The Supernatural in the New Testament, Possible, Credible, and Historical / Or, An Examination of the Validity of Some Recent Objections Against Christianity as a Divine Revelation

by C. A. Row

Chapter VII. The Allegation That No Testimony Can Prove The Truth Of A Supernatural Event.

Hume's position, which affirmed that it is impossible to prove the truth of a supernatural event by any amount of testimony however strong, is certainly one of the most plausible that have ever been assumed by unbelief. Stated briefly and in his own words, it is as follows: “A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle from the nature of the fact is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.” Again: “No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony is of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish.” The fallacy of these positions, notwithstanding the plausible arguments by which they are supported, has already been pointed out by a multitude of writers. Mr. Mill himself has practically abandoned Hume's argument as either a harmless truism, or, in another point of view, one that requires to be modified to such an extent as to deprive it of any real cogency. Under ordinary circumstances, therefore, it might be passed over in silence.

But the author of “Supernatural Religion” has endeavoured to rehabilitate it even against Mr. Mill. He affirms that Christian “Apologists find it much more convenient to evade the simple but effective arguments [pg 156] of Hume, than to answer them; and where it is possible, they dismiss them with a sneer, and hasten on to less dangerous ground.” He then endeavours to show that Mr. Mill has been partly misapprehended, and is partly inaccurate; and he proceeds to address himself to Paley's argument against Hume, as though it was relied on by modern apologists as entirely conclusive. No other writer is even noticed by him. In the recent work of the late Mr. Warington, “Can I believe in miracles?” one chapter is devoted to the calm and dispassionate examination of Hume's argument. It is perhaps the ablest dissection of it in existence. Yet this writer, who charges Christian apologists with evasion, and even with getting rid of its force by a sneer, has left Mr. Warington's crushing reply to Hume completely unnoticed. The position taken by him renders a few general observations necessary. As it will be useless to repeat arguments that have been fully elaborated elsewhere, I shall content myself with briefly stating the positions which have been firmly established on this subject.

First: Experience consists of two kinds; 1st, That which has fallen under our own direct cognizance, which from the nature of the case must have been very limited. 2dly, The general experience of all other men, as far as we have the means of knowing it. This latter experience we become acquainted with exclusively by testimony, and it rests entirely on its validity. The two together constitute what we mean when we say that a thing is, or is not, contrary to experience.

Secondly: There is a sense in which miracles are contrary to our experience. They would be destitute of all evidential value, if they were not so. But while this is freely admitted, we must lay down clearly in what sense we use the words. They are not so, in the [pg 157] sense that we have had direct evidence of their non-occurrence. They are contrary to our experience only in the sense that we have never witnessed them, and that the order of events which we have witnessed is always different; for instance, we have witnessed as a matter of experience that men die, and that none return again to life; or that blind men, when cured, are never cured by a word or a touch. In this sense alone it is that the resurrection of a dead man, and the cure of a blind man by a touch, is contrary to our experience.

Thirdly: It is not true that an occurrence which in this sense is contrary to our experience cannot be believed on adequate testimony. If it were so, all additions to our knowledge that lie beyond the limits of our past experience, ought to be rejected. Every extraordinary occurrence must be at once pronounced incredible.

Fourthly: The experience of one age differs from that of another. That which lies outside the experience of one century becomes within the experience of the next. The truth is that the sum of human experience is receiving continual additions, in proportion as the sphere of observation enlarges. If it is true that we ought to reject everything contrary to experience, it follows that if many of the inventions of the present age had been reported in a previous one, they ought to have been rejected as incredible. For example: if a century ago it had been affirmed that a message had actually been conveyed one thousand miles in five minutes, the assertion ought on this principle to have been rejected as contrary to the universal experience of mankind. In an earlier age, no miracle could have been more difficult to believe. Yet although contrary to prior experience, it has been established as a fact. [pg 158] The principle, therefore, as laid down by Hume, leads to an absurd conclusion.

Fifthly: The experience of each individual is limited by his own observation and what he has learned respecting that of others. This constitutes as far as he is concerned the experience of mankind. Now, under the Equator the experience of man is that each day and night is twelve hours long. Neither he, nor his ancestors, nor any person whom he trusts, have ever had any other experience than this. To him, therefore, the affirmation that there is a place on the earth where each day and night is six months long, is contrary to experience, and ought to be rejected as a fable.

Sixthly: If we confine experience to scientific experience, extraordinary discoveries are made and facts established in one age which are contrary to that of a former one. On this principle, the ground on which Herodotus rejected the story of the Phœnician navigators that they had sailed round Africa was satisfactory. It was contrary to his experience that they should have seen the sun in the position in which they affirmed that they had seen it, though it is not contrary to ours.

Seventhly: Miracles viewed as mere phenomena stand on exactly the same ground as very unusual occurrences, or very wonderful discoveries. As far as they are contrary to past experience, they are alike credible or incredible. They are events of which the cause is unknown, but may or may not hereafter be discovered. It is quite true that any extraordinary phenomenon requires a stronger testimony to render it credible than an ordinary occurrence. But this involves no question of abstract possibility or impossibility, but is one purely of evidence, each case having to be decided on its own merits. It must be carefully [pg 159] observed that when we affirm that this or that matter lies within human knowledge, or is contrary to it, experience has to do with phenomena alone. All questions of causation lie entirely beyond its cognizance.