Supernatural Religion (Discovering the Reality of Divine Revelation). Walter Richard Cassels

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      CHAPTER III. REASON IN RELATION TO THE ORDER OF NATURE

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      The argument of those who assert the possibility and reality of miracles generally takes the shape of an attack, more or less direct, upon our knowledge of the order of nature. To establish an exception they contest the rule. Dr. Mozley, however, is not content with the ordinary objections advanced by apologists but, boldly entering into the mazes of a delicate philosophical problem, he adopts sceptical arguments and seeks to turn the flank of the enemy upon his own ground. He conducts his attack with unusual force and ability. "Whatever difficulty there is in believing in miracles in general," he says, "arises from the circumstance that they are in contradiction to or unlike the order of nature. To estimate the force of this difficulty, then, we must first understand what kind of belief it is which we have in the order of nature; for the weight of the objection to the miraculous must depend on the nature of the belief to which the miraculous is opposed."(1) Dr. Mozley defines the meaning of the phrase, "order of nature" as the connection of that part of the order of nature of which we are ignorant with that part of it which we know, the former being expected to be such and such, because the latter is. But how do we justify this expectation of likeness? We cannot do so, and all our arguments are mere statements of the belief itself, he affirms, and not reasons to account for it. It may be said, e.g., that when a fact of nature has gone on repeating itself a certain time, such repetition shows that there is a permanent cause at work, and that a permanent cause produces permanently recurring effects. But what is there to show the existence of a permanent cause? Nothing. The effects which have taken place show a cause at work to the extent of these effects, but not further. That this cause is of a more permanent nature we have no evidence. Why then do we expect the further continuance of these effects.(2) We can only say: because we believe the future will be like the past. After a physical phenomenon has even occurred every day for years we have nothing but the past repetition to justify our certain expectation of its future repetition.(3) Do we think it giving a reason for our confidence in the future to say that, though no man has had experience of what is future, every man has had experience of what was future? It is true that what is future becomes at every step of our advance what was future, but that which is now still future is not the least altered by that circumstance; it is as invisible, as unknown, and as unexplored as if it were the very beginning and the very starting-point of nature. At this starting-point of nature what would a man know of its future course? Nothing. At this moment he knows no more.(4) What ground of reason, then, can we assign for our expectation that any part of the course of nature will the next moment be like what it has been up to this moment, i.e., for our belief in the uniformity of nature? None. It is without a reason. It rests upon no rational ground, and can be traced to no rational principle.(1) The belief in the order of nature being thus an "unintelligent impulse" of which we cannot give any rational account, Dr. Mozley concludes, the ground is gone upon which it could be maintained that miracles, as opposed to the order of nature, were opposed to reason. A miracle in being opposed to our experience is not only not opposed to necessary reasoning, but to any reasoning.(2) We need not further follow the Bampton Lecturer, as with clearness and ability he applies this reasoning to the argument of "Experience," until he pauses triumphantly to exclaim: "Thus step by step has philosophy loosened the connection of the order of nature with the ground of reason, befriending, in exact proportion as it has done this, the principle of miracles."(3)

      We need not here enter upon any abstract argument regarding the permanence or otherwise of cause: it will be sufficient to deal with these objections in a simpler and more direct way. Dr. Mozley, of course, acknowledges that the principle of the argument from experience is that "which makes human life practicable; which utilizes all our knowledge; which makes the past anything more than an irrelevant picture to us; for of what use is the experience of the past to us unless we believe the future will be like it?'(4) Our knowledge in all things is relative, and there are sharp and narrow limits to human thought. It is therefore evident that, in the absence of absolute knowledge, our belief must be accorded to that of which we have more full cognizance rather than to that which is contradicted by all that we do know. It may be "irrational" to feel entire confidence that the sun will "rise" tomorrow, or that the moon will continue to wax and wane as in the past, but we shall without doubt retain this belief, and reject any assertion, however positive, that the earth will stand still to-morrow, or that it did so some thousands of years ago. Evidence must take its relative place in the finite scale of knowledge and thought, and if we do not absolutely know anything whatever, so long as one thing is more fully established than another, we must hold to that which rests upon the more certain basis. Our belief in the invariability of the order of nature, therefore, being based upon more certain grounds than any other human opinion, we must of necessity refuse credence to a statement supported by infinitely less complete testimony, and contradicted by universal experience, that phenomena subversive of that order occurred many years ago, or we must cease to believe anything at all. If belief based upon unvarying experience be irrational, how much more irrational must belief be which is opposed to that experience. According to Dr. Mozley, it is quite irrational to believe that a stone dropped from the hand, for instance, will fall to the ground. It is true that all the stones we ourselves have ever dropped, or seen dropped, have so fallen, and equally true that all stones so dropped as far back as historic records, and those still more authentic and ancient records of earth's crust itself go, have done the same, but that does not justify our belief, upon any grounds of reason, that the next stone we drop will do so. If we be told, however, that upon one occasion a stone so dropped, instead of falling to the ground, rose up into the air and continued there, we have only two courses open to us: either to disbelieve the fact, and attribute the statement to error of observation, or to reduce the past to a mere irrelevant picture, and the mind to a blank page equally devoid of all belief and of all intelligent reasoning.

      Dr. Mozley's argument, however, is fatal to his own cause. It is admitted that miracles, "or visible suspensions of the order of nature,"(1) cannot have any evidential force unless they be supernatural, and out of the natural sequence of ordinary phenomena. Now, unless there be an actual order of nature, how can there be any exception to it? If our belief in it be not based upon any ground of reason—as Dr. Mozley maintains, in order to assert that miracles or visible suspensions of that order are not contrary to reason—how can it be asserted that miracles are supernatural? If we have no rational ground for believing that the future will be like the past, what rational ground can we have for thinking that anything which happens is exceptional, and out of the common course of nature? Because it has not happened before? That is no reason whatever; because the fact that a thing has happened ten millions of times is no rational justification of our expectation that it will happen again. If the reverse of that which had happened previously took place on the ten million and first time we should have no rational ground for surprise, and no reason for affirming that it did not occur in the most natural manner. Because we cannot explain its cause? We cannot explain the cause of anything. Our belief that there is any permanent cause is a mere unintelligent impulse. We can only say that there is a cause sufficient to produce an isolated effect, but we do not know the nature of that cause, and it is a mere irrational instinct to suppose that any cause produces continuous effects, or is more than momentary. A miracle, consequently, becomes a mere isolated effect from an unknown cause, in the midst of other merely isolated phenomena from unknown causes, and it is as irrational to wonder at the occurrence of what is new, as to expect the recurrence of what is old. In fact, an order of nature is СКАЧАТЬ