Reader. The question is impertinent. I call it a change in the course of nature. Now, if the course of nature can be modified without the law of nature being altered, it is absurd to pretend that there is contradiction in holding the unchangeableness of the latter and the changeableness of the former. This being evident, let us go a step further, and draw an obvious conclusion. We can, when we please, catch the stone from the window, and prevent it from falling; and cannot God do the same? We are free to exert our power; but is not God free, or has he less power than we have? If you are honest, you will own that what can be done by us can be done by our Creator and Lord. Now, if he stops the stone in the air, a miracle will be wrought, and no law of nature violated. You cannot deny the possibility of miracles without denying God.
Büchner. “A spirit independent of nature cannot exist; for never [pg 825] has an unprejudiced mind cultivated by science perceived its manifestation” (p. 36).
Reader. Are you not ashamed, doctor, to repeat such a nonsensical assertion? You have already failed to prove it, and I have shown its absurdity in a preceding discussion. Must I answer it anew? The only answer you now deserve is that “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” Fools, in fact, deny God in their hearts, but cannot deny him in their minds, because atheism is not the result of intellectual knowledge, but of moral depravity. Our present question, however, is not theism or atheism, but the possibility of miracles without any breach of natural laws. Surely, if there were no God, no miracle would be possible; but your argument was that if the laws of nature are unchangeable, no miracle is possible; and this I have shown to be false. If there is a God, as we must now assume, miracles are possible. In the same manner, if a single true miracle has ever been wrought, there is a God.
Büchner. “Apparent exceptions from the natural order have been called miracles, of which there have been many at all times” (p. 36).
Reader. You should know better, doctor. The church is not satisfied with “apparent” exceptions from the natural order; the exception must be rigorously proved.
Büchner. “We should only waste words in our endeavor to prove the natural impossibility of a miracle. No educated, much less a scientific, person who is convinced of the immutable order of things can nowadays believe in miracles. We find it rather wonderful that so clear and acute a thinker as Ludwig Feuerbach should have expended so much logic in refuting the Christian miracles. What founder of religion did not deem it necessary, in order to introduce himself to the world, to perform miracles? And has not his success proved that he was right? What prophet, what saint, is there who has not performed miracles? The miracle-seeker sees them daily and hourly. Do not the table-spirits belong to the order of miracles? All such miracles are equal in the eye of science; they are the result of a diseased fancy” (pp. 36, 37).
Reader. This is miserable logic, doctor. Why do you speak of the natural impossibility of miracles? Have we ever taught that miracles are naturally possible? We know that nature works no miracles, and that all miracles are supernatural. It is therefore either a mean trick or a logical blunder on your part to pretend that the natural possibility of miracles is the point in question. That no educated or scientific man can nowadays believe in miracles is not only an empty boast, but also a disgraceful calumny. We Christians believe in miracles, and yet, I venture to say, we need not resort to you for lessons in science or education. As a reason for not believing in miracles, you allege “the immutable order of things”; that is, you assume what is to be proved. The order of things is so far from being immutable that we see it modified at every moment. It is the laws of nature, not the order of things, that are immutable. That Feuerbach “expended so much of logic in refuting Christian miracles” I will not deny; I only say that his logic, like your own, is mere sophism and cavil. Of course you call him “so clear and acute a thinker”; but we know what this means on the lips of Freemasons. If he was “so [pg 826] clear and acute a thinker,” why did he not furnish you with at least one good argument against Christian miracles?
Besides, you pretend that all founders of religion deemed it necessary to perform miracles. What then? Were it true, the fact would scarcely help your cause; for it would only prove that there have ever been impostors, as there have been quacks and coin-forgers. Now, who would think of selling counterfeited articles, if there had existed none genuine? Would there be quacks, had there been no doctors? And yet your reasoning leads to the conclusion that, because there are so many quacks, there can be no doctors. Are you, then, a mere quack yourself?
You say with a malicious sneer that all prophets and saints performed miracles. Yes; they performed miracles, or rather, to speak more correctly, God wrought miracles through them. Yet, in the teeth of sacred and ecclesiastical history which testifies to an infinite number of unquestionable miracles, you are shameless enough to conclude that no miracle has ever been performed, on the plea that miracle-seekers, table-spirits, and diseased fancy must have conspired to deceive the world. Is it necessary to refute such a silly assertion? Was Elymas the magician a miracle-seeker when S. Paul, to punish him for his opposition to Christianity, struck him blind with a word in the presence of the Roman centurion? Was it a trick of table-spirits that made the blind see, the lame walk, or the dumb speak? Was it diseased fancy that impressed on an immense crowd the belief that they had been miraculously fed by Christ in the desert, where no provisions were at hand? No, doctor, you are not silly enough to believe anything of the sort.
Büchner. But what do you answer to the following difficulties? First, if we admit miracles, “science will be reduced to a vain and childish effort” (p. 36). Secondly, how can we conceive “a supreme legislator who allows himself to be moved by prayers and sobs to reverse the immutable order which he himself has created, to violate his own laws, and with his own hand to destroy the action of natural forces?” (p. 38). Thirdly, “every miracle, if it existed, says Cotta, would lead to the conviction that the creation is not deserving the respect which all pay to it, and the mystics would necessarily be obliged to deduce from the imperfection of the created world the imperfection of the Creator” (p. 38). Fourthly, “is it a view worthy of God to represent him as a power which now and then gives a new impulse to the world in its course, and puts on a screw, etc., like the regulator of a watch? If the world has been created by God perfect, how can it require any repairs?” (p. 39). Fifthly, we see that nature works without superior control; “its action is frequently quite independent of the rules of a higher reason, now constructing, now destroying, now full of design, then again perfectly blind and in contradiction with all moral and rational laws. That in the formation of organic and inorganic bodies, which are constantly being renewed, there can be no direct governing reason at work is proved by the most striking facts. The nisus formativus inherent in nature is so blind and so dependent on external circumstances that the most senseless forms are frequently engendered, that it is often incapable of obviating [pg 827] or overcoming the slightest obstructions, and that frequently the contrary of what according to reason should happen is effected” (pp. 41, 42). These are serious difficulties, sir.