Miracles of a lower category

But the fact that the Cross becomes revelation is only possible through the Miracle of the Resurrection. By itself, the Cross can be understood from a purely human point of view, just as the death of Socrates is regarded as the martyrdom of a man who sacrifices himself for the truth. The fact that it is more than this, that it is the reconciling act of God, that Jesus is the Son of God, has been "declared with power … by the resurrection of the dead" (Rom. i: 4). Believers alone are eye-witnesses of the Resurrection. Only to faith is it given to see this new dimension above the Humanum — the freedom of God — "miracle" in the truest sense of the word. Just as a dog does not know Michelangelo as a Master, but only sees him as a man who strikes a stone with wood and iron, so for the unbeliever there is no Christ, no Risen Lord, but only a man, Jesus of Nazareth, who died on the Cross. The miracle of revelation can only be seen by faith. But this miracle of the God-Man is achieved without eliminating the natural order. The Son of God lived a natural human life, so that to many He seemed to be an ordinary man, and only the eye of faith was able to see the Son of God in His human "form of a servant". This central miracle is, as we have already said, surrounded by accompanying miracles whose significance is to point to the supreme central miracle; they are, if we may say so, miracles of a lower category. They too transcend what we usually call "normal" experience. They break through the enclosure within which our "ordinary" world is confined. We cannot say that in themselves they are more wonderful or "miraculous" than the wonders of the living organism, or than the wonder of human freedom; but they are more wonderful than these things because "usually" they do not happen. They are exceptional events whose purpose is to point to the central miracle in the Person of Him who works them.—Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 168–69