Читать книгу The Churches and Modern Thought - Vivian Phelips - Страница 11

In this and the following chapters I hope to show how matters stand with reference to the more important points at issue between the Christian apologist and the Rationalist. The truth or otherwise of the Bible miracles being of supreme importance, I begin with an examination of the position of apologetics with regard to them.

THE VIEW OF SCIENCE

Professor Huxley once made the following remark: “The miracles of the Church are child’s play to the miracles I see in nature.” This has been hailed by the apologist as a satisfactory admission that science concedes the possibility of miracles. It is continually being quoted in apologetic works and from the pulpit, and is apparently considered as a conclusive piece of evidence that science has nothing to say against miracles. But, Professor Huxley went on to explain: “On the strength of an undeniable improbability, however, we not only have a right to demand, but are morally bound to require, strong evidence in favour of a miracle before we even take it into serious consideration. But when, instead of such evidence, nothing is produced but stories originating nobody knows how or when, among persons who could firmly believe in devils which enter pigs, I confess that my feeling is one of astonishment that anyone should expect a reasonable man to take such testimony seriously.”30 We never hear of this from the pulpit! Possibly Professor Huxley would not have been thus misrepresented—or shall we say misunderstood?—if he had spoken of the wonders of nature, and had not used a word popularly understood to signify that break in nature’s laws which it has yet to be proved has ever occurred, or can ever occur. The wonders of nature take place in accordance with natural laws; miracles do not.

WHY HAVE MIRACLES CEASED?

An obvious objection to miracles is the one often propounded by an inquiring child, “Why do we no longer have miracles?” The rationalist’s reply, of course, is that, so soon as nature’s laws were better understood, trustworthy evidence was demanded and miracles ceased. Paley tries to parry the question by saying: “To expect, concerning a miracle, that it should succeed upon repetition is to expect that which would make it cease to be a miracle; which is contrary to its nature as such, and would totally destroy the use and purpose for which it was wrought.”31 But, as Cotter Morison remarks:32 “Assuming that a miracle reveals the presence of a supernatural power, why should its repetition destroy its miraculous character? Above all, why should it destroy its use? If miracles are intended to convert the stiff-necked and hard-of-heart, what more likely way of bringing them to submission than the repetition of miracles? And, according to Scripture, this was precisely the way in which Pharaoh, king of Egypt, was humbled. He resisted the miracles wrought by Moses and Aaron with stubbornness all through the first nine plagues; but the universal slaying of the first-born broke even his spirit.... It may suit Paley to say that repetition of miracles would destroy their use; but he must be a luke-warm theologian who does not at times wish from the depth of his heart that an authentic miracle could be produced. Yet it is at this momentous crisis in the religious affairs of the world, when the enemy is carrying one position after another, and has all but penetrated to the citadel of belief, that no miracles occur, that no miracles are claimed, except, indeed, of the compromising species made at Lourdes.... When no one doubted the possibility of the frequency of miracles they abounded, we are told—that is, when, by reason of their number and the ready credit accorded to them, their effect was the least startling, then they were lavished on a believing world. Now, when they are denied and insulted as the figments of a barbarous age; when the faith they might support is in such jeopardy as it never was before; when a tithe of the wonders wasted in the deserts of Sinai and the ‘parts beyond Jordan’ would shake the nations with astonishment and surprise—when, in short, the least expenditure of miracle would produce the maximum of result, then miracles mysteriously cease. This fact, which is beyond contest, has borne fruit, and will yet bear more.”

Some pious Christians, feeling the force of arguments such as these, contend that Christ’s promises to believers do indeed apply to all time; that supernatural manifestations have not ceased; and that, when there is no exercise of the supernatural in the visible Church of Christendom, it is owing to lack of faith. “Can you give me,” asks Father Ignatius,33 “one single text in Holy Scripture to prove that miracles and visions are to cease with the apostles? When we hear, in all directions, of the supernatural being manifested, we need not wonder, for we are living in a day which demands supernatural manifestations more than any other epoch in the Christian Church.”

BELIEF IN MIRACLES ESSENTIAL

The old argument in support of miracles and inspiration was clearly vitiated by its circular nature, for it was to the effect that miracles were true because asserted to be so in the Bible, which was the inspired word of God, and that the Bible was inspired because the miracles proved it to be so. This argument is gradually being dropped, and I have only alluded to it to show how much importance used to be, and, for the matter of that, still is, attached to miracles, as proving the truth of the Bible. Butler, Paley, Mansel, Mozley, Farrar, Westcott, Liddon, and a host of other authorities, could not conceive that revelation could be made in any other way than by miracles, and felt that without them Christianity would be proved false and overthrown. Such also appears to be the opinion of the majority of our living dignitaries. On the other hand, the minority, which we may take to be represented by the able writers in Contentio Veritatis and elsewhere, maintain that “the time is past when Christianity could be presented as a revelation attested by miracles.... We must accept Christianity, not on the ground of the miracles, but in spite of them.... There has been no special intervention of the Divine Will contrary to the natural order of things.” That is, by ruling miracles to be out of court, the new school are able to reconcile the facts of science with the Christian faith. “Our belief in Jesus Christ must be based upon moral conviction; not upon physical wonder.”34 The old school, on the other hand, consider Christianity to be untrue without miracles. “The miraculous element,” they say, “cannot be weeded out of the Gospel narratives without altogether impugning the historical value of these documents.”35 They are able to maintain this position, and yet remain believers, by disallowing the facts of science. It is an extraordinary state of affairs, and who can wonder that many of the laity who know of these things are meanwhile fast lapsing into agnosticism? As a matter of fact, no bishop, no clerk in Holy Orders, can honestly retain his preferment unless he believes in miracles. He would have to follow the example of the late Sir Leslie Stephen, and resign.