1955. The next postulate of Mr. Mahan is: “No religion attested as true by divine miracles can be false.”
1956. Was this proposition ever impugned? No one would resist the unquestionable dictates of God, however conveyed, whether by miracles or any other means. The question is not whether a religion attested by divine miracles should be accredited, but whether there were ever any miracles, attesting any religion, performed; and if so, what religion has the peculiar merit of having been thus attested? Millions, who believe in other religions, deride those miracles of revelation which Mr. Mahan would adduce; and Protestants do not admit many which the Romish Church sanctions. For one, I deny that any miracle has ever been performed with the view of attesting any religion whatever. No miracle could be necessary to attest the will of Omnipotence any more than to enable a man to wave his hand. But, admitting that it ever has been necessary, no miracle has ever been resorted to for the purpose in question, since none has answered the desired end. This would not have been the case had miracles been resorted to by prescient omnipotence.
1957. A miracle, as defined by this author, on page 345 of his work, is an event “whose existence and characteristics can be accounted for but by a reference to the direct and immediate interposition of creative power, as their exclusive cause.”
1958. I reassert that, where omnipotence and prescience are concerned, such interposition could, in no case, be requisite. The miracle would be, that there could be any thing so contrary to omnipotent will as to require any miraculous interference to set it right!
1959. Instead of assuming, with orthodoxy, that our heavenly Father is quite omnipotent, spirits hold that his powers are only such as this magnificent and almost infinite universe involves; consequently, there is no necessity on their part to admit that every thing must be exactly as God wishes it to be. They are not obliged to consider him as allowing mischievous ignorance, sin, and misery to exist, while by a fiat he could correct them; and still less are they involved in the necessity of supposing that, while able to make every thing perfect, he, from choice, makes them imperfect, and yet has had to resort to drowning his creatures by a great flood, and subjecting whole nations to degrading captivity; authorizing one nation to massacre another, even to each suckling babe, for wrongs done centuries before.
1960. By Spiritualism, the Deity is represented as operating by general laws, from which, consistently with his attributes, he cannot deviate, having to perform no miracle to attain his ends; and that through these laws he is incessantly acting for the good of mankind; and the whole universe is progressing under his benign controlling influence.
1961. Thus we have the two systems, that of progression last mentioned, and that of probation above objected to; which last, being in diametric opposition to an axiomatic truth, is, on this account alone, manifestly absurd.
1962. But, admitting that miracles could, without inconsistency, be supposed to be resorted to by prescient omnipotence, in order to produce or prevent some consequence of a general law, in the making or carrying out of which an all-wise and all-powerful being inconsistently displays a want of wisdom and foresight, it must be perfectly clear that a prescient being would resort to such miracles as would produce the desired effect; not such as would be only partially seen or believed, and would become a new source of discord. Omnipotence could certainly devise miracles which could be seen and be believed in by all men; and which would so impress their minds, as to make them believe in what they should hear and see. By a single fiat, God, if as omnipotent as represented in Scripture, could make all his people of one mind. He would not send them a “sword to separate father from child, mother from daughter, mother-in-law from daughter-in-law,” and to make the subordinates of each household rise in rebellion against their master. A prescient God would not perform miracles of such doubtful character as, for want of evidence, to oblige one of the miracle-makers to enforce a belief in them by treacherous and cruel assassination, as did Moses. God would require no evidence of his miracles but such as could be recorded in the minds of believers. He would not have the records of his will so situated, as to be liable to be confounded with the fabrications of priestcraft. If devils were to be cast out, he would not have drowned a herd of swine, merely to give those immortal miscreants a ducking.
1963. So far are the miracles narrated in the gospel from commanding my credence, that the account of them proves to me, that the Evangelists were men without discretion, in recording any thing so absurd and incredible, and so useless to the main object, of giving a knowledge of God, and of the means of reaching a future happy state.
1964. How absurd to represent God as performing miracles remotely and indirectly bearing upon his object, instead of exercising his omnipotent power universally, effectually, and at once!