Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/350

 of religion consists in the idea that what is external should establish the truth of a religion, and should be regarded as the foundation of its truth. Here in this instance the verification takes the form of something positive as such. There are miracles and evidences which it is held prove the divinity of the person who reveals and prove that this person has communicated to men certain definite doctrines.

Miracles are changes connected with the world of sense, changes in the material world which are actually perceived, and this perception is itself connected with the senses because it has to do with changes in the world of sense. It has been already remarked in reference to this positive element of miracle, that it undoubtedly can produce a kind of verification for the man who is guided by his senses; but this is merely the beginning of verification, an unspiritual kind of verification by which what is spiritual cannot be verified.

The Spiritual, as such, cannot be directly verified or authenticated by what is unspiritual and connected with sense. The chief thing to be noticed in connection with this view of miracles is that in this way they are put on one side.

The understanding may attempt to explain miracles naturally, and may bring many plausible arguments against them—i.e., it may confine its attention simply to the outward fact, to what has happened, and direct its criticism against this. The essential standpoint of reason in the matter of miracles is that the truth of the Spiritual cannot be attested in an outward way; for what is spiritual is higher than what is outward, its truth can be attested only by itself and in itself, and demonstrated only through itself and in itself. This is what has been called the witness of the Spirit.

This very truth has found expression in the history of religion. Moses performs miracles before Pharaoh, and the Egyptian sorcerers imitate them, and this very fact