The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality Part 11

Thus the resurrection of the Lord must also necessarily want a.n.a.logy, in case it is an event which really marks a station of progress in the development of earthly creatures and their history, and in case also its nature and its importance tend not to bring mankind, or at least those who believe in him who has been raised, at once under the influence of its physical consequences, but only so far to prepare the way for these consequences in intellectual and moral life-forces. And precisely such an event is the resurrection of Jesus, according to the announcement of the Lord as to himself and his work, and according to the development of this personal testimony in the minds of his first disciples, and also according to what Jesus actually became for mankind, and especially for Christianity.

According to this testimony of Jesus and his apostles, and to this actual experience, Jesus is the Redeemer, whose work is to make amends for the destruction caused by sin, and thus to originate and establish a new creation in mankind which, from inner, mental, and spiritual beginnings, {332} renews mankind, and becomes the leaven which, in long periods of labor, leads it to the goal of perfection; a perfection in which the whole creation shall partic.i.p.ate--with which, indeed, mankind is inseparably connected on the whole natural side of its existence. But then it also lies in the nature of the resurrection of Jesus to be single in its kind, and without a.n.a.logy, until that time shall have come in the development of mankind when the last enemy, death, shall be forever removed and overcome.

We quite fail to conceive how those who acknowledge design in the world, can avoid the acknowledgment of the resurrection of Jesus--supposing the fact to be historically established: whereof we shall have to speak hereafter. It is, indeed, quite impossible to speak of a goal of mankind, if annihilation--annihilation of single personalities as well as of mankind as a whole--is its certain destiny. Where and what is this end of mankind, if the last generation of the globe is to perish with the destruction of this globe, or languish and die even before that destruction, and if nothing will be left of mankind beyond the soulless material for new formations in their putrifying corpses and desolate homes and works of art?

Where and what is this goal, if all which once set human minds and hearts in motion, and which stimulated the intellectual and moral work of the human races, simply ceases to exist, no longer finds anywhere even a place of remembrance, and nowhere has a fruit to exhibit, except perhaps in the mind of a G.o.d who once set the cruel play in motion, and now permits it to cease, in order to procure for himself a change in the entertainment? A mere immortality of human {333} souls, without resurrection and without the perfection and transfiguration of the universe, is not afforded us by this goal, which we certainly need, if we are to think at all of a goal for mankind. For if all departing souls should be carried into another world whose only relation to the further course of the earthly history of mankind was in the fact, that the dead are always gathered in it; into another world whose only relation to the past of the earthly history of mankind should be in the fact, that it is divided into a heaven and a h.e.l.l for those who reach it; if in this world everything should move on, without end, in eternal coming and going; and if nothing could be said of that other world than that everything there is different from ours--even that we should there have no possible points of contact with this world: then we should have nothing else but a gloomy dualism of the world for which neither our intellectual, nor our psychical, and least of all our physical, organization is in any way prepared, we should have in it no satisfaction of our n.o.blest instincts, no goal to which we would be led by any of the guides who show us the paths which we have to follow on earth. Only a resurrection and transfiguration of the earth and the universe, as well as of a glorified mankind, show us such a goal. For this aim, for such a _real_ continuation of life of the single personality, and of all mankind, after the long work of moral and intellectual development, all n.o.ble and worthy instincts of mankind are prepared--from the instinct of self-preservation up to the instinct of self-sacrifice for ideal purposes and the instinct of moral perfection and community with G.o.d. We find that in all the rest of creation, instincts and inherent powers {334} are present to be satisfied. The naturalistic tendencies which at present control so many minds, are very much inclined to found their whole view of the world upon this correlation of instinct, function, and satisfaction.

Should, then, the highest instincts of the highest creature on earth alone make an exception? Have they originated from illusions, and do they lead to illusions? We cannot refrain from quoting a word which Alb. Reville, of Rotterdam, has written in the first part of the October issue of the "Revue des Deux Mondes," 1874, on the occasion of a criticism of E. v. Hartmann's "Philosophy of the Unconscious"; though it was written only in defence of theism in general. We quote from a report of E. P., in the _Augsburger Allgem. Zeitung_, Oct. 27, 1874, which is all at present at our command: "When the young bird, fluttering its wings on the edge of its mother's nest, launches forth for the first time, it finds the air which carries it, while a pa.s.sage is opened for it. Instinct deceived the bird just as little as it deceives the mult.i.tude of large and small beings which only live in following its incitations. And should man alone, whom spiritual perfection attracts--man whose characteristic instinct it is to raise himself mentally toward the real-ideal, the superiority of which he cannot sufficiently describe, should man, who obeys his nature, dash his head against the wall built of unhewn stones of unconscious, blind, and deaf force? Nature, indeed, has too much spirit--according to Hartmann himself--to indulge in such an absurdity; and the philosophy of the 'unconscious Unconscious' will never permit it." It is true, there is actually present in mankind, and in it alone, such a discord between {335} instinct and satisfaction: man has in himself instincts which are opposed to sin and death, and nevertheless sin and death exist. But the redemption through Christ, and especially the knowledge of his resurrection, announces to us that this discord is removed.

Therefore, he who in general acknowledges that mankind in its development has had given to it goals which correspond to its gifts and instincts, has every reason to look about and see whether, in the course of human history, certain things have happened which point at such aims--indications which prophetically a.s.sure mankind, that it advances toward a spiritual and moral perfection, and toward an undiminished partic.i.p.ation of all members of mankind in this perfection. Such an a.s.surance is offered us in the resurrection of Jesus; and therefore, all who have not abandoned a teleological view of the world, have reason for _examining it with reference to the degree of its historical truth_. This degree is the highest which we can in general claim of any historical event.

In order to show this with such brevity as is necessary in the present book, and at the same time to guard ourselves against every danger of prejudice in the investigation, we shall for this occasion a.s.sume hypothetically that all, even the most extreme, a.s.sertions of Biblical criticism as to the authenticity and inauthenticity of the books of the New Testament, and as to the difference of their component parts and the time of their composition, are correct and proven; and see what then remains established. In the first place, it is an acknowledged fact, that Peter first, then the eleven apostles at different times, and between these more than five hundred "brethren" (_i.e._, nearly or fully all who had preserved their {336} attachment to the Lord till his death), saw the appearances of the risen one, a few days after his death; and, indeed, under the most different circ.u.mstances, and under mental conditions in which they did not at all expect any such second appearance. We have, in regard to this, the most authentic written evidence of the apostle Paul, in the fifteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians: a letter whose authenticity no criticism has dared to doubt. This letter was written in the spring of 58: and Paul himself had already been changed from a persecutor into a believer in Christ in the year 36--_i.e._, one year after the death of Jesus, which took place in 35; he went to Jerusalem in 39, and here everything was related to him by Peter, as we know from his letter (likewise not contested) to the Galatians. Thus the authentic information of the man, who in 58 collected the historical proofs of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus for his Corinthian Christians, goes back to four years after the death of Jesus, and to the personal witnesses of the appearances; as in that letter he also refers to the fact that "many of these five hundred brethren are still living." Moreover, it is an established fact, that the first written evidences of the evangelical history from which our canonical gospels subsequently originated, likewise contained accounts of the appearance of the risen one. Finally, it is an established fact that, from the very beginning, the whole meaning of evangelical preaching turned on the two facts of the death and of the resurrection of Jesus, as on the two cardinal points of all preaching of salvation; also that all the faith of those who embraced the Gospel was founded upon these two facts, as upon the historical fundamentals of the {337} salvation which comes from Jesus; and that thus Christianity, with all its effects, which have unhinged the old world and diffused streams of blessing over mankind, has its historical basis in faith in the death of Jesus and his resurrection. This is our historical chain of proof. And that evidence which gives certainty to its most important link, on which everything depends--the _appearance_ of the risen one--is the entire failure of all the attempts at explaining that appearance from a seeming death, from an intended deception, from a self-delusion, from a vision and an ecstasy, from a poetic myth; in short, from any other cause than, that the Lord really appeared to his disciples as the man who was dead, but who is risen and lives. We cannot follow Keim in all his methods of reconstructing the life of Jesus, and we believe that he is much too timid regarding the consequences which follow from an objective, real appearance of Jesus after his death; but we acknowledge it as a high merit of his christological works, that although he is willing to use criticism to the utmost, he has so thoroughly and strikingly shown the impossibility of explaining the appearance of Jesus after his death differently from the real manifestations of his still living person. It is well that Strauss, in his "The Old Faith and the New," declares the history of the resurrection of Jesus a _historical humbug_; for it may open the eyes of many, if the tendency, of which Strauss is leader, is no longer able to explain Christianity--the n.o.blest, purest, and most successful religion which has come into existence in the whole history of mankind--otherwise than by calling it a humbug. With him who is pleased with this manner of explaining the most perfect blossom and fruit of {338} the tree of mankind, we certainly can find no common ground of mutual understanding.

We have been led to all these discussions, by looking for something actual which should be able to throw its light back upon the earliest primitive history of mankind--a history which can no longer be historically investigated. We have found this reality in the resurrection of Jesus; and the light which it throws upon the primitive history of man, we have perceived in the conclusion to which it leads us: that man, if he had taken a sinless development, would also have been exempt from death.

The resurrection of Jesus throws its light upon still another side of the Biblical doctrine of the primitive condition of man: namely, upon that which is the religious quintessence of the Biblical doctrine of _Paradise_.

As now the resurrection of the Lord is the beginning and the prophecy of a new creation on the basis of the old, and as we now hope, with St. Paul, that this beginning shall manifest its comprehensive cosmic effects, when the Lord shall manifest them in the resurrection of the "children of G.o.d:"

so, in case of a sinless development of man, the beginning of this new and glorified stage of creation would certainly have been perceptible at the beginning of the history of mankind and in the relation of man to his earthly surroundings. But we are of course not permitted to make or to pursue such a suggestion at present, since a sinful development of mankind, with its consequences, actually took place.

We have no reason to enter into the discussion of another often and much debated question, which is connected with the primitive history of man; namely, {339} _whether mankind is descended from one or more pairs of men_.

We pa.s.s it by; because it has no connection whatever with the acceptance or rejection of the Darwinian ideas, and since it is not yet archaeologically and scientifically solvable. There are Darwinians who think monogenetically, and others who think polygenetically; and there is still a third cla.s.s--and they speak most correctly--who acknowledge that they know nothing about it. Besides, we can also pa.s.s by this question, for the reason that in spite of the important place which it occupies in the theological system of St. Paul, we have no right to a.s.sign to it, in the form in which we put it, the decisive dogmatic importance which it still occupies in many conceptions of Christian theology. For we cannot question the right of the natural sciences to enter into the discussion of this question, and to look for a solution of it. As soon as we make this concession, it necessarily and naturally follows from it, that we must no longer make the substance and truth of our religious possession, even in a subordinate manner, dependent on the results of exact investigations: for our religious possessions have too deep a basis of truth, to permit us to ground them on the results of investigations in a realm so dark for science and so far removed from religious interest. As to this question, we may hope for a future solution in the monogenetic sense: we may rejoice over the fact that, according to the present state of knowledge, the needle of the scale rather inclines in favor of a oneness of origin of mankind; but we must also be prepared to accept the possibility of a contrary result, without being afraid that in such a case we should have to abandon at once that religious factor {340} for whose sake the advocates of a monogenetic descent might defend their view. This religious (and, we may add, quite as strong ethic) factor consists in the idea of the intimate unity and brotherhood of mankind. We must absolutely adhere to this idea; for it is in opposition to the particularism which, quite without exception, governed the entire old world, even its most highly developed nations, and which was only penetrated by some beams of hope and prediction in the prophecy of Israel--one of the most beautiful and blissful gifts of Christianity to mankind. This idea still contains, as ethical motive, one of the strongest, most indispensable, and most promising forces in the world. If this idea shall be a real and lastingly effective one, it certainly must also have its real basis in the history of the origin of mankind. But, we must ask, is the only conceivable reality of this basis a monogenetic pedigree, and do we lose this reality if science should once find that mankind came into existence not only in one single pair, but in several pairs, even in different places, and at different times? Even in such a case, the idea of the unity of mankind would only lose its real basis, if at the same time we were permitted to think also anti-teleologically--if we were permitted to suppose that that which came into existence, repeatedly, and in different places, had each time entirely different causes without a common aim and a common plan. If we think teleologically, we see the unity of mankind, also in case of a polygenetic origin, in the unity of the metaphysical and teleological cause which called mankind into existence; and to rational beings, endowed with mind, as men are, the metaphysical bond is certainly stronger than the physical. {341} Precisely the Darwinian ideas of the origin of species through descent would show us in such a case the real bond which unites mankind. For then we should only have to go back from the different points on the stem-lines of the prehistoric generators of these primitive men, at which men originated otherwise than by generation, in order to arrive finally at a common root of all these stem-lines: the members of mankind would even then remain consanguineous among one another, not only in an ideal, but in a real sense.

Now that the idea of the unity of mankind was holy and important to St.

Paul, is to be inferred in advance from such a universal mind. And when in Acts XVII, 26, he expresses this idea before the Athenians, so proud of their autochthony, with the words that "of one blood all nations of men dwell on all the face of the earth"; or when, in Romans V, and 1 Corinthians XV, he makes use of the idea in order to explain and to glorify the universal power of redemption of Christ by putting Adam and Christ in opposition to one another, as the first and the second Adam, so that he sees sin and death coming forth from Adam, grace and justice and life from Christ and extending over mankind; then we find this idea quite convincing and natural, and adhere firmly to the quintessence of these truths, even if we acknowledge neither in these pa.s.sages, nor in Genesis I and II, the intention of G.o.d to give us a supernatural manifestation of the exterior process of the creation of man. Paul himself gives us a hint not to follow slavishly a literal interpretation, when he says, in Romans V, "as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin," and calls this man Adam, although he knows that according to the {342} Biblical relation, Eve was the one who was first seduced, and although he expressly points out and makes use of this priority of the sin of Eve in another connection, and for another reason.

Finally, we may here also take into consideration the contradictions which have come up by reason of more recent investigations, in reference to the _prehistoric conditions of man_, and which, especially in England, have been designated as the contradiction between the _elevation theory_ and the _depravation theory_.

In general, this contradiction is looked upon as if a conception of the primitive history of man, remaining conformable to the Bible, could only be brought into harmony with a depravation theory, and not with an elevation theory; but certainly without reason.

The Biblical and Christian conception of the primitive history of man does not at all demand the conception of a gradual sinking down of mankind from a supernatural height--of a gradual depravation of our species--which many representations seem to a.s.sume. For, according to it, the fall of man had already taken place with the first pair of mankind; they were driven from Paradise, to long hard labor and development; and Paradise was taken from earth. Even the paradisaical condition, with its short duration, was deficient in all the various gifts of life which are a product of human inventive faculty and skill, and which can leave behind vestiges and remains. But what the Holy Scripture relates or indicates of the after-paradisaical primitive history of man, wholly corresponds to the idea of a gradual development out of the more simple and rough, which is demanded by the evolution theory in its {343} application to history. That, even according to the Biblical conception, goodness and progress in outer culture, sin and intellectual stagnation, are not identical, we see from the fact, that by the Holy Scripture the most successful inventions of man are not a.s.signed to the more pious Sethites, but to the t.i.tan-like, rebellious Kainites. Likewise, the evolution theory does not at all require a constant, general, and exclusive progress of mankind in all its members.

As in the realm of irrational organisms, so in the history of mankind; it has to a.s.sume the most various ramifications with progress, stand-still, and retrogradation. It is true, it sees in the nations of culture progress in an upward rising line; but besides, stand-still and retrogradations in great variety. It also sees in mankind in general a labor of upward rising development; but it also sees many hindrances of development, and many shavings which the work throws to one side. But exactly the same thing was also seen in every religious or profane contemplation of history, long before the evolution theory was born.

Therefore, the different views of the earliest primitive history of man, the theory of depravation and that of elevation, do not stand so opposed to one another--the former representing the Biblical and religious, the latter the anti-religious, view of the history--but the question as to the primitive history is not yet solved in that respect; the depravation theory, as well as the elevation theory, indicates rather the _directions_ in which investigation has to put its questions to the archaeological sources. Investigation, on the other hand, has free scope in both directions; and the primitive history of man shows itself to be a realm in which religious and scientific interest, {344} opponents and advocates of the descent theory, can peacefully join hands for common labor. Up to the present, the investigations reach results which seem to fall now more into one, now more into the other, scale of the balance. On the one hand, the older the products of human skill are, the more simple they are; on the other hand, even the oldest remains show man in full possession of that which distinguishes him from the animal, and attests a spiritual life. The reader may think of the before mentioned sketches of the reindeer and mammoth (page 90). If we finally come down to historic times, and to the present, in order to try to draw conclusions from the comparisons of the remotest times of which we have historic knowledge, with the present, as to prehistoric times, we likewise find on the one side vestiges of the lowest barbarism in the past and present; but on the other side we find that the oldest written monuments afford a glance into a perfection of intellectual reflection and into a n.o.bility of moral and religious views which permits us to draw the highest conclusions as to the intellectual worth of earliest mankind. The very oldest records of the Holy Scripture give evidence of this intellectual height; and even the royal programmes of a.s.syrian monarchs, which the wonderful diligence and ingenuity of recent investigators have deciphered from the cuneiform inscriptions, not only relatively correspond to the height of culture which we find in the ruins of a.s.syrian palaces, but even, when looked upon absolutely and aside from the morality of conquest which they indulge, are inspired by a n.o.bility of mind, and permeated by a religiousness, which no potentate of recent times would need to be ashamed of. They have {345} been made accessible to the public by the work of Eberhard Schrader: "Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament" ("Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament"), Giessen, 1872.

-- 4. _Providence, Hearing of Prayer, and Miracles._

Before we enter into the special christological realm, we have yet to glance at the realm of the more common relations between G.o.d and the creature, as they have found, in faith in a divine providence, in hearing of prayer, and in divine miracles, their reflection in Christian consciousness.

It is true, we had to discuss the chief basis of an understanding in this matter when treating of the position of the Darwinian theories in reference to theism in general; but we have a double reason for entering again into the consideration of the concrete form which this faith has obtained in Christianity.

One reason is the fact, that faith in a special providence of G.o.d, in a hearing of prayer, and in a connection of the human history of salvation with miracles, forms a very essential part of the Christian view of the world and of Christian religiousness. All Holy Scripture is interwoven with a.s.surances of a providence of G.o.d, going even into details; with the most distinct and solemn promises of the hearing of our prayers; and with the most emphatic reference to the miracles which it relates. The Lord himself not only found all these doctrines, and left them untouched, but he developed them in the most pregnant way, and brought them into the most intimate connection with the quintessence and centre of his doctrine.

According to his teaching, {346} "a sparrow shall not fall to the ground without the will of your heavenly Father; but the very hairs of your head are all numbered." He encourages us to pray, with the words: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you;" and he proves himself to be the Redeemer, through signs and wonders, and refers to the greatest sign which was to be manifested in him--the sign of the resurrection.

The other reason for entering upon the discussion of these questions, lies in the incredible thoughtlessness with which a great part of modern educated people, even of such men as do not at all wish to abandon faith in a living G.o.d, permit themselves to be governed by the leaders of religious infidelity, and to be defiled and robbed of everything, which belongs to the nature of a living G.o.d. By many, it is considered as good taste, and as an indispensable sign of deep scientific learning and high education, and it forms a seldom contested part of correspondence in newspapers, which have for their public a wide circle of educated people, that in referring to the inviolableness of the laws of nature they declare faith in a special providence of G.o.d to be a view long ago rejected, and which is only consistent with half-civilized individuals; that they look down with a compa.s.sionate and self-conscious smile upon the egoistic implicit faith of congregations who still pray for good harvest-weather, and see in the damage done by a hailstorm a divine affliction; that they criticise it as a sad token of ecclesiastical darkness, when even church-authorities order such prayers in case of wide-spread calamities; that they fall into a pa.s.sion over the {347} narrowness and the dulling influence of pedagogues who see in the histories which they relate to their pupils or put into their hands for reading, the government of an ethical order of the world which goes a little farther than the rule that he who deceives injures his good name, and he who gets intoxicated injures his health; that they give a man who still believes in the resurrection of Jesus, to understand that he has not yet learned the first elements of the theory of putrefaction and perishableness. That the adversaries of faith in a G.o.d thus express themselves, and try to conquer as much ground as possible for their frosty doctrine, is certainly quite natural; but that even advocates of theism should permit such stuff to be presented to them, and can keep silent in regard to it--nay, that even preachers offer it to their congregations as ordinary Sabbath edification, and that their hearers can gratefully accept it--is certainly a suggestive and alarming evidence of the rapidity with which, in many men who still do not wish consciously and certainly to be thought G.o.dless (_i.e._, to be separated from G.o.d), their connection with the source of light and life is decreasing, and of how strongly the fear that they may be looked upon as unscientific and imperfectly educated, overbalances the fear of losing the living G.o.d and Father, and therewith the support of both mind and life.

Now, that this faith in a _special providence_, in a _hearing of prayer_, and in _divine miracles_, forms an essential part of Christian religiousness, we do not need to show more in detail; it is an established historical fact, and an object of direct Christian knowledge. On the other hand, we have still to say a word concerning {348} that which, on the part of those just described, is so strongly contested; namely, about the scientific worth of such a faith, and also about its reconcilableness with the Darwinism theories.

In the first place, as to the faith in a _special providence of G.o.d_, and, in connection with it, as to the possibility of _a hearing of human prayer_, such a faith is by itself the inevitable consequence of all theism; nay, it is precisely identical with theism; it is that which makes theism _theism_, and distinguishes it from mere deism--_i.e._, from an idea of G.o.d, which merely makes G.o.d the author of the world, and lets the world, after it was once created, go its own way. Now, the theistic idea of G.o.d, which sees the Creator in an uninterrupted connection with his creation, is in itself the more scientific one: for a G.o.d who, although the author of the world, would not know how to find, nor intend to find, a way of communication with his creation, would certainly be an idea theologically inconceivable. We should, therefore, still have to adhere to the idea of a special providence of G.o.d, even if in our discursive reasoning and exact investigation of the processes in the world we should not find a single guide referring us to the scientific possibility of such a direct and uninterrupted dependence of the world on its author. We should then have simply to declare a conviction of the providence of G.o.d to be a postulate of our reasoning, which is given with the idea of G.o.d itself; and would just as little call this conviction unscientific on account of the fact, that we are not able to show the modalities of divine providence, as in reference to the exact sciences we should contest the character of their {349} scientific value on account of the fact that they are no longer able to give us an answer exactly where our questions become most important and interesting.

But the ways in which we are able to realize scientifically the idea of a divine providence are, indeed, not entirely closed for us. We have several of them; one starts from the idea of G.o.d, others from the empiric created world.

It belongs to the _idea of G.o.d_, that we have to think of the sublimity of G.o.d over time and s.p.a.ce, of his eternity and omnipresence, in such a way that G.o.d, in his being, life, and activity, does not stand _in_ time nor within any limits or differences of s.p.a.ce, but absolutely above time and above all limits and differences of s.p.a.ce; that he is _present_ in his world everywhere and at any time. He who objects to this, can only do it with weapons to which we have to oppose the objection which the adversaries of the Christian idea of G.o.d so often raise against it--namely, the objection of a rejectable _anthropomorphism_. In contesting the possibility of the idea of an uninterrupted presence of a personal and living G.o.d in the entire realm of the universe, the adversaries seem to permit themselves to be daunted by the difficulty which is offered to man in controlling the realms of his own activity. The greater such a realm, the more difficult becomes a comprehensive survey, the more the human influence has to restrict itself to the greater and more common and to neglect the little and single. The more removed is the past which helps to const.i.tute the circ.u.mstances of the present, the greater is the human ignorance and oblivion; the more removed is the future, the greater is the human incapability of {350} influencing it decisively. Such measures ought to disappear, even in their last traces, when we reflect on G.o.d and divine activity. If once the idea is established for us of a living G.o.d, who is always present in the world created by him, and in whose "sight a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night,"

the final causal chain of causes and effects may be ever so long, and stretching over this course of the world from its beginning to its end; the single phenomena may be woven together of ever so many thousands and thousands of millions of different causal chains: we nevertheless see above them all the regulating hand of G.o.d from whom they all come, and who not only surveys and controls their texture in all its threads, but who himself arranged, wove, and made it. Such a view is not only more satisfactory to the religious need of man, but it also seems to us more scientific, than a view which traces everything back to a blind and dead cause, or even to no ultimate cause at all, and thinks it has entirely removed the last veil, if it p.r.o.nounces the great word "causal law."

Now, while our _idea of G.o.d_ thus tells us that G.o.d has in his hand all causal chains in the world, and its million-threaded web in constant omni-surveying presence and in all-controlling omnipotence, our reflection on the _world_ and its substance and course also leads us from the _a posteriori_ starting-point of a.n.a.lytical investigation precisely to the same result; it even leads us to a still more concrete conception of this idea--namely, to the result, that not only the _causal chains, in their totality and in their web_, but also _all single links_ of these chains, {351} have their force and existence only by virtue of a transcendental, or what is the same, of a _metaphysical_, cause.

For if we a.n.a.lyze the single phenomena in the world, we certainly observe in the activity of their qualities and forces such a conformity to law, that, in our reflection on these phenomena, we can go from one phenomenon to the necessity of another as its cause or its effect, and thus form those particular causal chains and causal nets in whose arranged representation natural science consists. But that those qualities and forces exist and act precisely thus, and not otherwise, and why, we are no longer able to explain. We can only say: the material and the apparent is no longer their cause, but their effect; therefore, the cause of that which comes into existence lies beyond the phenomenon--_i.e._, in the transcendental, in the metaphysical.

This becomes evident in the _inorganic world_ and in those qualities which are common to all matter. Such common qualities of the latter are, for instance, cohesion and gravitation. That all matter has the quality of cohesion, we can only say because we observe it; but that it must be so, and why, we are not able to say. This becomes still more evident in gravitation. Gravitation is so decidedly an action in s.p.a.ce, that it appears to us, together with cohesion, as precisely the bond which binds the entire material world together. Each single material atom is subject to its force; but how and why, and especially how and why matter acts upon the matter _in s.p.a.ce_, physics can no longer tell us, but refers us to a metaphysical cause.

This dependence of each single being, and of all its qualities and forces, on a transcendental and {352} metaphysical cause of its existence, becomes most clear to us in the world of the _organic_, and especially in the transmission and development of organisms. _That_ individuals originate new individuals of their species; _that_ the fecundated germs, if the necessary conditions are present, develop themselves out of the first germ and egg-cell in continually progressive and distinct differentiations, each after its kind, into the full-grown condition, so that individuals endowed with a soul and intellectual life are also developed out of such beginnings;--these are facts which are continually repeated before our eyes, and men of science have not yet reached the end in pursuing the actual in these processes into its finest ramifications. But how it is that individuals _must_ transmit themselves--that the seeds and eggs _must_ have this force of germination and development--they have not yet been able to explain, and will never be able to do so. The word "inheritance," which is to solve the problem, is only a _name_ for the _fact_ which we observe, and for the regularity of its repet.i.tion; but for this fact of inheritance itself, we seek in vain a _physical_ explanation: we are referred to a _metaphysical_ cause. Thus, not only the _first_ origin of life on earth is an enigma to us (as we have seen in Part I, Book II, Chapter I, -- 3), but organic life itself, in its whole existence and course, is a process which, at every step, and in every place of its course, remains to us in its last causes physically unexplained, and refers us to metaphysical causes.

If we finally see in all these inorganic and organic processes a striving towards ends--and we must see it, as soon as we in general observe order, the category of higher and lower, and the appearance of the higher on {353} the basis of the lower--we are, with all our teleological observations, again referred to the metaphysical, and still more decidedly to the goal-setting metaphysical; and a metaphysical which sets and reaches goals is nothing else than that in philosophic language which in the language of religion we call a living _Creator_ and _Ruler of the world_ and the activity of his _providence_.

From still another side, the knowledge of the world, even in a scientific way, leads us to the acknowledgment of a divine providence which controls with absolute freedom every process in every place and in every moment of the world's course. We see continually, in the midst of nature, and in its causal course conformable to law, something supernatural, transcendental, and metaphysical, acting decisively upon the course of nature; and that is the _free activity of man_. Every man carries in the freedom of the determinations of his will something transcendental and metaphysical in himself, which we can call natural only when we mean by nature the summary of all that which exists, but which we have to call supernatural when we mean by nature the summary of that which belongs to the world of phenomena in its traceable causes as well as in its traceable effects. The scale of life-activities, from the lowest arbitrary motions, from the impulses and instincts of the animal up to the highest moral action of the will of man, shows us in indistinct transitions all stages which lead from the natural to the supernatural, until, in the ethical and religious motives of man, we arrive at superphysical (_i.e._, supernatural) motives which daily and hourly invade the natural, and in this invasion consciously and unconsciously use the forces of nature {354} and their activity, conformable to law, and in spite of their metaphysical and transcendental origin, from the moment of their activity, join the natural causal connection of the world's course. This observation of an invasion of the physical by the supernatural, as it continually takes place in the free action of man, leads us in a triple way to the acknowledgment of an action of divine providence upon the course of the world.

In the first place, this observation shows us, in a very direct way, points where the free disposition of G.o.d acts determinatingly upon the course of things, and where this action becomes accessible to our observation. These points are the human personalities, in so far and inasmuch as they permit themselves to be influenced and determined by the will of G.o.d in the ethical and religious motives of their action, and, when these motives become actions, determinately act upon the course of things.

In the second place, this observation further leads, by way of two conclusions, to the acknowledgment of a divine providence.

One conclusion is the following: If there exist in the world free and intelligent beings which, through their free determinations, guided by reflection, decisively act upon the course of nature, and if these beings, on account of these very qualities of freedom and intelligence, occupy the highest stage among the creatures which we know, the last metaphysical cause of their existence must also have qualities which are able to produce such free and intelligent beings--at least the qualities of freedom and intelligence in the highest degree. And this highest metaphysical cause which produces free and intelligent personalities in the world, can at least be no {355} more dependent upon the entire world, whose author it is, than those personalities are dependent upon that realm in the world in which they have their existence. We call such a metaphysical cause, to which we have to ascribe freedom and intelligence in the highest degree, G.o.d; and we call its free position in reference to the world, the government of the world, or providence.

The other conclusion leads us to the acknowledgment of a connection of providence with conformability to law in the actions of all forces and qualities in the world. It is the same conclusion to which we had to refer in Chap. I, -- 6, but which now, as we draw from theism the conclusion of the acknowledgment of a special divine providence, falls with increased weight into the scale. It is the following: On the one hand, we observe in the processes of the world a striving towards ends; on the other, we know in the world itself only one single creature which acts according to aims, which sets itself its ends and reaches them with freely chosen means. This one creature is man. Now man can, as we pointed out in Chap. I, -- 6, choose and use the means with which he wishes to reach his ends, only because he can rely on the conformity to the end in view and the regularity in the effect of all the qualities and forces of things. If he could not rely on them, he certainly could set himself ends; but the reaching of them he would have to leave to the play of chance. Now if we see, on the one side, that the only creature known to us which sets itself ends is able to reach these ends by virtue of inviolable conformity to law in the forces and effects of its means, and if we see, on the other, that in the course of the world ends are also reached, and that at the same time {356} all secondary causes which lead to these ends act with a necessity conformable to law, we certainly are right in drawing the conclusion that the highest metaphysical cause of all things--we now say, the living G.o.d--has so prepared the whole universe that his free but regular and systematic goal-setting and end-reaching action upon the course of all things rests, as a whole as well as in detail, directly upon the conformity to law of all forces and their effects.

The observation of a free action of the human personality upon the course of things, once more leads us back to a reflection on the _idea of G.o.d_.

For if we have reason to acknowledge a _freedom_ of the determinations of human will--and the consciousness of ethical responsibility will be a proof of this freedom which cannot be invalidated by any contrary reflection--the question comes up: _how is this freedom of a creature reconcilable with the idea of G.o.d?_ Far be it from us to claim to have found a solution of these last and most important problems of the human mind. For all meditations on them but lead to antinomies in the presence of which we dare not churn to remove all difficulties of reflection still less to solve the difficulties by pursuing only one chain of reasoning and ignoring the other. The way of science leads rather to mere _compromises_, and these compromises consist in the fact, that on every side of our observations or arguments we look for and adhere to that which results for us in incontestable fact or indispensable postulate, and that we adhere to all results or postulates thus found even when we are no longer able to trace their unity and harmony back to their last sources. Now if, on the one hand, our idea of {357} G.o.d is established as a self-testimony of G.o.d to our ethical consciousness and as a result of our teleological reasoning, and if, on the other, is established the fact of the world and of its processes going on conformably to law, and likewise the fact of human freedom and its actions upon the course of things, and finally the fact of the admission of the human will and action into a higher teleology which is superior to human will, and which, in the history of mankind, of individuals, and nations, reaches its higher ends, now by affirming, now by denying, human will; then we have simply to account for all these facts as mere _facts_, and the scientific attempt at pursuing them into their inner connection is nothing else but a more or less successful compromise. We have to be satisfied with these indications, for the further discussion of them would lead us far beyond the task of the present publication. We shall only point out the fact, that precisely the knowledge of the image of G.o.d in man shows us the way to the knowledge of how it is conceivable that G.o.d can create personalities through whose freedom of will he relatively limits the absoluteness of his own will.

In all our discussions. .h.i.therto, the scientific basis of a faith in the possibility of an _answer to prayer_ has been evident. All reasons for a divine providence, also speak with the same force of persuasion for the hearing of our prayers, as soon as the _idea of being a child of G.o.d_ has become an integral part of our idea of G.o.d. And this idea--the idea of G.o.d as the father, and of a relations.h.i.+p of love between the divine and the human personalities--is so much a part of the Christian idea of G.o.d, that it belongs to its very essence. Only one {358} consideration might offer scientific difficulties to our faith in the hearing of prayer: namely, if G.o.d hears the prayers of his children, in the course of time new motives for his action present themselves to him; now, is it reconcilable with the idea of G.o.d, that G.o.d makes himself in any such way dependent on that which first appeared in time, and on the changing moods of the creature? But this difficulty is precisely the same which we met, when acknowledging human freedom and its reconcilableness with a divine providence; and we have tried to indicate above the path which leads to its solution.

It is the princ.i.p.al idea which penetrates all our reasoning about the relation of G.o.d and the world--namely, the idea of a _teleology in the world_--which is to lead us to a correct conception of the _miracles_ and their reconcilableness with a mechanism of nature and with the Darwinistic ideas of development. In the much discussed contest about the problem of miracles, clearer results would certainly have been attained, if one had questioned more closely what the record of the Christian religion means by miracles, and what position, according to it, these miracles have to take in the order of the world and in the divine plan of salvation; and after having satisfied himself as to this position, had further asked what position they take in reference to our exact science and our theistic view of the world. Instead of doing this, we have often enough seen friend and foe of the idea of miracles, as soon as the question was even touched upon, at once set to work with the insufficient conceptions of old rationalism and supernaturalism, and thus raising objections and attempting solutions which could satisfy n.o.body. Especially every inadequate idea {359} which was put forth by the advocates of faith in miracles, was gladly accepted by its adversaries; for thereby they were furnished with a caricature of the idea of miracles, the tearing to pieces of which was an easy and agreeable sport to them.

The very ideas of the _natural_ and the _supernatural_ are a category which is to be treated with caution. When discussing the question of divine providence, we have seen that, with every free act of the will of man springing from an ethical motive, something supernatural invades the natural, so that in every normal human life we always see supernatural and natural by the side of and in one another.

The distinction between the _direct_ and the _indirect action or invasion of G.o.d_ is also to be used with great caution and restriction. For where we are no longer able to find secondary causes, who can a.s.sert that G.o.d no longer uses any? Where the realm of visible causes ceases and that of the invisible begins, who can exclude secondary causes? And on the other hand, where G.o.d acts directly, who can deny the concurrence of his direct presence and his direct action, or reduce the value of that which was indirectly produced?

Moreover, the often-returning conceptions of a _breaking of the laws of nature_, or the compromises which were made between a breaking and a non-breaking of the laws of nature by a.s.suming a "supernatural acceleration of the process of nature," were still more misleading. In the whole world, infinitely many higher and lower forces act according to laws and order. In every process, a part of the forces which in the single case surround it, become active, and thereby hinder {360} another part from its activity. But the laws of this other part of forces are not thereby invalidated or broken. When a man acts with moral freedom, from mere moral motives, the highest of the conceivable forces over which we have control comes into direct action upon the natural. But therewith those forces, with their laws, which would have been active if another motive had determined him, are not yet overcome, but only hindered from their activity in exactly the same way as one part of forces can be active and another not, where mere mechanical actions take place. Thus, in miracles, no law of nature is overcome, but only a force which otherwise would have been active according to the law of its activity, is for the time hindered from action by another force becoming active. Moreover, through the conscious and unconscious connection of the idea of irregularity and lack of plan with the idea of miracles, not only the idea of a G.o.d who works miracles, but also that of a personal Creator and Ruler of the world, in general, has come into discredit. For that reason, Hackel, for instance, when he attacks the Christian idea of creation, never fails to speak of the "capricious arbitrariness" of the Creator; and Oskar Schmidt also speaks of the "caprice" of the G.o.d of Christians.

With these criticisms, which we have made in reference to the treatment of the question of miracles, we certainly have undertaken only to characterize the superficial skirmis.h.i.+ng which took place between the two opposing views of the world, but not the labors of more recent theological science. But that skirmish has made, like all superficiality, the most noise in the world; and since the adversaries of the faith in {361} miracles endeavored almost exclusively to reflect in this manner, and almost ignored the deeper deductions of theological science, they succeeded in making the idea of miracles almost the most dreaded object of antipathy to modern education, and many of those who feel that the conceptions of traditional dogmatics are in need of revision, and religion and science of a reconciliation, endeavor to find that revision and reconciliation especially in the fact, that religion gives up miracles. On the other hand, _theology as science_, in its main advocates, long ago gave up these insufficient and misleading categories and conceptions, and established a conception of miracles which can easily be received into the science of the processes of nature, as well as into our reasoning about G.o.d and the divine. The first who adopted this mode of treatment, is one of the pioneers of more recent positive theology, and of a theology still uninfluenced by science--Karl Immanuel Nitzsch. It is certainly interesting to read what this man, as early as 1829, said, in the first edition of his "System der Christlichen Lehre" ("System of Christian Doctrine"), and also in the succeeding edition printed without alteration. He says, on page 64: "The miracles of revelation are, in spite of all objective supernaturalness, derived from their central origin, _something really conformable to law_: partly in relation to the higher order of things to which they belong and which is also a world, a nature in its kind, and acts upon the lower in its way; partly in reference to the similarity to common nature which they retain in any way; partly on account of their teleological perfection; and they must not only be expected as the h.o.m.ogeneous phenomenon from the inner miracle of {362} redemption, from the standpoint of perfect Christian faith, but also by virtue of the union between spirit and nature, be looked upon _as the natural in its kind_." In these words we find the fruitful germs of a sound dogmatic development which the idea of miracles has found on the part of more recent theology.

Let us, in the first place, try to keep free from all preconceived, correct or incorrect, opinions, and ask how the miracles appear to us, when they present themselves with a claim to acknowledgment as integral parts of a divine revelation of salvation, namely, in the religion of redemption and its record. In regard to their name, they appear to us in the Holy Scriptures as amazing bright processes, as great deeds and signs; and in regard to their nature, as signs which are destined to call the attention of man to the government in grace and in judgment of a living G.o.d, to the salvation of redemption which G.o.d gives to man, and to the human instruments which he uses for that purpose. Now, in a view of the world which, like the Biblical, so decidedly sees a revelation of G.o.d in all that which takes place, in a view of the world to which everything natural has also, as a work of G.o.d, its supernatural cause, and everything supernatural, at present, or in the future, is transposed again into nature and history, not only all those above rejected conceptions of miracles lose their significance, but all remaining conceptions with which one otherwise tries to distinguish the miracles from all that is not miraculous, or to cla.s.sify the different species of miracles, also diminish in importance, as do also all those distinctions of direct and indirect actions of G.o.d--the distinctions of relative and absolute, of subjective and objective miracles: and there {363} remains hut a single inviolable kernel and central point of the Biblical conception of miracles, and that is the above mentioned _teleological character_ of miracles. Indeed, we are not willing to reject all these logical distinctions and investigations as worthless: they have helped to render clear our conceptions and ideas, and they still help. But a deeper investigation of the idea of miracles and its relation to a scientific knowledge of the world may perhaps finally lead our more developed reflection back to the fact that we find the quintessence and the nature of miracles only where the pious people of the Bible found it. And this quintessence of miracles consists precisely in their _teleological nature_, and not at all in the fact that they cannot be explained physically: it consists in the fact that miracles are _signs_ through which G.o.d manifests himself and his government over man, and actually shows the latter that _he_ wishes to bring him to the pursuit of perfection by the way of redemption. Ritschl, in an essay which appeared in the "Jahrbucher fur Deutsche Theologie," as early as 1861, pointed out this decidedly teleological character of Biblical miracles and the indifference shown by pious men in the Bible as to the question whether these deeds and signs can be explained naturally or not.

The profit which we derive from this reverting to the Biblical conception of the idea of miracles is by no means small.

In the first place, we help to establish the full recognition of that direct religious consciousness and sensation which is not only characteristic of the pious men of Scripture, but which yet characterizes all genuine religiousness; and this consists in the fact that the religious man sees {364} _miracles of G.o.d in all that turns his attention to G.o.d's government_,--in the sea of stars, in rock and bush, in suns.h.i.+ne and storm, in flower and worm, just as certainly as in the guidance of his own life and in the facts and processes of the history of salvation and of the kingdom of the Lord. In this idea of miracles, the essential thing is not that the phenomena and processes are inconceivable to him--although certainly in all that comes into appearance there is still an incomprehensible and uncomprehended remainder. For a form of nature, _e.g._, which turns his attention to a creator, is of course a miracle, even if he is able to look upon it with none other eye than that of the unlearned: but it even then remains a miracle,--nay, it is increased to a still greater miracle, if he has learned to contemplate and investigate it with all the auxiliary means of science. A hearing of his prayers remains a miracle, whether or not he is able to perceive the natural connection of the process in which he sees his prayers answered, or even to trace it back to the remotest times which preceded his prayers. The events and facts of the history of salvation remain miracles to him, whether the history of nature and the world offers to him auxiliary means of explaining them or not. The pious man, therefore, does not find the essential characteristic of miracles in their relative inconceivableness, but in the fact that they refer him to a living G.o.d who stands above this process, whether perceived or unperceived in its relative causal connection, and unites it with the course of things in order to reach his ends and to manifest himself to man.

Now, in our attempt at a scientific reproduction of the idea of miracles, if we return to that Biblical conception, we see no longer in this just {365} mentioned religious conception of miracles a pious sophistry which avoids the difficulty of the idea, or a child-like _navete_ worthy of being partly envied and partly pitied, which does not at all see the difficulties and remains on the child-stage of Biblical conceptions; but we only perceive in it a confirmation and fulfilment of that profound and beneficent word of our Lord: "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of G.o.d as a little child, he shall not enter therein."

Of course, piety as well as science makes _distinctions_ among miracles.

The former separates the _mere products and processes of nature_ which, through what is explicable as well as what is inexplicable in their qualities and processes, point to an almighty and all-wise Creator, and thereby become miracles to the religious view of the world, from the _historical events_ which, by their newness and uniqueness, and by their pointing toward divine ends, manifest G.o.d and his teleological government to man, and calls them miracles in a still more specific sense than science does. And among historical events, piety as well as science a.s.signs the name miracle, in the most pregnant sense, to those events which belong to the _history of salvation_, and, by their newness and uniqueness, introduce new stages into it, render legitimate its new instruments, or bring new features of redemption to our knowledge. Our religiousness has the greatest and deepest interest in this history: for it is the history of the leading back of man into communion with G.o.d by the way of redemption; and therefore the events of this history are precisely those miracles upon which our deepest religious interest is concentrated. But in spite of all these distinctions in degree, that natural relations.h.i.+p and that {366} common character of the miraculous between the miracles of nature, the miracles of the history of man, and the miracles of the history of salvation, remain established; and we render a service to religious consciousness, as well as to the scientific conception of the idea of miracles, if by returning to the Biblical idea of miracles, as we propose, we make a more comprehensive definition of miracles possible.

Another advantage which we derive from returning to the Biblical idea of miracles consists in the fact that it preserves us from the _magical_ and necromantic in our conceptions of miracles; that it allows us a _grouping of miracles according to value_, which corresponds with the idea of G.o.d and of the divine government as well as with the idea of miracles itself; and that in the presence of all single relations of miracles it summons us to _criticise_ and _investigate the real state of the case_. For the nature of miracles does not consist in the inconceivable--at least not in the planless and arbitrary,--but in the fact that they call the attention of man to G.o.d and his government; and this leads to the reverse of all that is magical and necromantic, because the magical is unworthy of the idea of G.o.d and contradicts all the other self-testimony of G.o.d. Now if the nature of miracles consists in the fact that they call my attention to G.o.d and his government, an event will become a miracle to me, and increase its value, in the degree in which it refers me to G.o.d and his government, and especially in the degree in which it refers me to that government of G.o.d which is the most important to me--namely, to the action of G.o.d in me and mankind, with which he is bringing about his ends in salvation; {367} but in the degree in which an event loses this character, it becomes to me an event without miraculous or religious significance. This gives a quite definite grouping of miracles according to value, from those which belong to the central manifestations of the divine plan of salvation and way of redemption, to those which lie in the extreme periphery of religious interest. It is a grouping which corresponds with the idea of G.o.d just as much as with the idea of miracles; while all other divisions or groupings of miracles according to value, which might take their principle of division and their weight from the greater or smaller conceivableness of the causal connection, from the greater or smaller difference of a miraculous event from all other events, are indifferent in reference to the idea of G.o.d, and change the centre of gravity in the idea of miracles.

Besides, if these miracles are to be real signs to me which refer me to G.o.d, his government, and his ways of salvation, they must, in the first place, in order to secure my conviction, be real events and facts and not mere falsifications and fictions; and this point leads us to the duty and right of criticising and investigating actual circ.u.mstances. In presence of all Biblical and non-Biblical miracles, we have the full right and the full duty of using criticism in reference to the confirmation of actual circ.u.mstances, and where the latter cannot be established with certainty, the question is in order whether the related event is really of such a character as to legitimate itself as a sign of G.o.d and his government. In the preceding section, we have had occasion to use this principle in reference to the investigation of that event which, next to the coming of the Redeemer, offers itself to us as the {368} central miracle of the history of salvation and redemption: namely, in reference to the history of the resurrection of the Lord.