l.

Chapter XXVII. Miracles and the Cosmic Order

1. "Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the mighty?
Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness,
Fearful in praises, doing wonders!"(462)

Thus sang Israel at the Red Sea in words which are constantly reechoed in
our liturgy. Nothing impresses the religious sense of man so much as
unusual phenomena in nature, which seem to interrupt the wonted course of
events and thus to reveal the workings of a higher Power. A miracle--that
is, a thing "wondered" at, because not understood--is always regarded by
Scripture as a "sign"(463) or "proof"(464) of the power of God, to whom
nothing is impossible. The child-like mind of the past knew nothing of
fixed or immutable laws of nature. Therefore the question is put in all
simplicity: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"(465) "Is the Lord's hand
waxed short?"(466) "Or should He who created heaven and earth not be able
to create something which never was before?"(467) Should "He who maketh a
man's mouth, or makes him deaf, dumb, seeing or blind,"(468) not be able
also to open the mouth of the dumb beast or the eyes of the blind? Should
not He who killeth and giveth life have the power also to call the dead
back to life, if He sees fit? Should not He who openeth the womb for every
birth, be able to open it for her who is ninety years old? Or when a whole
land is wicked, to shut the wombs of all its inhabitants that they may
remain barren? Again, should not He who makes the sun come forth every
morning from the gates of the East and enter each night the portals of the
West, not be able to change this order once, and cause it to stand still
in the midst of its course?(469)

So long as natural phenomena are considered to be separate acts of the
divine will, an unusual event is merely an extraordinary manifestation of
this same power, "the finger of God." The people of Biblical times never
questioned whether a miracle happened or could happen. Their concern was
to see it as the work of the arm of God either for His faithful ones or
against His adversaries.

2. With the advance of thought, miracles began to be regarded as
interruptions of an established order of creation. The question then
arose, why the all-knowing Creator should allow deviations from His own
laws. As the future was present to Him at the outset, why did He not make
provision in advance for such special cases as He foresaw? This was
exactly the remed