variety of
cultures, among Christians often successfully emulating models of
healings found in the Gospels and Acts. Granted, such healings do not
occur on every occasion and are fairly unpredictable in their
occurrence; yet they seem to appear with special frequency in cultures
and circles that welcome them. Radical Enlightenment
antisupernaturalism is far from the majority view in the world and
thus henceforth ought to argue rather than presuppose its case. I have
merely introduced Majority World perspectives in this chapter. In the
following two chapters, I turn to a number of concrete examples.
This specific argument, delineated on pages 259-263 of the book, provides essential context countering cessationist objections to the continuation of miracles. It's noteworthy that Craig Keener included this caveat in his book recognizing that he is not only addressing the skepticism of atheists, agnostics, and radical antisuperanturalists who dismiss all supernatural claims across the board, but also contending with skepticism from cessationist Christians. These cessationists, situated along a spectrum, may accept the supernatural claims in the Gospels and Acts while rejecting to different degrees the millions of miracle accounts throughout history and in modern times that have been reported after the apostolic age, depending on how radical they are in their cessationism.
Craig Keener's second argument on Acts 2 and the gift of tongues
Pentecost (Acts 2:1) was a significant festival in the Jewish
calendar, offering the first fruits of grain to the Lord (Lev. 23:16).
Its significance in this narrative, however, may be especially that it
was one of the major pilgrimage festivals, when Jewish people who
lived all over the world came back to visit Jerusalem. This sets the
stage for the experience of the Spirit that will drive the church in
Acts across all cultural barriers.
The narrative opens with God’s people in unity (Acts 2:1). They have
been praying together (1:14), and prayer often precedes the coming of
the Spirit in Luke-Acts (Luke 3:21-22; 11:13; Acts 4:31; 8:15).
Suddenly, they experience signs of the Spirit. The first two signs
touch key senses, hearing and sight. They evoke biblical theophanies,
perhaps also as foretastes of the future age. First, they hear a wind,
perhaps prefiguring the promised wind of God’s Spirit that would bring
new life to God’s people in Ezekiel 37:9-14. Second, they witness the
appearance of fire, which was often associated with future judgment
(cf. Luke 3:9, 16-17).
The third sign, however—speaking in tongues—is the most important of
the three. This is clear because it occurs again at two other
outpourings of the Spirit in Acts, although no one present on those
occasions recognizes the languages spoken (Acts 10:46; 19:6). On this
first occasion, though, their experience is also important because
some people do recognize the languages and it therefore forms the
bridge to Peter’s sermon. The crowds hear this sound (2:6) and ask
what this phenomenon means (2:12). Peter goes on to explain that this
tongues-speaking means that the promised time of the Spirit has dawned
(2:16-18).
Since tongues-speaking represents an example of the prophetic
outpouring of the Spirit in “the last days” (2:17), we should no more
suppose that tongues have ceased than that prophecy has ceased, and we
should no more suppose that prophecy has ceased than that the last
days have now been supplanted by days later than last days that are no
longer “last”! If we take the Bible seriously, it makes no sense to
deny that God who poured the Spirit out (2:17-18) has now poured the
Spirit back, or that we no longer need the Spirit empowering us for
evangelism (1:8) so long as the task of reaching the ends of the earth
still remains to be fulfilled. Of course, when that task has been
fulfilled, and our mission is complete, Jesus will return (Matt 24:14;
Rom 11:25-27; 2 Pet 3:9-12). We will no longer need these gifts that
provide windows on God because we will know him even as we are known
(1 Cor 13:8-13).
What is speaking in tongues in Acts? It seems quite implausible that
Paul would use related wording to describe a gift of the Spirit only
by coincidence. Both Luke and Paul refer to the Spirit enabling
worship in unlearned speech (Acts 2:11; 10:46; 1 Cor 14:2, 14-17). In
1 Cor 12:10; 14:2, 13, 18-19, however, only God understands the
speech, unless someone present is divinely gifted with the
understanding (the gift of interpretation). What matters for Paul is
not the linguistic element, but that one’s heart communicates with
God. Likewise, in Acts 10:46; 19:6, apparently no one present
understands the language.
Acts 2 seems to reflect a special situation for this first outpouring
of the Spirit, in which God inspires the worship in languages that
will be recognized by the many foreign Jewish hearers on this
occasion. There have been subsequent occasions of languages being
recognized by someone present (see e.g., Del Tarr, The Foolishness of
God: A Linguist Looks at the Mystery of Tongues [Springfield, Mo.:
Access, 2010]; Jordan Daniel May, Global Witnesses to Pentecost: The
Testimony of “Other Tongues” [Cleveland, Tenn.: CPT Press, 2013]).
That is not, however, the normal purpose of tongues in the Bible or
subsequently.
Yet Luke has a special reason to highlight this special occurrence of
recognized tongues in Acts 2. Luke’s “thesis statement” for Acts is
Acts 1:8: the Spirit empowers witnesses for Jesus to the ends of the
earth. (The witnesses are in the first case “the eleven and those who
were with them” in Luke 24:33, but they become a model for the
continuing mission of the church, since the spread of the good news
must continue to the ends of the earth, far beyond the conclusion of
Acts 28.)
In another major programmatic statement for Acts, the Spirit inspires
all believers to speak prophetically for God (2:17-18), a last-days
gift (2:17) that continues for subsequent generations (2:38-39).
Although this wide potential for prophetic speech continues in Acts in
the narrower sense (11:27; 13:1; 19:6; 21:9-10; cf. 1 Cor 14:5, 31),
all believers, including those who think that other gifts have ceased,
at the very least must surely depend on the Spirit in our witness for
Christ.
But where does tongues (2:4) fit on the spectrum of witness (1:8) and
prophecy (2:17-18)? How do tongues fulfill Joel’s promise of God’s
people being able to prophesy (2:17-18)? Like witness and prophecy in
the narrower sense, worship in tongues is speech for God and moved by
the Spirit of God. Nor is it simply a random example of this sort of
speech; Luke’s narrative highlights in Acts 2 a particular dimension
about tongues-speaking that is distinctive: it portends the mission to
the ends of the earth (1:8).
What greater sign of the purpose of Spirit-empowerment, stated in 1:8,
could God offer on the day of Pentecost than for God to empower his
people to worship in other people’s languages? That is, God signifies
right from the start that the Spirit empowers us for our mission to
the ends of the earth. The Book of Acts then provides further examples
of God continuing to empower new and unexpected groups of believers,
who thereby become colaborers in the mission (8:14-17; 9:17; 10:44-48;
13:52; 19:6).
Various groups of Christians today debate how many Christians should
speak in tongues, but all of us can appreciate what tongues on the
first Pentecost most of all means for us: God has empowered his church
to reach all peoples. Until that mission is complete, let us continue
to call on him for his power to use us. This is a prayer that he is sure to answer (Luke 11:13).
Source: The Point of Speaking in Tongues in Acts 2
Bonus
The reader might also be interested in watching Gavin Ortlund's rebuttal to a cessationist documentary: Cessationist: A Critical Evaluation of This Documentary. In the video, Gavin rebuts:
- 02:25 (1) The "Clusters" Argument
- 13:04 (2) The Confirmation Argument
- 25:11 (3) The Fading Away Argument
- 35:31 (4) The Foundation Argument
- 50:04 (5) The Church History Argument
- 57:42 Guilt By Association Tactics
Also of interest might be Keener's own personal testimony and experience with the gift of speaking in tongues: An #Apologetic for Speaking in Tongues with New Testament Scholar Craig Keener
Addendum after clarification
The OP has clarified that he is interested in rebuttals to the purported uniqueness of certain aspects of the event documented in Acts 2. Quoting the OP:
Then the fact of tongues only ever being seen to visibly descend upon the eleven, and those directly associated with them and nobody else, might therefore suggest that this event is, also, unique, the only other comparable occurrence being, Acts 19:2, in the case of twelve who, since they had never even heard of the Holy Spirit, could not have been aware of either of the above events and therefore were granted an experience similar to, though differing from, that which was unique.
Does the unique character of these events not point to a non-repetition of them and point to a considered and balanced attitude that such things have, indeed, ceased?
I believe a rebuttal here should aim to challenge the presupposition that the various aspects of the apostles' experience in Acts 2 are entirely unique, implying they will never recur.
First of all, when someone presents a claim, there are two approaches to rebutting it:
- Option 1: show that the claim is unsubstantiated, and therefore there is no reason for believing that the claim is true. This shifts the burden of proof back to the claimant who uttered the claim, who is now responsible for convincing us, otherwise we won't accept their claim.
- Option 2: assume the burden of proof and show that the claim is false (i.e. prove the negation of the claim).
In the case at hand (the specific facets of the Acts 2 experience), I believe it's more reasonable to adopt option 1. Rather than proving that we must inevitably anticipate a recurrence of all aspects, it's simpler to demonstrate that there is no reason to dismiss the possibility of their recurrence.
So let's dissect the various aspects of the Acts 2 experience:
- The sound resembling a violent wind filling the house.
- A visible display of tongues of fire (presumably observable by at least some witnesses).
- The sensation of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
- Speaking in an unfamiliar language, understood by at least one person in the audience.
- The resultant proclamation of the wonders of God, involving praise, exaltation, and worship.
I've delineated 5 aspects of the Acts 2 experience. Should we conclude that none of these aspects have occurred or will ever occur again since Pentecost? Let's see:
Aspect 1 appears entirely within the capabilities of the Holy Spirit to replicate if desired. Indeed, in Acts 4:31, the house shook where the disciples were assembled, indicating such phenomena can indeed recur.
Aspect 2, once more, seems well within God's ability to reproduce if desired. I discern no reason to assert that this is beyond God's capacity to enact again.
Aspect 3, the filling of the spirit, is something every Christian should aspire to experience. There is every reason, therefore, to think that this aspect can (and should) recur.
Aspect 4 involves the miraculous bestowal of the ability to speak an earthly language previously unknown to the speaker, corroborated by a native speaker. Once again, this is a phenomenon well within God's power to reproduce, and there are testimonies and anecdotes of individuals spontaneously speaking foreign languages understood by listeners.
Aspect 5 entails Spirit-inspired praises during tongue-speaking. Once more, this is well within the capabilities of the Holy Spirit. There is no reason to deem such occurrences as never to be expected.
Can we anticipate an exact replication of Acts 2?
Expecting an exact carbon-copy event with all these aspects occurring simultaneously and identically is perhaps setting the bar too high in terms of expectation. In a sense, the Pentecost event was unique due to its specific combination of multiple factors, including historical, geographical, and contextual elements. However, acknowledging the uniqueness of this specific combination does not preclude the possibility of similar or novel combinations of aspects, or innovative ways in which God might choose to manifest the gift of speaking in tongues.
In short, there's no basis to doubt that God can continue to work through the church, demonstrating extraordinary manifestations, including the gift of speaking in tongues, as the Holy Spirit sees fit, as outlined in 1 Corinthians 12.
The cessationist will probably say that this is not convincing. They want stronger proof. Likewise, the atheist finds arguments for the existence of God unconvincing, and wants stronger proof. Conversely, a continuationist will find the peculiar way in which the OP does exegesis unconvincing, and would like to see stronger arguments. In the end, no-one convinces anyone. Everyone believes what they want to believe, according to the epistemological standards they have set for themselves.
