6. There is, however, a form of Spinoza’s argu- ment which has more plausibility than that just considered, based as the latter is on a palpable logical fallacy. For it may be argued that miracles are contrary to the very conception of God as the All-Wise. A miracle would be an introduction of disorder into that creation of which the only idea worthy of God is that of an unchangeable order. It would be a contradiction of God by Himself, for the law which is at variance with the miracle is as much the reflexion of the divine will and purpose as the miracle itself.f God ‘is not a man that he should repent’ (1S 1539). His eternal decrees are unchangeable, and they are dictated by perfect wisdom. But a miracle is an intervention which can only be demanded by an imperfection in the existing order; and thus we have to suppose that the creation is, after all, but an imperfect ex- pression of the Divine will. Here, it is urged, is something inconsistent with the infinite wisdom and power of Him who pronounced all, at the beginning, to be ‘ very good.’ In a perfect system, any interference with the normal course of things could only be for the worse.
The answer is not far to seek, when we express our difficulty in such words as these last. For this world is not, however much we may desire it, the best of all possible, or even of all imaginable, worlds. At some remote epoch in man’s history his progress was violently interrupted ; his career was checked in its progress ‘from strength to strength.’ The free will, which was his greatest gift, became the source of his greatest misery. And his fall has left permanent traces on the fair universe of God. How evil could ever have entered into the world we do not know (see FALL) ; but as things are, man has not fulfilled the Divine in- tention for him. From the consequences of his sin he cannot be saved by the mere normal opera- tions of natural law, by the orderly development of hisown nature. That redemption can be brought about only by an act of Divine merey, which may involve —which perhaps necessitates—a_ pertur- bation of the established order. But the real marvel is not the intervention of grace, but the sin which demanded it. For sin is ἀνομία, law- lessness (1 Jn 34); it is a violation of moral law, which may be—and we can see reasons which Suggest that it is —a far greater anomaly than any apparent violation of physical law could possibly be. There is an incongruity which we cannot re- concile (see FALL) between our conceptions of an All-Wise and All-Good God and the existence of sin; but that incongruity being frankly recognized, there is no further difficulty in conceiving of God as intervening, in an exceptional way, at an ex- ceptional moment, to save man from the conse- quences of his own rash acts.
*See Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, c. 6, and Mozley, Miracles, p. 215 δ΄, t See Trench, Miracles, p. 73.
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7. There is, indeed, a point of view from which it would be impossible to conceive of such inter- vention taking place, without doing violence to our best notions of the Supreme. We are not to conceive of the relation between God and nature as that merely which subsists between an architect and his work (see NATURE), between a mechanic and the machine which he has made, and which, once made, is left to its own devices, unless it gets out of order.
‘The reason why, among men, an artificer is justly esteemed so much the more skilful as the machine of his composing will continue to move reguiarly without any further interposition of the workman, is, because the skill of all hwman artificers con- sists only in composing, adjusting, or putting together certain movements, the principles of whose motion are altogether dependent upon the artificer. ... But with regard to God, the case is quite different; because He not only composes or puts things together, but is Himself the Author and continual Pre- server of their original forces or moving powers. And conse- quently it is not a diminution, but the true glory of His workmanship, that nothing is done without His continual government and inspection.’ *
On the mechanical theory of nature, the word ‘intervention’ might seem to suggest imperfect workmanship or foresight on the part of the Creator ; but that is not a theory with which, as Christians, we are concerned. One who upholds ‘all things by the word of His power’ (He 18) cannot be spoken of as intruding, either in nature or in grace. And thus, despite the associations which cling to the word ‘intervention,’ it is hard to get a better word to express a special and ex- traordinary manifestation of purpose on the part of Him who is ever immanent in nature. We do not imply by its use that God stands aloof from the affairs of the world, save on those few occasions which we call miraculous, but we mean that, at certain critical moments in the history of the human race, the uniformity of His rule has been departed from, ‘lest one good eustom should cor- rupt the world.’ ‘* When,’ says Augustine,t ‘things happen in a continuous kind of river of ever-flowing succession, passing from the hidden to the visible, and from the visible to the hidden, by a regular and beaten track, they are called natural; when, for the admonition of men, they are thrust in by an unusual changeableness, then they are called miracles.’