Supernatural Religion Volume I Part 8

Most of the great English divines have clearly recognized and a.s.serted the necessity of supernatural evidence to establish the reality of a supernatural revelation. Bishop Butler affirms miracles and the completion of prophecy to be the "direct and fundamental proofs" of Christianity.(2) Elsewhere he says: "The notion of a miracle, considered as a proof of a divine mission, has been stated with great exactness by divines, and is, I think, sufficiently understood by every one. There are also invisible miracles, the Incarnation of Christ, for instance, which, being secret, cannot be alleged as a proof of such a mission; but require themselves to be proved by visible miracles. Revelation itself, too, is miraculous; and miracles are the proof of it."(3) Paley states the case with equal clearness: "In what way can a revelation be made but by miracles? In none which we are able to conceive."(4) His argument in fact is founded upon the principle that: "nothing but miracles

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could decide the authority" of Christianity.(1) In another work he a.s.serts that no man can prove a future retribution, but the teacher "who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from G.o.d."(2) Bishop Atterbury, again, referring to the princ.i.p.al doctrines of ecclesiastical Christianity, says: "It is this kind of Truth that G.o.d is properly said to reveal; Truths, of which, unless revealed, we should have always continued ignorant; and 'tis in order only to prove these Truths to have been really revealed, that we affirm Miracles to be Necessary."(3)

Dr. Heurtley, the Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford, after pointing out that the doctrines taught as the Christian Revelation are such as could not by any possibility have been attained by the una.s.sisted human reason, and that, consequently, it is reasonable that they should be attested by miracles, continues: "Indeed, it seems inconceivable how without miracles--including prophecy in the notion of a miracle--it could sufficiently have commended itself to men's belief? Who would believe, or would be justified in believing, the great facts which const.i.tute its substance on the _ipse dixit_ of an unaccredited teacher? and how, except by miracles, could the first teacher be accredited? Paley, then, was fully warranted in the a.s.sertion.... that 'we cannot conceive a revelation'--such a revelation of course as Christianity professes to be, a revelation of truths which transcend man's ability to discover,--' to be

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substantiated without miracles.' Other credentials, it is true, might be exhibited _in addition_ to miracles,--and such it would be natural to look for,--but it seems impossible that miracles could be dispensed with."(1) Dr. Mansel, the late Dean of St. Paul's, bears similar testimony: "A teacher who proclaims himself to be specially sent by G.o.d, and whose teaching is to be received on the authority of that mission, must, from the nature of the case, establish his claim by proofs of another kind than those which merely evince his human wisdom or goodness. A superhuman authority needs to be substantiated by superhuman evidence; and what is superhuman is miraculous."(2)

Dr. J. H. Newman, in discussing the idea and scope of miracles, says: "A Revelation, that is, a direct message from G.o.d to man, itself bears in some degree a miraculous character;... And as a Revelation itself, so again the evidences of a Revelation may all more or less be considered miraculous.... It might even be said that, strictly speaking, no evidence of a Revelation is conceivable which does not partake of the character of a Miracle; since nothing but a display of power over the existing system of things can attest the immediate presence of Him by whom it was originally established."(3)

Dr. Mozley has stated in still stronger terms the necessity that Christianity should be authenticated by the evidence of miracles. He supposes the case that a person of evident integrity and loftiness of character had appeared, eighteen centuries ago, announcing himself as pre-existent from all eternity, the Son of G.o.d, Maker

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of the world, who had come down from heaven and a.s.sumed the form and nature of man in order to be the Lamb of G.o.d that taketh away the sins of the world, and so on, enumerating other doctrines of Christianity.

Dr. Mozley then asks: "What would be the inevitable conclusion of sober reason respecting that person? The necessary conclusion of sober reason respecting that person would be that he was disordered in his understanding... By no rational being could a just and benevolent life be accepted as proof of such astonis.h.i.+ng announcements. Miracles are the necessary complement, then, of the truth of such announcements, which, without them, are purposeless and abortive, the unfinished fragments of a design which is nothing unless it is the whole. They are necessary to the justification of such announcements, which indeed, unless they are supernatural truths, are the wildest delusions."(1) He, therefore, concludes that: "Christianity cannot be maintained as a revelation undiscoverable by human reason, a revelation of a supernatural scheme for man's salvation, without the evidence of miracles."(2)

In all points, Christianity is emphatically a Supernatural Religion claiming to be divine in its origin, superhuman in its essence and miraculous in its evidence. It cannot be accepted without an absolute belief in Miracles, and those who profess to hold the religion whilst they discredit its supernatural elements--and they are many at the present day--have widely seceded from ecclesiastical Christianity.

Miracles, it is true, are external to Christianity in so far as they are evidential, but inasmuch as it is admitted that miracles alone can attest the reality of Divine Revelation they are still inseparable

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from it; and as the contents of the Revelation are so to say more miraculous than its attesting miracles, the supernatural enters into the very substance of Christianity and cannot be eliminated. It is obvious, therefore, that the reality of miracles is the vital point in the investigation which we have undertaken. If the reality of miracles cannot be established, Christianity loses the only evidence by which its truth can be sufficiently attested. If miracles be incredible the supernatural Revelation and its miraculous evidence must together be rejected.

This fact is thoroughly recognized by the ablest Christian divines. Dean Mansel, speaking of the position of miracles in regard to Christianity, says: "The question, however, a.s.sumes a very different character when it relates, not to the comparative importance of miracles as evidences, but to their reality as facts, and as facts of a supernatural kind. For if this is denied, the denial does not merely remove one of the supports of a faith which may yet rest securely on other grounds. On the contrary, the whole system of Christian belief with its evidences... all Christianity in short, so far as it has any t.i.tle to that name, so far as it has any special relation to the person or the teaching of Christ, is overthrown at the same time."(1) A little further on he says: "If there be one fact recorded in Scripture which is ent.i.tled, in the fullest sense of the word, to the name of a Miracle, the Resurrection of Christ is that fact. Here, at least, is an instance in which the entire Christian faith must stand or fall with our belief in the supernatural."(2) He, therefore, properly repudiates the view, "which represents the question of the possibility

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of miracles as one which merely affects the _external accessories_ of Christianity, leaving the _essential doctrines_ untouched."(1) Dr.

Mozley in a similar manner argues the inseparable union of miracles with the Christian faith. "Indeed not only are miracles _conjoined_ with doctrine in Christianity, but miracles are inserted _in_ the doctrine and are part of its contents. A man cannot state his belief as a Christian in the terms of the Apostles' Creed without a.s.serting them.

Can the doctrine of our Lord's Incarnation be disjoined from one physical miracle? Can the doctrine of His justification of us and intercession for us, be disjoined from another?... If a miracle is incorporated as an article in a creed, that article of the creed, the miracle, and the proof of it by a miracle, are all one thing. The great miracles, therefore, upon the evidence of which the Christian scheme rested, being thus inserted in the Christian Creed, the belief in the Creed was of itself the belief in the miraculous evidence of it.... Thus miracles and the supernatural contents of Christianity must stand or fall together."(2) Dr. Heurtley, referring to the discussion of the reality of miracles, exclaims: "It is not too much to say, therefore, that the question is vital as regards Christianity."(3) Canon Westcott not less emphatically makes the same statement. "It is evident," he says, "that if the claim to be a miraculous religion is essentially incredible apostolic Christianity is simply false.... The essence of Christianity lies in a miracle; and if it can be shown that a miracle is either impossible or incredible, all further inquiry into the details of its history is superfluous

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in a religious point of view."(1) Similarly, a recent Hulsean lecturer, Dr. Farrar, has said: "However skilfully the modern ingenuity of semi-belief may have tampered with supernatural interpositions, it is clear to every honest and unsophisticated mind that, if miracles be incredible, Christianity is false. If Christ wrought no miracles, then the Gospels are untrustworthy;... If the Resurrection be merely a spiritual idea, or a mythicized hallucination, then our religion has been founded on an error...." (2)

It has been necessary clearly to point out this indissoluble connection between ecclesiastical Christianity and the supernatural, in order that the paramount importance of the question as to the credibility of miracles should be duly appreciated. Our inquiry into the reality of Divine Revelation, then, whether we consider its contents or its evidence, practically reduces itself to the very simple issue: Are miracles antecedently credible? Did they ever really take place? We do not intend to confine ourselves merely to a discussion of the abstract question, but shall also endeavour to form a correct estimate of the value of the specific allegations which are advanced.

2.

Having then ascertained that miracles are absolutely necessary to attest the reality of Divine Revelation we may proceed to examine them more closely, and for the present we shall confine ourselves to the representations of these phenomena which are given in the Bible.

Throughout the Old Testament the doctrine is inculcated

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that supernatural communications must have supernatural attestation. G.o.d is described as arming his servants with power to perform wonders, in order that they may thus be accredited as his special messengers.

The Patriarchs and the people of Israel generally are represented as demanding "a sign" of the reality of communications said to come from G.o.d, without which, we are led to suppose, they not only would not have believed, but would have been justified in disbelieving, that the message actually came from him. Thus Gideon(1) asks for a sign that the Lord talked with him, and Hezekiah(2) demands proof of the truth of Isaiah's prophecy that he should be restored to health. It is, however, unnecessary to refer to instances, for it may be affirmed that upon all occasions miraculous evidence of an alleged divine mission is stated to have been required and accorded.

The startling information is at the same time given, however, that miracles may be wrought to attest what is false as well as to accredit what is true. In one place,(3) it is declared that if a prophet actually gives a sign or wonder and it comes to pa.s.s, but teaches the people, on the strength of it, to follow other G.o.ds, they are not to hearken to him, and the prophet is to be put to death. The false miracle is, here,(4) attributed to G.o.d himself: "For the Lord your G.o.d proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your G.o.d with all your heart and with all your soul." In the book of the Prophet Ezekiel, the case is stated in a still stronger way, and G.o.d is represented as directly deceiving the prophet: "And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will

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stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel."(1) G.o.d, in fact, is represented as exerting his almighty power to deceive a man and then as destroying him for being deceived. In the same spirit is the pa.s.sage(2) in which Micaiah describes the Lord as putting a lying spirit into the mouths of the prophets who incited Ahab to go to Ramoth-Gilead. Elsewhere,(3) and notably in the New Testament, we find an ascription of real signs and wonders to another power than G.o.d. Jesus himself is represented as warning his disciples against false prophets, who work signs and wonders: "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?" of whom he should say: "I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."(4) And again in another place: "For false prophets shall arise, and shall work signs and wonders [--Greek--] to seduce, if it were possible, the elect."(5) Also, when the Pharisees accuse him of casting out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils, Jesus asks: "By whom do your children cast them out?"(6) a reply which would lose all its point if they were not admitted to be able to cast out devils. In another pa.s.sage John is described as saying: "Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, who followeth not us, and we forbad him."(7) Without multiplying instances, however, there can be no doubt of the fact

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that the reality of false miracles and lying wonders is admitted in the Bible.

The obvious deduction from this representation of miracles is that the source and purpose of such supernatural phenomena must always be exceedingly uncertain.(1) Their evidential value is, therefore, profoundly affected, "it being," as Dr. Newman has said of ambiguous miracles, "antecedently improbable that the Almighty should rest the credit of His Revelation upon events which but obscurely implied His immediate presence."(2) As it is affirmed that other supernatural beings exist, as well as an a.s.sumed Personal G.o.d, by whose agency miracles are performed, it is impossible to argue with reason that such phenomena are at any time specially due to the intervention of the Deity. Dr. Newman recognizes this, but pa.s.ses over the difficulty with masterly lightness of touch. After advancing the singular argument that our knowledge of spirits is only derived from Scripture, and that their existence cannot be deduced from nature, whilst he a.s.serts that the being of a G.o.d--a Personal G.o.d be it remembered--can be so discovered, and that, therefore, miracles can only properly be attributed to him, he proceeds: "Still it may be necessary to show that on our own principles we are not open to inconsistency. That is, it has been questioned whether, in admitting the existence and power of Spirits on the authority of Revelation, we are not in danger of

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invalidating the evidence upon which that authority rests. For the cogency of the argument for Miracles depends on the a.s.sumption, that interruptions in the course of nature must ultimately proceed from G.o.d; which is not true, if they may be effected by other beings without His sanction. And it must be conceded, that, explicit as Scripture is in considering Miracles as signs of divine agency, it still does seem to give created Spirits some power of working them; and even, in its most literal sense, intimates the possibility of their working them in opposition to the true doctrine. (Deut. xiii. 1-3; Matt. xxiv. 24; 2 Thess. ii. 9-ll.)"(1) Dr. Newman repudiates the attempts of various writers to overcome this difficulty by making a distinction between great miracles and small, many miracles and few, or by referring to the nature of the doctrine attested in order to determine the author of the miracle, or by denying the power of spirits altogether, and explaining away Scripture statements of demoniacal possession and the narrative of the Lord's Temptation. "Without having recourse to any of these dangerous modes of answering the objection," he says, "it may be sufficient to reply, that, since, agreeably to the antecedent sentiment of reason, G.o.d has adopted miracles as the seal of a divine message, we believe He will never suffer them to be so counterfeited as to deceive the humble inquirer."(2) This is the only reply which even so powerful a reasoner as Dr. Newman can give to an objection based on distinct statements of Scripture itself. He cannot deny the validity of the objection, he can only hope or believe in spite of it Personal belief independent of evidence is the most common and the weakest of arguments; at the

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best it is prejudice masked in the garb of Reason. It is perfectly clear that miracles being thus acknowledged to be common both to G.o.d and to other spirits they cannot be considered a distinctive attestation of divine intervention; and, as Spinoza finely argued, not even the mere existence of G.o.d can be inferred from them; for as a miracle is a limited act, and never expresses more than a certain and limited power, it is certain that we cannot from such an effect, conclude even the existence of a cause whose power is infinite.(1)

This dual character obviously leads to many difficulties in defining the evidential function and force of miracles, and we may best appreciate the dilemma which is involved by continuing to follow the statements and arguments of divines themselves. To the question whether miracles are absolutely to command the obedience of those in whose sight they are performed, and whether, upon their attestation, the doer and his doctrine are to be accepted as of G.o.d, Archbishop Trench unhesitatingly replies: "It cannot be so, for side by side with the miracles which serve for the furthering of the kingdom of G.o.d runs another line of wonders, the counter-workings of him who is ever the ape of the Most High."(2) The deduction is absolutely logical and cannot be denied.

"This fact," he says, "that the kingdom of lies has its wonders no less than the kingdom of truth, is itself sufficient evidence that miracles cannot be appealed

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to absolutely and finally, in proof of the doctrine which the worker of them proclaims." This being the case, it is important to discover how miracles perform their function as the indispensable evidence for a Divine Revelation, for with this disability they do not seem to possess much potentiality. Archbishop Trench, then, offers the following definition of the function of miracles: "A miracle does not prove the truth of a doctrine, or the divine mission of him that brings it to pa.s.s. That which alone it claims for him at the first is a right to be listened to: it puts him in the alternative of being from heaven or from h.e.l.l. The doctrine must first commend itself to the conscience as being _good_, and only then can the miracle seal it as _divine_. But the first appeal is from the doctrine to the conscience, to the moral nature of man."(1) Under certain circ.u.mstances, he maintains, their evidence is utterly to be rejected. "But the purpose of the miracle," he says, "being, as we have seen, to confirm that which is good, so, upon the other hand, where the mind and conscience witness against the doctrine, not all the miracles in the world have a right to demand submission to the word which they seal. On the contrary, the great act of faith

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is to believe, against, and in despite of them all, in what G.o.d has revealed to, and implanted in the soul of the holy and the true; not to believe another Gospel, though an Angel from heaven, or one transformed into such, should bring it (Deut. xiii. 3; Gal. i. 8); and instead of compelling a.s.sent, miracles are then rather warnings to us that we keep aloof, for they tell us that not merely lies are here, for to that the conscience bore witness already, but that he who utters them is more than a common deceiver, is eminently 'a liar and an Anti-christ,'

a false prophet, --standing in more immediate connection than other deceived and evil men to the kingdom of darkness, so that Satan has given him his power (Rev. xiii. 2), is using him to be an especial organ of his, and to do a special work for him."(1) And he lays down the distinct principle that: "The miracle must witness for itself, and the doctrine must witness for itself, and then, and then only, the first is capable of witnessing for the second."(2)

These opinions are not peculiar to the Archbishop of Dublin, but are generally held by divines, although Dr. Trench expresses them with unusual absence of reserve. Dr. Mozley emphatically affirms the same doctrine when he says: "A miracle cannot oblige us to accept any doctrine which is contrary to our moral nature, or to a fundamental principle of religion."(3) Dr. Mansel speaks to the same effect: "If a teacher claiming to work miracles proclaims doctrines contradictory to previously established truths, whether to the conclusions of natural religion or to the teaching of a former revelation, such a contradiction is allowed even by the most zealous defenders of the evidential value of miracles, to

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invalidate the authority of the teacher. But the right conclusion from this admission is not that true miracles are invalid as evidences, but that the supposed miracles in this case are not true miracles at all; i. e., are not the effects of Divine power, but of human deception or of some other agency."(1) A pa.s.sage from a letter written by Dr. Arnold which is quoted by Dr. Trench in support of his views, both ill.u.s.trates the doctrine and the necessity which has led to its adoption: "You complain," says Dr. Arnold, writing to Dr. Hawkins, "of those persons who judge of a revelation not by its evidence, but by its substance. It has always seemed to me that its substance is a most essential part of its evidence; and that miracles wrought in favour of what was foolish or wicked would only prove Manicheism. We are so perfectly ignorant of the unseen world, that the character of any supernatural power can only be judged by the moral character of the statements which it sanctions.

Thus only can we tell whether it be a revelation from G.o.d or from the Devil."(2) In another place Dr. Arnold declares: "Miracles must not be allowed to overrule the Gospel; for it is only through our belief in the Gospel that we accord our belief to them."(3)

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It is obvious that the mutual dependence which is thus established between miracles and the doctrines in connection with which they are wrought destroys the evidential force of miracles, and that the first and the final appeal is made to reason. The doctrine in fact proves the miracle instead of the miracle attesting the doctrine. Divines of course attempt to deny this, but no other deduction from their own statements is logically possible. Miracles, according to Scripture itself, are producible by various supernatural beings and may be Satanic as well as Divine; man, on the other hand, is so ignorant of the unseen world that avowedly he cannot, from the miracle itself, determine the agent by whom it was performed;(l) the miracle, therefore, has no intrinsic evidential value. How, then, according to divines, does it attain any potentiality?

Only through a favourable decision on the part of Reason or the "moral nature in man" regarding the

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character of the doctrine. The result of the appeal to Reason respecting the morality and credibility of the doctrine determines the evidential status of the miracle. The doctrine, therefore, is the real criterion of the miracle which, without it, is necessarily an object of doubt and suspicion.