(A) NOTHING GAINED FROM THEOLOGICAL DISCUSSION OF GOD'S POWER TO BREAK HIS LAWS

We gain nothing in this respect by the old theological argument that God is all-powerful, therefore nothing is impossible for Him. If ordinarily a man buried in the grave remains there forever, through the will of God he may arise and live again. The psychology of the untrained mind is easily explicable and to a great extent quite logical. If the caterpillar is metamorphosed into a butterfly, why not a staff into a serpent? If a seed buried in the ground grows and lives, why not a man?1

Such an argument of the all-powerfulness of God has no value whatever. In the first place "God" and "allpowerful" are posited, both conceptions of infinity and we have no experience with infinity. In the second place we can continue the argument by saying: God is all-wise. If so, whatever He made is perfect. The laws of the universe are His laws, therefore they are perfect. If God at any time changes them, that is a confession that these laws were not perfect, therefore God is not perfect, not all-wise, which contradicts the proposition. Therefore,

it follows that God cannot change His laws, cannot perform miracles.2

1

1 Cf. Spencer's very lucid chapter on the Ideas of Death and Resurrection, "Sociology," Vol. I, p. 153 ff.

2 Most remarkable indeed is the fact that already in the Mishnah the Rabbis saw in these miracles the great stumbling block to the conception that God is all-wise. Believing, nevertheless, that the Bible is an authentic record of events, they harmonized the contradiction by accepting the immutability of God's law, thus establishing His omniscience and perfection, and then explaining the miracles by saying that they were not a change of God's law or mind, but that these seeming breaches of nature had been preordained at the very creation of the world (Pirke Aboth 5: 6). While in another place (Rosh Hashanah 3: 8) the Rabbis very emphatically declare the impossibility of miracles and explain them symbolically.

(B) EMPIRIC OR SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE OF VALUE HERE

In any investigation, and, therefore, also in the investigation of miracles, theoretical knowledge can have no value as explanation, unless the theory is at least explicable on principles already known, that is on empiric knowledge. To explain one unknown quantity by another is begging the question.

The problem is to explain miracles, that is, phenomena supposedly not explicable by any known law of nature. Now to explain these miracles by referring them to God, an unknown quantity, to His all-powerfulness, another unknown quantity, to His will, another unknown quantity, is to beg the question with a three-fold begging.

Explanation may often mean simply classification. The first step in every investigation is classification. The botanist, the geologist, the astronomer, the biologist, the psychologist, each begins by classifying. A thing or a phenomenon is explained when classified among other things and phenomena. An object may be found wholly different from anything known, and, therefore, unclassifiable, and yet when it is designated by the very vague name thing" it is already classified and becomes an object of science and, therefore, a natural object and not a supernatural one. So also an appearance may be so unlike anything previously experienced by the individual or the race as to be unclassifiable, yet by the very vague designation" phenomenon," or appearance," it becomes an object of psychology or some other branch of science, and thereby it is included in natural phenomena and not in supernatural. In general, then, whatever is experienced, whether the dividing of the river or the resurrection of the dead, if it is an experienced phenomenon, it is a natural phenomenon, although no satisfactory explanation be at any time forthcoming. The problem, however, with

most so-called miracles is not one of physical science, but of psychology, that is, not how did the thing happen, but how came the writer to record it as fact.

(C) SCIENTIFIC BASIS IN FAVOR OF MIRACLES. THE OBJECTION

The argument drawn from archebiosis might be advanced as a scientific basis in favor of miracles. It might be argued that as no scientist to-day has succeeded in creating living protoplasm out of existing matter under existing conditions, and yet nearly all believe in archebiosis, that is that living matter has in some past epoch originated in accordance with natural laws, so in the same way might it be argued, that all these miracles reported in the Bible, though physically impossible now, under present cosmic conditions, were possible then, and were, therefore, natural in the same identical sense in which our physical laws to-day are natural.

There is, however, a serious objection to this kind of argument. While in the strictest sense cosmic conditions are not identical this moment with the preceding moment, yet for so vast a change in natural law, as, for example, to change sand into lice, a thing impossible now, cosmic conditions certainly require a vastly greater period of time than three thousand years. From all that we learn from contemporary sources there were no perceptible differences between cosmic conditions in Biblical times and now. The explanation must, therefore, be sought in a different direction.

(D) EXPLANATION IN OUR FALSE HISTORIC PER

SPECTIVE

It is clear from the foregoing that I seek an explanation of miracles not in the realm of physics but in psychol

1Fiske, in his "Cosmic Philosophy," Vol. I, Chap. 8, presents an excellent account of "The Beginnings of Life."

ogy. In other words, it is not so much the miracles that need explanation as the minds that believe them. Every increased knowledge of nature increases the conviction of the impossibility of miracles. For, not excluding the possibility of the existence of phenomena unknown to us, or inexplicable by us, I hold that whatever is an object of experience is by that very fact natural.

The whole problem of miracles exists solely because of our false historic perspective. We read for example (Josh. 10: 12-13) that Joshua made the sun and the moon to stand still and still we say: That is something that so far as we know no one can do, hence we conclude that it is a miracle, a direct interference of God with His own laws, and we ask: How do you explain that? What we should do is to get the proper historic perspective and ask: Did the author who chronicled the event intend it as fact

or fiction? If fact, who saw or experienced that fact? Were those who experienced that fact, assuming and granting that they were honest and unbiased, capable to observe accurately and report correctly? /Answering these questions we find the very noteworthy fact that not a single prophet of the really great prophets who wrote their own sermons and recorded contemporaneous history mentions any miracles or supernatural events about himself or his time, and that all the miracles recorded in the Bible were written by historians who lived many centuries after the events which they chronicle. Granting, as I do, that in many cases the writer or compiler embodies older manuscripts,1 the fact above stated is worthy of serious

1 Harper, p. 28. Three schools of interpretation exist: (1) The school which maintained that the material of these documents is contemporaneous with the events described or words uttered; (2) the school which maintains that the material has no historic value, since it is largely, if not wholly, the creation of the later author, and, (3) the school which believes that these writers made use of the earlier writings.

reflection, and can lead to but one conclusion: "Most natural events, if they be handed down by tradition, become exaggerated and assume of themselves, as it were, the character of miracles."2 We could even go further and show that some of the compilers themselves had at least their doubts as to whether they were recording facts, as is evident from the above example chosen at random. The compiler's only authority for the statement that Joshua made the sun and moon to stand still, as he himself states (Josh. 10: 13), is the fact that it is written in the book of Jasher.

If we remember how in our own age of scientific accuracy the biographer often sees in the subject of his biography a hero, no matter how ordinary and commonplace he may have appeared to others, we can understand how, in an age of child-like credulity the truly great man who had impressed his personality and character on his age and time to such an extent as to live in the memory and tradition of his people, how such a man should grow into a hero, a god, a wonder-worker and what-not.3 This element of the miraculous we find not only among Israel in his early stage, but among all ancient peoples and among modern in a low stage of development. Moses performed miracles so also did the Egyptian magicians (Ex. 7: 11). If Elijah, Elisha and Jesus healed the sick without physical means, so also did the

If

1 One thing we must not forget, namely, that when the prophets and other Biblical writers speak of Jahve as doing this or that they mean nothing more or less than that without Jahve nothing either small or great can happen. Jahve to them means exactly what nature means to us. Cf. W. R. Smith, "Prophets of Israel," pp. 313 ff. Also Maimonides, who already in the twelfth century explained that Scripture ascribes phenomena produced by the natural causes to God as the first cause of all things. ("Guide for the Perplexed," Ch. XLVIII.)

2 Kuenen: The Religion of Israel," Vol. I, p. 20. 3 Cf. Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship."