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

But it is also objected: “Instead of a few evidential miracles taking place at one particular period of history and filling the world with surprise at such novel and exceptional phenomena, we find them represented as taking place in all ages and in all countries.”

This is the old objection of the Jews who demanded of our Lord a sign from Heaven. Both demand a particular class and order of miracle, viz.: something stupendous, or terrific. The value of each objection lies in conceiving of a miracle as a mere objective fact in external nature, stript of all its moral accompaniments. In one word, it contemplates the miracle in its most vulgar aspect, as a bare act of power, [pg 356] a portent, a prodigy. A great light everywhere appearing in the heavens might have appeared to vulgar minds a greater miracle, and have attracted more attention than the cure of a man full of leprosy by the utterance of a word. But it would not have presented stronger evidences of having been wrought by the power of God.

But with respect to the general question, I ask, Is not the resurrection of Jesus Christ in every respect an exceptional event? Where are resurrections to be found in the history of current supernaturalism? Who ever pretended, before or since, to have a divine commission which was attested by his own resurrection from the dead? This miracle is at any rate absolutely unique; and it must never be forgotten that it is the only one recorded in the New Testament on the truth of which its writers stake the claim of Christianity to be regarded as a divine revelation. Although they refer to other miracles, wonders and signs which God wrought by Him, yet whenever they adduce the full and conclusive evidence of His divine mission, they always appeal to the fact that God had raised Him from the dead.

But a further objection is urged as invalidating this kind of testimony: “At the very time when the knowledge of the laws of nature began to render men capable of judging of the reality of miracles, these wonders entirely ceased. This extraordinary cessation of miracles at a time when their evidence ought to have acquired value from an appeal to persons capable of appreciating them, is perfectly unintelligible, if they are viewed as the supernatural credentials of a divine revelation.”

This passage contains several fallacies. One, to which I have repeatedly drawn attention, runs through it, viz., the classing together every kind of alleged [pg 357] supernatural occurrence, from the miracles of Jesus to the fantastic performances of the magician, as though they all stood on the same level. I need not further allude to the fallacy of such reasoning.

2. It is affirmed that miracles entirely ceased when the knowledge of the laws of nature began to render men capable of judging of their reality. I conclude that by the word “miracles” in this passage, the author means ecclesiastical miracles, viz., those which have been alleged to be wrought in attestation of the established system of belief. If it is meant to be asserted that all belief in a current supernaturalism has now ceased, the affirmation is inaccurate, as the wide-spread belief in spiritualism abundantly testifies.

But if the assertion is intended to be confined to ecclesiastical miracles, it involves an inaccuracy as to a matter of history. They had become thoroughly discredited long before the birth of modern physical science. The cure of blind and leprous persons by a touch, or the feeding of five thousand persons on seven loaves and a few fishes, require nothing else than sound common sense for the appreciation of their supernatural character, or the testing of their reality. The assertion, therefore, that miracles ceased precisely at the time when their evidence would have been most valuable, by their being able to be tested by those persons best capable of appreciating them, is entirely inaccurate.

I fully admit that a belief in a current supernaturalism, as for instance in the absurdities of witchcraft, survived the Reformation. What the Reformation destroyed was a belief in a divine order of miracles wrought in support of an ecclesiastical system. The belief in this current supernaturalism has been gradually diminishing ever since, under the combined influence [pg 358] of the increase of the knowledge of physical science, and common sense. The objection raised is simply irrelevant to the point at issue.

But there is another subject which demands consideration. Hitherto we have been dealing with the evidential character of miracles. But although all miracles have an evidential value, if they can be adequately attested, it by no means follows that every miracle recorded in the New Testament was intended to subserve this purpose alone. It was necessary not only that a revelation should be communicated, and receive an adequate attestation, but that it should be propagated among mankind. To render this possible, it was necessary that its messengers should be armed with some means of insuring that their message should be heard with attention. There was also another object to be effected; namely, the establishment in the world of that great institution, the Christian Church, which was intended so largely to influence its destinies.

It will be quite clear to any person who carefully considers the various supernatural occurrences recorded in the New Testament that they are not all of equal evidential value. The highest class of them are directly affirmed to have been performed for the purpose of attesting the divine mission of Jesus Christ, and as a portion of His supernatural manifestation. To this class belong the miracles wrought by Himself, and several of those performed by the Apostles. But there is another class referred to in the Acts of the Apostles, of which the primary object seems to have been to awaken attention to the Apostolic message, though even these were not destitute of evidential value. There is also another order of manifestations frequently referred to in the Epistles, viz., the supernatural gifts of the Spirit, one of the declared purposes [pg 359] of which was to lay deep the foundations of the Christian Church. As divine interpositions, they were all to a certain extent evidential; but it will be important to observe that there is an order of supernatural manifestations mentioned in the New Testament, whose apparent primary intention was to subserve a different purpose.