CHAP. IV.] NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL.

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for they are the normal manifestations of the order of Grace an order external to us, invisible, inaccessible to our senses and reasonings, but truly existing and governed by laws, which, like the laws of the physical and the intellectual order, are ordained by the Supreme Lawgiver. Once purge the mind of anthropomorphic conceptions as to the

and supernatural, not the differentia of either. And here let me remark that the expression," Laws of Nature," is a modern technical expression which the spiritualistic philosopher would require, probably, to have defined before employing it. "Natura," in St. Thomas Aquinas, is declared to be "Principium operationis cujusque rei," the Essence of a thing in relation to its activity, or the Essence as manifested agendo. Hence "Natura rerum," or "Universitas rerum (which is the Latin for Nature in the phrase "Laws of Nature") means the Essences of all things created (finite) as manifested and related to each other by their proper inherent activities, which of course are stable or fixed. But since it is not a logical contradiction that these activities should be suspended, arrested, or annihilated (granting an Infinite Creator), it will not be contrary to Reason should a miraculous intervention so deal with them, though their suspension or annihilation may be described, loosely and inaccurately, as against the Laws of Nature. By Reason is here meant the declarations of necessary Thought as to possibility and impossibility, or the canons of contradiction, the only proper significance of the word in discussions about miracles. Hence, to say that miracles have their laws, is not to deny that they are by the Free Will of God. For creation is by the Fiat of Divine Power and Freedom, and yet proceeds upon law--that is to say, upon a settled plan and inherent sequence of cause and effect. But it is common with Mr. Mill and his school to think of law as necessary inviolable sequence; whereas it is but a fixed mode of action whether necessarily or freely determined; and it is a part of law that some activities should be liable to suspension or arrestment by others, and especially by the First Cause.

Divine government, and the notion of any essential opposition between the natural and the supernatural disappears. Sanctity, which means likeness to God, a partaking of the Divine nature, is as truly a force as light or heat, and enters as truly into the great order of the universe. There is a passage in M. Renan's Fie de Jésus worth citing in this connection. "La nature lui obéit," he writes; "mais elle obéit aussi à quiconque croit et prie; la foi peut tout. Il faut se rappeler que nulle idée des lois de la nature ne venait, dans son esprit ni dans celui de ses auditeurs, marquer la limite de l'impossible. . . . . Ces mots de ‘surhumain' et de 'surnaturel,' empruntés à notre théologie mesquine, n'avaient pas de sens dans la haute conscience religieuse de Jésus. Pour lui, la nature et le développement de l'humanité n'étaient pas des règnes limités hors de Dieu, de chétives réalités assujetties aux lois d'un empirisme désesperant. Il n'y avait pas pour lui de surnaturel, car il n'y avait pas pour lui de nature. Ivre de l'amour infini, il oubliait la lourde chaîne qui tient l'esprit captif; il franchissait d'un bond l'abîme, infranchissable pour la plupart, que la médiocrité des facultés humaines trace entre l'homme et Dieu." These words seem to me to express a great truth. The religious mind conceives of the natural, not as opposed to the supernatural, but as an outlying

1 Vie de Jésus, p. 247.

CHAP. IV.]

LAW AND NECESSITY.

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province of it; of the economy of the physical world as the complement of the economy of Grace. And to those who thus think, the great objection urged by so many philosophers, from Spinoza downwards-not to go further back-that miracles, as the violation of an unchangeable order, make God contradict himself, and so are unworthy of being attributed to the All-Wise, is without meaning. The most stupendous incident in the "Acta Sanctorum" is, as I deem, not less the manifestatation of law than is the fall of a sparrow. The

1

1 Another objection very commonly urged in the present day, and expressed with his usual clearness by M. Renan, "le premier principe de la critique est que le miracle n'a point de place dans le tissu des choses humaines," will be considered later on. See page 270.

2 When Mr. Mill says (Three Essays on Religion, p. 224), "The argument that a miracle may be the fulfilment of a law in the same sense in which the ordinary events of Nature are fulfilments of laws, seems to indicate an imperfect conception of what is meant by a law and what constitutes a miracle," all he really means is that this argument involves a conception of law and of miracle different from his own, which is undoubtedly true. Upon this subject I remark as follows: There is a necessary will (spontaneum non liberum) and a free will (liberum non spontaneum); and these are in God on the scale of infinite perfection, as they are in man finitely. With Mr. Mill, as I have observed in a previous note, law is taken to signify "invariable, necessary sequence"; and its test is, that given the same circumstances, the same thing will occur. But it is essential to Free Will (whether in God or man) that given the same circumstances, the same thing need not, may not, and perhaps will not, occur. However, an act may be free in causa which hic et nunc must happen; the Free Will having done that by choice which brings as a necessary consequence something else. For

budding of a rose and the resurrection of Jesus Christ are equally the effect of the One Motive Force, which is the cause of all phenomena, of the Volition of the Maker, Nourisher, Guardian, Governor, Worker, Perfecter of all. Once admit there are many things which would involve contradiction and so be impossible, did not certain consequences follow them. This promised, it is clear that the antithesis of Mr. Mill's "Law" is Free Will. Law and antecedent necessity to Mr. Mill are one and the same. But Law in Catholic terminology means the Will of God decreeing freely or not freely, according to the subject-matter; and is not opposed to Free-Will. It guides, it need not coerce or necessitate, though it may. Neither, in one sense, is Law synonymous with Reason, for that is according to Reason, simply, which does not involve a contradiction, whether it be done freely or of necessity; and many things are possible, or non-contradictives, that Law does not prescribe. Nor again does Free-Will mean lawless in the sense of irrational; or causeless, in the sense of having no motive: "contra legem," " præter legem," is not "contra rationem," "præter rationem." The Divine Will, then, may be free, yet act according to Law, namely, its own freely-determined Law. And it may act "not according to Law," and yet act according to Reason. In this sense, then, theologians identify the Divine Will with the Divine Reason-I mean, they insist that God's Will is always according to Reason-in this sense, but, as I think, not in any other. For the Divine Will is antecedently free as regards all things which are not God; but the Divine Intellect is not free in the same way. St. Augustine always tends to view things in the concrete, not distinguishing their "rationes formales," or distinguishing them vaguely. And Ratio with him does not mean Reason merely, but living Reason, or the Reasoning Being, the Soul. When St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of Lex Eterna he means the Necessary Law of Morality concerning which God is not free, because in decreeing it He is but decreeing that there is no Righteousnees except by imitation of Him.

The root of all these difficulties and of all the confusion in

CHAP. IV.] THE ROOT OF THE DIFFICULTY.

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what is involved in the very idea of God as it exists in Catholic theology-as it is set forth, for example, in the treatise of St. Thomas Aquinas De Deo-and the notion of miracles as abnormal, as infractions of order, as violations of law, will be seen to be utterly erroneous.

And now one word as to the bearing of physical science upon the doctrine of the Divine goodness 1

1

speech which they have brought forth is this: the mystery of FreeWill in God, the Unchangeable and Eternal. The great truth taught in the words of the Vatican Council, "Deus, liberrimo consilio condidit universa," must ever be borne in mind. Undoubtedly, there are no afterthoughts in God. But neither is there a past in which He decreed once for all what was to be and what was not to be. He is the Eternal Now. But still all events are the fulfilment of His Will, and contribute to the working out of the scheme which He has traced for creation. Feeble is human speech to deal with such high matters, serving, at the best, but dimly to adumbrate ineffable truths. Most true is Goethe's saying, "Words are good, but not the best: the best cannot be expressed in words." My point, however, is that there is, on the one hand, a connection of events with events all through creation and an intelligible sequence, while, on the other, the Free-Will of man is a determining force as regards his own spiritual actions, as is the Free-Will of God in respect of the whole creation, and that miracles are neither afterthoughts, nor irregularities, nor contradictions, but at once free and according to law. Miracles are not abnormal, unless Free-Will is a reduction of Kosmos to Chaos, and the negation of Reason altogether.

1 I say "the Doctrine of the Divine goodness," because that is, as I think, what the author of Natural Religion means. As to the "simple, absolute benevolence "-" benevolence," indeed, is a milkand-water expression, " God is love "—which "some men seem to think the only character of the Author of Nature," it is enough to