Chapter I: Preliminary Considerations (2)

(_e_) This possibility of miracles becomes doubly sure to those who see in Christ none other than the immanent God manifested to creatures. The Logos or divine Reason who is the principle of all growth and evolution can make God known only by means of successive new impartations of his energy. Since all progress implies increment, and Christ is the only source of life, the whole history of creation is a witness to the possibility of miracle.

See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 163-166—“This conception of
evolution is that of Lotze. That great philosopher, whose
influence is more potent than any other in present thought, does
not regard the universe as a _plenum_ to which nothing can be
added in the way of force. He looks upon the universe rather as a
plastic organism to which new impulses can be imparted from him of
whose thought and will it is an expression. These impulses, once
imparted, abide in the organism and are thereafter subject to its
law. Though these impulses come from within, they come not from
the finite mechanism but from the immanent God. Robert Browning’s
phrase, ‘All’s love, but all’s law,’ must be interpreted as
meaning that the very movements of the planets and all the
operations of nature are revelations of a personal and present
God, but it must not be interpreted as meaning that God runs in a
rut, that he is confined to mechanism, that he is incapable of
unique and startling manifestations of power.

“The idea that gives to evolution its hold upon thinking minds is
the idea of continuity. But absolute continuity is inconsistent
with progress. If the future is not simply a reproduction of the
past, there must be some new cause of change. In order to progress
there must be either a new force, or a new combination of forces,
and the new combination of forces can be explained only by some
new force that causes the combination. This new force, moreover,
must be intelligent force, if the evolution is to be toward the
better instead of toward the worse. The continuity must be
continuity not of forces but of plan. The forces may increase,
nay, they must increase, unless the new is to be a mere repetition
of the old. There must be additional energy imparted, the new
combination brought about, and all this implies purpose and will.
But through all there runs one continuous plan, and upon this plan
the rationality of evolution depends.

“A man builds a house. In laying the foundation he uses stone and
mortar, but he makes the walls of wood and the roof of tin. In the
superstructure he brings into play different laws from those which
apply to the foundation. There is continuity, not of material, but
of plan. Progress from cellar to garret requires breaks here and
there, and the bringing in of new forces; in fact, without the
bringing in of these new forces the evolution of the house would
be impossible. Now substitute for the foundation and
superstructure living things like the chrysalis and the butterfly;
imagine the power to work from within and not from without; and
you see that true continuity does not exclude but involves new
beginnings.

“Evolution, then, depends on increments of force _plus_ continuity
of plan. New creations are possible because the immanent God has
not exhausted himself. Miracle is possible because God is not far
away, but is at hand to do whatever the needs of his moral
universe may require. Regeneration and answers to prayer are
possible for the very reason that these are the objects for which
the universe was built. If we were deists, believing in a distant
God and a mechanical universe, evolution and Christianity would be
irreconcilable. But since we believe in a dynamical universe, of
which the personal and living God is the inner source of energy,
evolution is but the basis, foundation and background of
Christianity, the silent and regular working of him who, in the
fulness of time, utters his voice in Christ and the Cross.”

Lotze’s own statement of his position may be found in his
Microcosmos, 2:479 _sq._ Professor James Ten Broeke has
interpreted him as follows: “He makes the possibility of the
miracle depend upon the close and intimate action and reaction
between the world and the personal Absolute, in consequence of
which the movements of the natural world are carried on only
_through_ the Absolute, with the possibility of a variation in the
general course of things, according to existing facts and the
purpose of the divine Governor.”

3. Probability of Miracles.

A. We acknowledge that, so long as we confine our attention to nature, there is a presumption against miracles. Experience testifies to the uniformity of natural law. A general uniformity is needful, in order to make possible a rational calculation of the future, and a proper ordering of life.

See Butler, Analogy, part ii, chap. ii; F. W. Farrar, Witness of
History to Christ, 3-45; Modern Scepticism, 1:179-227; Chalmers,
Christian Revelation, 1:47. G. D. B. Pepper: “Where there is no
law, no settled order, there can be no miracle. The miracle
presupposes the law, and the importance assigned to miracles is
the recognition of the reign of law. But the making and launching
of a ship may be governed by law, no less than the sailing of the
ship after it is launched. So the introduction of a higher
spiritual order into a merely natural order constitutes a new and
unique event.” Some Christian apologists have erred in affirming
that the miracle was antecedently as probable as any other event,
whereas only its antecedent improbability gives it value as a
proof of revelation. Horace: “Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus
vindice nodus Inciderit.”

B. But we deny that this uniformity of nature is absolute and universal. (_a_) It is not a truth of reason that can have no exceptions, like the axiom that a whole is greater than its parts. (_b_) Experience could not warrant a belief in absolute and universal uniformity, unless experience were identical with absolute and universal knowledge. (_c_) We know, on the contrary, from geology, that there have been breaks in this uniformity, such as the introduction of vegetable, animal and human life, which cannot be accounted for, except by the manifestation in nature of a supernatural power.

(_a_) Compare the probability that the sun will rise to-morrow
morning with the certainty that two and two make four. Huxley, Lay
Sermons, 158, indignantly denies that there is any “must” about
the uniformity of nature: “No one is entitled to say _a priori_
that any given so-called miraculous event is impossible.” Ward,
Naturalism and Agnosticism, 1:84—“There is no evidence for the
statement that the mass of the universe is a definite and
unchangeable quantity”; 108, 109—“Why so confidently assume that a
rigid and monotonous uniformity is the only, or the highest,
indication of order, the order of an ever living Spirit, above
all? How is it that we depreciate machine-made articles, and
prefer those in which the artistic impulse, or the fitness of the
individual case, is free to shape and to make what is literally
manufactured, hand-made?... Dangerous as teleological arguments in
general may be, we may at least safely say the world was not
designed to make science easy.... To call the verses of a poet,
the politics of a statesman, or the award of a judge mechanical,
implies, as Lotze has pointed out, marked disparagement, although
it implies, too, precisely those characteristics—exactness and
invariability—in which Maxwell would have us see a token of the
divine.” Surely then we must not insist that divine wisdom must
always run in a rut, must ever repeat itself, must never exhibit
itself in unique acts like incarnation and resurrection. See
Edward Hitchcock, in Bib. Sac., 20:489-561, on “The Law of
Nature’s Constancy Subordinate to the Higher Law of Change”;
Jevons, Principles of Science, 2:430-438; Mozley, Miracles, 26.

(_b_) S. T. Coleridge, Table Talk, 18 December, 1831—“The light
which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern of the ship,
which shines only on the waves behind us.” Hobbes: “Experience
concludeth nothing universally.” Brooks, Foundations of Zoölogy,
131—“Evidence can tell us only what has happened, and it can never
assure us that the future _must_ be like the past; 132—Proof that
all nature is mechanical would not be inconsistent with the belief
that everything in nature is immediately sustained by Providence,
and that my volition counts for something in determining the
course of events.” Royce, World and Individual, 2:204—“Uniformity
is not absolute. Nature is a vaster realm of life and meaning, of
which we men form a part, and of which the final unity is in God’s
life. The rhythm of the heart-beat has its normal regularity, yet
its limited persistence. Nature may be merely the _habits of free
will_. Every region of this universally conscious world may be a
centre whence issues new conscious life for communication to all
the worlds.” Principal Fairbairn: “Nature is Spirit.” We prefer to
say: “Nature is the manifestation of spirit, the regularities of
freedom.”

(_c_) Other breaks in the uniformity of nature are the coming of
Christ and the regeneration of a human soul. Harnack, What is
Christianity, 18, holds that though there are no interruptions to
the working of natural law, natural law is not yet fully known.
While there are no miracles, there is plenty of the miraculous.
The power of mind over matter is beyond our present conceptions.
Bowne, Philosophy of Theism, 210—The effects are no more
consequences of the laws than the laws are consequences of the
effects = both laws and effects are exercises of divine will.
King, Reconstruction in Theology, 56—We must hold, not to the
_uniformity_ of law, but to the _universality_ of law; for
evolution has successive stages with new laws coming in and
becoming dominant that had not before appeared. The new and higher
stage is practically a miracle from the point of view of the
lower. See British Quarterly Review, Oct. 1881:154; Martineau,
Study, 2:200, 203, 209.

C. Since the inworking of the moral law into the constitution and course of nature shows that nature exists, not for itself, but for the contemplation and use of moral beings, it is probable that the God of nature will produce effects aside from those of natural law, whenever there are sufficiently important moral ends to be served thereby.

Beneath the expectation of uniformity is the intuition of final
cause; the former may therefore give way to the latter. See
Porter, Human Intellect, 592-615—Efficient causes and final causes
may conflict, and then the efficient give place to the final. This
is miracle. See Hutton, in Nineteenth Century, Aug. 1885, and
Channing, Evidences of Revealed Religion, quoted in Shedd, Dogm.
Theol., 1:534, 535—“The order of the universe is a means, not an
end, and like all other means must give way when the end can be
best promoted without it. It is the mark of a weak mind to make an
idol of order and method; to cling to established forms of
business when they clog instead of advancing it.” Balfour,
Foundations of Belief, 357—“The stability of the heavens is in the
sight of God of less importance than the moral growth of the human
spirit.” This is proved by the Incarnation. The Christian sees in
this little earth the scene of God’s greatest revelation. The
superiority of the spiritual to the physical helps us to see our
true dignity in the creation, to rule our bodies, to overcome our
sins. Christ’s suffering shows us that God is no indifferent
spectator of human pain. He subjects himself to our conditions, or
rather in this subjection reveals to us God’s own eternal
suffering for sin. The atonement enables us to solve the problem
of sin.

D. The existence of moral disorder consequent upon the free acts of man’s will, therefore, changes the presumption against miracles into a presumption in their favor. The non-appearance of miracles, in this case, would be the greatest of wonders.

Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 331-335—So a man’s
personal consciousness of sin, and above all his personal
experience of regenerating grace, will constitute the best
preparation for the study of miracles. “Christianity cannot be
proved except to a bad conscience.” The dying Vinet said well:
“The greatest miracle that I know of is that of my conversion. I
was dead, and I live; I was blind, and I see; I was a slave, and I
am free; I was an enemy of God, and I love him; prayer, the Bible,
the society of Christians, these were to me a source of profound
_ennui_; whilst now it is the pleasures of the world that are
wearisome to me, and piety is the source of all my joy. Behold the
miracle! And if God has been able to work that one, there are none
of which he is not capable.”

Yet the physical and the moral are not “sundered as with an axe.”
Nature is but the lower stage or imperfect form of the revelation
of God’s truth and holiness and love. It prepares the way for the
miracle by suggesting, though more dimly, the same essential
characteristics of the divine nature. Ignorance and sin
necessitate a larger disclosure. G. S. Lee, The Shadow Christ,
84—“The pillar of cloud was the dim night-lamp that Jehovah kept
burning over his infant children, to show them that he was there.
They did not know that the night itself was God.” Why do we have
Christmas presents in Christian homes? Because the parents do not
love their children at other times? No; but because the mind
becomes sluggish in the presence of merely regular kindness, and
special gifts are needed to wake it to gratitude. So our sluggish
and unloving minds need special testimonies of the divine mercy.
Shall God alone be shut up to dull uniformities of action? Shall
the heavenly Father alone be unable to make special communications
of love? Why then are not miracles and revivals of religion
constant and uniform? Because uniform blessings would be regarded
simply as workings of a machine. See Mozley, Miracles, preface,
xxiv; Turner, Wish and Will, 291-315; N. W. Taylor, Moral
Government, 2:388-423.

E. As belief in the possibility of miracles rests upon our belief in the existence of a personal God, so belief in the probability of miracles rests upon our belief that God is a moral and benevolent being. He who has no God but a God of physical order will regard miracles as an impertinent intrusion upon that order. But he who yields to the testimony of conscience and regards God as a God of holiness, will see that man’s unholiness renders God’s miraculous interposition most necessary to man and most becoming to God. Our view of miracles will therefore be determined by our belief in a moral, or in a non-moral, God.

Philo, in his Life of Moses, 1:88, speaking of the miracles of the
quails and of the water from the rock, says that “all these
unexpected and extraordinary things are amusements or playthings
of God.” He believes that there is room for arbitrariness in the
divine procedure. Scripture however represents miracle as an
extraordinary, rather than as an arbitrary, act. It is “his work,
his strange work ... his act, his strange act”_ (Is. 28:21)_.
God’s ordinary method is that of regular growth and development.
Chadwick, Unitarianism, 72—“Nature is economical. If she wants an
apple, she develops a leaf; if she wants a brain, she develops a
vertebra. We always thought well of backbone; and, if Goethe’s was
a sound suggestion, we think better of it now.”

It is commonly, but very erroneously, taken for granted that
miracle requires a greater exercise of power than does God’s
upholding of the ordinary processes of nature. But to an
omnipotent Being our measures of power have no application. The
question is not a question of power, but of rationality and love.
Miracle implies self-restraint, as well as self-unfolding, on the
part of him who works it. It is therefore not God’s common method
of action; it is adopted only when regular methods will not
suffice; it often seems accompanied by a sacrifice of feeling on
the part of Christ _Mat. 17:17—_“O faithless and perverse
generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I bear
with you? bring him hither to me”; _Mark 7:34—_“looking up to
heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be
opened”; _cf.__ Mat. 12:39—_“An evil and adulterous generation
seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but
the sign of Jonah the prophet.”

F. From the point of view of ethical monism the probability of miracle becomes even greater. Since God is not merely the intellectual but the moral Reason of the world, the disturbances of the world-order which are due to sin are the matters which most deeply affect him. Christ, the life of the whole system and of humanity as well, must suffer; and, since we have evidence that he is merciful as well as just, it is probable that he will rectify the evil by extraordinary means, when merely ordinary means do not avail.

Like creation and providence, like inspiration and regeneration,
miracle is a work in which God limits himself, by a new and
peculiar exercise of his power,—limits himself as part of a
process of condescending love and as a means of teaching
sense-environed and sin-burdened humanity what it would not learn
in any other way. Self-limitation, however, is the very perfection
and glory of God, for without it no self-sacrificing love would be
possible (see page 9, F.). The probability of miracles is
therefore argued not only from God’s holiness but also from his
love. His desire to save men from their sins must be as infinite
as his nature. The incarnation, the atonement, the resurrection,
when once made known to us, commend themselves, not only as
satisfying our human needs, but as worthy of a God of moral
perfection.

An argument for the probability of the miracle might be drawn from
the concessions of one of its chief modern opponents, Thomas H.
Huxley. He tells us in different places that the object of science
is “the discovery of the rational order that pervades the
universe,” which in spite of his professed agnosticism is an
unconscious testimony to Reason and Will at the basis of all
things. He tells us again that there is no necessity in the
uniformities of nature: “When we change ‘will’ into ‘must,’ we
introduce an idea of necessity which has no warrant in the
observed facts, and has no warranty that I can discover
elsewhere.” He speaks of “the infinite wickedness that has
attended the course of human history.” Yet he has no hope in man’s
power to save himself: “I would as soon adore a wilderness of
apes,” as the Pantheist’s rationalized conception of humanity. He
grants that Jesus Christ is “the noblest ideal of humanity which
mankind has yet worshiped.” Why should he not go further and
concede that Jesus Christ most truly represents the infinite
Reason at the heart of things, and that his purity and love,
demonstrated by suffering and death, make it probable that God
will use extraordinary means for man’s deliverance? It is doubtful
whether Huxley recognized his own personal sinfulness as fully as
he recognized the sinfulness of humanity in general. If he had
done so, he would have been willing to accept miracle upon even a
slight preponderance of historical proof. As a matter of fact, he
rejected miracle upon the grounds assigned by Hume, which we now
proceed to mention.

4. Amount of Testimony necessary to prove a Miracle.

_The amount of testimony necessary to prove a miracle_ is no greater than that which is requisite to prove the occurrence of any other unusual but confessedly possible event.

Hume, indeed, argued that a miracle is so contradictory of all human experience that it is more reasonable to believe any amount of testimony false than to believe a miracle to be true.

The original form of the argument can be found in Hume’s
Philosophical Works, 4:124-150. See also Bib. Sac., Oct. 1867:615.
For the most recent and plausible statement of it, see
Supernatural Religion, 1:55-94. The argument maintains for
substance that things are impossible because improbable. It
ridicules the credulity of those who “thrust their fists against
the posts, And still insist they see the ghosts,” and holds with
the German philosopher who declared that he would not believe in a
miracle, even if he saw one with his own eyes. Christianity is so
miraculous that it takes a miracle to make one believe it.

The argument is fallacious, because

(_a_) It is chargeable with a _petitio principii_, in making our own personal experience the measure of all human experience. The same principle would make the proof of any absolutely new fact impossible. Even though God should work a miracle, he could never prove it.

(_b_) It involves a self-contradiction, since it seeks to overthrow our faith in human testimony by adducing to the contrary the general experience of men, of which we know only from testimony. This general experience, moreover, is merely negative, and cannot neutralize that which is positive, except upon principles which would invalidate all testimony whatever.

(_c_) It requires belief in a greater wonder than those which it would escape. That multitudes of intelligent and honest men should against all their interests unite in deliberate and persistent falsehood, under the circumstances narrated in the New Testament record, involves a change in the sequences of nature far more incredible than the miracles of Christ and his apostles.

(_a_) John Stuart Mill, Essays on Theism, 216-241, grants that,
even if a miracle were wrought, it would be impossible to prove
it. In this he only echoes Hume, Miracles, 112—“The ultimate
standard by which we determine all disputes that may arise is
always derived from experience and observation.” But here our own
personal experience is made the standard by which to judge all
human experience. Whately, Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon
Buonaparte, shows that the same rule would require us to deny the
existence of the great Frenchman, since Napoleon’s conquests were
contrary to all experience, and civilized nations had never before
been so subdued. The London Times for June 18, 1888, for the first
time in at least a hundred years or in 31,200 issues, was
misdated, and certain pages read June 17, although June 17 was
Sunday. Yet the paper would have been admitted in a court of
justice as evidence of a marriage. The real wonder is, not the
break in experience, but the continuity without the break.

(_b_) Lyman Abbott: “If the Old Testament told the story of a
naval engagement between the Jewish people and a pagan people, in
which all the ships of the pagan people were absolutely destroyed
and not a single man was killed among the Jews, all the sceptics
would have scorned the narrative. Every one now believes it,
except those who live in Spain.” There are people who in a similar
way refuse to investigate the phenomena of hypnotism, second
sight, clairvoyance, and telepathy, declaring _a priori_ that all
these things are impossible. Prophecy, in the sense of prediction,
is discredited. Upon the same principle wireless telegraphy might
be denounced as an imposture. The son of Erin charged with murder
defended himself by saying: “Your honor, I can bring fifty people
who did not see me do it.” Our faith in testimony cannot be due to
experience.

(_c_) On this point, see Chalmers, Christian Revelation, 3:70;
Starkie on Evidence, 739; De Quincey, Theological Essays,
1:162-188; Thornton, Old-fashioned Ethics, 143-153; Campbell on
Miracles. South’s sermon on The Certainty of our Savior’s
Resurrection had stated and answered this objection long before
Hume propounded it.

5. Evidential force of Miracles.

(_a_) Miracles are the natural accompaniments and attestations of new communications from God. The great epochs of miracles—represented by Moses, the prophets, the first and second comings of Christ—are coincident with the great epochs of revelation. Miracles serve to draw attention to new truth, and cease when this truth has gained currency and foothold.

Miracles are not scattered evenly over the whole course of
history. Few miracles are recorded during the 2500 years from Adam
to Moses. When the N. T. Canon is completed and the internal
evidence of Scripture has attained its greatest strength, the
external attestations by miracle are either wholly withdrawn or
begin to disappear. The spiritual wonders of regeneration remain,
and for these the way has been prepared by the long progress from
the miracles of power wrought by Moses to the miracles of grace
wrought by Christ. Miracles disappeared because newer and higher
proofs rendered them unnecessary. Better things than these are now
in evidence. Thomas Fuller: “Miracles are the swaddling-clothes of
the infant church.” John Foster: “Miracles are the great bell of
the universe, which draws men to God’s sermon.” Henry Ward
Beecher: “Miracles are the midwives of great moral truths; candles
lit before the dawn but put out after the sun has risen.”
Illingworth, in Lux Mundi, 210—“When we are told that miracles
contradict experience, we point to the daily occurrence of the
spiritual miracle of regeneration and ask: ‘Which is easier to
say, Thy sins are forgiven; or to say, Arise and walk?’_ (Mat.
9:5)_.”

Miracles and inspiration go together; if the former remain in the
church, the latter should remain also; see Marsh, in Bap. Quar.
Rev., 1887:225-242. On the cessation of miracles in the early
church, see Henderson, Inspiration, 443-490; Bückmann, in Zeitsch.
f. luth. Theol. u. Kirche, 1878:216. On miracles in the second
century, see Barnard, Literature of the Second Century, 139-180.
A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 167—“The apostles were
commissioned to speak for Christ till the N. T. Scriptures, his
authoritative voice, were completed. In the apostolate we have a
provisional inspiration; in the N. T. a stereotyped inspiration;
the first being endowed with authority _ad interim_ to forgive
sins, and the second having this authority _in perpetuo_.” Dr.
Gordon draws an analogy between coal, which is fossil sunlight,
and the New Testament, which is fossil inspiration. Sabatier,
Philos. Religion, 74—“The Bible is very free from the senseless
prodigies of oriental mythology. The great prophets, Isaiah, Amos,
Micah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, work no miracles. Jesus’
temptation in the wilderness is a victory of the moral
consciousness over the religion of mere physical prodigy.” Trench
says that miracles cluster about the _foundation_ of the
theocratic kingdom under Moses and Joshua, and about the
_restoration_ of that kingdom under Elijah and Elisha. In the O.
T., miracles confute the gods of Egypt under Moses, the Phœnician
Baal under Elijah and Elisha, and the gods of Babylon under
Daniel. See Diman, Theistic Argument, 376, and art.: Miracle, by
Bernard, in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary.

(_b_) Miracles generally certify to the truth of doctrine, not directly, but indirectly; otherwise a new miracle must needs accompany each new doctrine taught. Miracles primarily and directly certify to the divine commission and authority of a religious teacher, and therefore warrant acceptance of his doctrines and obedience to his commands as the doctrines and commands of God, whether these be communicated at intervals or all together, orally or in written documents.

The exceptions to the above statement are very few, and are found
only in cases where the whole commission and authority of Christ,
and not some fragmentary doctrine, are involved. Jesus appeals to
his miracles as proof of the truth of his teaching in _Mat. 9:5,
6—_“Which is easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven; or to say,
Arise and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath
authority on earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the sick of
the palsy), Arise, and take up thy bed, and go unto thy house”;
_12:28—_“if I by the spirit of God cast out demons, then is the
kingdom of God come upon you.” So Paul in _Rom. 1:4_, says that
Jesus “was declared to be the Son of God with power, ... by the
resurrection from the dead.” Mair, Christian Evidences, 223,
quotes from Natural Religion, 181—“It is said that the
theo-philanthropist Larévellière-Lépeaux once confided to
Talleyrand his disappointment at the ill success of his attempt to
bring into vogue a sort of improved Christianity, a sort of
benevolent rationalism which he had invented to meet the wants of
a benevolent age. ‘His propaganda made no way,’ he said. ‘What was
he to do?’ he asked. The ex-bishop Talleyrand politely condoled
with him, feared it was a difficult task to found a new religion,
more difficult than he had imagined, so difficult that he hardly
knew what to advise. ‘Still,’—so he went on after a moment’s
reflection,—‘there is one plan which you might at least try: I
should recommend you to be crucified, and to rise again the third
day.’ ” See also Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 147-167;
Farrar, Life of Christ, 1:168-172.

(_c_) Miracles, therefore, do not stand alone as evidences. Power alone cannot prove a divine commission. Purity of life and doctrine must go with the miracles to assure us that a religious teacher has come from God. The miracles and the doctrine in this manner mutually support each other, and form parts of one whole. The internal evidence for the Christian system may have greater power over certain minds and over certain ages than the external evidence.

Pascal’s aphorism that “doctrines must be judged by miracles,
miracles by doctrine,” needs to be supplemented by Mozley’s
statement that “a supernatural fact is the proper proof of a
supernatural doctrine, while a supernatural doctrine is not the
proper proof of a supernatural fact.” E. G. Robinson, Christian
Theology, 107, would “defend miracles, but would not buttress up
Christianity by them.... No amount of miracles could convince a
good man of the divine commission of a known bad man; nor, on the
other hand, could any degree of miraculous power suffice to
silence the doubts of an evil-minded man.... The miracle is a
certification only to him who can perceive its significance....
The Christian church has the resurrection written all over it. Its
very existence is proof of the resurrection. Twelve men could
never have founded the church, if Christ had remained in the tomb.
The living church is the burning bush that is not consumed.” Gore,
Incarnation, 57—“Jesus did not appear after his resurrection to
unbelievers, but to believers only,—which means that this crowning
miracle was meant to confirm an existing faith, not to create one
where it did not exist.”

Christian Union, July 11, 1891—“If the anticipated resurrection of
Joseph Smith were to take place, it would add nothing whatever to
the authority of the Mormon religion.” Schurman, Agnosticism and
Religion, 57—“Miracles are merely the bells to call primitive
peoples to church. Sweet as the music they once made, modern ears
find them jangling and out of tune, and their dissonant notes
scare away pious souls who would fain enter the temple of
worship.” A new definition of miracle which recognizes their
possible classification as extraordinary occurrences in nature,
yet sees in all nature the working of the living God, may do much
to remove this prejudice. Bishop of Southampton, Place of Miracle,
53—“Miracles alone could not produce conviction. The Pharisees
ascribed them to Beelzebub. Though Jesus had done so many signs,
yet they believed not.... Though miracles were frequently wrought,
they were rarely appealed to as evidence of the truth of the
gospel. They are simply signs of God’s presence in his world. By
itself a miracle had no evidential force. The only test for
distinguishing divine from Satanic miracles is that of the moral
character and purpose of the worker; and therefore miracles depend
for all their force upon a previous appreciation of the character
and personality of Christ (79). The earliest apologists make no
use of miracles. They are of no value except in connection with
prophecy. Miracles _are_ the revelation of God, not the _proof_ of
revelation.” _Versus_ Supernatural Religion, 1:23, and Stearns, in
New Englander, Jan. 1882:80. See Mozley, Miracles, 15; Nicoll,
Life of Jesus Christ, 133; Mill, Logic, 374-382; H. B. Smith, Int.
to Christ. Theology, 167-169; Fisher, in Journ. Christ. Philos.,
April, 1883:270-283.

(_d_) Yet the Christian miracles do not lose their value as evidence in the process of ages. The loftier the structure of Christian life and doctrine the greater need that its foundation be secure. The authority of Christ as a teacher of supernatural truth rests upon his miracles, and especially upon the miracle of his resurrection. That one miracle to which the church looks back as the source of her life carries with it irresistibly all the other miracles of the Scripture record; upon it alone we may safely rest the proof that the Scriptures are an authoritative revelation from God.

The miracles of Christ are simple correlates of the
Incarnation—proper insignia of his royalty and divinity. By mere
external evidence however we can more easily prove the
resurrection than the incarnation. In our arguments with sceptics,
we should not begin with the ass that spoke to Balaam, or the fish
that swallowed Jonah, but with the resurrection of Christ; that
conceded, all other Biblical miracles will seem only natural
preparations, accompaniments, or consequences. G. F. Wright, in
Bib. Sac., 1889:707—“The difficulties created by the miraculous
character of Christianity may be compared to those assumed by a
builder when great permanence is desired in the structure erected.
It is easier to lay the foundation of a temporary structure than
of one which is to endure for the ages.” Pressensé: “The empty
tomb of Christ has been the cradle of the church, and if in this
foundation of her faith the church has been mistaken, she must
needs lay herself down by the side of the mortal remains, I say,
not of a man, but of a religion.”

President Schurman believes the resurrection of Christ to be “an
obsolete picture of an eternal truth—the fact of a continued life
with God.” Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 102, thinks no
consistent union of the gospel accounts of Christ’s resurrection
can be attained; apparently doubts a literal and bodily rising;
yet traces Christianity back to an invincible faith in Christ’s
conquering of death and his continued life. But why believe the
gospels when they speak of the sympathy of Christ, yet disbelieve
them when they speak of his miraculous power? We have no right to
trust the narrative when it gives us Christ’s words “Weep not” to
the widow of Nain, (_Luke 7:13_), and then to distrust it when it
tells us of his raising the widow’s son. The words “Jesus wept”
belong inseparably to a story of which “Lazarus, come forth!”
forms a part (_John 11:35, 43_). It is improbable that the
disciples should have believed so stupendous a miracle as Christ’s
resurrection, if they had not previously seen other manifestations
of miraculous power on the part of Christ. Christ himself is the
great miracle. The conception of him as the risen and glorified
Savior can be explained only by the fact that he did so rise. E.
G. Robinson, Christ. Theology, 109—“The Church attests the fact of
the resurrection quite as much as the resurrection attests the
divine origin of the church. Resurrection, as an evidence, depends
on the existence of the church which proclaims it.”

(_e_) The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ—by which we mean his coming forth from the sepulchre in body as well as in spirit—is demonstrated by evidence as varied and as conclusive as that which proves to us any single fact of ancient history. Without it Christianity itself is inexplicable, as is shown by the failure of all modern rationalistic theories to account for its rise and progress.

In discussing the evidence of Jesus’ resurrection, we are
confronted with three main rationalistic theories:

I. The _Swoon-theory_ of Strauss. This holds that Jesus did not
really die. The cold and the spices of the sepulchre revived him.
We reply that the blood and water, and the testimony of the
centurion (_Mark 15:45_), proved actual death (see Bib. Sac.,
April, 1889:228; Forrest, Christ of History and Experience,
137-170). The rolling away of the stone, and Jesus’ power
immediately after, are inconsistent with immediately preceding
swoon and suspended animation. How was his life preserved? where
did he go? when did he die? His not dying implies deceit on his
own part or on that of his disciples.

II. The _Spirit-theory_ of Keim. Jesus really died, but only his
spirit appeared. The spirit of Jesus gave the disciples a sign of
his continued life, a telegram from heaven. But we reply that the
telegram was untrue, for it asserted that his body had risen from
the tomb. The tomb was empty and the linen cloths showed an
orderly departure. Jesus himself denied that he was a bodiless
spirit: “a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me having”_
(Luke 24:39)_. Did “his flesh see corruption”_ (Acts 2:31)_? Was
the penitent thief raised from the dead as much as he? Godet,
Lectures in Defence of the Christian Faith, lect. i: A dilemma for
those who deny the fact of Christ’s resurrection: Either his body
remained in the hands of his disciples, or it was given up to the
Jews. If the disciples retained it, they were impostors: but this
is not maintained by modern rationalists. If the Jews retained it,
why did they not produce it as conclusive evidence against the
disciples?

III. The _Vision-theory_ of Renan. Jesus died, and there was no
objective appearance even of his spirit. Mary Magdalene was the
victim of subjective hallucination, and her hallucination became
contagious. This was natural because the Jews expected that the
Messiah would work miracles and would rise from the dead. We reply
that the disciples did not expect Jesus’ resurrection. The women
went to the sepulchre, not to see a risen Redeemer, but to embalm
a dead body. Thomas and those at Emmaus had given up all hope.
Four hundred years had passed since the days of miracles; John the
Baptist “did no miracle”_ (John 10:41)_; the Sadducees said “there
is no resurrection”_ (Mat. 22:23)_. There were thirteen different
appearances, to: 1. the Magdalen; 2. other women; 3. Peter; 4.
Emmaus; 5. the Twelve; 6. the Twelve after eight days; 7. Galilee
seashore; 8. Galilee mountain; 9. Galilee five hundred; 10. James;
11. ascension at Bethany; 12. Stephen; 13. Paul on way to
Damascus. Paul describes Christ’s appearance to him as something
objective, and he implies that Christ’s previous appearances to
others were objective also: “last of all [these bodily
appearances], ... he appeared to me also”_ (1 Cor. 15:8)_. Bruce,
Apologetics, 396—“Paul’s interest and intention in classing the
two together was to level his own vision [of Christ] up to the
objectivity of the early Christophanies. He believed that the
eleven, that Peter in particular, had seen the risen Christ with
the eye of the body, and he meant to claim for himself a vision of
the same kind.” Paul’s was a sane, strong nature. Subjective
visions do not transform human lives; the resurrection moulded the
apostles; they did not create the resurrection (see Gore,
Incarnation, 76). These appearances soon ceased, unlike the law of
hallucinations, which increase in frequency and intensity. It is
impossible to explain the ordinances, the Lord’s day, or
Christianity itself, if Jesus did not rise from the dead.

The resurrection of our Lord teaches three important lessons: (1)
It showed that his work of atonement was completed and was stamped
with the divine approval; (2) It showed him to be Lord of all and
gave the one sufficient external proof of Christianity; (3) It
furnished the ground and pledge of our own resurrection, and thus
“brought life and immortality to light”_ (2 Tim. 1:10)_. It must
be remembered that the resurrection was the one sign upon which
Jesus himself staked his claims—“the sign of Jonah”_ (Luke
11:29)_; and that the resurrection is proof, not simply of God’s
power, but of Christ’s own power: _John 10:18—_“I have power to
lay it down, and I have power to take it again”; _2:19—_“Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”.... _21—_“he
spake of the temple of his body.” See Alexander, Christ and
Christianity, 9, 158-224, 302; Mill, Theism, 216; Auberlen, Div.
Revelation, 56; Boston Lectures, 203-239; Christlieb, Modern Doubt
and Christian Belief, 448-503; Row, Bampton Lectures,
1887:358-423; Hutton, Essays, 1:119; Schaff, in Princeton Rev.,
May, 1880; 411-419; Fisher, Christian Evidences, 41-46, 82-85;
West, in Defence and Conf. of Faith, 80-129; also special works on
the Resurrection of our Lord, by Milligan, Morrison, Kennedy, J.
Baldwin Brown.

6. Counterfeit Miracles.

Since only an act directly wrought by God can properly be called a miracle, it follows that surprising events brought about by evil spirits or by men, through the use of natural agencies beyond our knowledge, are not entitled to this appellation. The Scriptures recognize the existence of such, but denominate them “lying wonders” (2 Thess. 2:9).

These counterfeit miracles in various ages argue that the belief in miracles is natural to the race, and that somewhere there must exist the true. They serve to show that not all supernatural occurrences are divine, and to impress upon us the necessity of careful examination before we accept them as divine.

False miracles may commonly be distinguished from the true by (_a_) their accompaniments of immoral conduct or of doctrine contradictory to truth already revealed—as in modern spiritualism; (_b_) their internal characteristics of inanity and extravagance—as in the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, or the miracles of the Apocryphal New Testament; (_c_) the insufficiency of the object which they are designed to further—as in the case of Apollonius of Tyana, or of the miracles said to accompany the publication of the doctrines of the immaculate conception and of the papal infallibility; (_d_) their lack of substantiating evidence—as in mediæval miracles, so seldom attested by contemporary and disinterested witnesses; (_e_) their denial or undervaluing of God’s previous revelation of himself in nature—as shown by the neglect of ordinary means, in the cases of Faith-cure and of so-called Christian Science.

Only what is valuable is counterfeited. False miracles presuppose
the true. Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 283—“The
miracles of Jesus originated faith in him, while mediæval miracles
follow established faith. The testimony of the apostles was given
in the face of incredulous Sadducees. They were ridiculed and
maltreated on account of it. It was no time for devout dreams and
the invention of romances.” The blood of St. Januarius at Naples
is said to be contained in a vial, one side of which is of thick
glass, while the other side is of thin. A similar miracle was
wrought at Hales in Gloucestershire. St. Alban, the first martyr
of Britain, after his head is cut off, carries it about in his
hand. In Ireland the place is shown where St. Patrick in the fifth
century drove all the toads and snakes over a precipice into the
nether regions. The legend however did not become current until
some hundreds of years after the saint’s bones had crumbled to
dust at Saul, near Downpatrick (see Hemphill, Literature of the
Second Century, 180-182). Compare the story of the book of Tobit
(6-8), which relates the expulsion of a demon by smoke from the
burning heart and liver of a fish caught in the Tigris, and the
story of the Apocryphal New Testament (I, Infancy), which tells of
the expulsion of Satan in the form of a mad dog from Judas by the
child Jesus. On counterfeit miracles in general, see Mozley,
Miracles, 15, 161; F. W. Farrar, Witness of History to Christ, 72;
A. S. Farrar, Science and Theology, 208; Tholuck, Vermischte
Schriften, 1:27; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:630; Presb. Rev.,
1881:687-719.

Some modern writers have maintained that the gift of miracles
still remains in the church. Bengel: “The reason why _many_
miracles are not now wrought is not so much because _faith_ is
established, as because _unbelief_ reigns.” Christlieb: “It is the
want of faith in our age which is the greatest hindrance to the
stronger and more marked appearance of that miraculous power which
is working here and there in quiet concealment. Unbelief is the
final and most important reason for the retrogression of
miracles.” Edward Irving, Works, 5:464—“Sickness is sin apparent
in the body, the presentiment of death, the forerunner of
corruption. Now, as Christ came to destroy death, and will yet
redeem the body from the bondage of corruption, if the church is
to have a first fruits or earnest of this power, it must be by
receiving power over diseases that are the first fruits and
earnest of death.” Dr. A. J. Gordon, in his Ministry of Healing,
held to this view. See also Boys, Proofs of the Miraculous in the
Experience of the Church; Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural,
446-492; Review of Gordon, by Vincent, in Presb. Rev.,
1883:473-502; Review of Vincent, in Presb. Rev., 1884:49-79.

In reply to the advocates of faith-cure in general, we would grant
that nature is plastic in God’s hand; that he can work miracle
when and where it pleases him; and that he has given promises
which, with certain Scriptural and rational limitations, encourage
believing prayer for healing in cases of sickness. But we incline
to the belief that in these later ages God answers such prayer,
not by miracle, but by special providence, and by gifts of
courage, faith and will, thus acting by his Spirit directly upon
the soul and only indirectly upon the body. The laws of nature are
generic volitions of God, and to ignore them and disuse means is
presumption and disrespect to God himself. The Scripture promise
to faith is always expressly or impliedly conditioned upon our use
of means: we are to work out our own salvation, for the very
reason that it is God who works in us; it is vain for the drowning
man to pray, so long as he refuses to lay hold of the rope that is
thrown to him. Medicines and physicians are the rope thrown to us
by God; we cannot expect miraculous help, while we neglect the
help God has already given us; to refuse this help is practically
to deny Christ’s revelation in nature. Why not live without
eating, as well as recover from sickness without medicine?
Faith-feeding is quite as rational as faith-healing. To except
cases of disease from this general rule as to the use of means has
no warrant either in reason or in Scripture. The atonement has
purchased complete salvation, and some day salvation shall be
ours. But death and depravity still remain, not as penalty, but as
chastisement. So disease remains also. Hospitals for Incurables,
and the deaths even of advocates of faith-cure, show that they too
are compelled to recognize some limit to the application of the
New Testament promise.

In view of the preceding discussion we must regard the so-called
Christian Science as neither Christian nor scientific. Mrs. Mary
Baker G. Eddy denies the authority of all that part of revelation
which God has made to man in nature, and holds that the laws of
nature may be disregarded with impunity by those who have proper
faith; see G. F. Wright, in Bib. Sac., April, 1899:375. Bishop
Lawrence of Massachusetts: “One of the errors of Christian Science
is its neglect of accumulated knowledge, of the fund of
information stored up for these Christian centuries. That
knowledge is just as much God’s gift as is the knowledge obtained
from direct revelation. In rejecting accumulated knowledge and
professional skill, Christian Science rejects the gift of God.”
Most of the professed cures of Christian Science are explicable by
the influence of the mind upon the body, through hypnosis or
suggestion; (see A. A. Bennett, in Watchman, Feb. 13, 1903).
Mental disturbance may make the mother’s milk a poison to the
child; mental excitement is a common cause of indigestion; mental
depression induces bowel disorders; depressed mental and moral
conditions render a person more susceptible to grippe, pneumonia,
typhoid fever. Reading the account of an accident in which the
body is torn or maimed, we ourselves feel pain in the same spot;
when the child’s hand is crushed, the mother’s hand, though at a
distance, becomes swollen; the mediæval _stigmata_ probably
resulted from continuous brooding upon the sufferings of Christ
(see Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 676-690).

But mental states may help as well as harm the body. Mental
expectancy facilitates cure in cases of sickness. The physician
helps the patient by inspiring hope and courage. Imagination works
wonders, especially in the case of nervous disorders. The diseases
said to be cured by Christian Science are commonly of this sort.
In every age fakirs, mesmerists, and quacks have availed
themselves of these underlying mental forces. By inducing
expectancy, imparting courage, rousing the paralyzed will, they
have indirectly caused bodily changes which have been mistaken for
miracle. Tacitus tells us of the healing of a blind man by the
Emperor Vespasian. Undoubted cures have been wrought by the royal
touch in England. Since such wonders have been performed by Indian
medicine-men, we cannot regard them as having any specific
Christian character, and when, as in the present case, we find
them used to aid in the spread of false doctrine with regard to
sin, Christ, atonement, and the church, we must class them with
the “lying wonders” of which we are warned in _2 Thess. 2:9_. See
Harris, Philosophical Basis of Theism, 381-386; Buckley,
Faith-Healing, and in Century Magazine, June, 1886:221-236; Bruce,
Miraculous Element in Gospels, lecture 8; Andover Review,
1887:249-264.

IV. Prophecy as Attesting a Divine Revelation.

We here consider prophecy in its narrow sense of mere prediction, reserving to a subsequent chapter the consideration of prophecy as interpretation of the divine will in general.

1. _Definition._ Prophecy is the foretelling of future events by virtue of direct communication from God—a foretelling, therefore, which, though not contravening any laws of the human mind, those laws, if fully known, would not, without this agency of God, be sufficient to explain.

In discussing the subject of prophecy, we are met at the outset by
the contention that there is not, and never has been, any real
foretelling of future events beyond that which is possible to
natural prescience. This is the view of Kuenen, Prophets and
Prophecy in Israel. Pfleiderer, Philos. Relig., 2:42, denies any
direct prediction. Prophecy in Israel, he intimates, was simply
the consciousness of God’s righteousness, proclaiming its ideals
of the future, and declaring that the will of God is the moral
ideal of the good and the law of the world’s history, so that the
fates of nations are conditioned by their bearing toward this
moral purpose of God: “The fundamental error of the vulgar
apologetics is that it confounds prophecy with heathen
soothsaying—national salvation without character.” W. Robertson
Smith, in Encyc. Britannica, 19:821, tells us that “detailed
prediction occupies a very secondary place in the writings of the
prophets; or rather indeed what seem to be predictions in detail
are usually only free poetical illustrations of historical
principles, which neither received nor demanded exact fulfilment.”

As in the case of miracles, our faith in an immanent God, who is
none other than the Logos or larger Christ, gives us a point of
view from which we may reconcile the contentions of the
naturalists and supernaturalists. Prophecy is an immediate act of
God; but, since all natural genius is also due to God’s
energizing, we do not need to deny the employment of man’s natural
gifts in prophecy. The instances of telepathy, presentiment, and
second sight which the Society for Psychical Research has
demonstrated to be facts show that prediction, in the history of
divine revelation, may be only an intensification, under the
extraordinary impulse of the divine Spirit, of a power that is in
some degree latent in all men. The author of every great work of
creative imagination knows that a higher power than his own has
possessed him. In all human reason there is a natural activity of
the divine Reason or Logos, and he is “the light which lighteth
every man”_ (John 1:9)_. So there is a natural activity of the
Holy Spirit, and he who completes the circle of the divine
consciousness completes also the circle of human consciousness,
gives self-hood to every soul, makes available to man the natural
as well as the spiritual gifts of Christ; _cf.__ John 16:14—_“he
shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you.” The same
Spirit who in the beginning “brooded over the face of the waters”_
(Gen. 1:2)_ also broods over humanity, and it is he who, according
to Christ’s promise, was to “declare unto you the things that are
to come”_ (John 16:13)_. The gift of prophecy may have its natural
side, like the gift of miracles, yet may be finally explicable
only as the result of an extraordinary working of that Spirit of
Christ who to some degree manifests himself in the reason and
conscience of every man; _cf.__ 1 Pet 1:11—_“searching what time
or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did
point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ,
and the glories that should follow them.” See Myers, Human
Personality, 2:262-292.