It has been necessary to enter thus far into this subject, because in reasoning on the Christian revelation we must assume the existence of a personal God, unless all such treatises, in addition to their own proper subject-matter, must likewise contain an elaborate work on the principles of theism, and a refutation of those of pantheism and atheism. The defender of Christianity is charged with reasoning in a circle, as though he first assumed the existence of a personal God, and then derived the idea of his existence from revelation. This charge would undoubtedly be true if the idea of God being a person is unthinkable. I am at a loss to conceive how it becomes one atom more thinkable if communicated by a revelation. Much obscurity has undoubtedly been thrown on this subject by Christian writers who have fancied that the more they can invalidate our reason the greater gain accrues to Revelation. This is not only unwise but irrational. Our [pg 122] reason doubtless is but an imperfect light, but its extinction is to leave us to grope in darkness. I affirm therefore that the assumption of the divine personality as the groundwork of our argument involves no petitio principii, or reasoning in a circle.
One more remark and I will bring this portion of the subject to a close. The affirmation made by this philosophy that certain things are unthinkable is fallacious. What do we mean by “unthinkable”? It may mean many things; first, that the subject cannot be made in any sense an object of thought. This, in fact, is the only legitimate use of the word. But in this sense the affirmation cannot be true of even Mr. Herbert Spencer's unknown and unknowable God, for it is evident that he does manage to reason and think about him somehow. It may mean a being respecting whom we may know much and attain a knowledge continually progressing, but respecting whom there is much which is unknown. This unknown is called unthinkable. But it is not unthinkable. It has only not yet become the subject of our knowledge, and is no more unthinkable than any other unknown truth. Or that may be pronounced to be unthinkable respecting which our conceptions are wanting in definiteness and precision. But to designate such things as unthinkable is an abuse of language. Or that may be designated as unthinkable of which our conceptions fail fully to represent the reality. As far as they go, they may be true, but there may be something beyond of a similar kind, which they do not embrace. This is the only sense in which it can be affirmed that God is unthinkable, but the assertion is altogether misleading. The only correct meaning of the expression is when some particular thing is affirmed to exist and at the same time contradictions co-exist in it. The actual co-existence [pg 123] of these two contradictions is unthinkable, but nothing more. Thus the existence of a round square is unthinkable, so would the affirmation that the divine power was at the same time both limited and unlimited. But in no other sense is a conception unthinkable. To affirm that the cause of all things is unthinkable because our conceptions of Him do not measure the entire depths of His being is simply misleading.
I have gone into this question because it is evident that if God is unthinkable a revelation of Him is impossible, and if a revelation of Him is impossible, all miracles affirmed to have been wrought in attestation of one must be delusions.
Chapter VI. The Objection That Miracles Are Contrary To Reason Considered.
Under this head are included the whole of that class of objections which extend from the direct assertion of the impossibility of miracles to the affirmation that even if their possibility is conceded, they are so extremely improbable that it is a violation of the first principles of our reason to believe in their actual occurrence. They are alleged to be violations and contradictions of the laws of nature, and as such to be incredible, as the stability of its laws is founded on a universal experience. This unquestionably forms the most formidable difficulty in the way of the acceptance of miracles, as actual occurrences, at the present day, and therefore demands a careful consideration.
The question of the abstract impossibility of miracles need not occupy us long. Such an affirmation can only be made on the assumption that our reason is inadequate to affirm the existence of such a being as a personal God. If this can be established, the whole argument is ended for all practical purposes. It may be conceded that the occurrence of some anomalous event as a bare objective fact is quite possible, even on the principles of pantheism or atheism. But such objective fact would be no miracle in any sense in which the word can be used in this discussion. If the evidence was sufficiently strong to attest it as a fact, it [pg 125] would be explicable on the supposition of some unknown force in nature, or even as a purely chance occurrence. A miracle, in any sense in which it enters into the present argument, is not only an abnormal objective fact, but one which takes place at the bidding of a moral agent. It is the union of these two which imparts to a miracle any power to attest a revelation. If, therefore, there is no evidence of the existence of a God, miracles may be pronounced impossible for all practical purposes in this controversy, and we need not further discuss the question.
The whole argument as to whether the occurrence of a miracle is or is not contrary to reason must proceed on the assumption of the existence of a personal God. It is also a proposition so clear as to render all proof of it superfluous, that if a personal God exists who has created the universe and governs it by His Providence, miracles are possible.
First, I observe that a miracle cannot be pronounced incredible, on the ground that it is an effect without an adequate cause. On this point I may refer to the high authority of Mr. Mill, that the idea of a miracle contradicts no law of causation. “In order,” says he, “that any alleged fact should be contradictory to a law of causation, the allegation must be not simply that the cause existed without being followed by the effect, for that would be no uncommon occurrence, but that this happened in the absence of any adequate counteracting cause. Now in the case of an alleged miracle the objection is the very opposite of this. It is that the effect was defeated, not in the absence, but in consequence, of a counteracting cause, viz., a direct interposition of an act of will of some being who has power over nature; and in particular of a being whose will being assumed to have induced all the causes, with [pg 126] the powers by which they produce their effects, may well be supposed able to counteract them.” (Logic, vol. ii. p. 167.)