Chapter X: Do Miracles Happen?

Do miracles happen? I am often asked this question by young people who are trying to combine religious tradition with modern thought, and find a disharmony. Ecclesiastical authority urges them to the acceptance of miracles, while the principles and conclusions of science as obviously militate against any such belief. Many halt half-way between these two opinions and drift through life without having been able to come to a decision. In their moments of mysticism, when the past religious view of the world with its prestige and emotional appeal gains the upper hand, they are persuaded that all things are possible. They lose sight of nature with its massive constancy, and float back into the sentiment of personal agency so natural to man. As they listen to the poetry of the familiar passage read by the clergyman, their memories awaken, and vague hopes for they know not what are stirred to a restless life. All the surroundings and accompaniments reenforce these suggestions, for that is the transformed purpose of modern rites. The music throbs in their ears, now plaintive and low, now bursting into triumphant peals. Incense fills the air, and the lights burn dimly. Then a new psychological world is created within them. The erstwhile solid earth with its blind driving power becomes transparent and a thing {124} to despise. The Lord reigneth to Whom all things are possible. His the power to create or to destroy, to bind or to loose, to wither or to make whole.

The next day in the laboratory, perhaps, the same individuals watch the circulation of the blood in the thin membrane of a frog's foot, or measure the transformation of energy in a chemical reaction, or examine the nerve-tissue of the human brain, and another outlook forms itself. They see a world of harmonious movements, of gigantic forces, of delicate adjustments, of slow birth and quick decay. The sentiment of law, the feeling for fact, the sense of nature grow upon them. For the time being, they are the conscious spectators of an immense reality it would be meaningless to set aside. The complexity and autonomy of nature thrusts all thought of superpersonal agency into the background. Thus the pendulum swings back and forth from supernaturalism to naturalism. They believe, and yet disbelieve. What answer must be given to these troubled minds?

Now the question, Do miracles happen? presupposes a single, unambiguous meaning for the term, miracle. Yet to secure such a single meaning requires an effort. It is so tempting for the advocate of miracles to make qualifications when the argument goes against him, to say that he did not mean an act of a supernatural agent but only an extraordinary event, something marvelous and not easily accounted for. We shall concern ourselves primarily with what may be called a theological miracle, an occurrence confidently assigned to the will of a divine agent. Incidentally, however, we shall discuss the logical attitude to take toward marvels which cannot easily be fitted into the usual scheme of events.

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To understand the ideas and sentiments associated with our term, we must go back to the past. We are sufficiently acquainted by now with the setting of the religious view of the universe to know that the gods were at first forces _in_ nature and only slowly became spiritual agents _outside_ of nature. We cannot too often remember that man had no instinctive knowledge of what energies operated in the world and what were the conditions of their operation. He peopled woods and fields and sky with invisible agents who could do almost all they wanted to do, and with no hindrance from distance. We may put it this way: man had no idea of spatial process but thought of all events as acts of will. The gods had _mana_, or power, just as the medicine man had, only greater. And miracles were, for ages, only extraordinary events due to the power of gods or other power-possessing beings. So long as this primitive view of things was prevalent, miracles were only especially significant events assigned to the will of the gods. They were events which transparently revealed their anger, or favor, or purposes. There was nothing illogical or puzzling about them.

The forces which are so strongly working against the acceptance of miracles are just those forces which are antagonistic to the primitive view of the world. If nature is a self-contained spatial system, the complete mechanism of change should be open to study. Even human wills must be connected with human bodies, and shown to act in accordance with psychological and physiological laws. In the place of such vague terms as _mana_, we have chemical and electrical properties, bacterial infection, hypnosis. Magic and miracle are closely connected; and the replacement of magic by {126} science put miracles on the defensive. Nature became a realm of recurrent processes. The exceptional, alone, could be assigned to the old type of agency. Thus the contrast came out more clearly, as the religious view of the world found itself opposed to an orderly conception of natural process. Divine agency, on the one hand; uniform processes, on the other.

Etymologically, a miracle is something which awakens wonder because of its strangeness. In former days, all events out of the ordinary were naturally classed as miracles, that is, as events to be wondered at. There was, of course, a routine aspect to nature. People expected the sun to rise in the morning and pass unwaveringly over the sky; they looked for the return of the seasons and had festivals to celebrate them; they anticipated normal young from their animals. Thus the routine aspect of things was fairly conspicuous, and they guided themselves by reference to it. But, in those days, things were less settled than they are in our well-organized society. People were more nervous, as it were, more surrounded by rumor, more credulous. Both the psychological and the social situation favored tales of marvelous events. I cannot help feeling that the religious customs, the constant appeal to the gods for favors and portents, were both effects and causes of this sense for the miraculous which we find so widespread in the past. Sometimes monsters were born; sometimes the wind blew from one direction for an extraordinary length of time; sometimes the sun was darkened at midday. Stories were constantly afloat about wonderful cures imputed to gods or magicians. Credulity awoke at the least encouragement. Priests, prophets, magicians, kings, gods, all were regarded as {127} the authors of cures. Only the common man was unable to do these wonderful things. The idea that the king's touch had wonderful curative power lingered on into the nineteenth century.

We have pointed out, more than once, that the best way to explain an idea away is to explain how it arose. Add to this a clear statement of how the older view conflicts with the new outlook which has been born of tested knowledge, and the disproof is as complete as may be. Let us apply this method to the stories told of Jesus in the New Testament. Jesus was reputed to have the gifts of an exorcist. That Jesus, if he did actually live, believed in demons cannot be doubted. In Mark, the crowd exclaims: "With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." Again, the scribes from Jerusalem say: "He hath Beelzebub. By the prince of the devils he casteth out the devils." Wherever Jesus went, crowds of sick people flocked to him to be healed of their various complaints. But they undoubtedly did the same to every prophet or medicine-man who came along. A man could not be a prophet if he did not have a special _mana_, or power, either in his own right or as the representative of his deity. And we must not think of these healers as charlatans or impostors. Everybody believed that disease was a matter for religion. Why? Because they did not know anything about toxins and bacteria and amoebic infection. The demon-theory of disease was everywhere dominant outside, perhaps, certain circles in Greece. "It is beyond a doubt," writes F. C. Conybeare, "that Jesus regarded fever, epilepsy, madness, deafness, blindness, rheumatism, and all the other weaknesses to which flesh is heir, as the distinct work of evil {128} spirits. The storm-wind which churned the sea or inland lake into fury is equally an evil spirit in the Gospel story. In the Vedic poems it is the same; and, indeed, we have here a commonplace of all folklore."

The stories told about Jesus in the synoptic gospels can be paralleled in the literature of the time throughout the Roman world. The use of spittle as a sovereign remedy was universal. In his essay upon miracles, Hume called attention to the story told about the Emperor Vespasian by Tacitus. Vespasian was a little more careful than Jesus, for he had physicians examine the eyes of the blind suppliant before he exerted his touch and spittle as healing agents. But, then, Jesus could not be so careful about such things as an emperor.

When we once clearly realize the emotional atmosphere of the times and the complete lack of the sort of intellectual background we possess, we are not surprised either at the recorded acts of Jesus or at the myths which grew up around his figure. The absence of miracles from the New Testament would be far more surprising than is their presence.

The miracles attributed to Jesus are of two main kinds, the expulsion of demons as a means of curing ills and allegorical fulfillments of supposed Old Testament prophecies. The first kind has been sufficiently examined. The second can be touched upon only briefly. It has been one of the main contributions of the higher criticism to point out how much of the life of Jesus is built up around passages in the Septuagint or Greek version of the Old Testament.

I do not think that I am going too far when I assert that the presence of these tales in the sacred literature of Christianity has done an incalculable amount of {129} harm. They have given a sanction to all sorts of superstitious beliefs and have helped to carry over into our day an outlook which would otherwise have been more quickly cast off. Had it not been for the miracles related in the gospels, there would have been no problem of miracles to discuss. The idea, itself, would have been outgrown and have died a natural death. And, in the long run, that is what must take place. As a saner view of Jesus is taken and a better knowledge of the outlook of the time in which he lived is gained, the recorded miracles will be explained, not as actual events, but as actual beliefs.

Another period deserves study in this connection. When one examines the literature of the Middle Ages, one gains the conviction that miracles formed the staple emotional diet of the people. They played the part that novels and detective stories do now. Man is naturally dramatic in his interpretation of life, and what can be more thrilling than a miracle? Constance, the heroine of the _Man of Law's Tale_ in Chaucer, is rescued from death when in most perilous plight by that Unseen Hand which frustrates the plots of the wicked. Skepticism and realism are slowly acquired habits of mind. The primary impulse is to believe. And, when religious motives and traditions enter to strengthen the sway of this impulse, it is hard to counteract. When learned theologians enunciate the principle, "I believe because it is absurd," it is not to be wondered at that the mass of the people believe because they do not see that it is absurd. For ages, the world was a sort of quicksand, and it has taken far more courage and sheer intellectual capacity and moral daring than the mass of the people will ever conceive to build dykes out into {130} the unknown and rescue it for the empire of unswerving law.

But we must pass from the historical study of miracles to the systematic, or philosophical, aspect of the matter. The philosophy of miracles breaks up into two parts, the laws of evidence and proof, and the nature of cause. The first part may be called logical; the second, metaphysical.

Theological miracles involve two elements, the fact and the theory. It is only after the fact has been sufficiently proven that its cause can come into question. It is absurd to explain facts either by natural processes or by the will of God until you are certain that these events _were_ actual occurrences. If a child took _Alice in Wonderland_ too seriously and asked me to explain "Why the sea is boiling hot," I would be compelled to disappoint its craving for explanation. Now I am certain that the situation in regard to miracles is not much otherwise. Were the alleged facts to be proven beyond reasonable doubt, the need for a genuine explanation would press upon us. But the history of the subject points in the other direction.

The logic of evidence concerns itself with the tests applied to statements which purport to be facts. What reason have we to believe in those stories which have been handed down to us from the past, or in the tales of marvelous cures and visions spread abroad in certain circles to-day? Is it not evident that we must apply to them the same stringent tests that the scientist employs? All the canons of evidence, external and internal, must be brought to bear upon them. Accounts of cures in connection with the shrines of saints and the descriptions of cases of healing among Christian {131} Scientists should be subjected to rigorous, yet equitable, examination. The nature of the sickness or injury should be diagnosed, and the after-history kept under observation. And, unless these religious bodies wish to incur the suspicion of abetting fraud, they should welcome thorough inquiry. Until something of this kind is done, the evidential value of the accounts is weaker than it must be to reach proof. The more the adduced narratives conflict with the usual course of experience, the more does this lack of ventilation weaken their evidential worth. From the standpoint of logic, this attitude is incontestable. Either we must maintain it or we must give up all serious attempt to sift testimony.

The advances made by history and psychology during the nineteenth century have put us in a far better position to handle the question of past marvels than Hume was in. Yet this more concrete outlook has simply reenforced Hume's method of criticism. Hume was, perhaps, a little too generous. The burden of proof rests upon the believer in marvels, rather than upon the critic, because the regularity of experience has been increasingly established. Hence, the historical evidence must be very strong, stronger than it has turned out to be.

When the canons of historical evidence are applied to the accounts of marvelous events, it is surprising how quickly they lose their impressiveness. Let us take, for example, the astounding series of incidents told in Exodus. Were this book written by Moses, an actual eye-witness and chief actor on the human side, we would be forced to assert that he was self-deceived, or intended to deceive, or that the events actually did {132} happen in some strange sort of way. But when we discover that the Pentateuch was not written until long after the establishment of the Kingdom, and that it contains various strands of popular tradition and priestly construction, we realize that the logical situation is very different. The eye-witness has disappeared. In other words, we have to deal with legends instead of with history. We are no longer reduced to the dilemma of either calling Moses a liar or accepting events which strike us as mythical. We are not even called upon to rationalize these legends and to appeal, say, to the influence of a high wind, long continued, upon some shallow branch of the Red Sea. Such ingenuity is now seen to be misplaced.

When we pass from past to present, we must keep to the same logical methods. In fact, we must often pass from the present to the past. It was Lyell, the famous geologist, who established the scientific canon that the same forces that are working to-day must be used to explain what occurred in other ages. And this canon was of immense value, for it prevented scientists from dreaming of catastrophes and forgetting to study the detailed working of common forces. How far faith in Jesus as a religious healer, a powerful prophet sent by God, led to what are called faith-cures can be answered only by analogy from the present. The nature and reach of mental cures must be studied with the same care that is given to other fields. Only lately is this being done. Physicians did not do justice to the nervous system. Their materialism was too naive, too mechanical. The individual is an organic whole, and the mind cannot be severed from this whole without falsity. Put in physiological terms, the nervous system {133} controls the expenditure of energy of the organism, and, if it is wasteful, can soon exhaust the supply. The resistance offered by the organism to disease is, then, likely to vary with the mental and nervous balance of the individual. How effective an abnormal direction of nervous energy toward certain parts of the organism may be cannot be told beforehand. Probably, experimental work with hypnosis and psychoanalysis will throw light upon these internal adjustments. The historian of religious history should keep his eye upon the recent developments of psychiatry. He should, moreover, learn his psychology from experts and not be satisfied with the jargon of spiritualists.

But logic alone will never be able to disprove theological miracles. I cannot prove that there are no fairies, although I can show that there is no good evidence for belief in their existence. The rationalist who undertakes to _demonstrate_ the impossibility of miracles forgets that his thinking works within a set of postulates and principles which his adversary will not accept. All he can really show is that his postulates and principles fit in better with experience than do those of his adversary. The final conflict is that between the primitive view of the world and the scientific view. The best that can be done is to stress the logical side and then make the contrast between the two views of the world as distinct as possible. Whether an individual will, or will not, believe in religious miracles depends ultimately upon the view of the world which grows up in his mind. And this mental outlook is a function of his training and his psychological make-up.

The theological miracle is more deductive than inductive. I mean that it is a consequence of a dogma {134} rather than an independently given fact. The religious outlook comes first in order and dominates the fact. Just the opposite is the case in science. There the fact comes first and the theory afterwards. As I have written in my _Logic_: "Mere speculation uncontrolled by fact is almost certain to lose touch with reality. It may lead to the construction of beautiful systems, but these systems, for all their splendor and subtlety, are sure to lack value as means of interpreting the world in which we actually live." But is not the theological miracle an instance of just such uncontrolled speculation? An omnipotent God could do anything to, or in, his footstool. Of course he could. You are only developing the implications of your hypothesis. The test questions are, first, Is it his nature to want to do these abrupt things? second, Is this conception of an omnipotent God the most satisfactory hypothesis? Does it help us to meet the facts and events of human life? We know how the idea arose, and we know that it was based on interpretations of nature that seem to us now essentially illusory. The rub of the matter is, that it is of no assistance to science and creates hosts of artificial difficulties. We have been discussing one of these artificial problems in the present chapter and shall be engaged in the discussion of others in the next two chapters. A naturalistic metaphysics and ethics is far easier to formulate than a theological system free from contradiction.

But suppose that certain marvels which would not fit into the natural course of things were established. How could it be shown that these peculiar events were the acts of a supernatural agent? Strictly speaking, only revelation could accomplish this feat. But revelation {135} is, itself, a miracle which needs accrediting. And so you are, once more, in a vicious circle. Revelation might be a well-accredited mode of proof if it had an organ of a public character--a voice from heaven, for instance. But such a voice would become a part of nature for us; in other words, its assumption implies another sort of world from the one we are in. But, until this organ is established, we have good right to doubt the _ipse dixit_ of self-appointed oracles.

When we examine the whole question of miracles inductively and deductively, I think that we must acknowledge that their basis is exceedingly weak. Already, the educated world is in a fair way to outgrow them; and this tendency will undoubtedly increase as science continues to explore the world we live in.

In conclusion, it seems worth while to call attention to the fact that very few people realize what they are really believing when they accept miracles. They do not know enough about nature to grasp the real content of their beliefs; and, until they do, their belief represents simply a point of view which has not been confronted with its implications. It expresses innocence rather than virtue. Let us glance at a couple of the biblical miracles to show what they involve.

Tyndall has brought out, very strikingly, the difference between the miracle supposed to have aided Joshua in his battle with the Amorites, as this appeared in the eyes of an Israelite of old, and as it appears to a man of science. For the one the miracle probably consisted in the stoppage of a fiery ball less than a yard in diameter, while to the other it would be the stoppage of an orb fourteen thousand times the earth in size. "There is," he writes, "a scientific as well as a historic {136} imagination; and when, by the exercise of the former, the stoppage of the earth's rotation is clearly realized, the event assumes proportions so vast, in comparison with the result to be obtained by it, that belief reels under the reflection. The energy here involved is equal to that of six trillion of horses working for the whole of the time employed by Joshua in the destruction of his foes." If we pass from the great to the small, from the employment of tremendous forces to the reconstruction of endless, minute relations, the same divergence between superficial appearance and the reality stares us in the face. Let us consider the raising of Lazarus from the dead. It is a well-known fact that the nervous system begins to disintegrate very quickly after death. Now research has shown that there are nearly a billion of cells in the brain alone. Think of the disorganization which would ensue in such a complicated system after a period of four days. Those who are acquainted with the delicacy of organic compounds can realize the condition of the brain when the body was already beginning to stink. But the ancients did not even know that the brain was closely connected with consciousness, let alone its structure. Of the character of the economy of the body, they knew practically nothing; they dealt with wholes, not with parts. How different this miracle appears from these two stand-points! It is the same only in name. It may be of interest to note that this miracle, characteristic of John, is very evidently related to illustrate the principle that Jesus as the Logos is the resurrection and the life. It is a demonstration miracle.

Our answer to the question, Do miracles happen? must be in the negative. While there is nothing {137} irrational in the idea in itself, it does not fit the world as experience presents it. The assertion that God performs miracles, like the similar assertion that he created the world, is purely hypothetical and unverifiable.

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