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Horace Bushnell and the Question of Miracles
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Extract
Horace Bushnell has never lacked for commentators, and with notable exceptions the general picture of him (whether for praise or vilification) has been that of the “father” of American theological liberalism. This standard interpretation of Bushnell, however, fails to do justice to one of the more interesting aspects of his thought: his discussion in his treatise Nature and the Supernatural of the possibility of modern-day miracles. Although considered scandalous by his contemporaries and a pitiable misunderstanding by later commentators, his arguments, I believe, bear reexamination. In his treatment of the question of modern miracles Bushnell both offered his contribution to a 300-year-long theological debate and set forth his vision of the direction in which American Protestantism must head in order to meet squarely the growing spiritual crisis of nineteenth-century culture.
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References
1. The characterization of Bushnell as father of American liberalism is common to both nineteenth-century commentators and present-day interpreters. See, for example, Theodore T. Munger, Horace Bushnell: Preacher and Theologian (London, n.d.); Buckham, John W., Progressive Religious Thought in America: A Survey of the Enlarging Pilgrim Faith (Boston, 1919);Google ScholarAhlstrom, Sydney E., “Horace Bushnell,” in A Handbook of Christian Theologians, ed. Marty, Martin E. and Peerman, Dean C. (Nashville, 1965);Google ScholarHutchison, William R., The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Cambridge, Mass., 1976).Google Scholar
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18. Ibid., p. 448.
19. Ibid., pp. 453, 451.
20. Ibid., pp. 468, 457. The Scottish miracles involving the brothers James and George MacDonald and a “Miss Fancourt” were a great issue of debate within evangelical circles in the early 1830s. Their integrity was upheld by the Irvingite Morning Watch or Quarterly Journal on Prophecy, and Theological Review (which was Bushnell's source). The criticism of them was led by the Christian Observer, which was the source Bushnell alluded to in the text. See, for example, the discussion found in the American edition of the Christian Observer beginning 41 (1831); 99.Google Scholar
21. Bushnell acknowledged that John Henry Newman was attempting much the same endeavor in England, yet the Protestant Bushnell was clear in distinguishing the miracles he was defending from those “ecclesiastical” miracles of Newman. For Bushnell, these miracles were to be dismissed because they did not reflect the high moral character necessary for a true miracle.
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34. There is more than a touch of irony in that even in the reprinting of Bushnell's own work this eradication of the supernatural can be seen. Thus in the 1902'reprint of “The Character of Jesus” as a separate volume, the publisher described Jesus in terms of being “superhuman” rather than supernatural.
35. Cheney, Mary B., Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell (New York, 1903), p. 420.Google Scholar Munger identified this person as Cyrol Bartol (Bushnell, p. 232).
36. On the widespread interest in the experience of religious reality, see Wacker, Grant, “The Holy Spirit and the Spirit of the Age in American Protestantism, 1880–1910,” Journal of American History 72 (1985): 54–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
37. Nature and the Supernatural, pp. 506, 507, 515.
38. Ibid., pp. 499, 521 (second emphasis mine).
39. An exception to the above generalization is the largely positive reaction by John W. Nevin in the Mercersburg Review. See Appel, Theodore, The Life and Work of John Williamson Nevin (Philadelphia, 1889), pp. 529–550.Google Scholar
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