POSITIONS OF UNBELIEVERS IN REFERENCE TO MIRACLES.

The conclusion which we have reached in the preceding chapters of this Part is conceded in a general way by the mass of modern unbelievers; that is, it is conceded that, in reference to all except their accounts of miracles, and a few details calculated to lend support to these accounts, the New Testament books are credible.1

It is the characteristic of all unbelievers to deny the reality of miracles. Those of them who affect scientific methods tacitly adopt, as a rule of historical criticism, that accounts of miracles must be summarily rejected as untrue.2 This position is taken on various grounds, according to the varying theories of the parties.

1. By atheists, who deny that there is a God, and by Pantheists, who deny that there is a God apart from the forces of nature, miracles are held to be impossible; for, according to both of these positions, there can be nothing supernatural. Agnostics, who claim that they can not decide whether there is a personal God or not, must be equally unable to decide whether or not miracles are possible, seeing that their possibility depends on the existence of a God to work them. The number of persons who are either Atheists, Pantheists or Agnostics is so small, and the tenets of these parties are so far apart from the convictions of the great mass of mankind, that we shall not dwell on their position farther than to state it.

2. A second class, who admit that there is a God, and that miracles are therefore possible, hold it to be impossible to prove that a miracle has been wrought.3 Briefly stated, the argument is this: All human experience is against the occurrence of miracles, on the one hand, and it attests the very common occurrence of false testimony, on the other; consequently, in any case of alleged miracle, it is more probable that the testimony to it is deceptive than that the miracle actually transpired. This argument has been refuted in several ways, and so successfully refuted that many of the most acute infidels now reject it.4 It is a sufficient answer to it to offset its universal affirmative by another, and say, Universal experience proves that miracles can be proved; for, as a matter of historical fact, men of all ages and kindreds have believed them, and to all these they have been proved. These include the immense majority of men, and of the most enlightened men. To say that it is impossible to prove that which has been actually proved to the satisfaction of nearly all men, is to speak falsely, or to use the words deceitfully.

3. A third class, and the only class of infidels with whose position it concerns us to deal, admit the possibility of miracles, and also the possibility of proving the occurrence of them should any occur; but they deny that the evidence within our reach is sufficient for the proof of any now on record.5 This is the issue which the experience of the world and common sense alike present as the one to be discussed. Forasmuch as there is a body of evidence on which a large majority of the men who have examined it base a belief in certain miracles, the task imposed on unbelief, and one which it can not avoid by any subterfuge, is to show that this body of evidence is insufficient; and especially is this true, when we consider that those who have accepted the miracles on this evidence will readily admit that no miracles can be proved if these can not.

Skeptics have felt it incumbent on themselves to take definite ground not only as to the reality of the New Testament miracles, but also as to the origin of the accounts of them with which the New Testament books abound. Some have held that they were false stories deliberately invented by the early disciples to deceive the people; more recently it has been asserted that they are myths, that is, stories invented to convey truths by analogy, but not propounded as actual occurrences; and yet again, they are regarded as legends, or stories which had their origin in natural events, but which, by natural exaggeration as they passed from mouth to mouth in early times, took upon them miraculous details, until they assumed their present form.6 If the direct evidence for their reality should prove, after proper consideration, unconvincing, it might be worth while, as a mere matter of curiosity, to discuss the relative merits of these three theories; but in this case they would have lost all value as facts bearing on human destiny and duty; and, consequently, any inquiry into the real merits of these positions may be turned over to theorists who have the time to waste on them, while the earnest inquirer must devote himself to the question, Is the positive evidence of the reality of New Testament miracles sufficient to command our credence?

The most common and popular ground for the denial of the sufficiency of the evidence is this: that the miracles, having been wrought or supposed to have been wrought in an age fond of believing in such events, were received as real without the application of the tests by which their reality could be demonstrated. In other words, it is claimed that they were not wrought under scientific conditions.7 The best way to test this assertion is to look into the record and see how the miracles were actually received, and what tests of their reality were actually applied.

First, we remark that, whatever may have been the habit of the age in which Jesus and the Apostles lived with respect to miracles in general, and those of these men in particular, there was certainly a large class of persons, including the most acute and intelligent of the Jews, who most persistently refused to credit them; and these men were sufficient in number and in influence to check any disposition on the part of the masses to receive them without question. Second, we have a detailed account of the way in which the miracles were tested by this class of men, and by a comparison of that with the methods which would be applied by scientific men of our own day, we can determine how much credence we should give to the assertion in question. A notable case in point is found in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John. It is the case of a man said to have been born blind, and to have been healed by Jesus. After the neighbors and former acquaintances of the man, who was a beggar, had satisfied themselves that a miracle had been wrought, as if to test their own judgment of the case they brought the man to certain Pharisees, the party most unwilling to admit the reality of the miracles, that they might see what those intelligent enemies of Jesus could say of the case. A formal investigation followed, and its method is clearly traced. They first asked the man how he received his sight, and he answered according to the facts (verse 15). This shows that they knew he now had his sight, which could be known at once by his appearance. Then, after an irrelevant discussion about his doing such cures on the sabbath, and an equally irrelevant question as to what the man thought of Jesus, the Pharisees very properly demanded proof that the man had been born blind. They already had the testimony of the neighbors, who had brought him to them as one who had been born blind, but with this they were not satisfied, and they called for his parents (16-18). When the parents appeared they were confronted with the threatening question, "Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see?" Being alarmed, they answered: "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind: but how he now seeth we know not: he is of age; he shall speak for himself" (19-21). The historian remarks, concerning the last part of this answer, that they gave it because they were afraid that they would he put out of the synagogue if they should say anything equivalent to confessing Jesus to be the Christ (22, 23). The Pharisees then called again to the man, and said: "Give God the glory: we know that this man is a sinner," thus indirectly admitting that the miracle had been wrought, though unwilling to allow Jesus the credit of it. The process of the investigation, reduced to the simplest statement, was this: they first ascertained that the man could see; they next inquired what Jesus had done to him; and seeing that what he had done was only to put moistened clay on his eyes and require him to wash it off, they next inquired as to the certainty of his having been born blind, and they close this inquiry with the testimony of his parents.

Let us now suppose that, instead of the Pharisees who tested this miracle, it had been done by a "commission composed of physiologists, physicians, chemists and persons experienced in historical criticism," as is demanded by M. Renan. What advantage would they have had over the Pharisees in determining whether the man, when first brought before them, could sec? It is clear that no knowledge of physiology, or chemistry, or medicine, or historical criticism, could help them in this. The most stupid plantation negro could settle the question at once by striking with his hand toward the man's face and seeing whether he winked. When it was settled that the man could see, and the question was raised, What had Jesus done to give him sight? the commission would have an advantage over the Pharisees, in that they would know more certainly, on account of their scientific attainments, that merely putting clay on a blind man's eyes and washing it off could not give him sight. Uneducated and superstitious men might imagine that the clay had some mystic power; but scientific men would know better. On this point of inquiry, then, the advantage would be with the commission, but the advantage would be in favor of the miracle. As to the next question, whether the man said to have thus received sight was born blind, what more conclusive testimony could the commission obtain, or what more could they wish, than, first, that of the neighbors who had known the man as a blind beggar; and, secondly, that of his own father and mother? Who, indeed, could be so good witnesses that a child was born blind as the father and mother; for they always exhaust every possible means of testing the question before they yield to the sad conviction that their child is blind?

This comparison shows that in testing such a miracle there could be no use made of scientific knowledge; and the same is true of the miracles of Jesus in general. If, in the case just considered, the question had been, What defect in the organ of sight caused the man to be blind? or, What were the chemical constituents of the clay put on his eyes? a knowledge of physiology or of chemistry would have been needed for the investigation, and so in general; if the miracles had been such that to test their reality scientific knowledge would have been necessary, the evidence which we have would be incomplete; but the most unscientific men of common sense can know when a man is dead; when he is alive and active; when he has a high fever; is a cripple; is paralyzed, etc., as well as the greatest scientist. The cry, then, that the miracles of the New Testament were not wrought under "scientific conditions," is totally irrelevant, and can mislead none but those who do not pause to think.

Several other theoretical objections to miracles usually receive attention in this discussion, such as their assumed antecedent improbability, and the claim that they are discredited by the fact that many other accounts of miracles among the heathen, and among believers of the dark ages, are now rejected by intelligent Christians; and it would be well for us to consider these, if we were aiming to exhaust the subject; but they amount to nothing at all if the direct evidence for miracles is conclusive. All antecedent improbability of any fact whatever vanishes in the presence of competent proof of the fact; and disbelief in all miracles but a single one could not discredit that one if the evidence for it were conclusive. On the other hand, it must be admitted that if the direct evidence for miracles is not conclusive in itself, no conclusions drawn from the discussion of these theories could establish their reality. On this account we omit the further consideration of these theories, and refer the student to works devoted to them.8 The direct evidence shall be the subject of our next chapter. 

1 The position of Strauss is an exception to this remark. He says: "There is little of which we can say for certain that it took place, and of all to which the faith of the church especially attaches itself, the miraculous and supernatural matter in the facts and destinies of Jesus, it is far more certain that it did not take place." New Life, ii. 434.

2 "Till we have new light, we shall maintain this principle of historical criticism, that a supernatural relation can not be accepted as such." (Renan, Jesus, 45). "The historian who approaches his subject imbued with the faith of the church finds himself confronted at the very outset with the most stupendous of miracles, the fact which lies at the root of Christianity being in his eyes that the only begotten Son of God descended from the eternal throne of the Godhead to the earth, and became man in the womb of the virgin. He who regards this as simply and absolutely a miracle, steps at once outside of all historical connection." (Baur, Church Hist , i. 1).

3 The historian Hume has the credit of originating this argument. He elaborated it in his celebrated Essay on Miracles.

4 "It is not, therefore, in the name of this or that philosophy, but in the name of constant experience, that we banish miracle from history. We do not say miracle is impossible; we say there has been hitherto no miracle proved." (Renan, Jesus, 44).

5 Ib.

6 Renan is an eminent advocate of the legendary theory; Strauss of the mythical.

7 Renan, Jesus, 43, 44.

8 We especially commend to the student Motley on Miracles, and Trench on Miracles--two works by master minds of the present century.