evidence of divine power and authority given by our Lord, during His
sojourn in this world to accomplish the great work of redemption.[DJ]
The testimony of miracle as presented in the historical narrative of
Christ's life is frequent and abundant in variety; and its connection
with His work for the redemption of sinful men is everywhere proclaimed.
It is impossible to contemplate the scriptural testimony to the glory of
Christ's nature without including miracle as a conspicuous part of it;
and it is equally impossible to detach this testimony from relation to
the mediatorial work of the Redeemer as concerned with the pardon of
sin, and restoration of man to holiness of character. It thus becomes an
essential test of the validity of Christian evidence to settle the
compatibility of miracle with the knowledge now possessed of the laws of
nature.
It is not necessary here to discuss the credibility of miracles, as
affected by the question whether there can be sufficiency of testimony
to support the occurrence of a miracle,--a question which has engaged an
amount of attention disproportionate to its intellectual worth. The
suggestion of the question was nothing better than an example of
misleading ingenuity, allowed to stand on the page on which it was
indited in manifest violation of the laws of evidence and the essential
conditions of human knowledge. The value of testimony does not depend on
the nature of the thing to which it applies, but on the character of the
witness, and the opportunity for observing and testing the facts
described. There are, for example, a series of surgical operations being
performed in Edinburgh for removal of tumors (Ovariotomy), and being
repeated at intervals of two or three weeks, which have hitherto been
declared by the profession to be impossible without sacrifice of life;
and yet they are successfully accomplished, leaving only an exceedingly
small percentage of death. The whole combined testimony of preceding
ages has been against the possibility of such operations; but this is a
consideration of no value whatever in view of the testimony of the
surgeons who take part in the hazardous and responsible, but most
beneficent work, and of those professional men who have come from
France, and Russia, and other lands, to witness the operation, and of
citizens well acquainted with patients who have been delivered from a
burdened life, overshadowed with prospect of early death. The laws of
evidence are too well understood to call for abstract reasoning as to
the credibility of the witnesses who are at present giving their
testimony to the scientific world, of the successful repetition of an
operation hitherto believed to be impossible. The bearing of such an
illustration on the discussions raised concerning the credibility of the
evidence of our Lord's disciples to the miracles He performed is
obvious. Nor is there need for occupying time in trampling out the
beaten straw by lingering over the argument that no evidence can be
sufficient to establish a miracle, _because_ a miracle is contrary to
common experience; for, it is obvious that a miracle must be contrary to
common experience, since that which is matter of common experience can
not be a miracle, but must be an event determined by some law of nature.
The uniformity of the laws of nature is even a necessary condition for
the evidential value of miracles.
We pass to the real merits of the question in discussing the possibility
of the miracles of Christ without violation of any of the laws of nature
as ascertained by the most recent advances of science.
The miracles of Jesus Christ profess to be supernatural interpositions
for accomplishment of an immediate benevolent purpose, while in
combination they afford a body of evidence testifying to the power and
benevolent mission of a divine Saviour of the sinful. Their directly
benevolent aim is conspicuous throughout. Jesus never performs any
wonderful work for display of power; when a desire is indicated for
signs in the heavens, these are refused; when His own wants are
concerned, there is no exercise of power to deliver Himself from
suffering; but when a poor sufferer appeals for deliverance, He is ready
to act; or when the feeble, oppressed condition of one who has been a
long time in this case comes under His eye, He is moved to compassion
and gives unexpected deliverance even without intervention of a request.
All this is done, not as if it were any part of the divine purpose to
keep men exempt from suffering, nor as if it were inconsistent with the
divine benevolence to allow its return and continuance, for He is at
pains to warn that even a worse thing may come; but as if deliverance
from suffering were in harmony with His mission, and peculiarly
appropriate as illustrative of a Saviour's design as well as of His
divine power. By way of sign He would rescue from disease, in order
thereby to point to a grander deliverance, even from sin which causes
all the world's sorrow.
The question here calling for attention is, How do these miracles stand
related to the laws of nature which we now recognize as fixed and
unchangeable? The _first_ portion of the answer must be that they are
incapable of explanation under these laws. They are veritable
examples,--referring for the present exclusively to their nature, not to
the evidence on which we acknowledge that they occurred,--they are
veritable examples of results incapable of being attained under the
operation of natural law. The effects secured were indeed only such as
would have been attained had medical science been able to accomplish the
result, for the great majority of them belong to the region in which the
grand healing art works out its beneficent contribution to human well
being. But in respect of the mode of their execution they were in _no
sense analogous_ to what is achieved by unexpected advance in scientific
knowledge and skill. There was nothing in the whole course of our Lord's
life, bearing resemblance to the work of him who laboriously ponders the
varied aspects of some selected form of disease, and ultimately attains
to skill in a new mode of treatment, or a dangerous and difficult form
of operation. The word spoken to the leper or the paralytic; the
anointing of the eyes with clay and sending the blind man with his
clay-covered eyelids to wash in a pool; the command to Jairus's
daughter, "Maid, arise;" and the call to the man of Bethany, "Lazarus,
come forth,"--present no likeness to the conduct of one merely
exercising a deeper knowledge of the remedial measures which are
constantly being employed in some mode or other for relief of suffering.
What we witness in the varied forms of His works is supernatural
intervention, exercise of divine authority and power. There is no
competent vindication of the sacred narrative by reduction of our Lord's
works to the level of those forms of knowledge and skill which are
within the reach of human discovery. The sacred writings offer no
suggestion pointing in this direction; Christian faith, in the defence
it offers for its recognition of the miraculous in Christ's life, does
not shelter itself behind such a poor breastwork, as that which is
gained by eliminating the supernatural,--seeking to defend itself by
surrendering all that is distinctive of the God-man, who not only spake
as man never spake, but who with profuse liberality performed works of
healing which made the ears of the nation to tingle, compelling
reluctant witnesses to testify, that it was never so seen in Israel. The
supernatural works of Jesus belong to the same place in history, as
that which records the supernatural attributes belonging to His
personality.
To the question, How do the works of Jesus stand related to the laws of
nature? the _next_ portion of the answer is that they do not conflict
with these laws in any intelligible sense. The believer in Christ's
miracles, as he meets the manifest requirements of science, may fairly
ask of scientific critics that they state any law of nature which was
violated in any example of the Saviour's benevolent doings, in a sense
of the word "violation" which conflicts with the indubitable teaching of
science concerning the unchangeableness of the laws of nature. It might
well suffice for exposition of Christian thought at an earlier period of
Bible interpretation when the sole object was to set forth the
transcendent grandeur of Christ's works, to represent a miracle as "a
violation of the laws of nature," meaning thereby to concentrate on the
fact that equally by its character, and by profession of the agent, it
was a work which ordinary power was insufficient to explain. By parity
of reasoning, it may equally be allowed that a legitimate course is
followed, and an important service is rendered to the advance of
Christian evidence, if it be urged by scientific men that a violation of
the laws of nature is inconsistent with what is now ascertained as to
the government of the physical world. This collision between old forms
of statement and new forms of test is a gain to all interests concerned.
It must press into notice the inquiry as to the sense in which the old
terminology was employed, and also the sense in which this new test is
presented. If this comparison be prosecuted to its final result, no
Christian believer will find himself disturbed by apprehension of a
possible call to conflict with science, and no scientific men will feel
themselves drawn into antagonism with the accredited forms of Christian
belief as to the miraculous. A few carefully stated propositions should
help towards making this clear, if only these can be so drawn as to meet
the demands of science, and also accurately represent Christ's life.
The testimony of science dealing with the evidence open to observation
is that the laws of nature, such as the laws of gravitation,
transmutation of energy, and the development and support of living
organism, are fixed and unchangeable, so that persistent antagonism to
them is only conflict of a weaker force with a stronger which must end
in disaster or destruction to the weaker. Over against this we do not
find it possible to place any statement, either in the form of direct
affirmation, or of inference deducible from the implications of Christ's
actions or words, which can be regarded as directly contradictory. On
the contrary the deeds and sayings of Christ carry a multitude of
suggestions in strict harmony with this general teaching of science.
When He would indicate to His hearers how they are guided in their
judgment by the uniformity of natural law, He points to the signs which
they interpret in the aspect of the atmosphere morning and evening. When
the suggestion is placed before Him that He should cast Himself from an
eminence in token of His superiority to ordinary risks, He does not hint
at a suspension of the law of gravitation, but teaches that man should
not transgress the divine will by rashly exposing himself to danger.
When He would teach men to combine labor and trust, He points them to
the uniform provision for the clothing and adorning of the vegetable
world which can not in any measure care for itself. And so we might
proceed, were there any need for multiplying evidence as to a feature of
Christ's teaching manifest to every Bible reader.
The record of Scripture presenting the narratives of Christ's miracles
does not at any time represent our Saviour as interposing to stay for a
brief period the action of fixed law, or to prevent the application of
such law in the history of a particular individual. In all these wonders
of healing nothing more happens as to actual _result_, having a general
bearing on procedure in the physical world, than does happen when a cure
of a critical phase of disease is accomplished by some newly discovered
appliance at command of medical art. These two cases are essentially
different as to _mode_ of action, but they are strictly identical as to
_result_, and this identity amounts to a demonstration of harmony with
scientific requirements, as these actually guide men to the discovery of
new methods. That there is identity of result only _in some cases_ does
not affect the argument, but arises from the essential features of the
comparison, as a product of supernatural intervention must transcend
what is ultimately attained by laborious processes of human research.
But that there is in any case an identity of result under the very
different conditions, is an indication that supernatural intervention is
not an interference with the laws of nature such as would be involved in
their suspension or subversion. There is a great difference between
recovery from suspended animation and resurrection from the dead as in
the case of Lazarus, but the fixed order of the universe is no more
disturbed in the latter case than in the former.
A further consideration bearing on the miracles of Christ needs to be
stated, though it comes more directly into relation with philosophy than
with science properly so called. Every one of these miracles was
performed avowedly for moral ends, and under application of moral
conditions, while for immediate physical effects. There is moral law as
well as physical law, and our Saviour subordinates the latter to the
former in determining the use He makes of supernatural agency. The
evidence of this is interwoven through the very texture of the
narrative, so that an attempt to sever His miracles from their
moral purpose can result only in tearing the narrative into
fragments,--mutilating the record which must be studied and interpreted
as it has been put into our hands. Moral law is as unchangeable as
physical law, though the character and form of its sway differ from
those of physical law, and it is easier for man wilfully to violate the
higher law of life than to violate the lower. Yet so closely are the
higher and lower connected in human history, that the easy violation of
moral law is followed by painful consequences under the reign of
physical law. It lay within the purpose of Jesus to deliver from both,
and it is only in recognition of this combined or complex purpose that
we discover the rational basis on which supernatural deliverance from
disease becomes a natural vehicle for presenting to rational beings
requisite evidence of divine intervention on their behalf as they are
entangled in the disastrous consequences of violating unchangeable moral
law. If on other grounds it be apparent that supernatural interference
for restoration of health or life does not involve interference with
physical law by which the government of the universe could be in any
degree affected; on the grounds now contemplated we come to recognize a
harmony of higher and lower orders of fixed law bearing on the history
of the human race, and for this harmony of law our Saviour manifested a
supreme concern.
With these brief statements before us, we are now prepared for turning
in a different direction to ascertain what is the special view of
miracle which has found currency within some scientific circles,
carrying the explanation of intense antipathy to its acknowledgment, and
unhesitating declaration that the whole body of scientific teaching, and
even the characteristics of scientific method, are adverse to the very
conception of miracle. For the purpose now in view it may be well to
present in close connection the successive utterances of a single
author, who may be taken as representative of a class. The work of
Professor Schmidt on _The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism_ will supply
illustrations of the kind to which reference has been made, as this
author states at the outset that the doctrine of descent finds its
antagonists among those "who perceive, more or less distinctly, the
danger with which the new doctrine threatens their standpoint of
miracle."[DK] From this allusion it appears that he regards a doctrine
of descent as opposed to what he describes as an "incomprehensible act
of creation."[DL] Accordingly he celebrates the praises of this theory
in these terms,--"it interprets by a single principle those great
phenomena which without its aid remain a mass of unintelligible
miracles."[DM] In harmony with these utterances he speaks of gradual
evolution of the organs of special sense, such as the organs of hearing
and smell, as giving a negative to "the sudden and incomprehensible
origination of these organs in an immediate state of completion."[DN]
These few extracts may suffice to indicate the mental attitude of those
who show aversion to the acknowledgment of miracle. With Schmidt the
"miraculous" is another name for the incomprehensible; to him the
suggestion of miracle is disagreeable as implying the impossibility of
scientific explanation. If these things be kept in mind, it will be
clear how widely apart this notion is from the Christian conception of
miracle. The one view is that observational science can make no account
of miracle: the other is that thought concerning a supernatural Being
really involved the conception of miracle. Science can assign no place
to the incomprehensible, can make no account of it. Religion finds a
higher sphere of comprehensibility in the action of supernatural power.
The two positions are radically distinct, and do not come into actual
conflict. Hence religion has no opposition to the view of miracle just
stated, which amounts to little more than a negative definition of
science. To say that science can take no account of the miraculous, is
only in other words to say that science is explanation of natural
phenomena by recognition of the action of natural causes, consequently
the miraculous does not come within the boundaries of science. This is
self-evident, and on this footing theology has no account to make of
what is only a semblance of opposition, involving no real conflict.
Creation, for example, can not come within the compass of observational
science; but creation may nevertheless be a rational conception in
dealing with a purely rational problem, which does not at all belong to
physical science. In the same manner it appears that the whole series
of our Lord's miracles are outside the area of science, which, as it has
nothing of authority to advance against them, has not even a basis on
which to offer any testimony concerning their possibility.
One topic more requires to be briefly considered as constituting an
essential of religious thought, namely the acknowledgment of divine
interposition for the answer of PRAYER. Our question is, How this
conception of divine answer to prayer stands related to scientific
thought concerning the government of the world by fixed law? If the laws
of nature are fixed, how can the government of the world allow for
fulfilment of human desire as expressed in supplication? The question to
be discussed has two sides, the one concerned with the conditions on
which an answer to prayer is expected; the other with the exact
significance of the scientific conception of the government of the world
by fixed law. If there be a rational basis for prayer as encouraged by
the teaching of Scripture, there can be no such dilemma as would be
implied in supposing that law is fixed yet not fixed, or that law is
unchangeable in all cases save in the history of the man of prayer, in
whose behalf the laws of nature are liable to be held in check. There
may be among Christian men considerable diversity in the clearness of
apprehension with which they grasp the meaning of the divine promise to
answer prayer; but there is no one taught by the Scriptures as to the
privilege of prayer, who thinks of it as implying that the laws of the
universe are liable to be held in suspension because the desires of his
heart are rising to God in humble, earnest supplication. The man trained
to recognize this truth affecting God's government that "He maketh His
sun to rise on the evil and on the good; and sendeth rain on the just,
and on the unjust," does not readily fall into the mistake of supposing
that all the laws of the universe are at His bidding, because of the
divine encouragement to prayer. The Christian prays only under divine
warrant, and this does not convey any such suggestion.
First, then, we can clear away at once the cruder thoughts of the
unintelligent believer in the power of prayer; and those of the
scientific objector to prayer, who is not instructed in scriptural
doctrine. Prayer does not imply a probable reversal of the laws of
nature; but it does imply a moral government in the midst of the
physical world, and the subordination of the physical to the moral under
regulation of an all-wise and almighty Ruler. The question before us
concerns this subordination, and the possibilities which it implies.
Towards the attainment of exact conceptions here the first requisite is
a clear understanding of the scientific doctrine of the government of
the world by fixed law. In whatever sense we take the word "_law_" as
applicable to God's government of the universe, there is no law which is
fluctuating, or liable to have one signification at one time, and a
quite different signification at another time; a narrower range of
application at one period, and a wider range at a later. Such
fluctuation would imply a suspension of a law of nature, and the
conception of such a thing is inconsistent with absolute rational
government, alien equally to the principles of science and of religion.
Laws physical, moral, and spiritual are equally fixed laws.
But the laws of the universe are a harmony, and in the midst of the
interdependence of laws distinct in character, the harmony of the whole
is secured by the subordination of physical law to moral and spiritual.
It is in the midst of this harmonized relationship of the diverse laws
of the divine government that the spirit of prayer lives, and makes good
its rational consistency. And it is only on condition of acknowledgment
of diverse laws, including moral with physical, that the scientific man
can interpose any criticism as to the efficacy of prayer. Any denial of
a moral government in the midst of the physical universe, under sway of
a God of righteousness, places an objector entirely out of the sphere in
which criticism can proceed. Physical law determining conditions of
bodily life is fixed law; moral law deciding the conditions of right
conduct in intelligent life is fixed law; spiritual law deciding the
conditions of fellowship with the Father of our spirits is fixed law.
The believer in the Bible has no hesitancy in acknowledgment of all
this; he is a believer in fixed law in a higher and grander sense than
scientific teaching indicates, and he believes in the harmony of all
existence under an unchangeable government, notwithstanding all the
wrong doing in the world, and the dreadful misery resulting from it.
His belief in the harmony of the universe rests on his belief in the
fixedness of law physical as well as moral, and moral as well as
physical.
But the _fixedness_ belonging to various orders of law, subsisting in a
state of interdependence, and involving subordination of lower to
higher, needs some more exact interpretation. The fixedness of law,
physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, in no case involves
fixedness of result, but _varying results according to diversity of
conditions_. There is fixedness of physical law, but withal there is
diversity of weather, and seasons, and harvests, and that because a
variety of conditions are harmonized under fixed law. There is fixedness
of intellectual law in accordance with which accuracy of thought is
determined, but diversity of result according to the materials with
which we deal. And so it is with moral and spiritual law, providing for
the regulation of our higher life.