The attempt to distinguish between the miraculous act and its moral environment, is absurd. It has been affirmed that one miraculous act is as good as another, quite apart from the circumstances with which they are attended. Such a principle would destroy the distinction between a highly meritorious act and the foulest crime. A, for example, has killed B. The outward act may be the same; but the accompanying circumstances make all the distinction between a justifiable homicide, and a most atrocious murder. It is ridiculous to affirm that principles which are legitimate in common life become invalid only when they are applied to the evidences of Christianity. Why, in the name of common sense, may not one miracle be as clearly distinguishable from another by its moral environment, as an event in ordinary life is similarly distinguished? The affirmation, therefore, that the supposition of the possibility of Satanic miracles must invalidate the miracles of God is absurd.
Our Lord, therefore, was right in appealing to the character of his works as affording a conclusive proof of the source whence they originated, and in contrasting them with the species of supernaturalism which [pg 237] was popularly attributed to Satan. “How can Satan cast out Satan? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works, that ye may see and believe that the Father is in me and I in Him.”
This is conclusive reasoning. It is only possible to darken the question by treating it as one of bare possibilities, as to what kind of actions a being like Satan might be capable of performing, if he is allowed to interfere with the arrangements of the universe at his pleasure. Such a supposition is foreign to the question at issue, which is whether the supernaturalism which the New Testament is supposed to attribute to him can interfere with the evidential value of the miracles wrought by Jesus. My reply is, Examine and compare the two. When this has been done, no doubt can remain on any reasonable mind that the latter, if real, are from above; and the former from below. The affirmation therefore that if Satanic miracles, such as possession, are possible, it invalidates the evidence of those wrought by God in attestation of the truth of a divine commission is disproved.
Equally invalid is the objection against a miraculous attestation to a divine commission, on the ground that such testimony can be easily imitated. I reply, that the great mass of the miracles recorded in the New Testament do not easily admit of a fraudulent imitation. I by no means deny that the art of legerdemain is capable of producing results which to an ignorant observer have the appearance of being supernatural. But this class of actions bears not the smallest analogy to the miracles recorded in the New Testament. No art of legerdemain can persuade a man who has been for many years blind to believe that he has recovered his sight, and enable him to act accordingly.
But it has been argued; if God is the moral Governor of the universe, is He not bound to prevent a being like Satan from acting for the purposes of evil in the affairs of men? This question may be best answered by asking another. Is He not equally bound to hinder evil men from exerting such terrible influences on others, even long after they are dead? Is He not bound to hinder the possibility of the bringing up of children by their parents in various forms of vice, so as to render them in after life, more wicked than themselves? Yet it is an indubitable fact that such an influence is exerted under the moral government of God. Human life abounds with such cases, which bear a close analogy to Satanic action exerted in the affairs of men. When we can fully fathom the reason for the permission of the one, we shall have made considerable progress in understanding those of the other. The case may be simply stated. There are difficulties in the moral government of the universe, into the grounds of which we cannot penetrate. These press equally on every form of theism. The Satanic supernaturalism described in the New Testament presents a precisely analogous difficulty. This therefore can form no reason why one who believes that God is the moral Governor of the universe, as it now exists, should reject Christianity because the difficulties are of a similar order, and press equally on both. The only escape from them, as I have already said, is the inevitable position assumed by atheism, or pantheism, and the dreary prospect which they afford to the aspirations of the human mind.
Chapter XI. Possession: Is The Theory That It Was Madness Subversive Of The Historical Value Of The Gospels Or Inconsistent With The Veracity Of Christ?
There can be no doubt that the subject of possession is attended with real difficulties, whichever view we may take of its actual character.
The symptoms which are alleged to have accompanied it present many of the usual phenomena of madness. No possession is believed to take place now, but such phenomena are attributed to causes purely natural. The supposed possessions therefore which are mentioned in the New Testament or in other ancient writings are said to be due only to ignorance of natural causes. Many very eminent defenders of Christianity have been so deeply impressed by these and other reasons that they have admitted that possession is only a form of madness, and that the language respecting it in the New Testament is based on the current ideas of the day.