SOURCE: Tulloch, John. “General Remarks; Positivism and the Supernatural.”¹ In The Christ of the Gospels and the Christ of Modern Criticism: Lectures on M. Renan's ‘Vie de Jésus,’ pp. 1-31. London: Macmillan and Co., 1864.

In the following lecture, Tulloch argues against the philosophical positivism that underpins Renan's position against miracles.

The publication of M. Renan's Vie de Jésus marks a crisis in the present course of philosophical and religious opinion. This is its chief significance. The book itself has been judged very differently, from different points of view—denied all merit by some—loudly applauded by others; but the grave import of its appearance, and of its immediate wide-spread circulation throughout Europe, cannot be questioned by any. It has caused a greater shock in Christendom than any work since Dr. Strauss's Leben Jesu, while the attractiveness of its form and style has already given it a...