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CHAPTER IV.

THE DENIAL OF THE SUPERNATURAL — This objection of Anthropopathism involves the Denial of the Supernatural — It allows of nothing aside from the One Total Movement of the Universe The Human Soul demands the Supernatural - The Horror of Naturalism -- Analogy between the Divine and the Human Supernatural - Credibility of the Reason as opposed to the Credibility of the Sense - The Objection to Miracles grounded solely on the Latter - The Real Wonder, Why does not God oftener speak to us? The Supernatural in the Morning and Noon of the World Will come again in the Evening - Has its place in the Great Chronology, or Order of the Ages.

BUT we cannot stop here.

Such denial of

Infinite and the

all intercourse between the finite mind can only end in pantheism, or the perfect identification of God with the world. As there can be no special, so there can be no supernatural manifestation of any kind. There can be no action in nature, or upon nature, that is not through the whole, and so truly an action of the whole. There is no

supernatural; there can be no supernatural. Now the man who asserts this, unless he intends the merest play of words, making every thing to be natural simply because it is some how in the universal system of things, has undertaken a defence of a position more incredible, that is, more opposed to the common judgments and feelings involved in the very laws of our thinking, than all the legends of all the revelations, real or supposed, that have ever claimed the credence of mankind. This argument of incredibility is commonly used against the miraculous, but it may be turned the other way, at least in one, and that its highest, aspect. The credibility of sense, we may admit, is much opposed to any special movement in nature, or to any interruption of its totality; the credibility of reason, if we may employ that term for some of the most interior as well as most catholic decisions of the soul, is powerfully in the other scale. There is something within us that demands the supernatural, that creates

a disposition to believe in it, yea, an impassioned longing for it, even though that longing be so seldom sensibly gratified. It is as much a part of our spiritual constitution as the habitual belief in nature's regularity; it is even a stronger and more interior acting of the soul, inasmuch as it has maintained itself, in all ages, against so much of adverse outward association. It is, in this respect, like the kindred belief in the soul's existence after death. In either case, there is something within us that holds us up, and carries us on, in spite of sense. The most visible of phenomena are against the one; common experience opposes the other; yet both hold on their way in the world, though miracles are few and far between, and fewer still come back from the unknown land. Generations pass away and are seen no more; all things seem to continue as they were from any known beginning, and yet the disposition to believe, and the belief itself, are strong as ever. Instead of asking the aid of any in

ductive reasoning for its proof, it defies the power of any such reasoning, or of any reasoning, to drive it from the human soul. So also is there a "law in our minds" warring with the common experience of the slow unvaried movements of the physical world. We see the strength of it when science has laid bare evidence of what looks like some ancient break in nature's movements. It is one of the great charms of our modern geology. The naturalist, with all his fondness for talking of law and causation, cannot conceal the interest he takes in such discovery. He loves to find it so; it is not against his expectation when he does find it so. The pleasure he experiences reveals the law of his spirit, higher, deeper, and more unchanging than any law of nature. The discovery, we say, when made, is found to be just what might have been expected; it is in the highest degree rational, yea, truly credible; and even some who are most opposed to the Scriptural miraculous as bringing too near the idea of a

personal God, do yet rejoice in a supernatural that is so ancient and so far off.

The thought of being ever buried in this shoreless, bottomless, sea of nature, of being as truly in it and parts of it whilst in our thinking, conscious state, as when our dead atoms are dispersed throughout its measureless abyss, is suffocating to the rational soul. It is a living death, and how any thinking mind can bear it, yea, even be fond of it, is the real marvel. Supernatural ourselves, as we consciously are, we may reasonably expect, and mankind have ever thus expected, to be conversed with, sometimes, in a supernatural manner. Constantly performing acts in opposition to, as well as in accordance with, the inward and surrounding nature, nothing is more natural, if we may use a seeming paradox, than that we should expect a similar display of power from the higher or superhuman plane. To our microscopic vision, it is, indeed, true, that the greater divine movements must necessarily appear immensely

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