-- D. The special Revelation and Naturalism
With this it is now further given, that revelation cannot stand absolutely opposed to nature. With Bome there is quantitative opposition; the religio naturalis is essentially different from the religio supernaturalis; both stand side by side; they are two entirely different concepts, two completely distinct sysstances and orders; the ordo gratiae raises itself high above the order naturae. But the Reformation has transformed this quantitative opposition into a qualitative one. Revelation is not opposed to nature, but opposed to sin. This is the power that revelation seeks to break, but nature restores and completes it. Creation itself is already revelation. There was revelation before the fall. Revelation is still there in all the works of God's hands in nature and history. His eternal power and divinity are understood and seen through the creatures. Analogies of prophecy and miracle also exist outside the revelatio specialis. The inspiration of heroes and artists, the miraculous powers that sometimes come to light, can serve to clarify and confirm the facts of revelation mentioned in Scripture. Even the magic and mantis in the pagan religions are phenomena which, as caricatures, still show a resemblance to the original image in Revelation.
Yes, this reverts to nature as it were, joins in and prepares for it. The gratia communis points to the gratia specialis, and the latter engages it. Natura commendat gratiam, gratia emendat naturam. Even creation itself is built up on redemption lines, Orr, The Christian view of God and the world, p. 323. See further my speech on De algemeene Genade, Kampen 1894.
D. The special Revelation and Naturalism 9. The fundamental fight against revelation only began in the newer philosophy. Spinoza still retains the word revelation and even considers it necessary, Tract, theol.-polit. cap. 15, 27, but he understands by it nothing else than that the simple-minded cannot find the true religion, the word of God, by the light of reason, but must accept it on authority, ib. cap. 15, 44. cap. 4, 22-37. For the rest,
Spinoza recognizes no revelation in the actual sense; all decreta Dei
are aeternae veritates and identical with the leges naturae, ib. cap. 4, 37; 3, 8; 6, 9, etc.; prophecy and miracle were subjected to sharp criticism and clarified in a natural way, ib. cap. 1-6. This criticism was continued by deism and rationalism. But rationalism can appear in different forms and changes meaning each time, cf. Kant, Religion innerhalb usw. ed. Rosenkranz S. 185. Wegscheider, Instit. Theol. § 7 d. § 11 -12. Bretschneider, Syst. Entw. aller in der Dogm. vork.
Begriffe, § 34. Nitzsch, Lehrb. der ev. Dogm. S. 141 f. In the first place, rationalism is the term used to designate those who accept supernatural revelation, but entrust reason with the decision concerning the authenticity and meaning of that revelation; many
Caretian theologians, such as Roell, Wolzogen, G. W. Duker, and others, belonged to this group. W. Duker, and also Leibniz, Wolff, etc. Subsequently, rationalism is the name for the opinion which still considers supernatural revelation possible, but only of such truths which reason could have found sooner or later anyway. Revelation is then only temporarily and accidentally necessary; it serves only to prepare and educate for the general society of the Vernunftreligion; it only provides more quickly and easily what reason would otherwise have attained by a longer and more difficult path. Such is the concept of revelation with Lessing, Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts 1780, Fichte, Versuch einer Kritik aller
Offenbarung 1792, and Kant, Religion usw. 1793. In the third place, rationalism is known as that theology which denies all supernatural revelation, but nevertheless assumes that God, by special arrangements of His Providence, has equipped persons and paved ways which can bring mankind to a better and purer knowledge of religious truth. Of these, Wegscheider is the foremost representative,
Instit. theol. I § 12 p. 58, and furthermore Röhr, Henke, Gabler, Paulus, Gesenius, etc. And finally the name of rationalism is also given to that direction, which since the middle of the 17th century has been called naturalism, in England deism, and also atheism, materialism, and which denying all revelation, held the religio naturalis to be perfectly sufficient. To these belong Spinoza, Lud.
Meyer, Voltaire, Rousseau, Reimarus, Nicolai, etc.
The arguments of this rationalism against revelation boil down to this: Revelation is first of all impossible from the side of God, because it would imply that God was changeable, that His creation was imperfect and faulty and therefore in need of improvement; and that He Himself, otherwise a Deus otiosus, only worked when He works in an extraordinary way. Furthermore, revelation is also impossible from the side of the world, because science has discovered more and more that it is always and everywhere governed by an unbreakable system of laws, which leaves no room for a supernatural intervention of God; science departs from this causal connection of things and cannot do otherwise; Supranaturalism makes science impossible, puts arbitrariness in place of rule; as science has progressed, all phenomena have lost their supranatural character; there is even no right to regard a phenomenon as supranatural, contrary to all experience. Ie surnaturel serait le surdivin. Next, revelation, even if it had occurred, would be unrecognizable and unprovable for the recipient himself and even more so for those who live after him: how can it ever be determined that a prophecy or a miracle comes from God and not, for example, from the devil? What makes a revelation recognizable to the one who receives it and to those who live later? There are no such criteria.
Those who accept revelation believe only on human authority and depend on men for the highest and most important things. Que d'hommes entre Dieu et moi! And finally, revelation conflicts with human reason; for whatever one may say, all revelation that is supra rationem is therefore also contra rationem, it suppresses reason and leads to foolishness; but moreover, if revelation communicates something that is supra rationem, it can never be assimilated and assimilated and always remains as a misunderstood mystery outside our consciousness; And if it communicates something that reason itself could have found, it is unnecessary, at best only providing sooner and lighter what would otherwise have been obtained anyway, and needlessly robbing reason of its power and energy. Cf.
Wegscheider, Instit. theol. § 10-12. Bretschneider, Handbuch der Dogm. 4th Aufl. I 188-329. Nitzsch, Lehrb. der ev. Dogm. 141 f. 165.
10. Revelation, which is laid down in the Scriptures, is a difficult fact for anyone who denies it. For even those who dispute its possibility and reality must still strive for an explanation of its historical origin.
It did not arise from deception, nor did religion. The belief in revelation is not something arbitrary or accidental, which only occurs here or there under special circumstances, but is essentially inherent to all religion. The question of revelation is not as simple as rationalism sometimes imagined. This is immediately evident from the fact that all attempts from the naturalistic side to explain the biblical miracles in a natural way have failed so far. If the revelation, in all its forms, of theophany, prophecy and miracle, is not really supernatural, but only originates from God in the sense that all human activity has its final cause in Him; then one is forced to resort either to the so-called material or to the formal interpretation of the miracle stories.
That is, one can leave the facts untouched up to a certain point and take them for truth; one then seeks to explain these facts from the ignorance of the people concerning natural causes and from the religious need to attribute everything directly to God, Spinoza, Tract, theol. pol. cap. 1 and 6. Hase, Dogm. § Leben Jesu § 15. Strauss,
Glaub. I 280. Scholten, Supranat. in connection with Bible, Christ, and Prot. 1867, p. 8 v.; or one explains them physically from unknown natural forces, Kant, Religion ed. Rosenkranz 101. Morus,
Epitome Theol. Christ, p. 23. Schweizer, Glaub. der ev. ref. K. 1 324 f.; or psychologically from a special virtuosity, to feel the future ahead, Bretschneider, Dogm. I S. 300; Hase, Dogm. § 137, and to cure the sick without means, Weisse, Philos. Dogm. I S. 115. Ammon,
Gesch. des Lebens Jesu 248.; or teleologically from such an arrangement and ordering of the physical and psychical forces lying in nature, that they bring about an unusual result and urge recognition of God's providence and belief in the preacher,
Wegscheider, Inst. Theol. § 48. Bretschneider, Dogm. I 314. Or, on the other hand, one can look for a solution in the formal or genetic explanation, i. e. in a special interpretation of the messages concerning the revelation; one then calls to the aid of the Oriental
representation and interpretation, and the accommodation of Jesus and the apostles according to popular conceptions, cf. Bretschneider,
Syst. Entw. aller in der Dogm. vork. Begriffe, 4th Aufl. S. 135 f.
Herzog2 art. Accomodation; or one seeks counsel from the allegorical, Woolston, Discourses on the miracles of our Saviour
1727; or from the natural, Paul of Heidelberg, Philol.-krit. u. histor.
Commentar über das N. T. 1800-1804. Leben Jesu 1828. Exeg.
Handbuch über die 3 ersten Evang. 1830-33; or to the mythical, Eichhorn, Gabler, G. L. Bauer, Strauss, Leben Jesu 1835; or to the symbolic explanation, A. D. Loman, Gids Febr. 1884. Cf.
Wegscheider, Instit. Theol. s. 214. Bretschneider, System. Entw. S.
248 f. Denzinger, Vier Bücher von der relig. Erkenntniss II 156 f. 335 f. 405 f.
But all these explanations have had little success. Scripture cannot be interpreted in a naturalistic or rationalistic way. The very facts of revelation which Scripture communicates to us stand in the way of all such attempts. For, while it is true that the revelation contained in Scripture bears many similarities in form to that invoked by other religions, it is also opposed to it in principle, it draws a clear distinction between it and itself, and it consciously and with complete assurance attributes its origin solely to an extraordinary working of God. Scripture forbids all divination and sorcery, Num.
19:16, 31, 20:6, 27; Dent. 18:10 v.; Isa. 8:9; Jer. 27:9; Rev. 8:9 v., 13:8 v., 19:13: Apoc. 21:8, 22:15. Prophets and apostles want nothing to do with this. They are diametrically opposed to it and do not follow artfully concocted fables, 2 Pet. 1 :16. Prophecy was not brought about by the will of man, but by the Holy Spirit who moved the prophets, 2 Pet. 1:21; 1 Cor. 2:11, 12. The clear self-consciousness, which we find everywhere in the prophets, and the perfectly clear self-witness, which accompanies revelation everywhere in Scripture, offer an insurmountable stumbling block to naturalistic wrklification. Also the psychological method Strauss, Glaub. I 77.
Kuenen, The Prophets I 106 v., cannot do justice to this selfconsciousness and self-witness of prophets and apostles, indeed of Christ Himself. It may be gratefully acknowledged that the modern
conception of Revelation no longer thinks for a moment to hold the prophets and apostles to be deliberate deceivers. But still it cannot escape the conclusion that all these men were poor deceivers and erring in good faith because they relied on a supposed revelation and acted with an imagined divine authority. The question is not raised as if Revelation only contained certain facts, whose interpretation it leaves to our understanding. But it casts its own peculiar light on these facts; it has, so to speak, its own reflection and its own theory about them. In the revelation of Scripture word and fact, prophecy and miracle, always go hand in hand. Both are necessary in order that both consciousness and being may be transformed and that the whole cosmos may be redeemed from sin. The light needs the reality and the reality needs the light, to produce - - - the beautiful creation of His grace. To apply the Kantian phraseology to a higher subject, without God's acts the words would be empty, without His words the acts would be blind, Dr. Vos, The idea of biblical theology as a science and as a theol. discipline, New-York, Randolph and Co. 1894 p. 15. See also Kuyper, From the Word I 1873 bl. 69-160. Both, word and fact, are so intimately woven together in revelation, that the one cannot be accepted or rejected without the other. Every attempt to explain the facts of revelation in a naturalistic way has thus far always ended with the recognition that between the supranatural world view of Scripture and that of the naturalists there is a deep chasm and reconciliation is impossible. The professor Scholtën provided a striking example of this.
First he took the pronouncements of the Johannine Jesus as truth. Then he tried to explain those statements according to his changed insights, and to make the exegesis subservient to his heterodox dogmatics. And finally in 1864 he openly acknowledged that the world view of the fourth evangelist was different from his own. The Gospel of John
1864 p. III-VI. Every negative direction finally recognizes that the revelation of Scripture is still most purely understood and represented in Orthodoxy. Radicalism leaves Scripture for what it is and has rejected Revelation. This reduces the question to its deepest principle. Whether or not revelation is acknowledged is decided by our entire outlook on life and the world. It is not historical criticism
but self-criticism, not science but faith, not the head but the heart that is decisive. Out of the heart also comes madness, Mk. 2:22. Our thinking is rooted in our being.
Operari sequitur esse (Schopenhauer). Was für eine Philosophie man wahle, hangt davon ab, was für ein Mensch man ist. Unser Denksystem 1st oft nur die
Geschichte unseres Herzens (Fichte). That the recognition or nonrecognition of revelation in the last instance is a question of faith is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that neither the supranaturalistic nor the naturalistic view is capable of eliminating all difficulties or resolving all objections. The naturalistic view seems to be strong when it takes a few miracle stories in isolation from the whole; but that whole itself, the system of Revelation and in it the person of Christ remain for it an unsolvable riddle and a stumbling block. Conversely, supranatural consideration has not yet succeeded in integrating all the particular facts and words of Revelation into the order of the whole. But here is the agreement with Revelation as a whole, the understanding of its system, the conception of its powerful harmony.
Were the recognition of Revelation a philosophical proposition, it would be of relatively little weight. But there is a deep religious interest involved. Religion itself is connected with revelation. Whoever abandons revelation, loses the religion which is built upon it. The revelation of Scripture and the religion of Scripture stand and fall with each other.
11. The world view which stands opposed to that of Scripture and must in principle combat all revelation, may best be called monism.
Monism, both in its pantheistic and in its materialistic form, aims to reduce all forces, substances and laws that exist in nature to a single force, substance and law. Materialism assumes only qualitatively equal atoms, which everywhere and always work according to the same mechanical laws and, by connection and separation, cause all things and phenomena to come into being and to perish. Pantheism, likewise, recognizes nothing but a single substance, which is the same in all creatures and everywhere changes and is transformed according to the same logical laws. Both are animated by the same urge, the urge and desire for unity, which is characteristic of the
human spirit. But whereas materialism seeks to find the unity of matter and law, which prevails in the physical world, in all other phenomena, historical, psychological, religious, ethical, etc., and thus to make all sciences natural sciences; pantheism seeks to explain all phenomena, including physical phenomena, by the spirit and to transform all sciences into spiritual sciences. Both are naturalism, insofar as they perhaps make room for the supernatural, but in any case not for the supernatural, and for science and art, for religion and morals, this cosmos, the diesseits, is sufficient, Strauss,
Der alte u. der neue Glaube, 2e Aufl. I 211 f. E. Haeckel, Der Monismus als Band zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft, 6e Aufl.
Konrad Dieterich, Philosophie u. Naturwissenschaft, ihr neuestes Bündniss und die monistische Weltanschauung, 2tus Ausg. Freiburg
1885. Dr. Μ. L. Stern, Philosophischer und naturwissenschaftlicher Monism 11s. T. Pesch, Die grossen Weltrathsel, 2nd Aufi. Herder,
Freiburg IT 8 f. Stöckl, Lehrbuch der Philos. IT 1887 S. 117 f. Schanz, Apologie des Christ. 1 1887 S. 249 f. The world view of Scripture and of all Christian theology is an entirely different one. It is not monism but theism, not naturalistic but supra-naturalistic. According to this theistic world view there is a multiplicity of substances, forces and substances and laws. It does not seek to exchange the distinctions between God and the world, mind and matter, psychic and physical, ethical and religious phenomena, etc., but to discover the harmony which holds all things together and binds them together, and which is the result of the creative idea of God. Not univocity or uniformity, but unity in diversity is the goal of its efforts. In spite of all the pretensions of monism, this theistic world view has right and reason to exist. After all, monism has not succeeded in reducing all forces and substances and laws to a single one. Materialism comes up against psychological phenomena (Du Bois Reymond, Die sieben
Weltrathsel), and pantheism cannot find the transition from thinking to being and does not know what to do with the multitude. Being itself is a mystery, a miracle. The fact that there is something, and from where it is, compels the thinking mind to wonder, and this is therefore rightly called the beginning of philosophy. And the more this being is thought about, the more the wonder increases, because
within the circle of being, of the cosmos, we see various forces at work, in the mechanic, vegetative, animal, psychic world, and also in the religious and ethical, aesthetic and logical phenomena.
Creation shows us an ascending order. The laws of the maintenance of force, of causality and continuity (natura non facit saltus) are interpreted and abused in the service of monism. But nevertheless, forces appear in nature which cannot be explained by the lower ones.
Already in mechanical nature, eausality prevails only in a hypothetical sense. Similar causes have similar effects, but only under similar circumstances. In the organic, a force occurs that does not come from the inorganic. Schon das Thier ist ein Wunder gegen die vegetabilische Natur und noch mehr der Geist gegen das Leben, gegen die bloss empfindende Natur, Hegel, Philos, der Rel., Werke
XII 256. In the mind, in the will, in religion, morality, art, science, law, history, there are forces at work which differ essentially from the mechanical ones. The attempt to explain all these phenomena mechanically has so far proved futile. The spiritual sciences have hitherto retained their independent place. Dilthey, Einleitung in die
Geisteswissenschaften 1 1883 S. 5 f. Drummond, Das Naturgesetz in der Geisteswelt, Aus dem Engl. Leipzig 1886 S. 18 f. Though unhappy, must Prof. Land, Introduction to the Wisb. 328 nevertheless recognize, that for the time being science is compelled to remain dualistic and even pluralistic.
Each of these forces works according to its own nature, according to its own law and in its own way. The forces differ, and so do their actions and the manner in which they work. The idea of natural law has only gradually emerged. In earlier times the term lex naturae was understood to mean an ethical rule that was known by nature. Later this term was transferred to nature in a very improper sense, because no one has prescribed these laws to nature and no one is in a position to obey or violate them. That is why there is still a great difference in understanding and meaning of the laws of nature. In the 17th century
God gave the laws of nature, in the 18th century nature itself did the same, and in the 19th century the individual scientists discovered them (Wundt). But that much is certain, that the so called laws of
nature themselves are not a force which governs the phenomena, but nothing more than a, often very inadequate and always fallible, description of the way in which the forces lying in nature work. A natural law only says that certain forces, under the same circumstances, work in the same way, Ed. Zeller, Vortrage, IIP
Sammlung S. 194 f. Wundt, Philos. Studien III 195 f. IV 12 f.
Hellwald, Culturgeschichte, 3e Aufl. I 32. Hartmann, Philos, des Unbewussten, 9® Aufl. II 96. Lotze, Mikrokosmos, 4® Aufl. I 31 f.
II 50 f. Ill 13 f. Art. Naturgesetz in Herzog2. The regularity of phenomena is thus ultimately founded on the invariability of the various forces at work in nature and of the last elements or substances of which it is composed. The laws differ according to the differentiation of these elements and forces. The mechanical laws are different from the physical; the logical, again, from the ethical and aesthetic. 111 In the physical sense giving makes one poorer; in the ethical sense it makes one richer. The laws of nature, i. e. of the whole cosmos, of all creation, are therefore not a cordon around things, so that nothing can enter or leave them, but only a formula for the way in which, according to our perception, every force works according to its nature. All these elements and forces with their indwelling laws are, according to the theistic world view, maintained from moment to moment by God, who is the last and highest, intelligent and free causality of all things. As creatures, they have no substance in themselves. It is God's omnipresent and eternal power that sustains and governs all things. In Him, in His thought and in His government, lies the unity, the harmony, which holds all things together in the richest variety and binds them together and leads them to one goal. Through this there is unitas, mensura, ordo, numerus, modus, gradus, species in the creatures, as Augustine repeatedly says. Aliis dedit esse amplius, aliis minus, atque ita naturas essentiarum gradibus ordinavit, August, de civ. 12, 2. God is present in everything. In Him all things live and move and are.
Nature and history are His work. He is always working, John 5:17.
Everything reveals God to us. His finger may be more clearly visible to us in some events than in others; the pure in heart see God in all
His works. Miracles, then, are by no means necessary to make us
know God as Sustainer and Ruler of the universe. Everything is His act. Nothing happens without His will. He is present with His being in all things. And therefore everything is also a revelation, a word, a work of God.
12. A supernatural revelation is not at all inconsistent with such a world view. Nature does not exist independently of God for a single moment, but lives and moves in Him. All power which acts in it comes from Him and works according to the law He has laid down in it. God is not outside of nature and is not shut off from it by a fence of laws, but is present in it and carries it by the word of His power.
He works from within and can bring about new forces which are different in nature and effect from the existing ones. And these higher forces do not nullify the lower ones, but nevertheless occupy their own place beside and facing them. The human spirit seeks at every moment to counteract the lower natural forces in their workings and to rule over them. The entire culture is a power through which man rules over nature. Art and science are a triumph of the spirit over matter. Similarly, in revelation, in prophecy and miracle, a new divine power appears which, although it has its own place in the cosmos, does not in any way conflict with the lower powers in its laws. There is no question of a so-called abrogation of the laws of nature by the miracles. There is no such thing as a Durchlöcherung of nature. Thomas already said: quando Deus agit aliquid contra cursum naturae, non tollitur totus ordo universi, sed cursus qui est unius rei ad aliam, de pot. qu. 6 art. 1, at Muller, Natur und Wunder 133. Yes even the ordo causae ad suum effectum is not destroyed; although the fire in the oven did not burn the three young men, in that fire the ordo ad comburendum remained. No change is made by the miracle in the forces which lie in nature, nor in the laws by which they operate. The only thing that happens in a miracle is that the working of the forces present in nature is suspended at a certain point, because another force enters, which works according to its own law and produces its own effect. Science therefore has nothing to fear from the supra-natural. But every science remains on its own terrain and does not allow itself the right to lay down the law
for the other. It is the right and duty of natural science to look for the natural causes of phenomena within its field. But it does not rule over philosophy when it investigates the origin and destiny of things.
It also recognizes the right and independence of religion and theology, and does not undermine the basis on which they rest. For here religious motives for believing in a revelation come to the fore, about which natural science as such cannot judge. Even in the various sciences the goal is not unity but harmony.
19 harmony. Theology honours natural science, but makes its own claim to equal treatment. Each science remains on its own terrain.
The erasure of boundaries has already caused too much confusion. It has also led Hume, Voltaire and Renan to claim that no miracle has ever been sufficiently observed and that constant experience cannot be overturned by a few testimonies. Renan, Vie de Jésus, p. LI says: nous ne disons pas, le miracle est impossible, nous disons, il n' y a pas eu jusqu'ici de miracle constaté, and refuses to believe in a miracle, as long as a committee of all kinds of scientific men, physiologists, chemists, etc., have not examined such a fact and after repeated experimentation have found it to be a miracle. With such a condition the miracle is a priori judged: for in the words of Scripture the opportunity for such an experiment is given neither to Renan nor to any of us. The miracles belong to history; and in history a different method applies than in physics. Here the experiment is at its place.
But in history we must make do with witnesses. If, however, in the historical field the method of experimentation must be introduced and applied, there is not a single fact that can stand the test. Then all history is finished. Therefore, every science must remain in its own field and investigate according to its own nature. With the ear one cannot see, with the ear one cannot weigh, and with the experiment one cannot test revelation, Vigouroux, Les livres saints et la critique rationaliste, 3rd ed. 1890 I 73. II 294.
Furthermore, nature, the cosmos, is still far too much conceived as a machine, which is ready-made and is now driven by a single force and always moves according to a single law. Deism had this clumsy
idea, but it is still unconsciously shared by many and is used to combat revelation. But nature, the cosmos, is not a finished piece of work which now possesses a certain independence; but it is φνσις, natura in the real sense, it is always developing, it is in a continuous teleological development, it is being brought towards a divine destiny in successive periods. In such a conception of nature, once again, the miracles are perfectly in place. Hellwald says on the last page of his
Kulturgeschichte, that all life on earth will one day pass into the eternal rest of death, and then ends with the comfortless words:
Dann wird die Erde, ihrer Atmosphare und Lebewelt beraubt, in mondgleicher Verödung um die Sonne kreisen, wie zuvor, das
MenschengescUecht aber, seine Kultur, sein Ringen und Streben, seine Schöpiungen und Ideale sind gewesen. Wozu? Of course, in a system that ends with such an unanswered question, revelation and miracle would be nothing but an absurdity. But Scripture teaches us that revelation serves this purpose, to recreate the creation corrupted by sin into a kingdom of God. Here Revelation takes a perfectly proportioned and teleological place in the world plan, which God has formed and which He is realizing in the course of time. In this sense
Augustine already said, portentum fit non contra naturam sed contra quam est nota natura, de civ. 21,8. c. Faustum 29,2. 26,3. The expression has often been interpreted in a wrong sense for the benefit of a theology that tried to understand miracles as the working of a force, which is naturally present in man or in nature or is also restored in him by rebirth or faith. This peculiar conception already appears in Philo and Neoplatonism, has then been echoed by several
Christian theologians, Scotus Erigena, Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Böhme, Oetinger, cf. Denzinger, Vier Bücher von der relig.
Erk.
II.
f. and is occasionally found in Vermittelungstheologie, Twesten, Vorles. I. 370 f. II. 171 f.
Martensen, Dogm. § 16 f. Schleiermacher, Glaub. § 13,1 § 129. Sack, Apologetik S. 137 f. Lange, Philos. Dogm. § 64. Saussaye, Mine Theol. of Ch. d. 1. S. 36 f. Gunning, Glances into Revelation II 37 f.
Revelation, inspiration and miracle then belong to the original disposition of human nature. It is true that this disposition has been weakened by sin, but it still appears in poetic and heroic inspiration,
in magnetism and other related phenomena. However, through ethical means, through union with God, through ascetic purification, through rebirth, etc., this disposition can be renewed and strengthened. So all believers are actually inspired and can perform miracles. Si humana natura non peccaret eique, qui earn condiderat, immutabiliter adhaereret, profecto omnipotens esset, Erigena, de div. nat. 4,9. Miracles are, according to Zimmer, Ueber den allgem.
Verfall des menschl. Geschlechts III n. 90 f., Zeichen des über die Herrschaft der Natur erhobenen Menschen , in welchem die
Herrlichkeit des ersten Menschenpaares vor seiner Sünde dargestellt wird. If the soul is directed toward God in love, says
Böhme, so mag sie Wunder machen, was sie will. In a kindred sense, C. Bonnet, Recherches philosophiques sur les preuves du christianisme, Geneva 1771, showed prophecy and miracle to be prefigured in nature and to come about through the operation of ordinary natural forces. Some theologians of the last century therefore spoke of rationes seminales, primordiales and radicales of miracles. But this attempt to explain the miracles cannot be accepted. It confuses the natural with the supernatural, the supranatural with the religious-ethical and erases the boundaries between prophecy and mantra, miracle and magic, inspiration and illumination. The above expression of Augustine should not be explained in this way either. By the natura nota he means nature in our sense of the word. And with this in mind he even says that the miracle is contra naturam, as Thomas and Voetius did later (above bl. 275). But this same miracle has now from the beginning been incorporated by God into nature in the wider sense, i. e. into the destiny of things determined by God, into the divine plan of the world, F. Nitzsch, Augustine's Lehre vom Wunder, Berlin 1865. The same thought was later expressed by Leibniz, Theodicée § 54. 207.
God has from the beginning included miracles in his world plan and brings them about in due time; the miracles are not to be explained par les natures des choses créées, but des raisons d'un ordre supérieur a celui de la nature le portent a les faire. According to Leibniz, therefore, the wonders are not keimart, potentially locked in the forces of nature, as Nitzsch, Lehrb. der ev. Dogm. S. 146
Leibniz explains, but are constitutive elements in the world plan of God. In this sense, miracles certainly belong to nature. They do not enter the existing cosmos from outside in order to disturb it, but they are included in the idea of the world itself and serve to restore and perfect fallen nature. Yes, even without sin there would have been room for prophecy and miracles in the world. The supernatural was not first made necessary by the fall. Not the revelation and the miracle in themselves, only the soteriological character, which both now bear, was caused by sin. In this respect even the miracle is not a strange element added to the fallen creation. Revelation and religion, prophecy and miracle, are not in themselves dona superaddita. They are perfectly natural, insofar as they belong to God's idea of the world and to the world plan which He is carrying out in spite of all opposition.
Nevertheless, Revelation constitutes an order of things which is distinct from the ordinary ordo naturae; a system of words and deeds of God which is itself governed by one principle and appears to us as an organic whole. Revelation is not an einzelner Akt Gottes in der
Zeit, isolated from all of nature, Strauss, Glaub. I 274, but is a world of its own, distinct from nature and yet built upon it, related to it, destined for it. In this system of revelation, which begins in paradise and only ends in the parable, much remains obscure and unexplained. Main lines can be drawn. Both in the history of prophecies and of miracles there is order and progress. Revelation too has its own laws and regulations. It is the beautiful task of the historia revelationis to trace these, and to discover the system that lies hidden in its history. But there are still many facts, which are not yet understood in their real significance for and connection with the whole; many words and deeds, which cannot be brought under any rule. This is not surprising and may by no means be exploited as a ground for disbelief. The philosophy of nature and history has also not yet finished its work. It, too, faces cruces every moment, which it does not know how to explain. Nevertheless, no one doubts the unity of nature and the unity of history. Compared to these, Revelation is even in a favourable case. Its main lines are fixed. As it begins in
paradise and ends in the Parable, it forms a grand history, spreading light over the whole of nature and history and, according to the words of Augustinus, protecting the extraordinary from immoderation and the ordinary from the extraordinary (Muller,
Natur und Wunder 180). But with it we find ourselves in a world that is led proudly towards all sinful power of restoration and perfection.
Israel is the preparation, Christ the center, the Church the effect, fusion the crown - this is the cord that connects the facts of revelation.
That is why, in the final analysis, faith in special revelation is actually one with faith in a different and better world than this one. If this world, with its natural forces and laws, is the only one and the best, then we must make do with it. Then the leges naturae are equal to the decreta Dei; then this world is the Son, the Logos, the very image of God; then in the ordo naturae, in which we live, is already the full and adaequate revelation of God's wisdom and power, of His goodness and holiness. What right, then, is there to expect that the Dort will nevertheless once become Hier, that the ideal will pass into reality, that good will triumph over evil, and that the Welt der
Werthe will one day rule over the Welt der Wirklichkeit? Evolution will not get us there. Nihil fit ex nihilo. Out of this world there will be no paradise. What is not in it cannot come from it. If there is no Jenseits, no God who is above nature, no ordo supernaturalis, then sin, darkness and death have the last word. The revelation of Scripture makes us know another world of holiness and glory, which penetrates this fallen world, not only as doctrine but also as divine όννα/ιις, as history, as reality, as a harmonic system of words and deeds together, and which lifts this world out of its fall and leads it from the status peccati through the status gratiae into the status gloriae. Revelation is God's coming to mankind to dwell with it forever. Litterature about'the miracles except the already mentioned:
Köstlin, Jahrb. f. deutsche Wiss. 1864, 2tes Heft. S. 205-270 and art.
Wunder in Herzog2. Nitzsch, Syst. der chr. Lehre § 34. Twesten, Vorles I. 366 f. Martensen, Dogm. § 16 f. Lange, Dogm. I 471 f. Rothe,
Zur Dogm. 80 f. Gloatz,