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CHAPTER II

BELIEF IN GOD AND MIRACLE

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ORE and more the view prevails among

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educated people that miracles are no part of genuine history. The opinion prevails that at this point the Christian religion does not differ from other religions. The miraculous element, so it is more and more widely held, is the constant and spurious accompaniment, in ancient times, of every great religious movement. To-day, this element does not count; it is widely rejected; it is still more widely disregarded. Face to face with the movement which threatens to sweep the miraculous from the reasonable beliefs of mankind, it is pertinent to ask, How much will thus be lost to faith? How much will survive the storm and abide?

If the mechanism of cause and effect is

made to cover the entire field of human experience, if all human things and thoughts are under the reign of fixed law, is there room for spirit in the cosmos or in man? The sovereign interest of human life centres in the existence and character of God. If there is no God, there can be, in the full meaning of the word, no religion. If God exists, but exists without regard to man, again religion, in the full and happy sense of the term, is an impossibility. The being and character of God are thus the sovereign object and interest of faith; and the being and character of God are bound up with the ways in which he reveals that being and character. Therefore we may say that God, and God in the Christian vision of his attitude toward man, are the citadel of our faith. Whatever threatens these, threatens our religion; whatever leaves these entire and untroubled, means little or nothing to enlightened men in its otherwise destructive course. Our discussion revolves about these three fundamental questions: In what way is belief in God affected by the denial of miracle? How does it

fare with Jesus Christ if the miraculous in the evangelical record is regarded as unreal? Is the Christian life harassed or injured seriously by disregard for miracle? These questions will be discussed in the order stated, and I begin with the consideration of the relation of belief in God to miracle.

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God is the life and light and consolation of the world, and it is clear that his existence is independent of miracle. He is the indispensable antecedent of all miracle and of all mechanism. The miraculous means the contradiction of the customary order of the world, as when the axe is said to come from the bed of the Jordan to its surface at the call of the prophet. Mechanism means the customary order of the world regarded as invariable and inviolable, as in the statement, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap"; wheat comes from wheat, barley from barley, tares from tares. The miraculous is the extraordinary and the mechanical the ordinary way of

bringing things to pass. Both refer the mind to an indispensable antecedent. The antecedent of all life, of all change, of the entire world in space and time is the Eternal God. No matter what the mode of their production may be, all events, all results, all finite beings refer themselves to the one sovereign source: "For every house is builded by some one; but he that built all things is God."

If, therefore, there is any truth in miracle, it is as the witness of God; if there is any meaning in mechanism, it is as the revelation of his will. The Nile divides into two rivers at the Delta, but whichever stream one takes, it brings him to the same sea. If we choose to regard the operation of the cosmos as dividing into two methods, one the miraculous and the other the mechanical, it must be added that both conduct to the same goal; the terminus of all things is God.

If there is no such thing as miracle, it does not follow that there is no such being as God. God is not thus dependent upon miracle for the declaration of his will. The extremest

champion of the miraculous would not claim that if miracle is untrue, God is unreal. The fading of miracle, therefore, from the field of faith does not mean the vanishing of God from the life of the world.

One might with some reason advance this position of indifference. One might contend that the cosmos, operated as an order invariable and inviolable, is the better witness for God. Reasonable men do not work by haphazard, they work by plan; the expression of mind in any sphere of human life is the expression of a plan; the highest work of art means the completest expression of the best design. If the physical organism of man is an expression of indwelling mind, the expression is completer and more impressive in proportion to the invariable order disclosed. If the cosmos is the embodiment and expression of cosmic mind, the invariable order of the cosmos would seem to be the higher evidence of the reasonableness of the impelling mind. We should be put to utter confusion if we could not count upon the ebb and flow of the tide,

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