§ 3. The Fundamental Miracles
The above samples of apologetics fairly represent the various ways in which miracles are now explained. Even if the reasoning were sound, it would hardly serve to strengthen the arguments for those miracles which cannot and must not be explained away—the miracles on which are based the central doctrines of the Christian Faith. Christianity stands or falls according as the Resurrection and Ascension are facts or not. The Rationalist’s criticisms have been presented in many articles and books, but perhaps nowhere more clearly and forcibly than in the well-known work, Supernatural Religion; and it is worthy of note that these criticisms have been further strengthened by the latest “Higher Criticism,” as set forth in the articles on the Resurrection and Ascension narratives in the Encyclopædia Biblica. I have specially referred to Supernatural Religion, because this book created a considerable stir in theological circles when it first appeared, some years ago, and also because its arguments are popularly supposed to have been completely demolished by Bishop Lightfoot in his Essays on the Work Called “Supernatural Religion.” But—and here is a good instance of the ease with which the laity can be deceived—if anyone will take the trouble only to glance at these two works, he will find, to his astonishment, that the whole of the overwhelmingly important portion of the book under review, such as the chapters on miracles, on the Resurrection, on the Incarnation, and on the Ascension, has received no attention! Besides, there is A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot’s Essays42 which completely demolishes the Bishop’s arguments.
Advanced modern criticism shows that the Resurrection can no longer be regarded as a historical fact, the evidence being unreliable. This is the sober opinion of professors of theology formed on the results of the most careful research, and with no preconceived opinion as to its scientific impossibility. What have the apologists to say to this? While the obvious discrepancies and deficiencies in the accounts of the Resurrection are left practically unexplained, the old argument from the “empty tomb”43 is being discarded as worthless by the best scholars. Again, the new science of psychology robs “the appearances,” supposing that they ever occurred, of any meaning that could be construed into a proof of the Resurrection. Only one argument of any account is left, and on this the apologist chiefly pins his faith, more than on anything else. A certain contemporary of Christ wrote some letters in which he shows a firm belief in the Resurrection: his name was Paul. The evidence of this one man is considered sufficient to substantiate a miracle, which is contrary to all human experience, and upon the truth of which depend the Christian Faith and our hope of immortality! Moreover, St. Paul was not present himself on any of the occasions of the alleged appearances; and, except with regard to his own particular “religious experience,” his evidence is therefore hearsay. The statement that Jesus was seen by 500 brethren at once is of little value, and St. Paul omits to mention what steps he took to ascertain the accuracy of his information—who the individuals were, what the various impressions made upon them were, etc. The appearance to 500 brethren is not mentioned in any of the Gospels. That St. Paul heard such a report does not prove that the report was true, or, if true, that the 500 had clear and unmistakable evidence of Christ’s presence.
There are critics who could not accept the evidence of St. Paul, for the simple reason that they conclude that we possess no Epistles of St. Paul; that the writings which bear his name are pseudepigrapha, containing seemingly historical data from the life and labours of the Apostle borrowed from Acts of Paul—a work containing, so far as is known to us, both truth and fiction.44 Less advanced criticism lays down the broad thesis that all the Pauline epistles are real letters written by him, but that “Paul, who reckoned the future of this present world not by millennia or centuries, but by a few short years, had not the faintest surmise of the part his letters were destined to play in the providential ordering of the world.”45
Accepting the genuineness of the Epistles, and therefore of the passage in 1 Cor. xv. 3–8, let us pause and think over the chief features of the argument. In the first place, it seems to me that the fact of St. Paul having been a contemporary of the Messiah really only adds to our perplexities. When there were so many who were eye-witnesses of His life, why should God single out one who was not thus favoured as His chief witness for all posterity? He was living at the same time and in the same country as Christ, and yet never knew Him. Surely it stands to reason that an eye-witness is of more value than a mere visionary who wrote letters revealing a remarkable ignorance of the greater part of the narrative of the Gospels, and indeed of the whole body of teachings there ascribed to Jesus. That St. Paul would believe in the Resurrection before he took up the Christian cause goes without saying; but that he believed everything he heard from the followers of Christ, and everything he thought he heard when in a trance, does not, I fear, amount to much in the way of evidence—and especially so when we know that this was an age when the resurrection of any great prophet was taken to be a normal event. How often, I wonder, in the world’s history have not the disciples of great teachers attributed miraculous powers to their beloved master, even when with them alive, and still further magnified these powers after his death? How often has it not occurred that these same stories have been further exaggerated in the course of their transmission to succeeding generations? Nothing is more conceivable than that the Bible story may spuriously embellish the real life of Jesus as much as the mythical accounts of Buddha, for instance, spuriously embellish the real life of Prince Siddârtha. Of all old-world legends, the death and resurrection of a virgin-born or in some way divinely-born Saviour was the most widespread. Saul, the Pharisee, would have been imbued with this prevalent notion, and so could never get away from the thought that some kind of propitiation had to be made for the sins of men. Time after time a terrible suspicion must have crossed his mind—what if he were committing a heinous crime in persecuting the Christians? What if, after all, the Crucified One were the real Saviour of mankind? Doubts such as these may well have deeply agitated him. The living figure so often described to him by the Christians must have stood out before him. On his own testimony, as well as that of the Acts, he was prone to visions and other ecstatic conditions (2 Cor. xii. 1–4; 1 Cor. xiv. 18; Acts ix. 12, xvi. 9, xxii. 17, xxvii. 23). What more natural than that after his “religious experience” near Damascus he should be convinced that he had been specially favoured by an interview with the Saviour?
So many “spiritual experiences” of a like nature are on record that it is difficult to know which is the best to select for comparison. Professor Huxley, in his essay on “The Value of Witness to the Miraculous,” takes the cases of Eginhard (born about A.D. 770), who wrote The History of the Translation of the Blessed Martyrs of Christ, S.S. Marcellinus and Petrus; and George Fox, who, about the year 1647, heard voices and saw visions which assured him that “there is a living God who made all things.” Perhaps the case of Emanuel Swedenborg46 may be worth a moment’s consideration. He was the son of a bishop, and was carefully educated. Endowed with unusual intellectual powers and an iron constitution, he acquired vast stores of learning. From early childhood he evinced a serious turn of mind, combined with a remarkable