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

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СКАЧАТЬ we proceed to examine Paley's "simple case" a little more closely, however, we find that not only is it utterly inadmissible as a hypothesis, but that as an illustration of the case of Gospel miracles it is completely devoid of relevancy and argumentative force. The only point which gives a momentary value to the supposed instance is the condition attached to the account of the miracle related by the twelve men, that not only was it wrought before their eyes, but that it was one "in which it was impossible that they should be deceived." Now this qualification of infallibility on the part of the twelve witnesses is as incredible as the miracle which they are supposed to attest. The existence of twelve men incapable of error or mistake is as opposed to experience as the hypothesis of a miracle in which it is impossible for the twelve men to be deceived is contradictory to reason. The exclusion of all error in the observation of the actual occurrence and its antecedents and consequences, whose united sum constitutes the miracle, is an assumption which deprives the argument of all potency. It cannot be entertained. On the other hand, the moment the possibility of error is admitted, the reasoning breaks down, for the probability of error on the part of the observers, either as regards the external phenomena, or the inferences drawn from them, being so infinitely greater than the probability of mistake in the complete induction, we must unquestionably hold by the law and reject the testimony of the twelve men.

      It need scarcely be said that the assertion of liability to error on the part of the observers by no means involves any insinuation of wilful "falsehood or imposture in the case." It is quite intelligible that twelve men might witness an occurrence which might seem to them and others miraculous—but which was susceptible of a perfectly natural explanation—and truthfully relate what they believed to have seen, and that they might, therefore, refuse "with one voice to acknowledge that there existed any falsehood or imposture in the case," even although the alternative might be death on a gibbet. This, however, would in no way affect the character of the actual occurrence. It would not convert a natural, though by them inexplicable, phenomenon into a miracle. Their constancy in adhering to the account they had given would merely bear upon the truth of their own statements, and the fact of seeing them "one after another consenting to be racked, burned, or strangled, rather than give up the truth of their account," would not in the least justify our believing in a miracle. Even martyrdom cannot transform imaginations into facts. The truth of a narrative is no guarantee for the correctness of an inference. It seems almost incredible that arguments like these should for so many years have been tolerated in the text-book of a University.

      As regards the applicability of Paleys illustration to the Gospel miracles, the failure of his analogy is complete. We shall presently see the condition of the people amongst whom these miracles are supposed to have occurred, and that, so far from the nature of the phenomena, and the character of the witnesses, supporting the inference that it was impossible that the observers could have been deceived, there is every reason for concluding with certainty that their ignorance of natural laws, their proneness to superstition, their love of the marvellous, and their extreme religious excitement, rendered them peculiarly liable to incorrectness in the observation of the phenomena, and to error in the inferences drawn from them. We shall likewise see that we have no serious and circumstantial accounts of those miracles from eye-witnesses of whose probity and good sense we have any knowledge, but that, on the contrary, the narratives of them which we possess were composed by unknown persons, who were not eyewitnesses at all, but wrote very long after the events related, and in that mythic period "in which reality melted into fable, and invention unconsciously trespassed on the province of history." The proposition: "That there is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of these accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct," is made by Paley the argument of the first nine chapters of his work, as the converse of the proposition, that similar attestation of other miracles cannot be produced, is of the following two. This shows the importance which he attaches to the point; but, notwithstanding, even if he could substantiate this statement, the cause of miracles would not be one whit advanced.

      We have freely quoted these arguments in order to illustrate the real position of miracles; and no one who has seriously considered the matter can doubt the necessity for very extraordinary evidence, even to render the report of such phenomena worthy of a moment's attention. The argument for miracles, however, has hitherto proceeded upon the merest assumption, and, as we shall further see, the utmost that they can do who support miracles, under the fatal disadvantage of being contradictory to uniform experience, is to refer to the alleged contemporaneous nature of the evidence for their occurrence, and to the character of the supposed witnesses. Mr. Mill has ably shown the serious misapprehension of so many writers against Hume's "Essay on Miracles," which has led them to what he calls "the extraordinary conclusion, that nothing supported by credible testimony ought ever to be disbelieved."(1) In regard to historical facts, not contradictory to all experience, simple and impartial testimony may be sufficient to warrant belief, but even such qualities as these can go but a very small way towards establishing the reality of an occurrence which is opposed to complete induction.(1) It is admitted that the evidence requisite to establish the reality of a supernatural Divine Revelation of doctrines beyond human reason, and comprising in its very essence such stupendous miracles as the Incarnation, Resurrection, and Ascension, must be miraculous. The evidence for the miraculous evidence, which is scarcely less astounding than the contents of the Revelation itself, must, logically, be miraculous also, for it is not a whit more easy to prove the reality of an evidential miracle than of a dogmatic miracle. It is evident that the resurrection of Lazarus, for instance, is as contradictory to complete induction as the resurrection of Jesus. Both the Supernatural Religion, therefore, and its supernatural evidence labour under the fatal disability of being antecedently incredible.

      CHAPTER IV. THE AGE OF MIRACLES

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      Let us now, however, proceed to examine the evidence for the reality of miracles, and to inquire whether they are supported by such an amount of testimony as can in any degree outweigh the reasons which, antecedently, seem to render them incredible. It is undeniable that belief in the miraculous has gradually been dispelled, and that, as a general rule, the only miracles which are now maintained are limited to brief and distant periods of time. Faith in their reality, once so comprehensive, does not, except amongst a certain class, extend beyond the miracles of the New Testament and a few of those of the Old,(1) and the countless myriads of ecclesiastical and other miracles, for centuries devoutly and implicitly believed, are now commonly repudiated, and have sunk into discredit and contempt. The question is inevitably suggested how so much can be abandoned and the remnant still be upheld.

      As an essential part of our inquiry into the value of the evidence for miracles, we must endeavour to ascertain whether those who are said to have witnessed the supposed miraculous occurrences were either competent to appreciate them aright, or likely to report them without exaggeration. For this purpose, we must consider what was known of the order of nature in the age in which miracles are said to have taken place, and what was the intellectual character of the people amongst whom they are reported to have been performed. Nothing is more rare, even amongst intelligent and cultivated men, than accuracy of observation and correctness of report, even in matters of sufficient importance to attract vivid attention, and in which there is no special interest unconsciously to bias the observer. It will scarcely be denied, however, that in persons of fervid imagination, and with a strong natural love of the marvellous, whose minds are not only unrestrained by specific knowledge, but predisposed by superstition towards false conclusions, the probability of inaccuracy and exaggeration is enormously increased. If we add to this such a disturbing element as religious excitement, inaccuracy, exaggeration, and extravagance are certain to occur. The effect of even one of these influences, religious feeling, in warping the judgment, is admitted by one of the most uncompromising supporters of miracles. "It is doubtless the tendency СКАЧАТЬ