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

Now the question of the historical character of the Gospels is quite distinct from that of the truth or falsehood [pg 184] of any system of Ecclesiastical Christianity, which asserts that its theology is a deduction from the Gospels and the other portions of the New Testament. It is not revelation itself but a system erected by the application of reason to the facts of revelation. It is most important that this distinction should be kept in view. The truth is, that the facts of revelation stand in the same relation to theology as the facts of nature do to physical science. Incorrect reasonings respecting both the one and the other are alike possible. The Ptolemaic theory was propounded as an adequate solution of the facts and phenomena of the universe, and although utterly incorrect in all its parts, it for ages held unlimited sway over the human mind. In a similar manner various theories have been propounded as solutions of the facts of revelation, but it by no means follows because they have attained a wide acceptance that they afford the true solution. In examining the claims of the Gospels to be viewed as historical, it is quite as much out of place to make them responsible for all the theories which Ecclesiastical Christianity has propounded respecting the plan of salvation, as it would be to make the facts and phenomena of the universe answerable for all the theories which have been propounded for their solution. In examining the claims of the Gospels to be accepted as historical documents, it is most unreasonable to make them responsible for theories which were not formulated in the Church until centuries after their publication.

Most of the positions affirmed in the above quotation were not formulated until a late period of the Church's history. Certainly they are nowhere directly laid down in the New Testament. The utmost which can be asserted of them is, that they are alleged to be derived inferentially from its teaching. They [pg 185] form no portion of the Apostles' or of the Nicene Creeds, which are the only formularies outside of the New Testament which can be represented as embodying the creed of the universal Church. Nor can they be found even in the Athanasian creed. In discussing the claims of the Gospels to be esteemed as historical, they can only be made fairly responsible for what they actually contain. To bring into such a controversy positions only affirmed in recent attempts to formulate a body of Christian doctrine, as though they had any bearing on the claims of the New Testament to be viewed as containing a divine revelation, can lead to no satisfactory result.

I now return to the consideration of the difficulties above referred to. It is important to take a careful survey of the entire question, because they are not only put with great force in the passage which I have quoted, but I believe that in different forms they weigh heavily on the minds of many thoughtful men. I will first offer a few observations on the general principle.

Nothing is easier than to affirm that the introduction of moral evil into the universe is a marring of the Creator's plan in its formation. The argument is founded on the supposition that an Almighty God exists, who is wise, holy, and benevolent, and who intended to manifest these attributes through the rational beings which he has created. It is affirmed that the existence of moral evil in man is a failure of this purpose on the part of God. But it is the most certain of facts that moral evil does exist in the world, and that it exists quite independently of Christianity. The objection therefore is not one directed solely against the Christianity of the New Testament, but bears with equal weight against every form of theism, which admits that the universe has been created, and [pg 186] is governed by a God who is almighty, wise, holy, and benevolent.

If there be a God who is the Creator of the Universe, it is clear that He must have been the Creator of man, and that man could only have come into being in conformity with His pleasure. Now, if we decline to admit that man was created morally perfect, yet as he must have been created a moral agent, it is clear that the first man must have sprung into being either with the moral faculties of a savage, or in some intermediate condition between these and a state of moral perfection. It follows, therefore, that man must have been made capable of moral progress. This is affirmed by all those who assert that he was first produced in a savage state. But the possibility of moral progress involves also the possibility of retrogression. The truth of this is borne witness to by the most palpable facts of daily experience. Men of the highest mental powers are capable of abusing them to the worst purposes, and thus of sinking fearfully low in the moral scale. The case of a man like Fouché will illustrate my argument, a man gifted with high intellectual powers, but who sunk into the lowest condition of moral turpitude. Such a man is incomparably worse than the first original savage. I submit, therefore, that whatever view we may take of the condition in which man was originally created, even if he were created a savage, yet he was made a moral being capable of elevation or degradation; and that, to use a human metaphor, the purpose of a holy God must have been his elevation. Yet this involves the possibility of his moral degradation. This degradation has also become a fact. It is clear, therefore, that the difficulty is one which is inseparable from every possible form of theistic belief, and is no peculiarity of Christianity.

I shall not attempt to enter on so profound a question as the origin of evil, and how its existence is consistent with the perfection of a holy God. It is a subject quite beyond the issue before us, and lies not at the foundations of Christianity, but of theism, the truth of which is taken for granted in the objections which the author adduces against the popular view of the scriptural account; for if there is no God the objections are valueless. Still he ought to have informed his readers that it is urged as a partial explanation of those difficulties by the defenders of Christianity, that it is highly probable that the creation of a moral being possessed of free agency, but who at the same time is not capable of sinking into a state of moral degradation, involves as great a contradiction as the conception of a circle which should possess the property of concavity and not of convexity. No rational man believes that it is within the compass, even of omnipotence, to work contradictions. If this be so, it follows that the possibility of the existence of moral evil is a necessary condition of the existence of free agency. The production of a free moral agent capable of yielding a willing obedience to the moral law is a more glorious work than anything in the material universe, even than that universe itself. It might, therefore, have been the good pleasure of the wise, holy, and benevolent Creator to create free moral agents, even if it involved the existence of moral evil. I am far from propounding this as a complete solution of the difficulty, but when it is thus used unsparingly against Christianity, it would have been only candid to have told the reader that it bore with equal weight against every form of theism, and to have given the partial explanation which has been propounded by theologians.

In reply to the definite statements before us, I [pg 188] affirm that nowhere in the Gospels, or in any other portion of the New Testament is it asserted or even implied that revelation was rendered necessary by the frustration of the divine purpose in creation, or that redemption was a kind of afterthought in the divine mind rendered necessary by such a failure. On the contrary, the synoptic Gospels make no affirmation whatever on the subject. The fourth Gospel contains several statements about the end and purposes of the Incarnation, but of a description totally different from those which are alleged in the above quotation to constitute the groundwork of Christianity. As I have already shown, the Gospel of St. John speaks of its great purpose as being a revelation of the moral character of God in the person of Jesus Christ. According to its theology God has already manifested himself in creation; in the Gospel He makes a still higher and nobler manifestation of His moral character in the person of our Lord. The author of the first Epistle ascribed to St. John, whom I must assume to have been the author of the Gospel, makes the following direct affirmation on the subject. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us; that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” In these words it is evidently the intention of the writer to set forth the divine purpose of the Incarnation. It is true that in other passages he assumes the existence of evil in the universe, and [pg 189] declares it to be the work of the devil, and that one of the purposes of this divine manifestation was its destruction. Still he drops no hint of any failure in the Creation, or that it was the purpose of the Incarnation to mend a marred scheme. On the contrary, the great truth set forth in the Epistle and in the Gospel is that Creation and Redemption form portions of one great whole; and that the latter is a manifestation of the divine glories beyond God's previous manifestations of himself, whether in creation or in history.

Similar are the views of the Apostle Paul. According to him, while many other purposes were effected by the Incarnation, there is one great purpose running through all divine revelation. In several passages he affirms that its influence extends far beyond that which it exerts on the race of man. He again and again asserts that it was the gradual unfolding of an idea or purpose which existed from eternity in the divine mind. Thus he writes: “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Eph. iii. and ix.) “Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and in earth, even in Him.” (Eph. i. 9, 10.) “And having made peace by the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself: by Him, I say, whether they be things [pg 190] in earth or things in heaven.” (Col. i. 20.) I fully admit that the Apostle affirms that the design of bringing man into union with God was a portion of this purpose. Nothing however is more foreign to the ideas of St. Paul than that revelation is an afterthought adopted as a remedy for a marred plan.

Nor are the views of the other writers of the New Testament different. St. Peter tells us that the angels desire to look into the redemption wrought by Christ. St. James assures us that, “known unto God are all His works from the foundation of the world.” The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks to the same effect: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers in (by) the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us in His Son.” So far from its being the idea of the sacred writers that redemption is an afterthought designed to remedy the failure of the original purpose of creation, that both of them are viewed as parts of the same whole; both are purposes which have existed in the divine mind during the eternal ages, and have been gradually evolved in time. Nothing is further from their mind than that the divine mode of working is by fits or starts, or sudden interventions. Man was the last form of life which God has introduced into the world, and in that sense He is said to have rested from His creative work. But God is no less distinctly affirmed to be always working in nature and in providence, so that Sabbath days form no exception: “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.”

Such being the views of the writers of the New Testament on this subject, the whole of those objections, as far as they are founded on the assertion that revelation is intended to remedy the failure of God's creative purpose, fall to the ground. My present supposition [pg 191] is that I am reasoning with believers in theism. If God has gradually evolved creation, each successive stage of the evolution forms a part of one great and comprehensive whole. At each stage the work is incomplete, but its incompleteness is no proof of failure. A period has existed when the only beings in the world were devoid of rationality. If an objector could have contemplated it in this stage, he might have urged that the plan of creation was a failure, while in reality it was only incomplete. Man came in at the next stage of the great design. The next stage, according to the New Testament, is the Incarnation of the Son of God, intended as a higher manifestation of the moral glories of the Creator for the purpose of raising man to a higher moral and spiritual elevation. To the attainment of this purpose all the previous events in man's history have been made subservient. Surely those persons with whom I am reasoning ought to be the last to object that there is anything inconsistent with the divine character in such a gradual unfolding of the divine purposes. We might as well object that every advancing stage of the great design of Creation was introduced to remedy a preceding defect as assert that Christianity originated in this cause. The world was in a most unfinished state when it was only tenanted by the lower forms of life, and great fault might have been found with its construction. But a higher came, and a higher, then man, then Christ our Lord, the second Adam, as St. Paul designates him, “from heaven heavenly.” Whatever may have been the assertions of certain classes of theologians who have attempted to fathom the divine mind by their own short sounding line, the sacred writers take no narrow view of the purposes of the Incarnation. It is declared that they will be realized in the yet distant future, [pg 192] towards which consummation they are gradually being carried out in time.