Counterfeit Miracles
Overview
What is the relationship between miracles and divine revelation? And how does God’s revelation through miracles differ from his revelation through spiritual gifts, or other means? In Counterfeit Miracles, Warfield weighs in on the role of miracles in Jesus’ ministry and the place of spiritual gifts in the church. In particular, he discusses speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healing, and outlines the relationship between the function and purpose of prayer in relation to the other gifts of the Spirit.
Product Details
- Title: Counterfeit Miracles
- Author: B. B. Warfield
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publication Date: 1918
- Pages: 327
About Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield
Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield was born in 1851 in Lexington, Kentucky. He studied mathematics and science at Princeton University and graduated in 1871. In 1873, he decided to enroll at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was taught by Charles Hodge. He graduated from seminary in 1876, and was married shortly thereafter. He traveled to Germany later that year to study under Franz Delitazsch.
After returning to America, Warfield taught at Western Theological Seminary (now Pittsburgh Theological Seminary). In 1881, Warfield co-wrote an article with A. A. Hodge on the inspiration of Scripture—a subject which dominated his scholarly pursuits throughout the remainder of his lifetime. When A. A. Hodge died in 1887, Warfield became professor of Theology at Princeton, where he taught from 1887–1921. History remembers Warfield as one of the last great Princeton Theologians prior to the seminary’s re-organization and the split in the Presbyterian Church. B. B. Warfield died in 1921.
Top Highlights
“And so we pass on to the fourth century in an ever-increasing stream, but without a single writer having claimed himself to have wrought a miracle of any kind or having ascribed miracle-working to any known name in the church, and without a single instance having been recorded in detail.” (Page 12)
“This deeper principle may be reached by us through the perception, more broadly, of the inseparable connection of miracles with revelation, as its mark and credential; or, more narrowly, of the summing up of all revelation, finally, in Jesus Christ. Miracles do not appear on the page of Scripture vagrantly, here, there, and elsewhere indifferently, without assignable reason. They belong to revelation periods, and appear only when God is speaking to His people through accredited messengers, declaring His gracious purposes. Their abundant display in the Apostolic Church is the mark of the richness of the Apostolic age in revelation; and when this revelation period closed, the period of miracle-working had passed by also, as a mere matter of course.” (Pages 25–26)
“The non-miraculous, gracious gifts are, indeed, in this passage given the preference and called ‘the greatest gifts’; and the search after them is represented as ‘the more excellent way’; the longing for the highest of them—faith, hope, and love—being the most excellent way of all. Among the miraculous gifts themselves, a like distinction is made in favor of ‘prophecy’ (that is, the gift of exhortation and teaching), and, in general, in favor of those by which the body of Christ is edified.” (Page 4)
- Title: Counterfeit Miracles
- Author: Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield
- Publisher: Charles Scribner’s Sons
- Print Publication Date: 1918
- Logos Release Date: 2008
- Era: era:modern
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Miracles; Spiritual healing
- Resource ID: LLS:CNTRFTMIRCLS
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-01-25T21:45:06Z
B. B. Warfield (1851–1921) was a prolific writer, accomplished scholar, and ranks as one of America’s greatest theologians. After studying mathematics and science at Princeton University, he enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1873, where he was taught by Charles Hodge, in order to train for ministry as a Presbyterian minister. He later returned to America and taught at Western Theological Seminary (now Pittsburgh Theological Seminary).
In 1881, Benjamin B. Warfield co-wrote an article with A. A. Hodge on the inspiration of Scripture—a subject which dominated his scholarly pursuits throughout the remainder of his lifetime. When A. A. Hodge died in 1887, Warfield became a professor of theology at Princeton, where he taught from 1887 until 1921.
History remembers Warfield as one of the last great Princeton Theologians prior to the seminary’s re-organization and the split in the Presbyterian Church.
Warfield is known as one of Reformed theology’s most ardent defenders. The foundation to Warfield’s theology was his adherence to Calvinism as supported by the Westminster Confession of Faith and much of his writings are centered on this.
He has authored many books in his lifetime, including The Atonement and Modern Thought in the Classic Studies on the Atonement collection, Westminster Doctrine anent Holy Scripture: Tractates by A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, and the titles included in the B. B. Warfield Collection.