07 - Chapter 07

VII. THE ATTITUDE OF THE ENLIGHTENED GREEKS TOWARDS CHRISTIANITY. When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter (Acts 17:32).

SOME of those who listened to St. Paul at Athens believed, doubtless, in the survival of the soul after the dissolution of the body. But, in all probability, they regarded the material body as the prison-house of the spirit, and believed that it was only when in a disembodied state that the soul was able to attain unto a knowledge of eternal truth, or to become a participant in a state of perfect bliss. To men thinking after this fashion there must have been a difficulty in agreeing with St. Paul when he spoke of a resurrection and of a future state in which the personality will again manifest its activities through the instrumentality of a bodily organism, more especially as St. Paul was not permitted to explain that he spoke of a ’ spiritual body.’

Moreover, in that Athenian audience there must have been Epicureans and Sceptics who believed that the spirit is a function of the body and dies with the body, and to whom, therefore, the thought of a resurrection and a future life was absurd.

We all know St. Paul’s reply to those who spoke after this fashion. Yes, he said, a body is necessary for the completion of the personality, but in the future the soul will have a body a body which, though it corresponds to, will yet be greatly different from the present material body a body not subject to disease and decay, but characterised by incorrup-tion, power, glory a body perfectly adapted to the altered circumstances of pur being and fitted to be the instrument of the activities of our noblest faculties. And if any one says that all this is miraculous and unbelievable, St Paul points to the supernatural-ness of what is natural in the case of the seed sown in the ground. ’ Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body... So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in cor-ruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weak-ness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.’ But the Epicureans and Sceptics of Athens would not listen to what St. Paul had to say on this great subject. The slightest reference to Resurrection and Judgment was enough for them. They would listen to reason, but they would have nothing to do with what seemed miraculous.

Now, there are many in our own day who take up towards Christianity exactly the same attitude. To them Christianity is foolishness, and they will have nothing to do with it because there is, or seems to be, in it a miraculous element. To deal satisfactorily with a position of this kind is difficult; but there are many considerations which ought to be able to help us when we are tempted to rush to a rash conclusion on the subject. To begin with, miracles were never meant to be the only, or indeed the primary, evidence of the Incarnation.

We cannot verify the miracles of Christ, and the further we get from them the weaker the evidence in support of them seems to be. And if we take them by themselves, and apart from Christ and His purposes of love to man, we are apt to think that they who tell us of them were self-deceived, or imperfectly informed, for scarcely any con-ceivable amount of testimony appears sufficient to adequately prove them in face of the long-continued and uniform testimony of Nature’s laws that miracles do not happen. To believers the miracles of Christ are credible, because they were done by Him. “ We believe in the miracles because we believe in Christ, not in Christ because we believe in the miracles.” When believed in, the miracles become to us a revelation of Christ’s mercy, pity, love, and divine power. But the very fact that during Christ’s life-time, and immediately after His death, such miracles as are found in the Gospels were attri-buted to Christ, helps to strengthen that evidence to which on a priori grounds no one can object. When we find that many years perhaps after a great saint’s death miracles are said to have been worked by him, we do not put the belief aside as altogether valueless, or look upon it as undoing the testimony which otherwise we are disposed to accept with regard to him. However arbitrary, senseless, or grotesque the miracles ascribed to him may be, we regard them as a further con-firmation of the belief that the Saint really lived, and that in his day he was a person of out-standing greatness and goodness. And so when we find that even in Christ’s lifetime many miracles of love and mercy are assigned to Him by those who knew Him best of all, are we not justified in thinking that they bear strong testimony to the power as well as to the greatness and good-ness and love of Christ? Even when we think that the miracle narratives are to some extent the pro-duct of religious emotion, and an imitation of a literary method sometimes resorted to in setting forth the lives of heroes, we are constrained to believe that the narratives were really suggested to Christians by the wonderful and beneficent deeds actually done by Christ, and that they were made to assume their present form because it seemed the best means whereby to bring out and emphasise that unique goodness and divine power of Christ which, without doubt, made a marvellous impression on those who were privileged to see Him.

We must not, however, forget that the Incarnation was “ the gradual self-revelation of a Person to spiritually minded persons,” and that in innumerable ways that Revelation was made to man. By words, by acts, by deeds, by looks, by silences, by prayers, by tears, as well as by signal manifestations of power, Christ made Himself known to those who had eyes to see, hearts to love, and minds to understand. And where faith in Him was not elicited by these revelations of His nature and character there would seem to have been little chance of its being called forth by mere exhibitions of marvellous power. This becomes quite evident when we read the pathetic but apparently fruitless appeals which, according to St. John’s Gospel, Christ sometimes addressed to the people. ’ The same works that I do bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me.’ ’If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works.’ ’ Believe me for the very works’ sake.’

Christ saw that the people who witnessed His miracles perceived, as a rule, almost nothing but the power made manifest in them, and He knew that the manifestation of power was no guarantee of goodness; and so He was persuaded that wonderful works did not of necessity compel even those who beheld them to believe in Him. Instead of working miracles, therefore, to produce faith, He is often represented in the Gospels as demanding faith as a condition of their being worked. ’ He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.’ ’ Thy faith hath made thee whole.’ ’ According to thy faith be it unto thee.’ Now if miracles could be so ineffective in the case of those who beheld them, what can we expect from them in the case of those who did not see them?

Quite obviously the Gospels do not give us a complete account of the public ministry of Christ.

’ Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book.’ And the words and incidents recorded in the Gospels were not narrated in such a way as to anticipate every difficulty which may occur to critics and scientific men in these days. Neither shorthand writers nor photographic artists accompanied the Saviour by the way, and the narratives about Christ’s wonderful works do not come to us verified and certified by a committee of experts. The Gospels seem to be short sketches meant for popular use, written by and for people to whom any extra-ordinary occurrence viewed in the light of Divine Providence was a miracle people who were con-vinced that God lives and reigns and works and interposes in behalf of His kingdom, but who had neither our conception of the universality and invariability of Nature’s laws, nor our knowledge of what is possible and what impossible. More-over, the Gospels were written with a pur-pose. ’ These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.’ The Gospels were written in such a way as to make upon their readers, so far as short carefully arranged memoirs could do it, an im-pression similar to that which was made by Jesus Himself upon those who were privileged to behold Him, and who had eyes wherewith to see. And who will say that the Evangelists have failed in their attempt? In the Gospels there may be differences here and there as to points of detail, and as to the setting of several incidents differences which under the circumstances we naturally expect to find, and which, in very truth, point to the inde-pendence and worth of their testimony. But one thing is obvious, there is no difference in the Portrait which the Evangelists draw. “ The general impres-sion which they create the impression of a unique Personality is the same everywhere.” The facts of human nature which make religion a possibility and a necessity for man are spiritual facts. ’ They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.’ ’ I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’ And Christ’s invitation is addressed to the unlettered as well as to the learned, to the simple as well as to the wise.

He makes His appeal not so much to the conscious reason as to that complex of moral feelings which we call conscience. But this does not mean that Christianity is a plant which flourishes only on the soil of human ignorance. For feeling cannot exist without some degree of knowledge. We cannot, for example, love that which we do not in some wise know. We may take it for granted, therefore, that what we call conscience has always underlying it, and bound up with it, a knowledge which, how-ever, may be incipient a reason which may to a great extent be unconscious, reflecting little if at all upon its own operations. The Incarnation is a spiritual fact: and spiritual things must be spiritually discerned. The great aim of the Gospels is to bring us into the presence of a Unique Personality, a Divine Man, the Son of God, the Light of the World, the Life of Men, in order that we may become possessors of that spiritual, divine, eternal life which was the possession and is the gift of Christ a gift which is offered unto us, and which we are earnestly entreated to make our own. And whatever we may think of the Gospels in this direction or in that, they do accomplish the aim and realise the purpose of their writers. Swiftly but surely they bring us into the strangely impressive presence of the Divine Man who, realising in all their fulness His Divine Son-ship and His Human Brotherhood, lived the truest, highest, noblest life possible to man the life spiritual, divine, eternal the life to which we all are called of God. And when we respond to the invitation of Christ, and make our own the life to which He calls us the life of faith in God, love to God, devotion to God the life which is hid with Christ in God the life which assures us of immortality and makes us more than conquerors through Him that loved us we feel under no obligation and possessed of no inclination to put a stumbling-block in a brother’s way by assigning to miracles a place in the Christian Evidences to which they are not entitled. Moreover, we are then better able to appreciate the arguments produced by those who maintain that the Gospel reports with regard to the deeds of Christ are, even when taken literally, well nigh as credible as those with regard to His words.

These arguments may be put as follows:

1. The Gospels everywhere state that the intro-duction of Christianity by Christ was accompanied by wonderful deeds called ’signs’ or ’mighty works’: and there are many considerations which point to the probable truthfulness of the Gospel statements. The Jews rejected Christ not because, in their opinion, He did no wonderful works, but because the wonderful works done by Him were not, in their belief, equal to His pretensions. They were not sufficiently great and startling for one pretending to be the Messiah and did He not claim to be the Son of God? Does not this imply that Jesus was almost universally believed to have wrought many wonderful works?

Again, the Jewish world in Christ’s day had not our belief with regard to the reign of law. They believed in the possibility of miraculous phenomena, and they were convinced that wonder workers had often appeared among them. Any one, therefore, who wished to gain a hearing among the Jews must be prepared to do what, as they believed, they had seen many others doing. How in such an age and among such a people was it possible for Christ to arrest attention and to have His claims considered, if He was not prepared to walk in the footsteps of the wonder workers whom they had seen?

2. Some of the miracles ascribed to Christ in the Gospels are merely deeds of healing which, however marvellous they may be, cannot in our day be regarded as miraculous. Christian science, faith-healing, mind-curing, may come very far short of what some of their adherents claim for them, but in the opinion of men well qualified to judge there is sufficient evidence to show that a certain mental attitude towards the universe, and a faithful adher-ence to a certain philosophy of life have a tendency to prevent certain diseases, to relieve sufferers from certain ills, and even to delay the approach of death to many a victim beyond the power of absolute cure.

We all know that mind can influence mind and that the body can be influenced through the mind. Faith, excitement, enthusiasm can make people forget their sorrows; yea, they have been known to rid men of certain ailments and to cure them of certain diseases. We are not surprised, therefore, to find Dr. Mackintosh saying in his Natural History of the Christian Religion: “ Christ may have cured or alleviated nervous and hysterical complaints and mental derangements of various kinds by a certain moral ascendency which he gained over many who came within the sphere of his influence... The exalted state of feeling, the sense of blissful awe produced in sensitive minds by the voice and aspect of One whom they believed to be a Teacher sent from God, the righteous shiver, the sudden shock of emotion sent through their minds by His passing shadow or even by the touch and rustle of His garment, were enough to produce wonderful effects within the area in which the moral and physical nature of man act and react on each other.”

3. If Christ by His words, acts, looks, silences, tears, and natural manifestations of wonderful power produces upon us the impression which He made on the people of His day, viz., that He is a unique Personality, one in whom the wisdom and goodness and love of God were revealed in a supreme degree; if we are convinced that Jesus was spiritually one with God, and therefore a perfect source and channel of Divine Light and Life; is it not difficult for us to keep from believing that the Divine Strength was made perfect in His human weakness, and that it is not wise of us to attempt to assign a limit to His power?

It is true that some of the wonderful works ascribed to Christ in the Gospels cannot be classified with deeds of healing, for they seem to be quite inconsistent with our experience of the working of law in the material world. And there are men who, when they find it difficult to interpret such narra-tives in a literal way, listen readily to critics who tell us that the stream of pure tradition began to be contaminated with foreign elements very near its source, and who endeavour to explain how a nucleus of simple fact, or figurative language used by our Lord, or the influence of certain Old Testament pas-sages, may have contributed to the rise of some of these nature-miracle narratives. Some of these attempts to explain the words of the Gospels are interesting and suggestive, but few, if any, of them are perfectly convincing. For even when we are inclined to handle the Gospels with the utmost severity it is difficult for us to get away from the conviction that they are far from being valueless as sources of history. However critical may be the attitude assumed by us whenever the word miracle is mentioned, it is hard for us to keep from believing that the Gospel narratives with regard to the miracles correspond at least in some way, however imperfectly, to remarkable facts in the life of our Saviour facts which had arrested general attention, and were well known in Palestine. Are we not almost compelled to believe that there is much more in the nature-miracle narratives of Scrip-ture than many in these days are inclined to imagine when we put to ourselves the question, What think ye of Christ? what think ye of Him to whom we are indebted for Christianity and Christendom? And when we find ourselves constrained to say that He was a Unique Personality a Person in whom the Divine Power, as well as the Divine Wisdom and Love, was made manifest in a transcending degree.

4. When we think, as many now seem inclined to do, more of the unity than of the uniformity of nature, we see the universe to be a coherent whole, “ whose elements are intimately bound together by the mutual ministrations of all to each and each to all.” And this view of things leads to the convic-tion that nature is rooted and grounded in Spirit.

Hence comes the idea that nature is the expression or manifestation of Spirit yea, that nature is Spirit.

Now, when we reach this exalted conception of the universe the difficulty about miracles becomes infinitely less than formerly it was. For if Spirit be at the root of all things, why should not the processes of nature be modified “ for an adequate spiritual end “?

We are free agents, and just because we are such we can interest ourselves in particular things, and we can do much to realise our wishes. As we live in this world, we are indeed constantly changing, for the accomplishment of our ends, the natural trend of the forces that play around us and upon us. Iron is heavier than water; but we can build large steel ships and load them with thousands of tons of cargo and make them sail swiftly over the sea. And if man can act in this fashion, why may not God, in His own far greater fashion? If every act of ours introduces something new into the sequence of material and organic forces, why may not God also intervene and mould, when so He wills, the solid course of physical change and consequence, and that too without violating any of nature’s laws?

I know, of course, that in these days there are two kinds of supernaturalists. On the one hand, there are the “ refined “ or “ universalistic “ supernaturalists the class to which most philosophers belong. They see God every-where, but nowhere in particular. They find God working everywhere, and yet at no single point in all the universe is there any sign of special divine intervention. They see God more clearly in the orderly course of nature than in any unexpected and wayward phenomenon. They say, with Martineau, that “ the customs of Heaven ought surely to be more sacred in our eyes than its anomalies: the dear old ways of which the Most High is never tired than the strange things which He does not love well enough ever to repeat.” And yet these men may have no leanings towards what is called Naturalism. On the contrary, many of them have an increased sense of the reality of the supernatural. They believe that a spiritual interpre-tation of things is ultimately the only rational one, that the laws of nature are the ways of the Spirit who utters Himself through the forms of nature, and that the most unique and wonderful things in nature are “ the exceptional births and workings of nature moulded by the unknown powers of Spirit.”

How closely related, after all, such men are to that more common class of supernaturalists to whom the epithet “ piecemeal “ has been applied. The latter have no difficulty in believing in divine interventions. They think that God interests Him-self not merely in the world as a whole, but also in the details that go to make the whole yea, that He interests Himself in the whole by interesting Himself in the parts. They believe that at certain points, for certain reasons, God bursts in upon the world’s phenomena.

“ Both instinctively and for logical reasons,” says Professor William James, “ I find it hard to believe that principles can exist which make no difference to facts. But all facts are particular facts, and the whole interest of the question of God’s existence seems to lie in the consequences for particulars which that existence may be expected to entail. That no concrete particular of experience should alter its complexion in consequence of God’s being there seems to me an incredible proposition.” And this leads me to say that the position which is thus possible to a speculative philosopher reason-ing from a priori grounds is in these days being made more tenable by our increasing scientific know-ledge, which is swiftly opening our eyes to the fact that there are more things in nature than were formerly dreamt of by scientific men. “ No pro-cedure,” says W. H. Mallock, “ is more essentially unscientific than to assume that no process actually takes place in the universe other than those which science in some formal manner has recognised.

Indeed, every fresh discovery which science makes shows that the constitution of things, as potentially amenable to inquiry, is complex to a degree inde-finitely beyond our present knowledge; and this is especially true of the processes which are imme-diately concerned with life. Our modern knowledge of electricity, of the ether, and of the X rays constitutes a warning against any undue haste in dismissing facts as incredible merely because they are new and strange.”