Science and Christia,i Faith
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way, is a miraele due to the interpesition of the First Cause of all, God Himself. What the scientific man needs to prove to establish his objection to miracle is, not simply that natural causes operate uniformly, but that no other than natural causes exist; that natural causes exhaust all the causation in the universe. And that, we hold, he can never do. It is obvious from what has now been said that the real question at issue in miracle is not natural law, but Theism. It is to be recognized at once that miracle coo only pi:ofitably be discussed on the basis of a theistic view of the universe. It is not disputed that there are views of the universe which exclude miracle. The atheist cannot admit miracle, for he has no God to work miracles. The pantheist cannot admit miracle, for to him God and nature are one. The deist cannot admit miracle, for he has separated God and the universe so far that he can never bring them together again. The question is not, Is miracle possible on an atheistic, a materialistic, a pantheistic, view of the world, but, Is it possible on a theistic view-on the view of God as at once immanent in His world, and in infinite ways transcending it? I say nothing of intel lectual "honesty," but I do marvel, as I have often said, at the assurance of any one who presumes to say that, for the highest and holiest ends in His personal relations with His creatures, God can work only within the limits which nature imposese; that He cannot act without and above nature's order if it pleases Him to do so. Miracles stand or fall by their evidence, but the attempt to rule them out by any a priori dictum as to the uniformity of natural law must inevitably fail. The same applies to the denial of providence or of answers to prayer on the ground of the uniformity of natural law. Here no breach of nature's order is affirmed, but only a governanct! or direction of nature of which man's own use of natural laws, without breach of them, for special ends, affords daily e:xamples.
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