Note 3 — Chapter XVIII · SUFFICIENCY OF THE PROOFS (FALSE ASSUMPTIONS).

“We do not say a miracle is impossible; we say there has been no instance, up to this time, of a proved miracle.”—Renan’s Life of Jesus, etc., p. 57.

“What I insist on is, that a miracle cannot be established by human testimony.”—Ingersoll, North American Review for November, 1881, p. 514. The skeptical author of Supernatural Religion in defending himself against the criticism that upon his theory his historical argument is unnecessary, in his preface to the sixth edition, says: “The preliminary affirmation is not that miracles are impossible, but that they are antecedently incredible. The counter allegation is that although miracles may be antecedently incredible, they nevertheless actually took place. It is, therefore, necessary, not only to establish the antecedent incredibility, but to examine the validity of the allegation that certain miracles occurred, and this involves the historical inquiry into the evidence for the Gospels. Indeed many will not acknowledge the case to be complete until other witnesses are questioned. This would leave the question of Christ’s Resurrection to be determined as a matter of evidence; and of course evidence enough to induce a reasonable conviction would be sufficient to overcome the antecedent improbability.” But he dare not trust himself or his readers to an examination of the evidence upon this basis. For when he is pressed with the testimony of the Apostles to the Resurrection, and is compelled to concede their honesty, he says (p. 1050), “The belief that a dead man rose from the dead and appeared to several persons alive is at once disposed of upon abstract grounds.” That is, his pretended examination of the evidence is a sham, and when he cannot meet it, it is at once disposed of “upon abstract grounds!”