Does the concept of mind over matter explain some of the miracles of the Bible?

I see no difficulty in God's answering prayer connected with general laws, if we allow God to be free to act in His own world, as free as I am. Do I change general physical laws, when I go on request to visit some sick person? My will - how, I know not - acts on and by those physical laws; gravity is in my feet, or in the earth, force in my muscle, electricity in the nerves which set it in motion, yet I, in my poor way, have answered a prayer. Now I fully recognise more power in God, because He can, I need not say, not only change His laws, but, without doing so, give force to agents in them - produce gastric juice more powerfully, or more electricity into the system at His will, without introducing a single new element, or law which governs it. Laws remain the same; His will interferes to produce agency by them. He may work a miracle - raise the dead - which is by no law - has done so. But I do not speak of miracles, which take place when He changes a law, as when He makes the hatchet swim, but of when He works by law - of particular effects of His will. This may be miraculous as when a strong east wind acted on the sea, and another took away locusts, or brought quails, but He may give special activity, or quantity to agents which act by laws regularly. I am sure, at any rate, He hears and answers prayer. The very action of mind on man's frame is so wonderful, that such results may be produced, and God's own mind, as to external circumstances, that I see no difficulty at all. Laws which bind nature I admit; laws which bind God I do not. Besides many or most prayers refer to spiritual things.

This brings us to what seems to be the essential character of every miracle — an occurrence contrary to the ordinary course of events, which can only be explained by reference to God's direct intervention. The manner of this intervention may not always be seen. Sometimes it is an intervention of knowledge, as perhaps in the miraculous draft of fishes. We need not suppose that our Lord created the fishes for this draft, but rather that He knew where they were, or by some influence gathered them thus together.

We must, however, be on our guard against seeking for naturalistic explanations of miracles. Their very essence requires that God intervene, and where this is admitted, the measure or manner of His intervention is comparatively of small moment.

We recur therefore to the question as to the possibility of miracles, and reply: If God has created all things by His almighty power and upholds them by the same power, we cannot conceive the possibility of the limitation which men have sought to put upon that power. He has neither exhausted His resources nor abrogated His supremacy. In addition to this, when we remember the moral question at issue, that man is prone to forget God, to turn a deaf ear to His pleadings and the teachings of those whom He has sent, we need not be surprised if from time to time God should permit His servants to work a sign which gives unmistakable evidence of His presence. Therefore we find throughout the Old Testament miracles are given at critical stages. In the land of Judah, they were given to call attention to God's demands, and were largely of a judicial character. Later on, in the life of Elisha the healing of Naaman's leprosy, feeding the multitude and even raising the dead, were given with special reference to the need of the people at the time, to cause them to know that God was again turning their hearts back to Himself as declared by Elijah in his prayer upon Mt. Carmel.

The explanation how water, for instance, was miraculously turned into wine, or a few barley loaves and fish at once so multiplied as to feed thousands, may be wholly beyond the reach of our present faculties. Or

148 The question of miracles is not (p. 167) of any cause defeated, but generally of positive power producing an effect of its own, as health restored, the dead raised, sight given - natural laws remaining just what they were. There are the cases of frustrating the action of poisons; but there is the power of evil defeated, and all power in good operative. The moral character is as strong a part of the evidence as the power, and there is even power to communicate power. I deny that belief of a supernatural being is necessary first in order to believe miracles, because the exercise of a power wholly above nature is the proof of supernatural power; it is, on the face of it, that power. If the dead be raised, that is not a sequence of nature.

As to believing oneself capable of judging what the supreme God ought to do, it is above all things presumptuous in one who has no foundation of morality at all, though Christ's miracles are the supremacy of all good in power where evil was, of others sometimes judgment in its place. Supreme power and perfect goodness used to lead men to trust God, as leading to a yet higher good when they were in misery, is not unworthy of God. A word giving sight, the lame from birth walking, the dead raised, goodness in power meeting every case in sight of hundreds, is not possibly the case of natural causes. They do not operate so; there is no experience of it: the wish is father to the thought; and he admits the facts may be proved. The whole of this argument mocks at reason. And his other ground is the character of duty as they conceive it, in which the conceiver may be judged rather than God. One who can see no beauty in the uniform patient exercise of power in goodness to lead man's heart to trust it, may find others will know his state more than he is aware of.

281 The purpose of the miracle enters largely into our means of judging, if a question arises. It is essentially a power above, over, and independent of the laws of nature; Satan may have power over them, if permitted to use it, which we have not, but not above or independent of them - man's will can set aside many of them, but by the use of them; of course Satan may have much greater power - I raise my hand which would, without will, fall, but I use muscles, nerves, magnetism. I do not a bit know, none know how more than I do, how the Magicians' rods were turned into serpents to the eyes of men, only the power is comparatively to me greater, i.e., I could not do it; hence, power beyond my capacity - evident power - does not necessarily control me morally, even if I admit it to be power beyond me - I must know its author, i.e., who is its author.

But besides, to a man lame or blind from his birth a word heals or gives sight. This is not the unknown course of nature, unless you make God's power (which is to Him the course of nature and will, in which He does what pleases Him in heaven and earth) to be the course of nature. But a word, and the word of a man, doing this is not the course of nature, save what is natural to God. To talk of it as such is to make the course of nature and fixed laws mean nothing. It is God's nature in goodness and power, if you will, but acting in sovereign goodness; for love, though His nature, is in its operation sovereign, and, if it acts according to laws, they are moral laws, the laws of His own nature. That word commands the agencies of the physical laws as in the lame or blind, and they then produce their natural effect. But in that word of command is the power of the miracle, according to the centurion's faith; "Speak the word [logo], and my servant shall be healed." Natural action was restored, but by direct power.

H. There are a number of facts which to me at least are of the highest possible interest. But (perhaps my mind is slow and apt to see difficulties, and not to come to a conclusion before they are cleared up) the results put together into a system are to my mind surrounded with difficulty. I have no disposition to controvert extraordinary facts. If it is proved to me that the tomb of Mahomet in the Caaba is suspended in the air, I say, Very well, I may be able to explain it, or I may not, and if so I wait till I can. If a man can cause a table to be suspended in the air, it is to me a mere question of physical fact — is there such a power? Lifting my hand is just as wonderful in itself. I believe that in a certain sense the physical world is subject to man, and, if God allow him, I know no limit to his employing the powers of nature. Miracle is divine power over nature, the will of God in exercise, not ordinarily but extraordinarily, whoever may be the person who brings that will into play. The powers used are, to my mind, immaterial; they may be natural or supernatural; but when natural powers are in exercise according to the prescribed course of things, there is no miracle. The power exercised may be as great or greater, but it is the ordinary course of nature. But when not in that course, even though it be the same power, but by an extraordinary occasional action of the divine will any event is produced, that is a miracle. If I remember right, I am repeating the idea of John Wessel, Luther's forerunner; but I must not make him responsible for it; but I think I owe it to him. Of course, if the power itself is absolutely supernatural, as raising the dead, that itself proves a miracle.

No sincere believer in the inspiration of scripture can have a doubt as to real miracles having been wrought by the power of God both in O.T. and N.T. times. It is philosophy so-called, or scepticism, that mystifies the subject. Much is said about 'the laws of nature;' and it is confidently affirmed that these are irrevocable and cannot be departed from. To which is added that laws of nature previously unknown are frequently being discovered, and if our forefathers could witness the application of some of the more recent discoveries, as the computer, mobile telephone, etc., they would judge that miracles were being performed. So, it is argued, the actions recorded in scripture as miracles, were merely the bringing into use some law of nature which had been hidden up to that time.

All this is based upon a fallacy. There are no laws of nature, as if nature made its own laws: there are laws in nature, which God in His wisdom as Creator was pleased to make; but He who made those laws has surely the same power to suspend them when He pleases. Though laws in nature hitherto unknown are being discovered from time to time, they in no way account for such things as dead persons being raised to life, the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking, and demons being cast out of those who were possessed by them. Neither has natural philosophy discovered any law that will account for such a thing as an iron axe-head swimming in water. The simple truth is that God, for wise purposes, allowed some of the natural laws to be suspended, and at times He put forth His almighty power, as in supplying the Israelites with manna from heaven, and in feeding thousands from a few loaves and fishes, or by recalling life that had left the body.

It is very simple, but important, to see that miracles do not necessarily imply the setting aside laws. Man produces previously unknown effects by them - change them he cannot; surely God can. The only difference is that man uses the laws themselves, and force, to produce the effect - God, the fiat of His will. God may act beyond laws, without setting aside any existing ones, because He can quicken and create. But the argument that there are laws, and God would not set aside His own, is perfectly without force.

What is said, by some, of the suspension or reversal of known laws, in miracles, is a blunder; if it be suspension or reversal really, it must be of a law known or not known, and increase of knowledge cannot change it. That, I judge, is not the point, but exercise of divine will, so that, that takes place which, by the ordinary course of known laws, would not have happened, although the operation of known laws may be, by that will, set in activity. Thus, if a strong east wind dry a passage in the Red Sea for the Israelites, just at that moment natural causes are in operation - produce their natural effect, i.e., their effect according to known laws, only divine will sends the east wind.

There are miracles in which divine will produces immediate effects, independent of known laws - eminently resurrection. The effect of the miracle may vary according to the knowledge or ignorance of men, and men may pretend to miracles falsely, when ignorance is great; and Satan can work them by second causes and appearances, so that a sign or a wonder may come to pass. All this refers to the ways of God, and what He permits; but the fact of a miracle is the divine will being the immediate cause (causans) of what happens, even if natural causae causatae be employed. The devil may be allowed to use causas causatas in a way to deceive, by producing effects by them which, by the course of natural causes in themselves, would not happen.

The only other supposition is, that God ordered all the course of natural causes, wind, quails, etc., so as to produce, at a given moment, the miracles, say of the Red Sea, or flesh for Israel. But this is only a cumbrous miracle, making all nature work for one miracle, because then will that God should not have a will. It is, so to speak, a greater miracle than an immediate interposition, and is just as much the effect of God's particular will. The account in Exodus is much more simple and natural - states the use of natural means, "And the Lord God caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind," etc.