About the Supernatural - By Mr. Guizot (Second article, see the issue of December 1861)In our last issue we published the eloquent and remarkable chapter written by Mr. Guizot regarding the supernatural and about which we wanted to make a few critical observations that in no way diminish our admiration for the renowned author.
Mr. Guizot believes in the supernatural. We need to be clear about the meaning of the words about this as well as many other points. In its literal sense supernatural means what is above nature, outside of the laws of nature. The supernatural per se is not submitted to the laws; it is an exception, a derogation of the laws that govern Creation. In one word, it is the synonym of miracle.
Those two words are used in figurative language, designating everything that is extraordinary, wonderful, and uncommon. Something that causes admiration is said to be miraculous, like something that has a great extension is said to be incommensurable; of a large number as incalculable; or even a long duration that is eternal, although and strictly speaking they can be measured, calculated and temporary as for the last one. For the same reason people qualify as supernatural everything that seems to be beyond the limits of the possible, at first sight. Those who do not understand it always commonly take the word on its literal meaning. If the word is used to describe everything whose causes are unknown, it is fine; however, in that case the word no longer has a precise meaning because something that was supernatural in the past it is no more today. How many things that were formerly considered supernatural hasn’t science brought to the domain of natural laws?
Despite the progress that has been realized can we boast about knowing God’s secrets? Has nature given us the last word about everything? Do not we have such proud pretension belied every day? Thus, if something that was supernatural in past is no longer today we can logically infer that something that is supernatural today will no longer be tomorrow. As for ourselves, we take the word supernatural in its amplest meaning, that is, to designate every phenomenon contrary to the laws of nature. The character of a supernatural or miraculous fact is the exception. As long as it repeats it is submitted to a known or unknown law and belongs to the general order.
If nature is restricted to the visible material world it is obvious that things of the invisible world are supernatural. However, since the invisible world is also submitted to the laws it seems logical to us that nature be defined as the comprehensive works of creations that comply with the immutable Laws of Divinity. If the invisible world is one of the forces of nature, as demonstrated by Spiritism, one of the powers that act upon matter, it represents an important role in nature. For that very reason to us the Spiritist phenomena are neither supernatural nor wonderful or miraculous. It follows that far from expanding the circle of the supernatural Spiritism tends to restrict it and make it disappear.
We said that Mr. Guizot believes in the supernatural but in its miraculous sense and that by no means leads to a belief in the Spirits and their manifestations. Now, since the Spiritist phenomena have nothing of abnormal to us, it does not follow that God does not breach His own laws in certain cases, considering that He is Almighty. Would God have done so? This is not the place to analyze
the issue. In order to do that, we would have to discuss each individual case instead of discussing the principle. Positioning ourselves at the same stand point as Mr. Guizot, that is the reality of miraculous facts, we will try to combat the consequence that he derives about the impossibility of religion without the supernatural and, on the contrary, demonstrate that the annihilation of religion is the consequence of his system.
Mr. Guizot starts from the principle that every religion is founded on the supernatural. That is correct if we see as supernatural anything that is not understood. If, however, we investigate the status of human knowledge at the time of foundation of each known religion, we will see how limited it was in Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Physiology, etc.
If a good number of known and already explained phenomena are called marvelous in our modern times with even more reason the same should have happened in former times. Besides, a figurative, symbolic and allegoric language typically used by all peoples in the Orient naturally facilitated fiction whose true meaning was not uncovered by ignorance.
We must still add that the founders of the religions, superior minds that stuck out from the crowds, knew better and had to resource to a super-human prestige to impress the masses, while certain ambitious persons exploited credulity. See Numa Pompilius, Mohamed and so many others! Imposters, you may say. Be it.
Let us look at the religions that stem out of Moses. They all adopt creation according to Genesis. Well, is there anything more supernatural than that formation of Earth, taken out of nothing and coming out of the chaos, populated by every living creature, plants and animals, all formed and adults, and all that in six days of twenty-four hours, as if from a swing of the magic wand? Isn’t that a breach of the natural laws that govern matter and the progression of the beings? God could have certainly done that. But has He? Only a few years back this was stated as an article of faith and there you have science taking the magnificent fact of the origin of the world to the order of natural facts, demonstrating that it all happened according to eternal laws. Has religion been harmed for no longer having a marvelous fact in its foundation? It would undoubtedly have damaged its credit if adamant in denying the evidence, whereas it benefit by accepting the general order of things.
A much less important fact, despite the persecution that it produced, is that of Joshua stopping the Sun to extend the day for two hours. It doesn’t matter if it was the Sun that stopped or Earth. The fact is still supernatural. It is the breach of a fundamental law that interconnects the globes.
Some saw a way out in the recognition that it was Earth that turned but they did not take into account Newton’s apple, the celestial dynamics of Laplace and the law of gravitation. If the motion of Earth is suspended not for two hours but for a few minutes it will interrupt the centrifugal force and Earth shall precipitate against the Sun. The equilibrium of the oceans on the surface of Earth is maintained by the continuity of the motion. If the motion stops it is total destruction. Now, the history of the world does not indicate any cataclysm over that time. We do not contest the fact that God may have favored Joshua by extending the clarity of the day. How? We do not know. It could have been the aurora boreal, a meteor or any other phenomenon that would not have altered the natural order of things. It is unquestionable, however, that it was not the one that for centuries was considered to be an article of faith. It is very natural that it was believed so in the past but today it is impossible unless science is denied.
Some will say that religion is based on many other events that are neither explained nor explicable. Unexplained, yes, inexplicable is another issue. Do we know what future reserves in terms of knowledge and discovery? Do not we already see phenomena of ecstasy, visions, apparitions, remote visions, instantaneous cures, transportation, verbal communications and others with the beings of the invisible world, under the umbrella of magnetism, somnambulism and Spiritism, phenomena that were known since immemorial times, then considered marvelous and today demonstrated to belong to the natural order of things, according to the law of formation of the creatures?
The sacred books have plenty of facts classified as supernatural. However, since we find them and even more marvelous in all pagan religions of antiquity, if the truth of a given religion depended on the number and nature of such facts we would not know which one of them would be true.
Mr. Guizot cites the formation of the first man as a proof of the supernatural, a man that was created adult because, and according to Mr. Guizot, alone and in his infancy he could not have been able to feed himself but if could made an exception by creating him adult couldn’t God have made another one by giving the boy the means of survival and that without moving away from the established order? Since the animals were here prior to humankind wouldn’t that be possible to turn the legend of Romulus and Remus a reality with respect to the first boy?
We say the first boy when in fact we should say the first children since the issue of a unique branch to humankind is controversial. In fact the laws of Anthropology demonstrate the material impossibility that the posterity of a single man could have inhabited the whole world in just a few centuries, yielding the black, yellow and red races, since it has been well established that those differences are due to the organic structure rather than to the climate.
Mr. Guizot suggests a dangerous thesis when stating that not a single religion is possible without the supernatural. If he places the truths of Christianity on the basis of the marvelous only he gives it a fragile support whose stones fall apart every day. We give them a more solid foundation: the immutable laws of God. Such foundation defies time and science for time and science will sanction them.
Mr. Guizot’s thesis thus leads to the conclusion that at some point in time there will no longer be a religion that is possible, not even the Christian religion, if one can demonstrate that something considered supernatural is actually natural. Was it that he wanted to demonstrate? No. But that is the consequence of his argumentation. We move fast in that direction since, regardless of what we do, however much we add in thought, there will not be the belief that a fact is supernatural when it has been demonstrated that it is not.
We are less skeptical than Mr. Guizot with that respect and say that God is no less worth of our admiration, acknowledgement, and respect for not having breached His own laws, actually great for their immutability; that there is no need for the supernatural to worship God accordingly, and consequently to have a religion that will find the less non-believers the more it is sanctioned by reason in all points.
In our opinion Christianity has nothing to lose with that sanction but, on the contrary, to benefit. If something has done harm to Christianity in the opinion of many it was precisely the abuse of the marvelous and supernatural. Make people see the greatness and power of God everywhere in creation; show them the wisdom and the remarkable providence from the germination of the tiniest plant to the mechanism of the universe and the wonders will be many! Replace in their spirit the idea of an envious, enraged, vindictive and merciless God by that of sovereignly just, good and merciful God that does not condemn people to eternal and hopeless sufferings for their temporary faults.
Have them fed by such ideas since their infancy and such ideas will grow with reason and you will make many more firm and sincere believers than if they were cradled by allegories that are literally imposed on them and later repelled, leading them to doubt and deny everything. If you want to maintain religion by the single path of the illusion of the wonderful there will only be one way: by keeping humanity ignorant. See if that is possible. Through an excessive zeal in only showing God in the prodigies and exceptions we do not show Him in the wonders before our eyes.
They will certainly take an issue with the birth of Christ that could not be explained by natural laws and that it is one of the most remarkable demonstrations of his divine character. This is not the place to examine the subject. However and, once again, we do not deny God from the power of breaching His own laws. What we contest is the absolute necessity of doing so for the establishment of any given religion.
Some will say that Magnetism and Spiritism, by reproducing the phenomena considered miraculous, are contrary to the current religion since they tend to remove the supernatural character of those facts. Nonetheless, what can one do if those facts are true? They cannot be denied since they are not the privilege of a single person and replicate all over the world. Something similar could be said of Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, Geology, Meteorology and all sciences. We say that the skepticism of many people has no other source but the impossibility to them of such exceptional facts. By denying the foundations that support those facts they deny everything else. They shall be forced to believe once the possibility and the reality of those facts are reproduced before their eyes.
- That is the same as denying Christ the divine character!
- Do you then prefer that people believe in nothing to believe in something? Is that the only way of demonstrating the divinity of Christ’s mission? Isn’t his character a hundred times more in evidence from the sublimity of his teachings and the example he gave of his virtues? If his character cannot be seen but from the material acts of his practice, haven’t others done the same like his contemporary Apollonius of Tyana? Why has Jesus outperformed him? The reason is that he made a miracle that is much more than the transformation of water into wine; feeding four thousand people with five breads; healing the epileptic; making the blind see and the paralytic walk. The miracle is that of having changed the face of the world; it is the revolution carried out by a man that came from a barn, during a three-year preaching period and without writing anything, just helped by a few obscure and ignorant fishermen. That is the true prodigy and that one needs to be blind nd of God. Have such a truth deeply accepted and that is the best way of converting people into strong believers.
