SECTION XX.
THE EVIDENCE FOR MIRACLES.
It does not come within the scope of this work to examine at any length the general subject of miracles. The assertion that miracles, such as those recorded in Scripture, are absolutely impossible, and so have never taken place, must be met by the counter assertion that they are possible, and have taken place. They are possible to the Supreme Being, and have taken place by His will or sufferance at certain perfectly historical periods; especially during the first century after the birth of Christ. When to this it is replied that miracles are violations of natural law or order, and that it is contrary to our highest idea of the Supreme Being to suppose that He should alter the existing order of things, we can only reply that it is in accordance with our highest idea of Him that He should do so; and we say that in making these assertions we are not unreasonable, but speak in accordance with natural science, philosophy, and history.
And, in order to prove this, we have only to draw attention to the inaccuracy which underlies the use of the term "law" by the author of "Supernatural Religion," and those who think as he does. The author of "Supernatural Religion" strives to bring odium on the miracles of the Gospel by calling them "violations of law," and by asserting that it is a false conception of the Supreme Being to suppose that He should have made an Universe with such elements of disorder within it that it should require such things as the violation, or even suspension, of laws to restore it to order, and that our highest and truest idea of God is that of One Who never can even so much as make Himself known except through the action of the immutable laws by which this visible state of things is governed.
Now what is a law? The laws with which in this discussion we are given to understand we have to do, are strictly speaking limitations—the limitations of forces or powers which, in conception at least, must themselves be prior to the limitations.
Take the most universal of all so-called "laws," the law of gravitation. The law of gravitation is the limitation imposed upon that mysterious force which appears to reside in all matter, that it should attract all other matter. This power of attraction is called gravitation; but instead of acting at random, as it were, it acts according to certain well-known rules which only are properly the "laws" of gravitation.
Now the very existence of our world depends upon the force of attraction being counteracted. If, from a certain moment, gravitation were to become the only force in the solar system, the earth would fall upon the surface of the sun, and be annihilated; but the earth continues in existence because of the action of another force—the projectile force—which so far counteracts the force of the sun's attraction, that the earth revolves around the sun instead of falling upon its surface. In this case the law of gravitation is not violated, or even suspended, but the force of gravitation is counteracted or modified by another force.
Again, the blood circulates through our bodies by means of another power or force counteracting the force of gravitation, and this is the vital power or force.
But why do we lift up our feet from the ground to go about some daily duty? Here comes another force—the force of will, which directs the action of some of the vital forces, but not that of others.
But, again, two courses of action are open to us, and we deliberately choose the one because we think that it is our duty, though it may entail danger or pain, or even death. Here is a still deeper force or power, the force of conscience—the moral power which is clearly the highest power within us, for it governs the very will, and sits in judgment upon the whole man, and acquits or condemns him according to its rule of right and wrong.
Here, then, are several gradations of power or force—any one of them as real as the others; each one making itself felt by counteracting and modifying the action of the one below it.
Now the question arises, is there any power or force clearly above the highest controlling power within us, i.e. above our conscience? We say that there is. There are some who on this point can reverently take up the words of our Great Master, "We speak that we do know." We believe, as firmly as we believe in our own existence, that this our conscience—the highest power within us—has been itself acted upon by a Higher Power still, a moral and spiritual Power, which has enlightened it, purified it, strengthened it, in fact renewed it.
Now, this purifying or enlightening of our moral powers has one remarkable effect. It makes those who have been acted upon by it to look up out of this present state of things for a more direct revelation of the character and designs of the Supreme Being. Minds who have experienced this action of a Superior Power upon them cannot possibly look upon the Supreme Being as revealing Himself merely by the laws of gravitation, or electricity, or natural selection. We look for, we desire a further and fuller Revelation of God, even though the Revelation may condemn us. We cannot rest without it. It is intolerable to those who have a sense of justice, for instance, to think that, whilst led by their sense of what is good and right, men execute imperfect justice, there is, after all, no Supreme Moral Governor Who will render to each individual in another life that just retribution which is assuredly not accorded to all in this life. [152:1]
Now this, I say, makes us desire a revelation of the Supreme Moral Governor which is assuredly not to be found in the laws which control mere physical forces. As Dr. Newman has somewhere said, men believe what they wish to believe, and assuredly we desire to believe that there is a supreme Moral Governor, and that He has not left us wholly in the dark respecting such things as the laws and sanctions of His moral government. But has He really revealed these? We look back through the ages, and our eyes are arrested by the figure of One Who, according to the author of "Supernatural Religion," taught a "sublime religion." His teaching "carried morality to the sublimest point attained, or even attainable, by humanity. The influence of His Spiritual Religion has been rendered doubly great by the unparalleled purity and elevation of His own character. He presented the rare spectacle of a life, so far as we can estimate it, uniformly noble and consistent with His own lofty principles, so that the 'imitation of Christ' has become almost the final word in the preaching of His Religion, and must continue to be one of the most powerful elements of its permanence." (Vol. ii. p. 487.)
It is quite clear from this testimony of an enemy to the Christian religion, as it appears in the Scriptures, that if the Supreme Moral Governor had desired to give to man a revelation of the principles and sanctions of His moral government, He could not have chosen a more fitting instrument. Such a character seems to have been made for the purpose. If He has not revealed God, no one has.
Now, who is this Man Whose figure stands thus prominent above His fellows?
We believe Him to be our Redeemer; but before He redeemed, He laid down the necessity of Redemption by making known to men the true nature of sin and righteousness, and the most just and inevitable Judgment of God. He revealed to us that there is One above us Who is to the whole race, and to every individual of the race, what our consciences are to ourselves—a Judge pronouncing a perfect judgment, because He perfectly knows the character of each man, perfectly observes and remembers his conduct, and, moreover, will mete out to each one a just and perfect retribution.
But still, how are we to know that He has authority to reveal to us such a thing as that God will judge the race and each member of it by a just judgment? Natural laws reveal to us no such judgment. Nature teaches us that if we transgress certain natural laws we shall be punished. But it teaches no certain judgement either in this life or in any future life which will overtake the transgression of moral laws. A man may defraud, oppress, and seduce, and yet live a prosperous life, and die a quiet, painless death.
How, then, are we to know that Jesus of Nazareth had authority to reveal that God will set all this right in a future state, and that He Himself will be the direct Agent in bringing the rectification about? How are we to know that what He says is true respecting a matter of such deep concern to ourselves, and yet so utterly unknown to mere physical nature, and so out of the reach of its powers? What proof have we of His Revelation, or that it is a Revelation? The answer is, that as what He revealed is above mere physical nature, so He attested it by the exhibition of power above physical nature—the exhibition of the direct power of God. He used miracles for this purpose; more particularly He staked the truth of His whole message on the miracle of His own Resurrection. [155:1] The Resurrection was to be the assurance of the perfection of both His Redemption and His Judgment.
Now, against all this it is persistently alleged that even if He had the power He could not have performed miracles, because miracles are violations of law, and the Lawgiver cannot violate even mere physical laws; but this specious fallacy is refuted by the simple assertion that He introduced a new power or force to counteract or modify others, which counteraction or modification of forces is no more than what is taking place in every part of the world at every moment.
Before proceeding further we will illustrate the foregoing by testing some assertions of the author of "Supernatural Religion."
"Man," he asserts, "is as much under the influence of gravitation as a stone is" (vol. i. p. 40). Well, a marble statue is a stone. Can a marble statue, after it is thrown down, rise up again of itself, and stand upon its feet?
Again—
"The law of gravitation suffers no alteration, whether it cause the fall of an apple or shape the orbit of a planet" (p. 40).
Of course the "law" suffers no alteration, but the force of gravitation suffers considerable modification if you catch the apple in your hand, or if the planet has an impulse given to it which compels it to career round the sun instead of falling upon his surface. Again (page 40):—
"The harmonious action of physical laws, and their adaptability to an infinite variety of forms, constitutes the perfection of that code which produces the order of nature. The mere superiority of man over lower forms of organic and inorganic matter does not lift him above physical laws, and the analogy of every grade in nature forbids the presumption that higher forms may exist which are exempt from their control."
The number of fallacies in this short passage is remarkable. In the first place laws never act, i.e. of themselves. They have to be administered. Forces or powers act under the restraint of laws. I think I am right in saying that all physical laws, as distinguished from forces, are limitations of force. No man can conceive of a law acting by itself. There is no such thing, for instance, as a "Reign of Law." A power acts or, if you please, reigns, according to a law, but laws of themselves can do nothing.
Again, the author says, "The mere superiority of man over lower forms of organic and inorganic matter does not lift him above physical laws."
Yes, it does, partially at least, for it enables him, in his sphere, to control the very forces whose action is limited by laws. The superiority of man is shown in his control of the powers of nature, and making them obey his will. All such inventions as the steam engine or the electric telegraph lift man above certain physical laws, by enabling him to control the forces with which those laws have to do.
Again, he writes: "The analogy of every grade in nature forbids the presumption that higher forms may exist which are exempt from their control." On the contrary, we assert that the analogy of every grade in nature encourages the presumption that higher forms may exist which can control these forces of nature far more directly and perfectly than we can.
To proceed. In page 41 we read:—
"If in animated beings we have the solitary instance of an efficient cause acting among the forces of nature, and possessing the power of initiation, this efficient cause produces no disturbance of physical law."
I cite this place, in order to draw attention to what I suppose must have struck the careful reader, which is the application of the term "solitary instance" to the action of animated beings amongst the forces of nature. If there had been but one animated being in existence, such an epithet might not have been out of place; but when one considers that the world teems with such beings, and that by their every movement they modify or counteract, in their own case at least, the mightiest of all nature's forces, and that no inconsiderable portion of the earth's surface owes its conformation to their action, we are astonished at finding all this characterized as the solitary instance of an efficient cause. But by a sentence at the bottom of this page we are enlightened as to the real reason for so strange a view of the place of vital powers in the universe. In the eyes of those who persist in, as far as possible, ignoring all laws except physical laws, even to the extent of endeavouring to prove that moral forces themselves are but mere developed forms of physical ones, all manifestations of powers other than those of electricity, gravitation, magnetism, and so forth are anomalous, and we have the very word "anomaly" applied to them. "The only anomaly," he writes, "is our ignorance of the nature of vital force. [158:1] But do we know much more of the physical?"
Men who thus concentrate their attention upon mere physical laws or phenomena, get to believe in no others. They are impatient of any things in the universe except what they can number, or measure, or weigh. They are in danger of regarding the Supreme Being Himself as an "anomaly." They certainly seem to do so, when they take every pains to show that the universe can get on perfectly well without His superintending presence and control.
Whatever odium, then, may be attached to the violation of a natural law, cannot be attached to the action of a superior force, making itself felt amongst lower grades of natural forces.
If it be rejoined that this superior force must act according to law, we answer, certainly, but according to what law? Not, of course, according to the law of the force which it counteracts, but according to the law under which itself acts.
The question of miracles, then, is a matter of evidence; but we all know what a power human beings have of accepting or rejecting evidence according as they look for it or are prejudiced against it.
If men concentrate their thought upon the lower forces of the universe, and explain the functions of life, and even such powers as affection, will, reason, and conscience, as if they were modifications of mere physical powers, and ignore a higher Will, and an all-controlling Mind, and a personal superintending Providence, what wonder if they are indisposed to receive any such direct manifestation of God as the Resurrection of Jesus, for the Resurrection of Jesus is the pledge of a righteous Judgment and Retribution which, however it takes place, will be the most astounding "anomaly" amidst the mere physical phenomena of the universe, whilst it will be the necessary completion of its moral order.
The proof of miracles is then, as I said, a matter of evidence. When Hume asserts that "a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature," we meet him with the counter-assertion that it is rather the new manifestation in this order of things of the oldest of powers, that which originally introduced life into a lifeless world.
When he says that "a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws," we say that science teaches us that there must have been epochs in the history of the world when new forces made their appearance on the scene, for it teaches us that the world was once incandescent, and so incapable of supporting any conceivable form of animal life, but that at a certain geological period life made its appearance.
Now, we believe that it is just as wonderful, and contrary to the experience of a lifeless world, that life should appear on that world, as that it is contrary to the experience of the present state of things, that a dead body should be raised.
When he asserts that a miraculous event is contrary to uniform experience, we can only reply that it is not contrary to the experience of the Evangelists, of St. Peter and St. Paul, and of the other Apostles and companions of the Lord; that it was not contrary to the experience of the multitudes who were miraculously fed, and of the multitudes who were miraculously healed. When it is replied to this, that we have insufficient evidence of the fact that these persons witnessed miracles, we rejoin that there is far greater evidence, both in quality and amount, for these miracles, especially for the crowning one, than there is for any fact of profane history; but, if there was twice the evidence that there is, its reception must depend upon the state of mind of the recipient himself.
If a man, whilst professing to believe in "a God under whose beneficent government we know that all that is consistent with wise and omnipotent law is prospered and brought to perfection," yet has got himself to believe that such a God cannot introduce into any part of the universe a new power or force, as for instance that He is bound not to introduce vital force into a lifeless world, or mental power into a reasonless world, or moral power into a world of free agents, but must leave these forces to work themselves out of non-existence;—if it man, I say, has got himself to believe in such a Being, he will not, of course, believe in any testimony to miracles as accrediting a Revelation from Him, and so he will do his best to get rid of them after the fashion in which we have seen the author of "Supernatural Religion" attempt to get rid of the testimony of Justin Martyr to the use of the Four Gospels in his day.