Thursday, May 6, 2021

Frederick J. Pack and James E. Talmage on Miracles

  

When we grasp the real genius of man’s progress and the increase in power that naturally accompanies it, we shall begin to understand the proper relationship of Deity to nature. The Master at the Cana marriage transformed water into wine—truly a miracle now as much as then. But who is prepared to say that He used laws “outside the sphere of nature”? Students of chemistry will remember that the chief difference between water and wine is the presence of a certain proportion of carbon in the latter, a material which is everywhere abundant about us, even in the atmosphere. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to believe that by means of His advanced intelligence, the Master simply used natural laws to bring about the change . . . there exists a great system of universal law, natural law. Some of these laws are higher and more powerful than others. God is familiar with all of them and master of all of them. He uses them to bring about His purposes. (Frederick J. Pack, Science and Belief in God: A Discussion of Certain Phases of Science and their Bearing Upon Belief in the Supreme Being [Salt Lake City: The Deseret News, 1924], 31, 33)

 

7. Miracles are commonly regarded as supernatural occurrences, taking place in opposition to the laws of nature. Such a conception is plainly erroneous, for the laws of nature are inviolable. However, as human understanding of these laws is at best but imperfect, events strictly in accordance with natural law may appear contrary thereto. The entire constitution of nature is founded on system and order; the laws of nature, however, are graded as are the laws of man. The application of a higher law in any particular case does not destroy the efficacy or validity of an inferior one; the lower law is as fully applicable as before to the cases for which it was framed. For example, society has enacted a law, forbidding, on peril of heavy penalties, any man appropriating the property of another; yet oftentimes officers of the law forcibly seize the possessions of their fellow-men, against whom judgments may have been rendered; and such acts are done to satisfy, not to violate justice. Jehovah commanded "Thou shalt not kill," and mankind has re-enacted the law, prescribing penalties for violation thereof. Yet sacred history testifies, that, in certain cases, the Lawgiver, Himself, has directly commanded His servants to vindicate justice by taking human life. The judge who passes the extreme sentence upon a convicted murderer, and the executioner who carries into effect that terrible mandate, act not in opposition of "Thou shalt not kill," but actually in support of this decree.

 

8. With some of the principles upon which the powers of nature operate, we are in a degree acquainted; and in contemplating them, we are no longer surprised, though deeper reflection may show that even the commonest occurrence is wonderful and strange. But any event beyond the ordinary is pronounced miraculous, supernatural, if not indeed unnatural, and we are more or less awe-stricken by the same. When the prophet Elisha caused the axe to float in the river, he brought to his service, through the exercise of the authority of the priesthood, a power superior to that of gravity. Without doubt, the iron was heavier than the water; yet by the operation of this higher force it was supported, suspended, or otherwise sustained at the surface, as if it were held there by a human hand, or rendered sufficiently buoyant by attached floaters.

 

9. Wine ordinarily consists of about four-fifths water, the rest being a variety of chemical compounds, the elements of which are abundantly present in the air and soil. The ordinary method,—what we term the natural method—of bringing these elements into proper combination is by planting the grape, then cultivating the vine till the fruit is ready to yield its juice in the press. But by the exercise of a power, not within purely human reach, the Savior, at the marriage in Cana, called those elements together, and brought about a chemical transformation within the water-pots of stone, resulting in the production of pure wine. So, too, when the multitudes were fed, under His priestly touch and authoritative blessing, the bread and fishes increased in substance, as if the seasons of years had been consumed in their growth according to what we consider the natural order. In healing the leprous, the palsied, and the infirm, the disordered bodily parts were brought again into their normal and healthful state; the impurities operating as poisons in the tissues were removed by means more rapid and effectual than those which depend upon the action of drugs and physic.

 

10. No earnest observer, no reasoning mind, can doubt the existence of intelligences and organisms which the senses of man do not reveal. This world seems but the temporal embodiment of things spiritual. The Creator has told us that He formed all things spiritual before they were made temporal. The flowers that flourish and die on earth are perhaps represented above by imperishable blossoms of transcendent beauty and entertaining fragrance. Man is shaped after the image of Deity; his mind, though darkened by custom and weakened by injurious habit, is still a fallen type of immortal thought and Divine reason; and though the space separating the human and the Divine in thought, desire, and action, be as wide as that between sea and sky, for as the stars are above the earth so are the ways of God above those of man, yet, we cannot doubt a strict analogy between the spiritual and the temporal. When the eyes of Elisha's servant were opened, the man saw the hosts of heavenly warriors covering the mountains about Dothan,—footmen, horsemen, and chariots, armed for fight against the Syrians. When Israel encompassed Jericho, may we not believe that the Captain of the Lord's host and his heavenly train were there, and that before their angelic powers, sustained by the faith and obedience of the mortal army, the walls were leveled?

 

11. Some of the latest and highest achievements of man in the utilization of natural forces approach the conditions of spiritual operations. To count the ticking of a watch a hundred miles away; to speak in but an ordinary tone and be heard across the country; to signal from one hemisphere and be understood on the other, though oceans roll and roar between; to bring the lightning into our homes and make it serve as fire and torch;—are not these miracles? The possibility of such things would not have been received with credence before their actual accomplishment. The President of the Republic, sitting in his chair of state at the nation's capital, talks with all parts, even with the ends of this great country; and if batteries and wire be in order, if operators and officials be true, he is rightly informed of every movement of importance anywhere in the land. The orbs of the universe are as truly connected by a system of inter-communication, surprisingly perfect in its action and adaptation. These and the other innumerable miracles of creation are accomplished in strict accordance with the laws of nature, which are the laws of God. But we must return to a further consideration of the specific manifestations of spiritual gifts within the Church. (James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith: A Series of Lectures on the Principle Doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [Salt Lake City: The Deseret News, 1899], 222-225)