Miracles : parthenogenesis and resurrection : (some side-lights on theological subjects) / by J. Foster Palmer.

  • Palmer, James Foster.
Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Miracles : parthenogenesis and resurrection : (some side-lights on theological subjects) / by J. Foster Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The Medical Magazine. xxM>643 l M| l t « ft * \ f W i MIRACLES: PARTHENOGENESIS AND RESURRECTION,* (Some Side-Lights on Theological Subjects). By J. FOSTER PALMER. Augurium futurorum in maximis ingeniis altissimisque animis et existit maxime et apparet facillime.—Cicero. “ The presage (or assurance) of a future existence takes the deepest root, and is most apparent, in the greatest geniuses and the most exalted souls.” I am making no attempt in the following remarks to bridge over the great gulf between the physical and the metaphysical.t I am only stating a few physical facts, which may be well-known to you, in the hope that certain metaphysical matters may become more conceivable, more realizable, by reference to pl^sical analogies. “ Silanus the Christian,” a believer in the New Testament hut a disbeliever in miracles, thus explains the turning of water into wine at the marriage feast at Cana of Galilee. He says it simply means that the insipid and ineffectual water of the Law was changed into the good wine of the Gospel. Does this explain it ? Is the miracle any the less a miracle by changing its venue ? Surely so vast and far-reaching a change in the destiny and tendencies of mankind would be a far greater miracle. There are those who, like Silanus, unable to believe in miracles, attempt thus to explain them away by transferring them to another plane, the mental, moral or spiritual. Is the difficulty thereby removed ? Is a miracle any easier to perform or more comprehensible in the moral or spiritual than in the physical world ? Is it any easier to say “ thy sins are forgiven thee ” than to say “ arise and walk ” ? In other words, is it easier for a hardened criminal to become a just man than for a leper to become sound ? * A paper read before the Kensington Clerical Club, October 9th, 1914. t T use the word “metaphysical” in preference to “spiritual” because I do not know what is the exact meaning of the word “spiritual” as used by theologians. Whatever that meaning is it will be included in the more comprehensive term “ metaphysical.”