Miracle

MIRACLE

Also called a sign, wonder, or mighty work, Mal 2:32 ; a work so superseding in its higher forms the established laws of nature as to evince the special interposition of God. A miracle is to be distinguished from wonders wrought by designing men through artful deceptions, occult sciences, or laws of nature unknown except to adepts. The miracles wrought by Christ, for example, were such as God only could perform; were wrought in public, before numerous witnesses, both friends and foes; were open to the most perfect scrutiny; had an end in view worthy of divine sanction; were attested by witnesses whose character and conduct establish their claim to our belief; and are further confirmed by institutions still existing, intended to commemorate them, and dating from the period of the miracles. Christ appealed to his mighty works as undeniable proofs of his divinity and Messiahship, Mat 9:6 11:4,5,23,24 Joh 10:24-27 20:29,31. The deceptions of the magicians in Egypt, and of false prophets in ancient and in modern times, Deu 13:1 Mat 24:24 2Th 2:9 Jer 13:13,14, would not bear the above tests. By granting to any man the power to work a miracle, God gave the highest attestation to the truth he should teach and the message he should bring, 1Ki 18:38,39 ; this is God’s own seal, not to be affixed to false hoods; and though the lying wonders of Satan and his agents were so plausible as to “deceive if possible the very elect,” no one who truly sought to know and do the will of God could be deluded by them.The chief object of miracles having been to authenticate the revelation God has made of his will, these mighty words ceased when the Scripture canon was completed and settled, and Christianity was fairly established. Since the close of the first century from the ascension of Christ, few or no undoubted miracles have been wrought; and whether a sufficient occasion for new miracles will ever arise is known only to God.The following list comprises most of the miracles on record in the Bible, not including the supernatural visions and revelations of himself which God vouch-safed to his ancient servants, nor those numerous wonders of his providence which manifest his hand almost as indisputable as miracles themselves. See also PROPHECY. Old Testament MiraclesThe creation of all things, Gen 1:1-31 .The deluge, comprising many miracles, Gen 6:1-22 .The destruction of Sodom, etc., Gen 19:1-38 .The healing of Abimelech, Gen 20:17,18 .The burning bush, Exo 3:2-4 .Moses’ rod made a serpent, and restored, Exo 4:3-4 7:10.Moses’ hand made leprous, and healed, Ex 4.6-7.Water turned into blood, Exo 4:9,30 .The Nile turned to blood, Exo 7:20 .Frogs brought and removed, Exo 8:6,13 .Lice brought, Exo 8:17 .Flies brought, and removed, Exo 8:21-31 .Murrain of beasts, Exo 9:3-6 .Boils and blains brought, Exo 9:10,11 .Hail brought, and removed, Exo 9:23,33 .Locusts brought, and removed, Exo 10:13,19 .Darkness brought, Exo 10:22 .First-born destroyed, Exo 10:29 .The Red Sea divided, Exo 14:21-22 .Egyptians overwhelmed, Exo 14:26-28 .Waters of Marah sweetened, Exo 15:27 .Quails and manna sent, Exo 16:1-36 .Water from the rock, in Horeb, Exo 17:6 .Amalek vanquished, Exo 17:11-13 .Pillar of cloud and fire, Num 9:15-23 .Leprosy of Miriam, Num 12:10 .Destruction of Korah, etc., Num 16:28-35,46 -50.Aaron’s rod budding, Num 17:8 .Water from the rock, in Kadesh, Num 20:11 .Healing by the brazen serpent, Num 21:8,9 .Balaam’s ass speaks, Num 22:28 .Plague in the desert, Num 25:1,9 .Water of Jordan divided, Jos 3:10-17 .Jordan restored to its course, Jos 4:18 .Jericho taken, Jos 6:6-20 .Achan discovered, Jos 7:14-21 .Sun and moon stand still, Jos 10:12-14 .Gideon’s fleece wet, Jdg 6:36-40 .Midianites destroyed, Jdg 7:16-22 .Exploits of Samson, Jdg 14:1-16 :31.House of Dagon destroyed, Jdg 16:30 .Dagon falls before the ark, etc., 1Sa 5:1-12 .Return of the ark, 1Sa 6:12 .Thunder and rain in harvest, 1Sa 12:18 .Jeroboam’s hand withered, etc., 1Ki 13:4,6 .The altar rent, 1Ki 13:5 .Drought caused, 1Ki 17:6 .Elijah fed by ravens, 1Ki 17:6 .Meal and oil supplied, 1Ki 17:14-16 .Child restored to life, 1Ki 17:22-23 .Sacrifice consumed by fire, 1Ki 18:36,38 .Rain brought, 1Ki 18:41-45 .Men destroyed by fire, 2Ki 1:10-12 .Waters of Jordan divided, 2Ki 2:14 .Oil supplied, 2Ki 4:1-7 .Child restored to life, 2Ki 4:32-35 .Naaman healed, 2Ki 5:10,14 .Gehazi’s leprosy, 2Ki 5:27 .Iron caused to swim, 2Ki 6:6 .Syrians smitten blind, etc., 2Ki 19:35 .Hezekiah healed, 2Ki 20:7 .Shadow put back, 2Ki 20:11 .Pestilence in Israel, 1Ch 21:14 .Jonah preserved by a fish, Jon 1:17 2:10.New Testament Miracles.The star in the east, Mat 2:3 .The Spirit like a dove, Mat 3:16 .Christ’s fast and temptations, Mat 4:1-11 .Many miracles of Christ, Mat 4:23-24 8:16 14:14,36 15:30 Mar 1:34 Luk 6:17-19 .Lepers cleansed, Mat 8:3-4 Luk 17:14 .Centurion’s servant healed, Mat 8:5-13 .Peter’s wife’s mother healed, Mat 8:14 .Tempests stilled, Mat 8:23-26 14:32.Devils cast out, Mat 8:28-32 9:32-33 15:22-28 17:14-18.Paralytics healed, Mat 9:2-6 Mar 2:3-12 .Issue of blood healed, Mat 9:20-22 .Jairus’ daughter raised to life, Mat 9:18,25 .Sight given to the blind, Mat 9:27-30 20:34 Mar 8:22-25 Joh 9:17 .The dumb restored, Mat 9:32-33 12:22 Mar 7:33-35 .Miracles by the disciples, Mat 10:1-8 .Multitudes fed, Mat 14:15-21 15:35-38.Christ walking on the sea, Mat 14:25-27 .Peter walking on the sea, Mat 14:29 .Christ’s transfiguration, etc., Mat 17:1-8 .Tribute from a fish’s mouth, Mat 17:27 .The fig tree withered, Mat 21:19 .Miracles at the crucifixion, Mat 27:51-53 .Miracles at the resurrection, Mat 28:1-7 Luk 24:6 .Draught of fishes, Luk 5:4-6 Joh 21:6 .Widow’s son raised to life, Luk 7:14,15 .Miracles before John’s messengers, Luk 7:21-22 .Miracles by the seventy, Luk 10:9,17 .Woman healed of infirmity, Luk 13:11-13 .Dropsy cured, Luk 14:2-4 .Malchus’ ear restored, Luk 22:50-51 .Water turned to wine, Joh 2:6-10 .Nobleman’s son healed, Joh 4:46-53 .Impotent man healed, Joh 5:5-9 .Sudden crossing of the sea, Joh 6:21 .Lazarus raised from the dead, Joh 11:43-44 .Christ’s coming to his disciples, Joh 20:19,26 .Wonders at the Pentecost, Mal 2:1-11 .Miracles by the apostles, Mal 2:43 5:12.Lame man cured, Mal 3:7 .Death of Ananias and Sapphira, Mal 5:5,10 .Many sick healed, Mal 5:15-16 .Apostles delivered from prison, Mal 5:19 .Miracles by Stephen, Mal 6:8 .Miracles by Philip, Mal 8:6,7,13 .Eneas made whole, Mal 9:34 .Dorcas restored to life, Mal 9:40 .Peter delivered from prison, Mal 12:6-10 .Elymas struck blind, Mal 13:11 .Miracles by Paul and Barnabas, Mal 14:3 .Lame man cured, Mal 14:10 .Unclean spirit cast out, Mal 16:18 .Paul and Silas delivered, Mal 16:25-26 .Special miracles, Mal 19:11-12 .Eutchus restored to life, Mal 20:10-12 .Viper’s bite made harmless, Mal 28:5 .Father of Publius, etc., healed, Mal 28:8,9 .

Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

MIRACLE

In its original sense, is a word of the same import with wonder; but, in its usual and more appropriate signification, it denotes “an effect contrary to the established constitution and course of things, or a sensible deviation from the known laws of nature.” “That the visible world, ” says Dr. Gleig, “is governed by stated general rules, or that there is an order of causes and effects established in every part of the system of nature which falls under our observation, is a fact which cannot be controverted. If the Supreme Being, as some have supposed, be the only real agent in the universe, we have the evidence of experience, that in the particular system to which we belong he acts by stated rules. If he employs inferior agents to conduct the various motions from which the phenomena result, we have the same evidence that he has subjected those agents to certain fixed laws, commonly called the laws of nature. On either hypothesis, effects which are produced by the regular operation of these laws, or which are conformable to the established course of events, are properly called natural; and every contradiction to this contitution of the natural system, and the correspondent course of events in it, is called a miracle.

“If this definition of a miracle be just, no event can be deemed miraculous merely because it is strange, or even to us unaccountable: since it may be nothing more than a regular effect of some unknown law of nature. In this country earthquakes are rare; and for monstrous births, perhaps, no particular and satisfactory account can be given: yet an earthquake is as regular an effect of the established laws of nature as any of those with which we are most intimately acquainted: and, under circumstances in which there would always be the same kind of production, the monster is nature’s genuine issue. It is therefore necessary, before we can pronounce any effect to be a true miracle, that the circumstances under which it is produced be known, and that the common course of nature be in some degree understood; for in all those cases in which we are totally ignorant of nature, it is impossible to determine what is, or what is not, a deviation from its course. Miracles, therefore, are not, as some have represented them, appeals to our ignorance. They suppose some antecedent knowledge of the course of nature, without which no proper judgment can be formed concerning them; though with it their reality may be so apparent as to prevent all possibility of a dispute.

“Thus, were a physician to cure a blind man of a cataract, by anointing his eyes with a chemical preparation which we had never before seen, and to the nature and effects of which we are absolute strangers, the cure would undoubtedly be wonderful; but we could not pronounce it miraculous, because, for any thing known to us, it might be the natural effect of the operation of the unguent on the eye. But were he to recover his patient merely by commanding him to see, or by anointing his eyes with spittle, we should with the utmost confidence pronounce the cure to be a miracle; because we know perfectly that neither the human voice nor human spittle have, by the established constitution of things, any such power over the diseases of the eye. “If miracles be effects contrary to the established constitution of things, we are certain that they will never be performed on trivial occasions. The constitution of things was established by the Creator and Governor of the universe, and is undoubtedly the offspring of infinite wisdom, pursuing a plan for the best of purposes. From this plan no deviation can be made but by God himself, or by some powerful being acting with his permission. The proportion to their perfection, and the plans of infinite wisdom must be absolutely perfect. From this consideration, some men have ventured to conclude that no miracle was ever wrought, or can rationally be expected; but maturer reflection must soon satisfy us that all such conclusions are hasty.

“Man is unquestionably the principal creature in this world, and apparently the only one in it who is capable of being made acquainted with the relation in which he stands to his Creator. We cannot, therefore, doubt, but that such of the laws of nature as extend not their operation beyond the limits of this earth were established chiefly, if not solely, for the good of mankind; and if, in any particular circumstances, that good can be more effectually promoted by an occasional deviation from those laws, such a deviation may be reasonably expected. “We know from history, that almost all mankind were once sunk into the grossest ignorance of the most important truths; that they knew not the Being by whom they were created and supported; that they paid divine adoration to stocks, stones, and the vilest reptiles; and that they were slaves to the most impious, cruel, and degrading superstitions. : From this depraved state it was surely not unworthy of the Divine Being to rescue his helpless creatures, to enlighten their understandings that they might perceive what is right, and to present to them motives of sufficient force to engage them in the practice of it. But the understandings of ignorant barbarians cannot be enlightened by arguments; because of the force of such arguments as regard moral science they are not qualified to judge.

The philosophers of Athens and Rome inculcated, indeed, many excellent moral precepts, and they sometimes ventured to expose the absurdities of the reigning superstitions; but their lectures had no influence upon the multitude; and they had themselves imbibed such erroneous notions respecting the attributes of the Supreme Being, and the nature of the human soul, and converted those notions into first principles, of which they would not permit an examination, that even among them a thorough reformation was not to be expected from the powers of reasoning. It is likewise to be observed, that there are many truths of the utmost importance to mankind, which unassisted reason could never have discovered. Amongst these, we may confidently reckon the immortality of the soul, the terms upon which God will save sinners, and the manner in which that all perfect Being may be acceptably worshipped; about all of which philosophers were in such uncertainty, that, according to Plato, ‘Whatever is set right, and as it should be, in the present evil state of the world, can be so only by the particular interposition of God. “an immediate revelation from heaven, therefore, was the only method by which infinite wisdom and perfect goodness could reform a bewildered and vicious race.

But this revelation, at whatever time we suppose it given, must have been made directly either to some chosen individuals commissioned to instruct others, or to every man and woman for whose benefit it was ultimately intended. Were every person instructed in the knowledge of his duty by immediate inspiration, and were the motives to practise it brought home to his mind by God himself, human nature would be wholly changed; men would not be moral agents, nor by consequence be capable either of reward or of punishment. It remains, therefore that, if God has been graciously pleased to enlighten and reform mankind, without destroying that moral nature which man possesses, he can have done it only by revealing his truth to certain chosen instruments, who were the immediate instructors of their contemporaries, and through them have been the instructors of succeeding ages. “Let us suppose this to have been actually the case, and consider how those inspired teachers could communicate to others every truth which had been revealed to themselves. They might easily, if it were part of their duty, to deliver a sublime divine system of natural and moral science, and establish it upon the common basis of experiment and demonstration: but what foundation could they lay for those truths which unassisted reason cannot discover, and which, when they are revealed, appear to have no necessary relation to any thing previously known? To a bare affirmation that they had been immediately received from God, no rational being could be expected to assent.

The teachers might be men of known veracity, whose simple assertion would be admitted as sufficient evidence for any fact in conformity with the laws of nature; but as every man has the evidence of his own consciousness and experience that revelations from heaven are deviations from these laws, an assertion so apparently extravagant would be rejected as false, unless supported by some better proof than the mere affirmation of the teacher. In this state of things we can conceive no evidence sufficient to make such doctrines be received as the truths of God, but the power of working miracles committed to him who taught them. This would, indeed, be fully adequate to the purpose: for if there were nothing in the doctrines themselves impious, immoral, or contrary to truths already known, the only thing which could render the teacher’s assertion incredible, would be its implying such an intimate communion with God as is contrary to the established course of things, by which men are left to acquire all their knowledge by the exercise of their own faculties. Let us now suppose one of those inspired teachers to tell his countrymen, that he did not desire them, on his ipse dixit, to believe that he had any preternatural communion with the Deity, but that, for the truth of his assertion, he would give them the evidence of their own senses; and after this declaration, let us suppose him immediately to raise a person from the dead in their presence, merely by calling upon him to come out of his grave.

Would not the only possible objection to the man’s veracity be removed by this miracle? and his assertion that he had received such and such doctrines from God be as fully credited as if it related to the most common occurrence? Undoubtedly it would; for when so much preternatural power was visibly communicated to this person, no one could have reason to question his having received an equal portion of preternatural knowledge. A palpable deviation from the known laws of nature in one instance, is a sensible proof that such a deviation is possible in another; and in such a case as this, it is the witness of God to the truth of a man. “Miracles, then, under which we include prophecy, are the only direct evidence which can be given of divine inspiration. When a religion, or any religious truth, is to be revealed from heaven, they appear to be absolutely necessary to enforce its reception among men; and this is the only case in which we can suppose them necessary, or believe for a moment that they ever have been or will be performed. “The history of almost every religion abounds with relations of prodigies and wonders, and of the intercourse of men with the gods; but we know of no religious system, those of the Jews and Christians excepted, which appealed to miracles as the sole evidence of its truth and divinity. The pretended miracles mentioned by Pagan historians and poets, are not said to have been publicly wrought to enforce the truth of a new religion, contrary to the reigning idolatry.

Many of them may be clearly shown to have been mere natural events; others of them are represented as having been performed in secret on the most trivial occasions, and in obscure and fabulous ages long prior to the era of the writers by whom they are recorded; and such of them as at first view appear to be best attested, are evidently tricks contrived for interested purposes, to flatter power, or to promote the prevailing superstitions. For these reasons, as well as on account of the immoral character of the divinities by whom they are said to have been wrought, they are altogether unworthy of examination, and carry in the very nature of them the completest proofs of falsehood and imposture. “But the miracles recorded of Moses and of Christ bear a very different character. None of them are represented as wrought on trivial occasions. The writers who mention them were eye-witnesses of the facts; which they affirm to have been performed publicly, in attestation of the truth of their respective systems. They are, indeed, so incorporated with these systems, that the miracles cannot be separated from the doctrines; and if the miracles be not really performed, the doctrines cannot possibly be true.

Besides all this, they were wrought in support of revelations which opposed all the religious systems, superstitions, and prejudices, of the age in which they were given; a circumstance which of itself sets them in point of authority, infinitely above the Pagan prodigies, as well as the lying wonders of the Romish church. “It is indeed, we believe, universally admitted that the miracles mentioned in the book of Exodus, and in the four Gospels, might, to those who saw them performed, be sufficient evidence of the divine inspiration of Moses and of Christ; but to us it may be thought that they are no evidence whatever, as we must believe in the miracles themselves, if we believe in them at all, upon the bare authority of human testimony. Why, it has been sometimes asked, are not miracles wrought in all ages and countries? If the religion of Christ was to be of perpetual duration, every generation of men ought to have complete evidence of its truth and divinity. “To the performance of miracles in every age and in every country, perhaps the same objections lie, as to the immediate inspiration of every individual. Were those miracles universally received as such, men would be so overwhelmed with the number rather than with the force of their authority, as hardly to remain masters of their own conduct; and in that case the very end of all miracles would be defeated by their frequency.

The truth, however, seems to be, that miracles so frequently repeated would not be received as such, and of course would have no authority; because it would be difficult, and in many cases impossible, to distinguish them from natural events. If they recurred regularly at certain intervals, we could not prove them to be deviations from the known laws of nature, because we should have the same experience for one series of events as for the other; for the regular succession of preternatural effects, as for the established constitution and course of things. “Be this, however, as it may, we shall take the liberty to affirm, that for the reality of the Gospel miracles, we have evidence as convincing to the reflecting mind, though not so striking to vulgar apprehension, as those had who were contemporary with Christ and his apostles, and actually saw the mighty works which he performed. Me. Hume, indeed, endeavoured to prove, that ‘no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle? and the reasoning employed for this purpose is, that ‘a miracle being a violation of the laws of nature, which a firm and unalterable experience has established, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience’ can be: whereas our experience of human veracity, which (according to him) is the sole foundation of the evidence of testimony, as far from being uniform, and can therefore never preponderate against that experience which admits of no exception.’

This boasted and plausible argument has with equal candour and acuteness been examined by Dr. Campbell, in his Dissertation on Miracles, who justly observes, that so far is experience from being the sole foundation of the evidence of testimony, that, on the contrary, testimony is the sole foundation of by far the greater part of what Mr. Hume calls firm and unalterable experience; and that it, in certain circumstances, we did not give an implicit faith to testimony, our knowledge of events would be confined to those which had fallen under the immediate observation of our own senses. “We need not waste time here in proving that the miracles, as they are presented in the writings of the New Testament, were of such a nature, and performed before so many witnesses, that no imposition could possibly be practised on the senses of those who affirm that they were present. From every page of the Gospel this is so evident, that the philosophical adversaries of the Christian faith never suppose the apostles to have been themselves deceived, but boldly accuse them of bearing false witness. But if this accusation be well founded, their testimony itself is as great a miracle as any which they record of themselves, or of their Master. For if they sat down to fabricate their pretended revelation, and to contrive a series of miracles to which they were unanimously to appeal for its truth, it is plain, since they proved successful in their daring enterprise, that they must have clearly foreseen every possible circumstance in which they could be placed, and have prepared consistent answers to every question that could be put to them by their most inveterate and most enlightened enemies; by the statesman, the lawyer, the philosopher, and the priest.

That such foreknowledge as this would have been miraculous, will not surely be denied: since it forms the very attribute which we find it the most difficult to allow even to God himself. It is not, however, the only miracle which this supposition would compel us to swallow. The very resolution of the apostles to propagate the belief of false miracles in support of such a religion as that which is taught in the New Testament, is as great a miracle as human imagination can easily conceive. “When they formed this design, either they must have hoped to succeed, or they must have foreseen that they should fail in their undertaking; and, in either case, they chose evil for its own sake. They could not, if they foresaw that they should fail, look for any thing but that contempt, disgrace, and persecution, which were then the inevitable consequences of an unsuccessful endeavour to overthrow the established religion. Nor could their prospects be brighter upon the supposition of their success. As they knew themselves to be false witnesses, and impious deceivers, they could have no hopes beyond the grave; and by determining to oppose all the religious systems, superstitions, and prejudices of the age in which they lived, they wilfully exposed themselves to inevitable misery in the present life, to insult and imprisonment, to stripes and death. Nor can it be said that they might look forward to power and affluence, when they should through sufferings have converted their countrymen; for so desirous were they of obtaining nothing but misery, as the end of their mission, that they made their own persecution a test of the truth of their doctrines.

They introduced the Master from whom they pretended to have received these doctrines as telling them, that ‘they were sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: that they should be delivered up to councils, and scourged in synagogues; that they should be hated of all men for his name’s sake; that the brother should deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and that he who took not up his cross, and followed after him, was not worthy of him.’ The very system of religion, therefore, which they invented and resolved to impose upon mankind, was so contrived, that the worldly prosperity of its first preachers, and even their exemption from persecution, was incompatible with its success. Had these clear predictions of the Author of that religion, under whom the apostles acted only as ministers not been verified, all mankind must have instantly perceived that their pretence to inspiration was false, and that Christianity was a scandalous and impudent imposture. All this the apostles could not but foresee when they formed their plan for deluding the world. Whence it follows, that when they resolved to support their pretended revelation by an appeal to forged miracles, they wilfully, and with their eyes open, exposed themselves to inevitable misery, whether they should succeed or fail in their enterprise; and that they concerted their measures so as not to admit of a possibility of recompence to themselves, either in this life or in that which is to come.

But if there be a law of nature, for the reality of which we have better evidence than we have for others, it is, that ‘no man can choose misery for its own sake, ‘ or make the acquisition of it the ultimate end of his pursuit. The existence of other laws of nature we know by testimony, and our own observation of the regularity of their effects. The existence of this law is made known to us not only by these means, but also by the still clearer and more conclusive evidence of our own consciousness. “Thus, then, do miracles force themselves upon our assent in every possible view which we can take of this interesting subject. If the testimony of the first preachers of Christianity were true, the miracles recorded in the Gospel were certainly performed, and the doctrines of our religion are derived from heaven. On the other hand, if that testimony were false, either God must have miraculously effaced from the minds of those by whom it was given, all the associations formed between their sensible ideas and the words of language, or he must have endowed those men with the gift of prescience, and have impelled them to fabricate a pretended revelation for the purpose of deceiving the world, and involving themselves in certain and foreseen destruction. “

The power necessary to perform the one series of these miracles may, for any thing known to us, be as great as that which would be requisite for the performance of the other; and, considered merely as exertions of preternatural power, they may seem to balance each other, and to hold the mind in a state of suspense; but when we take into consideration the different purposes for which these opposite and contending miracles were wrought, the balance is instantly destroyed. The miracles recorded in the Gospels, if real, were wrought in support of a revelation which, in the opinion of all by whom it is received, has brought to light many important truths which could not otherwise have been made known to men; and which, by the confession of its adversaries, contains the purest moral precepts by which the conduct of mankind was ever directed. The opposite series of miracles, if real, was performed to enable, and even to compel, a company of Jews, of the lowest rank and of the narrowest education, to fabricate, with the view of inevitable destruction to themselves, a consistent scheme of falsehood, and by an appeal to forged miracles to impose it upon the world as a revelation from heaven. The object of the former miracles is worthy of a God of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power; the object of the latter is absolutely inconsistent with wisdom and goodness, which are demonstrably attributes of that Being by whom alone it follows, that the supposition of the apostles bearing false testimony to the miracles of their Master, implies a series of deviations from the laws of nature infinitely less probable in themselves than those miracles: and therefore, by Mr. Hume’s maxim, we must necessarily reject the supposition of falsehood in the testimony, and admit the reality of the miracles.

So true it is, that for the reality of the Gospel miracles we have evidence as convincing to the reflecting mind as those had who were contemporary with Christ and his apostles, and were actual witnesses to their mighty works.” The power of working miracles is supposed by some to have been continued no longer than the apostles’ days. Others think that it was continued long after. It seems pretty clear, however, that miracles universally ceased before Chrysostom’s time. As for what Augustine says of those wrought at the tombs of the martyrs, and some other places, in his time, the evidence is not always so convincing as might be desired in facts of importance. the controversy concerning the time when miraculous powers ceased was carried on by Dr. Middleton, in his Free Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers, &c. by Mr. Yate, Mr. Toll, and others, who suppose that miracles ceased with the apostles. On the contrary side appeared Dr. Stebbing, Dr. Chapman, Mr. Parker, Mr. Brooke, and others. As to the miracles of the Romish church, it is evident, as Doddridge observes, that many of them were ridiculous tales, according to their own historians; others were performed without any credible witnesses, or in circumstances where the performer had the greatest opportunity of juggling; and it is particularly remarkable, that they were hardly ever wrought where they seem most necessary, 1: e. in countries where those doctrines are renounced which that church esteems of the highest importance.

See Fleetwood, Clarapede, Conybeare, Campbell, Lardner, Farmer, Adams, and Weston, on Miracles, article Miracle, Enc. Brit. Doddridge’s Lect. lec. 101 and 135; Leland’s View of Deistical Writers, letter 3, 4, 7; Hurrion on the Spirit, p. 299. &c.

Fuente: Theological Dictionary

miracle

(Latin: mirari, to wonder)

An effect which causes admiration because it cannot be produced by any natural agency but only by the power of God. It is above the natural law, as when one dead is restored to life; contrary to this law, as when Moses caused water to gush from a rock; independent of the law, as when something that might be done by natural causes, e.g., the immediate cure of a dangerous malady, is effected without the aid of physician or medicine. Granted the existence of Almighty God, since He could create the universe and establish its laws, there is no reason why He cannot alter its course and interfere with its laws. There is every reason why He should do so if He wills to conflrm some truth or fact by miraculous manifestation of His power, as did Our Lord and His Apostles when it was hopeless to expect men and women, as they were at that time, to accept the teachings of Christianity without such evidence of their Divine origin as miracles.

Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary

Miracle

(Latin miraculum, from mirari, “to wonder”).

In general, a wonderful thing, the word being so used in classical Latin; in a specific sense, the Latin Vulgate designates by miracula wonders of a peculiar kind, expressed more clearly in the Greek text by the terms terata, dynameis, semeia, i.e., wonders performed by supernatural power as signs of some special mission or gift and explicitly ascribed to God. These terms are used habitually in the New Testament and express the meaning of miraculum of the Vulgate. Thus St. Peter in his first sermon speaks of Christ as approved of God, dynamesin, kai terasin kai semeiois (Acts 2:22) and St. Paul says that the signs of his Apostleship were wrought, semeiois te kai terasin kai dynamesin (2 Corinthians 12:12). Their united meaning is found in the term erga i.e., works, the word constantly employed in the Gospels to designate the miracles of Christ. The analysis of these terms therefore gives the nature and scope of the miracle.

I. NATURE

(1) The word terata literally means “wonders”, in reference to feelings of amazement excited by their occurrence, hence effects produced in the material creation appealing to, and grasped by, the senses, usually by the sense of sight, at times by hearing, e.g., the baptism of Jesus, the conversion of St. Paul. Thus, though the works of Divine grace, such as the Sacramental Presence, are above the power of nature, and due to God alone, they may be called miraculous only in the wide meaning of the term, i.e., as supernatural effects, but they are not miracles in the sense here understood, for miracles in the strict sense are apparent. The miracle falls under the grasp of the senses, either in the work itself (e.g. raising the dead to life) or in its effects (e.g., the gifts of infused knowledge with the Apostles). In like manner the justification of a soul in itself is miraculous, but is not a miracle properly so called, unless it takes place in a sensible manner, as, e.g., in the case of St. Paul. The wonder of the miracle is due to the fact that its cause is hidden, and an effect is expected other than what actually takes place. Hence, by comparison with the ordinary course of things, the miracle is called extraordinary. In analyzing the difference between the extraordinary character of the miracle and the ordinary course of nature, the Fathers of the Church and theologians employ the terms above, contrary to, and outside nature. These terms express the manner in which the miracle is extraordinary.

A miracle is said to be above nature when the effect produced is above the native powers and forces in creatures of which the known laws of nature are the expression, as raising a dead man to life, e.g., Lazarus (John 11), the widow’s son (1 Kings 17). A miracle is said to be outside, or beside, nature when natural forces may have the power to produce the effect, at least in part, but could not of themselves alone have produced it in the way it was actually brought about. Thus the effect in abundance far exceeds the power of natural forces, or it takes place instantaneously without the means or processes which nature employs. In illustration we have the multiplication of loaves by Jesus (John 6), the changing of water into wine at Cana (John 2) — for the moisture of the air by natural and artificial processes is changed into wine — or the sudden healing of a large extent of diseased tissue by a draught of water. A miracle is said to be contrary to nature when the effect produced is contrary to the natural course of things.

The term miracle here implies the direct opposition of the effect actually produced to the natural causes at work, and its imperfect understanding has given rise to much confusion in modern thought. Thus Spinoza calls a miracle a violation of the order of nature (proeverti, “Tract. Theol. Polit.”, vi). Hume says it is a “violation” or an “infraction”, and many writers — e.g., Martensen, Hodge, Baden-Powell, Theodore Parker — use the term for miracles as a whole. But every miracle is not of necessity contrary to nature, for there are miracles above or outside nature. Again, the term contrary to nature does not mean “unnatural” in the sense of producing discord and confusion. The forces of nature differ in power and are in constant interaction. This produces interferences and counteractions of forces. This is true of mechanical, chemical, and biological forces. So, also, at every moment of the day I interfere with and counteract natural forces about me. I study the properties of natural forces with a view to obtain conscious control by intelligent counteractions of one force against another. Intelligent counteraction marks progress in chemistry, in physics — e.g., steam locomotion, aviation — and in the prescriptions of the Physician. Man controls nature, nay, can live only by the counteraction of natural forces. Though all this goes on around us, we never speak of natural forces violated. These forces are still working after their kind, and no force is destroyed, nor is any law broken, nor does confusion result. The introduction of human will may bring about a displacement of the physical forces, but no infraction of physical processes. Now in a miracle God’s action relative to its bearing on natural forces is analogous to the action of human personality. Thus, e.g., it is against the nature of iron to float, but the action of Eliseus in raising the axe-head to the surface of the water (2 Kings 6) is no more a violation, or a transgression, or an infraction of natural laws than if he raised it with his hand. Again, it is of the nature of fire to burn, but when, e.g., the Three Children were preserved untouched in the fiery furnace (Dan., iii) there was nothing unnatural in the act, as these writers use the word, any more than there would be in erecting a dwelling absolutely fireproof. In the one case, as in the other, there was no paralysis of natural forces and no consequent disorder.

The extraordinary element in the miracle — i.e. an event apart from the ordinary course of things; enables us to understand the teaching of theologians that events which ordinarily take place in the natural or supernatural course of Divine Providence are not miracles, although they are beyond the efficiency of natural forces. Thus, e.g., the creation of the soul is not a miracle, for it takes place in the ordinary course of nature. Again, the justification of the sinner, the Eucharistic Presence, the sacramental effects, are not miracles for two reasons: they are beyond the grasp of the senses and they have place in the ordinary course of God’s supernatural Providence.

(2) The word dynamis, “power” is used in the New Testament to signify: the power of working miracles, (en dymamei semeion — Romans 15:19); mighty works as the effects of this power, i.e., miracles themselves (al pleistai dynameis autou — Matthew 11:20) and expresses the efficient cause of the miracle, i.e., Divine power. Hence the miracle is called supernatural, because the effect is beyond the productive power of nature and implies supernatural agency. Thus St. Thomas teaches: “Those effects are rightly to be termed miracles which are wrought by Divine power apart from the order usually observed in nature” (Contra Gent., III, cii), and they are apart from the natural order because they are “beyond the order or laws of the whole created nature” (ST I:102:4). Hence dynamis adds to the meaning of terata by pointing out the efficient cause. For this reason miracles in Scripture are called “the finger of God” (Exodus 8:19, Luke 11:20), “the hand of the Lord” (1 Samuel 5:6), “the hand of our God” (I Esdras viii, 31). In referring the miracle to God as its efficient cause the answer is given to the objection that the miracle is unnatural, i.e., an uncaused event without meaning or place in nature. With God as the cause, the miracle has a place in the designs of God’s Providence (Contra Gent. III, xcviii). In this sense — i.e., relatively to God — St. Augustine speaks of the miracle as natural (De Civit. Dei, XXI, viii, n. 2).

An event is above the course of nature and beyond its productive powers: with regard to its substantial nature, i.e., when the effect is of such a kind that no natural power could bring it to pass in any manner or form whatsoever, as e.g., the raising to life of the widow’s son (Luke 7), or the cure of the man born blind (John 9). These miracles are called miracles as to substance (quoad substantiam). With regard to the manner in which the effect is produced i.e., where there may be forces in nature fitted and capable of producing the effect considered in itself, yet the effect is produced in a manner wholly different from the manner in which it should naturally be performed, i.e., instantaneously, by a word, e.g., the cure of the leper (Luke 5). These are called miracles as to the manner of their production (quoad modum). God’s power is shown in the miracle: directly through His own immediate action or mediately through creatures as means or instruments. In the latter case the effects must be ascribed to God, for He works in and through the instruments; “Ipso Deo in illis operante” (Augustine, “De Civit. Dei”, X, xii). Hence God works miracles through the instrumentality of angels, e.g., the Three Children in the fiery furnace (Dan., iii), the deliverance of St. Peter from prison (Acts 12); of men, e.g., Moses and Aaron (Exodus 7), Elias (1 Kings 17), Eliseus (2 Kings 5), the Apostles (Acts 2:43), St. Peter (Acts 3:9), St. Paul (Acts 19), the early Christians (Galatians 3:5). In the Bible also, as in church history, we learn that animate things are instruments of Divine power, not because they have any excellence in themselves, but through a special relation to God. Thus we distinguish holy relics, e.g., the mantle of Elias (2 Kings 2), the body of Eliseus (IV Kings xiii), the hem of Christ’s garment (Matthew 9), the handkerchiefs of St. Paul (Acts 19:12); holy images, e.g., the brazen serpent (Numbers 21) holy things, e.g., the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred vessels of the Temple (Dan., v); holy places, e.g., the Temple of Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 6:7), the waters of the Jordan (2 Kings 5), the Pool of Bethsaida (John 5). Hence the contention of some modern writers, that a miracle requires an immediate action of Divine power, is not true. It is sufficient that the miracle be due to the intervention of God, and its nature is revealed by the utter lack of proportion between the effect and what are called means or instruments.

The word semeion means “sign”, an appeal to intelligence, and expresses the purpose or final cause of the miracle. A miracle is a factor in the Providence of God over men. Hence the glory of God and the good of men are the primary or supreme ends of every miracle. This is clearly expressed by Christ in the raising of Lazarus (John 11), and the Evangelist says that Jesus, in working His first miracle at Cana, “manifested his glory” (John 2:11). Therefore the miracle must be worthy the holiness, goodness, and justice of God, and conducive to the true good of men. Hence they are not performed by God to repair physical defects in His creation, nor are they intended to produce, nor do they produce, disorder or discord; do they contain any element which is wicked, ridiculous, useless, or unmeaning. Hence they are not on the same plane with mere wonders, tricks works of ingenuity, or magic. The efficacy, usefulness, purpose of the work and the manner of performing it clearly show that it must be ascribed to Divine power. This high standing and dignity of the miracle is shown, e.g., in the miracles of Moses (Exodus 7-10), of Elias (1 Kings 18:21-38), of Eliseus (2 Kings 5). The multitudes glorified God at the cure of the paralytic (Matthew 9:8), of the blind man (Luke 18:43), at the miracles of Christ in general (Matthew 15:31, Luke 19:37), as at the cure of the lame man by St. Peter (Acts 4:21). Hence miracles are signs of the supernatural world and our connection with it.

In miracles we can always distinguish secondary ends, subordinate, however, to the primary ends. Thus they are evidences attesting and confirming the truth of a Divine mission, or of a doctrine of faith or morals, e.g., Moses (Exodus 4), Elias (1 Kings 17:24). For this reason the Jews see in Christ “the prophet” (John 6:14), in whom “God hath visited his people” (Luke 7:16). Hence the disciples believed in Him (John 2:11) and Nicodemus (John 3:2) and the man born blind (John 9:38), and the many who had seen the raising of Lazarus (John 11:45). Jesus constantly appealed to His “works” to prove that He was sent by God and that He is the Son of God, e.g., to the Disciples of John (Matthew 11:4), to the Jews (John 10:37). He claims that His miracles are a greater testimony than the testimony of John (John 5:36), condemns those who will not believe (John 15:24), as He praises those who do (John 17:8), and exhibits miracles as the signs of the True Faith (Mark 16:17). The Apostles appeal to miracles as the confirmation of Christ’s Divinity and mission (John 20:31; Acts 10:38), and St. Paul counts them as the signs of his Apostleship (2 Corinthians 12:12). Miracles are wrought to attest true sanctity. Thus, e.g., God defends Moses (Numbers 12), Elias (2 Kings 1), Eliseus (2 Kings 13). Hence the testimony of the man born blind (John 9:30 sqq.) and the official processes in the canonization of saints. As benefits either spiritual or temporal. The temporal favours are always subordinate to spiritual ends, for they are a reward or a pledge of virtue, e.g. the widow of Sarephta (1 Kings 17), the Three Children in the fiery furnace (Dan., iii), the preservation of Daniel (Dan., v), the deliverance of St. Peter from prison (Acts 12), of St. Paul from shipwreck (Acts 27). Thus semeion, i.e., “sign”, completes the meaning of dynamis, i.e., “[Divine] power”. It reveals the miracle as an act of God’s supernatural Providence over men. It gives a positive content to teras, i.e., “wonder”, for, whereas the wonder shows the miracle as a deviation from the ordinary course of nature, the sign gives the purpose of the deviation.

This analysis shows that the miracle is essentially an appeal to knowledge. Therefore miracles can be distinguished from purely natural occurrences. A miracle is a fact in material creation, and falls under the observation of the senses or comes to us through testimony, like any natural fact. Its miraculous character is known: from positive knowledge of natural forces, e.g., the law of gravity, the law that fire burns. To say that we do not know all the laws of nature, and therefore cannot know a miracle (Rousseau, “Lett. de la Mont.”, let. iii), is beside the question, for it would make the miracle an appeal to ignorance. I may not know all the laws of the penal code, but I can know with certainty that in a particular instance a person violates one definite law. From our positive knowledge of the limits of natural forces. Thus, e.g., we may not know the strength of a man, but we do know that he cannot by himself move a mountain. In enlarging our knowledge of natural forces, the progress of science has curtailed their sphere and defined their limits, as in the law of abiogenesis. Hence, as soon as we have reason to suspect that any event, however uncommon or rare it appear, may arise from natural causes or be conformable to the usual course of nature, we immediately lose the conviction of its being a miracle. A miracle is a manifestation of God’s power; so long as this is not clear, we hould reject it as such. Miracles are signs of God’s Providence over men, hence they are of high moral character, simple and obvious in the forces at work, in the circumstances of their working, and in their aim and purpose. Now philosophy indicates the possibility, and Revelation teaches the fact, that spiritual beings, both good and bad, exist, and possess greater power than man possesses. Apart from the speculative question as to the native power of these beings, we are certain that God alone can perform those effects which are called substantial miracles, e.g., raising the dead to life, that miracles performed by the angels, as recorded in the Bible, are always ascribed to God, and Holy Scripture gives Divine authority to no miracles less than Divine; that Holy Scripture shows the power of evil spirits as strictly conditioned, e.g., testimony of the Egyptian magicians (Exodus 8:19), the story of Job, evil spirits acknowledging the power of Christ (Matthew 8:31), the express testimony of Christ himself (Matthew 24:24) and of the Apocalypse (Revelation 9:14). Granting that these spirits may perform prodigies — i.e., works of skill and ingenuity which, relatively to our powers, may seem to be miraculous — yet these works lack the meaning and purpose which would stamp them as the language of God to men.

II. ERRORS

Deists reject miracles, for they deny the Providence of God. Agnostics also, and Positivists reject them: Comte regarded miracles as the fruit of the theological imagination. Modern Pantheism has no place for miracles. Thus Spinoza held creation to be the aspect of the one substance, i.e., God, and, as he taught that miracles were a violation of nature, they would therefore be a violation of God. The answer is, first that Spinoza’s conception of God and nature is false and, secondly, that in fact miracles are not a violation of nature. To Hegel creation is the evolutive manifestation of the one Absolute Idea, i.e., God, and to the neo-Hegelians (e.g., Thos. Green) consciousness is identified with God; therefore to both a miracle has no meaning. Erroneous definitions of the supernatural lead to erroneous definitions of the miracle. Thus Bushnell defines the natural to be what is necessary, the supernatural to be what is free; therefore the material world is what we call nature, the world of man’s life is supernatural. So also Dr. Strong (“Baptist Rev.”, vol. I, 1879), Rev. C.A. Row (“Supernat. in the New Test.”, London, 1875). In this sense every free volition of man is a supernatural act and a miracle. The natural supernaturalism proposed by Carlyle, Theodore Parker, Prof. Pfleiderer, and, more recently, Prof. Everett (“The Psychologic Elem. of Relig. Faith”, London and New York, 1902), Prof. Bowne (“Immanence of God” Boston and New York, 1905), Hastings (“Diction. of Christ and the Gospels”, s. v. “Miracles”). Thus the natural and the supernatural are in reality one: the natural is its aspect to man, the supernatural is its aspect to God. The “Immediate theory”, that God acts immediately without second causes, or that second causes, or laws of nature, must be defined as the regular methods of God’s acting. This teaching is combined with the doctrine of evolution. The “relative” theory of miracles is by far the most popular with non-Catholic writers. This view was originally proposed to hold Christian miracles and at the same time hold belief in the uniformity of nature. Its main forms are three.

(1) The mechanical view of Babbage (Bridgewater Treatises)

In Babbage’s view, which was later advanced by the Duke of Argyll (Reign of Law), nature is presented as a vast mechanism wound up in the beginning and containing in itself the capacity to deviate at stated times from its ordinary course. The theory is ingenious, but it makes the miracle a natural event. It admits the assumption of opponents of miracles, viz., that physical effects must have physical causes, but this assumption is contradicted by common facts of experience, e.g., will acts on matter.

(2) The “unknown” law of Spinoza

Spinoza taught that the term miracle should be understood with reference to the opinions of men, and that it means simply an event which we are unable to explain by other events familiar to our experience. Locke, Kant, Eichhorn, Paulus Renan hold the same view. Thus Prof. Cooper writes “The miracle of one age becomes the ordinary working of nature in the next” (“Ref. Ch. R.”, July, 1900). Hence a miracle never happened in fact, and is only a name to cover our ignorance. Thus Matthew Arnold could claim that all Biblical miracles will disappear with the progress of science (Lit. and Bible) and M. Muller that “the miraculous is reduced to mere seeming” (in Rel., pref., p. 10). The advocates of this theory assume that miracles are an appeal to ignorance.

(3) The “higher law” theory of Argyll of “Unseen Universe”

Trench, Lange (on Matt., p. 153), Gore (Bampton Lect, p. 36) proposed to refute Spinoza’s claim that miracles are unnatural and productive of disorder. Thus with them the miracle is quite natural because it takes place in accordance with laws of a higher nature. Others — e.g., Schleiermacher and Ritschl — mean by higher law, subjective religious feeling. Thus, to them a miracle is not different from any other natural event; it becomes a miracle by relation to the religious feeling. A writer in “The Biblical World” (Oct., 1908) holds that the miracle consists in the religious significance of the natural event in its relation to the religious appreciation as a sign of Divine favour. Others explain higher law as a moral law, or law of the spirit. Thus the miracles of Christ are understood as illustrations of a higher, grander, more comprehensive law than men had yet known, the incoming of a new life, of higher forces acting according to higher laws as manifestations of the spirit in the higher stages of its development. The criticism of this theory is that miracles would cease to be miracles: they would not be extraordinary, for they would take place under the same conditions. To bring miracles under a law not yet understood is to deny their existence. Thus, when Trench defines a miracle as “an extraordinary event which beholders can reduce to no law with which they are acquainted”, the definition includes hypnotism and clairvoyance. If by higher law we mean the high law of God’s holiness, then a miracle can be referred to this law, but the higher law in this case is God Himself and the use of the term is apt to create confusion.

III. ANTECEDENT IMPROBABILITY

The great problem of modern theology is the place and value of miracles. In the opinion of certain writers, their antecedent improbability, based on the universal reign of law is so great that they are not worthy of serious consideration. Thus his conviction of the uniformity of nature led Hume to deny testimony for miracles in general, as it led Baur, Strauss, and Renan to explain the miracles of Christ on natural grounds. The fundamental principle is that whatever happens is natural, and what is not natural does not happen. On belief in the uniformity of nature is based the profound conviction of the organic unity of the universe, a characteristic trait of nineteenth-century thought. It has dominated a certain school of literature, and, with George Eliot, Hall Came, and Thomas Hardy, the natural agencies of heredity environment, and necessary law rule the world of human life. It is the basic principle in modern treatises on sociology. Its chief exponent is science philosophy, a continuation of the Deism of the eighteenth century without the idea of God, and the view herein presented, of an evolving universe working out its own destiny under the rigid sway of inherent natural laws, finds but a thin disguise in the Pantheistic conception, so prevalent among non-Catholic theologians, of an immanent God, who is the active ground of the world-development according to natural law — i.e., Monism of mind or will. This belief is the gulf between the old and the modern school of theology. Max Muller finds the kernel of the modern conception of the world in the idea that “there is a law and order in everything, and that an unbroken chain of causes and effects holds the whole universe together” (“Anthrop. Relig.”, pref., p. 10). Throughout the universe there is a mechanism of nature and of human life, presenting a necessary chain, or sequence, of cause and effect, which is not, and cannot be, broken by an interference from without, as is assumed in the case of a miracle. This view is the ground of modern objections to Christianity, the source of modern scepticism, and the reason for a prevailing disposition among Christian thinkers to deny miracles a place in Christian evidences and to base the proof for Christianity on internal evidences alone.

Criticism

(1) This view ultimately rests upon the assumption that the material universe alone exists. It is refuted: by proving that in man there is a spiritual soul totally distinct from organic and inorganic existence, and that this soul reveals an intellectual and moral order totally distinct from the physical order; by inferring the existence of God from the phenomena of the intellectual, the moral, and the physical order.

(2) This view is also based on an erroneous meaning of the term nature. Kant made a distinction between the noumenon and the phenomenon of a thing, he denied that we can know the noumenon, i.e., the thing in itself; all we know is the phenomenon, i.e., the appearance of the thing. This distinction has profoundly influenced modern thought. As a Transcendental Idealist, Kant denied that we know the real phenomenon; to him only the ideal appearance is the object of the mind. Thus knowledge is a succession of ideal appearances, and a miracle would be an interruption of that succession. Others, i.e., the Sense-School (Hume, Mill, Bain Spencer, and others), teach that, while we cannot know the substance or essences of things, we can and do grasp the real phenomena. To them the world is a phenomenal world and is a pure coexistence and succession of phenomena, the antecedent determines the consequent. In this view a miracle would be an unexplained break in the (so-called) invariable law of sequence, on which law Mill based his Logic. Now we reply that the real meaning of the word nature includes both the phenomenon and the noumenon. We have the idea of substance with an objective content. In reality the progress of science consists in the observation of, and experimentation upon, things with a view to find out their properties or potencies, which in turn enable us to know the physical essences of the various substances.

(3) Through the erroneous conception of nature, the principle of causality is confounded with the law of the uniformity of nature. But they are absolutely different things. The former is a primary conviction which has its source in our inner consciousness. The latter is an induction based upon a long and careful observation of facts: it is not a self-evident truth, nor is it a universal and necessary principle, as Mill himself has shown (Logic, IV, xxi). In fact uniformity of nature is the result of the principle of causation.

(4) The main contention, that the uniformity of nature rules miracles out of consideration, because they would imply a break in the uniformity and a violation of natural law, is not true. The laws of nature are the observed modes or processes in which natural forces act. These forces are the properties or potencies of the essences of natural things. Our experience of causation is not the experience of a mere sequence but of a sequence due to the necessary operation of essences viewed as principles or sources of action. Now essences are necessarily what they are and unchangeable, therefore their properties, or potencies, or forces, under given circumstances, act in the same way. On this, Scholastic philosophy bases the truth that nature is uniform in its action, yet holds that constancy of succession is not an absolute law for the succession is only constant so long as the noumenal relations remain the same. Thus Scholastic philosophy, in defending miracles, accepts the universal reign of law in this sense, and its teaching is in absolute accord with the methods actually pursued by modern science in scientific investigations. Hence it teaches the order of nature and the reign of law, and openly declares that, if there were no order, there would be no miracle. It is significant that the Bible appeals constantly to the reign of law in nature, while it attests the actual occurrence of miracles. Now human will, in acting on material forces, interferes with the regular sequences, but does not paralyze the natural forces or destroy their innate tendency to act in a uniform manner. Thus a boy, by throwing a stone into the air, does not disarrange the order of nature or do away with the law of gravity. A new force only is brought in and counteracts the tendencies of the natural forces, just as the natural forces interact and counteract among themselves, as is shown in the well-known truths of the parallelogram of forces and the distinction between kinetic and potential energy. The analogy from man’s act to God’s act is complete as far as concerns a break in the uniformity of nature or a violation of its laws. The extent of the power exerted does not affect the point at issue. Hence physical nature is presented as a system of physical causes producing uniform results, and yet permits the interposition of personal agency without affecting its stability.

(5) The truth of this position is so manifest that Mill admits Hume’s argument against miracles to be valid only on the supposition that God does not exist for, he says, “a miracle is a new effect supposed to be produced by the introduction of a new cause . . . of the adequacy of that cause, if present, there can be no doubt” (Logic, III, xxv). Hence, admitting the existence of God, Hume’s “uniform sequence” does not hold as an objection to miracles. Huxley also denies that physicists withhold belief in miracles because miracles are in violation of natural laws, and he rejects the whole of this line of argument (“Some Controverted questions”, 209; “Life of Hume”, 132), and holds that a miracle is a question of evidence pure and simple. Hence the objection to miracles on the ground of their antecedent improbability has been abandoned. “The Biblical World” (Oct., 1908) says “The old rigid system of ‘Laws of Nature’ is being broken up by modern science. There are many events which scientists recognize to be inexplicable by any known law. But this inability to furnish a scientific explanation is no reason for denying the existence of any event, if it is adequately attested. Thus the old a priori argument against miracles is gone.” Thus in modern thought the question of the miracle is simply a question of fact.

IV. PLACE AND VALUE OF MIRACLES IN THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF THE WORLD

As the great objection to miracles really rests on narrow and false philosophical views of the universe, so the true world-view is necessary to grasp their place and value. Christianity teaches that God created and governs the world. This government is His Providence. It is shown in the delicate adjustment and subordination of the tendencies proper to material things, resulting in the marvellous stability and harmony which prevail throughout the physical creation, and in the moral order, which through conscience, is to guide and control the tendencies of man’s nature to a complete harmony in human life. Man is a personal being, with intelligence and free-will, capable of knowing and serving God, and created for that purpose. To him nature is the book of God’s work revealing the Creator through the design visible in the material order and through conscience, the voice of the moral order based in the very constitution of his own being. Hence the relation of man to God is a personal one. God’s Providence is not confined to the revelation of Himself through His works. He has manifested Himself in a supernatural manner throwing a flood of light on the relations which should exist between man and Himself. The Bible contains this revelation, and is called the Book of God’s Word. It gives the record of God’s supernatural Providence leading up to the Redemption and the founding of the Christian Church. Here we are told that beyond the sphere of nature there is another realm of existence — the supernatural, peopled by spiritual beings and departed souls. Both spheres, the natural and the supernatural, are under the overruling Providence of God. Thus God and man are two great facts. The relation of the soul to its Maker is religion.

Religion is the knowledge, love, and service of God; its expression is called worship, and the essence of worship is prayer. Thus between man and God there is constant intercourse, and in God’s Providence the appointed means of this intercourse is prayer. By prayer man speaks to God in acts of faith, hope, love, and contrition and implores His aid. In answer to prayer God acts on the soul by His grace and, in special circumstances, by working miracles. Hence the great fact of prayer, as the connecting link of man to God, implies a constant interference of God in the life of man. Therefore in the Christian view of the world, miracles have a place and a meaning. They arise out of the personal relation between God and man. The conviction that the pure of heart are pleasing to God, in some mysterious way, is worldwide; even among the heathens pure offerings only are prepared for the sacrifice. This intimate sense of God’s presence may account for the universal tendency to refer all striking phenomena to supernatural causes. Error and exaggeration do not change the nature of the belief founded in the abiding conviction of the Providence of God. To this belief St. Paul appealed in his discourse to the Athenians (Acts 17). In the miracle, therefore, God subordinates physical nature to a higher purpose, and this higher purpose is identical with the highest moral aims of existence. The mechanical view of the world is in harmony with the teleological, and when purpose exists, no event is isolated or unmeaning. Man is created for God, and a miracle is the proof and pledge of His supernatural Providence. Hence we can understand how, in devout minds, there is even a presumption for and an expectation of miracles. They show the subordination of the lower world to the higher, they are the breaking in of the higher world on the lower (“C. Gent.”, III, xcviii, xcix; Benedict XIV, 1,c,1,IV,p. l.c.I).

Some writers — e.g., Paley, Mansel, Mozley, Dr. George Fisher — push the Christian view to the extreme, and say that miracles are necessary to attest revelation. Catholic theologians, however, take a broader view. They hold that the great primary ends of miracles are the manifestation of God’s glory and the good of men; that the particular or secondary ends, subordinate to the former, are to confirm the truth of a mission or a doctrine of faith or morals, to attest the sanctity of God’s servants, to confer benefits and vindicate Divine justice. Hence they teach that the attestation of Revelation is not the primary end of the miracle, but its main secondary end, though not the only one. They say that the miracles of Christ were not necessary but “most fitting and altogether in accord with His mission” (decentissimum et maximopere conveniens) — Benedict XIV, IV, p. 1, c. 2, n. 3; ST III:43) as a means to attest its truth. At the same time they place miracles among the strongest and most certain evidences of Divine revelation. Yet they teach that, as evidences, miracles have not a physical force, i.e., absolutely compelling assent, but only a moral force, i.e. they do no violence to free will, though their appeal to the assent is of the strongest kind. That, as evidences, they are not wrought to show the internal truth of the doctrines, but only to give manifest reasons why we should accept the doctrines. Hence the distinction: not evidenter vera, but evidenter credibilia. For the Revelation, which miracles attest, contains supernatural doctrines above the comprehension of the mind and positive institutions in God’s supernatural Providence over men. Thus the opinion of Locke, Trench, Mill, Mozley, and Cox, that the doctrine proves the miracle not the miracle the doctrine, is not true. Finally, they maintain that the miracles of Scripture and the power in the Church of working miracles are of Divine faith, not, however the miracles of church history themselves. Hence they teach that the former are both evidences of faith and objects of faith, that the latter are evidences of the purpose for which they are wrought, not, however, objects of Divine faith. Hence this teaching guards against the other exaggerated view recently proposed by non-Catholic writers, who hold that miracles are now considered not as evidences but as objects of faith.

V. TESTIMONY

A miracle, like any natural event, is known either from personal observation or from the testimony of others. In the miracle we have the fact itself as an external occurrence and its miraculous character. The miraculous character of the fact consists in this: that its nature and the surrounding circumstances are of such a kind that we are forced to admit natural forces alone could not have produced it, and the only rational explanation is to be had in the interference of Divine agency. The perception of its miraculous character is a rational act of the mind, and is simply the application of the principle of causality with the methods of induction. The general rules governing the acceptance of testimony apply to miracles as to other facts of history. If we have certain evidence for the fact, we are bound to accept it. The evidence for miracles, as for historical facts in general, depends on the knowledge and veracity of the narrators, i.e., they who testify to the occurrence of the events must know what they tell and tell the truth. The extraordinary nature of the miracle requires more complete and accurate investigation. Such testimony we are not free to reject; otherwise we must deny all history whatsoever. We have no more rational warrant for rejecting miracles than for rejecting accounts of stellar eclipses. Hence, they who deny miracles have concentrated their efforts with the purpose of destroying the historical evidence for all miracles whatsoever and especially the evidence for the miracles of the Gospel.

Hume held that no testimony could prove miracles, for it is more probable that the testimony is false than that the miracles are true. But his contention that “a uniform experience”, which is “a direct and full proof”, is against miracles, is denied by Mill, provided an adequate cause — i.e., God — exists. Hume’s “experience” may mean: (a) the experience of the individual, and his argument is made absurd (e.g., historic doubts about Napoleon) or (b) the experience of the race, which has become common property and the type of what may be expected. Now in fact we get this by testimony; many supernatural facts are part of this race experience; this supernatural part Hume prejudges, arbitrarily declares it untrue, which is the point to be proved and assumes that miraculous is synonymous with absurd. The past, so expurgated, is made the test of the future, and should prevent the consistent advocates of Hume from accepting the discoveries of science. Hard-pressed, Hume is forced to make the distinction between testimony contrary to experience and testimony not conformable to experience, and holds that the latter may be accepted — e.g., testimony of ice to the Indian prince. But this admission is fatal to his position. Hume proceeds on the supposition that, for practical purposes, all the laws of nature are known, yet experience shows that this is not true. His whole argument rests upon the rejected philosophical principle that external experience is the sole source of knowledge, rests upon the discredited basis that miracles are opposed to the uniformity of nature as violations of natural laws, and was advanced through prejudice against Christianity. Hence later sceptics have receded from Hume’s extreme position and teach, not that miracles cannot be proved, but that as a matter of fact they are not proved.

The attack by Hume on miracles in general has been applied to the miracles of the Bible, and has received added weight from the denial of Divine inspiration. Varying in form, its basic principle is the same, viz., the humanism of the Renaissance applied to theology. Thus we have:

(1) The interpretation theory

The old rationalism of Semler Eichhorn, de Wette, and Paulus, who held the credibility of the Bible records, but contended that they were a collection of writings composed by natural intelligence alone, and to be treated on the same plane with other natural productions of the human mind. They got rid of the supernatural by a bold interpretation of miracles as purely natural facts. This is called the “interpretation” theory, and appears today under two forms:

Modified rationalism, which teaches that we are warranted in accepting a very considerable portion of the Gospel narratives as substantially historical, without being compelled to believe in any miracles. Hence they give credence to the accounts of the demoniacs and healings, but allege that these wonders were wrought by, or in accordance with, natural law. Thus we have the electric theory of M. Corelli, the appeal to “moral therapeutics” by Matthew Arnold, and the psychological theory advanced by Prof. Bousset of Gottingen, in which he claims that Christ performed miracles by natural mental powers of a superior kind (cf. “N. World”, March 1896). But the attempt to explain the miracles of the Gospel either by the natural powers of Christ, i.e., mental or moral superiority, or by peculiar states of the recipient, faith cure, and allied psychic phenomena, is arbitrary and not true to facts. In many of the miracles faith is not required, and is in fact absent this is shown, in the miracles of power, by the expressed fear of the Apostles, e.g., at Christ stilling the tempest (Mark 4:40), at Christ on the waters (Mark vi, 51), at the draught of fishes (Luke 5:8), and in the miracles of expelling demons. In some miracles Christ requires faith, but the faith is not the cause of the miracle, only the condition of His exercising the power.

Others, like Holstein, Renan, and Huxley, follow de Wette, who explains the miracles as the emotional interpretation of commonplace events. They claim that the facts which occurred were substantially historical, but in the narrating were covered over with the interpretations of the writers. Hence, they say that, in studying the Gospels, we must distinguish between the facts as they actually took place and the subjective emotions of those who witnessed them, their strong excitement, tendency to exaggeration, and vivid imagination. Thus they appeal not to the “fallacies of testimony” so much as to the “fallacies of the senses”. But this attempt to transform the Apostles into nervous visionaries cannot be held by an unbiased mind. St. Peter clearly distinguished between a vision (Acts 10:17) and a reality (Acts 12), and St. Paul mentions two cases of visions (Acts 22:17; 2 Corinthians 12), the latter by way of contrast with his ordinary missionary life of labours and sufferings (2 Corinthians 11). Renan even goes so far as to present the glaring inconsistency of a Christ remarkable, as he says, for moral beauty of life and doctrine, who nevertheless is guilty of conscious deception, as, e.g., in the make-believe raising of Lazarus. This teaching is in reality a denial of testimony. The miracles of Christ must be taken as a whole; and in the Gospel setting where they are presented as a part of his teaching and his life. On the ground of evidence there is no reason to make a distinction among them or to interpret them so that they become other than they are. The real reason is prejudgment on false philosophical grounds with a view to get rid of the supernatural element. In fact the conjectures and hypotheses proposed are far more improbable than the miracles themselves. Again, how thus explain the great miracle that the hero of a baseless legend, the impotent and deceitful Christ, could be come the founder of the Christian Church and of Christian civilization? Finally, this method violates the first principles of interpretation; for the New Testament writers are not allowed to speak their own language.

(2) The theory of Biblical Humanism

The fundamental idea of Hegel’s metaphysic (viz., that existing things are the progressive manifestation of the idea, i.e., the absolute) gave a philosophical basis for the organic conception of the universe, i.e., the Divine as organic to the human. Thus revelation is presented as a human process, and history — e.g., the Bible — is a record of human experience, the product of a human life. This philosophy of history was applied to explain the miraculous in the Gospels and appears under two forms: the Tubingen School and the “Mystical” School.

(a) the Tubingen School

Baur regards the Hegelian process in its objective aspect, i.e., the facts as things. He held the books of the New Testament to be states through which the human life and thought of early Christianity had passed. He attempted to do with reference to the origin what Gibbon tried with reference to the spread of Christianity — i.e., get rid of the supernatural by the tacit assumption that there were no miracles and by the enumeration of natural causes, chief of which was the Messianic idea to which Jesus accommodated Himself. The evolution element in Baur’s Humanism, however, constrained him to deny that we possess contemporaneous documents of our Lord’s life, to hold that the New Testament literature was the result of warring factions among the early Christians, and therefore of a much later date than tradition ascribes to it, and that Christ was only the occasional cause of Christianity. He accepted as genuine only the Epistles to the Galatians, Romans, I and II Corinthians, and the Apocalypse. But the Epistles admitted by Baur show that St. Paul believed in miracles and asserted the actual occurrence of them as well-known facts both in regard to Christ and in regard to himself and the other Apostles (e.g., Romans 15:18; 1 Corinthians 1:22; 12:10, 2 Corinthians 12:12, Galatians 3:5, especially his repeated references to the Resurrection of Christ, 1 Corinthians 15). The basis on which the Tubingen School rests, viz., that we possess no contemporaneous records of Christ’s life, and that the New Testament writings belong to the second century, has been proved to be false by the higher criticisms. Hence Huxley admits that this position is no longer tenable (The Nineteenth Century, Feb., 1889), and in fact there is no longer a Tubingen School at Tubingen. Harnack says: “As regards the criticisms of the sources of Christianity, we stand unquestionably in a movement of return to tradition. The chronological framework in which tradition set the earliest documents is to be henceforth accepted in its main outlines” (The Nineteenth Cent., Oct., 1899). Hence Romanes said that the outcome of the battle on the Bible documents is a signal victory for Christianity (Thoughts on Religion, p. 165). Dr. Emil Reich speaks of the bankruptcy of the higher criticism (“Contemp. Rev.”, April, 1905).

(b) The “Mythical” School

Strauss regarded the Hegelian process in its subjective aspect. The facts as matters of consciousness with the early Christians concerned him exclusively. Hence he regarded Christ within the Christian consciousness of the time, and held that Christ of the New Testament was the outcome of this consciousness. He did not deny a relatively small nucleus of historical reality, but contended that the Gospels, as we possess them, are mythical inventions or fabulous and fanciful embellishments and are to be regarded only as symbols for spiritual ideas, e.g., the Messianic idea. Strauss thus attempted to remove the miraculous — or what he considered the unhistorical matter — from the text. But this view was too fanciful long to hold currency after a careful study of the truthful, matter-of-fact character of the New Testament writings, and a comparison of them with the Apocrypha. Hence it has been rejected, and Strauss himself confessed to disappointment at the result of his labours (The Old and New Faith).

(3) The Critical Agnostic School

Its basis is the organic idea of the universe, but it views the world process apart from God, because reason cannot prove the existence of God, and therefore, to the Agnostic, He does not exist (e.g., Huxley); or to the Christian Agnostic, His existence is accepted on Faith (s.g., Baden-Powell). To both there is no miracle, for we have no way of knowing it. Thus Huxley admits the facts of miracles in the New Testament, but says that the testimony as to their miraculous character may be worthless, and strives to explain it by the subjective mental conditions of the writers (“The Nineteenth Cent.”, Mar., 1889). Baden-Powell (in “Essays and Reviews”), Holtzmann (Die synoptischen Evangelien), and Harnack (The Essence of Christianity) admit the miracles as recorded in the Gospels, but hold that their miraculous character is beyond the scope of historical proof, and depends on the mental assumptions of the readers.

Criticism

The real problem of the historian is to state well-authenticated facts and give an explanation of the testimony. He should show how such events must have taken place and how such a theory only can explain them. He takes cognizance of all that is said about these events by competent witnesses, and from their testimony he draws the conclusion. To admit the facts and to deny an explanation is to furnish very great evidence for their historical truth, and to show qualities not consistent with the scientific historian.

(4) The theory of liberal Protestantism

(a) Older form

In its older form, this was advocated by Carlyle (Froude’s “Life of Carlyle”), Martineau (Seal of Authority in Religion), Rathbone Greg (Creed of Christendom), Prof. Wm. H. Green (Works, III pp. 230, 253), proposed as a religious creed under the title of the “new Reformation” (“The Nineteenth Cent.”, Mar., 1889) and popularized by Mrs. Humphry Ward in “Robert Elsmere.” As the old Reformation was a movement to destroy the Divine authority of the Church by exalting the supernatural character of the Bible, so the new Reformation aimed at removing the supernatural element from the Bible and resting faith in Christianity on the high moral character of Jesus and the excellence of His moral teaching. It is in close sympathy with some writers on the science of religion who see in Christianity a natural religion, though superior to other forms. In describing their position as “a revolt against miraculous belief”, its adherents yet profess great reverence for Jesus as “that friend of God and Man, in whom, through all human frailty and necessary imperfection, they see the natural head of their inmost life, the symbol of those religious forces in man which are primitive, essential and universal” (“The Nineteenth Cent.”, Mar., 1889). By way of criticism it may be said that this school has its source in the philosophical assumption that the uniformity of nature has made the miracle unthinkable — an assumption now discarded. Again, it has its basis in the Tubingen School which has been proved false, and it requires a mutilation of the Gospels so radical and wholesale that nearly every sentence has to be excised or rewritten. The miracles of Jesus are too essential a part of His life and teaching to be thus removed. We might as well expurgate the records of military achievements from the lives of Alexander or of Caesar. Strauss exposed the inconsistencies of this position, which he once held (Old Faith and the New), and von Hartmann considered the Liberal theologians as causing the disintegration of Christianity (“Selbstersetzung des Christ”, 1888).

(b) Newer form

In its recent form, it has been advocated by the exponents of the psychological theory. Hence, where the old school followed an objective, this pursues a subjective method. This theory combines the basic teaching of Hegel, Schleiermacher, and Ritschl. Hegel taught that religious truths are the figurative representation of rational ideas; Schleiermacher taught that propositions of faith are the pious states of the heart expressed in language; Ritschl, that the evidence of Christian doctrine is in the “value judgment”, i.e., the religious effect on the mind.; On this basis Prof. Gardner (“A Historical View of the New Test.”, London, 1904) holds that no reasonable man would profess to disprove the Christian miracles historically; that in historical studies we must accept the principle of continuity as set forth by evolution, that the statements of the New Testament are based mainly on Christian experience, in which there is always an element of false theory; that we must distinguish between the true underlying fact and its defective outward expression; that this expression is conditioned by the intellectual atmosphere of the time, and passes away to give place to a higher and better expression. Hence the outward expression of Christianity should be different now from what it was in other days. Hence, while miracles may have had their value for the early Christians, they have no value for us, for our experience is different from theirs. Thus M. Réville (“Liberal Christianity”, London, 1903) says: “The faith of a liberal Protestant does not depend upon the solution of a problem of historical criticism. It is founded upon his own experience of the value and power of the Gospel of Christ”, and “The Gospel of Jesus is independent of its local and temporary forms” (pp. 54, 58). All this, however, is philosophy, not history, it is not Christianity, but Rationalism. So it inverts the true standard of historical criticism — viz., we should study past events in the light of their own surroundings, and not from the subjective feeling on the part of the historian of what might, could, or would have occurred. There is no reason to restrict these principles to questions of religious history; and if extended to embrace the whole of past history, they would lead to absolute scepticism.

VI. THE FACT

The Bible shows that at all times God has wrought miracles to attest the Revelation of His will.

(1) The miracles of the Old Testament reveal the Providence of God over His chosen people. They are convincing proof for the commission of Moses (Exodus 3:4), manifest to the people that Jehovah is Sovereign Lord (Exodus 10:2, Deuteronomy 5:25), and are represented as the “finger of God” and “the hand of God.” God punishes Pharaoh for refusing to obey His commands given by Moses and attested by miracles, and is displeased with the infidelity of the Jews for whom He worked many miracles (Numbers 14). Miracles convinced the widow of Sarephta that Elias was “a man of God” (1 Kings 17:24), made the people cry out in the dispute between Elias and the prophets of Baal, “the Lord he is God” (III Kings xviii, 39), caused Naaman to confess that “there is no other God in all the earth, but only in Israel” (2 Kings 5:15), led Nabuchodonosor to issue a public decree in honour of God upon the escape of the Three Children from the fiery furnace (Dan., iii), and Darius to issue a like decree on the escape of Daniel (Dan., v). The ethical element is conspicuous in the miracles and is in consonance with the exalted ethical character of Jehovah, “a king of absolute justice, whose love for his people was conditioned by a law of absolute righteousness, as foreign to Semitic as to Aryan tradition”, writes Dr. Robertson Smith (“Religion of the Semites”, p. 74, cf. Kuenen, Hibbert Lect., p. 124). Hence the tendency among recent writers on the history of religion to postulate the direct intervention of God through revelation as the only explanation for the exalted conception of the Deity set forth by Moses and the prophets.

(2) The Old Testament reveals a high ethical conception of God who works miracles for high ethical purposes, and unfolds a dispensation of prophecy leading up to Christ. In fulfillment of this prophecy Christ works miracles. His answer to the messengers of John the Baptist was that they should go and tell John what they had seen (Luke 7:22; cf. Isaiah 35:5). Thus the Fathers of the Church, in proving the truth of the Christian religion from the miracles of Christ, join them with prophecy (Origen, “C. Celsum” I, ii, Irenaeus, Adv. haer. L, ii, 32; St. Augustine, “C. Faustum”, XII). Jesus openly professed to work miracles. He appeals repeatedly to His “works” as most authentic and decisive proof of His Divine Sonship (John 5:18-36; 10:24-37) and of His mission (John 14:12), and for this reason condemns the obstinacy of the Jews as inexcusable (John 15:22, 24). He worked miracles to establish the Kingdom of God (Matthew 12; Luke 11), gave to the Apostles (Matthew 10:8) and disciples (Luke 10:9, 19) the power of working miracles, thereby instructing them to follow the same method, and promised that the gift of miracles should persist in the Church (Mark 16:17). At the sight of His marvellous works, the Jews (Matthew 9:8), Nicodemus (John 3:2), and the man born blind (John 9:33) confess that they must be ascribed to Divine power. Pfleiderer accepts the second Gospel as the authentic work of St. Mark, and this Gospel is a compact account of miracles wrought by Christ. Ewald and Weiss speak of the miracles of Christ as a daily task. Miracles are not accidental or external to the Christ of the Gospels; they are inseparably bound up with His supernatural doctrine and supernatural life — a life and doctrine which is the fulfillment of prophecy and the source of Christian civilization. Miracles form the very substance of the Gospel narratives, so that, if removed, there would remain no recognizable plan of work and no intelligent portrait of the worker. We have the same evidence for miracles that we have for Christ. Dr. Holtzmann says that the very traits whose astonishing combination in one person presents the highest kind of historical evidence for His existence are indissolubly connected with miracles. Unless we accept miracles, we have no Gospel history. Admit that Christ wrought many miracles, or confess that we do not know Him at all — in fact, that He never existed. The historical Christ of the Gospels stands before us remarkable in the charm of personality, extraordinary in the elevation of life and beauty of doctrine, strikingly consistent in tenor of life, exercising Divine power in varied ways and at every turn. He rises supreme over, and apart from, His surroundings and cannot be regarded as the fruit of individual invention or as the product of the age. The simplest clearest, only explanation is that the testimony is true. They who deny have yet to offer an explanation strong enough to withstand the criticism of the sceptics themselves.

(3) The testimony of the Apostles to miracles is twofold: They preached the miracles of Christ, especially the Resurrection. Thus St. Peter speaks of the “miracles, and wonders, and signs” which Jesus did as a fact well-known to the Jews (Acts 2:22), and as published through Galilee and Judea (Acts 10:37). The Apostles profess themselves witnesses of the Resurrection (Acts 2:32), they say that the characteristic of an Apostle is that he be a witness of the Resurrection (Acts 1:22), and upon the Resurrection base their preaching in Jerusalem (Acts 3:15; 4:10; 5:30, 10:40), at Antioch (Acts 13:30 sqq.), at Athens (Acts 17:31), at Corinth (1 Corinthians 15), at Rome (Romans 6:1), and in Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 1:10). They worked miracles themselves, wonders and signs in Jerusalem (Acts 2:43), cure the lame (Acts 3:14), heal the sick, and drive out demons (Acts 8:7-8), raise the dead (Acts 20:10 sqq.). St. Paul calls the attention of the Christians at Rome to his own miracles (Romans 15:18-19), refers to the well-known miracles performed in Galatia (Galatians 3:5), calls the Christians of Corinth to witness the miracles he worked among them as the signs of his apostleship (2 Corinthians 12:12), and gives to the working of miracles a place in the economy of the Christian Faith (1 Corinthians 12). Thus the Apostles worked miracles in their missionary journeys in virtue of the power given them by Christ (Mark 3:15) and confirmed after His Resurrection (Mark xvi, 17).

(4) Dr. Middleton holds that all miracles ceased with the Apostles. Mozley and Milman ascribe later miracles to pious myths, fraud, and forgery. Trench admits that few points present greater difficulty than the attempt to determine the exact period when the power of working miracles was withdrawn from the Church. This position is one of polemical bias against the Catholic Church, just as presumptions of various kinds are behind all attacks on the miracles of scripture. Now we are not obliged to accept every miracle alleged as such. The evidence of testimony is our warrant, and for miracles of church history we have testimony of the most complete kind. If it should happen that, after careful investigation, a supposed miracle should turn out to be no miracle at all, a distinct service to truth would be rendered. Throughout the course of church history there are miracles so well authenticated that their truth cannot be denied. Thus St. Clement of Rome and St. Ignatius of Antioch speak of the miracles wrought in their time. Origen says he has seen examples of demons expelled, many cures effected, and prophecies fulfilled (“C. Celsum”, I, II, III, VII). Irenaeus taunts the magic-workers of his day that “they cannot give sight to the blind nor hearing to the deaf, nor put to flight demons; and they are so far from raising the dead as Our Lord did, and the Apostles, by prayer, and as is most frequently done among the brethren, that they even think it impossible” (Adv. haer., II). St. Athanasius writes the life of St. Anthony from what he himself saw and heard from one who had long been in attendance on the saint. St. Justin in his second apology to the Roman Senate appeals to miracles wrought in Rome and well attested. Tertullian challenges the heathen magistrates to work the miracles which the Christians perform (Apol., xxiii); St. Paulinus, in the life of St. Ambrose, narrates what he has seen. St. Augustine gives a long list of extraordinary miracles wrought before his own eyes, mentions names and particulars, describes them as well known, and says they happened within two years before he published the written account (De civit. Dei., XXII, viii; Retract., I, xiii). St. Jerome wrote a book to confute Vigilantius and prove that relics should be venerated, by citing miracles wrought through them. Theodoret published the life of St. Simon Stylites while the saint was living, and thousands were alive who had been eyewitnesses of what had happened. St. Victor, Bishop of Vita, wrote the history of the African confessors whose tongues had been cut out by command of Hunneric, and who yet retained the power of speech, and challenges the reader to go to Reparatus, one of them then living at the palace of the Emperor Zeno. From his own experience Sulpicius Severus wrote the life of St. Martin of Tours. St. Gregory the Great writes to St. Augustine of Canterbury not to be elated by the many miracles God was pleased to work through his hands for the conversion of the people of Britain. Hence Gibbon says, “The Christian Church, from the time of the Apostles and their disciples, has claimed an uninterrupted succession of miraculous powers, the gift of tongues, of visions and of prophecy, the power of expelling demons, of healing the sick and of raising the dead” (Decline and Fall, I, pp. 264, 288), thus miracles are so interwoven with our religion, so connected with its origin, its promulgation its progress and whole history, that it is impossible to separate them from it. The existence of the Church, the kingdom of God on earth, in which Christ and His Holy Spirit abide, rendered illustrious by the miraculous lives of saints of all countries and all times, is a perpetual standing witness for the reality of miracles (Bellar., “De notis eccl.”, LIV, xiv). The well-attested records are to be found in the official Processes for the canonization of saints. Mozley held that an enormous distinction exists between the miracles of the Gospel and those of church history, through the false notion that the sole purpose of miracles was the attestation of revealed truth: Newman denies the contention and shows that both are of the same type and as well-authenticated by historical evidence.

VII. PLACE AND VALUE OF THE GOSPEL MIRACLES

In studying the Gospel miracles we are impressed by the accounts given of their multitude, and by the fact that only a very small proportion of them is related by the Evangelists in detail; the Gospels speak only in the most general terms of the miracles Christ performed in the great missionary journeys through Galilee and Judea. We read that the people, seeing the things which He did, followed Him in crowds (Matthew 4:25), to the number of 5000 (Luke 9:14) so that He could not enter the cities, and His fame spread from Jerusalem through Syria (Matthew 4:24). His reputation was so great that the chief priests in council speak of Him as one who “doth many miracles” (John 11:47), the disciples at Emmaus as the “prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people” (Luke 24:19), and St. Peter describes Him to Cornelius as the wonder-working preacher (Acts 10:38). Out of the great mass of miraculous events surrounding our Lord’s person, the Evangelists made a selection. True, it was impossible to narrate all (John 20:30). Yet we can see in the narrated miracles a twofold reason for the selection.

(1) The great purpose of the Redemption was the manifestation of God’s glory in the salvation of man through the life and work of His Incarnate Son. Thus it ranks supreme among the works of God’s Providence over men. This explains the life and teaching of Christ; it enables us to grasp the scope and plan of His miracles. They can be considered in relation to the office and person of Christ as Redeemer. Thus they have their source in the hypostatic union and follow on the relation of Christ to men as Redeemer. In them we can see references to the great redemption work He came to accomplish. Hence the Evangelists conceive Christ’s miraculous power as an influence radiating from Him (Mark 5:30; Luke 6:19), and theologians call the miracles of Christ theandrical works. Their aim is the glory of God in the manifestation of Christ’s glory and in the salvation of men, as e.g. in the miracle of Cana (John 2:11), in the Transfiguration (Matthew 17), the Resurrection of Lazarus (John 11:15), Christ’s last prayer for the Apostles (John 17), the Resurrection of Christ (Acts 10:40). St. John opens his Gospel with the Incarnation of the Eternal Word and adds, “we saw his glory” (John i, 14). Hence Irenaeus (Adv. haer., V) and Athanasius (Incarn.) teach that the works of Christ were the manifestations of the Divine Word who in the beginning made all things and who in the Incarnation displayed His power over nature and man, as a manifestation of the new life imparted to man and a revelation of the character and purposes of God. The repeated references in the Acts and in the Epistles to the “glory of Christ” have relation to His miracles. The source and purpose of the miracles of Christ is the reason for their intimate connection with His life and teaching. A saving and redeeming mission was the purpose of the miracles, as it was of the doctrine and life of the eternal Son of God. Their motive was mercy. Most of Christ’s miracles were works of mercy. They were performed not with a view to awe men by the feeling of omnipotence, but to show compassion for sinful and suffering humanity. They are not to be regarded as isolated or transitory acts of sympathy, but as prompted by a deep and abiding mercy which characterizes the office of Saviour. The Redemption is a work of mercy, and the miracles reveal the mercy of God in the works of His Incarnate Son (Acts 10:38). Hence we can see in them a symbolical character. They were signs, and in a special sense they signified by the typical language of external facts, the inward renewal of the soul. Thus, in commenting on the miracle of the widow’s son at Naim, St. Augustine says that Christ raised three from the death of the body, but thousands from the death of sin to the life of Divine grace (Serm. de verbis Dom., xcviii, al. xliv).

The relief which Christ brought to the body represented the deliverance He was working on souls. His miracles of cures and healings were the visible picture of His spiritual work in the warfare with evil. These miracles, summarized in the answer of Jesus to the messengers of John (Matthew 11:5), are explained by the Fathers of the Church with reference to the ills of the soul (ST III:44). The motive and meaning of the miracles explain the moderation Christ showed in the use of His infinite power. Repose in strength is a sublime trait in the character of Jesus; it comes from the conscious possession of power to be used for the good of men. Rousseau confesses “All the miracles of Jesus were useful without pomp or display, but simple as His words, His life, His whole conduct” (Lettr. de la Montag., pt. I, lett. iii). He does not perform them for the sake of being a mere worker of miracles. Everything He does has a meaning when viewed in the relation Christ holds to men. In the class known as miracles of power Jesus does not show a mere mental and moral superiority over ordinary men. In virtue of His redeeming mission He proves that He is Lord and Master of the forces of nature. Thus by a word He stills the tempest, by a word He multiplied a few loaves and fishes so that thousands feasted and were filled, by a word He healed lepers, drove out demons, raised the dead to life, and finally set the great seal upon His mission by rising from death, as He had explicitly foretold. Thus Renan admits that “even the marvellous in the Gospels is but sober good sense compared with that which we meet in the Jewish apocryphal writings or the Hindu or European mythologies” (Stud. in Hist. of Relig., pp. 177 203). Hence the miracles of Christ have a doctrinal import. They have a vital connection with His teaching and mission, illustrate the nature and purpose of His kingdom, and show a connection with some of the greatest doctrines and principles of His Church. Its catholicity is shown in the miracles of the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8) and the Syro-phoenician woman (Mark 7). The Sabbatical miracles reveal its purpose, i.e., the salvation of men, and show that Christ’s kingdom marks the passing of the Old Dispensation. His miracles teach the power of faith and the answer given to prayer. The central truth of His teaching was life. He came to give life to men, and this teaching is emphasized by raising the dead to life, especially in the case of Lazarus and His own Resurrection. The sacramental teaching of the miracles is manifested in the miracle of Cana (John 2), in the cure of the paralytic, to show he had the power to forgive sins [and he used this power (Matthew 9) and gave it to the Apostles (John 20:23) ], in the multiplication of the loaves (John 6) and in raising the dead. Finally, the prophetic element of the fortunes of the individual and of the Church is shown in the miracles of stilling the tempest, of Christ on the waters, of the draught of fishes, of the didrachma and the barren fig tree. Jesus makes the miracle of Lazarus the type of the General Resurrection, just as the Apostles take the Resurrection of Christ to signify the rising of the soul from the death of sin to the life of grace, and to be a pledge and prophecy of the victory over sin and death and of the final resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4).

(2) The miracles of Christ have an evidential value. This aspect naturally follows from the above considerations. In the first miracle at Cana He “manifested His glory”, therefore the disciples “believed in Him” (John 2:11). Jesus constantly appealed to His “works” as evidences of His mission and His divinity. He declares that His miracles have greater evidential value than the testimony of John the Baptist (John 5:36); their logical and theological force as evidences is expressed by Nicodemus (John 3:2). And to the miracles Jesus adds the evidence of prophecy (John v, 31). Now their value as evidences for the people then living is found not only in the display of omnipotence in His redeeming mission but also in the multitude of His works. Thus the unrecorded miracles had an evidential bearing on His mission. So we can see an evidential reason for the selection of the miracles as narrated in the Gospels. This selection was guided by a purpose to make clear the main events in Christ’s life leading up to the Crucifixion and to show that certain definite miracles (e.g., the cure of the lepers, the casting out of demons in a manner marvelously superior to the exorcisms of the Jews, the Sabbatical miracles, the raising of Lazarus) caused the rulers of the Synagogue to conspire and put Him to death. A second reason for the selection was the expressed purpose to prove that Jesus was the Son of God (John 20:31). Thus, for us, who depend on the Gospel narratives, the evidential value of Christ’s miracles comes from a comparatively small number related in detail, though of a most stupendous and clearly supernatural kind, some of which were performed almost in private and followed by the strictest injunctions not to publish them. In considering them as evidences in relation to us now living, we may add to them the constant reference to the multitude of miracles unrecorded in detail, their intimate connection with our Lord’s teaching and life, their relation to the prophecies of the Old Testament, their own prophetic character as fulfilled in the development of His kingdom on earth.

VIII. SPECIAL PROVIDENCES

Prayer is a great fact, which finds expression in a persistent manner and enters intimately into the life of humanity. So universal is the act of prayer that it seems an instinct and part of our being. It is the fundamental fact of religion, and religion is a universal phenomenon of the human race. Christian philosophy teaches that in his spiritual nature man is made to the image and likeness of God, therefore his soul instinctively turns to his Maker in aspirations of worship, of hope, and of intercession.

The real value of prayer has been a vital subject for discussion in modern times. Some hold that its value lies only in its being a factor in the culture of the moral life, by giving tone and strength to character. Thus Professor Tyndall, in his famous Belfast address, proposed this view, maintaining that modern science has proved the physical value of prayer to be unbelievable (Fragments of Science). He based his contention on the uniformity of nature. But this basis is now no longer held as an obstacle to prayer for physical benefits. Others, like Baden-Powell (Order of Nature) admit that God answers prayer for spiritual favours, but denies its value for physical effects. But his basis is the same as that of Tyndall, and besides an answer for spiritual benefits is in fact an interference on the part of God in nature.

Now Christian philosophy teaches that God, in answer to prayer confers not only spiritual favours but at times interferes with the ordinary course of physical phenomena, so that, as a result, particular events happen otherwise than they should. This interference takes place in miracles and special providences.

When we kneel to pray we do not always beg God to work miracles or that our lives shall be constant prodigies of His power. The sense of our littleness gives an humble and reverential spirit to our prayer. We trust that God, through His Infinite knowledge and power, will in some way best known to Him bring about what we ask. Hence, by special providences we mean events which happen in the course of nature and of life through the instrumentality of natural laws. We cannot discern either in the event itself or in the manner of its happening any deviation from the known course of things. What we do know, however, is that events shape themselves in response to our prayer. The laws of nature are invariable, yet one important factor must not be forgotten: that the laws of nature may produce an effect, the same conditions must be present. If the conditions vary, then the effects also vary. By altering the conditions, other tendencies of nature are made predominant, and the forces which otherwise would work out their effects yield to stronger forces. In this way our will interferes with the workings of natural forces and with human tendencies, as is shown in our intercourse with men and in the science of government.

Now, if such power rests with men, can God do less? Can we not believe that, at our prayer, God may cause the conditions of natural phenomena so to combine that, through His special agency, we may obtain our heart’s desire and yet so that, to the ordinary observer, the event happens in its ordinary place and time. To the devout soul, however, all is different. He recognizes God’s favour and is devoutly thankful for the fatherly care. He knows that God has brought the event about in some way. When, therefore, we pray for rain or to avert a calamity, or to prevent the ravages of plague, we beg not so much for miracles or signs of omnipotence: we ask that He who holds the heavens in His hands and who searches the abyss will listen to our petitions and, in His own good way, bring about the answer we need.

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JOHN T. DRISCOLL Transcribed by Don Ross

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XCopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Miracle

an event in the external world brought about by the immediate agency or the simple volition of God, operating without the use of means capable of being discerned by the senses, and designed to authenticate the divine commission of a religious teacher and the truth of his message (John 2:18; Matt. 12:38). It is an occurrence at once above nature and above man. It shows the intervention of a power that is not limited by the laws either of matter or of mind, a power interrupting the fixed laws which govern their movements, a supernatural power.

“The suspension or violation of the laws of nature involved in miracles is nothing more than is constantly taking place around us. One force counteracts another: vital force keeps the chemical laws of matter in abeyance; and muscular force can control the action of physical force. When a man raises a weight from the ground, the law of gravity is neither suspended nor violated, but counteracted by a stronger force. The same is true as to the walking of Christ on the water and the swimming of iron at the command of the prophet. The simple and grand truth that the universe is not under the exclusive control of physical forces, but that everywhere and always there is above, separate from and superior to all else, an infinite personal will, not superseding, but directing and controlling all physical causes, acting with or without them.” God ordinarily effects his purpose through the agency of second causes; but he has the power also of effecting his purpose immediately and without the intervention of second causes, i.e., of invading the fixed order, and thus of working miracles. Thus we affirm the possibility of miracles, the possibility of a higher hand intervening to control or reverse nature’s ordinary movements.

In the New Testament these four Greek words are principally used to designate miracles: (1.) Semeion, a “sign”, i.e., an evidence of a divine commission; an attestation of a divine message (Matt. 12:38, 39; 16:1, 4; Mark 8:11; Luke 11:16; 23:8; John 2:11, 18, 23; Acts 6:8, etc.); a token of the presence and working of God; the seal of a higher power.

(2.) Terata, “wonders;” wonder-causing events; portents; producing astonishment in the beholder (Acts 2:19).

(3.) Dunameis, “might works;” works of superhuman power (Acts 2:22; Rom. 15:19; 2 Thess. 2:9); of a new and higher power.

(4.) Erga, “works;” the works of Him who is “wonderful in working” (John 5:20, 36).

Miracles are seals of a divine mission. The sacred writers appealed to them as proofs that they were messengers of God. Our Lord also appealed to miracles as a conclusive proof of his divine mission (John 5:20, 36; 10:25, 38). Thus, being out of the common course of nature and beyond the power of man, they are fitted to convey the impression of the presence and power of God. Where miracles are there certainly God is. The man, therefore, who works a miracle affords thereby clear proof that he comes with the authority of God; they are his credentials that he is God’s messenger. The teacher points to these credentials, and they are a proof that he speaks with the authority of God. He boldly says, “God bears me witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles.”

The credibility of miracles is established by the evidence of the senses on the part of those who are witnesses of them, and to all others by the testimony of such witnesses. The witnesses were competent, and their testimony is trustworthy. Unbelievers, following Hume, deny that any testimony can prove a miracle, because they say miracles are impossible. We have shown that miracles are possible, and surely they can be borne witness to. Surely they are credible when we have abundant and trustworthy evidence of their occurrence. They are credible just as any facts of history well authenticated are credible. Miracles, it is said, are contrary to experience. Of course they are contrary to our experience, but that does not prove that they were contrary to the experience of those who witnessed them. We believe a thousand facts, both of history and of science, that are contrary to our experience, but we believe them on the ground of competent testimony. An atheist or a pantheist must, as a matter of course, deny the possibility of miracles; but to one who believes in a personal God, who in his wisdom may See fit to interfere with the ordinary processes of nature, miracles are not impossible, nor are they incredible. (See LIST OF MIRACLES, Appendix.)

Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Miracle

Miracles in Scripture are designed, for the most part, as so many, testimonies in proof of the doctrine delivered at the same time. Thus the Lord Jesus saith, “The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me.” (Joh 10:25) And when in concurrence with miracles, the word of God, and the works of God are joined together, these establish and seal the truth as it is in Jesus. There were certain particularities in the miracles of the Lord Jesus, which marked his divine nature in the performance of them in a way and manner different from all his servants. They performed all the miracles they wrought by the appointment and in the name of the Lord Jesus wrought his in his own name. It is true indeed, in the instance of the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead, the Lord Jesus first addressed his Father: but then he assigned the special reason for so doing; because”of them, said Jesus, that stood by, that they might know and believe that the Father had sent me.”At the same time proclaiming himself as the resurrection and the life, and giving proof of it by becoming so to Lazarus. (See Joh 11:23-44) In addition to this, it should be farther remarked, that the miracles of the Lord Jesus were many of them of a personal kind, and not unfrequeuuy wrought without any immediate cause in confirmation of his doctrine, but to set forth his gracious character of Redeemer. In those acts of Christ in which he manifested forth the sovereignty of his power, he might be said to act in common with the other persons of the GODHEAD: and the Father, and the Holy Ghost, had a joint interest in these things with himself. But in those actions of the Lord Jesus peculiar to the Mediator as Mediator, and where, from having as Son of God abased himself for the purposes of salvation, he manifested forth the miracles he wrought, here the glory of the work became personal, and belonged wholly to Jesus as Mediator, I need not particularize instances, else I might observe, that the healed paralytic, the cleansed leper, the centurion’s son, the water turned into wine; these and the tike are all of the personal kind. And perhaps it is not among the smallest instances of Christ’s personal glory and grace, from the actions of miracles, that the Lord Jesus in all he wrought testified his personal love and mercy to his people. The evangelist John is careful to inform the church, that “the beginning of miracles in Cana of Galilee” was shewn in converting water into wine; as if to say, such are the blessings of the gospel, Our common mercies will be made rich mercies; and the nether springs in Jesus, if for his personal glory, shall become upper springs in Jesus. And this is still the more striking, because under the law the first miracle of his servant Moses was manifested in converting water into blood; but Jesus’s first miracle shall be converting water into wine. Sweet thought to the believer! Jesus’s person, and Jesus’s grace, give a softening and a I converting blessing to all our states and circumstances. And what an argument of the most persuasive nature ariseth therefrom to look unto him under every exercise, and to wait his grace in every dispensation. Here it is, as in Cana of Galilee, Jesus manifesteth forth his glory, and his disciples believe on him. (Joh 2:11)

Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures

Miracle

mira-k’l:

I.THE NATURE OF MIRACLES

1.General Idea

2.Biblical Terms Employed

II.MIRACLE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

1.Miracles in Gospel History

2.Special Testimony of Luke

3.Trustworthiness of Evidence in Gospels and Acts

III.MIRACLE AND LAWS OF NATURE

1.Projudgment of Negative Criticism

2.Sir George Stokes Quoted

3.Effects on Nature of New Agencies

4.Agreement with Biblical Idea and Terms

5.J.S. Mill on Miracle

6.Miracle as Connected with Command

IV.EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLE

1.Miracles as Proofs of Revelation

2.Miracles of Christ in This Relation

3.Miracles Part of Revelation

V.MIRACLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

1.Analogy with New Testament Miracles

2.The Mosaic Miracles

3.Subsequent Miracles

4.Prophecy as Miracle

VI.ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES

1.Probability of Such Miracles

2.Pascal Quoted

VII. MIRACLE IN WORKS OR GRACE

LITERATURE.

I. Nature of Miracle.

1. General Idea:

Miracle is the general term for the wonderful phenomena which accompanied the Jewish and Christian revelation, especially at critical moments, and which are alleged to have been continued, under certain conditions, in the history of the Christian church. The miracle proper is a work of God (Exo 7:3 ff; Deu 4:34, Deu 4:35, etc.; Joh 3:2; Joh 9:32, Joh 9:33; Joh 10:38; Act 10:38, etc.); but as supernatural acts miracles are recognized as possible to evil agencies (Mat 24:24; 2Th 2:9; Rev 13:14; Rev 16:14, etc.).

2. Biblical Terms Employed:

The Biblical idea of miracle as an extraordinary work of God, generally though not invariably (providential miracles – see below, II, 6), transcending the ordinary powers of Nature, wrought in connection with the ends of revelation, is illustrated by the terms used to describe miracles in the Old Testament and New Testament. One class of terms brings out the unusual, exceptional, and striking character of the works, as , pele’, , niphla’oth (Exo 3:20; Exo 15:11, etc.), , teras, literally, a portent (in plural Mat 24:24; Act 2:22, Act 2:43, etc.); another lays stress on the power displayed in them, as , gebhurah, , dunamis (in plural mighty works, the Revised Version margin powers, Mat 11:20, Mat 11:21, Mat 11:23; Mat 13:54; Mat 14:2; 2Co 12:12, etc.); a third gives prominence to their teleological significance – their character as signs, as , ‘oth (plural the Revised Version (British and American) signs, Num 14:22; Deu 11:3, etc.), , semeon (plural the Revised Version (British and American) signs, Joh 2:11, Joh 2:23, and frequently; Act 4:16, Act 4:22; Act 6:8; Rev 13:14, etc.). Another Old Testament word for wonder or miracle is , mopheth (Exo 7:9; Deu 29:3). See, further, below, III, 4.

II. Miracle in the New Testament.

1. Miracles in Gospel History:

The subject of miracles has given rise to much abstract discussion; but it is best approached by considering the actual facts involved, and it is best to begin with the facts nearest to us: those which are recorded in the New Testament. Our Lord’s ministry was attended from first to last by events entirely beyond the ordinary course of Nature. He was born of a Virgin, and His birth was announced by angels, both to His mother, and to the man to whom she was betrothed (Matthew and Luke). He suffered death on the cross as an ordinary man, but on the third day after His crucifixion He rose from the tomb in which He was buried, and lived with His disciples for 40 days (Act 1:3), eating and drinking with them, but with a body superior to ordinary physical conditions. At length He ascended to the heavens, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. But besides these two great miracles of His birth and His resurrection, Jesus was continually performing miracles during His ministry. His own words furnish the best description of the facts. In reply to the question of John the Baptist, His predecessor, He said, Go and tell John the things which ye hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them (Mat 11:4, Mat 11:5). Specimens of these miracles are given in detail in the Gospel narratives; but it is a mistake to consider the matter, as is too often done, as though these particular miracles were the only ones in question. Even if they could be explained away, as has often been attempted, there would remain reiterated statements of the evangelists, such as Matthew’s that He went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness among the people (Mat 4:23), or Luke’s And a great number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases; and they that were troubled with unclean spirits were healed. And all the multitude sought to touch him; for power came forth from him, and healed them all (Luk 6:17-19).

2. Special Testimony of Luke:

It must be borne in mind that if there is any assured result of modern criticism, it is that these accounts proceed from contemporaries and eyewitnesses, and with respect to the third evangelist there is one unique consideration of great import. The researches of Dr. Hobart have proved to the satisfaction of a scholar like Harnack, that Luke was a trained physician. His testimony to the miracles is therefore the nearest thing possible to the evidence which has often been desired – that of a man of science. When Luke, e.g., tells us of the healing of a fever (Luk 4:38, Luk 4:39), he uses the technical term for a violent fever recognized in his time (compare Meyer, in the place cited); his testimony is therefore that of One who knew what fevers and the healing of them meant. This consideration is especially valuable in reference to the miracles recorded of Paul in the latter part of Acts. it should always be borne in mind that they are recorded by a physician, who was an eyewitness of them.

3. Trustworthiness of Evidence in Gospels and Acts:

It seems to follow from these considerations that the working of miracles by our Lord, and by Paul in innumerable cases, cannot be questioned without attributing to the evangelists a wholesale untrustworthiness, due either to willful, or to superstitious misrepresentation, and this is a supposition which will certainly never commend itself to a fair and competent judgment. It would involve, in fact, such a sweeping condemnation of the evangelists, that it could never be entertained at all except under one presupposition, namely, that such miraculous occurrences, as being incompatible with the established laws of Nature, could not possibly have happened, and that consequently any allegations of them must of necessity be attributed to illusion or fraud.

III. Miracle and Laws of Nature.

1. Pre-Judgment of Negative Criticism:

This, in fact, is the prejudgment or prejudice which has prompted, either avowedly or tacitly, the great mass of negative criticism on this subject, and if it could be substantiated, we should be confronted, in the Gospels, with a problem of portentous difficulty. On this question of the abstract possibility of miracles, it seems sufficient to quote the following passage from the Gifford Lectures for 1891 of the late eminent man of science, Professor Sir George Stokes.

2. Sir George Stokes Quoted:

On page 23 Professor Stokes says: We know very well that a man may in general act uniformly according to a certain rule, and yet for a special reason may on a particular occasion act quite differently. We cannot refuse to admit the possibility of something analogous taking place as regards the action of the Supreme Being. If we think of the laws of Nature as self-existent and uncaused, then we cannot admit any deviation from them. But if we think of them as designed by a Supreme Will, then we must allow the possibility of their being on some particular occasion suspended. Nor is it even necessary, in order that some result out of the ordinary course of Nature should be brought about, that they should even be suspended; it may be that some different law is brought into action, whereby the result in question is brought about, without any suspension whatever of the laws by which the ordinary course of Nature is regulated…. It may be that the event which we call a miracle was brought about, not by any suspension of the laws in ordinary operation, but by the superaddition of something not ordinarily in operation, or, if in operation, of such a nature that its operation is not perceived.

3. Effects on Nature of New Agencies:

Only one consideration need be added to this decisive scientific statement, namely, that if there be agencies and forces in existence outside the ordinary world of Nature, and if they can under certain circumstances interpose in it, they must necessarily produce effects inconsistent with the processes of that world when left to itself. Life under the surface of the water has a certain course of its own when undisturbed; but if a man standing on the bank of a river throws a stone into it, effects are produced which must be as unexpected and as unaccountable as a miracle to the creatures who live in the stream. The nearness of two worlds which are absolutely distinct from one another receives, indeed, a striking illustration from the juxtaposition of the world above the water and the world below its surface. There is no barrier between them; they are actually in contact; yet the life in them is perfectly distinct. The spiritual world may be as close to us as the air is to the water, and the angels, or other ministers of God’s will, may as easily, at His word, interpose in it as a man can throw a stone into the water. When a stone is thus thrown, there is no suspension or modification of any law; it is simply that, as Sir George Stokes supposes in the case of a miracle, a new agency has interposed.

4. Agreement with Biblical Idea and Terms:

This, indeed, is the main fact of which miracles are irresistible evidence. They show that some power outside Nature, some super-natural power, has intervened. They are exactly described by the three words in the New Testament already mentioned. They are terata, prodigies or wonders; they are also dunameis, virtutes, powers, or manifestation of powers; and finally they are semeia, signs. The three conceptions are combined, and the source of such manifestations stated with them, in a pregnant verse of Hebrews: God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will (Heb 2:4).

5. J. S. Mill on Miracle:

The words of J. S. Mill on the question of the possibility of miracles may also be quoted. Dealing with the objection of Hume in his Essay on Miracles, Mill observes: In order that any alleged fact should be contradictory to a law of causation, the allegation must be, not simply that the cause existed without being followed by the effect, for that would be no uncommon occurrence; but that this happened in the absence of any adequate counteracting cause. Now in the case of an alleged miracle, the assertion is the exact opposite of this. It is that the effect was defeated, not in the absence, but in consequence, of a counteracting cause, namely, a direct interposition of an act of the will of some being who has power over Nature; and in particular of a Being, whose will being assumed to have endowed all the causes with the powers by which they produce their effects, may well be supposed able to counteract them. A miracle (as was justly remarked by Brown) is no contradiction to the law of cause and effect; it is a new effect, supposed to be produced by the introduction of a new cause. Of the adequacy of that cause, if present; there can be no doubt; and the only antecedent improbability which can be ascribed to the miracle is the improbability that any such cause existed (System of Logic, II, 161-62).

6. Miracle as Connected with Command:

There is, however, one other important characteristic of miracles – of those at least with which we are concerned – namely, that they occur at the command, or at the prayer, of the person to whom they are attributed. This is really their most significant feature, and the one upon which their whole evidential value depends. One critic has compared the fall of the fortifications of Jellalabad, on a critical occasion, with the fall of the walls of Jericho, as though the one was no more a miracle than the other. But the fall of the walls of Jericho, though it may well have been produced by some natural force such as an earthquake, bears the character of a miracle because it was predicted, and was thus commanded by God to occur in pursuance of the acts prescribed to Joshua. Similarly the whole significance of our Lord’s miracles is that they occur at His word and in obedience to Him. What manner of man is this, exclaimed the disciples, that even the winds and the sea obey him? (Mat 8:27).

IV. Evidential Value of Miracle.

1. Miracles as Proofs of Revelation:

This leads us to the true view of the value of miracles as proofs of a revelation. This is one of the points which has been discussed in far too abstract a manner. Arguments have been, and still are, constructed to show that there can be no real revelation without miracles, that miracles are the proper proof of a revelation, and so on. It is always a perilous method of argument, perhaps a presumptuous one, to attempt to determine whether God could produce a given result in any other way than the one which He has actually adopted. The only safe, and the sufficient, method of proceeding is to consider whether as a matter of fact, and in what way, the miracles which are actually recorded do guarantee the particular revelation in question.

2. Miracles of Christ in This Relation:

Consider our Lord’s miracles in this light. Assuming, on the grounds already indicated, that they actually occurred, they prove beyond doubt that He had supreme command over Nature; that not only the winds and the sea, but the human soul and body obeyed him, and in the striking words of the English service for the Visitation of the Sick, that He was Lord of life and death, and of all things thereto pertaining, as youth, strength, health, age, weakness and sickness. This is the grand fact which the miracles establish. They are not like external evidence, performed in attestation of a doctrine. They are direct and eloquent evidence of the cardinal truth of our faith, that our Lord possessed powers which belong to God Himself. But they are not less direct evidence of the special office He claimed toward the human race – that of a Saviour. He did not merely work wonders in order that men might believe His assertions about Himself, but His wonderful works, His powers – virtutes – were direct evidence of their truth. He proved that He was a Saviour by doing the works of a Saviour, by healing men and women from their diseases of both body and soul. It is well known that salvation in the true sense, namely, saving men out of evils and corruptions into which they have fallen, is an idea which was actually introduced into the world by the gospel. There was no word for it in the Roman language. The ancients know of a servator, but not of a salvator. The essential message of the miracles is that they exhibit our Lord in this character – that of one who has alike the will and the power to save. Such is our Lord’s own application of them in His answer, already quoted, to the disciples of John the Baptist (Mat 11:4, Mat 11:5).

3. Miracles Part of Revelation:

It is therefore an extraordinary mistake to suppose that the evidence for our faith would not be damaged if the miracles were set aside. We should lose the positive evidence we now possess of our Lord’s saving power. In this view, the miracles are not the mere proofs of a revelation; they are themselves the revelation. They reveal a Saviour from all human ills, and there has been no other revelation in the world of such a power. The miracles recorded of the apostles have a like effect. They are wrought, like Peter’s of the impotent man, as evidence of the living power of the Saviour (Acts 3; 4). Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even in him doth this man stand here before you whole…. And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved (Act 4:10, Act 4:12). In a word, the miracles of the New Testament, whether wrought by our Lord or by His apostles, reveal a new source of power, in the person of our Lord, for the salvation of men. Whatever interference they involve with the usual order of Nature is due, not to any modification of that order, but to the intervention of a new force in it. The nature of that force is revealed by them, and can only be ascertained by observation of them. A man is known by his words and by his deeds, and to these two sources of revelation, respecting His person and character, our Lord expressly appealed. If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do them, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father (Joh 10:37, Joh 10:38).

It is therefore a mistake to try to put the evidence of the miracles into a logically demonstrative argument. Paley stated the case too much in this almost anathematized form.

It is idle, he said, to say that a future state had been discovered already. It had been discovered as the Copernican system was; it was one guess among many. He alone discovers who proves; and no man can prove this point but the teacher who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from God (Moral and Polit. Philosophy, book V, chapter ix, close).

Coleridge, in the Aids to Reflection, criticizes the above and puts the argument in a more just and more human form.

Most fervently do I contend, that the miracles worked by Christ, both as miracles and as fulfillments of prophecy, both as signs and as wonders, made plain discovery, and gave unquestionable proof, of His Divine character and authority; that they were to the whole Jewish nation true and appropriate evidences, that He was indeed come who had promised and declared to their forefathers, Behold your God will come with vengeance, even God, with a recompense! He will come and save you. I receive them as proofs, therefore, of the truth of every word which He taught who was Himself the Word: and as sure evidences of the final victory over death and of the life to come, in that they were manifestations of Him who said: I am the resurrection and the life! (note prefatory to Aphorism CXXIII).

This seems the fittest manner in which to contemplate the evidence afforded by miracles.

V. Miracles in the Old Testament.

1. Analogy with New Testament Miracles:

If the miracles ascribed to our Lord and His apostles are established on the grounds now stated, and are of the value just explained, there can be little difficulty in principle in accepting as credible and applying the miracles of the Old Testament. They also are obviously wrought as manifestations of a Divine Being, and as evidences of His character and will.

2. The Mosaic Miracles:

This, e.g., was the great purpose of the miracles wrought for the deliverance of the people of Israel out of Egypt. The critical theories which treat the narrative of those events as unhistorical are, I am convinced, unsound. If they could be established, they would deprive us of some of the most precious evidences we possess of the character of God. But, in any case, the purpose to which the alleged miracles are ascribed is of the same character as in the case of the New Testament miracles. For ask now, says Moses, of the days that are past … whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it? Did ever a people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightest know that Yahweh he is God; there is none else besides him (Deu 4:32-35). The God of the Jews was, and is, the God manifested in those miraculous acts of deliverance. Accordingly, the Ten Commandments are introduced with the declaration: I am Yahweh thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and on this follows: Thou shalt have no other gods before me (Exo 20:2, Exo 20:3). Without these miracles, the God of the Jews would be an abstraction. As manifested in them, He is the living God, with a known character, a just God and a Saviour (Isa 45:21), who can be loved with all the heart, and soul, and mind, and strength.

3. Subsequent Miracles:

The subsequent miracles of Jewish history, like those wrought by Elijah, serve the same great end, and reveal more and more both of the will and the power of God. They are not mere portents, wrought as an external testimony to a doctrine. They are the acts of a living Being wrought through His ministers, or with their cooperation, and He is revealed by them. If the miracles of the New Testament were possible, those of the Old Testament were possible, and as those of the New Testament reveal the nature and will of Christ, by word and deed, so those of the Old Testament reveal the existence, the nature, and the will of God. Nature, indeed, reveals God, but the miracles reveal new and momentous acts of God; and the whole religious life of the Jews, as the Psalms show, is indissolubly bound up with them. The evidence for them is, in fact, the historic consciousness of a great and tenacious nation.

4. Prophecy as Miracle:

It should be added that the Jewish Scriptures embody one of the greatest of miracles – that of prophecy. It is obvious that the destiny of the Jewish people is predicted from the commencement, in the narrative of the life of Abraham and onward. There can, moreover, be no question that the office of the Christ had been so distinctly foreshadowed in the Scriptures of the Old Testament that the people, as a whole, expected a Messiah before He appeared. our Lord did not, like Buddha or Mohammed, create a new office; He came to fill an office which had been described by the prophets, and of which they had predicted the functions and powers. We are told of the Saviour, And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself (Luk 24:27). That, again, is a revelation of God’s nature, for it reveals Him as knowing the end from the beginning, and as the Ruler of human life and history.

VI. Ecclesiastical Miracles.

1. Probability of Such Miracles:

Some notice, finally, must be taken of the question of what are called ecclesiastical miracles. There seems no sufficient reason for assuming that miracles ceased with the apostles, and there is much evidence that in the early church miraculous cures, both of body and soul, were sometimes vouchsafed. There were occasions and circumstances when the manifestation of such miraculous power was as appropriate as testimony of the living power of Christ, as in the scenes in the Acts. But they were not recorded under inspired guidance, like the miracles of the Apostolic Age, and they have in many cases been overlaid by legend.

2. Pascal Quoted:

The observation in Pascal’s Thoughts eminently applies to this class of miracles: It has appeared to me that the real cause (that there are so many false miracles, false revelations, etc.) is that there are true ones, for it would not be possible that there should be so many false miracles unless there were true, nor so many false religions unless there were one that is true. For if all this had never been, it is impossible that so many others should have believed it…. Thus instead of concluding that there are no true miracles since there are so many false, we must on the contrary say that there are true miracles since there are so many false, and that false miracles exist only for the reason that there are true; so also that there are false religions only because there is one that is true (On Miracles).

VII. Miracle in Works of Grace.

It has lately been argued with much earnestness and force in Germany, particularly by J. Wendland, in his Miracles and Christianity, that belief in miracles is indispensable to our apprehension of a real living God, and to our trust in His saving work in our own souls. The work of grace and salvation, indeed, is all so far miraculous that it requires the influence upon our nature of a living power above that nature. It is not strictly correct to call it miraculous, as these operations of God’s Spirit are now an established part of His kingdom of grace. But they none the less involve the exercise of a like supernatural power to that exhibited in our Lord’s miracles of healing and casting out of demons; and in proportion to the depths of man’s Christian life will he be compelled to believe in the gracious operation on his soul of this Divine interposition.

On the whole, it is perhaps increasingly realized that miracles, so far from being an excrescence on Christian faith, are indissolubly bound up with it, and that there is a complete unity in the manifestation of the Divine nature, which is recorded in the Scriptures.

Literature.

Trench, Notes on the Miracles; Mozley, Bampton Lectures (Mozley’s argument is perhaps somewhat marred by its too positive and controversial tone, but, if the notes be read as well as the Lectures, the reader will obtain a comprehensive view of the main controversies on the subject); A.B. Bruce, The Miraculous Element in the Gospels. For modern German views see J. Wendland, Miracles and Christianity; Christlieb, Modern Doubt and Christian Belief. Paley’s Evidences and Butler’s Analogy may profitably be consulted. On continuance of miracles, see Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, chapter xiv, and Christlieb, as above, Lecture V.

Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Miracle

Miracle, in the A. V., represents three Greek words: 1. Semeion, sign, by which a divine power is made known and a divine messenger attested. Mat 12:38-39; Mat 16:1; Mat 16:6; Mar 8:11; Luk 11:16; Luk 23:8; Joh 2:11; Joh 2:18; Joh 2:23, etc.; Act 6:8; 1Co 1:22. 2. Teras, wonder or portent, with regard to their astounding character. Joh 4:48; Act 2:22; Act 2:43; Act 7:36; Rom 15:19; usually in connection with “signs.” 3. Dunamis, power or powers, mighty deeds, with reference to their effect. Mat 7:22; Mat 11:20-21; Mat 11:23; Luk 10:13; Rom 15:19. A miracle is not, philosophically speaking, a violation of the ordinary laws of nature, nor does it necessarily require a suspension of those laws, as some have imagined; but is either a manifestation of divine power, superior to natural causes, or an increase of the action of some existing law, accomplishing a new result. Such were the miracles which God wrought by the prophets; and those wrought by Christ and by the apostles and disciples in his name. Though miracles are supernatural facts, in one sense they are also natural facts. They belong to a superior order of things, to a superior world; and they are perfectly conformed with the supreme law which governs them. They belong to the vast plan of Jehovah, which contains at once both the natural course of events and these supernatural manifestations. And when, on remarkable occasions, his plans and purposes have required preternatural interposition of his power, it has always been exerted; but, with the unusual occasion, the unusual agency has ceased, and the extraordinary result has no longer occurred. Such interferences are not required in the established course and usual sequences of nature. The miracles of Christ as reported in the gospels present many noticeable features. They were numerous: a multitude more having been performed than are described in detail. Joh 20:30; Joh 21:25. They exhibit great variety; they were wrought almost always instantaneously, by a word of power, without the use or auxiliary means, sometimes taking their effect at a distance from the place in which Christ personally was. They were permanent in their results, were subjected at the time to keen investigation, and convinced a hostile people of the truth of them, to such an extent that, though there were persons who concealed or resisted their convictions, very many in consequence attached themselves, to the great detriment of their worldly interests, in several cases with the sacrifice of their lives, to the person and doctrine of this extraordinary Teacher. They were miracles, too, of mercy, intended to relieve human suffering, and to promote the well-being of those on whom or for whom they were wrought. And the power of working miracles was conveyed by our Lord to his followers, was repeatedly exercised by them, and was continued for a while in the church. Act 19:11; 1Co 12:10; 1Co 12:28-29. For list of miracles in the Bible, see Appendix.

Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible

Miracle

“power, inherent ability,” is used of works of a supernatural origin and character, such as could not be produced by natural agents and means. It is translated “miracles” in the RV and AV in Act 8:13 (where variant readings give the words in different order); Act 19:11; 1Co 12:10, 1Co 12:28-29; Gal 3:5; AV only, in Act 2:22 (RV, “mighty works”); Heb 2:4 (RV, “powers”). In Gal 3:5, the word may be taken in its widest sense, to include “miracles” both physical and moral. See MIGHT, A, No. 1, POWER, WORK.

“a sign, mark, token” (akin to semaino, “to give a sign;” sema, “a sign”), is used of “miracles” and wonders as signs of Divine authority; it is translated “miracles” in the RV and AV of Luk 23:8; Act 4:16, Act 4:22; most usually it is given its more appropriate meaning “sign,” “signs,” e.g., Mat 12:38-39, and in every occurrence in the Synoptists, except Luk 23:8; in the following passages in John’s Gospel the RV substitutes “sign” or “signs” for the AV, “miracle or miracles;” Joh 2:11, Joh 2:23; Joh 3:2; Joh 4:54; Joh 6:2, Joh 6:14, Joh 6:26; Joh 7:31; Joh 9:16; Joh 10:41; Joh 11:47; Joh 12:18, Joh 12:37; the AV also has “signs” elsewhere in this Gospel; in Acts, RV, “signs,” AV, “miracles,” in Act 6:8; Act 8:6; Act 15:12; elsewhere only in Rev 13:14; Rev 16:14; Rev 19:20. See SIGN, TOKEN, WONDER.

Fuente: Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words