Miracles and Supernatural Religion   By: James Morris Whiton (1833-1920)

AND

SUPERNATURAL RELIGION

BY JAMES MORRIS WHITON, PH.D. (YALE)

Portentum non fit contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura AUGUSTINE

New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1903

All rights reserved

COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up, electrotyped, and published May, 1903.

Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co. Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

Transcriber's Note:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Variant spellings have been retained. {=e} represents e with upper macron.

To

M. B. W.

PREFATORY NOTE

While the present subject of discussion tempts to many an excursion into particulars, its treatment is restricted to general outlines, with an aim simply to clarify current ideas of miracle and the supernatural, so as to find firm holding ground for tenable positions in the present "drift period" of theology. The chief exception made to this general treatment is the discussion given to a class of miracles regarded with as much incredulity as any, yet as capable as any of being accredited as probably historical events the raisings of the "dead." The insistence of some writers on the virgin birth and corporeal resurrection of Jesus as essential to Christianity has required brief discussion of these also, mainly with reference to the reasonableness of that demand. As to the latter miracle, it must be observed that in the Biblical narratives taken as a whole, whichever of their discordant features one be disposed to emphasize, the psychical element clearly preponderates over the physical and material.

J. M. W. NEW YORK, April 11, 1903.

CONTENTS

PAGE INTRODUCTORY 13

THE ARGUMENT

I

The gradual narrowing of the miraculous element in the Bible by recent discovery and discussion. The alarm thereby excited in the Church. The fallacy which generates the fear. The atheistic conception of nature which generates the fallacy. The present outgrowing of this conception. 25

II

The present net results of the discussion of the miraculous element in the Bible. Evaporation of the former evidential value of miracles. Further insistence on this value a logical blunder. The transfer of miracles from the artillery to the baggage of the Church. Probability of a further reduction of the list of miracles. Also of a further transfer of events reputed miraculous to the domain of history. 37

III