Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors

by James Freeman Clarke

§ 4. Argument of the Supernaturalist from successive Geologic Creations.

The supernaturalist says, God comes to us in both ways—through nature; that is, through the order of things already established; and also by new creative impulses, coming in, from time to time, from above. He [pg 046] contends that such a new creative impulse came into the world through Jesus Christ, adding a new substance and new forms to those already existing—a new life not before in the world, proceeding according to new laws. This new creation, as the Scriptures themselves term it, is Christianity. This is also said to be in analogy with the course of events. For, if there has been a series of creations before, bringing animals into the world, and higher forms of physical life,—if these have been created by new supernatural impulses coming in at intervals of hundreds of thousands of years,—why deny that another impulse may have come in four thousand years, or forty thousand years, after man was created, to add a new form of spiritual life to society?

In the world, as it was at first, there was not a living plant or animal; after thousands of years, or millions of years, there came into the broad seas of the lower Silurian epoch, some of the lowest kinds of animals and seaweeds, a few trilobites and mollusks, but no plants save fucoids. Next came, after a long time, a few cartilaginous fishes and corals. A long time passed—thousands of years rolled by: then came real fishes and land plants in what is called the Devonian period, or the old red sandstone. After a great while came the period to which belongs all the coal formation; and in that carboniferous epoch first appears a whole vegetable world of trees and plants, to the number of nine hundred and thirty-four species. Some insects arrived at this time, as beetles, crickets, and cockroaches, which are, therefore, much more venerable than man. More thousands of years go by: then the earth receives a new creation in the form of gigantic frogs, enormous reptiles, and strange fishes. But as yet no mammal has come—not a bird nor a quadruped has been seen on the earth. Then, after another long period, these appear, in what is called the tertiary period; until, at last, some remains of man are found, in the diluvium, or gravel. Geology thus, once thought to be atheistic, gives its testimony [pg 047] to a long series of supernatural facts; that is, to the successive creation, after long intervals, of entirely new genera and species of vegetables and animals. As you turn these great stone leaves of that majestic manuscript roll written by God's hand, which we call the earth, you and he has been writing new things on each page, new facts and laws, not on any former leaf. New types of life, not prepared for by any previous one,—by no slow evolution, but by a sudden step,—break in. On the previous rocky page is to be found not one of their species, genus, order, or even class, to point back to any possible progenitor. So that the globe itself says, from these eternal monuments of rock, “Behold the history of supernatural events written on me.” Each creation is higher than the last: finally man is created. But still from above, from outside the world, the creative life is ready to be poured in. Only the next creation is to be moral and spiritual, not physical. No new physical forms are now added, but a new moral life is poured into man, making him a new creation of God. “For if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature.” The analogy was so striking, that the apostles noticed it, and constantly speak of Christ as the medium of a new creation.

§ 5. Supernatural Argument from Human Freedom.

But there is another example of the supernatural element in the world. Dr. Bushnell, in his book called “Nature and the Supernatural,” contends that man is capable of supernatural acts; that, in fact, every really free act is, and must be, a supernatural act. To those who hold the doctrine of necessity, this is, of course, no argument. But they who believe, in the testimony of their own consciousness, that they are free beings; who feel that they are not dragged helplessly by the strongest motive, but can resist it or yield to it; who, therefore, feel themselves responsible for what they do, or omit to do, they can see that in a real sense they create new influences. Their actions are not results of [pg 048] previous causes, but are new causes, not before in the world. Some supernatural power dwells in man's will just as far as it is made free by reason and choice. Man stands between good and evil, right and wrong, truth and error, with the power of choosing either one or the other. If he chooses one, he sends a power into society, life, humanity, to help it forward; if the other, he sends in a power to hold it back. This power is not from man's nature, but from something in him outside his nature. When he acts from habit, impulse, passion, and not from choice, he is simply a natural being; when he acts from choice, he is not a natural being, but either a supernatural or a subternatural being, according as he chooses good or evil. When he chooses good, he rises above the natural man into the sphere of angels; when he chooses evil, he sinks below the natural man into the sphere of brutes or demons.

§ 6. Supernatural Events not necessarily Violations of Law.

Now, says the supernaturalist, if we have all this evidence to show that God not only acts through nature, by carrying on existing forces and laws, but also has repeatedly come into nature with new creations, not there before,—and if even man himself has a certain limited but strictly supernatural power, so as to be able to stand outside of the nexus of law, and act upon it,—why deny, as incredible, that God should have made a new moral creation in Christianity? should have created a new class, order, genus, and species of spiritual beings, not represented before by any existing congeners? And why question that what we call miracles—that is, physical interferences with natural laws—should have attended this sudden influx of spiritual life? We do not claim, says the judicious supernaturalist (like Dr. Bushnell, for example), that miracles are suspensions or violations of natural laws; but that they are the natural modification of the agency of such laws by a new and powerful influence. Of this, too, there is ample analogy in nature. The mineral kingdom, for example, is passively subject to mechanical and chemical [pg 049] laws, which are resisted and modified by plants and animals. A stone obeys passively the law of gravitation; a plant resists it, rises into the air in opposition to it. Such a proceeding on the part of a plant must seem to a stone a pure miracle. If a piece of granite should write a book of theology, it would probably say that the plant, in growing up, had violated or suspended a law of nature. But it has not. The force of gravitation has worked on according to its own law; it has been dragging the plant downward all the time, only the vital power in the plant has overcome its force, and modified the result. And, again, a tree, seeing a dog run to and fro, might call that a miracle. The tree, unable to move from its place, could not conceive of the possibility of voluntary motion. But no law of nature is violated; only a higher power comes in—the power of animal life.

To a dog, again, the proceedings of a man are strictly miraculous. To plant corn, reap it, thresh it, grind it, and bake bread out of it, is exactly as much a miracle to the dog, as the multiplication of loaves, or turning water into wine, by Christ, is a miracle to us. But no law of nature was violated in either case. Reason in the one case, some profounder spiritual power in the other, may have modified the usual operation of law, and produced these results.