The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality

by Rudolf Schmid

The profit which we derive from this reverting to the Biblical conception of the idea of miracles is by no means small.

In the first place, we help to establish the full recognition of that direct religious consciousness and sensation which is not only characteristic of the pious men of Scripture, but which yet characterizes all genuine religiousness; and this consists in the fact that the religious man sees

miracles of God in all that turns his attention to God's government,—in the sea of stars, in rock and bush, in sunshine and storm, in flower and worm, just as certainly as in the guidance of his own life and in the facts and processes of the history of salvation and of the kingdom of the Lord. In this idea of miracles, the essential thing is not that the phenomena and processes are inconceivable to him—although certainly in all that comes into appearance there is still an incomprehensible and uncomprehended remainder. For a form of nature, e.g., which turns his attention to a creator, is of course a miracle, even if he is able to look upon it with none other eye than that of the unlearned: but it even then remains a miracle,—nay, it is increased to a still greater miracle, if he has learned to contemplate and investigate it with all the auxiliary means of science. A hearing of his prayers remains a miracle, whether or not he is able to perceive the natural connection of the process in which he sees his prayers answered, or even to trace it back to the remotest times which preceded his prayers. The events and facts of the history of salvation remain miracles to him, whether the history of nature and the world offers to him auxiliary means of explaining them or not. The pious man, therefore, does not find the essential characteristic of miracles in their relative inconceivableness, but in the fact that they refer him to a living God who stands above this process, whether perceived or unperceived in its relative causal connection, and unites it with the course of things in order to reach his ends and to manifest himself to man. Now, in our attempt at a scientific reproduction of the idea of miracles, if we return to that Biblical conception, we see no longer in this just

mentioned religious conception of miracles a pious sophistry which avoids the difficulty of the idea, or a child-like naïveté worthy of being partly envied and partly pitied, which does not at all see the difficulties and remains on the child-stage of Biblical conceptions; but we only perceive in it a confirmation and fulfilment of that profound and beneficent word of our Lord: "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." Of course, piety as well as science makes distinctions among miracles. The former separates the mere products and processes of nature which, through what is explicable as well as what is inexplicable in their qualities and processes, point to an almighty and all-wise Creator, and thereby become miracles to the religious view of the world, from the historical events which, by their newness and uniqueness, and by their pointing toward divine ends, manifest God and his teleological government to man, and calls them miracles in a still more specific sense than science does. And among historical events, piety as well as science assigns the name miracle, in the most pregnant sense, to those events which belong to the history of salvation, and, by their newness and uniqueness, introduce new stages into it, render legitimate its new instruments, or bring new features of redemption to our knowledge. Our religiousness has the greatest and deepest interest in this history: for it is the history of the leading back of man into communion with God by the way of redemption; and therefore the events of this history are precisely those miracles upon which our deepest religious interest is concentrated. But in spite of all these distinctions in degree, that natural relationship and that

common character of the miraculous between the miracles of nature, the miracles of the history of man, and the miracles of the history of salvation, remain established; and we render a service to religious consciousness, as well as to the scientific conception of the idea of miracles, if by returning to the Biblical idea of miracles, as we propose, we make a more comprehensive definition of miracles possible.

Another advantage which we derive from returning to the Biblical idea of miracles consists in the fact that it preserves us from the magical and necromantic in our conceptions of miracles; that it allows us a grouping of miracles according to value, which corresponds with the idea of God and of the divine government as well as with the idea of miracles itself; and that in the presence of all single relations of miracles it summons us to criticise and investigate the real state of the case. For the nature of miracles does not consist in the inconceivable—at least not in the planless and arbitrary,—but in the fact that they call the attention of man to God and his government; and this leads to the reverse of all that is magical and necromantic, because the magical is unworthy of the idea of God and contradicts all the other self-testimony of God. Now if the nature of miracles consists in the fact that they call my attention to God and his government, an event will become a miracle to me, and increase its value, in the degree in which it refers me to God and his government, and especially in the degree in which it refers me to that government of God which is the most important to me—namely, to the action of God in me and mankind, with which he is bringing about his ends in salvation;

but in the degree in which an event loses this character, it becomes to me an event without miraculous or religious significance. This gives a quite definite grouping of miracles according to value, from those which belong to the central manifestations of the divine plan of salvation and way of redemption, to those which lie in the extreme periphery of religious interest. It is a grouping which corresponds with the idea of God just as much as with the idea of miracles; while all other divisions or groupings of miracles according to value, which might take their principle of division and their weight from the greater or smaller conceivableness of the causal connection, from the greater or smaller difference of a miraculous event from all other events, are indifferent in reference to the idea of God, and change the centre of gravity in the idea of miracles. Besides, if these miracles are to be real signs to me which refer me to God, his government, and his ways of salvation, they must, in the first place, in order to secure my conviction, be real events and facts and not mere falsifications and fictions; and this point leads us to the duty and right of criticising and investigating actual circumstances. In presence of all Biblical and non-Biblical miracles, we have the full right and the full duty of using criticism in reference to the confirmation of actual circumstances, and where the latter cannot be established with certainty, the question is in order whether the related event is really of such a character as to legitimate itself as a sign of God and his government. In the preceding section, we have had occasion to use this principle in reference to the investigation of that event which, next to the coming of the Redeemer, offers itself to us as the

central miracle of the history of salvation and redemption: namely, in reference to the history of the resurrection of the Lord.

We have by no means the wish to avoid difficulties which meet us, when trying to bring miracles, and especially the specific and pregnant miracles of the history of salvation, into harmony with our scientific knowledge of the world: only we can no longer admit that these difficulties consist in the inconceivableness or in the supernaturalism of miracles. For to the religious view of the world—which traces equally the explicable as well as the inexplicable back to God, which even derives the natural from the supernatural causality of God—neither the occasional inexplicability nor the supposed supernaturalness of an event can be that which makes the event a miracle. But an event in the history of salvation becomes a miracle from the fact that something extraordinary, something new, happens in it, which by its newness and its extraordinary character presents itself to man as the manifestation of certain divine ends in salvation, and can be explained at first sight, but only at first sight, from nothing else than from the service which it renders to the plan of redemption. Whether afterwards these extraordinary and new features can or cannot be perceived in their natural connection, or explained out of it, does not at all change anything in the miraculous character of the event, as soon as it has once had the before-mentioned effect. The only task and the only difficulty which meets us in the question of miracles, is to show that such extraordinary and new things really happen, and to bring the reality and possibility of such new things into our perception of the

causal connection of the course of the world, conformable to law. But it ceases to be a difficulty, so soon as we acknowledge a teleology in the course of the world and a teleology in the history of mankind, and especially as soon as we acknowledge that teleology in the history of mankind which, by the way of the divine means of redemption, leads man back to God. Where there are no ends, nothing can happen which calls the attention of men to these ends; nor, indeed, can anything new happen; for nothing prevails in more absolute sovereignty to all eternity than the maxims causa æquat effectum and effectus æquat causam. But where ends are appointed and reached, something new also happens; and every new thing refers to its end. For each step leading nearer such an end is something new, and refers, as soon as we compare it with preceding steps, to the end towards which it strives. All ends to which the course of things refers us, are to the religious view of the world ends which are appointed by God; all means which serve to reach the ends, are means which God created and chose; and every phenomenon and every event which manifests this teleological government of God to our mind, is a miracle to us. Now this whole course of the world is interwoven with such new things, in events which manifest to us, now more clearly, now more dimly, the striving of the course of the world towards an end, because the latter is really striving towards an end. Even prehistoric times show us new things which, from a scientific and historical point of view, we have to place in the line of the course of the world; and from a religious point of view, in the line of miracles. The first appearance of organic life on earth was new, and indicated new ends; the first