FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[12]An objection to the historicity of the raising of Lazarus which is made on the ground that so great a work, if historical, would have been related by more than one of the Evangelists, yields on reflection the possibility that Jesus may have effected more than the three raisings recorded of him. John is the sole narrator of the raising of Lazarus. But he omits notice of the two raisings recorded by the other Evangelists, while Matthew and Mark do not record the raising of the widow's son recorded by Luke. All this suggests that the record may have preserved for us specimens rather than a complete list of this class of miracles. (Compare John xxi. 25.)[13]"We have frequent cases of trance, ... where the parties seem to die, but after a time the spirit returns, and life goes on as before. In all this there is no miracle. Why may not the resuscitations in Christ's time possibly have been similar cases? Is not this less improbable than that the natural order of the universe should have been set aside?"—The Problem of Final Destiny, by William B. Brown, D.D., 1899.[14]On account of the ceremonial "uncleanness" caused by the dead body. See Numbers v. 2, and many similar passages.[15]Buried Alive(Universal Truth Publishing Co., Chicago). See alsoPremature Burial, by D. Walsh (William Wood & Co., New York), andPremature Burial, by W. Tebb and E. P. Vollum (New Amsterdam Book Co., New York).[16]Other writers might be mentioned, as Mme. Necker (1790), Dr. Vigné (1841). Yet on the other hand it is alleged, that "none of the numerous stories of this dreadful accident which have obtained credence from time to time seem to be authentic" (American Cyclopedia, art. "Burial"). Allowing a wide margin for exaggeration and credulity, there is certainly a residuum of fact. A correspondent of the (London)Spectatora few years since testified to a distressing case in his own family.[17]Kings xvii. 17-23.[18]Kings iv. 32-36.[19]Mark v. 35-43.[20]Luke vii. 12-16.[21]John xi. 11-44.[22]Was Jesus aware that Lazarus was really not dead? It is impossible to reach a positive conclusion. In some directions his knowledge was certainly limited. That he was not aware of the reality might be inferred from his seeming to have allowed his act to pass for what, in the view of it here suggested, it was not,—the recall to life of one actually dead. This, however, assumes the completeness of a record whose silence on this point cannot be pressed as conclusive. It is, indeed, unlikely that Jesus knew all that medical men now know. But awareness of any fact may be in varying degrees from serious suspicion up to positive certitude. While far from positiveness, awareness may exist in a degree that gives courage for resolute effort resulting in clear and full verification. Jesus may have been ignorant of the objective reality of Lazarus's condition, and yet have been very hopeful of being empowered by the divine aid he prayed for (John xi. 41) to cope with it successfully.[23]See pages28,29,Note.[24]Jesus' works of healing are explicitly attributed by the Evangelists to a peculiar power that issued from him. In Mark v. 30, Luke vi. 19, and viii. 46, the original worddunamis, which the Authorized Version translates "virtue," is more correctly rendered "power" in the Revised Version. Especially noticeable is the peculiar phraseology of Mark v. 30: "Jesus perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth (R. V.)." The peculiar circumstances of the case suggest that the going forth of this power might be motived sub-consciously, as well as by conscious volition.[25]Acts ix. 36-42.[26]Acts xx. 9-13.

[12]An objection to the historicity of the raising of Lazarus which is made on the ground that so great a work, if historical, would have been related by more than one of the Evangelists, yields on reflection the possibility that Jesus may have effected more than the three raisings recorded of him. John is the sole narrator of the raising of Lazarus. But he omits notice of the two raisings recorded by the other Evangelists, while Matthew and Mark do not record the raising of the widow's son recorded by Luke. All this suggests that the record may have preserved for us specimens rather than a complete list of this class of miracles. (Compare John xxi. 25.)

[13]"We have frequent cases of trance, ... where the parties seem to die, but after a time the spirit returns, and life goes on as before. In all this there is no miracle. Why may not the resuscitations in Christ's time possibly have been similar cases? Is not this less improbable than that the natural order of the universe should have been set aside?"—The Problem of Final Destiny, by William B. Brown, D.D., 1899.

[14]On account of the ceremonial "uncleanness" caused by the dead body. See Numbers v. 2, and many similar passages.

[15]Buried Alive(Universal Truth Publishing Co., Chicago). See alsoPremature Burial, by D. Walsh (William Wood & Co., New York), andPremature Burial, by W. Tebb and E. P. Vollum (New Amsterdam Book Co., New York).

[16]Other writers might be mentioned, as Mme. Necker (1790), Dr. Vigné (1841). Yet on the other hand it is alleged, that "none of the numerous stories of this dreadful accident which have obtained credence from time to time seem to be authentic" (American Cyclopedia, art. "Burial"). Allowing a wide margin for exaggeration and credulity, there is certainly a residuum of fact. A correspondent of the (London)Spectatora few years since testified to a distressing case in his own family.

[17]Kings xvii. 17-23.

[18]Kings iv. 32-36.

[19]Mark v. 35-43.

[20]Luke vii. 12-16.

[21]John xi. 11-44.

[22]Was Jesus aware that Lazarus was really not dead? It is impossible to reach a positive conclusion. In some directions his knowledge was certainly limited. That he was not aware of the reality might be inferred from his seeming to have allowed his act to pass for what, in the view of it here suggested, it was not,—the recall to life of one actually dead. This, however, assumes the completeness of a record whose silence on this point cannot be pressed as conclusive. It is, indeed, unlikely that Jesus knew all that medical men now know. But awareness of any fact may be in varying degrees from serious suspicion up to positive certitude. While far from positiveness, awareness may exist in a degree that gives courage for resolute effort resulting in clear and full verification. Jesus may have been ignorant of the objective reality of Lazarus's condition, and yet have been very hopeful of being empowered by the divine aid he prayed for (John xi. 41) to cope with it successfully.

[23]See pages28,29,Note.

[24]Jesus' works of healing are explicitly attributed by the Evangelists to a peculiar power that issued from him. In Mark v. 30, Luke vi. 19, and viii. 46, the original worddunamis, which the Authorized Version translates "virtue," is more correctly rendered "power" in the Revised Version. Especially noticeable is the peculiar phraseology of Mark v. 30: "Jesus perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth (R. V.)." The peculiar circumstances of the case suggest that the going forth of this power might be motived sub-consciously, as well as by conscious volition.

[25]Acts ix. 36-42.

[26]Acts xx. 9-13.

Synopsis.—A clearer conception of miracle approached.—Works of Jesus once reputed miraculous not so reputed now, since not now transcending, as once, the existing range of knowledge and power.—This transfer of the miraculous to the natural likely to continue.—No hard and fast line between the miraculous and the non-miraculous.—Miracle a provisional word, its application narrowing in the enlarging mastery of the secrets of nature and life.

tthis point it seems possible to approach a clearer understanding of the proper meaning to attach to the generally ill-defined and hazy termmiracle.[27]Matthew Arnold's fantasticillustration of the idea of miracle by supposing a pen changed to a pen-wiper may fit some miracles, especially those of the Catholic hagiology, but, if applied to those of Jesus, would be a caricature. In the New Testament a reputed miracle is not any sort of wonderful work upon any sort of occasion, but an act of benevolent will exerted for an immediate benefit,[28]and transcending the then existing range of human intelligence to explain and power to achieve. The historic reality of at leastsome such acts performed by Jesus is acknowledged by critics as free from the faintest trace of orthodox bias as Keim: "The picture of Jesus, the worker of miracles, belongs to the first believers in Christ, and is no invention."

It has already been noted that a considerable number of the then reputed miracles of Jesus, particularly his works of healing, do not now, as then, transcend the existing range of knowledge and power, and accordingly are no longer reputed miraculous. And one cannot reasonably believe that a limit to the understanding and control of forces in Nature and mind that now are more or less occult has been already reached. It is, therefore, not incredible that some of the mighty works of Jesus, which still transcend the existing limits of knowledge and power, and so are still reputed miraculous, and are suspected by many as unhistorical, may in some yetremote and riper stage of humanity be transferred, as some have already been, to the class of the non-miraculous and natural.

Dr. Robbins, Dean of the General Theological Seminary, New York, after remarking that "the wordmiraclehas done more to introduce confusion into Christian Evidences than any other," goes on to say: "To animals certain events to them inexplicable are signs of the presence of human intelligence and power. To men these miracles of Christ are signs of divine intelligence and power. But how is miracle to be differentiated from other providential dealings of God? Not by removing him further from common events. Abstruse speculations concerning the relation of miracles to other physical phenomena may be safely left to the adjustment of an age which shall have advanced to a more perfect synthesisof knowledge than the present can boast."[29]

The truth to which such considerations conduct is, that no hard and fast line can be drawn between the miraculous and the non-miraculous. To the untutored mind, like that of the savage who thought it miraculous that a chip with a message written on it had talked to the recipient, the simplest thing that he cannot explain is miraculous: "omne ignotum pro mirifico," said Tacitus. As the range of knowledge and power widens, the range of the miraculous narrows correspondingly. Some twenty years since, the International Sunday-school Lessons employed as a proof of the divinity of Christ the reputedly miraculous knowledge which he evinced in his first interview with Nathanael of a solitary hour in Nathanael's experience.[30]Since then it has been demonstrated[31]by psychical research that the natural order of the world includes telepathy, and the range of the miraculous has been correspondingly reduced without detriment to the argument for the divinity of Christ, now rested on less precarious ground.

Under such conditions as we have reviewed a miracle cannot always be one and the same thing. Miracle must therefore be defined as being what our whole course of thought has suggested that it is: in general, an elastic word; in particular, a provisional word,—a word whose application narrows with the enlarging range of human knowledge[32]and power which forthe time it transcends; a word whose history, in its record of ranges already transcended, prompts expectation that ranges still beyond may be transcended in the illimitable progress of mankind. Professor Le Conte says that miracle is "an occurrence or a phenomenon according to a law higher than any yet known." Thus it is a case of human ignorance, not of divine interference.

On the other hand, we must believe that the goal of progress is a flying goal; that human attainment can never reach finality unless men cease to be. And so all widening of human knowledge and power must ever disclose further limitations to be transcended. There will always be aBeyond, in which dwells the secret of laws still undiscovered, that underlie mysteries unrevealed and marvels unexplained. This will have to be admitted, especially, by those to whom the marvellous is synonymouswith the incredible. We have not been able to eviscerate even these prosaic and matter-of-fact modern times of marvels whose secret lies in the yet uncatalogued or indefinable powers of the mysterious agent that we namelife: witness many well verified facts recorded by the Society for Psychical Research.[33]How, then, is it consistent to affirm that no such marvels in ancient records are historical realities? Nay, may it not be true that the ancient days of seers and prophets, the days of Jesus, days of the sublime strivings of great and lonely souls for closer converse with the Infinite Spirit behind his mask of Nature, offered better conditions for marvellous experiences and deeds than these days of scientific laboratories and factories, and world-markets and world-politics?

FOOTNOTES:[27]"Early and mediæval theologians agree in conceiving the miraculous as being above, not contrary to, nature. The question entered on a new phase when Hume defined a miracle as a violation of nature, and asserted the impossibility of substantiating its actual occurrence. The modern discussion has proceeded largely in view of Hume's destructive criticism. Assuming the possibility of a miracle, the questions of fact and of definition remain."—Dictionary of Psychology."When we find the definition for which we are searching, the miraculous will no longer be a problem."—Professor W. Sanday, at the Anglican Church Congress, 1902.[28]For exceptions see Matthew xxi. 19; Acts xiii. 10, 11.[29]A Christian Apologetic, p. 97.[30]John i. 47-50.[31]In the opinion of such psychologists as Professor William James, of Harvard, the late Professor Henry Sidgwick, of Cambridge, England, and others of like eminence.[32]A hint of this was given by Augustine: "Portentum non fit contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura."—De Civitate Dei.[33]Consult the late F. W. H. Myers's remarkable volumes onHuman Personality and Survival after Death(Longmans, Green & Co.).

[27]"Early and mediæval theologians agree in conceiving the miraculous as being above, not contrary to, nature. The question entered on a new phase when Hume defined a miracle as a violation of nature, and asserted the impossibility of substantiating its actual occurrence. The modern discussion has proceeded largely in view of Hume's destructive criticism. Assuming the possibility of a miracle, the questions of fact and of definition remain."—Dictionary of Psychology."When we find the definition for which we are searching, the miraculous will no longer be a problem."—Professor W. Sanday, at the Anglican Church Congress, 1902.

"When we find the definition for which we are searching, the miraculous will no longer be a problem."—Professor W. Sanday, at the Anglican Church Congress, 1902.

[28]For exceptions see Matthew xxi. 19; Acts xiii. 10, 11.

[29]A Christian Apologetic, p. 97.

[30]John i. 47-50.

[31]In the opinion of such psychologists as Professor William James, of Harvard, the late Professor Henry Sidgwick, of Cambridge, England, and others of like eminence.

[32]A hint of this was given by Augustine: "Portentum non fit contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura."—De Civitate Dei.

[33]Consult the late F. W. H. Myers's remarkable volumes onHuman Personality and Survival after Death(Longmans, Green & Co.).

Synopsis.—Biblical miracles the effluence of extraordinary lives.—Life the world's magician and miracle worker; its miracles now termedprodigies.—Miracle the natural product of an extraordinary endowment of life.—Life the ultimate reality.—What any man can achieve is conditioned by the psychical quality of his life.—Nothing more natural, more supernatural, than life.—The derived life of the world filial to the self-existent life of God, "begotten, not made."—Miracle, as the product of life, the work of God.

eit noted, now, that the marvellous phenomena of the Biblical record, whatever else be thought of them, are, even to a superficial view, the extraordinary effluence of extraordinary lives. Here at length we gain a clearer conception of miracle.Lifeis the world's great magician,—life, so familiar,yet so mysterious; so commonplace, yet so transcendent. No miracle is more marvellous than its doings witnessed in the biological laboratory, or more inexplicable than its transformation of dead matter into living flesh, its development of a Shakespeare from a microscopic bit of protoplasm. But its mysterious processes are too common for general marvel; we marvel only at the uncommon. The boy Zerah Colburn in half a minute solved the problem, "How many seconds since the beginning of the Christian era?" We prefer to call this a prodigy rather than a miracle,—a distinction more verbal than real; and we fancy we have explained it when we say that such arithmetical power was a peculiar endowment of his mental life. Now all of the inexplicable, inimitable reality that at any time has to be left by the baffled intellect as an unsolved wonder under the name of miracle is justthat,—the natural product of an extraordinary endowment of life. More of its marvellous capability is latent in common men, in the subconscious depths of being, than has ever yet flashed forth in the career of uncommon men. Some scientists say that it depends on chemical and physical forces. It indeed uses these to build the various bodies it inhabits, but again it leaves these to destroy those bodies when it quits them. The most constant and ubiquitous phenomenon in the world, the ultimate reality in the universe, islife, revealing its presence in innumerable modes of activity, from the dance of atoms in the rock to the philosophizing of the sage and the aspirations of the saint,—the creator of Nature, the administrator of the regular processes we call the laws of Nature, the author of the wonders men call miraculous because they are uncommon and ill understood.

The works of which any man is naturally capable are conditioned by the psychical quality of his life, and its power to use the forces of Nature. Through differences of vital endowment some can use color, as wonderful painters, and others employ sound, as wonderful musicians, in ways impossible to those otherwise endowed. So "a poet is born, not made." So persons of feeble frame, stimulated by disease or frenzied by passion, have put forth preternatural and prodigious muscular strength. By what we call "clairvoyant" power life calls up in intelligent perception things going on far beyond ocular vision. By what we call "telepathic" power life communicates intelligence with life separated by miles of space. Such are some of the powers that have been discovered, and fully attested, but not explained, as belonging to the world's master magician,Life. And when the poet asks,—

"Ah, what will our children be,The men of a hundred thousand, a million summers away?"

we can only answer with the Apostle: "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." But we cannot deem it likely that the powers of life,

"Deep seated in our mystic frame,"

and giving forth such flashes of their inherent virtue, have already reached their ultimate development.

We look with wonder and awe into the secret shrine of life, where two scarcely visible cells unite to form the human being whose thought shall arrange the starry heavens in majestic order, and harness the titanic energies of Nature for the world's work. There we behold the real supernatural. Nothing is more natural than life, and nothing also more supernatural. Biology studies all the various forms that the world shows of it, and affirmsthat life, though multiform, is one. This embryology attests, showing that the whole ascent of life through diverse forms from the lowest to the highest, during the millions of years since life first manifested its presence on this globe, is recapitulated in the stages of growth through which the human being passes in the few months before its birth. And philosophy, which does not seek the living among the dead, affirms,omne vivum ex vivo. The varied but unitary life of the world is the stream of an exhaustless spring. It is filial to the life of God, the Father Almighty. What the ancient creed affirmed of the Christ as the Son of God—whom his beloved disciple recognized as "the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us[34]"—may be truly affirmed of the mysterious reality that is known as life: "Begotten notmade; being of one substance with the Father; through whom [or which] all things were made." Looking from the derived and finite life of the world, visible only in the signs of its presence, but in its reality no more visible than him "whom no man hath seen, nor can see," up to the life underived, aboriginal, infinite, we recognizeGodandLifeas terms of identical significance. How superficial the notion of miracles as "the personal intervention of God into the chain of cause and effect," in which he is the constant vital element. If an event deemed miraculous is ever ascribed, as of old, to "the finger of God," the reality behind the phenomenon is simply a higher or a stronger power of life than is recognized in an event of a common type—life that is one with the infinite and universal Life,

"Life that in me has rest,As I, undying Life, have power in Thee."

FOOTNOTES:[34]1 John i. 2.

[34]1 John i. 2.

Synopsis.—The question, both old and new, now confronting theologians.—Their recent retreat upon the minimum of miracle.—The present conflict of opinion in the Church.—Its turning-point reached in the antipodal turn-about in the treatment of miracles from the old to the new apologetics.—Revision of the traditional idea of the supernatural required for theological readjustment.

hepresent line of thought has now reached the point where an important question confronts us,—a question not wholly new. Within the memory of living men theologians have been compelled to ask themselves: What if the geologists should establish facts that contradict our Biblically derived doctrine that the universe was made in a week? Again have they been constrained to put to themselves the question:What if the evolutionists should supersede our doctrine that the creation is the immediate product of successive fiats of the Creator by showing that it came gradually into existence through the progressive operation of forces immanent in the cosmos? Still again have they had to face the question: What if modern criticism by the discovery of demonstrable errors in the Sacred Writings should fault our doctrine that, as the Word of God, the Bible is free from all and every error? In every instance the dreaded concession, when found at length to be enforced by modern learning, has been found to bring, not the loss that had been apprehended, but clear gain to the intellectual interests of religion. Now it is this same sort of question which returns with the uncertainties and difficulties widely felt in the Church to be gathering over its hitherto unvexed belief inmiracles as signs of a divine activity more immediate than it has recognized in the regular processes of Nature.

The majority of uneducated Christians still hold, as formerly in each of the points just mentioned, to the traditional view. Miracle as a divine intervention in the natural order, a more close and direct divine contact with the course of things than is the case in ordinary experience, they regard as the inseparable and necessary concomitant and proof of a divine Revelation. To deny miracles, thus understood, is censured as equivalent to denial of the reality of the Revelation. But it is rather surprising, because it is rare, to find a man of such note in literature as Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll affirming[35]that one cannot be a Christianwithout believing at least two miracles, the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of the Christ. Without commenton the significance of this retreat upon the minimum of miracle, it must here be noted that a minority of the Church, not inferior to their brethren in learning and piety, believe that there are no tides in God's presence in Nature, that his contact with it is always of the closest:—

"Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands or feet."

All natural operations are to them divine operations. "Nature," said Dr. Martineau, "is God's mask, not his competitor." While his agency in Nature may berecognizedat one time more than at another, itexistsat any time fully as much as at any other. In the interest of this fundamental truth of religion they affirm that miracles in the traditional sense of the word, and in their traditional limitation to the small measure of time and space covered by Biblical narratives, never occurred. Events reputed miraculous haveindeed occurred, but simply as unusual, inexplicable phenomena in the natural order of things, the natural products of exceptionally endowed life, and, whether in ancient time or modern, the same sort of thing the world over. To the argument that this involves denial of a supernatural Revelation they reply that it is mere reasoning in a circle. For if one begs the question at the outset by defining supernatural Revelation as revelation necessarily evidenced by miraculous divine intervention, then, of course, denial of this is denial of that, and how is the argument advanced? But, besides this, the question-begging definition is a fallacious confusing of the contents of the Revelation with its concomitants, and of its essentially spiritual character with phenomena in the sphere of the senses.

The turning-point in this argument between the two parties in the Church hasbeen reached in the antipodal change, already referred to, from the old to the new apologetics,—a change whose inevitable consequences do not yet seem to be clearly discerned by either party in the discussion. The contention that denial of miracles as traditionally understood carries denial of supernatural Revelation has been virtually set aside, with its question-begging definition and circular reasoning, by the apologetics now current among believers in at least a minimum of miracle in the traditional sense of the word,—especially in the two chief miracles of the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of Jesus. As an eminent representative of these the late Dr. A. B. Bruce may be cited. These adduce "the moral miracle," the sinlessness of Jesus, as evidential for the reality of the physical miracles as its "congruous accompaniments." "If," says Dr. Bruce, "we receive Him as the greatmoral miracle, we shall receive much more for His sake."[36]But what a turn-about of the traditional argument on the evidences! The older apologetes argued: This crown of miraculous power bespeaks the royal dignity of the wearer. The modern apologete reasons: This royal character must have a crown of miraculous power corresponding with his moral worth. In this antipodal reverse of Christian thought it is quite plain that for evidential purposes the miracle is stripped of its ancient value. And it has already been observed that modern knowledge has now transferred many of the Biblical miracles to the new rooms discovered for them in the natural order of things. It is not premature, therefore, for leaders of Christian thought to put once more to themselves the question, constantly recurringas learning advances: What theological readjustment should we have to make, if obliged to concede that the ancient belief in miracle is not inseparable from belief in a supernatural Revelation, not indispensable to belief therein? What modified conception must we form, if constrained to admit that the living God, ever immanent in Nature, intervenes in Nature no more at one time than another? What, indeed, but a revised and true in place of a mistaken conception of the termSupernatural?

FOOTNOTES:[35]"The Church asks, and it is entitled to ask the critic: Do you believe in the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus Christ?... If he replies in the negative, he has missed the way, and has put himself outside of the Church of Christ."—The Church's One Foundation, p. 4. [Note that "Incarnation" and "Resurrection" are terms which Dr. Nicoll construes as denoting physical miracles.]What Dr. Nicoll here means by "outside of the Church" he indicates by saying elsewhere, that philosophers who reckon goodness as everything, and miracles as impossible, "are not Christians" (op. cit., p. 10).This conditioning of Christian character upon an intellectual judgment concerning the reality of remote occurrences is both unbiblical and unethical, as well as absurd when practically applied. Some years since, Dr. E. A. Abbott, who admits no miracle in the life of Christ, published a book,The Spirit on the Waters, in which he inculcated the worship of Christ. Yet, according to Dr. Nicoll, such a man is no Christian![36]The Miraculous Element in the Gospels, p. 353.

[35]"The Church asks, and it is entitled to ask the critic: Do you believe in the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus Christ?... If he replies in the negative, he has missed the way, and has put himself outside of the Church of Christ."—The Church's One Foundation, p. 4. [Note that "Incarnation" and "Resurrection" are terms which Dr. Nicoll construes as denoting physical miracles.]What Dr. Nicoll here means by "outside of the Church" he indicates by saying elsewhere, that philosophers who reckon goodness as everything, and miracles as impossible, "are not Christians" (op. cit., p. 10).This conditioning of Christian character upon an intellectual judgment concerning the reality of remote occurrences is both unbiblical and unethical, as well as absurd when practically applied. Some years since, Dr. E. A. Abbott, who admits no miracle in the life of Christ, published a book,The Spirit on the Waters, in which he inculcated the worship of Christ. Yet, according to Dr. Nicoll, such a man is no Christian!

What Dr. Nicoll here means by "outside of the Church" he indicates by saying elsewhere, that philosophers who reckon goodness as everything, and miracles as impossible, "are not Christians" (op. cit., p. 10).

This conditioning of Christian character upon an intellectual judgment concerning the reality of remote occurrences is both unbiblical and unethical, as well as absurd when practically applied. Some years since, Dr. E. A. Abbott, who admits no miracle in the life of Christ, published a book,The Spirit on the Waters, in which he inculcated the worship of Christ. Yet, according to Dr. Nicoll, such a man is no Christian!

[36]The Miraculous Element in the Gospels, p. 353.

VII

Synopsis.—Account to be made of the law of atrophy through disuse.—The virgin birth and the corporeal resurrection of Jesus, the two miracles now insisted on as the irreducible minimum, affected by this law.—The vital truths of the incarnation and immortality independent of these miracles.—These truths now placed on higher ground in a truer conception of the supernatural.—The true supernatural is the spiritual, not the miraculous.—Scepticism bred from the contrary view.—The miracle narratives, while less evidential for religion, not unimportant for history.—Psychical research a needful auxiliary for the scientific critic of these.

othe true conception of the supernatural we shall presently come. But we cannot proceed without briefly reminding ourselves of the certain consequences of this now far advanced dropping of miracles by modern apologetics from their ancient use as evidences of a supernatural Revelation. Weare not ignorant of the law, which holds throughout the material, the mental, and the moral realms, that disuse tends to atrophy and extinction. Disused organs cease to exist, as in the eyeless cave-fish. For centuries the story of the miraculous birth of Jesus was serviceable for confirmation of his claim to be the Son of God. In the address of the angel of the annunciation to Mary that claim is expressly rested on the miraculous conception of "the holy thing."[37]But as ethical enlightenment grows, the conviction grows that, whether the physiological ground of that claim be tenable or not, the ethical ground of it is essentially higher.Fatherandsoneven in human relationships are terms of more than physiological import. It is matter of frequent experience that, where the ethical character of such relationship is lacking, the physiologicalcounts for nothing. Moreover, the divine sonship of Jesus in a purely ethical view rests on ground not only higher but incontestable. And so in our time theologians prefer to rest it on foundations that cannot be shaken, on his moral oneness with God, the divineness of his spirit, the ideal perfectness of his life. The strength of this position being realized, the world begins to hear from Christian thinkers the innovating affirmation that belief of the miraculous birth can no longer be deemed essential to Christianity; else it would not have been left unmentioned in two of the four Gospels, and in every extant Apostolic letter. And now we hear theologians saying: "I accept it, but I place it no more among the evidences of Christianity. I defend it, but cannot employ it in the defence of supernatural Revelation." Such a stage of thought is only transitional. An antiquated argumentdoes not long survive in the world of thought.[38]Military weapons that have become unserviceable soon find their way either to the museum or the foundry. Itis shortsighted not to foresee the inevitable effect on our theological material of the law of atrophy through disuse. The case of the miracle is the case of a pillar originally put in for the support of an ancient roof. When the roof has a modern truss put beneath it springing from wall to wall, the pillar becomes an obstacle, and is removed.

But as in such a case the roof, otherwise supported, does not fall in when the pillar is removed, so neither is the central Christian truth of the incarnation imperilled by any weakening or vanishing of belief in the doctrine of the virgin birth. In a discussion of the subject in Convocation at York, England, while these pages were being written, the Dean of Ripon (Dr. Boyd Carpenter) urged that it must be borne in mind that the incarnation and the virgin birth were two different things, and that some who found difficultyin the latter fully accepted the former. In a recent sermon Dr. Briggs insists likewise upon this: "The virgin birth is only one of many statements of the mode of incarnation.... The doctrine of the incarnation does not depend upon the virgin birth.... It is only a minor matter connected with the incarnation, and should have a subordinate place in the doctrine.... At the same time the virgin birth is a New Testament doctrine, and we must give it its proper place and importance.... The favorite idea of the incarnation among the people has ever been the simpler one of the virgin birth, as in the Ave Maria. The theologians have ever preferred the more profound doctrine of the Hymn of the Logos [John i. 1-18]."[39]Nay, it may even be found that the weakening of belief in the incarnation as an isolated and miraculous event may tend to promote a profounder conception of it, that brings the divine and the human into touch and union at all points instead of in one point.[40]

A similar change of thought, less remarked than its significance deserves, is concerned with that other great miracle, the corporeal resurrection of Jesus, which such writers as Dr. Nicoll couple with that of his virgin birth as the irreducible minimum of miracle, belief in which is essential to Christian discipleship.[41]For many centuries the resurrection story in the Gospels has served as the conclusive proof both of the divine sonship of Jesus,[42]and of our own resurrection to immortality.[43]In the churches it is still popularly regarded as the supreme, sufficient, and indispensable fact required for the basis of faith. But in many a Christian mind the thought has dawned, that a single fact cannot give adequate ground for the general inference of a universal principle; that a remote historicalfact, however strongly attested, can evince only whathastaken place in a given case, not whatwillormustoccur in other cases; while it is also inevitably more or less pursued by critical doubt of the attestations supporting it.

This rising tide of reflection has compelled resort to higher ground, to the inward evidences in the nature of mind that are more secure from the doubt to which all that is merely external and historical is exposed. A clear distinction has been discerned between therealresurrection of Jesus—his rising from the mortal state into the immortal, and hisphenomenalresurrection—the manifestations of his change that are related as having been objectively witnessed. What took place in the invisible world—his real resurrection—is now more emphasized by Christian thinkers than the phenomenal resurrection in the visibleworld. So conservatively orthodox a writer as Dr. G. D. Boardman goes so far as to say: "After all, the real question in the matter of his resurrection is not, 'Did Christ's body rise?' That is but a subordinate, incidental issue." The real question, as Dr. Boardman admits, is, "Whether Jesus Christ himself is risen, and is alive to-day."[44]The main stress of Christian thought to-day is not laid, as formerly, on the phenomena recorded in the story of the resurrection, but on the psychological, moral, and rational evidences of a resurrection to immortality that until recent times were comparatively disregarded.[45]Meanwhilethe vindication of the reality of the phenomena related of the risen Jesus, including his bodily ascension, though not amatter of indifference to many of those who have found the higher grounds of faith, has become to them of subordinate importance.

It is well for Christian faith that its supersensuous and impregnable grounds have been occupied. It is certain that ancient records of external phenomena cannot in future constitute, as heretofore, the stronghold of faith. But it is by no means yet certain that they have lost serviceableness as, at least, outworks of the stronghold. While the doctrine of the virgin birth seems to be threatened by atrophy, the doctrine of the bodily resurrection, though retired from primary to secondary rank, seems to be waiting rather for clarification by further knowledge.

Something of an objective nature certainly lies at its basis;somethingof an external sort, not the product of mere imagination,took place. To the fact thus indefinitely stated, that hallowing of Sunday as a day of sacred and joyful observance which is coeval with the earliest traditions, and antedates all records, is an attestation as significant as any monumental marble. No hallucination theory, no gradual rise and growth of hope in the minds of a reflective few, can account for that solid primeval monument. Butwhatoccurred, the reality in distinctness from any legendary accretions, we shall be better able to conclude, when the truth shall have been threshed out concerning the reality, at present strongly attested, and as strongly controverted, of certain extraordinary but occult psychical powers.[46]

A point of high significance for those who would cultivate a religious faith not liable to be affected by changes of intellectual outlook or insight is, that this lower valuation of miracle observable among Christian thinkers has not been reached through breaches made by scepticaldoubts of the reality of a supernatural Revelation. They have, of course, felt the reasonableness of the difficulties with which traditional opinions have been encumbered by the advance of knowledge. But so far from giving way thereupon to doubts of the reality of divine Revelation, they have sought and found less assailable defences for their faith in it than those that sufficed their fathers. And their satisfaction therewith stands in no sympathy with those who hold it a mark of enlightenment to assume with Matthew Arnold, that "miracles do not happen." It has resulted rather from reaching the higher grounds of religious thought, on which supernatural Revelation is recognized in its essential character as distinctively moral and spiritual.

The true supernatural is thespiritual, not the miraculous, a higher order of Nature, not a contradiction of Nature. The Revelation of Jesus was altogetherspiritual. It consisted in the ideas of God which he communicated by his ministry and teaching, by his character and life. But this, the real supernatural, was not obvious as such to his contemporaries. They looked for it in the lower region of physical effects. And here the Church also in its embryonic spiritual life, in its proneness to externalize religion in forms of rite, and creed, and organization, has thought to find it. Jesus' reproof, "Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe," is still pertinent to those who will not have it that the supernatural Revelation—spiritual though it be—can be recognized or believed in apart from an acknowledgment of attendant miracles, wrought in physical nature by an intervention of God. Such a contention, however, is as futile and desperate as was John Wesley's declaration, "The giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving up of theBible." Such mischievous fallacies succeed only in blinding many a mind to the real issue which the moral and spiritual Revelation of Jesus makes with men of the twentieth century. It is these fallacies, and not their critics, that create the most of scepticism.[47]

But while the question whether miracles are credible has ceased to be of vital importance, it has by no means lost all importance. On the contrary, so long as the path of progress is guided by the lamp of experience, so long will it be of consequence that the historical record of experience be found trustworthy. It may suit the overweening pride which defies both the past and the present to say with Bonaparte, that history is only a fable that men have agreed to believe. But it is a human interest, and a satisfaction of normal minds to establish, so far as reasonpermits, the credibility of every record ostensibly historic. To discover that ancient experiences, once supposed to be miraculous raisings from real death, may reasonably be classed with well attested experiences of to-day, better understood as resuscitations from a deathlike trance, should be welcomed by unprejudiced historical critics, as redeeming portions of the ancient record from mistaken disparagement as legendary. That further study may accredit as facts, or at least as founded on facts, some other marvels in that record cannot, except by arrant dogmatism, be pronounced improbable. Nevertheless, it cannot be expected that the legendary element, which both the Old and the New Testament in greater and less degree exhibit, can ever be eliminated. Such stories as that of the origin of languages at Babel, and that of the resurrection of ancient saints at Jesus'resurrection are indubitable cases of it. But the legendary element, though permanent, is at present undefined. To define it is the problem of the critical student, a problem most difficult to him whose judgment is least subjective; and he will welcome every contribution that advancing knowledge can supply.

Regarding miracle as the natural product of exceptionally endowed life, there is no source from which more light can be shed on its Biblical record than in those studies of the exceptional phenomena and occult powers of life which are prosecuted by the Society for Psychical Research, whose results are recorded in its publishedProceedings. For those familiar with this record the legendary element in the Bible tends to shrink into smaller compass than many critics assign it. In the interest both of the Bible and of science it is regrettable that the results of these researches,though conducted by men of high eminence in the scientific world, still encounter the same hostile scepticism even from some Christian believers that Hume directed against the Biblical miracles. Mr. Gladstone has put himself on record against this philistinism, saying that "psychical research is by far the most important work that is being done in the world." Were one disposed to prophesy, very reasonable grounds could be produced for the prediction that, great as was the advance of the nineteenth century in physical knowledge, the twentieth century will witness an advance in psychical knowledge equally great. In this advance one may not unreasonably anticipate that some, at least, of the Biblical miracles may be relieved from the scepticism that now widely discredits them.

Back to Index Next