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“The Rev. Dr. Channing’s Discourse on the Evidences of Revealed Religion,” The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor, vol. 1, no. 5 (May 1821), pp. 213– 22; selection from pp. 214–17.
Anonymous
The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor was published in Baltimore as a monthly from 1821 to 1824. In 1821 the editor was Jared Sparks who was to leave Baltimore for Boston in 1823. The author under review in this essay, William Ellery Channing (1780–1842), graduated from Harvard in 1798 and was a leading American Unitarian. In his A Discourse on the Evidences of Revealed Religion (Boston, 1821), Channing offered an attack on Hume’s essay “Of Miracles.” Much of that analysis is reprinted below in a favourable review of Channing’s book. The reviewer evidently thought Channing’s answer to Hume’s essay important enough to repeat in full. On The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor see Gaylord P. Albaugh, History and Annotated Bibliography of American Religious Periodicals and Newspapers (Worcester, 1994), vol. 2, pp. 945–7; API, p. 211. On William Ellery Channing see John White Chadwick, William Ellery Channing (Boston, 1903); David P. Edgell, William Ellery Channing: An Intellectual Portrait (Boston, 1955); I. Woodbridge Riley, American Philosophy: The Early Schools(New York, 1907), pp. 206–207; Herbert W. Schneider, “The Intellectual Background of William Ellery Channing,” Church History, vol. 7 (1938).
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The author first goes into a consideration of the argument from miracles; proves their credibility; explains some of the causes from which objections to them have arisen; and obviates these objections in a manner ingenious, forcible and satisfactory. The following are his remarks upon the famous argument of Hume.
“Before quitting the general consideration of miracles, I ought to take some notice of Hume’s celebrated argument on this subject; not that it merits the attention which it has received, for infidelity has seldom forged a weaker weapon; but because it is specious and has derived weight from the name of its author. The argument is briefly this, — ‘that belief is founded upon and regulated by experience. Now we often experience testimony to be false, but never witness a departure from the order of nature. That men may deceive us when they testify to miracles, is therefore more accordant with experience, than that nature should be irregular; and hence there is a balance of proof against miracles, a presumption so strong as to outweigh the strongest testimony.’ The usual replies to this argument I have not time to repeat. Dr. Campbell’s work, which is accessible to all, will shew you, that it rests on an equivocal use of terms, and will furnish you with many fine remarks on testimony and on the condition or qualities which give it validity. I will only add a few remarks which seem to me worthy of attention.
“1. This argument affirms, that the credibility of facts or statements is to be decided by their accordance with the established order of nature, and by this standard only. Now if nature comprehended all existences and all powers, this position might be admitted. But if there is a Being higher than nature, the origin of all its powers and motions, and whose character falls under our notice and experience as truly as the creation, then there is an additional standard, to which facts and statements are to be referred; and works, which violated nature’s order, will still be credible, if they agree with the known properties and attributes of its author; because for such works we can assign an adequate cause and sufficient reasons, and these are the qualities and conditions, on which credibility depends.
“2. This argument of Hume proves too much and therefore proves nothing. It proves too much; for if I am to reject the strongest testimony to miracles, because testimony has often deceived me, whilst nature’s order has never been found to fail, then I ought to reject a miracle, even if I should see it with my own eyes, and if all my senses should attest it; for all my senses have sometimes given false reports, whilst nature has never gone astray; and, therefore, be the circumstances ever so decisive or inconsistent with deception, still I must not believe what I see, and hear, and touch, what my senses, exercised according to the most deliberate judgment, declare to be true. All this the argument requires; and it proves too much; for disbelief, in the case supposed, is out of our power, and is instinctively pronounced absurd; and what is more, it would subvert that very order of nature on which the argument rests; for this order of nature is learned only by the exercise of my senses and judgement, and if these fail me, in the most unexceptionable circumstances, then their testimony to nature is of little worth.
“Once more; this argument is built on an ignorance of the nature of testimony, and it is surprising, that this error has not been more strikingly exposed. Testimony, we are told, cannot prove a miracle, [sic] Now the truth is, that testimony, of itself and immediately, proves no fact whatever, not even the most common. Testimony can do nothing more than show us the state of another’s mind in regard to a given fact. It can only show us, that the testifier has a belief, a conviction, that a certain phenomenon or event has occurred. Here testimony stops; and the reality of the event is to be judged altogether from the nature and degree of this conviction, and from the circumstances under which it exists. This conviction is an effect which must have a cause, and needs to be explained, and if no cause can be found but the real occurrence of the event, then this occurrence is admitted as true. Such is the extent of testimony. Now a man, who affirms a miraculous phenomenon or event, may give us just as decisive proofs, by his character and conduct, of the strength and depth of his conviction, as if he were affirming a common occurrence. Testimony then does just as much in the case of miracles, as of common events; that is, it discloses to us the conviction of another’s mind. Now this conviction in the case of miracles requires a cause, an explanation, as much as in every other; and if the circumstances be such, that it could not have sprung up and been established but by the reality of the alleged miracle, then that great and fundamental principle of human belief, namely, that every effect must have a cause, compels us to admit the miracle.
“It may be observed of Hume and of other philosophical opposers of our religion, that they are much more inclined to argue against miracles in general, than against the particular miracles, on which Christianity rests. And the reason is obvious. Miracles, when considered in a general, abstract manner, that is, when divested of all circumstances, and supposed to occur as disconnected facts, to stand alone in history, to have no explanations or reasons in preceding events, and no influence on those which follow, are indeed open to great objection, as wanton and useless violations of nature’s order; and it is accordingly against miracles, considered in this naked, general form, that the arguments of infidelity are chiefly urged. But it is great disingenuity to class under this head the miracles of Christianity. They are palpably different. They do not stand alone in history: but are most intimately incorporated with it. They were demanded by the state of the world which preceded them, and they have left deep traces on all subsequent ages. In fact, the history of the whole civilized world, since their alleged occurrence, has been swayed and coloured by them, and is wholly inexplicable without them. Now such miracles are not to be met and disposed of by general reasonings, which apply only to insulated, unimportant, uninfluential prodigies.”