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.
To 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]
A point of high significance for those who would cultivate a religious
faith not liable to be affected by changes of intellectual outlook or
insight is, that this lower valuation of miracle observable among
Christian thinkers has not been reached through breaches made by
sceptical doubts of the reality of a supernatural Revelation. They
have, of course, felt the reasonableness of the difficulties with which
traditional opinions have been encumbered by the advance of knowledge.
But so far from giving way thereupon to doubts of the reality of divine
Revelation, they have sought and found less assailable defences for
their faith in it than those that sufficed their fathers. And their
satisfaction therewith stands in no sympathy with those who hold it a
mark of enlightenment to assume with Matthew Arnold, that "miracles do
not happen." It has resulted rather from reaching the higher grounds of
religious thought, on which supernatural Revelation is recognized in its
essential character as distinctively moral and spiritual.
The true supernatural is the _spiritual_, not the miraculous, a higher
order of Nature, not a contradiction of Nature. The Revelation of Jesus
was altogether spiritual. It consisted in the ideas of God which he
communicated by his ministry and teaching, by his character and life.
But this, the real supernatural, was not obvious as such to his
contemporaries. They looked for it in the lower region of physical
effects. And here the Church also in its embryonic spiritual life, in
its proneness to externalize religion in forms of rite, and creed, and
organization, has thought to find it. Jesus' reproof, "Except ye see
signs and wonders ye will not believe," is still pertinent to those who
will not have it that the supernatural Revelation--spiritual though it
be--can be recognized or believed in apart from an acknowledgment of
attendant miracles, wrought in physical nature by an intervention of
God. Such a contention, however, is as futile and desperate as was John
Wesley's declaration, "The giving up of witchcraft is in effect the
giving up of the Bible." Such mischievous fallacies succeed only in
blinding many a mind to the real issue which the moral and spiritual
Revelation of Jesus makes with men of the twentieth century. It is these
fallacies, and not their critics, that create the most of
scepticism.[47]
But while the question whether miracles are credible has ceased to be of
vital importance, it has by no means lost all importance. On the
contrary, so long as the path of progress is guided by the lamp of
experience, so long will it be of consequence that the historical record
of experience be found trustworthy. It may suit the overweening pride
which defies both the past and the present to say with Bonaparte, that
history is only a fable that men have agreed to believe. But it is a
human interest, and a satisfaction of normal minds to establish, so far
as reason permits, the credibility of every record ostensibly historic.
To discover that ancient experiences, once supposed to be miraculous
raisings from real death, may reasonably be classed with well attested
experiences of to-day, better understood as resuscitations from a
deathlike trance, should be welcomed by unprejudiced historical critics,
as redeeming portions of the ancient record from mistaken disparagement
as legendary. That further study may accredit as facts, or at least as
founded on facts, some other marvels in that record cannot, except by
arrant dogmatism, be pronounced improbable. Nevertheless, it cannot be
expected that the legendary element, which both the Old and the New
Testament in greater and less degree exhibit, can ever be eliminated.
Such stories as that of the origin of languages at Babel, and that of
the resurrection of ancient saints at Jesus' resurrection are
indubitable cases of it. But the legendary element, though permanent, is
at present undefined. To define it is the problem of the critical
student, a problem most difficult to him whose judgment is least
subjective; and he will welcome every contribution that advancing
knowledge can supply.
Regarding miracle as the natural product of exceptionally endowed life,
there is no source from which more light can be shed on its Biblical
record than in those studies of the exceptional phenomena and occult
powers of life which are prosecuted by the Society for Psychical
Research, whose results are recorded in its published _Proceedings_. For
those familiar with this record the legendary element in the Bible tends
to shrink into smaller compass than many critics assign it. In the
interest both of the Bible and of science it is regrettable that the
results of these researches, though conducted by men of high eminence
in the scientific world, still encounter the same hostile scepticism
even from some Christian believers that Hume directed against the
Biblical miracles. Mr. Gladstone has put himself on record against this
philistinism, saying that "psychical research is by far the most
important work that is being done in the world." Were one disposed to
prophesy, very reasonable grounds could be produced for the prediction
that, great as was the advance of the nineteenth century in physical
knowledge, the twentieth century will witness an advance in psychical
knowledge equally great. In this advance one may not unreasonably
anticipate that some, at least, of the Biblical miracles may be relieved
from the scepticism that now widely discredits them.