Miracles and Supernatural Religion

Portentum non fit contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura
—Augustine
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1903 All rights reserved
Copyright, 1903, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up, electrotyped, and published May, 1903.
Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
To M. B. W.

While the present subject of discussion tempts to many an excursion into particulars, its treatment is restricted to general outlines, with an aim simply to clarify current ideas of miracle and the supernatural, so as to find firm holding ground for tenable positions in the present drift period of theology. The chief exception made to this general treatment is the discussion given to a class of miracles regarded with as much incredulity as any, yet as capable as any of being accredited as probably historical events—the raisings of the dead. The insistence of some writers on the virgin birth and corporeal resurrection of Jesus as essential to Christianity has required brief discussion of these also, mainly with reference to the reasonableness of that demand. As to the latter miracle, it must be observed that in the Biblical narratives taken as a whole, whichever of their discordant features one be disposed to emphasize, the psychical element clearly preponderates over the physical and material.
J. M. W.
New York,
April 11, 1903.