Miracles and Supernatural Religion

by James Morris Whiton

Synopsis.—Account to be made of the law of atrophy through disuse.—The virgin birth and the corporeal resurrection of Jesus, the two miracles now insisted on as the irreducible minimum, affected by this law.—The vital truths of the incarnation and immortality independent of these miracles.—These truths now placed on higher ground in a truer conception of the supernatural.—The true supernatural is the spiritual, not the miraculous.—Scepticism bred from the contrary view.—The miracle narratives, while less evidential for religion, not unimportant for history.—Psychical research a needful auxiliary for the scientific critic of these.

o the true conception of the supernatural we shall presently come. But we cannot proceed without briefly reminding ourselves of the certain consequences of this now far advanced dropping of miracles by modern apologetics from their ancient use as evidences of a supernatural Revelation. We are not ignorant of the law, which holds throughout the material, the mental, and the moral realms, that disuse tends to atrophy and extinction. Disused organs cease to exist, as in the eyeless cave-fish. For centuries the story of the miraculous birth of Jesus was serviceable for confirmation of his claim to be the Son of God. In the address of the angel of the annunciation to Mary that claim is expressly rested on the miraculous conception of "the holy thing."[37] But as ethical enlightenment grows, the conviction grows that, whether the physiological ground of that claim be tenable or not, the ethical ground of it is essentially higher. Father and son even in human relationships are terms of more than physiological import. It is matter of frequent experience that, where the ethical character of such relationship is lacking, the physiological counts for nothing. Moreover, the divine sonship of Jesus in a purely ethical view rests on ground not only higher but incontestable. And so in our time theologians prefer to rest it on foundations that cannot be shaken, on his moral oneness with God, the divineness of his spirit, the ideal perfectness of his life. The strength of this position being realized, the world begins to hear from Christian thinkers the innovating affirmation that belief of the miraculous birth can no longer be deemed essential to Christianity; else it would not have been left unmentioned in two of the four Gospels, and in every extant Apostolic letter. And now we hear theologians saying: "I accept it, but I place it no more among the evidences of Christianity. I defend it, but cannot employ it in the defence of supernatural Revelation." Such a stage of thought is only transitional. An antiquated argument does not long survive in the world of thought.[38] Military weapons that have become unserviceable soon find their way either to the museum or the foundry. It is shortsighted not to foresee the inevitable effect on our theological material of the law of atrophy through disuse. The case of the miracle is the case of a pillar originally put in for the support of an ancient roof. When the roof has a modern truss put beneath it springing from wall to wall, the pillar becomes an obstacle, and is removed.

But as in such a case the roof, otherwise supported, does not fall in when the pillar is removed, so neither is the central Christian truth of the incarnation imperilled by any weakening or vanishing of belief in the doctrine of the virgin birth. In a discussion of the subject in Convocation at York, England, while these pages were being written, the Dean of Ripon (Dr. Boyd Carpenter) urged that it must be borne in mind that the incarnation and the virgin birth were two different things, and that some who found difficulty in the latter fully accepted the former. In a recent sermon Dr. Briggs insists likewise upon this: "The virgin birth is only one of many statements of the mode of incarnation.... The doctrine of the incarnation does not depend upon the virgin birth.... It is only a minor matter connected with the incarnation, and should have a subordinate place in the doctrine.... At the same time the virgin birth is a New Testament doctrine, and we must give it its proper place and importance.... The favorite idea of the incarnation among the people has ever been the simpler one of the virgin birth, as in the Ave Maria. The theologians have ever preferred the more profound doctrine of the Hymn of the Logos [John i. 1-18]."[39] Nay, it may even be found that the weakening of belief in the incarnation as an isolated and miraculous event may tend to promote a profounder conception of it, that brings the divine and the human into touch and union at all points instead of in one point.[40]

A similar change of thought, less remarked than its significance deserves, is concerned with that other great miracle, the corporeal resurrection of Jesus, which such writers as Dr. Nicoll couple with that of his virgin birth as the irreducible minimum of miracle, belief in which is essential to Christian discipleship.[41] For many centuries the resurrection story in the Gospels has served as the conclusive proof both of the divine sonship of Jesus,[42] and of our own resurrection to immortality.[43] In the churches it is still popularly regarded as the supreme, sufficient, and indispensable fact required for the basis of faith. But in many a Christian mind the thought has dawned, that a single fact cannot give adequate ground for the general inference of a universal principle; that a remote historical fact, however strongly attested, can evince only what has taken place in a given case, not what will or must occur in other cases; while it is also inevitably more or less pursued by critical doubt of the attestations supporting it.

This rising tide of reflection has compelled resort to higher ground, to the inward evidences in the nature of mind that are more secure from the doubt to which all that is merely external and historical is exposed. A clear distinction has been discerned between the real resurrection of Jesus—his rising from the mortal state into the immortal, and his phenomenal resurrection—the manifestations of his change that are related as having been objectively witnessed. What took place in the invisible world—his real resurrection—is now more emphasized by Christian thinkers than the phenomenal resurrection in the visible world. So conservatively orthodox a writer as Dr. G. D. Boardman goes so far as to say: "After all, the real question in the matter of his resurrection is not, 'Did Christ's body rise?' That is but a subordinate, incidental issue." The real question, as Dr. Boardman admits, is, "Whether Jesus Christ himself is risen, and is alive to-day."[44] The main stress of Christian thought to-day is not laid, as formerly, on the phenomena recorded in the story of the resurrection, but on the psychological, moral, and rational evidences of a resurrection to immortality that until recent times were comparatively disregarded.[45] Meanwhile the vindication of the reality of the phenomena related of the risen Jesus, including his bodily ascension, though not a matter of indifference to many of those who have found the higher grounds of faith, has become to them of subordinate importance.

It is well for Christian faith that its supersensuous and impregnable grounds have been occupied. It is certain that ancient records of external phenomena cannot in future constitute, as heretofore, the stronghold of faith. But it is by no means yet certain that they have lost serviceableness as, at least, outworks of the stronghold. While the doctrine of the virgin birth seems to be threatened by atrophy, the doctrine of the bodily resurrection, though retired from primary to secondary rank, seems to be waiting rather for clarification by further knowledge.

Something of an objective nature certainly lies at its basis; something of an external sort, not the product of mere imagination, took place. To the fact thus indefinitely stated, that hallowing of Sunday as a day of sacred and joyful observance which is coeval with the earliest traditions, and antedates all records, is an attestation as significant as any monumental marble. No hallucination theory, no gradual rise and growth of hope in the minds of a reflective few, can account for that solid primeval monument. But what occurred, the reality in distinctness from any legendary accretions, we shall be better able to conclude, when the truth shall have been threshed out concerning the reality, at present strongly attested, and as strongly controverted, of certain extraordinary but occult psychical powers.[46]