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The four explanations of the miracles of the New Testament (to which we now confine ourselves) are these:—

I. The Natural Explanation.—According to this, the miraculous facts of the New Testament are to be explained as resulting from natural causes. They are on the plane of our common human life. They are such events as might easily happen anywhere at the present time. Christ himself was but a natural genius of a high order. His miracles were merely the natural results of his intellect and strength of will, or they were mistakes on the part of the observers and narrators, or myths which have grown up subsequently in the Church. Great ingenuity has been used in attempting to show how each miracle may be explained so as to be nothing very extraordinary, after all. But these explanations are often very forced. Some events which are at first sight seemingly miraculous, are often explained as natural events by the majority of commentators. Thus the account of the angel who went down into the pool and troubled the water is usually interpreted as a natural phenomenon, and no real miracle. Modern travellers have noticed that this pool of Bethesda is an intermittent spring, which may have possessed medicinal qualities.

The old-fashioned naturalism, however, has mostly gone by. Its explanations were too forced and unnatural to continue long. The more common account at present is that which assumes that the narrators were mistaken in the stories which they have given us. Mr. Parker thinks that there is not sufficient evidence of the miracles. If there were more he would believe them. He gives no explanation of their origin farther than this. But Strauss attempts an explanation based upon an unconscious action of the fancy and feelings on the part of the New Testament writers, causing them to create these incidents out of some trifling basis of fact or of history. Renan follows in the same general direction.

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II. The Unnatural Explanation.—A miracle is a violation or a suspension of a law of nature.

This, until recently, has been the favorite view of miracles among theologians, and is the view of miracles against which the arguments of those who reject them have been chiefly directed.

The arguments in favor of this view are these:—

1. The miracles of the New Testament seem to be violations of laws of nature. For example: the turning water into wine; healing by a word or touch; stilling the tempest; feeding five thousand; walking on the sea; transfiguration; raising of Lazarus; Christ's own resurrection. The law of gravitation seems to have been suspended when he walked on the sea, &c.

2. Miracles are appealed to by Christ and his apostles in proof that God was with him. But, unless these miracles had suspended the laws of nature, they would not be proofs of this.

These are the two principal reasons for this view of miracles.

Objections.—On the other hand, it is objected—

1. That apparent violations may not be real violations of the laws of nature. Examples: The Arab emir in “The Talisman” who was told that water sometimes became solid, so as to support a man on horseback; a steamboat sailing against wind and current; the telegraph; the daguerrotype. In all such cases the laws of nature are not violated or suspended, but new powers come in.

2. Christ appeals to the moral character of his miracles, and not merely to their supernatural character. They are miracles of benevolence.

3. If the proof of Christ's mission depends on this view of miracles, it can never be proved. We can never be sure that the event is a violation of a law of nature.

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4. On this view the sceptic's objections to miracles are unanswerable.

So says Dr. Thomas Brown, in an article reprinted by Dr. Noyes, of Cambridge, in the “Theological Essays” published by the American Unitarian Association. He admits the principle of Hume's Essay on Miracles, but says that his error lies in the false definition of the miracle as a violation of the laws of nature. False, because—

(a.) On the principle of continued uniformity of sequence our whole belief of causation, and consequently of the divine Being, is founded.

(b.) Gives an air of inconsistency, and almost of absurdity, to a miracle.

(c.) Laws of nature are not violated when a new antecedent is followed by a new consequent, but when, the antecedent being exactly the same, a different consequent is the result.

(d.) No testimony could prove such a miracle. Suppose testimony so strong that its falsehood would be an absolute miracle; then we should have to believe, in either case, that a law of nature has been violated. No ground of preference between them.

5. A miracle may be supernatural, or above nature, without being unnatural, or against nature.

6. The greatest church teachers have maintained that miracles were not against law or without law, but above common law. Hahn, after mentioning the view of a miracle as a suspension of law, and calling it one neither scriptural nor conceivable, proceeds to quote Augustine and other writers, who held that miracles were by no means opposed to law.9

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III. The Preternatural View of Miracles.—This view admits the reality of the phenomena, but explains them as resulting from mysterious forces, which are neither divine on the one hand, nor human on the other, but which are outside of nature. This is the demoniacal view, or that which supposes that evil spirits, departed souls, or spirits neither good nor bad, surround the earth, and can be reached by magic, witchcraft, sorcery, magnetism, or what is now called Spiritualism. This theory supposes that the works of Jesus were performed by the aid of spiritual beings. The objections to this view are—

1. If it is supposed, as it was by the Jews, that Jesus had the aid of evil spirits, the sufficient answer is, that his works were good works.

2. If it is argued that he performed his miracles by the aid of departed spirits who were good spirits, the answer is, that he himself never took this view, but always declared, “My Father, who dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” Moreover, the whole character of the miracles of Jesus differs not only from everything ever done by magnetism or spiritualism, but from everything ever claimed to be done.

IV. The Supernatural View of Miracles.—This view asserts that the miracles were performed by higher forces, which came into this world from a higher world than this. It asserts that besides the forces which are at work regularly [pg 066] in the world, there are other forces outside of the world, which may from time to time come into it. We call them higher forces not only because they are more powerful than the forces before at work in the world, by overcoming which they produce the extraordinary outward phenomena, but because they always tend to elevate the world nearer to God. They are thus proved to come from a world which is nearer to God than this. The reasons in support of this view are, as before suggested.—

1. Geology teaches it. The rocks show not only an original creation of the world, but successive creations of vegetable and animal life.

2. The creation of the world teaches it. Creation was a miracle in this sense of the word.

3. There seems to be in the constitution of man a faculty provided for recognizing the supernatural element. Phrenologists call it the organ of marvellousness. Such a faculty would argue the existence of an appropriate object on which it might be exercised.

4. The whole life and character of Jesus were supernatural and miraculous in this sense. They cannot be satisfactorily explained as the result of anything existing in the world before.