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Question: How do Mormons view miracles in other faiths?
Question: How do Mormons view miracles in other faiths?
Latter-day Saints believe that God blesses all His children according to their faith and his purposes
Many Christian believers report miraculous healings and the like, which they claim are done by God's power. How can the Church claim to possess the only valid priesthood in light of these miraculous blessings?
Latter-day Saints believe that God blesses all His children according to their faith and his purposes. Priesthood authority, or membership in the proper (or any) Church is not necessary for this to happen.
Members of the Church do not believe that God's power cannot be accessed by other faithful believers in other traditions for the blessing of healing or comfort
Faith in God or Christ can work miracles, and no set of believers has a monopoly on that.
Said Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
We know that the prayer of faith, uttered alone or in our homes or places of worship, can be effective to heal the sick. Many scriptures refer to the power of faith in the healing of an individual. The Apostle James taught that we should “pray one for another, that ye may be healed,” adding, “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16). When the woman who touched Jesus was healed, He told her, “Thy faith hath made thee whole” (Matthew 9:22). Similarly, the Book of Mormon teaches that the Lord “worketh by power, according to the faith of the children of men” (Moroni 10꞉7).
A recent nationwide survey found that nearly 8 in 10 Americans “believe that miracles still occur today as [they did] in ancient times.” A third of those surveyed said they had “experienced or witnessed a divine healing.” Many Latter-day Saints have experienced the power of faith in healing the sick. We also hear examples of this among people of faith in other churches. A Texas newspaperman described such a miracle. When a five-year-old girl breathed with difficulty and became feverish, her parents rushed her to the hospital. By the time she arrived there, her kidneys and lungs had shut down, her fever was 107 degrees, and her body was bright red and covered with purple lesions. The doctors said she was dying of toxic shock syndrome, cause unknown. As word spread to family and friends, God-fearing people began praying for her, and a special prayer service was held in their Protestant congregation in Waco, Texas. Miraculously, she suddenly returned from the brink of death and was released from the hospital in a little over a week. Her grandfather wrote, “She is living proof that God does answer prayers and work miracles.”
Truly, as the Book of Mormon teaches, God “manifesteth himself unto all those who believe in him, by the power of the Holy Ghost; yea, unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, working mighty miracles . . . among the children of men according to their faith” (2 Nephi 26꞉13).[1]
Members of the Church understand priesthood authority to be vital, however, for such matters as performing essential ordinances (such as baptism), providing authoritative scripture or revelation via a prophet to the entire Church,[2] and directing and governing the Church of God on the earth.
Notes
- ↑ Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," Ensign 40, no. 5 (May 2010): 47–50.
- ↑ See discussion in Dallin H. Oaks, "Two Lines of Communication," Ensign 40, no. 11 (November 2010): 83–86.