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MIRACLE (Lat. miraculum, from mirari,...

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 572 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MIRACLE (See also:Lat. miraculum, from mirari, to wonder) , anything wonderful, beyond human See also:power, and deviating from the See also:common See also:action of the See also:laws of nature, a supernatural event. The See also:term is particularly associated with the supernatural factors in See also:Christianity. To the Lat. miraculum correspond Gr. ripas in the New Testament, and Heb. x!~h (Exod. xv. 11; See also:Dan. xii. 6) in the Old Testament. Other terms used in the New Testament are SGvapts " with reference to the power residing in the miracle worker " (cf. ri i Deut. iii. 24 and ns"n Num. xvi. 30), and o-i7µ6,ov " with reference to the See also:character or claims of which it was the See also:witness and See also:guarantee " (cf. m's Exod. iv. 8) ; tat the power is assumed to be from See also:God is shown by the phrases irvevµSee also:ari Bea (Matt. xii. 28; cf. See also:Luke iv. 18) and barcru y Bea (Luke xi.

20). While See also:

Augustine describes miracles as " contra naturam quae nobis est nota," See also:Aquinas without qualification defines them as " praeter naturam," " supra et contra naturam." Loscher affirms in regard to miracles that " Bolus See also:Deus potest tum supra naturae vires turn contra naturae leges agere "; and Buddaeus argues that in them a " suspensio legum naturae " is followed by a restitutio. Against the common view that miracles can attest the truth of a divine See also:revelation See also:Gerhard maintained that " per miracula non possunt probari oracula "; and Hopfner returns to the qualified position of Augustine when he describes them as " praeter et supra naturae ordinem." The two conceptions, once common in the See also:Christian See also:church, that on the one See also:hand miracles involved an interference with the forces and a suspension of the laws of nature, and that, on the other hand, as this could be effected only by divine power, they served as See also:credentials of a divine revelation, are now generally abandoned. As regards the first point, it is now generally held that miracles are exceptions to the See also:order of nature as known in our common experience; and as regards the second, that miracles are constituent elements in the divine revelation, deeds which display the divine character and purpose; but they are signs and not merely See also:seals of truth. Some of the theories regarding miracles which have been formulated may be mentioned. See also:Bonnet, See also:Euler, See also:Haller, achmid and others " suppose miracles to be already implanted in nature. The miraculous germs always exist alongside other germs in a sort of sheath, like hidden springs in a See also:machine, and emerge into the See also:light when their See also:time comes." Similar is the view of See also:Paracelsus and See also:Jerome See also:Cardan, who " suppose a twofold See also:world, existing one in the other; beside or behind the visible is an inner, ideal world, which breaks through in particular spots " (See also:Dorner's See also:System of Christian See also:Doctrine, iii. 155, 156). The 8th See also:duke of See also:Argyll (Reign of See also:Law) maintains that " miracles may be wrought by the selection and use of laws of which See also:man knows and can know nothing, and which, if he did know, he could not employ." These theories endeavour to discover the means by which the exceptional occurrence is brought about; but the explanation is merely hypothetical, and we are not helped in conceiving the mode of the divine activity in the working of miracles. The important See also:consideration from the religious standpoint is that God's activity should be fully recognized. An See also:attempt has been made to discover a natural law which will explain some at least of the miracles of Jesus. " In one respect alone," says See also:Matthew See also:Arnold, " have the miracles recorded by the evangelists a more real ground than the See also:mass of miracles of which we have the relation.

Medical See also:

science has never gauged, perhaps never enough set itself to See also:gauge the intimate connexion between moral See also:fault and disease. To what extent or in how many cases what is called illness is See also:clue to moral springs having been used amiss, whether by being over-used, br by not being used sufficiently, we hardly at all know, and we too little inquire. Certainly it is due to this very much more than we commonly think, and the more it is due to this the more do moral See also:therapeutics rise in possibility and importance " (Literature and See also:Dogma, pp. 143-144). The moral therapeutics consists in the See also:influence of a powerful will over others. See also:Harnack accepts this view. " We see that a See also:firm will and a convinced faith See also:act even on the bodily See also:life and cause appearances which See also:appeal to us as miracles. Who has hitherto here with certainty measured the See also:realm of the possible and the real? Nobody. Who can say how far the influences of one soul on another soul and of the soul on the See also:body reach? Nobody. Who can still affirm that all which in this realm appears as striking rests only on deception and See also:error?

Certainly no miracles occur, but there is enough of the wonderful and the inexplicable " (Das Wesen See also:

des Christentums, p. 18). As regards the theory, it may be pointed out: (I) that the nature or cosmical miracles—feeding of the five See also:thou-See also:sand, stilling of the See also:storm, withering of the fig-See also:tree—are as well-attested as the miracles of healing; (2) that many of the diseases, the cure of which is reported, are of a See also:kind with which moral therapeutics could not effect anything;' (3) that See also:Christ's own insight regarding the power by which He wrought His See also:works is directly challenged by this explanation, for He never failed to ascribe His power to the See also:Father dwelling in Him. The divine agency is recognized as combining and controlling, but not as producing, in the teleological notion of miracles. " In miracle no new See also:powers, instituted or stimulated by God's creative action, are at See also:work, but merely the See also:general order of nature "; but " the manifold See also:physical and spiritual powers in actual existence so blend together as to produce a startling result " (Dorner's System of Christian Doctrine, ii. 157). While we cannot deny, we have no ground for affirming the truth of this theory. Whether God's action is creative, or only ;selective and directive in miracles, is beyond our knowledge; we at least do not know the powers exercised, whether new or old. An attempt is made to get rid of the distinctive nature of miracle when the exceptionalness of the events so regarded is reduced to a new subjective mode of regarding natural phenomena. H. E. G.

See also:

Paulus dismisses the miracles as " exaggerations or misapprehensions of quite See also:ordinary events." A. See also:Ritschl has been unjustly charged with this treatment of miracles. But what he emphasizes is on the one hand the See also:close connexion between the conception of miracles and the belief in divine See also:providence, and on the other the compatibility between miracles and the order of nature. He de-clines to regard miracles as divine action contrary to the laws of nature. So for See also:Schleiermacher "miracle is neither explicable from nature alone, nor entirely See also:alien to it." What both Ritschl and Schleiermacher insist on is that the belief in miracles is inseparable from the belief in God, and in God as immanent in nature, not only directing and controlling its existent forces, but also as initiating new stages consistent with the old in its progressive development. We may accept Dorner's See also:definition as adequate and satisfactory. " Miracles are sensuously cognizable events, not comprehensible on the ground of the causality of nature as such, but essentially on the ground of God's See also:free action alone. Such facts find their possibility in the constitution of nature and God's living relation to it, their See also:necessity in the aim of revelation, which they subserve " (p. 161). By the first clause, inward moral and religious changes due to the operation of the Spirit of God in man are excluded, and ' See also R. J. See also:Ryle, " The Neurotic Theory of the Miracles of Healing," Hibbert See also:Journal, v.

586.rightly so (see See also:

INSPIRATION). The negative aspect is presented in the second clause. This is prominent in J. S. See also:Mill's definition of miracles: " to constitute a miracle, a phenomenon must take See also:place without having been preceded by any antecedent phenomenal conditions sufficient again to reproduce it. . The test of a miracle is, were there See also:present in the See also:case such See also:external conditions, such second causes we may See also:call them, that wherever these conditions or causes reappear the event will be reproduced. If there were, it is not a miracle; if there were not, it is " (Essays, p. 224). The See also:positive aspect is presented in the third clause. When the existence of God is denied (See also:atheism), or His nature is declared unknowable (See also:agnosticism), or He is identified with nature itself (See also:pantheism), or He is so distinguished from the world that His free action is excluded from the course of nature (See also:deism), miracle is necessarily denied. Thus See also:Spinoza, identifying God and nature, declares " nothing happens in nature which is in See also:contradiction with its universal laws." The deists, compelled by their view of the relation of God to nature to regard miracles as interventions, disposed of the miracles of the See also:Bible either as " mistaken See also:allegory " or even as conscious See also:fraud onAthe See also:part of the narrators. It is only the theistic view of God as See also:personal power—that is as free-will ever present and ever active in the world, which leaves See also:room for miracles.

The possibility of miracles is often confidently denied. " We are of the unalterable conviction," says Harnack, that what happens in time and space is subject to the universal laws of See also:

movement; that accordingly there cannot be any miracles in this sense, i.e. as interruptions of the continuity of nature " (Das Wesen des Christentums, p. 17). See also:Huxley expresses himself much more cautiously, as he recognizes that we do not know the continuity of nature so thoroughly as to be able to declare that this or that event is necessarily an interruption of it. " If a dead man did come to life, the'fact would be See also:evidence, not that any law of nature had been violated, but that these laws, even when they See also:express the results of a very See also:long and See also:uniform experience, are necessarily based on incomplete knowledge, and are to be held only on grounds of more or less justifiable expectation " (See also:Hume, p. 135). See also:Lotze has shown how the possibility of miracle can be conceived. " The whole course of nature becomes intelligible only by sup-posing the co-working of God, who alone carries forward the reciprocal action of the different parts of the world. But that view which admits a life of God that is not benumbed in an unchangeable sameness will be able to understand his eternal co-working as a variable quantity, the transforming influence of which comes forth at particular moments and attests that the course of nature is not shut up within itself. And this being the case, the See also:complete conditioning causes of the miracle will be found in God and nature together, and in that eternal action and reaction between them which perhaps, although not ordered simply according to general laws, is not void of regulative principles. This vital, as opposed to a See also:mechanical, constitution of nature, together with the conceptions of nature as not complete in itself—as if it were dissevered from the divine See also:energy—shows how a miracle may take place without any disturbance elsewhere of the constancy of nature, all whose forces are affected sympathetically, with the consequence that its orderly movement goes on unhindered " (Mikrokosmos, iii. 364).

The mode of the divine working in nature is in another passage more clearly defined. " The closed and '-hard circle of mechanical necessity is not immediately accessible to the miracle-working fiat, nor does it need to be; but the inner nature of that which obeys its laws is not determined by it but by the meaning of the world. This is the open place on which a power that commands in the name of this meaning can exert its influence; and if under this command the inner See also:

condition of the elements, the magnitudes of their relation and their opposition to each other, become altered, the necessity of the mechanical cause of the world must unfold this new See also:state into a miraculous See also:appearance, not through suspension but through strict See also:maintenance of its general laws " (op. cit. ii. 54). If we conceive God as personal, and His will as related to the course of nature analogously to the relation of the human will to the human body, then the laws of nature may be regarded as habits of the divine activity, and miracles as unusual acts which, while consistent with the divine character, See also:mark a new See also:stage in the fulfilment of the purpose of God. The doctrine of See also:Evolution, instead of increasing the difficulty of conceiving the possibility of miracle, decreases it; for it presents to us the universe as an uncompleted See also:process, and one in which there is no See also:absolute continuity on the phenomenal See also:side; for life and mind are inexplicable by their physical antecedents, and there is not only room for, but need of, the divine initiative, a creative as well as conservative co-operation of God with nature. Such an absolute continuity is sometimes assumed without See also:warrant; but See also:Descartes already recognized that the world was no continuous process, " Tria mirabilia fecit See also:Dominus; res ex nihilo, liberum arbitrium et hominem Deum." That life cannot be explained by force is recognized by See also:Sir See also:Oliver See also:Lodge. " Life may be something not only ultra-terrestrial, but even immaterial, something outside our present categories of See also:matter and energy; as real as they are, but different, and utilizing them for its own purpose " (Life and Matter, p. 198). The theory of psychophysical See also:parallelism recognizes that while there is a See also:correspondence between See also:mental and material phenomena, changes in the mind and changes in the See also:brain, the former cannot be explained by the latter, as the transition from the one to the other is unthinkable. See also:William See also:James distinguishes the transmissive See also:function of the brain from the productive in relation to thought, and admits only the former, and not the latter (Human See also:Immortality, p. 32).

Thus as life is transcendent and yet immanent in body, and mind in brain, and both utilize their See also:

organs, so God, transcendent and immanent, uses the course of nature for His own ends; and the emergence both of life and mind in that course of nature evidences such a divine initiative as is assumed in the recognition of the possibility of miracles. For such an initiative there must be adequate See also:reason ; it must be prepared for in the previous process, and it must be necessary to further progress. The See also:proof of the possibility of miracle leads us inevitably to the inquiry regarding the necessity of miracle. The necessity of miracles is displayed in their connexion with the divine revelation; but this connexion may be conceived in two ways. The miracles may be regarded as the credentials of -the agents of divine revelation. " It is an acknowledged See also:historical fact," says See also:Butler, " that Christianity offered itself to the world, and demanded to be received, upon the allegation—i.e. as unbelievers would speak—upon the pretence of miracles, publicly wrought to attest the truth of it, in such' an See also:age; and that it was actually received by See also:great See also:numbers in that very age, and upon the professed belief of the reality of miracles (See also:Analogy, part ii. ch. vii.). This view is now generally abandoned; for it is recognized that acts of superhuman power, even if established by adequate historical evidence, do not necessarily certify their divine origin. Their moral quality must correspond with the character of God; and they must be connected with teaching which to reason and See also:conscience approves itself divine. " Miracula sine doctrina nihil valent " is the principle now generally recognized. The miracle and the doctrine mutually illuminate one another. " See also:Les miracles discernent la doctrine, et la doctrine discerne les miracles " (See also:Pascal's Pensees des miracles). Accordingly, the credentials must also be constituents of the revelation.

Of the miracles of Jesus, See also:

Bushnell says, " The character of Jesus is ever shining with and through them,, in clear self-evidence leaving them never to stand as raw wonders only of might, but covering them with See also:glory as tokens of a heavenly love, and acts that only suit the proportions of His personal greatness and See also:majesty " (Nature and the Supernatural, p. 364). If it be asked why the character may not be displayed in ordinary acts instead of miracles, the See also:answer maybe given, "Miracle is the certificate of identity between the See also:Lord of Nature and the Lord of Conscience—the proof that He is really a moral being who subordinates physical to moral interests " (Lidden's Elements of See also:Religion, p. 73). As God is the Saviour, and the See also:chief end of the revelation is redemption, it is fitting that the miracles should be acts of divine deliverance from physical evil. This congruity of the miracle with divine truth and See also:grace is the answer to Matthew Arnold's taunt about turning a vn into a See also:pen-wiper or Huxley's about a centaur trotting down egent See also:Street. The miracles of Jesus—the See also:relief of need, the removal of suffering, the recovery of See also:health and strength—reveal in outward events the essential features of His divine See also:mission. The divine See also:wisdom and goodness are revealed in the course of nature, but also obscured by it. The existence of physical evil, and still more of moral evil, forbids the See also:assumption without qualification that the real is the rational. God in nature as well as See also:history is fulfilling a redemptive as well as perfective purpose, of which these miracles are appropriate signs. It is an unwarranted See also:idealism and optimism which finds the course of nature so See also:wise and so See also:good that any See also:change in it must be regarded as incredible. On the problem of evil and See also:sin it is impossible here to enter; but this must be insisted on, that the miracles of Jesus at least express divine benevolence just under those conditions in which the course of nature obscures it, and are therefore, proper elements in a revelation of grace, of which nature cannot give any evidence.

Having discussed the possibility and necessity of miracles for the divine revelation, we must now consider whether there is sufficient historical evidence for their occurrence. Hume maintains that no evidence, such as is available, can make a miracle credible. Mill states the position with due care. " The question can be stated fairly as depending on a See also:

balance of evidence, a certain amount of positive evidence in favour of miracles, and a negative presumption from the general course of human experience against them " (Essays on Religion, p. 221). The existence of " a certain amount of positive evidence in favour of miracles " forbids the sweeping statement that miracles are " contrary to experience." The phrase itself is, as See also:Paley has pointed out, ambiguous. If it means all experience it assumes the point to be proved; if it means only common experience then it simply asserts that the miracle is unusual—a truism. The See also:probability of miracles depends on the conception we have of the free relation of God to nature, and of nature as the adequate See also:organ for the fulfilment of God's purposes. If we believe in a divine revelation and redemption, transcending the course of nature, the miracles as signs of that divine purpose will not seem improbable. For the Christian Church the miracles of • Jesus are of See also:primary importance; and the evidence—external and See also:internal—in their favour may be said to be sufficient to justify belief. The Gospels assumed their present See also:form between A.D. 6o and 90.

Their See also:

representation of the moral character, the religious consciousness, the teaching of Jesus, inspires confidence. The narratives of miracles are See also:woven into the very texture of this representation. In these acts Jesus reveals Himself as Saviour. " The Jesus Christ presented to us in the New Testament would become a very different See also:person if the miracles were removed " (See also:Temple's Relations between Religion and Science). In His sinless perfection and filial relation to God He is unique, and His works are See also:congruous with His Person. Of the supreme miracle of His resurrection there is earlier evidence than of any of the others (I See also:Coe. xv. 3-7, before A.D. 58). His See also:con-quest of See also:death is most frequently appealed to in the apostolic teaching. The Christian Church would never have come into existence without faith in the Risen Lord. The proof of the supernaturalness of His Person sets the See also:seal to the credibility of His supernatural works. In Christ, however, was the fulfilment of law and prophecy.

This close connexion invests the antecedent revelation in some degree with the supernaturalness of His Person: at least, we are prepared to entertain without See also:

prejudice any evidence that may be presented in the Old Testament. That this evidence is not as good as that for the miracles of Jesus must be conceded, as much of it is of much later date than the events recorded. The miracles connected with the beginnings of the See also:national history—the See also:period of the See also:Exodus—appear on closer inspection to have been ordinarily natural phenomena, to which a supernatural character was given by their connexion with the prophetic word of See also:Moses. The miracles recorded of See also:Elijah and See also:Elisha See also:lie somewhat apart from the See also:main currents of the history, the narratives themselves are distinct from the historical works in which they have been incorporated, and the character of some of the actions raises serious doubts and difficulties. In some cases suspense of See also:judgment seems necessary even from the standpoint of Christian faith. The supernatural See also:element that is prominent in the Old Testament is God's providential guidance and guardianship of His See also:people, and His teaching and training of them by His prophets. The Apostolic miracles, to which the New Testament bears evidence, were wrought in the power of Christ, and were evidences to His church and to the world of His continued presence. When the Church had established itself in the world, and possessed in its moral and religious fruits evidence of its claims, these outward signs appear gradually to have ceased, although attempts were made to perpetuate them. It is true that in See also:Roman Catholicism, in See also:medieval as in See also:modern times, the working of miracles has been ascribed to its See also:saints; but the character of most of these miracles is such as to lack the a priori probability which has been claimed for the Scripture miracles on See also:account of their connexion and congruity with the divine revelation. The a posteriori evidence as regards both its moral and religious quality and its date is altogether inferior to the evidence of the Gospels. Further, these records are imitative. As Christ and the apostles worked miracles, it is assumed that those who in the Church were distinguished for their sanctity would also work miracles; and there can be little doubt that the wish was often father to the thought.

There may be cases which cannot be explained in this way; but " whatever may be thought about them, it is See also:

plain that even if these and their like are really to be traced to the intervention of the divine See also:mercy which loves to See also:reward a See also:simple faith (and it does not seem to us that the evidence is sufficient to establish such a conclusion), yet they do not serve as vehicles of revelation as the miracles of the See also:Gospel did (H. J. See also:Bernard in See also:Hastings's Bible, See also:Dictionary, iii. 395). (A. E.

End of Article: MIRACLE (Lat. miraculum, from mirari, to wonder)

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