(1) As men are accustomed to call Divine the knowledge which transcends human
understanding, so also do they style Divine, or the work of God, anything of which the
cause is not generally known: for the masses think that the power and providence of God
are most clearly displayed by events that are extraordinary and contrary to the conception
they have formed of nature, especially if such events bring them any profit or
convenience: they think that the clearest possible proof of God's existence is afforded
when nature, as they suppose, breaks her accustomed order, and consequently they
believe that those who explain or endeavour to understand phenomena or miracles
through their natural causes are doing away with God and His providence. (2) They
suppose, forsooth, that God is inactive so long as nature works in her accustomed order,
and vice versa, that the power of nature and natural causes are idle so long as God is
acting: thus they imagine two powers distinct one from the other, the power of God and
the power of nature, though the latter is in a sense determined by God, or (as most people
believe now) created by Him. (3) What they mean by either, and what they understand by
God and nature they do not know, except that they imagine the power of God to be like
that of some royal potentate, and nature's power to consist in force and energy.
(4) The masses then style unusual phenomena, "miracles," and partly from piety, partly
for the sake of opposing the students of science, prefer to remain in ignorance of natural
causes, and only to hear of those things which they know least, and consequently admire
most. (5) In fact, the common people can only adore God, and refer all things to His
power by removing natural causes, and conceiving things happening out of their due
course, and only admires the power of God when the power of nature is conceived of as
in subjection to it.
(6) This idea seems to have taken its rise among the early Jews who saw the Gentiles
round them worshipping visible gods such as the sun, the moon, the earth, water, air, &c.,
and in order to inspire the conviction that such divinities were weak and inconstant, or
changeable, told how they themselves were under the sway of an invisible God, and
narrated their miracles, trying further to show that the God whom they worshipped
arranged the whole of nature for their sole benefit: this idea was so pleasing to humanity
that men go on to this day imagining miracles, so that they may believe themselves God's
favourites, and the final cause for which God created and directs all things.
(7) What pretension will not people in their folly advance! (8) They have no single sound
idea concerning either God or nature, they confound God's decrees with human decrees,
they conceive nature as so limited that they believe man to be its chief part! (9) I have
spent enough space in setting forth these common ideas and prejudices concerning nature
and miracles, but in order to afford a regular demonstration I will show -
(10) I. That nature cannot be contravened, but that she preserves a fixed and immutable
order, and at the same time I will explain what is meant by a miracle.
