MIRACLES.
Biblical Data (§ 1). Theory and Proof of Mira-
Patristie and Scholastic cles (§ 4).
Views (§ 2). Arguments against Miracles
Post-Reformation Theories (§ 5).
(§ 3). Classification of Miracles (§6).
Present Tendencies (§ 7).
The concept of miracles, found in nearly all religions, is due to the belief in the power of the supernatural over the world, either in whole or in part. The types of miracles are as manifold as the religions themselves, ranging from cosmic phenomena (especially of creation and eschatology) and divine manifestations to the founders of religions, to omens and warnings, rewards and punishments, and responses to prayer and priestly power.
The Bible bears witness to the general belief in miracles, although here, in contradistinction to other oriental religions, miracles are, in general, fewer in number and more religious in character. This is in keeping with the spirituality of the Biblical concept of God, who, though om- 1. Biblical nipotent (Gen. xviii. 14; Job xlii. 2; Data. Ps. lxxvii. 14), is regarded as acting only in accordance with his nature. Creation and rain, comfort to the sorrowing and thwarting of the wicked are all miracles (Job. v. 9 sqq.). The concept of the orderly progress of all natural phenomena is extremely firm in the Old Testament (cf. Gen. viii. 22; Ps. cxlviii. 5-6; Jer. xxxi. 35-36), and this same concept prevails in the New Testament, where the religious character of miracles is even more marked since phenomenal miracles are here combined with spiritual miracles.
Miracles
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Accordingly, the miracles of Christ are intended to prove that the time of redemption or of the kingdom of God is come (Matt. xi. 5, xii. 28; Mark ii. 10-11). Not only did Christ work no miracles for his own benefit (Matt. iv. 4, 7, xxvi. 53), but he refused miracles to those who asked unworthily (Matt. xvi. 1 sqq.). His miracles were wrought through his word or in virtue of the spirit of God that dwelt within him (Matt. viii. 16, xii. 28, xv. 28; Mark i. 25, ii. 11; John iv. 50; Acts x. 38), and although later in his career external miracles became less numerous, yet he promised his disciples that they would do greater miracles than he (John xiv. 12 sqq.). This implies, however, simply the greater miracles of the operations of the Spirit upon the heart; and when Paul concentrates the operation of the Spirit on the Gospel and prefers love to all external marvels (I Cor. xiii.), he followed the thoughts of Christ himself, the concept of the New Testament which through the Spirit writes the will of God upon the heart of man (Jer. xxxi. 33; Ezek. xxxvi. 26-27; Joel ii. 28). While, moreover, individual miracles are less important and striking than in other religions, it must be borne in mind that in Christianity religion itself bears an essentially miraculous character, seen not only in every event in the life of Christ and in the experiences of the apostles, but in the religious life of the Christian.
In the centuries following primitive Christianity the miracles of the Spirit came gradually to be depreciated, while the inner transformation of the Christian received an interpretation of mere psychology. The desire for miracles was gratified by legends of the apostles, martyrs, and confessors, or, still later, of hermits and monks; Jew-
2. Patris- ish eschatology was adopted with all tic and its marvels; and even a series of de-
Scholastic moniac miracles was taken from early Views. folklore. Side by side with this practical belief in miracles was evolved the theory regarding them. The basis for this was laid by Augustine. Holding that the world is full of miracles and is itself the greatest of all miracles, yet realizing that the marvels of creation become commonplace, he taught that God, who alone can create, caused new miracles to appear, though he had possessed thera from all eternity. While these miracles apparently contradict the laws of nature, they do not really do so, since God, being the creator of nature, can create nothing opposed to it. The elements of the world contain, in addition to their " visible seeds," certain " hidden seeds," which are the source of miracles. There is, therefore, a hidden and inner operation of God in addition to the operation of natural causes. In themselves both these operations are equally marvelous and are simply different components of one and the same creation. The difference between miraculous and natural events is, therefore, not objective but subjective—" the miracle does not violate nature, but only nature as now known " (De civitate Dei, XXL, viii. 2). The Neo-Platonic theory of Augustine never vanished, though the Aristotelian causal theory of the universe maintained by Thomas Aquinas contested its supremacy in the Church. Nothing
can happen outside the sum total of the system of divine governance, and in the great systematized order called the world God works as the first cause which simply determines a long chain of causes. In this sum total God can make no change, but he both can and does substitute some individual secondary causes for others. The result is a miracle and God accordingly created cosmic order with the condition that he himself might be directly operative in it otherwise than through the usual and regularly operative causes. Miracles are accordingly defined as " those things which are done by God contrary to causes known to us " (Summa I., qusest. cv. art. 6). Miracles are thus placed within the sphere of divine governance, the sole difference between them and ordinary natural phenomena being that in the latter God is the first in a causal series, while in the case of miracles he directly intervenes. Not all direct intervention of God, however, is to be considered a miracle, this category including only deviations from the course of nature, whereas justification and creation are not miracles.
Luther held that God had caused visible miracles in the early stages of Christianity to foster belief in it and that these, subsequently proving unnecessary, were replaced by the far greater
3. Post- invisible spiritual miracles wrought by
Reforma- the Word and the sacraments. Other tion early Protestants considered miracles
Theories, as divine suspensions of the ordinary course of nature, while Leibnitz maintained that miracles, like the hearing of prayer, were components of the original plan of the cosmos which must necessarily be realized. Spinoza, on the other hand, denied the possibility of miracles, except on the impossible hypothesis that the will of God and the law of nature, although identical, are different. The term miracle can, therefore, be applied only relatively to a phenomenon the cause of which is unknown. Hume made a still more vital attack on miracles by declaring the testimony for them too feeble to make them credible. During the period of the Enlightenment belief in miracles was gradually surrendered, and they were explained either as natural phenomena or as adapted to the views of their time, very much as Spinoza had explained them as projections of the mental processes of those who recorded them or as making God the first cause to the exclusion of mediate causes. Like Strauss, many modern theologians discredit miracles in the strict sense of the term, though positing the operation of marvelous powers of a higher order. Even though the great religious revival early in the nineteenth century rehabilitated belief in miracles, opposition to this belief has never disappeared, and still constitutes to many the great barrier to faith in Christianity. Once the foundation of all apologetics, miracles have now become the great apologetic crux.
A study in the concept of miracles can not begin with a general discussion of their possibility or impossibility, but with the problem whether the assertion of their existence is essential to the religious life of the Christian. The authority of the Bible, which affirms miracles, can not be appealed to, for this depends solely on religious experience, which