Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

Once the possibility of miracle has been established, the adversaries seek another refuge, boasting that miracle as such can never be known by us. And some indeed contend that the sensible fact of miracle can never be established; others, that the supernatural cause of miracle can never be established. The former deny the historical knowability, the latter the philosophical knowability, of miracles.

Now we do not say that we always know with unhesitating certainty the historical and philosophical truth of miracle; but we maintain that miracle in itself does not escape our knowledge, and can therefore very often be known by us.

1. Historical knowability of miracle. It is manifest that we have nothing in common with the "historico-critical" rationalists (neo-Kantians), who understand miracle not as an objective fact, but as a fiction of subjective experience. Philosophico-sceptical rationalism, on the contrary, does indeed suppose miracle to be an objective event, yet one wholly foreign to knowledge. For either it asserts that the miraculous fact remains doubtful a priori, simply speaking, or at least that it must be subjected to so immoderate a critical examination that a posteriori it will always elude us. Against this, however, we set down:

a) The miraculous fact can be established with the same certainty with which other historical facts are established.

Hume, with Strauß, Zeller, and others assenting, notes that in individual cases only the moral testimony of those who say that a praeternatural effect has occurred stands for the truth of a miracle; against the truth of a miracle, however, there stands in all cases physical experience asserting that no praeternatural effects occur. Manifestly, that moral testimony is always overcome by this physical experience. Hence the truth of the miraculous fact can never be proved.¹

In truth, however, the miraculous fact can be firmly proved after the manner of natural events, either by one's own physical testimony or by the physical-moral testimony of others.

1°. By one's own physical testimony. If we are present at a miracle, we perceive it by our own experience of the senses. E. g. if a dead man is recalled to life while we look on, we declare him raised to life again and know it, taught by the experience of our eyes. But it is in exactly the same way and by the same means that we apprehend natural effects, E. g. that the dead are for the most part not recalled to life. We should speak falsely were we to say that in our case the miraculous fact is supported only by moral testimony, but the natural fact by physical testimony. It is manifest that both rest upon physical experience. Hence both are also established with the same certainty. For if I could not trust my own senses when they testify that a dead man has been raised, neither could I trust them when they testify that the dead have not been raised. Whence, unless one foolishly wishes to deny the experience and testimony of the senses, he must concede that the truth of a marvellous fact can be established with certainty, if we were present.

2°. By the physical-moral testimony of others. If we were absent from a miracle, we ought and can trust the moral testimony of others, who themselves affirm that they perceived the miraculous fact by physical experience of the senses. E. g. St. John the Evangelist narrates several miracles of Christ, testifying that he saw with his own eyes the signs related.²

But in a similar manner we also apprehend the natural facts of past time. All history and jurisprudence, nay, for the most part even the experimental and mathematical sciences, rest upon the physical-moral testimony of others. All sciences consist in this, that they trust the critical testimony of others as much as their own. If this testimony holds where it is a question of affirming ordinary facts, it must also hold where it is a question of extraordinary, that is, miraculous, facts; but if it did not hold for these, neither would it hold for those, and accordingly almost all scientific certainty would be utterly overthrown.

Therefore there is an absolute parity of certainty as regards natural and praeternatural, that is, miraculous, facts. By the same testimony, whether our own or that of others, we are convinced that natural events for the most part occur, but that sometimes praeternatural ones also happen. It is absurd to say that miracles are supported by moral testimony alone, or that they are refuted by physical-experimental testimony. The contrary is established, provided only that miraculous events be measured against critical rules. Whence:

b) The miraculous fact must be examined with the same critical method with which other historical facts are examined.

Renan, treading in the footsteps of Voltaire and Rousseau, does not indeed wholly deny that the historical truth of miracle can be established; but he subjects miracle to such hypercritical rules that the miraculous fact in reality always remains doubtful. For when it is a question of examining it, he rejects the testimony of rude and simple men, requiring an examination by men expert in the art; nay, demanding that these men be able to repeat the miracle as often, in whatever manner, and wherever it may please them, E. g. by bidding the thaumaturge to raise the dead man repeatedly, under other circumstances, while other witnesses look on, before judgment be rendered concerning the historical truth of the miracle.³

But miracles are unjustly subjected to such critical rules. For a miracle is a sensible effect like all historical events. From this head no distinction whatsoever intervenes between a natural and a praeternatural fact. In exactly the same way in which we know that a man is blind or dead, we also know that he sees or lives again. Wherefore miracles are unjustly weighed by critical rules other than those by which the remaining historical facts are weighed.

And since any men whatever suffice to testify to these things, why do they not also suffice to testify to those? Nay, a fortiori they suffice to testify to miracles, since the strangeness of the fact the more stirs men to examine accurately. It is therefore hypercritical to demand that miracles be examined only by men expert in the medical, physical, chemical, and historical arts. It is foolishly and impiously demanded that God repeat miracles at the will and mockery of men, since not even the ordinary facts of history may be repeated in this manner. It belongs to historical criticism only to investigate miraculous facts according to the accustomed rules, and to admit no miracle unless it be proved by the testimony of men of sound senses and undoubted veracity.

These things being so, the historical truth of miracle is knowable.

2. Philosophical knowability of miracle. That a marvellous effect has been produced by a supernatural cause is established, if it is established that it surpasses natural causes.

For from the enunciation of the "principle of sufficient reason" we may conclude from the effect to the adequate cause. Wherefore, if that cause is not found in the created world, it must be sought in God. But the rationalists absolutely deny that we can ever affirm any effect to surpass natural causes. Such an affirmation, they say, always remains doubtful, unless we know all the natural forces and laws. Since, however, we know scarcely the smallest part of them, judgment concerning the natural or supernatural causality of a marvellous effect must be suspended. Thus, together with Spinoza, today almost all liberal and conservative Protestants argue.⁴

This argumentation is indeed scientific in appearance, but in reality futile. For:

a) That a marvellous effect has been produced by a supernatural cause is established, even though we know only those forces and laws of nature which pertain to the concrete case of the miracle.

Not all of nature, but only one or another force and law of nature pertains to an individual marvellous effect. E. g. if it is a question of a dead man recalled to life, it suffices to know the axiom: "Omne vivum ex ovo", i. e. that nature never produces life out of death. Armed with this one axiom, we may pronounce with absolute certainty that the dead man was raised by supernatural, not natural, force.

b) Nay, of the very natural forces which pertain to the concrete marvellous effect, for the most part not positive but only negative knowledge is required.

Of course it is not necessary to know how far the respective natural power extends; it suffices to have known that it is not sufficient to produce the proposed effect. E. g. for the most part we cannot positively determine what the natural medical art can accomplish; but negatively we know that this power is unequal to suddenly healing a putrid or cancerous wound. For those expert in the medical art know that many biological and successive processes are required for the natural restoration of the cells which they call vital. Those ignorant of medical science know this at least from experience, that nature does not suddenly heal a putrid or cancerous wound. All therefore rightly pronounce such a healing to be not natural, but supernatural.

c) Finally, often no knowledge of natural things is required, neither positive nor negative, in order that it may be perfectly clear that nature has not produced the concrete marvellous effect.

This is evidently clear if the thaumaturge uses no natural force at all, nor can use any, E. g. if by the mere command of his voice or will he cleanses a leper, recalls a dead man to life, stills the aroused waves of the sea. In these cases nature contributes or can contribute nothing at all to the production of that marvellous effect. Therefore either the effect was produced by a supernatural cause, or it was produced without a cause, which is wholly absurd.

Hence two conclusions follow:

First: Often miraculous works can be safely distinguished from natural works. The limits, indeed, by which natural and supernatural things are divided are for the most part difficult or impossible to designate; but it is easy to discern very many things which lie far from the limits. Nay, we can very often distinguish supernatural from natural things with the same certainty with which we distinguish day from night, the green, blue, and red colors of the rainbow, although we can neither accurately determine at what moment of twilight day ends and night begins, nor where in the rainbow are the outermost extremes of the individual colors.

Second: No unusual effect is to be numbered among miracles, unless it is certainly supernatural. For on the part of science it would be rash and insane to claim a miracle, unless either by evidence or at least by the most careful examination it be established that nature was unequal to producing the concrete marvellous effect. On the part of faith, moreover, it would be dangerous and impious to peddle false miracles as true. For by false miracles true ones are ridiculed, and accordingly the most luculent criteria of revelation are obscured. For this reason the Catholic Church conducts herself so cautiously and severely in judging miracles, that she excites even the admiration of unbelieving scholars.⁵