Letter to the Editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser

November 9, 1836

In this letter, Mr. Ripley responds to Andrews Norton's letter, which attacked Ripley's review of James Martineau's book. Ripley defends his view that miracles do not confirm Christian doctrine.   

To the Editor of the Daily Advertiser,

SIR—I do not like to burden your columns with so great a novelty as a theological discussion, but as I have been somewhat unceremoniously brought before the public therein, I must beg permission to add a few words of my own. I assure you that if anything further needs to be said, I shall select a more appropriate medium for my remarks than a secular paper.

Respectfully yours,

G. R.

Boston, 7th Nov. 1836.

To Mr. Andrews Norton, of Cambridge

Dear Sir—I was glad to perceive that the views presented by me in the last number of the Christian Examiner were of sufficient importance to attract your attention. I was still more glad to find that you thought them worthy of so much notice as to require you to disavow in a public print, under your own name, all responsibility for their publication. Nothing seems to me more desirable than a frank expression of opinion on all subjects, which involve important interests, whether of science or of conduct; and I rejoice that you have set the example of an open disclaimer of certain views which I have defended in the article alluded to. It will create a fresh interest in the subject, and lead to a more thorough examination of my opinions, than I could have ventured to hope from the imperfect manner in which they are set forth.

With regard to the mode in which you declare your want of agreement with my article, and the step you purpose to take in consequence thereof, I have nothing to say; it is a question of individual taste with which no one has a right to interfere. There is, indeed, a tone in your remarks, slightly suppressed, which a stranger to both of us might think betrayed more of the odium theologicum than of personal friendship; but presuming that this is not the case, I shall reply to them in the spirit of candor and charity, by which I will not doubt that they were suggested. I must forget the benefits I have received from the severity of your taste and the minuteness of your learning in a former pupilage, before I can persuade myself to discuss any subject with you in a manner incompatible with your superiority in years and attainments to myself.

I will add, at the same time, that if you find heresies in my Review, I also find them in your comments upon it; but we are both too deeply laden with offenses of that kind to make the spectacle of our flinging stones at each other anything but ludicrous.

On this account, my personal feelings would lead me to pass over your notice in silence. I should much prefer to leave it to act, as it may, upon the good sense of our community. They who do not know you would hardly deem it worthwhile to attach much value to your avowal of disagreement, unsupported as it is, by any reasonings or new exhibitions of facts. They would wonder that you should feel called upon to disclaim the responsibility of an article, addressed to scientific readers, appearing under the signature of its author, in a work of which you are not the editor, and would ask, in their perplexity, if the writer were not of age to assume his own responsibilities and bear his own burdens.

But those who are aware of your position in society, your eminence among learned theologians, your freedom of speculation, and the exceeding deference, which for many reasons we have all been wont to pay to your opinions, will perceive the necessity under which I labor of doing what I can to turn aside the sharp edge of your denunciation. You have presented me, without the usual formalities of prosecution, before the jury of my fellow citizens as a dangerous man. You have declared, with singular indefiniteness, that I have uttered views "vitally injurious to the cause of religion," "tending to destroy faith in the only evidence of Christianity—as a revelation;" and you also intimate that I have done this rashly and unadvisedly, without a wise regard "to the interests of truth and goodness."

A certain sense of decorum, then, towards that portion of the public, whose servant I am, towards my neighbors and friends, with whom I live in relations of mutual trust, forces me to give them a distinct opportunity of judging between you and myself. If you are right, I am unworthy of the confidence they are pleased to repose in me; if you are wrong, it is due to them that they should be made to know it.

I should have been better able to meet you on fair ground had you been more explicit in stating the propositions from which you dissent and the inconsistencies of which you complain. You oblige me, in some sense, both to discover your "dream" and to point out the "interpretation thereof." As you thus loosely refer to the passage contained on pp. 248-254, I will confine myself to the main position which is there defended.

It may be shortly summed up in these words. The evidence of miracles depends on a previous belief in Christianity, rather than the evidence of Christianity on a previous belief in miracles. In presenting the argument for our faith to an unbeliever, I would begin with establishing its coincidence with the divine testimony of our spiritual nature; and having done that I would proceed to show the probability of miracles. This, Sir, I suppose is the view for which you are unwilling to be responsible. I am not now required to defend it in its scientific form. A sketch of the argument on which it rests is contained in the article in question, and I leave it with perfect freedom—to stand or fall according to its merits—to the consideration of our theologians by profession, as well as of our intelligent laymen, to whose verdict on such points I attach more importance than you think it deserves. I am only called upon here to show that this view is not likely to be so disastrous to our community as you seem to imagine. It will be sufficient for my defense, in this regard, to demonstrate that it is no theological novelty of my own, but one which has had the sanction of devout and thinking minds in every age of the Church. In proof of this, I shall appeal to the Scriptures, to the Fathers, to the Reformers and early Protestants, and to theologians of the present day. I must be brief now and more full hereafter, if occasion be presented.

I. As to the Scriptures. I refer you to the following passages, which prove that miracles cannot be made the primary evidence of revelation: Deut. 13:1 et seq; Matt. 12:27, 39 et seq; 16:1-4; 24:24; Luke 9:49; 11:19; 16:27 et seq; John 4:48; 7:17; Gal. 1:8; 2 Thess. 2:9.

II. As to the Fathers. I refer you to the following quotations, which prove that in the opinion of the writers, miracles derived their support from the religion, rather than the religion from the miracles:

Chrysostom (in Psalm 111) says, “The elevated and philosophical need not the aid of miracles. For blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Clemens Romanus founds their authority on the purposes to which they are applied and not on their intrinsic character. Hence they have no independent validity (Recog. III: 59): “He, who is of evil, performs miracles which do good to no one; but those which are performed by a good man are profitable to men.”

Origen (contra Cels. I: 68) grounds the divinity of the miracles of Christ on the moral character of their author. He refers for their proof to the religious purposes which they had in view (Contra Cels. I: 38, 46; II: 51).

Tertullian (adversus Marc. II: 2) denies that the miracles afford satisfactory proof without the aid of other considerations.

Lactantius (Instit. div. V: 3) asserts that the performance of miracles alone does not establish the divinity of Christ, but refers to other sources of evidence.

III. As to the Reformers and early Protestants. The main point of my article is supported by a host of witnesses from the first epoch of Protestantism. Luther certainly, in your opinion, must be deemed to have attacked Christianity with no less vigor than he did the papacy. His writings are filled with statements to show that the evidence of our religion depends upon its character and not on its miracles. I will suggest a few of them to your memory. Would that we might all catch something of the freshness of his spirit and his language!

“They among the Apostles, who drive this point the most and the hardest, how faith in Christ alone justifies—they are the Gospel-writers for me. Therefore Paul’s Epistles are more a Gospel than Matthew, Mark, and Luke. For these describe nothing but the history of the works and miracles of Christ; but the grace which we have through him, no one extols that so valiantly as St. Paul. Now since the words of Christ are the thing and not his works and deeds, and if we must take up with one of them, it were better that we were without the works and the history than the word and doctrine, —we ought to praise those books most hugely, which treat the most of the doctrine and the word of the Lord Christ. For although the miracles of Christ were not, and we knew nothing about them, we should yet have enough in the word, without which we could not have life.” Luthers Werke. Vorr. ueben den I. Brief Petri. 9 Thel. S. 626.

“There are some people who would fain be certain or have a sign from Heaven: but suppose they had such a sign, and did not believe after all? What good would it do? What is the use of signs (miracles) without faith? Of what use to the Jews were the miracles of Christ and the Apostles?” Werke. Sermon von Bereitung zum Sterben. 10 Thl. 8. 2508.

“I don’t want to be able to work a miracles. For they who will not be converted by the word, against which all the world can say nothing, will never be moved by miracles.” Werke. Lection wider die Rottengeister. 9 Th. S. 574.

“The Gospel is more powerful than all miracles: for the Gospel never mistakes nor deceives; but miracles are very fallacious, as Paul expressly asserts (2 Thess. 2:9). As Moses also (Deut. 13:5) writes of miracles, that no miracle is to be believed when it contradicts the word of God. For miracles should follow and serve the word; but the word should not be guided by miracles.” Werke. Wider den neuen Abgott, 15 Thl. S. 2779.

“The miracles which Christ wrought on the body are small, and almost childish, compared with the high and true miracle, which he constantly performs in the Christian world by his divine, almighty power. For instance, that Christianity is preserved on the earth, that the word of God and faith in him yet hold out, yea, that a Christian can survive on earth against the devil and his angels; also against so many tyrants, and factions, yea against out own flesh and blood. This is indeed to cast out the devil and tread on serpents; for those visible miracles were merely signs for the ignorant, unbelieving crowd; and for such it were well to work them yet; but for us, who know and believe, what need is there of them? For the heathen indeed, Christ must needs give external signs, which they could see and take hold of; but Christians must needs have far higher, heavenly signs, compared with which the former are earthly. —It was necessary to bring over the ignorant with external miracles, and to throw out such apples and pears to them as to children: but we on the contrary, should boast of the great miracles, which Christ daily performs in his church.” Werke. Kirchenpostille. II. Thl. S. 1338.

The early Protestant theologians followed closely in the steps of Luther. The kind and degree of importance they attached to the evidence of miracles are precisely similar to those which I have defended. In their opinion, a living faith, fides divina, as they call it, was produced by the testimony of the Holy Spirit within the soul, whereas it was only an external faith, a faith of the letter, fides humana, which was produced by the evidence of miracles. I will quote a few passages, which speak for themselves:

Gerhard, born 1582 (loci theol. De eccles. T. VI p. 481): “Miracles were like trumpets and criers, with which the Gospel was at first heralded.” P. 482: “Miracles prove nothing unless they are connected with the proof of the doctrine.” “From miracles alone, nothing can be decided concerning the doctrine; on the contrary, it is the doctrine which must decide the miracle.” P. 488: “True miracles cannot be distinguished from false, merely by their external appearance. The judgment of the mind must then be added, which is passed upon them according to the doctrine.”

Quenstedt, born 1617 (Theol. polem. I., p. 97): “Though there are many proofs of faith, which support the authority of scripture, all these proofs produce only an outward faith (fides humana): but the ultimate and true standard, under which and on account of which we believe with a divine and infallible faith that the word of God is the word of God, is the intrinsic force and efficacy of the divine word itself, the testimony and seal of the Holy Spirit speaking in scripture.”

Chemnitz, born 1522 (Locis theol. p. 132): “Miracles should not receive the preference over doctrine, for even miracles have no avail against a doctrine revealed by God.”

IV. As to modern theologians. I need not tell you that it is in the country of Luther that the science of theology has received its greatest developments since the time of the Reformation. You are aware that every topic of this science has been discussed there with freedom, learning, and strenuous industry. The attacks which were made upon the truth of miracles in the early stages of modern German theology, of course, gave rise to a profound examination of their character and validity. The result is that they who hold to the reality of the Christian miracles have been forced to adopt the mode of proof which I have exhibited in the article under consideration. Instead of resting the doctrine on the miracles, they rest the miracles on the doctrine. I will direct your attention to the statements of three theologians, whom all who are acquainted with the subject would agree, I think, in placing in the most eminent rank: Ammon, Brestchneider, and Schleiermacher. They are not to be confounded with the Rationalist School, as it is called—a school, let me here say, with which I sympathize only in its freedom, and from whose results my faith is as foreign as your own.

Ammon (Unterricht in Christ. Glaubenslehre, 199): “In respect to the evidence of miracles, it is clear that no real and inward connection between truth and miracles exist. Truth is the agreement of a doctrine with reason and rests upon free conviction. Miracles on the contrary are external facts, whose nature and character are the subject of controversy.” “The one cannot therefore be true because the other has taken place.”

Bretschneider (Handb. Der Dogmat I. 170): “A conviction of the inward truth of the doctrine must precede faith in the divine origin of the miracles.” P. 235: “It is clear that miracles cannot authenticate a divine messenger and the divinity of his doctrine, because they must receive their own attestation as divine from the divinity of the doctrine which has been established by some other means.”

Schleiermacher (Chrïstliche Glaubenslehre 116): “Miracles, as phenomena in the sphere of nature, but which were not to have been wrought by natural means, in themselves can furnish no proof. For in the first place, the Scripture speaks of the performance of miracles by those who were not Christians, without giving us a criterion to distinguish between the true and false, and in the next place we meet many phenomena, unconnected with revelation, which we cannot explain from natural causes. We do not regard them, however, as miracles, but defer their explanation until we obtain further knowledge.”

I must own that I am not aware of the reception of these views, to any considerable extent, among English or American theologians. But for many years before I knew anything of German theology, they seemed so rational, so satisfactory, so entirely in accordance with the present state of science, that I maintained them as I had opportunity; and I cannot conceal my wonder that their expression in the Examiner should have caused you either surprise or regret.

I can quote but two English writers who have published opinions in accordance with mine. I dare say there may be more, but they have not happened to fall under my eye. And it is a little remarkable that I should find support in my heresies from these writers, who are both orthodox. One is Coleridge, an author whose poetry I esteem more highly than his philosophy, but who will not be suspected of a love of innovation, or of indifference to religious truth. The other is the anonymous writer, or writers, of a little book entitled Guesses at Truth, which by its richness of thought and beauty of expression forms a true gem in English literature. You shall have a passage from each.

Coleridge remarks (Friend III. 103), “We have the highest possible authority, that of Scripture itself, to justify us in putting the question whether miracles can of themselves work a true conviction in the mind. There are spiritual truths which must derive their evidence from within, which whoever rejects, neither will he believe though a man were to rise from the dead to confirm them. Is not a true efficient conviction of a moral truth, is not the creating of a new heart which collects the energies of a man’s whole being in the focus of conscience, the one essential miracle, the same and of the same evidence to the ignorant and learned, which no superior skill can counterfeit, human or demonical? Is it not emphatically that leading of the Father, without which no man can come to Christ? Is it not that implication of doctrine in the miracle, and of miracle in the doctrine, which is the bridge of communication between the senses and the soul? Is not this the one infallible criterion of miracles by which a man can know whether they be of God? The abhorrence in which the most savage or barbarous tribes hold witchcraft, in which however their belief is so intense as even to control the springs of life—is not this abhorrence of witchcraft under so full a conviction of its reality, a proof how little of divine, how little fitting to our nature, a miracle is, when insulated from spiritual truth and disconnected from religion as its end? What then can we think of a theological theory which makes its whole religion consist in the belief of miracles? As the tenet of professed Christians (I speak of the principle, not of the men, whose hearts will always more or less correct the errors of their understanding), it is even more absurd, and the pretext for such a religion more inconsistent, than the religion itself. For they profess to derive from it their whole faith in that futurity which, if they had not previously believed on the evidence of their own consciences, of Moses and the Prophets, they are assured by their great Founder and Object of Christianity, that neither will they believe it, in any spiritual or profitable sense, though a man should rise from the dead.”

The other passage to which I have alluded is from Guesses at Truth (II. P. 330), and with it I will close my quotations. I think you will admire the transparent flow of its language, though you will not admit the doctrine:

“We are continually blind to the presence, and insensible to the love, of God, because he is always and everywhere present, and because every breath of our bodies and of our souls is animated only by his love. We search after a source for the river, not for the sea. Nay, poor dull stupid senseless creatures that we are, we despise what is ordinary; we have even made it a by-word of reproach—and we disdain to be excited by anything but what is extraordinary. Savages perceive not God except when he thunders and lightens. The prophet, indeed, the man of God, when he stood before the Lord and the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks, and after the wind an earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, well knew that the Lord was not so immediately present in those exhibitions of destructive power, the wind and the earthquake and the fire, as in the still small voice, whether it be the still small voice of Law, which is the principle of the life of the universe, or the still small voice of Conscience, which is the principle of the life of the human soul. The man of God knew this; but an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. They cannot see God in the earth or in the heaven, in the alternation of night and day, or the revolution of the seasons, and all the blessings that drop from the wheel of Time as it circles; they cannot see him in the ebb and flow of life throughout the world, but if they see a rod turned into a serpent, they are willing to see him there. They cannot see the Divinity of Christianity in all the good gifts it has showered over the earth, in the dignity it has given to all the duties and hopes of man, in its answering every question of the soul and intelligibly solving the whole riddle of our being, but if they hear of a fig tree withering, they are ready to fall down and worship. Nay more, many in this idolatrous generation assert that the belief in such miracles is the only stable foundation for religious faith.”

I have thus presented some proofs which may show that I did not utter my opinion without thought or from a vain love of novelty. I am as firmly persuaded of the truth and importance of my views as you are of your own. Perhaps I am not less deeply or practically interested in the progress of religious truth, the cause of human happiness than yourself. At all events, I would lay no restriction upon the free discussion of the former, or upon any honest efforts for the promotion of the latter. We live in an age of skepticism and vague thought on many of the most important subjects of belief; but for myself I am certain that no cold reserve, no coward fear, no spiritual despotism can remove or mitigate the evil. We want scientific inquiry and discussion, in which the love of truth shall be blended with a heartfelt trust in its power. I see most clearly the work that is to be done for this age before a return to deep religious convictions is possible. Would that you and others to whom the gift is granted might engage in this work with such wisdom and energy as to prevent so obscure a pen as mine from being called before the public.

There is one thing, Sir, in your article which I confess struck me with much surprise. I allude to the appeals you have made to the fears of the uninstructed. You have not shown me wherein I have erred. You have made no attempt to set me right. You merely say that my opinions are dangerous, without giving a hint as to the means of their correction. I had thought that we lived at too late a day for this. I had thought that we had breathed the air of freedom too long to substitute an appeal to popular prejudice in the place of reason and argument. The same course, Sir, that you have taken, has been pursued before against the innovator on traditional ideas. A similar charge was brought against our Savior by the Pharisees and against the Apostle Paul by the Ephesians. It was uttered by Athanasius against Arius and by Augustine against Pelagius. It has been uttered by monks and inquisitors in all ages, against those who united a free spirit with a frank and fearless zeal. I have found from the whole current of Christian history that it has seldom been successful to attempt the destruction of an opinion in this mode. The truth has usually survived, though the advocate thereof has perished. I would be far, Sir, from impairing your legitimate influence in our theological circles, but when you so far forget the principles of our Protestant fathers as to wish to place shackles upon the press and to drown the voice of discussion by the cry of alarm, I must take leave to say, that I regret to see you manifesting the spirit of a class of men who are too well known in the annals of the Church, and with whom I would gladly hope that few among us have anything in common.

I will add in conclusion that I have no hope in these remarks of gaining your assent to the doctrine which I believe. Our differences of opinion arise from a radical difference in our philosophical views. You are a disciple of the school which was founded by Locke, the successor of Hobbes and the precursor of Condillac and Voltaire. For that philosophy I have no respect. I believe it to be superficial, irreligious and false in its primary elements. The evils it has brought upon humanity, by denying to the mind the power of perceiving spiritual truth, are great and lamentable. They have crept over Theology, Literature, Art, and Society. This age has no higher mission than to labor for their cure. I wish to go back to the philosophy of the most enlightened Fathers, to that of the giants of English theology in the days of their unshorn strength, to that lofty spiritual faith which is now held by the most eminent philosophers of the continent of Europe. With the prevalence of this philosophy, a true reform of theology may be predicted; and the living and practical faith of the heart take the place of bondage to a dead letter.

If you should see fit, Sir, to continue this controversy, which I am as far from shrinking from as I am from courting, I trust it will be with a desire to elicit truth by discussion rather than to silence it by authority. Let there be "the wisdom of love as well as the love of wisdom," and you will find no one more ready to listen to your arguments and to be convinced by your instructions than

Your Friend and Servant,

The Reviewer of Martineau's Letters in the Christian Examiner.

Source: George Ripley, from [Letter to the Editor], Boston Daily Advertiser, 9 November 1836, p. 2.