Is there a study that gathered credible accounts of healing under scientific scrutiny?

Question

Is there a study that gathered accounts of healing under scientific scrutiny?

What is meant by healing?

Healing in this context means a person who had a medically documented sickness was healed in a Christian setting and was declared medically healthy within 48 hours.

I like how Ken Graham put it: "The miraculous healing [...] need to be spontaneous, instantaneous and complete healing".

I also think the criteria laid out at The miracles of Lourdes also bring it to the point well. Quote:

1. The 1st criterion is that the disease is serious, with an unfavorable prognosis.
2. Secondly, the disease must be known and recorded by medicine.
3. Thirdly, this disease must be organic, lesional, that is to say, there must be objective, biological, radiological criteria, everything that currently exists in medicine; this means that even today we will not recognize cures of pathologies without precise objective criteria, such as psychological, psychiatric, functional, nervous diseases, etc.
   (this does not mean that these diseases cannot be cured, but according to the criteria of the Church, they will not be recognized as miracles in the current state of affairs).
4. Fourthly, there must not have been any treatment to which the cure could be attributed.
   (I would be a bit more lenient and say, there should not be a treatment that can work faster than a few weeks)
5. The 5th criterion concerns the timing of the cure itself: recovery must be sudden, instantaneous, immediate, and without convalescence.
6. Finally, after the cure, there are two additional criteria: it must not simply be a regression of symptoms but a return of all vital functions, and finally, it must not simply be a remission but a cure, i.e. lasting and definitive.

What is meant by scientific scrutiny?

With scientific scrutiny I mean the following:

• confirmation bias is accounted for (meaning a trusted party beyond the Christian entity in question has gathered/verified the data or at least can verify the data)
• other potential biases are accounted for
• the methodology is transparent
• the data is complete (but can be anonymized) meaning that every account can be verified by a third party. E.g. X-ray of a broken bone and X-ray of healed broken bone with dates.
• Basically, if anyone reads the paper/data, it shouldn't be easy to refute.

Not a replicable experiment/trial

What I do not mean is a replicable experiment, because miracles can only happen when, where, and on who God decides to perform a miracle.

Mark 8:11-12 also makes clear that God does not like to be demanded or manipulated into doing miracles:

11 The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. 12 And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.”

Also, more scientific reasons why trials don't work here are laid out in a study on the effect of prayer, Prayer and healing: A medical and scientific perspective on randomized controlled trials.

In essence, the scientific method seeks to find a process/method and control all variables of influence. However, in the case of healing one variable is the whim of God that cannot be controlled.

So why the approach I laid out?

Well, I don't want to find a Christian method for healing, but want to prove that the phenomenon of healing in Christianity exists.

Why the previous Q&A here, might not answer the question

I've read the answers to this question: Are there or have there been Christian healing ministries that have documented healing cases with supporting medical records?

but my problem is that the sources are somewhat old (I skimmed through and didn't see any account later than 1990.) and I cannot verify if those 70 cases of Lourdes were in fact healed.

What I mean is that one cannot deduce from a name, name of ailment, date, and Diocese that healing has occurred. (Referencing the table Ken Graham provided The Cures at Lourdes which have been recognised as miraculous by the Church ).

What I need is not a name but proof of ailment and proof of the absence of ailment within a reasonable timeframe, proof that the healing occurred in a Christian setting (any denomination is fine), and a date for each.

Let me be clear: I am not looking for single testimonies but a statistic that aggregated, verified testimonies, and made each testimony verifiable.

Answer 1

Is there a study that gathered credible accounts of healing under scientific scrutiny?

If I understand your question clearly, the actual answer seems to be in the negative! No such study exists. Such a study almost seems to be, in a sense, a list question. Nevertheless I will try to make an answer as best I can.

Even the Vatican, which has an official office (Dicastery for the Causes of Saints) which investigates the possibilities for the canonization and beatification of individuals to be proclaimed saints within the Catholic Church, requires as part of their investigation, a panel of cardinals to investigate alleged miracles performed by God through the intercession of an individual. It is worth noting that Rome requires medical doctors and other health care professionals to aid the investigation. These health care professionals do not necessarily be Catholics either, as their testimony is simply required to substantiate that a particular miracle claim can not be explained though known human intervention, either with medication or some other medical procedure.

Several factors to consider:

1. Hereto, there is no known Vatican database for such information. One must do an individual search of a study, case by case.
2. Some recipients of a miraculous hearing genuinely desire to be left unknown and the Vatican respects the individual's right to remain undisclosed, which I believe is another reason for not having a Vatican database for miracles.
3. The Vatican does not always publish the miracle involved in the case of a beatification or canonization. Individuals at times have requested to remain anonymous. They have the right to remain unknown to the public's eye. I know of one case where Pope John Paul II refused to accept the miraculous healing of a young girl whose amputated legs were restored. Pope John Paul II did not want the Communist government to persecute the young girl or her family. Pope John Paul II was heard saying that if God could perform such a miracle through the intercession of the then Venerable Claudine Thévenet, He can certainly perform another. She is now a canonized saint.

About 99% of all miracles involve a physical healing, however a very rare number are not of this nature. Some years ago, I remember that the approved miracle in a canonization case involved a young boy who invoked a Blessed when an avalanche was descending upon him. All perished, except the young boy. The snow parted on both sides of him and he simply walked to safety.

Other forms of miraculous events the Catholic Church recognizes can include Marian Apparitions, Eucharistic Miracles and occasionally Stigmatization. Some Marian apparitions are recognized by other Christian denominations, notably the Orthodox Church. The Miracle Hunter lists many of these non-healing miracles on its blog.

Even amongst the miracles performed by Jesus, not all involved physical healing! Here are a few examples:

1. Jesus turn water into wine.

2. Jesus Heals a Woman with an “Issue of Blood”.

3. Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind.

4. Jesus Feeds the 5,000.

5. Jesus healed the blind.

6. Jesus walked on water.

7. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

8. Jesus was Resurrected from the Dead.