Therefore I have no problem, in the case of Jesus’ miracles, with taking into account all the “natural” forces that can otherwise be observed in great physicians and healers or experienced educators. As the acts of human freedom do not abrogate the physical laws but put them at their service, so in the case of Jesus his existence altogether in harmony with the will of God called upon the powers of the world, extending into a profound depth that is impenetrable to us even today. To set aside these natural abilities of Jesus would mean denying him his real humanity.
No one can define where the limits of “nature” in this sphere lie, unless one would lay claim to having an absolutely complete and comprehensive knowledge of all the powers at work in nature. Who would dare to make such an assertion? Professional medicine is aware that, for example, in some malignant carcinomas, there can be “spontaneous healings” that cannot be explained but may have to do with holistic phenomena such as “inner attitude” and “unconditional will to heal.” We also know about the so-called placebo effect, the observation that the expectation of being healed can activate the body’s powers of self-healing, even if the treatment has not involved the application of any effective pharmacological means. Apparently every person has powers of self-healing, but they require the kairos, the right moment, the right constellation, and often the right person to set them in motion—the person of the healer.
In summary, we need not defend ourselves against the natural dimensions of biblical miracles. That is no denial of their divine dimension. Here again the old scholastic axiom applies: “grace presupposes nature and perfects it.” The biblical miracles would lose their strangeness or embarrassing character if, finally, what the theology of grace has long since worked out were applied to them. Let me again emphasize that taking seriously the “natural” dimensions of a miracle by no means excludes the action of God. God always acts in and through the world’s autonomy.
Demons
The view of miracles described here is also compatible with Jesus’ exorcisms. I have already pointed out that in antiquity in general, and also in Judaism, all that is chaotic and destructive could be attributed to demonic powers. This was true in particular of psychoses and mental illness in general. If a sick person’s identity was disturbed, or if she or he had lost all self-control, it was all too easy to assume that the person was possessed by a demon.
Beyond that, it is important to keep in mind that at the time it was simply assumed that there was such a thing as “possession” in this sense and also that someone who was possessed could be freed from his or her demons through exorcisms. This made it easy for sick people, the handicapped, the oppressed, people in hopeless situations—in short, all those who were socially stigmatized—to slip into the role of a possessed person. Normally this was a completely unconscious move. Those who were pushed to the edges of society thus had a “social construct” at their disposal that made it possible for them to give expression to their socially hopeless situation “in a language of symptoms which is publicly acceptable.”22 They thus succeeded in being noticed, having people pay attention to them and “treat” them. Cecile Ernst, in a study on the driving out of devils in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for which—in contrast to the biblical exorcisms—we have extensive biographical material at our disposal, has demonstrated precisely this phenomenon.23
Today’s biblical scholars frequently remark that obviously we can no longer share that era’s belief in demons.24 Superficially that is correct, and yet it is fundamentally false. Of course we would ask today what underlies phenomena of possession from a medical, psychological, and social-psychological point of view, and we will have no hesitation in regarding exorcisms as a prescientific method of (often successful) “psychotherapy.” But that, certainly, is by no means a real explanation of the explosion of the phenomena of possession in particular times and cultural groups, for we must suppose that some kind of deep crisis is revealed in these phenomena—a crisis resulting from guilt, namely, from the self-betrayal, lies, egoisms, recklessness, meanness, and heartlessness of society.
These things not only happen again and again; they settle themselves in the world in the form of a damaged and distorted state of things that no individual can overcome. The New Testament is therefore quite right to speak of the “powers.” In such a connection one must indeed talk about the demons of society—and also, of course, of their victims. For there are particularly sensitive people in whom the chaos and guilt of whole generations, their obsessions and compulsions, concentrate and express themselves physically. Evil in history and society can gather itself to a “potency,” and it very often takes hold precisely of the weakest and objectifies itself in them in the symptoms that are common in the particular society. The illnesses thus produced can be so powerful that the sick persons require help from outside themselves—possibly through a word of power that transposes them into a new situation.
Jesus must have had a profound power to bring such crises to light, to take the form of their expression seriously, and still more, to force them to take objective form and so to heal them. In this he showed himself to be the stronger one, the one who cannot be led astray by the wounds that evil can inflict but through his truthfulness and lack of ambiguity can banish the demons of society. It would be na
All these considerations extend well beyond purely historical questions. They touch a nerve center of theology, but they could not be avoided here because, as I have said, the question whether or not particular miracles (including the so-called nature miracles) took place is not usually determined by historical means but by prior decisions that are located in an entirely different sphere. When Rudolf Bultmann repeatedly dismissed the biblical wonders as “Mirakel,”26 his estimation was not the result of historical insight but, as harsh as this may sound, rested on a bad dogmatics and an unenlightened theology.
Now we must address the theology of Jesus’ miracles. It is essential, because only through it can we clearly see how Jesus’ miracles differ from all the extrabiblical miracles.
The Specific Character of Jesus’ Miracles
Something about this has already been said: namely, that Jesus did not work with magical arts as did the exorcist Eleazar whom Josephus writes about. He did not use amulets, magical roots, or abracadabra. In driving out demons he did not call upon powerful “names.” Even his “commands” to the demons had nothing to do with magic. Jesus rules the demons in the same way that, according to the psalms, God rules the forces opposed to God. Even when he stuck his fingers into the ears of a deaf man or used saliva to heal the blind he was not employing magical practices; he was simply making use of the therapeutic means common in his time. Incidentally, these cases show very clearly that he counted on nature to help him.
We have also touched on another point that is important for the theology of Jesus’ miracles, namely, the faith Jesus requires in each instance. Such demands for faith do not appear in miracle stories outside the Bible. The ancient world did not even have a concept of faith, at any rate not faith as the Bible understands it.